Category: Nightlife

Yngwie Malmsteen hits Tupelo

When he’s not revving his Fender Stratocaster at impossible speeds, shredding with a fury that other guitarists aspire to, Yngwie Malmsteen likes to drive Ferraris — he owns five, all of them red. During the pandemic Malmsteen had a lot of time for both endeavors. What resulted was a tour de force album, Parabellum.

Like his fiery playing and his fast cars, Malmsteen’s mind moves at a frenetic pace. A year in the studio, something he hadn’t experienced in decades, was a unique challenge.

“I learned a long time ago to be careful with having too much time,” he said from his home in Miami. “I had 80, 90, 100 ideas; I only took the most inspired things and refined them.”

Malmsteen pointed to Van Halen’s early albums as a source of inspiration.

“They were done very spontaneously in the beginning,” he said. “I keep that spontaneity. … Every time I come up with something new I record it right away, and usually I keep that take.”

Malmsteen played every instrument on Parabellum and sang on the non-instrumental tracks. He once hired guest singers but stopped using them a few records ago.

“That’s definitely a thing of the past,” he said.

When Malmsteen’s first tour since early 2020 begins, a band he calls “a good group of guys” is expected to learn the new songs, and expect surprises.

“We go through the songs at soundcheck; that’s all they get,” he said. “Here’s another thing I do — half an hour before show time, I call them in and we put a setlist together. Then we go on stage and I play different songs anyway! They just gotta know it.”

Malmsteen has long sneered at the idea of collaborating with other musicians, and his history helps explain why. Swedish-born, he grew up in a musical family.

“Everybody was very artistic, which was unusual there in the ’70s, because it was a socialist country [that] didn’t allow that. God bless America, man,” he said.

Classically trained from the age of 5, Malmsteen discovered rock music when he saw a clip of Jimi Hendrix smashing his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival that accompanied a news report of his death in 1970. Later came blues from John Mayall, and hard rock via Deep Purple.

As soon as he could, Malmsteen headed to the United States.

“I took my guitar, my toothbrush, and I got on the plane,” he said. “I had a plan — my plan was to not live in a socialist welfare Marxist bull—- country.”

Soon after arriving in Los Angeles, he joined Steeler, a rising glam rock band. His first gig with them attracted a small crowd, but the following week at L.A.’s Troubadour, Malmsteen looked from his dressing room and saw a line stretched around the block.

“I said to someone working there, ‘Who’s playing tonight?’ He points at me and says, ‘You are.’ It was pretty crazy,” he said. “I was 18 years old, and all of a sudden people were digging it.”

He was in Steeler long enough to appear on their lone album, then joined another metal band, Alcatrazz. His stint there lasted less than a year, an exit hastened by onstage clashes with singer Graham Bonnet after Malmsteen received a solo offer while the group was on tour in Japan.

A reunion is, emphatically, not in the cards.

“When I left, they fell into obscurity, but I kept on going, kind of like rising up, I never stopped,” he said. “These guys … they’re selling car insurance; I don’t know what they’re doing. They asked me so many times to join, and I’m, ‘No, I didn’t sit on my ass for 40 years.’”

Malmsteen insists, “I don’t have a chip on my shoulder; the only person I feel have to prove something to is myself,” and on one of Parabellum’s standout cuts, “Eternal Bliss,” he expresses gratitude for his continued success and life’s blessings.

“I have the most beautiful wife in the world, I have a great son, nice house, I’ve played music I want to play and I never compromise,” he said, citing two reasons for his longevity. “One, I find it exciting and challenging, and only because I improvise all the time. If I were to play the same thing over and over that wouldn’t do it. Also, to quote Paganini … one must feel strongly to make others feel strongly.”

Yngwie Malmsteen w/ Images of Eden and Sunlord

When: Friday, Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $45 and up at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Yngwie Malmsteen. Photo by Austin Hargraves.

Jamantics get down again

Being in Jamantics is like riding a bicycle; however long its five members are apart, the moment they plug in and play, their reliable groove reappears. As rehearsals began for a Nov. 19 reunion show at Bank of NH Stage in Concord, the synergy “was immediate,” guitarist Lucas Gallo said. “Beyond Jamantics, we all have experience musically with each other. … Now the whole band’s back together and it’s sounding great, in my opinion.”

“It’s like putting on a well-oiled glove,” fellow guitar player Freeland Hubbard added.

The group officially existed only from 2009 to 2011 but didn’t break up; it disbanded. Drummer Masceo headed west, and the rest — Gallo, Hubbard, bass player Eric Reingold and fiddler Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki — carried on with other projects.

Reingold worked with several bands, including NEMA winners Cold Engines, while Tirrell-Wysocki appeared on recording sessions and played solo, as did Hubbard and Gallo, who also helped promote local shows. Masceo worked for Napa, California-based Enchanted Hills Camp and served as Jamantics’ archivist.

In October 2015, Jamantics “re-banded” for a show at Concord’s Capitol Center.

When Masceo moved back to Concord in 2019, a 10th anniversary reunion show happened at the newly opened Bank of NH Stage. A planned event the following year was scrapped due to pandemic concerns, but they’re back on Nov. 19 at the same venue for what’s hoped to be a yearly JamAnnual GetDown.

In advance of the show, a new single dropped; “Immortal” began in Masceo’s home studio.

“I was bored like everybody else during the pandemic, and what happened was a ball rolling situation,” he said. “Freeland, Reingold and I had been playing together as a trio; [then] I just kind of sprung it on everybody when it was done…. I wanted everybody to be happy; when there’s five people in a band, that can be a little stressful. I guess it was taking it one person at a time.”

Called InstaJam, the trio had a live debut planned in April 2020 that didn’t happen, but later in the year they began playing around the area as The Special Guests. Masceo remembers walking on stage for the first time after months of lockdown as emotional and unexpected.

“It certainly was a reflection of nostalgia about all the times we’d felt that way… in the pocket of the crowd’s energy, feeling good about the music we’re playing,” he said.

Reingold was philosophical about the experience.

“It’s very rare that we basically as a species all experience the same thing as one people,” he said. “We all experienced lockdown, and I think it goes without saying that nobody was unhappy to get back to the world. Not only musicians, but just everybody in general. It was a breath of fresh air … enhanced by the fact that we’re the ones that get to play for the people coming out.”

When Jamantics formed, their two-part mission was making music and fostering the local music scene. Even as they hit milestones like opening for Little Feat at Casino Ballroom in Hampton, they worked to bring regional bands to Concord for shows at Penuche’s, the Barley House and other venues. Ten years on, they’re pleased with the city’s commitment to local arts, particularly the Capitol Center and its satellite 600-seat room that Reingold calls “the perfect venue.”

Beginning with transforming the Spotlight Room lobby space early in the decade, the nonprofit has long boosted area acts, Reingold observed.

“You’d be talking to the same people who just got off the phone with Willie Nelson’s booking agent, and they’re still making time in their schedule,” he said, adding the new space “fills a gap that I think has existed in Concord for quite some time. So we’re pretty excited to be able to be part of it.”

Jamantics Reunion w/ Teeba

When: Friday, Nov. 19, 8 p.m.
Where: Bank of NH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $15 and up at ccanh.com

Featured photo: Jamantics. Courtesy photo

Legendary band returns to New England

Although it took a while for Little Feat to catch on with audiences in the early ’70s, other musicians quickly got their heady gumbo of rock, soul, funk and New Orleans boogie. Its members were frequently booked for session work, none more than keyboard player Bill Payne, whose resume of studio credits runs for multiple pages.

Beginning with Toulouse Street, Payne was a de facto Doobie Brother, and in recent years a part of their touring band, including a just-completed run of shows marking their 50th anniversary. That’s ending soon, however. The band he co-founded in 1969 with Lowell George and Richie Hayward is back on the road, beginning with several dates across the Northeast, including one at Lowell Memorial Auditorium on Nov. 19.

“I’m 100 percent Little Feat from here on,” Payne said by phone from his home in Montana recently, adding, “there’s just not enough hours in the day.”

Payne explained that Feat recently signed with Vector Management, a Nashville agency that also works with Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Alison Krauss and Lyle Lovett.

“I want to give them free rein to really promote our band … having a conflict with the Doobie Brothers about when they can tour, that’s not a great way to run a railroad.”

The audience-driven By Request Tour will include new additions Tony Leone on drums and guitar player Scott Sharrard, who joined after Paul Barrere, a member since 1972, lost his battle with cancer. Leone and Sharrard’s quick fit with the band helped convince Payne and his mates Kenny Gradney, Sam Clayton and Fred Tackett that Feat should carry on.

“It’s about music, it’s about legacy, and it’s about musicianship,” Payne said. “Do we harm our legacy by continuing, or do we add to it? If we’re strictly going out and playing ‘Dixie Chicken’ or ‘Oh Atlanta’ or ‘Time Loves a Hero’ — I can do that by going out and joining a Little Feat tribute band.”

Part of moving forward includes making new music.

Released in July, “When All Boats Rise” is a gospel-infused tune that confronts the hope and despair of a fractious nation. Payne came up with the nautical-themed title and handed it to frequent collaborator Tom Garnsey, a songwriter he’s long admired.

“I’ve written songs with [Grateful Dead lyricist] Robert Hunter, for example,” he said. “His lyrics hold up with that caliber of stuff; he’s just excellent.”

The song is a clarion call for harmony in divided times; Payne knows some will greet it cynically.

“There’s a lot of people out there that will go, all boats rise, well, I don’t even have a boat,” he said. “It’s aspirational — liberty and justice for all is what we aspire to, and that’s what we aspire to with ‘All Boats Rise.’”

Fans have submitted a lot of requests for the upcoming tour.

“The Little Feat fan base is obviously a very knowledgeable group,” Payne said. “We’re just going to have to see how many of them we can learn, to be honest with you.”

Some, he added, won’t make the cut, and not for musical reasons, Payne said.

“I think given the state of affairs of the world, ‘The Fan’ is an interesting request, but it’s not exactly a song with a good view of women.” It’s true, the Feats Don’t Fail Me Now track’s misogyny is glaring in hindsight. “Look, we’re not going to sing that, OK? Let’s play some of the music … we’d be in a world of trouble if we actually got up there and sang it.”

Payne is receptive to focusing on Little Feat’s most successful album, the 1978 double live Waiting For Columbus.

“[That’s] been brought up year after year, and I’m like, I don’t know,” he said.

New management, and new blood in the band, however, encourage him.

“The weight of it is you’re going after one of the best albums we ever put out and certainly one of our most well-known. … I think it’s a perfect way to say, ‘Put it right down: the gauntlet has been thrown.’”

Little Feat By Request

When: Friday, Nov. 19, 8 p.m.
Where: Lowell Memorial Auditorium, 50 E. Merrimack St., Lowell
Tickets: $39 to $289 at event.etix.com

Featured photo: Little Feat. Courtesy photo.

Comedian Carolyn Plummer headlines Rex show

Of all the words Carolyn Plummer might use to describe herself, “lucky” isn’t one. As a teenager Plummer won a pair of Grateful Dead passes, only to see the show canceled when Jerry Garcia died. In early 2020, she had the best spring of her comedy career lined up, and everyone knows how that turned out.

Quarantine led to a lot of soul-searching, Plummer said in a recent phone interview.

“I reassessed my whole life,” she said. “Like, why am I doing comedy? Should I have focused on a career? Should I have been a teacher?” Then, in February of this year, Denis Leary called with an invitation for Plummer to appear at the annual Comics Come Home benefit.

“That re-energized me to feel like I was on the right path,” she said. “Now I have a deeper appreciation for live shows and performing. I look at every performance now as an opportunity to meet more people and network and just enjoy it. … There’s a lot of sacrifice, but that kind of just brought everything full circle, that all the sacrifices made sense.”

Of course, the Nov. 13 Boston Garden show has been postponed for another year, but Plummer knows she’ll be on the next one. That’s a more tangible thing to hold on to than that Dead contest back when.

“They were will-call,” she said of the Boston Garden concert. “So I didn’t even have the tickets.”

A few comics mined the pandemic for new jokes, but not Plummer.

“I wasn’t very creative at the beginning. … My whole life just changed; it took a while to work through. I did a few things about contactless delivery; I don’t know why we didn’t have that in the past. I don’t need to have a relationship with the guy bringing the pizza to my house.”

A New Hampshire native — she grew up in Wolfeboro, a minister’s daughter — Plummer got into comedy after responding to an ad.

“This guy was teaching a class out of his mom’s condo in Manchester,” she said, adding with a chuckle, “That seemed safe to me at the time.”

It turned out well, and after a summer of learning, she began hitting open mic nights, eventually spending a lot of time in Portland, Maine.

“I met all the Boston guys; they would come up and do comedy,” she said. “I would watch them and go, ‘Wow, these guys are awesome’ — you know what I mean? Like Don Gavin, and all the greats: Lenny Clarke, Tony V….”

A big early break was the result of misfortune for Plummer.

“True story: On my 30th birthday, I got laid off,” she said. “Kelly MacFarland is one of my best friends, and she’s also a comic. She said, ‘I just met these guys, and they need another roommate, why don’t you go talk to them, and if it works out, move in there?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t have a job.’ She said, ‘That’s the best time to go.’ I ended up moving back to Belmont, Mass., which I could never afford if I wasn’t in a roommate situation. … It kind of took off from there.”

While she’s performed in New York City, ventured to California for the Burbank Comedy Festival and even thought about moving west once or twice, Plummer is partial to living in and working in New England, particularly her home state.

“What I like about New Hampshire is it surprises you,” she said. “You might go to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere and have all these highly educated people that you’d think wouldn’t be living in the woods, fixing cars, being lumberjacks, and all this other stuff. You can’t make assumptions like that. … All the different towns are different.”

Carolyn Plummer & Friends

When: Friday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $25 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Comedian Carolyn Plummer. Courtesy photo.

Halloween themed comedy show in Manchester

Open mic nights are a lifeblood for comedians, a place to hone their craft and work on new material.

For much of the pandemic, Yankee Lanes in Keene was one of the few to remain open, and comics from all across New England flocked to it. Seacoast standup Michael Millett inherited the weekly event when its original host left, and as the nightlife scene began reopening, he moved it to Yankee’s sister location in Manchester.

Millett’s Grey Area Comedy has become a hub for a growing alt comedy scene that includes Gone Rogue Productions’ events at Manchester’s Backyard Brewery, Tragedy Plus Time’s shows in Londonderry, Exeter’s Word Barn and the venerable downtown Shaskeen showcase, now run by Ruby Room Comedy.

The Yankee conclave recalls the now-defunct Monday open mic at Penuche’s Ale House in Concord — in both venues, audiences don’t always arrive expecting comedy, Millett said in a recent phone interview.

“You have to basically fight for the audience’s attention. … The stage is in the same room as the bar,” he said. “We bank off the bowling league that gets out around 8:45; our open mic is at 9. Regular patrons bleed in, sit down, and watch the comedians.”

A dozen or so hopefuls show up every week to face the challenging milieu.

“Every mic has a different energy,” Millett said. “People that work on their comedy come to mine, and I like that.”

Millett also hosts a comedy showcase at Yankee Lanes on the last Friday of every month with a headliner, feature comic and opening act. The next one happens Oct. 29 and stars the comedy team of Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff. The two ran a popular weekly event in Beverly, Mass., until it became a casualty of lockdown. Anthony Massa features, and Troy Burditt opens.

Demeule and Pottorff were known for raucous sets done in costume, as teachers, politicians, camp counselors and other characters. Their upcoming appearance will most likely have a similar approach, but when reached for comment, Demeule demurred on the details — while hinting at a potential exorcism.

“Without giving too much away, Will and I will be doing a Halloween themed set that might have some guests from our time running The Studio of Madness,” she wrote via Facebook Messenger. “Audiences can expect laughs, a healthy dose of insanity, and if all goes well, for the bowling alley to be cleansed of all ghostly presence by the end of the evening.”

Next month, local comic Matt Barry is joined by Tom Spohn and Tristan Hoffler, and in December, Paul Keller headlines.

“He’s a kinetic comedian who does comedy and magic at the same time,” Millett said of Keller. “He’s very good at magic tricks, but he’s also good at being funny about it.”

Millett has hopes for expanding to a more formal setting in the future.

“Yankee Lanes has a rec room that they don’t use for anything [and] I could easily fit 120 people in there,” he said. “I’m working toward getting enough draw with Grey Area Comedy to do that … it’s now been just over a year, between Keene and Manchester.”

His efforts are about more than just promoting shows, Millett stressed.

“I’m trying to build a community with everything I do, trying to get as many comedians involved in it as possible,” he said. “What I want to do is — I don’t want to use the word safe haven — but I want it to be a cornerstone, contributing to the rest of the scene. A place for people to work on their craft.”

Grey Area Comedy Club

When: Friday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m.
Where: Yankee Lanes (formerly Spare Time), 216 Maple St., Manchester
More: Free show starring Jai Demeule and Will Pottorff, Anthony Massa, Troy Burditt, Michael Millett (host)

Featured photo: Will Pottorff and Jai Demeule. Courtesy photo. Courtesy photo.

Triple bill leans to heavy sound

As a genre, mathcore occupies the intersection of punk, metal and jazz. Among its practitioners is Willzyx, a Manchester quartet with influences including industrial rock pioneers Ministry, late-stage John Coltrane, and modern exemplars like Daughters and French avant-prog trio PoiL.

Willzyx’s latest EP, i don’t feel anything, was released in September. With six tracks clocking in under 15 minutes, it’s at times relentless, as on the whisper to a scream “Feed Your Feelings,” and “Flexible Lies,” which echoes Red-era King Crimson. “We Can Live Our Deaths in Peace” closes out the new disc perfectly, with Ian Seacrest’s screamo vocals soaring over a progression always on the verge of exploding.

For the curious, their name is pronounced Will-Zee-Ack and comes from the killer whale character in a 2005 South Park episode that parodied Free Willy. In a recent phone interview, Willzyx guitarist Alex Hunt and drummer John Funk talked of plans to tone down the band’s wildness.

“When the pandemic hit, we decided to record stuff we hadn’t done yet … in between the next stage of where we’re going sound-wise,” he said. “What we’re working on is branching toward a more choreographed and organized effort, instead of trying to be heavy and chaotic for the sake of being heavy and chaotic.”

Though based in Manchester, Willzyx hasn’t done many local shows lately, with Boston, Providence or Portland, Maine, more frequently on their calendar, with an occasional New York City gig.

“I think we just kind of want to branch out, try to space it,” Funk said. “All of our friends are here, so when we play, it’s fun for everyone to come hang out, but we also want to share with people who don’t know who we are, so we try and go outward.”

The band’s formative period happened in its hometown, however. They’ve appeared at Shaskeen, and a key venue was the now-shuttered Bungalow.

“The whole thing started almost as a joke,” Hunt said. “It was … free experimentation and trying not to repeat riffs, things like that. We tested all of that at Bungalow; it was the main place for us at the beginning.”

They’re back home on Oct. 23 for a show at Candia Road Brewing Co., with two other acts joining in.

Tweak also hews toward a heavier, industrial rock sound.

“They’re kind of in a similar vein to us in that I feel like we listen to a lot of the same music and share a lot of similar kinds of ideas of why we make music,” Hunt said.

Rounding out the night is Doth, the latest moniker for an ambient band that’s gone by Cain Sauce and Sugar Potion, among other names.

“It’s all the same people; this is just one formation,” Hunt said. “It’s a more sparse, electronic kind of thing.”

The event is a bit of a departure for the craft brewery, which frequently hosts solo singer-songwriters, and it’s also the final appearance of Tweak’s current configuration, as one of its members will soon relocate to Chicago.

“They’re definitely an experience I think people should come and see,” Hunt said. “It’s part jump-scare, part dissonant ambient, and part you can’t really follow the rhythms, but you know they’re there somewhere.”

Willzyx members Hunt, Funk, Seacrest and bass player Colin Ward are pleased to present a diverse night.

“There aren’t a lot of shows that cross genre boundaries,” Hunt said. “There’s the metal scene, there’s the songwriter scene, and they don’t really interact very much. Doth is totally not in the same sound as us, but they have the same mentality of bridging those gaps, exposing people to different things that they might not have known they were interested in. It’s cool to have those different styles on the same bill.”

Willzyx / Doth / Tweak

When: Saturday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.
Where: Candia Road Brewing Co., 840 Candia Road, Manchester
Tickets: $5 – see facebook.com/WillzyxBand

Featured photo: Willzyx. Courtesy photo.