Category: Nightlife

Bees Deluxe return to New Hampshire

Guitarist Conrad Warre calls the music of his band Bees Deluxe “acid blues for the 21st century.” It’s one way of saying that their hyphenate sound is hard to pin down, like catching a honeybee bare-handed. Some say it’s too rock for blues, others flip that analysis upside down, while more than a few detect jazz lurking between the bars.

“In the Venn diagram of those three genres, we’re right in the middle where no one else wants to be, where we overlap and are denied access by all the neighbors,” Warre said by phone recently. “Occasionally, we’ll throw them a bone and we will do something in 1/4/5/4/1 and confuse them, because they didn’t expect it.”

Music writers have a lot of fun with them. One called it “what might happen if Freddie King took a lot of acid then wrote a song with Pat Metheny and asked a strung-out Stevie Ray Vaughan to take a solo” and another likened their most recent album, Hallucinate, to “what Steely Dan would sound like if they played the blues.”

The 2023 album ranges across the spectrum. “Queen Midas” begins with gentle acoustic guitar, then shifts gears into a straight-up rocker. “When Is Yesterday” falls squarely into classic blues territory, though its lyrics sound like Warre was reading a Robert Heinlein novel when he wrote them. The spooky “Houdini” approximates the aforementioned Dan with a swampy undertone that keeps listeners guessing while they groove.

In New Hampshire, bikers seem to really enjoy the band, which consists of Warre, keyboard and harmonica player Carol Band, drummer Paul Giovine and a rotating cast of bass players — usually Adam Sankowski, but at an upcoming show in Laconia, Kevin Tran. The biker love has been around since Warre’s time coming up as a musician in England.

“I once played a castle in Austria, it was in a ruined courtyard,” he recalled. “The audience were all on Harley-Davidsons. To show their appreciation, at the end of every song they flicked their headlights at me.” At a recent gig at the Hawg’s Pen in Farmington, a bar owned by a guy who also runs a Harley dealership, the regulars told him Bees Deluxe played the kind of music the place needed.

“So that was nice,” Warre said. “What we do is we hit that sweet spot of the kind of tempos and keys and moods of people like the Allman Brothers but without playing covers or ‘The Thrill is Gone’ or ‘Mustang Sally.’ They like the groove and it’s a novelty to them, because they never heard Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland or wouldn’t recognize him if they saw him.”

Don’t ask Warre to name any influences.

“I don’t listen to the kind of music that we play; I’d rather listen to Coltrane or Miles Davis or Bach,” he said, adding keyboard player Band has a similar story. “She’s a classicist; I met her when she was playing jazz at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge, she’s a real book player. I don’t suspect I’ll find her listening to Led Zeppelin when I come in the room unexpectedly.”

There are a few guitarists that Warre admires, including Jeff Lee Johnson, who played with The Time and appeared in the Prince movie Purple Rain. Another favorite is New Yorker Wayne Krantz. “His philosophy is, ‘Don’t play anything you’ve ever played before’ and I kind of liken that to what I try to do,” he said. “Like Jackson Pollock once said, ‘If you recognize something in the painting, blur it out.’”

Bees Deluxe
When: Saturday, Aug. 31, 1 p.m.
Where: Tower Hill Tavern, 264 Lakeside Ave., Laconia
More: beesdeluxe.com

Featured photo: Bees Deluxe. Courtesy photo.

Skynyrd and ZZ Top hit Gilford

The canon of classic rock has two songs on its Mount Rushmore. How to fill out all four spots is an endless discussion. “Johnny B. Goode”? “Hotel California”? Every track on Dark Side of the Moon? Forget it, there will never be consensus. However, to question the placement of “Stairway to Heaven” or “Free Bird” would be so lame.

The Lynyrd Skynyrd song’s been shouted out at cover bands and more than a few headliners over the years. Jason Isbell may someday even perform it — he and his band played its wild tradeoff jam outro every night during rehearsals for their Weathervanes tour a few years back.

Fun fact, though: The song that most fans know by heart almost never was. More precisely, it began very differently, and became timeless almost by accident. At least that’s the story Johnny Van Zant told in a recent phone interview. Since he’s the younger brother of the guy who wrote it, Ronnie Van Zant, there’s reason to believe him.

The original demo of “Free Bird” was a four-minute ballad. “It’s one of the few love songs that Skynyrd had,” Van Zant said. “Duane Allman had died during that time, and one night when Ronnie had a sore throat, he said, ‘Hey, man, let’s do the song ‘Free Bird’ and then at the end, y’all play out for Duane Allman.’ That’s how that baby was born.”

During concerts in the mid-’70s, Ronnie would dedicate the song to Allman and Berry Oakley, the Allman Brothers Band bassist who died a year after Duane. Then in October 1977, a tragic plane crash killed Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines, along with the band’s assistant road manager. The plane’s pilot and co-pilot also perished.

Six members survived the crash, and in 1980 four of them reunited — Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell — as the Rossington Collins Band. With a female lead singer, Dale Krantz, it wasn’t a Skynyrd revival. They made two albums before breaking up.

A full-scale tour with five members of the original band –—Rossington, Powell, Wilkeson, Artimus Pyle and Ed King, who’d left two years before the crash — happened in 1987. That’s when Johnny joined, and he’s been carrying Ronnie’s torch ever since. Early on, however, he wouldn’t sing “Free Bird,” letting the band play an instrumental version instead.

The group embarked on what was to be a final run in 2018, but fate had other ideas. The pandemic turned a Farewell Tour into “farewell touring,” and when live music resumed, the mood had changed for Van Zant, Rossington and guitarist Rickey Medlocke, who’d left Skynyrd before their first album to form Blackfoot, rejoining in 1996. Recalled Johnny, “Gary was like, ‘Man, I’ve been off for 15 months, I don’t want to freaking retire. I want the music to continue.”

Sadly, Rossington passed away last year, leaving Van Zant and Medlocke to carry on. “We’re never without him, I believe that in my heart,” Van Zant said, adding a statement also true for his brother and other fallen band members. “I know this is what he would want us to be doing. Every time I get a little tired, I feel a kick in my ass. I know it’s him.”

“Free Bird” helped launch Southern rock, though at the time, Skynyrd was one of many bands playing it. At an upcoming appearance in Gilford, they’ll be joined by two of them, ZZ Top, who brought Texas boogie to the world, and the Outlaws, best-known for their hit “Green Grass and High Tides.”

Asked what distinguishes the genre from regular rock music, Van Zant had a few ideas.

“I think it was the blues country factor, the English influence, and if you listen to a band like Marshall Tucker, hell, it’s got jazz in it,” he said. “The boys were raised on that old blues stuff, and then, of course, The Beatles came along … but it could have been in the water or eating collard greens. I don’t know what the heck it was.”

Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, The Outlaws
When: Friday, Aug. 23, 6:30 p.m.
Where: BankNH Pavilion, 61 Meadowbrook Lane, Gilford
Tickets: $54 and up at livenation.com

Johnny Van Zant and Ricky Medlocke will sign bottles of their Hell House Whiskey from noon to 2 p.m. Aug. 23 at New Hampshire Liquor & Wine Outlet Store No. 56, 18 Weirs Road, Gilford

Featured photo: L-R Ricky Medlocke, Johnny Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd (Courtesy Photo).

Tom Dixon Band (briefly) back in New England

Music fans scanning upcoming shows recently did a double take when Tom Dixon’s name popped up.

The country rocker and his band were ubiquitous from the mid-2000s on, but in 2013 he moved to Nashville. For a few years he’d come back for an occasional mini tour. However, by 2018 he’d hung up his guitar and pen to become a dog trainer.

Dixon has been dipping his toes back in musical waters of late. A show with his band at a campground in Hohenwald, Tennessee, in June, a couple more at a Virginia brewery and a winery in Lewisburg. He even dusted off an old song of his, “Truckin’” — not the one by the Dead — and made a dozen ballcaps to celebrate.

He’s excited, he said by phone in early August, because now playing is a choice, not a job. Dixon is also stoked to finally be back in New England for a few shows with his old band mates.

“That’s what’s fun about this part of my career; I’m not rushing to have something new and stay fresh,” he said. “When I make music, it’s what I want, or what my friends want.”

He’s headed back, for the first time in two years, to play some shows in his old stomping grounds. There’s a sentimental trip to Salisbury Beach, Mass., where he introduced line dancing to a bar called Surfside over a decade ago, and a couple of shows at the Caledonia Fair in Northern Vermont, one with his band and another with Saving Abel’s Jared Weeks and Big Vinny of Trailer Choir.

In New Hampshire, he’ll do a full band show Aug. 17 at Stumble Inn in Londonderry, a roadhouse where Dixon spent a lot of time before heading south.

“We used to play Slammers out in Bedford, that was our place,” he said. “It disappeared, and Stumble Inn became the place … as many venues as I’ve played anywhere, that’s always kind of home. I go back, and I always go there.”

When his clients asked about him taking time off, Dixon joked with them.

“They’re like, ‘what are you doing, going on vacation?’ I said, ‘No, I’m going to go pretend to be a rock star again, get back on the road and play some music.’ We’ll see how it goes. I’m looking forward to seeing so many people. That’s the best part.”

Even if Dixon isn’t quitting his day job, he’s more focused on making music. Along with updating “Truckin’” he recorded a song called “We Used to Be Rock Stars” with Ben Kirsch. “It’s not about being a musician, but about getting older,” he said. It continues an effort that began with “The Weekend,” released in early 2020 — no, you don’t need to remind him of the timing. The song was an affirmation and actually got a decent amount of pandemic streams.

“Nashville kept telling me who I needed to be; I was trying to reinvent who Tom Dixon was for so long, but things slowed down, and I wasn’t listening to Nashville anymore,” he said. “I took a break from things … I decided to look at the history of streams and online downloads and stuff over the years and the top ones were all songs that were my style from before moving to Nashville. It was so crazy.”

Chastened, he wrote the new tune.

Now, with songs like “Rock Stars” and the voice memos on his phone that he’s spending more time with, “I can do this my way now,” he said. “I came from Manchester; it always was a rock town. I remember having to go into rock venues to get gigs, that’s where I had to be years ago. I should have just stuck with that melding of rock and country … versus trying to reinvent what Nashville was telling me I was supposed to be. Now, I get to be me.”

Tom Dixon Band
When: Saturday, Aug. 17, 8 p.m.
Where: Stumble Inn, 20 Rockingham Road, Londonderry
More: tomdixonmusic.com
Tom Dixon also appears solo at Stumble Inn on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 7 p.m.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Barefoot Festival returns

One doesn’t need to look far to find music and arts festivals that are struggling this year. Several have been cut back or canceled altogether. So it’s heartening that the Barefoot Festival, which started in 2023, is returning for a second time. The two-day event’s philosophy is back as well: It’s about both music and mindfulness, with local acts and movement classes getting equal billing, along with a strong visual arts component.

A key difference between Barefoot and other festivals is its scale, founder Jen Bakalar said in a recent phone interview.

“We’re calling it a micro festival, kind of the sweet spot where we’re hoping for a few hundred people, everyone feeling comfortable, safe and not too overwhelmed,” she said. “It does seem like an antidote to the big festivals, having been to a couple of those this summer.”

Performing on Saturday are Freakquonox, Danny Kemps, Ian Galipeau, Yoni Gordon, Superbug, Great Groove Theory, Party of the Sun, Princess Kikou, the Evocatives, and Hug the Dog. On Sunday it’s Matt Litzinger, Andrea Paquin, Tyler Allgood, Sara Trunzo, Saguaro, Deep Seize, Kendall Row, Modern Fools, Caylin Costello Band, and DJ Flex. The lineup reflects last year’s with several returning artists.

“We kept the music pretty local; I think the farthest act is coming from Maine, and we’re bringing in some new singer-songwriters and a few new bands,” Bakalar said, adding she’s looking forward to the jammy Saguaro. “We wanted … a good mix of genres and styles so everybody had something that they would want to dance to and listen to. It was nice also to have bands returning, because they kind of know the vibes and people know them.”

Organizers also want the festival to be substance-free. There are no alcohol sales, similar to last year, but this time around the message is more forward.

“It’s about connection,” Bakalar said. “We also want to stress that the venue is a wellness retreat. … We’re not telling people they can’t bring alcohol, but we would love for people to not make that the focus.”

Opportunities for “intentional movement” abound and are included with festival admission. Bakalar hopes this will inspire participation. “The spirit of the whole thing is we’re connecting and we’re sharing,” she said. “We’re presenting things that maybe people haven’t tried yet. Maybe they’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t really do yoga’ or ‘I don’t know what that is,’ but this is a way for them to get their toes in. Maybe it’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s something that I want to do.’”

She expects a couples massage session led by Alex Lorenz to be popular. “That’s one I’m looking forward to personally,” she said. “I think that’s just like such a cool thing to share with people. That one is probably going to be full, we’ll have to squeeze people in, but you don’t have to sign up.”

A variety of art installations are planned, including Sophie Sanders, whose work will be a stage backdrop, a new addition to the festival. Video artist Albie will project his works on a nearby screen. Adam Schepker is back to create interactive works that hew to a playful philosophy stated in his festival bio: “I feel adults lose their childhood sense of fun and joy due to their adult responsibilities and some strange code of conduct that many adults feel tied to.”

Attendees should prepare for a few things, Bakalar cautioned. “Wear your sneakers, be ready to walk,” she said, adding that last year’s “leave no trace” policy is still in effect.

“If you didn’t pre-buy your ticket and you’re not spending the night, then you’re going to park probably a little bit farther. We heard from people last year that it’s not easy to find, so we’re going to do a lot more with putting up signs to get people to the farm. But once you’re there, you’ve got everything you need.”

Barefoot Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 10, and Sunday, Aug. 11, at 10 a.m.
Where: Bethel Farm, 34 Bethel Road, Hillsborough
Tickets: $45 to $80 at barefootmusicandarts.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Live Free Fest offers music and more

Longtime music fan Dylan Williams is a DIY kind of guy, so when he became frustrated with traveling to Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont for concerts, he decided to launch his own festival.

“I always have to drive an hour and a half to go to any show I want,” he said by phone recently. “It’s really annoying.”

A New Boston native, he was also looking to draw attention to his favorite local music. Williams began last year in his backyard, with four bands performing. There were also games, including a pie eating contest, relay races and something called Beer Olympics. Sixty people, close friends or part of Williams’ extended social circle, came to the party.

The experience gave Williams the confidence to scale up to the local fairgrounds and stage the first annual Live Free Fest. It happens on Saturday, Aug. 3, with a dozen acts performing: Sotah, Just For Kicks, Somewhere In Between, Girlspit, Animatronic The Abolisher, Pointless Culture, The Forest Forgets, The Knightz, Lacquerhead, Cozy Throne, Mugshot Monday and Recession.

Williams is connected to his home state’s music scene through his work as a videographer, and he designed his festival to focus on the creative diversity that he feels is close to home and is sometimes overlooked. Thus, the acts on the bill range across the musical spectrum.

“I want to reflect New Hampshire’s sound the best I can, so everything about this is in-state, and we have something for everybody,” Williams said. “There’s alternative and indie, rappers, metal, punk and a cover band. It’s not a blues festival or a rap festival; it’s literally everything. I chose them because it reflects the state well, and I just think they’re good.”

One of the sets he’s looking forward to is The Forest Forgets, an edgy punk metal band that grew from the breakup of the Manchester group Afterimage. It’s fronted by that band’s former singer, Griffen Romprey. “They’re on the experimental side of things … progressive, longer form,” Williams said. “They only have demos right now, so I’m very excited to hear what they’re going to have at the festival. I think they’ve only played one show so far.”

Rapper Animatronic The Abolisher is another act that Williams expects the crowd will enjoy. He saw him open for The Knightz at a show he was filming in Manchester.

“I didn’t know him at all until he came up; I was shooting him anyway because I was already there,” he said. “And I was just really impressed. He’s got really good lyrics, he’s very quick with the flow and just a very humble guy.”

The Knightz are a favorite, and friends. “They’re a rap group that I’ve worked with probably for about two years now. And they’re just great guys. They flew me out to San Francisco one time; we did a video there. They have such good charisma, and they’re just really good guys.”

Finally, there’s Lacquerhead, “definitely the loudest and heaviest band we have,” Williams continued. “They have really good energy, and I would say if there’s anyone that I feel like is going to really maybe make it, I can see them making it in music in the coming years.”

With help from his partner Justin Kaminsky, Williams is going out on a limb to stage Live Free Fest — “It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done,” he said — but he has high hopes it will strike a chord and hopefully draw a crowd in the hundreds. After years spent experiencing and documenting area music, he feels it’s the next logical step.

“I don’t go to as many festivals as I’d like to, but I go to a bunch of shows, and a lot of them are in Boston,” he said. “So I [thought], let’s try something here. We don’t have anything like … a Lollapalooza or Boston Calling. Because Manchester doesn’t have a super big scene, we all know each other in a way. It just kind of worked that I was able to grab a lot of these people that I already kind of know. That was cool.”

For his New Boston Calling to be a success, Williams continued, “I would love it if for all the bands this was maybe their biggest show ever, and I want all the crowd to have a really good energy with them. Also, I want all the games to go really well. I want to walk around and feel like this is a big community … I just want everyone to have a good time, honestly.”

Live Free Fest
When: Saturday, Aug. 3, noon
Where: Hillsborough County Youth Center, 17 Hilldale Lane, New Boston
Tickets: $15 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Cozy Throne at Bank of NH Stage. The band is slated to play the Live Free Fest. Photo by Jaki Gerulskis.

With new music, MB Padfield returns to New England

It’s a quiet Monday for musician MB Padfield — she has only two shows. The New Hampshire-born singer, songwriter and guitarist is back for her summer sojourn, something she’s done since moving to Los Angeles a while back. This season, she’s booked 130 dates, including a run of 11 gigs over six days at the end of June — a personal record for her.

“I’m not far off from being an endurance athlete,” Padfield said by phone. “I’ve been doing a lot of physical training outside of music to be able to make these shows happen. Doing a lot of nutrition, learning so much about just the body and health and science and how it relates to live performance.”

Though Padfield plays mostly covers at places like The Goat, Wally’s and Margaritaville in Boston, such rigor extends to her original music. Take the video she made for “Waverider,” released earlier this year and part of an upcoming EP. In it, Padfield sang in an ice bath, and she had to repeat the process three times to get the right take.

At the end of the clip, she’s visibly quaking from what looks like hypothermia.

“Yeah, that was an experience … it was great and horrible at the same time,” she recalled. “I filmed over the winter in New Hampshire, in Bedford with my friend Ben Proulx, who is a really incredible videographer. He’s worked on some massive projects. He’s Grammy nominated.”

Impossibly, she managed to lip-sync all the song’s words. “That was a really tricky part … but I drilled it so many times,” she said. “I started with cold showers, and I did cold baths. Then I found a cold plunge in Los Angeles, and I’d sit there the whole song. I just tried to keep my head on straight.”

The song itself is a gem, an electronica-infused slow burn with bracing confrontational lyrics reminiscent of Taylor Swift’s recent work. It addresses the challenges of being an independent musician and facing a world where big acts have massive organizations behind them.

“It can be quite intimidating as an artist just getting started … that’s a bit of what ‘Waverider’ is about,” Padfield said. “It’s funny, everyone is asking me if it’s about a jet ski. It’s not, but I guess a jet ski wouldn’t be a bad analogy. I think everyone has their own Waverider. We all have our own ups and downs and do our best to try to navigate. It’s not necessarily about trying to keep calm waters, but just drive right in the waves where you’re at.”

Padfield’s latest release is “Into the Grey,” a song about letting go that became more poignant when her 96-year-old Meme passed away in May.

“We hospiced her at home, and I was there to the end; it was a wild experience,” she said. “There are people I’ve known who’ve had a hard time functioning through grief…. With the small experience I had, I learned that you have to pick the right memories to hold on to. That’s a big part of what ‘Into the Grey’ was about.”

Two more songs, “Lost at Sea” and “I’ll Be,” will be released in the coming months to complete a four-song EP. Padfield has a full-length album in the works as well and plans to make videos for the forthcoming songs.

“I’ve really come to see the value in communicating not only the music but also the visuals,” she said. “To explore not just what sound sounds like but also what it looks like … which has been a really fun creative adventure.”

In performance, Padfield is a one-woman powerhouse, using looping pedals and samples to produce a full band sound. It makes the most sense for her at the moment, keeping overhead low and her mobility flexible.

“That being said, I do love live looping, there’s such freedom in it,” she said. “I have my recipes for songs and how I make them. The cool part is, at least with the current setup I have, almost no two performances are identical. They’re similar for sure, but not identical, and that is a lot of creative freedom.”

MB Padfield
When: Sunday, July 28, 7 p.m.
Where: The Goat, 50 Old Granite St., Manchester
More: Full schedule at mbpadfield.com/tour

Featured photo: NB Padfield. Courtesy photo.