Category: Nightlife

Faith Ann Band celebrates new album

As it touches on a myriad of musical moods, from tuneful grunge to full-throttle rockers and tender ballads, there’s a clear thread running through In Bloom, the second album from the Faith Ann Band: raw, naked emotion. More precisely, it’s a crackling live wire, shooting furious sparks and sparing no one.

Two minutes of rage, the breakneck-paced “Miller Time” exemplifies this, as a would-be suitor is sneered away with a dismissive line. “I wouldn’t be you for all of the sh-t you could possibly shove in my face,” band leader Faith Ann Mandravelis sings.

Another standout, “Jungle Law” is a credo of sorts. “I ain’t no live-in house pet,” she sings, “I don’t sit pretty.” Odious corporate dronage is drubbed on songs like “Songbird” and “Reaper,” a backward glance at the singer-songwriter’s entrance into music; she quit a job as an engineer to become a math teacher.

“I saw like what day-to-day life was doing to people in an office environment,” she said in a recent phone interview.

One of her students had a band, which inspired her to start hitting the open mic scene around Manchester and Concord.

“As I was writing my songs, I found a lot of healing,” she said. “Giving myself permission to speak up was huge, after having been kind of in the shadows of my musician boyfriend and not really ever feeling like I was worthy enough.”

Buoyed by this newfound courage, Faith Ann hit the road for shows in the South and headed west to play in Arizona. The response to her music led to an epiphany.

“We can focus on not just fixing things that are broken but things that are not … that have just never been used,” she said. “Brushing those off, as a way to bring ourselves back to being inspired by life.”

Her first album was 2020’s Long Last — “Which is pretty much a statement: Finally, I’ve broken out of my shell,” she said. “I’ve stopped letting myself be contained, pushed down and ashamed for my past, and as soon as you own it, you find an acceptance of yourself.”

The only musician from the debut still in the band is bass player Alfredo Benavides. Concord guitarist Mike Stockbridge and drummer Alex Hershman helped make In Bloom, but someone new will take over the drum kit soon. Axile Beighley, who plays with Benavides in Manchester band Dank Sinatra, serves as a fifth member at live shows, like the release party coming up on April 16 at Strange Brew Tavern.

“Feral” is one of the words Faith Ann uses to describe her approach to music.

“I mean it as a way to staying true to the parts of ourselves that are unclaimed territory, that haven’t been cultivated,” she explained. “It’s the parts of us that are the most raw. Whatever you might say unkind about yourself, these are part of the things I do that I enjoy. I don’t need to justify them to anybody.”

As a relative newcomer to the local scene, she finds the New Hampshire music community a welcoming one. She’s paired up with many local bands, and has several shows on the horizon. She’ll support Andrew North & the Rangers at Penuche’s in Concord on May 7, and play at the Market Days event the following month. In July she and her band host a festival of her own called Level Up Get Down at Auburn Pitts. It will include Big Sandy, Chodus, Tumbletoads, The Humans Being and Dank Sinatra.

“Everyone I have played with is super-supportive, and everybody wants to see everyone succeed,” she said. “I don’t think I have ever really heard of anyone bashing on any other musician, because there’s just this understanding of how much guts it takes and how vulnerable you are to do it. People don’t always go out of their way to invite you in their little realm, but once you’re in there, everyone wants to help you out.”

Faith Ann Band
When: Saturday, April 16, 8 p.m.
Where: Strange Brew Tavern, 88 Market St., Manchester
More: thefaithannband.com

Featured photo: Faith Ann Band. Courtesy photo.

Kevin and Michael Bacon perform in Plymouth

The Bacon Brothers are a prolific band — 11 studio albums since forming in the late ’90s, a live record and a hits collection — but there’s really not a Bacon Brothers sound. Kevin Bacon, who writes most of the band’s lyrics, attributes this to their being lifetime students at the College of Musical Knowledge.

“We’ ve lived long enough to have absorbed a lot of different … styles that have continued to grow through the years,” the actor and musician said in a recent joint interview with his brother Michael, a composer. When writing, he said, “We’re thinking about the way the song could sound, as opposed to thinking of a way to fit the song into the Bacon Brothers.”

Thus, there’s a world of difference between the Opry-ready “Picker” and “British Invasion,” which sounds plucked from a 1964 episode of Shindig. Both are from 2020’s The Way We Love, a record that is musically diverse but is also a concept record about love in its many forms.

“Our concept is usually do we have enough songs that we really like to make a 10- or 11-song record,” Michael said.

“Most bands have a certain kind of consistency, but it’s just not what we do,” Kevin added.

One of the best tracks on the new disc “Corona Song,” a tribute to their parents that’s both sweet and humorous; Kevin sings about missing them, while also being grateful they aren’t around to see the pandemic’s dumber moments.

“People get awards and they’ll say, ‘I know my dad’s up there watching, and he would be so happy for me’ — but there’s got to be other times,” he said. “Nobody ever says, ‘I’m so glad my dad’s not up there watching me as I get hauled off to jail.’”

After a handful of one-off gigs over the past two years, The Bacon Brothers are at last back on the road with a tour that stops at Plymouth’s Flying Monkey on April 14. The show will span their catalog and offer a few new selections.

“We have a really nice five-song EP coming out we’re really excited about,” Michael said. “Everything’s sort of falling into place again for us, which is a great feeling.”

One of their few appearances was Sept. 11, 2021, where they performed the moving remembrance song “Unhappy Birthday” in front of New York City’s Freedom Tower.

“Kevin and I both spent more of our lives in New York than out of New York, and that was a special experience,” Michael said. Kevin wrote it at the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. “I think it’s the best 9/11 song, and it’s also eminently updatable. Because we’re always living with that.”

During lockdown, Kevin and wife Kyra Sedgwick had a novel way of maintaining harmony in their three-decade-plus marriage. They’d each retreat to separate areas of their Connecticut home, meeting around noon and again at day’s end.

“It’s a very high-class problem when you have enough rooms in your house that you can go off and be in your own space, come back together for lunch and then say goodbye until cocktail hour,” Kevin said.

Michael stays busy with his film scoring business, and he continues to provide the music for Henry Louis Gates’ series Finding Your Roots, which he’s done for 15 years — including a 2012 episode where his brother and wife learned they were distant cousins.

“It’s a dream job, I’m very lucky to have it,” he said. “It’s an incredible show.”

On the segment where Kevin and Kyra discovered their genealogical connection, the two also learned about a history of abolitionism in their family — along with an opposing fact.

“They also found out that we had a slave owner, and what was shocking to me is he was a Quaker,” Kevin said. “We’d always thought of the Quakers as leaning towards abolition [and] an understanding of the horror of slavery.”

Kevin’s busy acting career continues apace.

“I just finished up Season 3 of City on a Hill, which is on Showtime,” he said. “I think we’re going to be on in June, although I’m not exactly sure of the date. I did a film with Kyra in Rhode Island [Space Oddity] that’s hopefully coming out soon. It has a nice New England angle.”

The Bacon Brothers
When: Thursday, April 14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center, 39 S. Main St., Plymouth
Tickets: $65 and $69 at flyingmonkeynh.com

Featured photo: Michael and Kevin Bacon. Photo credit Charles Chessler.

Heart By Heart hits Cap Center

Among tribute bands, Heart by Heart is unique in actually having original members in its lineup. Bassist Steve Fossen joined Heart when it was a Pacific Northwest club band banging out Zeppelin and Deep Purple covers. Drummer Mike Derosier played on a pair of tracks from their 1976 debut album, Dreamboat Annie, then joined full-time.

Compare that to what’s these days officially advertised as Foreigner — only guitarist Mick Jones was part of its best-known hits, and he tours with them for maybe half the year.

With singer Somar Macek and guitarist Lizzy Daymont performing the roles of Ann and Nancy Wilson, Heart by Heart is a facsimile, but one with real cachet.

“We have to call ourselves a tribute act, because people understand what that means,” Fossen said in a recent phone interview. “At the same time, Mike and I helped write the material, and we toured with it. … Actually, we’re kind of a tribute to ourselves.”

With the rhythm section at the core of hits like “Little Queen,” “Straight On” and “Barracuda,” Heart by Heart provides a faithful version of what Heart sounded like in its heyday. Though Fossen no longer dons a unitard as he did in his twenties and Derosier keeps his shirt on, the overall vibe is solid throwback.

“We try to recreate what it would be like to see a band in the late ’70s and early ’80s,” Fossen said. “The guitar players were out there doing double leads together, harmony solos, there’s keyboards blaring, drums and bass are loud. … That’s our goal.”

Fossen and Derosier were pushed out of Heart together in 1982, after the Private Audition album failed to sell as hoped. In the decades that followed, Fossen mostly stayed away from music.

“I was more into mountaineering,” he said. “I spent a lot of my time going up and down mountains, and driving all around Washington state to different wilderness areas.”

In 2008, Derosier and fellow Heart alum Roger Fisher invited him to play a few Heart songs with Macek at a Seattle party. It was the first night he met the woman who’d become both a music and life partner. His first impression was off, though, because he assumed she spelled her first name like the season.

“I thought, oh, here we go; she’s going to come in with the tie-dye dress, hairy armpits, smelling of patchouli oil, a classic hippie chick,” he said, noting that while there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, he was totally off base. “She spells her name S-o-m-a-r, she’s highly educated, and she’s been singing her whole life.”

Macek and Fossen bumped into each other a few more times and became friends.

“She had a band at the time, so I would go out and see her play,” he said. “They would invite me to sit in on Heart songs; the friendship turned into a romance by Christmas.”

He laughed at the observation that unlike Heart, whose romantic entanglements could rival those of Fleetwood Mac and then some, they fell in love before starting a band.

The two began playing as a duo at social gatherings, creating enough of a buzz that they were invited to open for Dwight Yoakam in Anchorage, Alaska. They decided a bigger sound was needed and brought on Derosier and guitarist Randy Hansen. The Yoakam gig ended up getting canceled, but the group enjoyed rehearsing enough to carry on anyway.

Their first official show was a breast cancer awareness benefit. When Daymont joined two years later, the doppelgänger effect was complete with her solid guitar skills and vocal support.

Their sets span all of Heart’s catalog, even songs Fossen and Derosier weren’t on, like “Alone,” “These Dreams” and “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You.”

“We look at Heart songs that are popular, that people want to hear, and we tried to learn those in the beginning,” Fossen said. “Obviously, with a band like ours, we want to please as many people as possible. There’s a lot of fans of that era of music, so we [play] those too.”

Heart By Heart
When: Saturday, April 2, 8 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $25 and up ccanh.com

Featured photo: Heart by Heart. Photo by Bill Bungard.

With a new album, Samantha Fish hits Manchester

Until New Year’s Day delivered omicron to the world, Samantha Fish was looking forward to a European tour in March. Like so many of her plans over the last two years, it was postponed. But the continent’s loss is America’s gain, as Fish is now doing a co-headlining tour with the Devon Allman Project. A St. Patrick’s Day stop in Manchester is, ironically, a replacement date for a canceled Allman Betts Band show at the Palace Theatre.

Singer-guitarist Fish’s latest album, Faster, is another step away from the blues sound that defined her early days, earning her supporters like Buddy Guy. “Hypnotic” evokes mid-’80s Prince from its first notes, a synth-y stew that also hints what David Bowie’s collaboration with Stevie Ray Vaughan might have produced had it lasted more than one album.

Produced by Martin Kierszenbaum (Lady Gaga, Sting), the new record’s most engaging departure is “Loud.” A rock/hip-hop mashup featuring rapper Tech N9ne, who like Fish hails from Kansas City, it’s a solid genre-bender. In a recent phone interview, Fish sounded amazed that she’d lured “Eminem’s favorite all-time rapper” to work with her.

“When I first met Martin, we went to Tech’s studio to work in one of the writing rooms,” she said. “Martin just sort of brought it up offhand, like, ‘It would be really cool to have Tech on a record.’ I just kind of laughed it off; I never thought he would in a million years. Then, he actually went and got him.”

The new record is a buoyant, danceable celebration, but it didn’t begin that way; Fish started writing in the pandemic’s early days, fresh off a narrow exit from an overseas tour that had her spending nearly two days in airports.

“I went through a lot of feelings and different phases of just dealing with this terrible thing that was going on,” Fish said. “All I could do was really go sit in my house and write.”

That’s how every record begins, Fish said, but “the introduction of it is never what it ends up being.”

She shifted gears when her new producer entered the frame. “When I met Martin, I just kind of got this really infectious energy, enthusiastic and encouraging and very positive overall,” she said.

His mood compelled Fish to “write songs that were fun, that made people feel good. I wanted to have an energetic show; I wanted to come out jumping around after this pandemic. I feel like this record really serves that kind of an approach, and it feels nice to be able to own that.”

Along with producing, Kierszenbaum co-wrote several tracks and played on most of the record, while Rob Orton (Lana Del Ray, Sting, Mumford & Sons) did the mixing.

“I just feel like it has this level of … I don’t want to call it gloss, which sounds like a bad thing, but it’s got sparkle to it that I don’t know has been present in my past work. I really admire Martin for his ability to pull that out.”

Fish started her own record label a few years back and has produced two records by Jonathan Long and another one for Nicholas David.

“My job as a producer is to help the artists facilitate their vision and to make it cohesive and also get it done on time and under budget — you know, like the boring part,” she said. “I like helping people shape their vision, help them get what they want, and that’s been kind of a fun journey for me.”

For the upcoming show Fish expects a well-rounded evening. Allman’s band will include two special guests: harmonica player and vocalist Jimmy Hall of Southern rock stalwarts Wet Willie and veteran blues guitarist Larry McCray. Each band will play a full set, and they’ll end up together at evening’s end.

“It’s going to be a collaborative event, but also evenly showcasing our bands and our music,” Fish said. “You know, the best of all worlds.”

Devon Allman Project with Samantha Fish Band & River Kittens
When: Thursday, March 17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $35 and up at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Samantha Fish. Photo Credit Kevin King.

Lewis Black keeps pace with the world

On Friday, March 13, 2020, as the pandemic’s wave crashed down on the world of live events, Lewis Black stepped onto the stage of a Michigan casino. The comic greeted his audience with these words: “Thanks for risking your life.” He ended his set with an analysis of what’s wrong with America, likening its two dominant political parties to ideological mystery meat. “They both sort of taste like chicken,” Black said.

It would be Black’s last performance for a year and a half, and his latest special. He returned last fall with a run of club dates that nearly wiped him out. “I was literally like a boxer who hasn’t fought in a long time [who] punches himself in the face,” he said recently. His new show, “Off The Rails,” will stop in Concord on Thursday, March 10.

Black has made a career out of sputtering fury and frustration — with the ruling elite, thick-skulled hoi polloi, and everyone in between, always with an ear to the ground. Every show is new and up to the minute. That night in Michigan, he sensed what was coming. He and fellow comic pal Kathleen Madigan played armchair epidemiologists as the news from Wuhan seeped out, joking that they were the Fauci and Birx of the comedy world. To them, the science was clear; but even he did not anticipate the willful ignorance of many.

“I was stunned by the way in which people are acting and thinking … it’s like going back to when I was 12,” Black said in a recent phone interview. The gulf between red and blue is a moronic chasm, he continued, and not just when it comes to fighting a virus. “In a country that doesn’t want to vote, you’re going to worry about voting? Banning books? You’re going to worry about critical race theory when most kids don’t know how to spell it?”

Though obviously fodder for Black’s act, the onslaught of absurdity wasn’t exactly welcome. “It’s difficult to satirize what is already satiric,” he said, aiming special ire at purported news outlets dutifully repeating every outrageous social media post instead of doing their job. “Read the tweet … what they were reading was pathology, not policy. It’s not what did he say, it’s what do we do now?”

It was almost too much. “To be more insane than what I see, that’s my job as a comic,” he said. “That took a long time to understand. Really, just before the pandemic, I got it — wow, that’s what I’m doing. And then I realized … I couldn’t be more insane than what I was seeing, or I’d be insane, literally.”

Every Black show ends with “The Rant Is Due,” an afterparty that finds him musing over complaints offered by fans online. Few comics go so far to connect with their audience, but he sees it as rage transference — why should he be the only one angry all the time? As he scrolls his iPad submissions, Black will echo their fury and occasionally offer a lusty rebuttal, as when one fan griped about mask mandates.

“It is a show written by the audience and where I add my f-ing two cents,” Black said of his web request for fans to take a moment in advance to unburden themselves. The segment always offers a local focus. He recently addressed legal weed generally and pot prices specifically with a crowd in Humboldt County, California, along with the region’s winding roads and poor internet service.

It’s anyone’s guess what the Granite State will bring to the mix. After a recent stint in the Midwest, Black is hoping for better weather along with fans’ homegrown winging about taxes, tourists and other topics. “I love coming back to New Hampshire,” he said, “but I need you guys to warm the state up a little bit.”

Along with performing, Black is involved in a few pet causes. He’s chairman of an Indiana museum dedicated to writer Kurt Vonnegut, and he also works on behalf of the National Comedy Center. “I’ve done a lot with them,” he said of the Jamestown, New York,-based facility. “What they have done is extraordinary, incredible. Museum doesn’t describe it; it’s a living breathing thing, and 80 percent of it is interactive. You can literally go in there for six hours and go, what? It’s gone — and you learn a lot.”

Lewis Black
When: Thursday, March 10, 7 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $55 and up ccanh.com

Featured photo: The Brit Pack.

Brit Pack spans multiple eras

Among a trove of tribute acts, the ’60s British Invasion is well represented. What sets The Brit Pack apart is that their target isn’t one band or decade but a wide breadth of music from across the pond. Sure, they’ll crank up “Satisfaction” or “Twist and Shout” with alacrity, but a typical set list will also include Led Zeppelin, Oasis or Adele.

Consisting of four Berklee grads, The Brit Pack reflects not just the first wave led by the Beatles and Rolling Stones, but a representation of artists that came in the ensuing years — the British Occupation, if you will.

“You get a whole journey through all of these bands,” guitarist Mark Johnson said recently. “That same energy a tribute act would give you, but with every single band you might know from the British Invasion through the modern days.”

Occasionally they veer away from strictly British, playing “Go Your Own Way” — though Fleetwood Mac’s makeup is similar to theirs. Johnson and drummer Will Haywood Smith are U.K.-born like Mick Fleetwood and the two McVies, while Matt Nakoa and Bryan Percival serve as the group’s Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

In a joint interview with Nakoa, Johnson offered some logic-bending to explain the inclusion of “Boys Are Back In Town” by Thin Lizzy.

“They’re a good Irish band,” he conceded, “but we figured they were close enough to the U.K. … there’s probably some English blood in that band.”

Since forming in 2011, they’ve gone where the audience takes them, even when that finds lead singer Nakoa channeling Johnny Rotten, as happened when they played one fan’s wedding. This led to a secret side project called The Sex Beatles.

“We deliver classics in the Sex Pistols manner,” Johnson said.

The bit was born in the days of playing late-night residencies in their New York City home base.

“Bleecker Street and the Village … there’d be beers flying over the drum kit and random people sleeping on the stage,” Johnson said. “These days it’s a raucous show, but you won’t get hit by a flying amp or anything.”

While covering well-known songs, the group tries to put itself in the mindset of bands like Led Zeppelin or The Who.

“We improvise and really capture the essence of the songs, but we’re not doing it exactly like the record, because they wouldn’t have done it exactly like the record,” Nakoa said. “We own the music as if it was our own; unfortunately, we don’t get compensated that way.”

When they first set out, “It was the usual suspects, ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Hard Day’s Night’ — but we were talking about doing Oasis and stuff,” Johnson said. “Through the years, people just keep requesting songs and we’re like, that’s a good idea, and there are times where we’re driving somewhere in the car and we hear a record and say, these guys are British — or at least somebody in the room when the record being made was British.”

“What’s so great is it’s a liberal interpretation,” Nakoa said. “We’re only going where the audience tells us we should be going. I mean, we go where the reaction is.”

Asked to name some favorite songs from their set, Johnson quickly answered, “anything Queen or Zeppelin, for the simple reason that it’s really fun to play.” He voiced gratitude for having a capable band of friends and singled out Nakoa, whom he also supports as a solo artist.

“When you’ve got a singer who can do this stuff as well as he does … as a performer, and as an audience member, it’s really a joy to be around,” he said. “It’s also very rare to get a chance where you can play it with a band this good. … I just enjoy playing with these guys, because they make it sound so cool.”

The Brit Pack
When: Sunday, March 6, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $23 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: The Brit Pack.