Category: Nightlife

Fall Fiddle Festival returns to CCMS

Led by faculty of Concord Community Music School, the Fall Fiddle Festival is back for its seventh year. It’ll be a lively day of workshops, jam sessions, learning, listening — and cookies. The latter is a longstanding tradition at the event, which welcomes all skill levels and promises a party atmosphere.

“The Fiddle Fest isn’t just about learning; it’s also about connecting,” Liz Faiella, Folk Department chair at CCMS, said recently. “I love getting a bunch of folk musicians together, all of us talking and playing, and it’s not really a party without cookies. You can ask any of my students how emphatically I insist on having them at our events.”

Faiella will run three workshops. Learning By Ear is aimed at novices and begins the morning. Then it’s an intermediate Jig Rhythm and Bowing Workshop, followed by an advanced gathering in the afternoon, Varying a Tune. She’ll also host the afternoon intermediate/advanced jam, Fiddle Tune Free-For-All!

As the name implies, the latter session will be wide-ranging.

“I find that there are a lot of fiddlers around here who enjoy a variety of genres and have very eclectic fiddling interests,” Faiella said. “I’m one of them, so I decided to host a jam where we can feel free to enjoy playing tunes from a mix of different folk traditions.”

Three more jams focus on regional styles; all include Faiella’s guitarist brother Dan. These are Quebecois Tunes from the New England Repertoire and Scottish Tunes! respectively with guest faculty with Pascal Gemme and Jenna Moynihan, and New England Fiddle Tunes with CCMS faculty member Audrey Budington. All three fiddlers also lead workshops.

This learning and collaboration differs from the regular CCMS curriculum.

“Fiddle Fest can be kind of a think-outside-the-box day for our students,” Faiella said. “It provides opportunities for fiddlers to jam with others if they’re not yet accustomed to that, get new techniques and perspectives from different teachers, connect with new musicians, [and] experience fiddling styles they may not have heard before.”

The evening concert is a separately ticketed event; non-musicians are encouraged to attend. It includes the faculty who participated in workshops. Joining them is Yann Falquet, a Québécois guitarist and co-founder of traditional music trio Genticorum. Faiella loves the spontaneity and surprise that’s always part of the finale.

“I’ve had the opportunity to play alongside some of the fiddlers I most admire in the evening concert,” she said. “Last year, I learned a couple of tunes and a harmony part in the days leading up to the Fiddle Fest so that I could play it along with Hanneke Cassel, a fiddler I’ve long admired. It was a rush … to play alongside someone whose music I love so much.”

The Fiddle Fest was inspired by a similar mandolin-focused event launched in the early 2000s and led by David Surette until his death in 2021. Renamed the David Surette Mandolin Festival, it continues to happen every March. Faiella remembers Surette’s love of folk music and helping others access it.

“David really built the Folk Department here,” she said. “I think about his approach to teaching and to music all the time, as we in the folk faculty try to carry on the work he started … building community, and welcoming folks of a variety of ages, experience levels, and musical interests to participate in the fun and beauty of traditional folk music.”

There’s a lot ahead at the school, she continued. “Several folk ensembles are getting underway and there’s still time to join if you want to check one out. We have a Celtic Fiddle Ensemble which I’m leading, mixed-instrument Teen and Adult Folk Ensembles, and the delightfully named Fret Friends Ensemble, for fretted instrument players.”

There’s also the Noony Tunes Folk Jam on Wednesdays, and plans are underway for a Fall Folk Gathering on Nov. 6 at 6 p.m. that will be free and open to the public. “It’ll include a slow jam, some student group performances, and then a fast jam at the end,” Faiella said. “We’ve also got a couple of Christmastime folk concerts in the works, so stay tuned!”

Fall Fiddle Festival
When: Saturday, Oct. 4, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. – concert at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Concord Community Music School, 23 Wall St., Concord
Tickets: $130 for all workshops and concert, $20-$25 for concert only at ccmusicschool.org

Featured photo: Clockwise from top left, Liz Faiella, Pascal Gemme, Jenna Moynihan, Audrey Budington.Courtesy photo.

A classic celebration with The Dreamboats

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

The musical world of The Dreamboats begins with Elvis and ends around the time The Beatles stopped touring, but the tribute quartet casts a wide net within that time frame. Their sets include everything from “Wooly Bully” to Fats Domino’s deep track “My Girl Josephine,” along with “I Saw Her Standing There,” “Jailhouse Rock” and Motown favorites.

Performing in matching attire, they exude energy onstage, dancing in sync and showing genuine passion, even if none of them were born in time for the era.

“We’re just four young guys that truly grew up loving this music,” Dreamboats front man Chris Hummel said recently. “We don’t have anything else in our lives, performance-wise, other than this band.”

The band formed 16 years ago in Ontario, Canada, after singer and guitarist Hummel met drummer Johnny “G. Whiz” Marco at a music store jam session. The two bonded over a shared appreciation of ’80s movies like La Bamba, Great Balls of Fire and Back to the Future — their name came from a Lea Thompson line in the latter film.

After years of playing in their home country and occasionally touring Europe, the band received a life-changing invitation to perform in Palm Springs in 2017. They played the kickoff party for Modernism Week, a celebration of architecture that annually attracts crowds of up to 50,000. It went over so well that they were asked back the following year.

“They said, ‘We’ve never booked the same band twice in all the years we’ve had this festival,’” Hummel recalled. “So we ripped the place up again, and we gained this staple reputation. Then we did this other thing called Camp, and had more of a response in two weeks than we did for six years back in Mississauga.”

After the pandemic decimated live entertainment and reduced The Dreamboats to just Hummel and Marco, the two made a decision to relocate.

“We had a built-in crowd here,” Hummel said to explain the move to Coachella Valley. “There’s only so many places you can play in Canada … so much more of the vibe and demographic we’re going for is all here.”

That said, it wasn’t an easy journey.

“There was a lot of stress, tears and finances we had to work through,” Hummel said. “I’m thankful we did, because now we’ve got great momentum. We’re getting a lot of gigs, I have great support on the left and right-hand side of me, and people have really fallen into the place. I feel like we’re an unstoppable machine.”

That support comes from bass player Justin Zoltek, and lead guitarist Andy Alvarez, whose stage name is Andy Zappa. In a business where tribute acts often pay the bills for musicians who’d rather make their own music, The Dreamboats are the rare exception, Hummel insists.

“This isn’t just some whipped up thing, we’re a group of guys that’s on a mission,” he said. “We honor the ones that are still with us, we try to meet up with them and play their songs and also contribute to the people that influence us that are not with us anymore. We’re always trying to keep the vibe of ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll alive.”

Their lead guitarist’s frenetic fretwork adds a modern flourish to music — Andy Zappa can shred. Beyond that, every band member gets a spotlight vocal, even though Hummel is mostly the front man. It’s a nod to The Beatles, who were the first popular band of the British Invasion partly because everyone in it was personally endearing.

Overall, they tear into the music with both studied precision and good-time gusto.

“We honor the classic way it was delivered,” Hummel stressed. “No bells and whistles, nothing crazy. Real, raw guitar, no auto-tunes, no fancy effects. What you see is what you get when it comes to us. We’re doing our best to take that original, minimal approach and still try to blow your mind in the process with everything else in the show.”

The Dreamboats

When: Saturday, Sept. 27, 7 p.m.
Where: Stockbridge Theatre, 44 N. Main St., Derry
Tickets: $33 and up at pinkertonacademy.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Multicultural Festival returns to Concord

There’s something for everyone at the 18th annual Concord Multicultural Festival happening on Sunday, Sept. 21, in Keach Park. That’s the core philosophy of the constantly evolving event. It was introduced as the Refugee Resettlement Program was altering the capital city’s demographics, according to the festival’s director.

“It was a way to introduce new cultures and our new neighbors to the community, and the best way to do that is through food, music and art — and Concord loves its festivals,” Jessica Livingston said by phone recently. “Now it’s about just celebrating the people who are here, whether you came recently or your family immigrated here many years ago.”

A high point of the celebration is a flag parade.

“Every year, we add on a couple more flags based on what’s requested, so we know what the diversity is,” Livingston continued. “We have flags from almost 80 different countries for this year, which means that we are extremely diverse here.”

It’s apparent in the entertainment. Percussive guitarist Senie Hunt came to Concord when he and his sister were adopted from war-torn Sierra Leone. He’s now in Nashville, but was so impressed by his first festival a few years ago that he’s returned since. Last year, he urged people to “come up and really see for themselves how vibrant the community can be.”

The wide and varied lineup continues with Anya Vaidya performing an ethnic Nepali dance, Afrobeats and hip-hop from Martin Toe, the soulful Nashua singer Ruby Shabazz, Roy Caceres doing Argentinian tango songs, a French-language set from the Linda Pouliot Quartet, Nusantara Kreasindo doing traditional Indonesian dance, among many others.

Barranquilla Flavor, a local group of dancers both young and adult, will perform several different styles of dance during the day, including traditional African, Afghan, Cumbia and hip-hop. The troupe is led by Sindy Chown, who is both co-chair and performance director for the festival. Chown will also do a salsa dance with her daughter, Soraya.

Chown and her daughter teach in Concord.

“She’s from Colombia, and her dance group is a diverse group of children, but anybody is welcome,” Livingston said. “They learn all kinds of different cultural dances, and they travel to other festivals in the region to perform, and it’s free for kids to participate, which is awesome.”

For many years the festival was held in front of the Statehouse. It moved to Keach Park after taking a year off due to the pandemic. Factoring into the decision was the challenge of downtown parking, and an awareness that “most of the new Americans live up on the Heights,” Livingston said, “That’s actually the most diverse neighborhood in the entire state.”

Getting people downtown from there was always difficult, she continued. “So we’re like, wait a minute, why are we down here? So we thought we should be at Keach Park, in the community, that is the most diverse. And a park is just a much better location to do a festival of this size and scope.”

Livingston has worked with the festival since 2013, something she said happened by accident. The previous organizers were organizing it one year, and she was working on a different event. “We were going to partner and host both of our events at the same time, to kind of bring in more people,” she said.

The following year, Livingston reached out to the festival’s team only to find out that they were bowing out.

“They were like, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to do it again, you can do it,’” she said. She tried availing other groups in the city, but soon learned that everyone wanted it to happen, “but nobody wanted to take the lead.”

Many were willing to help, and together they made it happen. Oddly, it was Livingston’s first Multicultural Festival, but she was hooked.

“I grew up here in Concord and was never really exposed to any other cultures,” she said. “I was a very sheltered New England girl.”

Seeing the festival come together flipped a switch, she continued.

“I just remember that day,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Is everything in place, is the DJ here, is the table set up?’ Then I stopped for a minute. There were hundreds of people there, and the vibe was just so beautiful. I just continued doing it … it kind of changed my career path.”

Concord Multicultural Festival
When: Sunday, Sept. 21, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Where: Keach Park, 20 Canterbury Road, Concord
More: concordnhmulticulturalfestival.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Celebrated sidemen share songs at Rex show

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Alone or between them, Jeff Kazee and G.E. Smith have an enviable list of credits. Keyboard player and singer Kazee was Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes’ longtime Music Director. He’s toured with everyone from Dar Williams and Bon Jovi to the Blues Brothers, and occasionally filled in for Paul Schaeffer as Late Show with David Letterman’s band leader.

Guitarist Smith has served as the secret ingredient of superstars dating back to his days with Hall & Oates, where his licks were key to the duo’s run of five straight multi-platinum albums, starting with 1980’s Voices. Beyond that, he led the SNL Band for a decade, and supported big names like David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner and Roger Waters.

The two have a history of more than 25 years playing together. They’re in Manchester for an evening that promises spontaneity.

“We get together before a gig and rehearse a set list,” Smith said in a recent Zoom chat. “But in the middle of the gig, one of us will say, ‘Hey, let’s play … boom.’ We’ve never played it together before, but we do it because we know the songs.”

Along with a multi-genre concert that includes favorites from both along with solo songs, the two will share memories of their storied and eventful careers. As Smith has no plans to write a memoir, onstage tales like the one about how he came to appear in Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” video must suffice.

“A couple times, publisher-type people talked to me about writing a book, but they want to hear salacious stuff … sex and drug stories,” he said. “That’s so boring to me; that’s not the good stuff.” More interesting is talking about rehearsing a band backing George Harrison, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash and other greats for Bob Dylan’s celebration concert in 1993.

Another was how Saturday Night Live’s practice of having the band play bumper music to fill the gap between the end of a skit and commercial became a star-studded segment, with legends like Eddie Van Halen and Muddy Waters making pop-up appearances with Smith, T-Bone Wolk and the rest of their bandmates.

Created by producer Lorne Michaels, the first few used just the SNL Band, until Smith had an idea.

“I went to Lorne and said, ‘When there’s a good guitar player in town, can I have them come and sit in?’ It became a kind of a thing. A lot of bands on the road [told] me that they’d always look to see who was playing that week with the band. That’s a cool thing.”

In a 2006 documentary about Smith, 50 Watt Fuse, he likened himself to Harry Dean Stanton with a guitar. A supporting actor, he reasoned, excels by drawing attention to the best attributes of the people he works alongside. He’s tried to do the same in his musical collaborations.

For that, he’s grateful. He also believes getting his chance is down to good fortune as much as any other factor.

“I was just lucky,” he said. “You happen to meet somebody and then that person gets you on to the next person. That’s the way my … let’s use the word ‘career’ — that’s the way my career went.”

Among his many collaborations, were there any that surprised him? “I think they all did,” Smith replied. “Because you learn from these people. There’s a reason they’re well-known. It’s because they’re talented and they’ve got something to offer, whether it’s Daryl and John or Mick Jagger, Bowie or Bob Dylan, whoever.”

Asked if there were any he’d like to do but hadn’t, Smith answered, “I always kind of wished I could have been in one of Neil Young’s bands. I did get to play with him a little bit here and there, but to really be in his band and go on the road … I think I would have done a good job at that because I love his music, and I love his guitar playing.”

An Evening With Jeff Kazee & G.E. Smith

When: Thursday, Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $35 at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: GE Smith. Courtesy photo.

Chad Price brings varied sound to Shaskeen

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

It’s fair to say that during a career that began in the mid-’80s, Chad Price has been all over the road; no one tells him to stay in his lane. He rose to prominence as the third lead singer of Descendents spinoff ALL, joining the melodic punk rockers just in time to work on their major label one-off Pummel in 1995.

He made rootsy Americana with Drag the River and led the relentless, metal-edged A Vulture Wake, while touring as a solo singer/guitarist during downtime between those projects. All the while, he’s chased a muse that’s rooted in the progressive rock of the ’70s. Lately, that’s all he really wants to do.

Last year Price sang with Mass Nerder, a Portlandia ALL/Descendents tribute band, and bonded with them over a shared love of prog rock. Inspired, he recruited drummer, guitarist and keyboardist Corey West, and Anthony Medici, a vocalist, bass and guitar player, to work on fleshing out some of his songs.

Quickly naming it The Chad Price Peace Coalition, the three recorded the 10-song album, A Perfect Pearl, releasing it in late May. Joined by touring drummer Kyle Bird Moore, the band is set to appear Sept. 5 at the Shaskeen Pub, with local favorites Lenny Lashley and the Brad Marino Band.

The new effort reflects many musical moods. The brooding “A.M.” was the album’s first single; shifting rhythms and sharp guitar flourishes drive the song. “Wake Me” has a Pink Floyd vibe, along with lovely, layered harmonies. Both tracks reveal the influences of a decade that Price regards with reverence.

In particular, he’s a big Jethro Tull fan.

“From ’70 to ’79, I don’t know any other band with a body of work like that, it’s just so good,” Price said by phone on his way to a show in Providence. “One thing that’s crazy to me is how it was possible that Tull was the biggest band in the world, yet made that very complex music.”

The rest of Perfect Pearl is wide-ranging, from gentle acoustic forays like “Alchemists,” “Sunflowers” and “Tell Me” to the ethereal power ballad “Rose.” On another note, “Tongue” lopes deceivingly then strikes hard, just like so many great bands did with their music back in the day.

“There is a sound, but we’re free to do whatever we want [and] there isn’t a specific genre,” he said. “Basically anything is fair game. I mean, listen to a Led Zeppelin record — you have your rock, your folk, you might have a little bit of reggae or something, and that’s just one album.”

When Price began working with West and Medici, they sent him a batch of ALL songs done in his new songwriting style, but the idea didn’t last. The only old stuff showing up in concert these days are from his Drag the River days. Otherwise, he sticks to the new album, and solo material like One Week Record, his most recent LP.

There’s a recent book called Sellout about the early ’90s music business feeding frenzy that Nirvana and other alternative bands spurred, and Price’s then-new band got swept up in. He has a few memories of the time, most of them good. Which isn’t a story his bandmates would likely tell.

“I was just happy to be in a touring band and play, let alone ALL, my favorite band,” he said. “It was great … we had A&R people fly us out to L.A., we got wined and dined, all this stuff did happen. I was taking in anything that was going on, just enjoying it. That question would be very different if you asked the other guys.”

The Shaskeen show came together quickly. Price had an open date, posted on social media looking for ideas, and he heard back from the Brad Marino Band. He performed solo before at the Manchester venue, and is keen to be returning with his new project.

“I do love the Shaskeen, and I wanted to play there, but I didn’t know if it was going to happen,” Price said. “I have been doing solo acoustic tours for years. Now that I have a band, it’s like, wow, let’s play a f-ing rock ’n’ roll show. We’re not guys with acoustic guitars.”

Chad Price Peace Coalition w/ Brad Marino Band and Lenny Lashley

When: Friday, Sept. 5, 9 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
More: 21+ / chadpricepeacecoalition.com

Featured photo: Chad Price Peace Coalition. Photo by Lindsey Lu McGuire.

Parmalee plays the Dana Center

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

It’s been a hard road for Parmalee.

Named for the band members’ North Carolina hometown, the group formed in 2000 and spent years finding its sound and convincing the fickle country music industry to give them a look. Then, on the eve of a big showcase for the label in 2010, their drummer was nearly killed during an attempted robbery on their tour bus.

They finally broke through, first when the partied-too-hard single “Musta Had a Good Time” cracked the Top 40 in 2012, then a year later with “Carolina,” which went platinum and hit No. 1. Ever since, they’ve earned country airplay records and built success upon success. Fans can check out their impressive catalog of songs at an upcoming concert in Manchester.

Through all the challenges, Parmalee — singer Matt Thomas and his drummer brother Scott, their cousin, bass player Barry Knox, and Josh McSwain, a longtime family friend on lead guitar — never thought about giving up. The scrappy four-piece was determined to make it, whatever it took.

“We just outworked everybody,” Matt Thomas said by phone from Indiana, the latest stop on their Fell In Love With A Cowgirl tour, named for their latest album, which came out in April. “We didn’t have the goods, we didn’t have the song back in the day. We almost had the song and it got us a little bit further.”

So they got resourceful in other ways. A 2007 showcase in Charlotte, North Carolina, was attended by an Atlantic Records bigwig. “I knew he wasn’t going to sign us,” Thomas said, but he decided he’d ask the exec for advice anyway. What would he do with Parmalee? “He said, ‘I’d send you to work with Rick Beato.’”

These days Beato is a big YouTube personality, but back then he was an insider favorite. Thomas and his mates decided to call him. “I was like, ‘Hey, Rick, we’re this band Parmalee, and we’re coming to see you.’ We played him some songs, and we had one we hadn’t finished. We played him the chorus, and he perked up.”

The song was “Carolina.” When Parmalee finally got their record deal, in 2012, they brought Beato back to help polish it to perfection, and with that, they were on their way. “Close Your Eyes” from their Feels Like Carolina album charted, and 2019’s For You produced three hits, “Just the Way,” “Take My Name” and “Girl In Mine.”

Late last year, one more track from For You hit No. 1, “Gonna Love You,” in large part because of an accompanying video. It recreated the horrific night in 2010 when Scott Thomas got into a shootout with two men trying to rob the band. Given a five percent chance of surviving, Scott was in hospital for over a month, and spent six more months in rehab.

With the clip, the band hopes press questions about the incident will finally ease up.

“It’s easy — if someone asks, we can say, ‘Go watch the video, that’s about as close to the night as we could do.’ It’s pretty spot on for the most part,” Matt Thomas said, adding, “it was good to get that off our chest.”

A month after “Gonna Love You” peaked, they dropped the new album’s first single. “Cowgirl” is starting to get some traction with fans. “It’s in the top 30, and once it hits the top 20, the audience starts doubling,” Thomas said. “You can see it reacting differently once it moves up the charts a little bit.”

Despite their history of hits, the band sometimes struggles with the industry. For example, they’ve never gotten a CMA nomination, one of the reasons Knox once wore a T-shirt reading SNUBBED in an interview. “Cowgirl” was no exception. “You have to get all the partners in streaming and radio to believe in it, even though we’ve had multiple No. 1’s,” Thomas said. “But it’s alright, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

Parmalee with Mackenzie Carpenter

When: Friday, Aug. 29, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Sullivan Arena, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester
Tickets: $35.75 and up at anselm.edu

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.