Category: Nightlife

Will Hatch celebrates new EP with release show

While the making of Will Hatch’s first full-length album For You might be likened to a marathon, his new EP Downtown was more of a sprint. With extensive studio time and a long back and forth between Hatch and producer Immanuel the Liberator, he spent over two years finishing the 2018 disc.

This time around, it took just one day.

Will Hatch & Co. — the singer-songwriter, guitarist Taylor Pearson, mandolin player Brian Peasley and a rhythm section of drummer Eric Ober and bassist Jon Cheney — rolled into Cambridge’s Bridge Sound & Stage in mid-October and knocked out Downtown’s six songs with alacrity.

Financial necessity was one reason for the quick turnaround. Money for studio time came from a single summer show, as the pandemic battered the music business. More than that, the band was primed.

“We’ve been playing together for the past few years. … The lineup’s solidified, we’ve become a tighter unit,” Hatch said in a recent phone interview. “Plus, nobody’s playing a lot of gigs this year so we were just practicing over the summer.”

The approach that day — polish a track, do the take and move on to the next effort — worked perfectly and produced a spirited, capable effort.

“We just wanted to do everything live and reflect what this band sounds like,” Hatch said, “rather than getting into a whole, you know, big studio creation.”

The title cut, an upbeat country rocker about relationship breakdown, illustrates the group’s chemistry, while providing a template for the album, Hatch said.

“While my solo performances are more melancholic, the band thrives on raucous crowds and barroom antics,” he said. “Late-night Concord is a theme that runs throughout the tracks.”

Another high-energy highlight is a cover of “They’re Red Hot (Hot Tamales)” — perhaps the most rollicking song in blues legend Robert Johnson’s catalog. Hatch calls it one of his favorites on the new record.

“We’ve been playing it a long time and it’s not an easy one, so I was pretty proud that we pulled that off,” he said. “It’s a fun song with a lot of weird changes and I was happy we were able to do that.”

The EP’s other cover is “Waterbound,” a traditional folk song. The band also enjoyed laying down the last track of the day, “Beer Bottle Blues.”

“It has electric guitars on it, so it’s a little more rock,” he said. “I think we were all happy with how that one came out; it’s real clean and nice.”

The anchor of Downtown is the ballad “Kid From Holden” is based on a real tragedy, the 2015 drowning death of Plymouth State University student Jake Nawn. Hatch describes friends leaving books by Nawn’s favorite writers with notes inserted in them to try and lure him out of the woods, and the frantic desperation of his family as the search dragged on. It’s a spellbinding story song.

“How many times did I pass him? / I never will know,” sings Hatch of Nawn, an aspiring writer beloved by classmates. “A poet he lived and a poet he died, but the river just came and it went.”

Hatch spoke of his need to “keep retelling stories about local tragedies and keep them alive through folk music.”

A release show at Penuche’s Ale House will have a smaller, socially distanced crowd. With the recent spike in cases, it’s still scheduled to happen.

“I don’t want to jinx anything, because everything is getting canceled,” Hatch said. “We’re just happy to have the opportunity to play out , even if it’s a small crowd. It’s just still nice for us to keep playing.”

Will Hatch & Co.
When: Saturday, Dec. 12, 8 p.m.
Where: Penuche’s Ale House, 6 Pleasant St., Concord
More: willhatchmusic.com

Featured photo: Will Hatch & Co. Courtesy photo.

Dual platform comedy show

On more than one level, Mike Koutrobis knows the strange reality of entertainment in the Covid era. Most Sundays he’s on the sidelines of New England Patriots home games, doing various jobs, from camera assistant to holding a sound dish, for whatever network is broadcasting the game. Right now, the stands are largely empty as fans watch the action safely from home.

“They pump in crowd noise. It’s an illusion,” he said. “It’s weird, but amazing to be there.”

The veteran comedian found a similarly novel way to share his act. For an upcoming show at Zinger’s in Milford, he’ll share the stage with Kelly MacFarland, as a live audience of a dozen or more people watches along with a virtual crowd. The latter will face Koutrobis from two giant flat screens in the back of the room.

“I’m literally looking at the Zoom crowds as if they’re in the audience,” he said, likening the experience to watching the opening credits of The Brady Bunch. Hecklers aren’t a problem, but crowd work isn’t impossible. “You can go, ‘Hey, left corner with a weird couch.’ … You can use it in your act, and it feels like you’re interacting with them.”

How to talk about the virus is “a million-dollar question,” he said. Comics are obliged to say something about it, but the truth is people come to comedy shows to escape that. It’s a high-wire act.

“I think the big phrase is making people feel OK that they’re not the only ones going through it — here’s how to think about it in another way,” he said.

Still, the pandemic gave Koutrobis plenty of new material.

“One of my first jokes is not even a joke,” he said. “I said, people lost a lot — jobs, family and friends. I’ve lost something very dear to my heart, and that’s the ability to button my pants since April.”

On the other hand, Koutrobis’s act has always focused on relationships, evolving from dating to marriage and parenthood. The quarantine simply added another wrinkle.

“I’m 50 years old with an 18-month-old kid, and I’m stuck in the house, so I’ve got a lot of that to go off,” he said. “I don’t care how much you love somebody, if you’re stuck in the same place, you gotta learn to adjust. So I have jokes showing my frustration but also how we’re making it work.”

Koutrobis was one of the first comics to work after quarantine ended in May, playing the kickoff drive-in show at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, an experience he described as “disconnected. … I didn’t feel the flow like I usually do when I’m doing it every weekend.”

Later, shows got more comfortable.

“I was able to hook up with Amherst Country Club, and I found a couple of breweries,” he said. “People brought lawn chairs and I set up a portable stage; that way, people can sit as far away as possible. It started becoming … I’ll never say normal, but almost normal. We had enough people in the room or in the grass to at least feel like a crowd was there.”

He’s had his share of surreal moments, however, like one show done at a Milford retirement home as a favor.

“It really was only like 12 people, all sitting in a huge room, 15 feet away from each other,” he said. “I’m at the front on the stage, but because of the place I was in I had to wear my mask. So I’m telling jokes to senior citizens who can barely hear in the first place, with a muffled mask on.”

That’s not to say Koutrobis wouldn’t do it again.

“These are the things we’ve had to adjust to,” he said. “It’s a lot, but I can’t not perform. So I kind of take what I can.”

Mike Koutrobis & Kelly MacFarland
When: Friday, Dec. 4, 8 p.m.
Where: Zinger’s, 29 Mont Vernon St., Milford
Tickets: Live $20 and Zoom $10 at tinyurl.com/yy8sjsdn

Featured photo: Mike Koutrobis. Courtesy photo.

Americana band Raid the Larder performs

Raid the Larder perfectly illustrates the intersectionality of Concord’s music scene. At its core are Taylor Pearson and Brian Peasley, two friends who started playing punk rock together 10 years ago in high school. When Pearson introduced Peasley to the Grateful Dead and its all-acoustic cousin Old & In the Way, he picked up a mandolin and the two morphed into a younger version of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.

They called themselves Hometown Eulogy. The moniker came from a song by Tristan Omand, a local rocker turned folkie who inspired their rustic turn.

“His albums seem to come to me in certain places in my life where I need it the most,” Peasley said in a recent phone interview. “Me and Taylor were really loving that first album of his. We’re like, ‘Hometown Eulogy just sounds like a badass name.’”

A couple of years ago Peasley heard Ryan Nicholson playing with a band called Oddfellows Way at a craft beer festival. Learning the guitarist also played banjo, he suggested an impromptu jam session; the two clicked immediately. Later he discovered that Nicholson would soon be moving to Concord.

Peasley connected with guitarist Mac Holmes after watching him play in Plymouth, where he lived.

“I was like, ‘This guy’s amazing — I need him. I wanted a full bluegrass band,” he said.

Holmes ended up traveling to Concord so frequently that he eventually relocated to the city.

“The bass player was the hard part,” Peasley said.

He knew Scott Heron and his wife, fiddler Betsey Green, from their time jamming with singer-songwriter Will Hatch.

“Will was starting to get a band together when he moved back up here from Virginia and he found Scott and Betsy.”

As the two grew occupied with their own project, Green Heron, Hatch cast about for new players.

“Me and Taylor were playing in a band called the Graniteers with our friend Nick Ferrero from high school. … We ended up playing shows with Will,” Peasley said.

He suggested a jam session with Hatch.

“Will’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’d be fun,’ and it ended up being a Pizza Tapes kind of thing,” he said.

They became friends with Heron and Green in the process. So, when an upright bassist was needed, Heron agreed to join. Raid the Larder played its first show in December 2018, with Green guesting on fiddle. Travel to and from Kingston made it too much for the couple. Heron left, and Nicholson recruited Adam Martin, who’d just left Oddfellows Way to take his place. The band’s lineup now consists of Peasley on mandolin, guitarists Pearson and Holmes, Nicholson playing banjo and Martin on bass.

For now they’re all about playing together whenever they can, and haven’t made a record — yet.

“I want to get together and play these songs that I’ve been covering for years, but with a full band,” Peasley said. “We do everything from old Carter Family tunes to Modest Mouse to Jimmy Buffett. I would love to do a recording because we all bring originals from the different bands we’ve come from; it’s a big collaboration. I think Mac doesn’t care if we recorded or anything. He just wants to play.”

Peasley also hosts the weekly open mic at Penuche’s, where Raid the Larder will perform two days after Thanksgiving. He and Pearson also appear regularly at another Concord hub for local music, Area 23. They two co-led a weekly songwriters night a while back, inviting local performers over to play their originals.

Pearson and Peasley always join in, and the evenings often provide a full flavor of one of the state’s most burgeoning and enjoyable scenes.

“Me and Taylor, learning people’s songs,” Peasley said. “It’s just what we do.”

Raid the Larder
When: Saturday, Nov. 28, 8 p.m.
Where: Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord
More: facebook.com/raidthelarder

Featured photo: Raid the Larder. Courtesy photo.

Fools duo play intimate Manchester show

November is a time of year when Mike Girard is usually getting ready to star in the annual Christmas Buzz Ball or doing shows with either his longtime band The Fools or the oversized side project, Mike Girard’s Big Swinging Things. Since the pandemic put the kibosh on most live music last March, however, he’s done exactly one gig: an early August drive-in Fools show at a Manchester by the Sea fitness club parking lot.
Girard’s performance output will double when he and Fools guitarist Rich Bartlett play an intimate show at the Rex Theatre in Manchester on Nov. 28. They’ve done the duo act once before at a house concert, “and we really had a terrific time,” Girard said in a recent phone interview. “The songs were stripped down, with lots of stories in between. We called it the Naked and Afraid Tour; this is a continuation of that.”
The setlist will include favorites like “Life Sucks, Then You Die” and “It’s A Night For Beautiful Girls,” reworked for the spare performance.
“I guess the words are going to be a lot more audible, for good or ill,” Girard said. “If you don’t like it, you’ll know why. There’s [one] song in particular, a slow one called ‘Just Give Up’ — it’s kind of an inspirational song about just quitting.”
A natural raconteur, Girard is more than ready to perform, despite the time off. He’ll share tales of his band’s beginnings in the late 1970s, when hits “She Looks Alright In The Dark” and “Psycho Chicken” were all over Boston radio, and talk about international tours opening for Van Halen and The Knack.
Fans will also gain insight into his songwriting process, Girard promised.
“For instance, ‘Night Out’ occurred to me in a dream — it really did,” he said. “In the dream, we were playing in a small club, doing this song. I woke up and wrote the verse and chorus. I knew where it was going and I went back to bed.”
In the morning, Girard finished the song.
“I called up Richie and said, ‘I had this dream we’re playing this song in a club; I wrote it down and I want to play it for the band.’ He said, ‘How many people were in the club?’ I said, ‘Not too many.’ He said, ‘Call me back when there’s more people in the club.’”
For his part, Bartlett is always ready to hit the stage, Girard said.
“I could show up at his place pretty much any hour of the day and he’ll be sitting on the couch playing guitar into his headphones while watching one TV show or another,” he said. “I tell him, ‘Your life hasn’t really changed at all; we’re all [not used to] staying at home, but that’s just what you do.’”
The upcoming stripped-down show will be The Fools’ second at the Rex; they were there last Feb. 22, a few months after Girard published a new book, A Fool In Time. Like 2010’s Psycho Chicken & Other Foolish Tales, he admits that it’s loosely a memoir, quoting Bartlett’s response to Psycho Chicken in the preface: “The story is pretty much true, even if the details aren’t.”
The Fools have a long history in Manchester, dating back to the raucous mid-’80s days of The Casbah Club, when they and performers such as GG Allin, Jim Carroll and The Ramones would frequently visit.
Girard is looking forward to playing at the city’s newest venue again.
“We’re going to add to the foolish population of that town,” he said with a laugh. “I love the Rex, the place is great. It’s got that feeling of history about it, being an old theater. Nice high ceilings, lots of space.” And it’s ideal for a safe, socially distanced evening.
“We won’t be selling merch, or hanging out with the audience after or whatever, all the things that we would normally do,” Girard said. “We’ll have our own separate entrance, everyone will wear a mask when they’re out of their seat, you know? But once we start, it’s going to be fun — that’s the whole point of every show.”

An Intimate Evening With A Couple of Fools
When: Saturday, Nov. 28, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $29 in advance at palacetheatre.org, $39 at the door

Featured photo: Mike Girard and Rich Bartlett. Courtesy photo.

Fogelberg tribute is a gem

A careful return to concerts at the Franklin Opera House includes a hybrid live and livestream show on Nov. 14, with Maine singer-songwriter Don Campbell playing the music of Dan Fogelberg. Employing a voice that closely resembles the soothing tenor that propelled hits such as “Leader of the Band,” “Same Old Lang Syne” and “Go Down Easy,” Campbell will perform both solo on piano and guitar, and with an expanded band.
For Campbell, hearing Fogelberg’s Souvenirs album as a teenager in the early 1970s was a transformative experience.
“It made me want to become a songwriter,” he said in a recent phone interview. “It felt like he was singing directly to me. A common thread with fans that I meet is it’s almost like you knew him through his music.”
Campbell has had a lot of success with his chosen craft. He’s a six-time winner of the Maine’s Best Singer-Songwriter poll and took top honors at a Grand Ole Opry competition of original artists that earned him $50,000 and a Gibson Les Paul custom guitar. He’s made 14 CDs of original music, including a pair of Christmas albums. His most recent release is 2014’s The Dust Never Settles.
It’s Campbell’s tribute act that’s getting the most notice in recent years, however.
When prostate cancer claimed Fogelberg in 2007, Campbell began recording his favorites to memorialize him, ultimately releasing a double album in 2012, Kites To Fly – The Music of Dan Fogelberg. Its title is a metaphor, not a lyric reference.
“His songs are like beautiful kites that you take down from the wall and outside to fly a little bit,” Campbell said. “That’s the only way I can describe them for someone who doesn’t know Dan’s music.”
The tribute was noticed by the Fogelberg Association of Peoria, Illinois (the singer’s hometown). The family trust invited Campbell to perform at their annual Celebration Weekend in 2013 and endorsed his act on its website.
“I got to speak to his mother through the foundation president, who put me on the phone with her,” Campbell said. “It was really quite an honor.”
The upcoming Franklin show will be Campbell’s first livestream, and he said he’s relieved to be performing for an in-person crowd at the same time.
“We like to play for people, not at people, where you can talk to the audience,” he said. “So I love opera houses. They always sound great, and they were built for carrying sound. We’re not a loud band; we’re more about playing the parts.”
He’ll bring a seven-piece band that includes fiddle and mandolin players for the evening. It will span Fogelberg’s career, from his gentle, semi-confessional early work to mid- ‘70s jazz rock and the 1985 bluegrass classic High Country Snows, a record Campbell names as one of his most beloved in the catalog.
“It was a special project,” he said.
Over the summer, Campbell and his band did a few outdoor, socially distanced shows. One memorably happened in the parking lot of The Clambake, a favorite seafood restaurant in his hometown of Scarborough, Maine; he and his band played atop a flatbed truck.
“People got lobster rolls and sat in lawn chairs between each car or in the back of a pickup truck,” he said. “We put on a three-hour concert and it was really great. I’ve always said, ‘Evolve or dissolve.’ Everybody’s had to evolve in 2020 to keep things going.”
Asked what he’ll remember most about this challenging year, Campbell answered quickly.
“Playing in close proximity to people,” he said. “Being able to play in venues where there are dancers right in front of you, it’s hard to replace that.”

The Music of Dan Fogelberg – Don Campbell Band
When: Saturday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Franklin Opera House, 316 Central St., Franklin
Tickets: $18 & $20 ($17/livestream) at franklinoperahouse.org

Featured photo: Don Campbell. Courtesy photo.

Country rockers play Hudson, host song circle

The initials in EXP Band stand for “experienced players” — front man Rob Randlett, bassist Erik Thomas, lead guitarist John Andrews and drummer Curtis Marzerka are all veteran musicians. Their modern country sound, however, arrived a bit late in their careers.

Randlett spent his early years rocking hard, but in 2014 he got some advice from Hillsboro producer Ted Hutchinson that sent him in a southern direction.

“He told me, ‘I know you like doing the rock thing,’” Randlett said recently by phone, “‘but country’s where you need to be, and that’s where your voice suits you. If you do that, you’ll see things will change.’”

Hutchinson had good ears; Randlett guested with Jodi Cunningham’s band a few times, and soon her fans were asking when his band would be coming to town. So piece by piece he put one together and started playing out.

“Everything was modern country,” he said. “Fresh, because it was right on the radio.”

Since then, the group has gigged all over New England, playing NASCAR and Bike Week, while Randlett himself won New Hampshire Country Music Association and national honors — best male vocalist in 2018 and best modern country male and band the following year.

With Covid-19, their schedule has constricted, but EXP is still doing shows. The next one is Friday, Nov. 6, at The Bar in Hudson, a favorite spot for them, Randlett said.

“It’s just a very homey, feel-good type of a place … a small venue, and it’s very relaxing,” he said.

A Nov. 7 date at Concord’s Area 23 has been moved to December, but they will be at the Manchester VFW the following week, on Friday the 13^th.

Along with playing Jason Aldean, Kenny Chesney and Chase Rice covers, Randlett is an original artist. The Army vet’s latest endeavor is a Bluebird Café styled song circle, fittingly happening Nov. 11 at Tower Hill Tavern in Laconia. He hopes this Songwriters Night event will be the first of many.

“We’re just starting out,” he said. “The music industry is tough right now, along with everything else. Because of Covid, they’re not really allowing full bands inside, but there are solo artists some places, depending on the ownership.”

Tower Hill regularly books Randlett and jumped at the chance to host the event.

“As soon as I posted asking, if I did a songwriters night, would anybody want to do that, he was like, ‘I wanna do it here; we have to do it here,’” Randlett said.

All musicians are welcome.

“It’s kind of like a Nashville thing, but it doesn’t have to be all country,” Randlett said. “It could be blues, rock, whatever you want it to be. If there’s some 16-year-old kid that’s a great songwriter, you know, and his mom and dad want to bring him down to show off his talent, that’s cool. It’s all about bringing musicians together again.”

He looks forward to hosting Songwriters Night on Veterans Day, noting that he hopes to draw attention to a holiday that’s often misunderstood by the general public.

“I thought it was a cool day because military is a big part of my heart and my music. To be able to share this on Veterans Day means a lot to me,” he said.

EXP will appear as a full band on Nov. 6, at The Bar. Randlett is optimistic that it’s a harbinger.

“I think things are moving in a positive direction,” he said. “People are now becoming accustomed to what the outlook is when they go out in public [and] I feel as long as you follow the rules and work with the bar owners, music can continue. When things get out of control and people don’t abide by the rules and do the wrong thing, that’s when problems happen.”

EXP Band
When: Friday, Nov. 6, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bar, 2B Burnham Road, Hudson

Songwriters Night
When: Wednesday, Nov. 11, 6 p.m.
Where: Tower Hill Tavern, 264 Lakeside Ave., Laconia
More: Facebook.com/EXPBandNH

Featured photo: EXP Band. Courtesy photo.