Page 13

Sox sweep Yanks

The Big Story – Sox Shock Everyone: OK, did the Sox finally get the spark that has been missing all year by winning four straight over their archrivals over the weekend and finishing it in dramatic fashion Sunday by rallying for three runs in the 10th after going down 4-2 in the top half of the inning to win 5-4? Or is it an illusion for a team that’s played mostly awful all year turning it around at the expense of a struggling, injured opponent to be a viable playoff contender? Time will tell on that, starting with Washington and last-place L.A. of Anaheim and the world this week.

But one thing is certain: The pitching is looking better by the day with youngsters Connelly Early (6.0, 5 hits, 2 runs), Payton Tolle (7.0, 1, 0 r), Jake Bennett (6.1, 3 h, 1 r) along with the excellent all year Sonny Gray ( 7.0, 1 h, 0 r) dazzling all at Fenway this weekend.

Sports 101: Who was the first person elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame who played Little League baseball?

News Item – Celtics Lose Giannis Sweepstakes: The Greek Freak is one my favorite players to watch, ever, and one of the best players in the NBA who would have looked great in a Celtics uniform. But losing Giannis Antetokounmpo to Miami was the phew momentof the week. Because so is Jaylen Brown, and the asking price of him and two first-round picks for a guy who’ll be 35 when the new extension is done would have been nuts.

News Item – World Cup Update: (1) With two wins to start and a “we need to be fresh in the next round” loss to Turkey in Game 3 they moved up in their power ranking from 24 at the start to 13 on Monday. (2) Canada advanced to the knockout round for the first time ever. (3) The great Lionel Messi scored his World Cup record 19th goal in Argentina’s 3-1 win over Jordan. (4) Next up for USA was 28th-ranked Bosnia-Herzegovina in their knockout round opener Wednesday (July 1) at 8 p.m. (locally) in SF.

News Item – NBA Draft and News Notes: (1) Nashua’s Ebuka Okorie became the earliest New Hampshire player ever taken in the NBA draft when he was taken 17th by the Detroit Pistons. Boo-ya, young fella. (2) The Celtics took one-and-done 6’11” project out of Houston Chris Cenac with the 27th pick. (3) All-Stars rumored to possibly be on the move are Ja Morant, Jamal Murray and Anthony Davis (again). (4) Golden State is reportedly after Davis as a way of luring free agent LeBron James to move north.

The Numbers:

105.5 – highest ever miles per hour thrown by dynamic Brewers hurler Jacob Misiorowski with a pitch he threw in last Friday’s 6-2 win over the Cubs.

33,353 – a non-sellout crowd with 4,000 empty seats vs. the Yankees Friday, showing how far the Sox have fallen from the good old SRO days at Fenway.

… Of the Week Awards

Thumbs Up – Patrice Bergeron: The elegant Bruins center gets it after being elected to the hockey Hall of Fame, as he was a great player and a great example of what the sport has to offer.

Thumbs Down – Devers Insubordination Act – The Sequel: Always team first Rafeal Devers did it again. This time by initially refusing to leave for a pinch runner with the Giants trailing Miami 2-1 in the ninth. He eventually gave in and later said it was a “mis-communication.” What a guy.

Random Thoughts:

Marcelo Mayer getting hurt (again) after finally moving to his natural shortstop position is like Jimmy Garoppolo getting KOd in Game 2 of Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension.

Sports 101 Answer: The famous Long Island product and Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski is the first LL player to make the Hall. He played for the Bridgehampton Lions on LI’s east end.

Final Thoughts – C’s Going Forward:

Fortunately for Celtic Nation, Brad Stevens is not nuts and wouldn’t go any higher than his final offer for Brown, which Milwaukee rejected.

Now he can work on filling their needs: (1) rearrangement of their salary cap, which could mean Brown or Jayson Tatum still could get moved; (2) building better, ready-for-action depth; (3) filling or fortifying the hole in the middle that was obvious playing Joel Embiid in their playoff loss to Philly.

With Naz Reid the top center target out after being traded, it needs to be at least two good players for one and first-round draft picks to give ammo for a future deal.

Up to six teams are kicking the tires, but Portland seems most interested. So how about Tatum to Portland for Deni Avdija (24.9 – 6.9-6.2), Jerami Grant (matching salary), their 2027 first-round pick and 2028, 2030 pick swaps they have from Milwaukee — who will likely stink for a long time after that awful return from Miami for Giannis.

Finally, happy 250th birthday, America!

Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.

News & Notes 26/07/02

Wanna build a plane?

The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire is seeking a school to participate in the museum’s plane-build program for the 2027-2028 school year, according to a press release.

“The plane-build program is open to any educational institution enrolling students of high school age, including public, private, charter, and parochial schools” in New Hampshire or in Essex or Middlesex counties in Massachusetts, the release said. The museum has partnered with the Manchester School of Technology, Lebanon High School and Farmington High School to build two-seat all-metal aircrafts as part of a credit-earning course, with the airplane then sold to raise funds for future aircraft builds, the release said.

“The Aviation Museum of N.H. will commit to raising start-up funds of $320,000 needed to launch the plane-building program, after which it will be self-funding,” the release said. “The Aviation Museum will also supply a team of trained adult mentors with backgrounds in the aviation or aerospace industries to work alongside the students.” The project usually takes students two school years to finish, the release said.

“Interested districts are asked to submit a proposal to be considered. A copy of the Request for Proposals may be downloaded online at aviationmuseumofnh.org. Proposals are due by Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026,” the release said.

Friendly flix

Red River Theaters in Concord will launch “Popcorn & Pacifiers” weekly screenings for caregivers and children under the age of two on Tuesday, July 7, according to a press release. “Popcorn & Pacifiers screenings will take place every Tuesday at 10 a.m., offering an opportunity for parents, grandparents, and other caregivers to enjoy first-run films in a welcoming and family-friendly environment. … To better accommodate families, auditorium lights will remain at half brightness throughout the screening and films will be played at a quieter volume, allowing caregivers to comfortably tend to their children as needed,” the release said. “Films will be selected from Red River Theatres’ current first-run offerings and will be announced weekly as part of the theater’s regular schedule. Standard admission rates apply for caregivers; children under 2 are admitted free,” the release said. The first screenings will feature Toy Story 5, Supergirl and Backrooms, according to the theater.

Wildcats tix

Single-game tickets and parking for the six 2026 home football games of the University of New Hampshire Wildcats are on sale including for games on Homecoming (Oct. 3) and Family Weekend (Oct. 17), according to a press release. See unh.short.gy/FBTickets26. “Season and half-season ticket packages are also on sale now at that link,” the release said.

NH Film Fest

Passes for the 24th New Hampshire Film Festival are on sale at nhfilmfestival.com, according to a press release. Passes for the festival, which will run Thursday, Oct. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 18, in Portsmouth, include a VIP pass (which offers special events and priority seating) as well as a festival pass (which includes entry to screenings, panels, ceremonies and workshops) and a NextGen pass for festival goers ages 40 and under, according to the website. “he festival continues to be an Academy Award® qualifying festival for the Short Film Awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” the press release said.

Friday, July 3, from 4 to 8 p.m. is “First Friday Audiobook Night” at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, according to gibsonsbookstore.com. “Join us … for some quiet audiobook time! Bring a quiet craft, a puzzle, a coloring book, or just yourself, pop in your headphones and get some quality audiobook listening time,” the website said.

The 43rd Annual Seacoast Jazz Festival will take place Saturday, Aug. 22, noon to 6 p.m. at Prescott Park in Portsmouth featuring Yoko Miwa Trio (noon), Soggy Po’ Boys (1:15 p.m.), Nick Grondin Group (2:30 p.m.), Kristalis y Las Nenas del Swing (3:50 p.m.) and Seacoast Big Band (5 p.m.), according to a press release. See prescottpark.org.

Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, will be at the Nashua Center for the Arts on Tuesday, July 7, at 7:30 p.m. in a discussion with Tom E. Curran of NBC Sports Boston, according to balinbooks.com, where you can find a link to purchase tickets, which include a copy of the book Cancel Me If You Can.

Tickets are on sale now for screenings of 1975’s Jaws at Chunky’s in Manchester Friday, July 24, through Wednesday, July 29, at 7:30 p.m. See chunkys.com.

Summer of Music— 06/25/2026

on the cover

Summer is a great season to head to a concert or five. Michael Witthaus takes a look at the shows on the schedules at bigger area venues and talks with folks at the Tupelo Music Hall and the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom. Above and on the cover is the YellowHouse Blues Band (photo by Chris Cote Photography courtesy the band), which is slated to play the Tupelo Music Hall on Saturday, July 18, among other local dates according to their website, yellowhousebluesband.com. Catch them Saturday, June 27, at Concord’s Market Days; they will be on the main stage from 6 to 8 p.m.

Also on the cover Michael also talks to the Currier about their “Summer of Photography” featuring two exhibits — “Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders” and “Together, Apart, Away: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection” both offering a window into time (page 13). John Fladd talks to an organizer at the Hollis Strawberry Festival and Town Band Concert (page 16). John also gets the details about Market Days — the three-day celebration of food, music and more in downtown Concord (page 14).

Read the e-edition

News & Notes 26/06/25

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Jessie’s version

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Music as a movement

Martin Toe brings activism and Afrobeats to BNH Stage

There’s no line between work and music for Martin Toe, the organizer and hip-hop artist behind albums like Civic Leader and last year’s Love Is Godly. Alongside fellow New Hampshire artists B. Snair, Vincent Tesoro and Marxo Phenix, Toe performs in Concord on June 27 in a show that’s both a homecoming and a statement about the state’s music scene.

Toe has been organizing for over a decade, first as an intern with American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker social-justice group. Later, he co-founded Change for Concord (later rebranded as Hope Project New Hampshire) and eventually landed at the Granite State Organizing Project, bringing together faith leaders and communities of color across the state.

In a recent Zoom interview, he described the connection between his day job and performing as natural and vital.

“It’s super authentic for me, it doesn’t feel like work,” he said when asked how organizing feeds his songwriting. “What I say in my music doesn’t feel forced. I have an endless pool of inspiration to pull from because I am interacting with that world every single day.”

The BNH Stage show won’t be Toe’s first time in the Concord listening room. He headlined a Black History Month Unity concert there in February 2023 with friend and collaborator Destin Boy. He said this lineup came together through a series of Zoom calls among artists who’d long wanted to work together but hadn’t had the chance.

“The music scene can seem very scattered here in New Hampshire, but I think the state’s working very hard to pull artists together and highlight … a very talented pool of artists that we have,” he said, adding that despite sharing a stage, the three acts don’t sound alike, and that’s the point.

“These guys pull from all different sorts of creative spaces, and the music is not the same, which is awesome,” he said. “Phenix might throw some R&B stuff in there, more of the funk vibes. B. Snair comes in with a fusion mix of rock and hip-hop. Then you got me in there with the Afrobeats and hip-hop.”

What unites them, he said, isn’t genre but geography and circumstance, a shared expression of having grown up in New Hampshire, and an instinct to write about real life.

“Whether it’s the cost of rent or groceries,” he said. “We’re trying to paint a picture of, yeah, we can have fun. At the same time, we can feel what’s happening emotionally across the state.”

History and hope permeate many of Toe’s songs. On “Free,” a standout track from Love Is Godly, he sings “Can’t you see, 1847 we’re free,” referencing Liberia’s declaration of independence — the African country was founded that year by former slaves from the United States.

The song then gently moves in a meditation on what that may have felt like. “Sweet Liberty Bell is ringing from the high seas, whistling through the high trees,” he continues. “Let them know for sure that I am free.” And for Toe, freedom isn’t an abstraction, it’s something he’s writing from memory.

When he was 7, Toe and his family were forced to flee when civil war fighting reached his Ivory Coast town, part of the broader Ivorian and Liberian conflict that displaced hundreds of thousands.

“It was very difficult,” he recalled. “The sound of gunshots, seeing smoke billowing in the air, and fleeing, not knowing if you’re ever going to go back.” He still carries that experience vividly, and it shapes how he talks to his American friends who grew up without knowing war firsthand.

“War leaves a wound, and whenever specific stories come up, it festers that wound again,” he said. “Then, you have to sit with it … let it heal.”

Music is, for him, part of healing, and a reminder — to fight for peace and be sure that life’s beauty isn’t taken for granted. That spirit continues with a forthcoming album, The Gaffa, due to drop on Aug. 28, the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. It opens with MLK’s voice, saying he’s tired of marching for what should have been his at birth.

What follows are fierce lyrics, about “boardrooms that feel like a battlefield” and a generation organizing for a seat, or as Toe puts it, deciding to “move the whole table” instead. It’s a fitting next step from an artist who’s spent a decade learning that the fight for dignity and the urge to make music have never really been separate.

Martin Toe, B. Snair & Vincent Tesoro, Marxo Phenix
When: Saturday, June 27, 8 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $18, ccanh.com

Featured photo: Martin Toe. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 26/06/25

• Chicken man: During the pandemic, when his business travel corporate job went to Zoom, Joe Fenti found the funny in a fake company he created called Fenti Fried Chicken, posting a series of increasingly popular TikToks. His Jeremy Allen White “Yes, Chef!” bit got 12 million hits. He left workaday life for standup comedy and hasn’t looked back. Partner, his first special, just came out on YouTube. Friday, June 26, 8 p.m., BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St, Concord, $39, ccanh.com.

• Blues therapy: After two comedy shows, Manchester’s newest venue offers music, with Tom Hambridge, a multiple Grammy winning drummer, including for this year’s traditional blues album, Buddy Guy’s Ain’t Done With the Blues. His own LP, Down the Hatch, was the recent nominee for Blues Rock Album of the Year as well. New England favorites Blues Express open the show. Saturday, June 27, 7 p.m., Queen City Center, 215 Canal St., Manchester, $35, eventbrite.com.

• Sail away: Celebrate summer’s start as the Scott Spradling Band plays Yacht Rock With a Twist, a brassy take on the genre that wasn’t when songs like “Ride Like the Wind” and “Rosanna” were new; two filmmakers coined the name for a documentary. At least one musician didn’t love it — Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, who had a two-word NSFW answer when asked for a comment. Saturday, June 27, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $34, palacetheatre.org.

• Helping hands: To benefit a Manchester-based charity, the Pinnacle Foundation Country Fest features Whiskey 6 Trio, a rare appearance from local hero and The Voice veteran Josh Logan, Slip Shot, and Justin Bethune. The sixth annual fundraiser aims to fight homelessness, promote financial literacy and a path to homeownership, and support area veterans. Sunday, June 28, 12:30 p.m., Auburn Pitts Bar & Grille, 167 Rockingham Road, Auburn, $25, pinnaclefoundationnh.org.

Jessie’s version

Toy Story 5 returns to fun

Summer is kids-in-the-movie-theater-air-conditioning time and Toy Story 5 offers a fun, very solidly built family moviegoing option.

I was a little apprehensive about Toy Story 5 (in theaters) largely because Toy Story 4 (streaming on Disney+ if you’re a completist)felt to me like someone at Pixar having an empty-nester, career-change crisis and trying to work it out with the toys. Toy Story 5 feels much more like an episode of Toy Story with our familiar characters having an adventure — with of course, the occasional Pixar gut punch.

Here, Jessie (voice of Joan Cusack) takes the lead of the story. She is the sheriff of the now elementary-school-aged Bonnie’s (voice of Scarlett Spears) toy room and one of Bonnie’s favorite toys to feature in her wild adventures. But these adventures just feature Bonnie and her toys — she is shy around other kids, most of whom seem to spend their“play” time on devices rather than with toys. Seeking to help their daughter break out of her shell, Bonnie’s parents buy her a Lilypad (voice of Greta Lee), a kids’-iPad-like toy with a vaguely M3gan-esque aggressively positive voice. The girls in Bonnie’s dance class all hang out on their Lilypads, playing games together in the morning. Lily is determined to help Bonnie make friends with them, learn the emoji-based inside jokes and give up on lame old toys. But Jessie knows that Bonnie needs a friend with similar interests to really connect and isn’t willing to let Lily take over.

Eventually, Jessie and her horse Bullseye wind up out in the world, running into new toys including earlier generations of tech toys that have been just as discarded as their analog brethren, including Smarty Pants (voice of Conan O’Brien), a toilet training toy. Meanwhile, Woody (voice of Tom Hanks), thinking Jessie needs his help, shows up at Bonnie’s room about the time Buzz (voice of Tim Allen) realizes that Jessie is missing.

Even though this is basically Jessie’s story, Buzz gets some nice bits of running story: with the recent marriage of Forky (voice of Tony Hale) to his plastic knife wife Karen Beverly (voice of Melissa Villaseñor), Buzz wants to propose to Jessie. And, in the movie’s opening scenes, we see a shipping container of next-generation Buzz Lightyears wash up on an island where they activate and try to figure out their mission. These scenes, which are intercut with the central action of the movie, bring a nice cartoon-antics quality to this movie. For all that the movie deals with some big issues — toys battling screens for the attention (and affection and imagination) of kids, kid-on-kid bullying facilitated by those screens, the idea that the screens are pushing kids to act grownup too fast — most of the movie is able to do this while still being lively and kid-fun, not just adult clever. The result is a movie with beloved characters that is truly enjoyable for everyone in the family.

Looking for more kid-friendly fare this summer? Here are some of the PG-rated movies slated for summer release:

• Minions & Monsters The next entry in the Minions universe opens July 1.

• MoanaDisney is going to keep making these unnecessary live-action adaptations, I guess. The Rock returns as live-action Maui on July 10.

• Paw Patrol: The Dino MovieNo job too big, no pup too small — Aug. 14.

• The Magic Faraway Tree A live-action adventure based on the books by Enid Blyton opens on Aug. 21.

• Coyote vs. Acme Trailers suggest a Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-like blend of live action and the Looney Tunes characters. See it Aug. 28.

Featured photo: Toy Story 5.

Sox sweep Yanks

News & Notes 26/07/02

Summer of Music— 06/25/2026

Music as a movement

The Music Roundup 26/06/25

Jessie’s version

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