Category: Nightlife

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy hits Tupelo

Southern California in the 1980s was a melting pot of musical genres. Co-billed shows with punk bands, barrio rockers Los Lobos and twang master Dwight Yoakam were common. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy drummer Kurt Sodergren recalls seeing X and the Blasters at the country-centric Palomino Club in North Hollywood.

“It was really an exciting time and I felt like everyone was included,” he said by phone recently ahead of a May 18 show at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry. “To me, it had kind of that punk rock energy … if you want to do it, go on, let’s do it.”

This milieu was perfect for Sodergren and his friend Scotty Morris to explore a passion for swing music. With an upright bass player, they formed an unconventional trio late in the decade. Musical differences led to Dirk Shumaker taking over on bass, which led to the evolution of the band that made hits like “You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby).”

Wearing vintage suits, with Sodergren sporting bleached hair and Doc Martens boots, they served up a brand of swing that fit the cultural democracy well. “Not to knock Glenn Miller, but it wasn’t Glenn Miller, it wasn’t sleepy,” Sodergren said. “We did this one cover of ‘Sing, Sing, Sing!’ that was nothing like Benny Goodman’s version. It had all those elements, but it also had a really loud Fender Strat right by my drum set…. It was loud and exciting.”

In 1993 the band self-released an eponymous album, which led to a residency at L.A.’s famous Brown Derby. They broke out when their songs were included in the 1996 movie Swingers, signing with a major label and touring nationally. The peak of this heady time was an appearance in the 1999 Super Bowl halftime show. Writer Michael Weinreb called them “the last niche act” to grace that big stage.

The lineup included Gloria Estefan and Stevie Wonder, who drove a car onto the field. What stands out in his memory is bumping into Kiss, who’d played a pregame set. In full makeup, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers were standing near the field when Sodergren and his bandmates walked by.

“My first show was Kiss and Cheap Trick. I was a big fan, and they recognized us!” he recalled, adding that he and Peter Criss chatted for close to 15 minutes. Criss admired his drum set, a new Slingo Buddy Rich reissue. “I couldn’t believe it. If I was 12 again and said, ‘I’m going to meet Peter Criss,’ people would have laughed at me.”

Two factors fed Sodergren’s love for retro music. One, wanting to be the opposite of his older brother, a fan of bands like Foreigner and REO Speedwagon, and two, his dad’s big record collection. “He had Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall,” he said. “I heard Gene Krupa’s drumming on it and just was blown away. I would play them all the time.”

He shifted into high gear at the urging of his teacher, who “really had a lot of jazz on his mind and told me, ‘You’ve got to know this music,’” and upon learning that his grandfather once played saxophone professionally. “He’d perform in a town for like two months and stay in an apartment above the venue and travel with my grandma. When they had my dad, he had to settle down; he got a job at Montgomery Ward. He still played in the local big band, but not for a living.”

Currently in the midst of a multi-week East Coast run, the band is a big favorite in New Hampshire. Sodergren said he’s excited to be back at Tupelo Music Hall. “It’s super intimate,” he said. “You can see people’s faces, the energy is great. I don’t feel like we have to hold back. Those kinds of venues are my favorite.”

After celebrating the 30th anniversary of their 1993 debut album last year, Sodergren is keen to work on new music, but expects the Tupelo show will be a retrospective of past material.

“We’ll probably rehearse some songs at soundcheck, but [it’s] really more celebration of the 30th. We’ll try and play something from every single record,” he said.

Unique in that their original lineup is mostly intact, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy have no plans to slow down.

“We really love what we do, and we bring a really great energy to it,” Sodergren said. “We don’t just get up there and open a book and start playing a song and then politely wait for applause. People get happy in my band, and it’s pretty great.”

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
When: Saturday, May 18, 8 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $45 at tupelohall.com

Featured photo: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Courtesy photo.

Tribute show recalls landmark album

There’s a line in Joni Mitchell’s song “For the Roses” about a moment when “the lights go down and it’s just you up there, getting them to feel like that.” That’s the challenge for anyone bold enough to launch a tribute act to her. It’s better to try and convey the singular singer-songwriter’s essence. Replication is a fool’s errand; there’s only one Joni.

Further, she’s a moving target. From the spare acoustic era of “Both Sides Now” and “Circle Game” to the ethereal jazz in Hejira and Mingus, Joni Mitchell was and is always moving forward. Yet Big Yellow Taxi, a six-piece group led by singer Teresa Lorenço as Mitchell, accomplishes the not-small miracle of capturing her.

For a show in Dover on May 10, they’ll perform Mitchell’s breakthrough Court and Spark from start to finish. The 1973 album has many moods but contains a common thread, Lorenço said by phone recently: “There’s real, profound honesty and vulnerability to whatever she’s doing …. Hooking into that is what helped me make the whole thing cohesive.”

Lorenço never planned on dedicating herself to performing Mitchell’s music; she arrived by acclimation.

“I’d been singing a little bit of her songs in a duo that I was in, and people kept saying, wow, you can really do her,” she recalled. “I thought, OK, then let’s do it.”

The first iteration of Big Yellow Taxi formed in late 2019 but dissipated as the pandemic took hold. When it got safer to book shows again, she sought out new musicians and hit the jackpot. The current band convincingly channels Tom Scott & the LA Express, who Mitchell worked with on Miles of Aisles, considered by many her best live album, as well as her ethereal late ’70s band featuring Pat Metheny on guitar and bassist Jaco Pastorius.

Guitarist John Cabán has played with many musicians, from Bo Diddley to Gloria Gaynor; Robert Sherwood’s keyboard credits include beloved mid-2000s band Ware River Club. On drums is Joe Fitzpatrick, a veteran of many stage musicals, and backing singer Annie Patterson conveys the multi-tracked vocals on Mitchell’s studio albums. Finally, there’s electric bass player Rich Cahillane, who also accompanies Lorenço on acoustic songs.

Cahillane, who was also at the interview, noted a split between audience members who lean toward early Mitchell albums like Ladies of the Canyon and Blue (a favorite of Lorenço’s) versus later songs.

“Folky fans want to hear Teresa and I play acoustic guitar or dulcimer,” he said. “Then we get those wanting to hear Jaco and the jazz…. It’s hard to satisfy all her fans.”

However, accomplishing that “definitely is our goal,” Lorenço interjected. “We want to have this ability to showcase any of her stuff from any time that she was writing. We don’t really want to focus on one style or the other. It keeps it fresh for us even, because we’re consistently looking at new things.”

One of the most difficult numbers from Court and Spark is “Down To You,” she continued. “We had to make up our own way to do this fully orchestrated part in the middle, and we definitely thought of some new swear words during that time,” she said, adding with a laugh, “If Joni ever calls and needs a backup band, we want to be prepared. Only about a hundred songs more to go.”

Taking on the catalog of an icon, Lorenço understands her primary task.

“Everyone really gets the emotionality of the music, and I think that’s the most important piece, that is what I focus on,” she said. “I’m no trained musician compared to these incredible people that bless me by working with me. They talk about music theory, and I sit there with static in my mind. All I know for sure is the way she’s expressing her emotions in song. That’s what I get; that’s what I feel in me.

Big Yellow Taxi – The Music of Joni Mitchell
When: Friday, May 10, 8 p.m.
Where: The Strand, 20 Third St., Dover
Tickets: $22 and up at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Big Yellow Taxi. Courtesy photo.

Donaher back with new song, local show

In October, internet ‘zine The Hard Times called Donaher “massively underrated” and the best pop-punk band in New Hampshire, part of a nationwide survey that also included Green Day and the Ataris. It’s well-deserved praise; the Manchester quartet — lead singer and guitarist Nick Lavallee, Tristan Omand on guitar and backing vocals, bassist Adam Wood and drummer Nick Lee — plays buoyant, infectious music.

Since forming in 2017, the group has amassed a solid fan base, via its recorded output — two albums and an EP — and high-energy live shows. They’re a solid draw at local spots, on the Seacoast and down into Boston. With a sensibility harkening back to the days of Weezer and the Replacements, they acquire new adherents every time they walk on stage or leap out of a car speaker.

Their latest single, “Stay Up,” continues the trend, though unlike 2022’s sometimes dour LP Gravity and the Stars Above, this ode to wholesome lust is brimming with good vibes. There’s love in the air when Lavallee sings of wanting only to be “kissing on my couch” with his intended, presumably as a rented copy of Can’t Hardly Wait plays on the VCR. ’90s nostalgia is brimming on the song, right down to its floppy disc packaging.

Apart from time in the studio working on a new album, Donaher took the winter off, but now it’s back with a few local shows. This includes one at The Shaskeen on May 4, where, uncharacteristically, the hometown favorites are the opening band. In a recent phone interview, Lavallee said the move reflected his mood of late, as well as Donaher’s many Gen X fans.

“Let the bands in their 20s stay up late,” he said. “Their friends, and the people that come to see them, are going to be juiced up whether it’s 9 or 11:30. It doesn’t matter.”

Not that Lavallee isn’t busy; far from it. The pop culture polymath runs Wicked Joyful, a company that began by making bespoke action figures, a wildly successful effort. Most recently, comedian Jim Gaffigan commissioned one to mark a run of shows at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre. Later this year the company will open a physical store in Queen City Center, when work on the Canal Street entertainment center is completed.

He also created a campaign to recognize Manchester as the birthplace of the chicken tender. Wicked Joyful now sells Tender Town clothing that includes a T-shirt at this year’s Taco Tour in downtown Manchester on Thursday, May 2, from 4 to 8 p.m. (see tacotourmanchester.com for more information on that event). The company is both hosting a pop-up merch tent and curating a Shaskeen afterparty at the foodie event. A free 21+ show starting at 9 p.m. has the Carissa Johnson Band, indie rockers Cozy Throne and god.damn.chan playing hip-hop, trip-hop and trap.

“It’s an eclectic mix of live music to extend your Taco Tour experience,” Lavallee said.

Lavallee is an unabashed booster of his hometown.

“I love Manchester and I’m tired of hearing that Manchester has potential,” he said. “Actually, Manchester’s pretty awesome, it’s just that no one’s figured out how to elevate the awesomeness of Manchester. That’s what I’ve been trying to do the past few years, if not the past decade. It’s not about potential, it’s here.”

Of his initiative to enshrine the crispy treat invented at The Puritan restaurant, Lavallee noted, “One person said to me, ‘Oh, that just seems like low-hanging fruit.’ I was like, ‘low-hanging fruit? No one’s done it! What are you talking about?’ It’s been there for 40 to 50 years, and no one thought, ‘Hey, let’s associate a brand identity for Manchester with a food that nearly everybody loves that was created here.”

Beyond that, while linking the word “tender” to a scrappy recovered mill town seems counterintuitive to some, it makes complete sense to Lavallee. “It is this kind of rugged industrial place,” he said. “But Manchester is like a chicken tender…. It’s salty and sweet. That’s who we’re like, that’s the Manchester I know. We’re resilient, we’re a different shade of New England.”

Donaher opening for Keep Flying, Waiver & everway
When: Saturday, May 4, 8 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $10 at the door. See linktr.ee/donaher.

Featured photo: Donaher. Photo By Cat Confrancisco.

Johnny A. revisits guitar icon Jeff Beck

There’s history between guitarists Jeff Beck and Johnny A.

The two jammed together multiple times, beginning a few years back in Portland, Maine, when Beck invited Johnny A onstage after his band opened for him. Later, the Massachusetts-born axeman toured with the re-formed Yardbirds, Beck’s (and Jimmy Page’s) first band, playing all the guitar parts. Heady stuff for a guy who’d said if he could jam with anyone in the world, it wouldn’t be Jimi Hendrix or his idol John Lennon; it’d be Jeff Beck.

However, when asked in the weeks after Beck died last year to put together a band to remember him, Johnny A declined — firmly.

“I said, I’m not really into doing tribute things, first of all, and b, the guy is not really copyable,” he recalled in a recent phone interview. “He [the promoter] called me again and I turned him down. Then he called me again.”

By then, he’d thought more about his time playing songs like “For Your Love” and “Shapes of Things,” and conceded the tireless promoter might have a point. “He said, ‘Hey, listen, you played in the Yardbirds for three years. The reviews I’ve seen of you capturing that era of music with those guitar players were always very, very positive.’”

He agreed to consider putting a band together but made clear it would not be a tribute.

“I’d approach it like I approached the Yardbirds … pay respect to the artist, don’t really try to copy, try to conjure the spirit of the music, and keep my own personality injected in there somehow,” he said.

The result is Beck-Ola, a band named after the guitarist’s second solo album. It includes the rhythm section from his trio, drummer Marty Richards and bassist Dean Cassell, singer Mike Gill (Beyond Purple) and keyboard player Steve Baker. The latter is a great fit for Beck’s jazz fusion era, having played with Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham and Allan Holdsworth.

The two-week tour, which will include a Saturday, April 27, show at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth and a Sunday, April 28, show at the Nashua Center for the Arts will focus exclusively on Beck’s solo career.

“We’re doing 21 songs from different albums that go all the way back to Truth; nothing really from the Yardbirds,” he said. “I’m calling it ‘A Celebration of the Music of Jeff Beck,’ because we’re trying to capture the spirits of different eras.”

He plans to follow the guitar legend’s unique approach to his material.

“He never really played melodies the same way twice, they were always interpreted like a singer would sing a song, differently every time,” he said. “Even though it’s really the same melody, the inflections and the nuances and the phrasing are altered.”

It’s an approach he’s had since taking up guitar in the mid-1960s.

“I’m influenced by a lot of people but it’s more about what makes them tick,” he said. “If you can conjure up that little spark … maybe re-imagine that energy and bring it to your own playing. Maybe it echoes the personality that you’re trying to, I wouldn’t say emulate, but pay tribute to.”

The final two nights of the brief tour will be special, as Beck-Ola co-headlines with Journeyman, an Eric Clapton tribute led by young phenom Shaun Hague.

“Fans of British blues rock guitar will get their fill,” he said, adding, “I think people will like it, if they come out and have an open mind and they like the music of Jeff Beck, and they miss it.”

Songs will span from the days when Rod Stewart sang lead on “Morning Dew” and “Ain’t Superstitious” to the revelatory instrumental albums Wired and Blow by Blow, and beyond. But Johnny A. re-affirmed that costume changes won’t be part of the show.

“I’m not getting a shag haircut and I’m not wearing metal arm bands,” he said. “It’s going to be a band that’s paying homage, hopefully respectfully, to a great artist and iconic guitarist.”

British Guitar Blowout – Beck-Ola and Journeyman
When: Sunday, April 28, 7 p.m.
Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua
Tickets: $29 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Shaskeen show latest from busy promoter

An upcoming four-act show at Manchester’s hub for alt rock promises to be a raucous affair. Atop the bill is Wargraves, a punk rock powerhouse featuring members from gone but well-remembered area bands The Caught Flies and Ready Steady Torpedo. Building on the success of last year’s debut album One Last Look Upon the Sky, Dust Prophet will provide direct support for the headliner.

Opening the show are Conduit and ThunderHawk, the latter making its first appearance in a long time. A doomy, metal-edged quartet, they released an EP in 2014, Do Or Die with five originals and a faithful cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” They haven’t performed since mid-2018, though their Facebook page shows they were in the studio later that year.

Otto Kinzel, front man of Dust Prophet, said that his band and Conduit have shared the stage before and have plans to hit the road together later this year. “They’re from the school of Tool in the Ænima era, very proggy but also very heavy,” he said in a recent phone interview. “We have sort of the same vibe as we’re also becoming much heavier.”

Kinzel continued that the self-described stoner rock band’s metallic shift began when he moved to lead vocals and Jason Doyle took over on guitar. They’ve written several songs that reflect this more aggressive sound, along with re-recording four tracks from the first record for a new EP. “The album was in drop C and now we’re playing in drop B,” he said. “It’s got a harder edge.”

The show is presented by Kinetic City Events, a Manchester-based promotion company that’s long hosted the semi-regular Live Free or Cry emo night at the Shaskeen. In recent months it’s expanded to new cities as well as genres. Live Free or Cry will happen at Tandy’s Pub in Concord on April 27, and a nu-metal show at Bank of NH Stage was just booked for late summer.

Kinetic City head Aaron Shelton said in a recent email that his company’s growth includes events in Lowell, Mass., which bodes well for the scene overall.

“New and developing relationships … should allow me to open up more opportunities for local bands,” Shelton said. “I’ve done shows in New Hampshire for over 20 years, but I’ve grown more in the last five than the prior 15 combined.”

It’s a welcome injection of energy for the underground music scene, Kinzel concurred.

“When we played Shaskeen this past November, he’s the one that booked it, and it was an awesome night,” Kinzel said. “Aaron is throwing some great shows; well-attended too, people are coming, and not just to drink, but to have a good time and be engaged with the music. Very enthusiastic and active crowds. It’s been fun.”

A problem that has beset local shows in the past, one band’s fans leaving as soon as their favorite finishes its set, seems less likely if Kinzel’s enthusiasm for the upcoming show’s line-up is any indication. He’s clearly a fan of Conduit but also of the other two groups on the bill.

ThunderHawk will “come out throwing haymakers in terms of getting the audience ready,” he said. “They’re a band that has a massive vibe, the rhythm is in the pocket, it’s tight; I think people are going to have their socks blown off by them. And then Wargraves is just super heavy; they’re going to just come out and annihilate.”

Shelton is equally energized by his latest effort.

“We’re very excited about the show, as it’s a collection of some of the best bands of this genre in the area,” Shelton said. “Not only are Dust Prophet, Wargraves and Conduit killing it, but it’s also the triumphant return of ThunderHawk.”

Wargraves, Dust Prophet, Conduit & ThunderHawk
When: Saturday, April 20, 9 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
More: $10 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Dust Prophet. Courtesy photo.

Challenging comedy from Daniel Sloss

Jokes can be made about anything, Daniel Sloss believes; nothing is off-limits. Among the topics the Scottish comedian has tackled are his sister’s death from cerebral palsy, toxic masculinity and a close friend being raped by a man they both knew. What’s most remarkable is that his act comes off as a TED Talk with punchlines — pain that’s very, very funny.

Speaking via Zoom recently, Sloss said he strives for balance on stage.

“I think you can and should make jokes about anything, but just because you’re making fun of something … doesn’t mean you have to be disrespectful or disparaging,” he said. “You can be provocative and empathetic at the same time; I think there’s a responsibility on the comedian to do both.”

In 2018’s Jigsaw, he mocked relationships with brutal efficiency. “We have romanticized the idea of romance, and it is cancerous,” he snarled. “People are more in love with the idea of love than the person they are with.” Acknowledging this would lead most to break up with their partners, he said, and asked for anyone who decoupled to let him know.

Hundreds of thousands of replies arrived, among them requests to autograph divorce papers. Sloss celebrated this outcome when he taped his Socio special in 2019. Since then, however, he’s married and welcomed a son. As he prepared to launch an American tour of his latest show Can’t, he sounded almost sheepish.

Jigsaw was, he said, “a very angry show [written] after a particularly bad breakup. I didn’t know it was going to have the effect it did, but I’m very glad it did. It does mean that whenever I talk about my wife on stage, people are like, ‘Oh, you’re a hypocrite’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe I have to explain this again.’ But … that’s the job.”

It’s work Sloss began doing at a young age, achieving quick success early on. He was 17 when he did his first sets; two years later, in 2009, his Teenage Kicks show made him the youngest comic to have a solo run in London’s West End. So his rant on modern love may just have been a twentysomething’s passion talking, though he claims data proves him right.

In Socio he turned his knives on woker-than-thou leftism, noting that the right doesn’t mandate a check in every box on their list. “You don’t hate gay people? That’s OK, you’ll learn,” he quipped. “Welcome aboard.” In the new show, Sloss expands on that, going after cancel culture, or more to the point, disassembling the popular notion of getting canceled.

“People lose bits of work because of things that they’ve said in the past due to some people going on the internet to dig up all their old dirty history, and I acknowledge that,” he said. “I do think there’s a lot of false flags. I think a lot of comedians claim they’re being canceled when they’re not. They’re just getting online feedback to a degree we’ve never had before.”

Having just returned from a tour of India, where people are arrested for criticizing the government, it’s clear Sloss finds the many snowflakes on this side of the world a bit daft. “We met a guy in Turkey who made a joke about some ancient prophet, and it wasn’t even particularly offensive, but one person took umbrage, and he spent 10 days in jail. I’ve seen the cost and the consequences of real cancel culture.”

That said, Sloss loves coming Stateside, and looks forward to traveling by bus with his family as his tour kicks off April 11 in Laconia.

“In America, I can make fun of any president that’s ever been,” he said. “I can say really awful things about them.” But he especially enjoys the many contrarians who attend his shows.

“As much as people feel like people are more sensitive than they’ve ever been, I’m also finding that because of that, there is the other side of the spectrum where people are like, ‘You can say whatever you want, we don’t care,’” Sloss said. “They want me to know that they’re not all soft and easily offended. Those are the people I try to make laugh.”

Daniel Sloss
When: Thursday, April 11, 8 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $39 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.