Category: Nightlife

Jay Chanoine returns with pair of headlining shows

When Jay Chanoine steps on stage these days, the Manchester comic’s audiences are well-behaved, sometimes eerily so.

“For the last year and a half they’ve been watching livestreams and cat videos, and they don’t remember how to act when a person is 10 feet in front of them,” Chanoine said in a recent phone interview. “Even a crowd doesn’t quite know how to do this anymore … but everyone is just smiling at you.”

Chanoine has another theory about these newly polite audiences too.

“We were all yelling at each other before this, then we got locked in our houses and we all just kept yelling. … It’s like the world put all its misbehaved children in timeout,” he said. “We had tantrums for a year and half, and now it’s like, ‘OK, did you think about how you were behaving? Because now I’m going to let you out.’”

In October 2019, Chanoine released his first album on Standup Records, The Texas Chanoinesaw Massacre. A week after it came out, he’d already developed nearly enough new material for a follow-up. The new record was rising on iTunes, he had a gig writing for satirical website Hard Times, and “I was like, ‘2020’s going to rule … then Covid hit.”

Though it stopped his momentum, he looks at the lost year as shared misery.

“Everybody else had to step back too. It’s not like the industry kept moving without any of us,” he said.

Festivals in the Midwest, Canada and Texas — the annual Altercation Fest in Austin — all were casualties of 2020. This year, touring is still on hold, as Chanoine isn’t eager to roll the dice in a lot of cities that may or may not be ready for full-scale shows, whatever local politicians say.

That’s less concerning, as he’s enjoying doing shows with other local comics, like Comedy Out Of The Box on June 5 at Hatbox Theatre, and a local showcase at Manchester’s Yankee Lanes, whose recently launched midweek open mic was successful enough to spawn occasional booked events.

“This is my scene and my comedy community, and it’s more important to me to see it get up and running again than to hit the road as soon as possible,” he said, adding that polishing new material for an album that’s now likely delayed to 2022 is also a priority. “It’s smarter to take my time … getting it where I want it to be. They took the last year from us — I’m willing to give one more just to make sure I can put out the best product that I’m able to do.”

He’s excited for the Manchester show in particular, which includes Liz Lora, a relative newcomer to standup who made a splash at an early open mic at the bowling alley bar. Seeing young comics find their feet reminds him of how he first started doing comedy in 2009.

“I was part of the New Hampshire open mic scene, I was trying to get spots on booked shows and everything,” he said. “So it’s not only cool for me to now be the headliner, but it’s cool to see that’s still going in the new crop of comics.”

Asked if he got any good bits out of the pandemic, Chanoine replied, “If you got no material out of Covid you weren’t trying,” but added he wasn’t eager to use any of it, comparing the exercise to telling jokes about the last president.

“Nobody wanted to talk about it; that’s what you were trying to escape,” he said. “But occasionally it got so awful and ridiculous. It would be, ‘I’m sorry, everybody, we need to talk about it.’ That’s kind of how I feel about Covid. I absolutely don’t want to focus on it.”

When he touches on the subject in his act, Chanoine tries not to raise anyone’s hackles.

“I’ve been opening my sets by talking about how the supermarket became an absolute war zone [during the pandemic] because people only had two places to go, their house and the supermarket,” he said. “It’s not making you pick a side, and I think that’s the key; trying to find things everyone can agree with, rather than what made them fight on social media for the last year and a half.”

On the other hand, he questions the efficacy of not talking about it at all.

“It would seem so odd if you just got on stage and started doing a comedy show like it was 2018,” he said. “It would be so dismissive, like you’re trying to give everyone tunnel vision, and deny the existence of everything.”

Jay Chanoine
When: Saturday, June 5, 7:30 p.m. (18+)
Where: Hatbox Theatre, 270 Loudon Road, Concord
Tickets: $16 to $22 at hatboxnh.com
More: Jaylene Tran, feature comic
Also: Friday, June 11, 8 p.m., Yankee Lanes, 216 Maple St., Manchester, with Dominique Pascoal, Liz Lora & Michael Millett (free)

Featured photo: Jay Chanoine. Courtesy photo.

Texan guitar ace Chris Duarte returns

Born in San Antonio and a fixture in Austin’s music scene, Chris Duarte is thoroughly Texan — but he’s always called New Hampshire his other home state. In the early 1990s he lived here for a year after moving north at his brother’s behest to battle drug addiction.

Before relocating, Duarte was a rising star with glowing press, the lead guitarist of Junior Medlow & the Bad Boys. He arrived in Plymouth near broke.

“All I had was my guitar, one amp and my briefcase, which had a couple of pedals and stuff,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I lost everything to the pawn shop.”

After stocking shelves at a summer camp for a bit, he edged back into playing, first at the Down Under in Plymouth, then an open mic at Manchester’s now-defunct Boston Trading Co.

“I started to jam there, and they liked me so much they gave me a night; I would host the jam,” he said. “Then … this club out of Concord called Thumbs started booking me [and] it got to the point where I was selling out that place.”

The experience “revitalized my career and got it back moving again,” Duarte said.

Still reeling from native son Stevie Ray Vaughan’s death in 1990, Austin was hungry for guitar heroes when Duarte came back. In short order he signed with Silvertone Records and released Texas Sugar/Strat Magik in 1994. The album earned him Best New Talent honors in the Guitar Player magazine readers poll.

Though Duarte is passionate about the blues — he remembers seeing Vaughan perform at Austin’s storied Continental Club in 1981 as a “hair-raising, jaw-dropping phenomenal” experience — he mixes the tone of that genre with the discipline of jazz. His unique alchemy is bringing a rock edge to those two diverse elements as he races up and down the neck of his Fender Stratocaster.

Early mentor Bobby Mack pointed him toward the “Three Kings” — B.B., Albert and Freddie — to learn the elusive blues sound. When he joined Mack’s Night Train Band, Duarte “knew nothing about tone. I just had these naive notions of what that music shouldn’t sound like. I was so condescending to it at the beginning.”

Duarte soon found his playing lacked “any type of emotion … so I really went to school,” as Mack fed him masters’ licks to learn note for note.

“It took a while, but I finally got in the groove of trying to really be like these guys,” he said. “Bobby made me love the music.”

Though inspired by guitarists like Mahavishnu John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola, Duarte is quick to point out he’s not trying to emulate them.

“I am not like those guys; I’ve got, like, three or four jazz licks, and I play them in the first two songs,” he said, calling his approach more aggressive and emotional, “with dynamics and, I hope, some kind of musical integrity, so somebody would hear me and say, obviously this guy’s studied and knows more than just the old pentatonic box patterns.”

After more than a year of isolation, Duarte is back on the road, and after a spate of Texas dates, he’s more than excited to return to the Granite State, a stop on every East Coast tour since his star rose in the mid-1990s. He first played KC’s Rib Shack in the late ’90s and will return on May 30 for an intimate outdoor show.

“I truly consider New Hampshire my second home,” Duarte said. “I love New Hampshire right now, and I will love New Hampshire till the day I die.”

Chris Duarte Group
When: Sunday, May 30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: KC’s Rib Shack, 837 Second St., Manchester
Tickets: $20 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Chris Duarte. Courtesy photo.

Shaskeen comedy returns with Shane Torres

Comedian Shane Torres avoids politics in his act, even though the native Texan has strong personal opinions about, say, Ted Cruz (“I think he’s the biggest POS on the face of the planet”).

“I don’t think I’m good enough, and knowledgeable enough, to pull it off,” Torres said in a recent phone interview. “I don’t even care if I upset people that much, but I don’t know if it’ll be that funny.”

Torres is, however, a big advocate for the Mayor of Flavortown, Guy Fieri. He went viral in 2017 defending the shock-haired star against a tide of what he viewed as undeserved derision.

“All he ever did was follow his dreams,” Torres said on Late Night With Conan O’Brien, as he provided a list of the celebrity chef’s good deeds. “But because he has flames on his shirt, everybody s**ts on him like he’s a member of Nickelback.”

His bit became comedy’s version of “Uptown Funk.” Likes, shares and retweets blew up the internet, and Patton Oswalt declared it to be the one joke he wished he’d written.

For Torres, though, being known as the Fieri guy is a double-edged sword.

“I’m worried I might be a one-hit wonder,” he said. “I think I’m good enough not to be, but I’m afraid I’ll end up like … one of those YouTube stars, who does one thing and people freak out, and they never hear from them again.”

That’s unlikely. Torres’s stories about weird baby names, the mystery of why everything bagels cost the same as regular ones, or his clumsiness at sexting are as relatable as the hint of a drawl in the voice he tells them with. His talent landed him on Comedy Central, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Last Comic Standing — the latter “just barely,” he notes with self-deprecation.

“I don’t want that to be the only thing I’m known for,” Torres said finally of his famous Conan set. “But I also did do something that most people haven’t done, which is cool.”

Stellar standup instincts coupled with a rigorous work ethic — one reason he moved to Brooklyn a few years back was to be able to perform at multiple comedy clubs in one night — point to a solid future for Torres. After a pandemic that slowed everything down, he’s back to his old pace, and not a moment too soon.

“I was afraid I was going to have to start bartending again or something,” Torres said. “I think I have three spots tonight and four spots tomorrow, which was about what I was doing before everything shut down, and that feels nice. The only thing I do is work, and drink beer.”

Torres likes to represent the downtrodden; during his Fieri bit, he also wondered about all the Nickelback hate.

“They made 40 million bros happy,” he noted. “You don’t want them pissed off. That’s how we wound up in this mess.”

It’s an instinct he extends to his profession.

“I think people look at comedy and don’t give it the credit it deserves as an art form — it’s really f-ing hard, but for whatever reason, it’s a little dismissed,” he said, agreeing that what starts as funny ultimately should speak to the human condition in some way. “I do want it to be art, I just don’t know if it is. That’s what I want to do; I am still trying. … [It] does seem to be pretentious, but I think it does deserve to be called [art].”

Shane Torres
When: Wednesday, May 26, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $30/2 seats, $60/4 seats, $90/6 seats at brownpapertickets.com

Featured photo: Shane Torres. Courtesy photo.

Blues trio goes way back

When James Montgomery arrived at Boston University in 1967 his mind was on more than the English degree he hoped to earn. Steeped in the music of his native Detroit and keenly aware of his new home’s burgeoning scene, he set out for Kenmore Square with a harmonica tucked in his pocket.

There he found guitarist Bob McCarthy playing 12-bar blues. Montgomery offered to jam; an instant friendship formed.

“Within two or three hours,” Montgomery said in a recent phone interview, “I had already found someone to play music with, and I continue to play with him to this day.”

McCarthy went on to make many Boston “best of” lists while appearing with Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Jonathan Edwards and others.

For his part, Montgomery kicked off a 50-year career by being the first Northern artist signed to Capricorn Records, label of the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker Band. The irony of the pairing wasn’t lost on him. “Grew up in Detroit, out of Boston, but somehow we were called Southern rock,” he told one interviewer. “Go figure.”

On May 21, Montgomery and McCarthy continue the bond formed that day at an acoustic show in Laconia, performing as a trio rounded out by bass player Billy Martin — who also shares a connection with Montgomery from those days.

“He was in my first college band,” he said. “We opened up for Paul Butterfield, and Buddy Guy and Junior Wells in upstate New York.”

It will truly be a BU reunion, Montgomery added. “I mean, we all did really go to school together and everything.”

After the pandemic canceled his 2020 shows, Montgomery, whom Peter Wolf once called “the John Mayall of New England,” is eager to get back on stage.

“I’m bringing the whole band, and we’ve all been vaccinated,” he said. “I’ve got a bunch of outdoor shows. … My July and August look like any other year.”

Their first gig back was April 23 in Franklin, Mass.

“We had a ball,” Montgomery said, though “some of the songs we couldn’t remember; it was like, ‘Does the bass solo come before or after that?’ There were some arrangement changes we made spontaneously on stage.”

For anyone on the fence about getting a shot, Montgomery had an answer with “Get Vaccinated,” a redo of “Intoxicated,” which originally appeared on his From Detroit to the Delta album.

“We made it multicultural, people from across the spectrum getting vaccinated,” he said of the video, released in late April. “One of the main reasons for putting it out was to try and encourage people to hasten that process so we can get back to full-capacity live music.”

Montgomery has been involved in several film projects over the past two decades, contributing the title song for Delta Rising: A Blues Documentary in 2007, a project that included narrator Morgan Freeman and musicians Mose Allison, Charlie Musselwhite and Willie Nelson. With partner Judy Laster, who runs the Woods Hole Film Festival, he co-founded the Reel Blues Festival in 2001.

Currently he’s nearing completion of a documentary that’s close to his heart: Bonnie Blue — James Cotton’s Life in the Blues. Cotton, a harmonica legend, shared a familial bond with Montgomery.

“When I’d call his manager, Jack would say, ‘Oh, your father wants to say hello,’” he said. “I met him when I was in my teens, and we were lifelong friends. Of course, we’d done a ton of work together.”

Most of the filming is complete, with post-production and song rights the remaining tasks. The latter is currently the focus of a fundraising effort.

“It’s a music film, so there’s going to be a lot of licensing stuff,” Montgomery said.

The finished product will be a star-studded affair.

“We got Steve Miller, Jimmy Vaughan, Buddy Guy, and I think we’ll get Charlie Musselwhite next,” Montgomery said.

A two-day shoot had harp players from across the country reminiscing, as both Cotton’s and Montgomery’s bands joined in.

“It was completely spontaneous playing, and chatting about him, which I’ve never seen in a documentary before,” he said. “It’s really cool footage.”

Acoustic Trio – Bob McCarthy, Billy Martin and James Montgomery
When: Friday, May 21, 6 p.m.
Where: Belknap Mill, 25 Beacon St. E., Laconia
More: belknapmill.org

Featured photo: Bob McCarthy and James Montgomery. Courtesy photo.

Tupelo season continues with Truffle

Few New Hampshire bands have the longevity of Truffle; 2021 marks their 35th year. Beyond that, the quintet’s lineup has stayed intact for most of that time. Mike Gendron took over on drums 10 years in; he’s jokingly called “The Rookie” by his bandmates.

As a recent sold-out Stone Church show attests, Truffle is a mainstay at its Seacoast home base. But the rest of the state often finds itself waiting to see them play, a situation made worse by the pandemic. An upcoming Tupelo Drive-In show is their first inland gig since February 2020, when they played at Milford’s Pasta Loft.

Truffle front man Dave Gerard is stoked to celebrate his band’s anniversary with horn-honking fans, their first time in the Derry parking lot venue born out of necessity last spring, and that’s set to close when indoor events return.

“Our peeps told us they were dying for a show, and we were like, OK, here you go,” he said in a recent phone interview. “It’s our only one in May, so let’s hope there’s good weather.”

Before Covid-19 blew a hole in their plans, Truffle was set to make a new album for their big year. Main songwriter Ned Chase and bass player David Bailey had a lot of new material ready, but plans were pushed out another year.

“Whenever we all have a bunch of tunes, that’s when it tells us it’s time to do an album,” Gerard said. “but it just wasn’t meant to be.”

Instead, Gerard made his sixth solo disc, due for a June release.

“I made the call, I said, hey, you guys, OK that I’m going to do a DG album? And they were like, of course man,” he said.

He recorded at The Electric Cave in Portsmouth, “flying in tracks” from several musician connections and recruiting local scene luminaries like Yamica Peterson of Mica’s Groove Train to contribute.

The approach to recording was loose and low-key.

“I thought, if the guys can’t come in, no pressure, I’ll make an acoustic album,” he said. “The next thing I know Mike Gendron and Dave Bailey, the rhythm section from Truffle, were like, ‘Yeah, we’ll come in, absolutely.’ … I’d say at least half the album ended up full-fledged electric.”

Sound Cave engineer Marc McElroy contributed on several instruments; Gerard handled all the guitars, along with vibes and percussion. Tracking was just completed, and the new release should be out by early summer.

“I went into it thinking it’s going to be what it’s going to be,” Gerard said. “It’s far exceeded what I thought we’d get.”

Live outdoors — for now

Gerard expects to play a few new tunes at the upcoming Tupelo show. While he played similar al fresco venues last season around his Seacoast stomping grounds, this will be his first — and last — at the Derry venue. That’s because owner Scott Hayward announced the return of indoor shows in an April 28 email.

“Based on our contracts, conversations with agents, and new tours that are being booked, I believe that we will once again be hosting shows indoors in September,” Hayward wrote. “This means that we will be making some sort of transition at the end of August and probably ending our Drive-In series mid-August.”

In a phone interview two days later, Hayward said the transition may happen earlier. It will depend on whether Three Dog Night or Air Supply follow through with tour plans and perform on Aug. 20 and Aug. 28, respectively.

“Air Supply says they’re coming, and if that’s the case I have to have the show,” he said. That’s a problem if skittish fans want refunds. “We could be open and still lose money.”

It’s Hayward’s plan that 33 1/3 Live’s Killer Queen Experience kicks off the return of live entertainment in the 700-seat room on Sept. 3, followed by Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush on Sept. 9.

Hayward dangled some tantalizing names for “yet to be announced shows” waiting on contracts that are likely to happen later this year. Performers could include Chris Isaak, Rick Wakeman, Wynonna and a night co-headlined by The Fixx and The English Beat.

The path forward is by no means certain.

“There’s a real misunderstanding of what it means to say you’re open — people need to understand that few bands are touring and it pushes everything out a few months,” Hayward said. “You’re kick-starting an entire industry.”

Truffle
When: Friday, May 7, 6 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Drive-In, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $22 per person, $75 per car at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Truffle

Married Iguana finally debuts in Manchester

After a heady process of assembling a band, then working up and recording three original songs for a debut EP, Married Iguana was prepared for a big reveal at Jewel Music Venue in Manchester. Sadly for the nascent power trio, their debut gig was scheduled on March 14, 2020, the day after Covid-19 landed like an asteroid on the local music scene.

The group quarantined and waited for another chance to show their stuff to an audience. The Rehearsal Dinner did come out as planned, and it’s a treat. “EAYM” is a Primus meets Mothers of Invention romp, and “Farewell My Friend” echoes Rush as it rocks out with abandon.

Leading off the record, “Go With the Flow” chugs like a steady rolling party bus, but to Married Iguana guitarist, singer and principal songwriter Brett Higgins it’s also an ironic anthem for his band, which went from planning to play out to hunkering down.

A year later, the personnel has changed — the current lineup has Higgins, Ian Smith (Trichomes) on bass and drummer Tyrel Gagnon — along with the music. Punchy radio rockers are now stretched out more.

“We don’t want to call ourselves a jam band,” Higgins said in a recent phone interview, “though Ian has a lot of that influence playing with his other group … it’s a little more progressive rock.”

That said, the way Higgins described his songwriting process is jammy enough.

“Me doodling around at home is basically how every one of our tunes starts,” he said. “I have my strainer of songs. I’ll be working on something and I have to think if it’s special enough to sell those guys. It’s almost like I’m auditioning for my own group.”

Higgins formed Married Iguana to counteract playing in cover bands like Darrah and Channel 3.

“I’ve always written my own songs on the sidelines, and finally got to the point where it was time to start applying myself,” he said, and began recruiting on Facebook.

Smith responded immediately with an offer to hang out and jam.

“There was no real idea,” Higgins said. “I had a couple of songs floating around right at the get-go, and I started showing them. We just noodled around a lot and Ian really latched onto a couple of the riffs. We’ve been getting together ever since, and that was it.”

Early on, the band was a four-piece, with a second guitarist. A few different drummers also came and went before Gagnon joined. He and Higgins have played in different bands together for over a dozen years.

“He’s been my go-to guy for a long time,” Higgins said. “He’ll get sick of me and he’ll skip out and then he’ll find a way to come back, or I’ll beg him enough and he ends up coming back in.”

On May 4, the band will finally make its hometown debut at Jewel.

“It’s a makeup gig,” Higgins said with a laugh, adding they’re fired up to finally play a set with over an hour of original music for a hometown crowd — though there are more than a few nerves at play.

“I just hope that people will have fun and will really accept us; we’re still kind of unsure what to expect,” he said. “We’re not the run-of-the-mill band from around the area. We’ve got a unique sense about us, a lot of energy in the music. It changes and twists and turns a lot, and I just hope that people will enjoy it, have fun and come see us.”

Married Iguana w/ The Humans Being and What Has Science Done?
When: Tuesday, May 4, 9 p.m.
Where: Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester
Tickets: $10 at the door, masks required for entry

Featured photo: Married Iguana. Courtesy photos.