The Music Roundup 26/06/11

• Blue adieu: Celebrating a 60-plus-year career, Judy Collins is on her final Sweet Judy Blue Eyes tour, the name a nod to the breakup song that Stephen Stills wrote for her (his title itself a double pun). Collins is a legendary singer whose string of hits commenced with her cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and includes “Send in the Clowns” and “Since You Asked.” Thursday, June 11, 7:30 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $61.50 and up at ccanh.com.

• Bass man: Anyone who’s intent on eating all the yogurt in a container will get the title of Aaron Bilodeau’s new record Lid Licker. The Milford-based experimental bass player, who weaves live effects, vocal tracks and other groovy sounds into his sets, will mark the LP’s release at a Seacoast listening room. If the teaser song “The Passenger” is any indication, it’s good one. Friday, June 12, 7 p.m., Button Factory Stage, 909 Islington St., Portsmouth, $10, portsmouthnhtickets.com.

• All there: A pair of local favorites share the stage as the Faith Ann Band and J3ST perform. Now a trio, female-fronted TFAB is a raucous live act, with songs like the punchy “Say Less” and the slightly sinister love ode “Route 2” raising the energy. J3ST is an organ-forward band, with Tom Robinson playing a vintage Hammond, with guitarist Scott Solsky and Jared Steer on drums. Friday, June 12, 9 p.m., Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord, thefaithannband.com.

• Dead ringers: Over the years, the unique tribute act Bearly Dead has been joined by everyone from Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to Jerry Garcia’s Wolf guitar, which BD’s Nick Swift once played on Garcia’s birthday. The band does Dead songs and honors each member individually, while also performing songs from prominent artists like Talking Heads and Phish. Saturday, June 13, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $40, palacetheatre.org.

• Engines roar: It’s Bike Week in the Lakes Region, and active rock stalwarts Leaving Eden are always a mainstay at the annual gathering. Their performances over the week — they’re there every day — include a couple by their alter ego Silver Springs, an excellent Fleetwood Mac tribute band. Lead singer Eve Gynan does a great job as Stevie Nicks, along with belting out powerful hard rock. Sunday, June 14, 8 p.m., Hawg’s Pen Café, 114 Route 11, Farmington, leavingeden.com.

Com! Rom! and more

A look at Office Romance and other streaming fare

I like a rom-com that doesn’t skimp on the com.

Office Romance (R) is a movie written by Brett Goldstein (best-known perhaps as the gruff “he’s every-[bleeping]-where” Roy Kent on Ted Lasso) and Joe Kelly, whose writer/co-creator credits on IMDb include Ted Lasso and Detroiters. Despite being a Netflix release (on June 5) this movie is of theatrical release quality with a sensibility that hits a nice middle space between expected rom-com beats and the kookier sense of humor of those involved. And, in case years of superstardom and the Affleck of it all have caused you to forget, Jennifer Lopez is actually pretty good at kooky.

Here she plays Jackie Cruz, the CEO of Cruz Air, who has successfully guided the company but is still called “Gordita” by her father, Jack Cruz (Edward James Olmos), the airline’s founder, during meetings with a board of directors that is tepid on her leadership. When expansion plans lead to a frivolous lawsuit by a competing airline, Jackie meets in-house lawyer Daniel (Goldstein), asked to handle the case when the company’s head attorney (Bradley Whitford, clearly having fun doing the most) is sidelined due to a breakfast burrito mishap. Daniel and Jackie very quickly realize their mutual attraction but, in the face of the company’s “zero tolerance for intraoffice dating” policy, they know they can’t act on it. So, of course, they get drunk on a work trip and wind up in bed. The no-dating policy is really only part of the obstacle to their romance, most of which is silly, but Goldstein and Lopez have nice romantic chemistry and even better comedy chemistry as a duo involved in romance-tinged goofiness.

For me the movie’s MVP is Betty Gilpin, who plays Jackie’s extremely pregnant assistant Sydney. The role has that “early aughts Judy Greer role” vibe but Gilpin brings her specific brand of delightful lunatic intensity. Betty Gilpin is always the MVP — whether she’s intimidating Goldstein whilst in labor, as she does here, or playing a colonial era woman whose desire to escape spinsterhood leads her to marry a man who is possibly in league with the devil on a plague-ridden island (watch Apple’s Widow’s Bay, a weird-fun horror series in which Gilpin has an excellent one-episode appearance).

Office Romance is a goes-down-easy movie that seems to have put fun first — offering solid comedy along with its reality standard romance.

Elsewhere in the streamingplex is Miss You, Love You (TV-MA, streaming on HBOMax as of May 29). Allison Janney is Diane, a woman grieving her husband who just died after a battle with Parkinson’s. She is putting together his funeral and, while she’d like her son to help her, what she gets is his assistant Jamie (Andrew Rannells). With the exception of a little Bonnie Hunt here and Oscar Nunez there, this movie is mostly Janney and Rannells talking to, talking past and dealing with each other in the days leading up to the funeral — so much so that I assumed this was the adaptation of a play. It doesn’t appear to be — it was written as a screenplay and directed by Jim Nash, probably still best recognized from his role as the dean on Community, according to Wikipedia.

Though Diane and Jamie’s relationship seems straightforward — she’s a new widow, angry that her son has sent an assistant instead of coming to care for her himself, and he’s the assistant sent, like it or not — both of their backstories are more complicated than that.

“I like seeing Allison Janney like this” was a thought I had early in the movie, by which I think I meant I like seeing Allison Janney just acting, just doing the work as a smart, articulate woman without some other bit of daffy business stacked on the role. Her performance here is precise — you understand immediately who Diane is and then get to know her in a way that deepens that understanding. Janney and Rannells play off each other well, both when the characters are getting along and when they’re fighting. It’s really enjoyable to watch even if it’s watching people move through varying stages of grief.

The Home is also sort of about grief — is a not completely untrue thing a person could say about this oddball horror movie that allegedly was in theaters last summer and is currently streaming on Hulu. The Home stars Pete Davidson, of all unlikely people, whose character, Max, comes to work at a retirement home as part of a community service sentence for doing socially conscious graffiti. Max immediately begins seeing and hearing strange things as he gets to know the residents including those played by John Glover and Mary Beth Peil (Grams from Dawson’s Creek, among her many credits). For the movie’s first half, Max sort of ambles through increasing creepiness and gore, both real and (possibly) in dreams, responding somewhat like his Chad character from the Saturday Night Live sketches (fun fact: there actually was a Chad horror movie sketch and it features John Mulaney — it’s fun!). Then Max begins a campaign of obsessive observation of the residents with a series of hidden video cameras and breaking into spaces he shouldn’t go, quickly followed by a left turn into Bonkersville.

There is a world in which all of that, especially the turn into Bonkersville, could have been a wild Malignant-like ride of horror tropes and operatic goofiness. But it doesn’t quite get there; it has some “huh, that’s a fun idea” beats but can’t pull it all together into something that transcends its weaker moments.

For a look at a story in a retirement living situation that does transcend its bumpier elements — and, frankly, the reason I’m talking about The Home at all — check out The Boroughs. This eight-episode Netflix series also has something strange happening at a retirement community — the New Mexico-set The Boroughs, which feels similar to The Villages in Florida, and its full-time care facility The Manor. (This show was the reason I thought “maybe?” when coming across The Home.) In The Boroughs, Boomers drive golf carts around a resort-like setting and engage in day drinking and promiscuity. In the nearby Manor, those with memory and cognitive difficulties wait at prop bus stops and peacefully serve each other yarn-filled mugs of “coffee.” But in both places, the settings feel a little too gentle and the staff is a little too aggressively positive. The why of it all is imperfect but the stacked cast makes the show worth sticking with: Alfred Molina as the newest resident; Jena Malone as his daughter; Alfre Woodard, Clark Peters, Denis O’Hare and Geena Davis as his neighbors, and Bill Pullman, Ed Begley Jr., Anna Deavere Smith, Jane Kaczmarek and Mary McDonnell making appearances. It is, as many reviewers have observed, a murderers’ row of performers who absolutely make everything they’re given at least 30 percent better. Skip The Home and watch The Boroughs.

Also streaming on Hulu is In Cold Light (R), which Wikipedia indicates had some sort of release earlier this year. This movie is, as the title indicates, chilly and didn’t feel fully developed but I enjoyed it for the downbeat crime & family drama it is. Maika Monroe plays Ava, vibrating with barely contained rage, sadness and fear at all times. Just released from prison, Ava tries the law-abiding citizen route for like a minute before she tries to return to the drug business she ran with her twin brother Tom (Jesse Irving). She quickly learns that there are new players and finds herself plunged into a war featuring a dirty cop and unreliable allies. (And Helen Hunt, perhaps auditioning for something in the neighborhood of the Annette Bening role on Paramount+’s Dutton Ranch. If so, she should get it. She is solid. Also, meanwhile, Dutton Ranch is a hoot.) The heart of the movie is the difficult relationship between Ava and her father Will (Troy Kotsur, Oscar-winner for CODA). Their scenes offer a reminder that, whatever Covid-era baggage we attach to CODA aside, Kotsur deserved his Oscar and that, while I mostly know Monroe from the The Hand that Rocks the Cradle remake and the weird 2024 horror movie Longlegs, there is definitely something there with her.

Featured photo: The Other Bennet Sister

It’s Hard to be an Animal, by Robert Isaacs

Meet Henry Parsons — although he’d rather you not.

Henry is socially awkward and reticent; he’s most comfortable in the third-floor New York apartment he shares with a roommate he’d found on Craigslist and two betta fish. He likes “sitting on his own frayed, moss-green couch, in the company of familiar books and plates and towels; they gave him a sense of belonging. Life anywhere else in the city required breathing borrowed air, occupying temporary space, infringing on someone else’s territory.”

So the conflict-averse Henry moves cautiously about his life, going to work, seeing a therapist every week, trying to recover from a friendly break-up three years ago. And things are mostly fine until animals start talking to him.

That might be nice if the animals were friendly, like the woodland creatures who helped Snow White clean the Seven Dwarfs’ kitchen. But the animals talking to Henry in Robert Isaac’s It’s Hard to be an Animal are wicked snarky, with a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush. Also, they seem to hate everybody.

The first time it happens, Henry is in Central Park on a blind coffee date arranged by a coworker. Molly Bent, his date, is admiring a bird, which Henry knows is a magnolia warbler, when it unleashes a torrent of profanities at the pair. But only Henry can hear.

Later, when he goes home, he watches in bewilderment as the two betta fish hurl Shakespearean insults at one another. (Example: “Malodorous and repugnant though you be, I am indebted to you for one thing: your cursed, unenviable existence serves as a sobering corrective to my own baser instincts.”)

After a couple of dogs being walked mock a woman who petted one of them, Henry fears he is losing his sanity. The therapist, who always keeps Henry waiting, is of no help at all. But before Henry has a chance to fully process what is happening, a new problem arises: he learns — from a couple of subway rats — that bodies are being dragged into a tunnel below the subway and left there to rot. “Maybe it was all rat bravado,” he thinks. But maybe not.

Meanwhile, an elderly neighbor that Henry is friendly with is hospitalized and asks Henry to pick up her crotchety Pomeranian, who is at the vet. This is an alarming development — not only will it take Henry away from a planned lunch date with Molly, but it will expose him to a disturbing number of animal conversations, as will a later visit to a dog park in the city.

It all sounds quite absurd, but surprisingly this is a novel with unexpected heart, revealed early on, when Henry is asked to watch the young daughter of a co-worker for a few minutes and the two instantly develop a rapport. Henry, we quickly realize, isn’t quite as maladapted for the world as he initially seems.

Nor is Molly, the human sprite who is making Henry’s heart flutter with hope. She is an effervescent soul who works at an anti-poverty nonprofit and, like Henry, has conversational skills above her paygrade. Their banter is as delightful as the baleful betta fish.

Talking animals isn’t a new literary device — hail, Charlotte — but in Isaacs’ hands, these events feel fresh and whimsical, particularly since most of the animals here are full-on trash talkers, contemptuous of the humans that surround them.

“Although he’d grown up with no pets of his own, due to parental allergies, Henry had always accepted as an uplifting, feel-good truth that humans had ‘befriended’ certain animals thousands of years ago, brought them into their warm, dry homes for comfort and companionship, fed and sheltered and doted on them. … Did all our fellow creatures hate us? Every last one of them?”

This is the first novel by Robert Isaacs, who the publisher notes “in his youth supported himself as a juggler and unicyclist on the streets of San Francisco” and went on to become a Grammy-nominated musician.

Whatever his life experiences, they prepared him well for fiction, and It’s Hard to be an Animal is both charming and witty, despite the dark mystery at the center of it. Will Henry and Molly become a couple and survive a relationship-threatening event? Will they survive an REI-outfitted excursion in an underground tunnel looking for the corpses which the rats foretold? How did the corpses get there? Is Henry having a psychotic breakdown? Is he really hearing voices at all? And most importantly, what will happen to the warring betta fish, who are the breakout stars of this ridiculously endearing show?

And we haven’t even talked about Henry’s Eastern European roommate whose burgeoning English vocabulary is informed by a bathroom thesaurus and doesn’t always come across the way he intends. Or Gracie, the Pomarian, whose philosophical observations about the world differ sharply from those of the other animals that Henry hears.

Some books you don’t want to end because they are absorbing; some, because you love the characters so much. It’s Hard to Be An Animal achieves both. A+

Featured Photo: It’s Hard to be an Animal, by Robert Isaacs

Album Reviews 26/06/11

Kristian Montgomery and the Winterkill Band, Soul Family (self-released/Bandcamp)

We’ve talked about this local musician before, including how he lost his home and all his belongings in a fire last year, and about his ongoing battles with the elements that lord over the Boston rock scene. We’re more than casual acquaintances now, online at least, where I heard some rough demos of the songs on this album while they were still babies. Anyhow, as always, there’s a lot of great stuff to be heard here, beginning with opener “This Is How We Roll,” which he’s sculpted into a really amazing tune that combines the beat from The Outfield’s “Your Love,” adds some Allmans hubris and tops it off with a pseudo-Millennial whoop for good measure. That tune also signals a leaning toward riff rock and less Tom Petty pop than we’ve heard before, which we hear in “Brotherhood Of Ghosts,” a cross between Zep’s “Black Dog” and early Mountain. On the lighter side, ballad-adjacent Cajun-rocker “The Last Time I Loved You” floats an instantly hummable verse and some techy layering; “Home” is pure Gregg Allman-style Southern bombast. Sooner or later this guy’s hitting on a hit, I assure you. A+

Rich Willey, Laid Back Vol. 1 featuring John Swana (self-released/CDBaby)

Just in time for the hot weather comes this appropriately named if imperfect collection of seven jazz compositions from trumpet/tuba player Willey and his band of 11 guys, whose sound is slightly bigger than that number would indicate. As far as vibe, you should be thinking Caribbean, Spyro Gyra, reggae and that sort of thing, perfectly innocuous, but it’s not quite as simple as that, given that some of the sounds are a little, well, unconventional, starting with Paul Mutzabaugh’s antiquated-sounding B3 organ, but more to the point is the presence of Swana, the wild card in the deck: He plays an “electronic valve instrument” (EVI), of which Willey is apparently a fan, unfortunately. Where Geof Bradfield and Jim Gailloreto’s saxes fit quite well with the trumpet played by Willey and Carey Deadman, the bizarre, often high-pitched, alien sounds from the EVI become something of an unwelcome distraction and would work much better in a more, I don’t know, progressive setting. Willey loves the thing, though, and wants it to become a more commonplace sound within jazz, which is noble, but, again, I wouldn’t have used it on this album. B-

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Look out everyone, the next New CD Release Friday looms over us like a, you know, a looming loomosaurus, June 12 to be specific! As you know, I’ll try anything once, and that includes pop divas who want to turn our schoolchildren into twerking zombies. I will give anyone a chance, because I am a professional at this, and professionalism requires constant sacrifice, so for the moment my mission is to try to see why the new Olivia Rodrigo album is more musically profound than the ones from the last few child-ruiners, like Ariana Grande or Sabrina Carpenter. Why do I do things like this? Mostly because when people send me hateful Facebook messages yelling at me for selling out and writing about corporate pop music instead of obscure bands who purposely try to sound weird just to get attention from their former college roommates, I learn things, and it also provides me the opportunity to practice my yelling at people over the internet, which will be a very marketable skill when the AI bots take all our jobs. But I also have a certain curiosity about popular culture, so it’s nice to know what people like Ms. Rodrigo sound like, given that they are hip and groovy and important to our children, sort of like how Cyndi Lauper was in 1986 and Annette Hanshaw in 1934. I do try to spot new pop trends too, not that there’s been much to do in that regard since Madonna discovered trance music and put a bunch of it on her 1998 (where does the time go, I ask you) album Ray Of Light, after which most of the new shrinkwrapped, corporate-molded pop divas copied her, the way all the divas ape Chappell Roan (who’s basically a humorless Cyndi Lauper, if you think about it) these days. Anyway, the new Olivia Rodrigo album is titled You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love, a Chappell Roan-inspired title if I ever saw one, but apparently there is depth to this vacuousness, as the LP is divided into two parts: One side is dedicated to first love, and the second half is about how being in love won’t solve your anxieties and personal problems (such depth, folks! I’ll tell you, if my first love had been that introspective at age 20, my life would have turned out differently, that is unless it wouldn’t’ve). The single “Drop Dead” starts out all slow-techno-y, like Chappell Roan, then the epic chorus comes in and it totally rips off Chappell Roan’s “Casual” but all the children will be too scared to say anything, so all this derivative nonsense will continue until further notice.

• On the older pop diva front, now that Bebe Rexha has reached her mid-30s she’s adopting a “cool auntie” (not my expression, by the way) attitude for her new album Dirty Blonde, her first record to be distributed independently under Empire Distribution. Free at last to do whatever she wants, her main goal is to “sound unlike anyone else,” so let’s go see about that. The second single, “Sad Girls,” features Rexha teaming up with boring house producer David Guetta but nevertheless it is good, mostly because it sounds like half the songs trance soundsystem Above & Beyond did during the Aughts (anyone noticing a pattern yet?).

• Until now, Fruit Bats albums have mostly comprised Eric Johnson playing over click tracks, but the new one, The Landfill, features his actual band. The title track actually does have a pulse, sort of like Smashing Pumpkins meets Train.

• Lastly we have prog legends Yes, with Aurora, an album whose seven-minute title track showcases some fairly cool guitar bits from sole original member Steve Howe, some orchestra stuff from the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and some particularly lifeless vocals from Jon Davison, whom the band should fire.

Featured Photo: Kristian Montgomery and the Winterkill Band, Soul Family and Rich Willey, Laid Back Vol. 1 featuring John Swana

Jimmy B’s retirement lemonade

The label on the bottle reads “Buchanan’s Pineapple.” It’s a brand of scotch flavored with pineapple and citrus fruit. Yes, the fruit flavors cover up the whiskey’s more subtle nuances, but let’s face it, if you were super-concerned about subtly nuanced flavors, you probably wouldn’t be playing around with pineapple-flavored scotch.

Which is not to say that it isn’t delicious. It’s actually very tasty — a little sweet, a little, er, scotchy — and has a lot to bring to a mixed drink. No, you won’t sit in a leather armchair, drinking it out of a snifter and reading poetry in classical Greek (or, for all I know, maybe you will), but it can act well in an ensemble cast.

Which we’ll get to in a minute.

There is something else on the bottle’s label — a signature that reads “James Buchanan.” If that name sounds familiar, it’s the name of the president in office just before Abraham Lincoln. Most historians rate him pretty poorly as a president; a combination of poor judgement, bad luck, and rumors of a — for the time — scandalous personal life led to a rough four years in the White House. He left an ugly mess for Lincoln to deal with, and we know how well that turned out.

Now, I’m not saying that the James Buchanan on the label of this pineapple-flavored scotch is the same Buchanan who was partially responsible for the Civil War. But it would be foolish to discount the possibility.

OK, actually we do know it wasn’t the same guy, but I like to imagine Buchanan moving to Scotland for a fresh start after leaving office and going into the whiskey business. Which is why we’re calling this week’s cocktail:

Jimmy B’s retirement lemonade

  • 1 lemon, thinly sliced
  • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
  • 2 ounces Buchanan’s Pineapple

Combine the lemon slices and sugar in a cocktail shaker. Muddle them thoroughly — really grind them together for a full minute or so. Then, add the whiskey and five or six ice cubes.

Shake enthusiastically, until a line of condensation forms on the shaker or you hear the ice start to break up into small shards.

Do not strain this drink. Pour everything directly into a rocks glass, and drink it with an open mind and a light heart.

Does it taste like lemonade? Yes, a little.

Does it taste fruity and boozy? Definitely.

Does it taste of questionable choices? Perhaps, but it’s springtime, a time for impulsive decisions. You will not regret this one.

Probably.

Featured photo: Jimmy B’s retirement lemonade. Photo by John Fladd.

Beer, pizza and the outdoors

Bow Beer Garden offers picnic vibes

Some dreams are realized all at once; others happen one step at a time.

Dan Thomas from Hoptimystic Brewing (71 Main St., Sunapee, hoptimysticbrewing.com) has wanted to open a new brewery and restaurant in Bow for several years.

“We have been working on it for like three years,” he said, “and we finally got something to fruition. We were hoping to open a full build-out of a brewery and restaurant, but we hit a bunch of hurdles and this is what we could do — we created a completely outdoor space here in Bow, right on South Street.”

The Bow Beer Garden will have a definite picnic theme this first year, Thomas said.

“It’s 100 percent outdoors. It’s definitely an outdoor New Hampshire rustic vibe. It’s a wood chip base, and we’ve got picnic tables. We’ve got some shade, some sun. We have a modified shipping container that has a concession window in it, so everything is ordered right out of there. You order your beer, your pizza, all of it, in a one-stop shop, right out of the container. We’re using the food truck more as just a mobile kitchen. Although it’s there, the customers won’t really interact with that at all. It’s definitely a very, very low-key casual vibe. You’ll walk away with your beer, but if you’re getting pizza you’ll get a buzzer. And when your buzzer goes off, come up to the window, grab your pizza and off you go.”

The food side of the Beer Garden will be addressed by a local pizza institution, Thomas said. “We found a great partner in 900 Degrees from Manchester. We’re doing the beer and we’re offering a very limited menu from 900 Degrees, but it’s the pizzas that folks already know. We have six different pizzas available — all 10-inch pizzas.”

On the beer side, Thomas and his staff plan to serve some proven winners.

“We came up with a beer for 900 Degrees called the House Pie Pilsner,” he said. “That’s something that we’re brewing for them. We’ve had that on tap since Day 1, and that’s been a huge hit for us. It’s a nice, light, crisp, refreshing beer. It’s not the hoppiest beer for real craft beer enthusiasts, but it really attracts the masses. Then, one of my personal favorites, more for the craft beer enthusiasts, is our Smooth Operator IPA. That’s one we’re excited about. The thing about us, and we do this in our other tasting rooms, although we have a couple core beers that stay on tap, we’re constantly changing. So you’ll see in a couple of weeks we’ll have a couple of sours. We’ve got a Creamsicle IPA that we do once a year, which is super refreshing and popular. I think the thing about us is not so much that there’s one beer that defines us. We’ve had folks posting on some social media about how they appreciate the fact that we have variety.”

Thomas said that he has a good feeling about the new beer garden. “We’re still a work in progress for sure,” he said, “but we’ve got heating, we’ve got cold beer, and we’ve got hot pizza. Some of the aesthetic stuff we’re still working on. Every week, when you come, it’s going to look a little better. We’ve done a couple things this last week from when we opened, from the week prior. This week we’ve got a couple more things coming, and next week we’ve got a few more things coming. Every week we’re getting a little bit better. It was important for us to get open. And when folks come down, we’re happy to serve them.”

The Bow Beer Garden
Hours: Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from noon to 9 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m.
More: Visit the Beer Garden’s website at hoptimysticbrewing.com/new-page, which is also a work in progress.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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