Album Reviews 25/03/13

Free Range, Lost & Found (self-released)

’Tis the season for music journalists getting inundated with spam from agents and record companies whose artists are scheduled to perform on various stages at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. This year’s conference ends on Saturday, March 15, so if you’re down in Austin reading this remotely, there might still be time to plan a visit to this person’s 8:15 p.m. show on the 15th at the Dear Life Showcase, which’ll be held at All The Sudden. The nym belongs to one Sofia Jensen of Chicago, who previously dazzled listeners with her 2023 album Practice; the overall vibe is easy listening Americana with lots of quirky but eminently listenable indie-weirdness on board. Lots of Norah Jones energy going on here, of course, but with a few vocally acrobatic twists; in the dobro-washed bluegrass tune “Storm” she browses the scale like a savvy farmers market shopper, finding hidden jewels of melody that are pretty unique. Well worth your time. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Good Looks, Lived Here For A While (Keeled Scales Records)

Also performing on SXSW’s final day is this hometown Austin four-piece, who gravitate to feel-good rock that combines jam band, alt-country and ’90s radio-indie in fun ways. That’s not to say they aren’t serious-minded; the lyrics on this one take jabs at such things as “job creators” (“they’re just stealing our labor”) and that sort of thing, and besides, they’ve got plenty to be existentially discombobulated about; while leaving the venue where they’d just played the record release show for their critically acclaimed 2022 debut LP Bummer Year, lead guitarist Jake Ames was hit by a car crossing the street, fracturing his skull and tailbone. This album almost never happened, in other words, but after a lot of rehab and despair they’ve cobbled a seriously listenable set of songs reminiscent of Barenaked Ladies duking it out with Tom Petty (“If It’s Gone”) and Hank Williams Jr. (“Can You See Me Tonight”) in a dark alley. I couldn’t hate these guys if I tried. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Today we’ll talk about the albums coming out on March 14, because that makes perfect sense, like it wouldn’t be timely or hip to talk about some military coronet album that came out in 1918, now would it? Unfortunately, the first thing we’ll need to talk about here is the fast-approaching 12th album from Nyack, New York’s favorite (because there aren’t any others) progressive-rock band, Coheed and Cambria! That band, as everyone knows, is cut from the same cloth as Mars Volta, Thank You Scientist and Muse, specializing in the sort of arena-rock style invented by Queen, whose albums were mostly comprised of half-written obnoxious filler tunes with one or two overwritten orchestral pieces added into the mix to get musically untrained critics to write nice things about them. Ahem, in the hierarchy of musical genres, Coheed and all those guys occupy the rung that sits just under Tool, Pendulum and Linkin Park; Coheed’s stuff is music for people whose post-grad sensibilities demand that they not get caught listening to actual techie-prog-metal because they don’t want to scare off future employers, so what Coheed does instead is throw a bunch of random musical notes in a blender and hope to attract the sort of listener who takes LinkedIn seriously (have you guys ever watched any of LinkedIn’s user-submitted short videos? They’re all basically “career-promotional videos,” starring and written by people who double-majored in marketing and business, and any time they come within a country mile of criticizing anything about corporate culture that obviously bugs them, a chimpanzee in a power suit zaps ‘em with a taser and they get back to the script). Anyway, if that describes you, and you want to stick with listening to anodyne milquetoast tripe instead of something interesting like Pendulum or Mozart, then Coheed’s new album, The Father Of Make Believe, is for you! Yup, like Billy The Exterminator used to say, I can’t wait to get my hands on this horrible new critter and tell you good folks all about it! So the single, “Searching for Tomorrow,” is like Linkin Park doing power pop, like, if Beavis and Butthead had jobs as human resources directors, they’d totally head-bang to it. If Dashboard Confessional had rabies it’d probably sound something like this (lightbulb moment: I’m going to start calling this band “LinkedIn Park!”).

• Circuit des Yeux is the stage name of Chicago-based singer/songwriter Haley Fohr, whose four-octave vocal range is a big deal to people who don’t like normal singing but instead prefer people who can both squeak like a Munchkin and mumble like Lurch from The Addams Family! While we’re on the subject, I always thought the super-high notes on allegedly four-octave-range-possessing chanteuse Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” were generated by a computer, but this multi-talented blah blah blah person’s new album is called Halo On The Inside, and it spotlights a Trent Reznor-sounding single called “Megaloner” where she sings like the dude from Roxy Music, which is impressive.
• Electronic rock band Courting is from Liverpool, England, which goes to show you that not every band from Liverpool is as famous as The Beatles. Their new album Lust for Life has a single, “Pause At You,” that sounds like Aha meets Gang Of Four meets Hives; it’s OK.

• And finally we have Whatever the Weather, which is what British electronic producer/musician Loraine James likes calling herself in order to confuse old people or something. Whatever The Weather II is her new album, with the single “12°C,” a sluggish noise-electro ambient thingamajig that goes nowhere, but they’re your ears. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Free Range, Lost & Found (self-released) & Good Looks, Lived Here For A While (Keeled Scales Records)

The Daydream of Milky Joe

At the moment, I am working on a project that involves thinking deeply about a couple of cows celebrating a Girls’ Night Out. Never mind why. That just seems to be where my life is right now — thinking about cow girlfriends at a bar, laughing, drinking and flirting with a rugged beefcake of a stranger, only to find out to their chagrin that he is an ox. (Look it up.)

The obvious question as far as I’m concerned is this: What would they drink?

Initially the answer seems obvious: white Russians, or mudslides, or something with cream in it. But I can imagine the conversations the cows would have:

“Really? Drinking our own body fluids? Doesn’t that seem a little — wrong?”

Then there are obvious plays on words — moo-tinis, moo-garitas or moo-jitos, but I’m not entirely sure how one would go about making them.

Then, out of nowhere, as often happens when one opens oneself up to the Universe, I discovered a drink called The Nightmare of Milky Joe. I don’t know where the name comes from — there’s no dairy in it — but it sounded promising. After some tinkering, a surprisingly delicious not-quite-tiki drink came into focus.

Let’s call it —

The Daydream of Milky Joe

1 flavorful jalapeño pepper – it would be nice if it had some heat, but it is more important that it has good flavor

1 ounce golden rum

1 ounce dark rum

1 ounce sweet coconut cream – Coco Lopez is a classic brand, but there are other good ones, so use whichever one brings joy to your life

½ ounce crème de banana

½ ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

4 ounce grapefruit soda – I like Pink Ting, but Jarritos or Fresca would work well too

Roughly chop the jalapeño, and muddle it in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. (This means crush it with a cocktail muddler, a wooden spoon, or a small soda bottle.)

Add the dark and gold rums, then dry shake the mixture — shake it without ice. Flavorful chemicals in a chili pepper, including capsaicin, the one that makes it taste hot, are soluble in alcohol, but not in water, so shaking the crushed jalapeño with alcohol before adding any watery ingredients will help extract heat and flavor into the cocktail.

Add ice, the coconut cream, crème de banana, and lime juice, then shake again, until you hear the ice start to break up.

Strain the mixture over crushed ice in the fanciest glass you own, then top it with grapefruit soda and stir.

This drink is something truly rare in this weary world: a happy surprise. Rum and coconut obviously go well together, but the surprise comes in how much the jalapeño and lime add to this enterprise. We’ve established on many occasions that lime is everybody’s friend. It is super friendly with rum, and delightful with coconut, but if you think about it for a moment, it is also really, really good with chilis; think of a fresh salsa. The lime is a bridge from Spice City to Smooth Town, and the grapefruit soda is the water under it.

Featured Photo: The Daydream of Milky Joe. Photo by John Fladd.

Corned beef — a user’s guide

It’s a New England thing

By John Fladd

[email protected]

According to James Malik, the first thing you need to know about corned beef is that it’s not particularly Irish.

“[Corning beef] was a traditional means of preservation,” he said. “We associate it with St. Patrick’s Day here. It is an Irish-American thing, an Irish New England thing. But corned beef is not what’s traditionally eaten on St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. This is very much Irish-American and very, very popular here in New England. It’s a boiled dinner, usually served with cabbage, carrots, rutabaga and onion.”

Malik, who describes himself as “an old-school butcher,” has been working with premium meat for more than 21 years. He is one of the managers and butchers at Wicked Good Butchah in Bedford. And he takes his corned beef very seriously.

“So corned beef, typically,” he said, “when we’re talking about corned beef for a boiled dinner, it is a brisket, and it is corned or brined in a salt solution. Now there’s two styles. There’s the famous red style that everybody gets in the grocery store. And then there’s the gray style, which is a very traditional New England style — the real corned beef. The difference is they’re both brined in a salt water solution, but the gray has just salt and water, where the red uses sodium nitrate or something called Instacure No. 1, which contains sodium nitrate. It keeps the red color on the external layer of the meat as well as the interior. But the gray is the traditional New England style. That’s what we do here in-house.”

One reason why corned beef is associated with Irish and Jewish immigrants is that it usually is made with brisket, a very tough and therefore traditionally inexpensive cut of beef. How tender or tough a cut of meat is is largely determined by how much work those muscles had to do during an animal’s lifetime. More exercise results in more connective tissue, which has to be broken down with long, slow cooking.

“The brisket is from the chest,” said Rick Lemay from Lemay & Sons in Goffstown, a beef processing house and butcher shop. “It’s right front-and-center. It’s what we call the front plate, and right behind that ends up being your short ribs.” He said that corned short ribs are delicious. “You don’t hear about it very often,” he said, “but it’s a pretty neat item. I’ve actually tried it with a chuck roast too.The corning process really is just a curing method.”

Because a brisket has so much connective tissue holding it together, the corning process involves soaking it in brine for anywhere from 10 to 21 days.

“We take the full 21 days,” James Malik said. “After that 21 days, we then take out the briskets from that brining solution and then we soak them for 24 hours in clean cold water to draw out any excess salt. And you’re still left with a wonderfully brined piece of meat that has that nice traditional corned beef flavor. The biggest step in all this is when you’re brining. To know that your salt solution is the correct amount of salt, you put a potato in your bucket, and when the potato floats, you have the correct amount of salt to begin brining your corned beef.”

Jay Beland is in charge of brining the corned beef at Lemay and Sons. He adds spices to the salt in his brining solution. “For a 10- to 15-pound brisket,” he said, “I’ll use two gallons of water, two tablespoons of pink curing salt, and a cup of whole black peppercorns.” He adds an additonal cup of cracked — but not powdered — peppercorns, two cups of coriander seeds — one whole and one cracked, and the same with yellow mustard seeds, and a cup of pickling spice. “That’s my water,” he said. “That is my brine.

Beland brines his brisket for about 10 days, then smokes it at 225 degrees, until it reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees. James Malik, on the other hand, is a great believer in braising his corned beef.

“When people hear ‘boiled dinner’,” Malik said, “their first thought is to go ahead and put it in a pot of water and boil the ever-loving Jesus out of it. I would tell you that the best way to do this is to do more of like a braise in the oven. Believe it or not, you can dry it out by over-boiling it for too long. I put it in my big lobster pot and I time it out. You’ll find you get a much better piece of meat that way, much more enjoyable.”

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Sap season

New Hampshire celebrates the sweet stuff at Maple Weekend

By John Fladd

[email protected]

Last year was a rough one for maple syrup makers. For many sugar houses, production was down by 90 percent compared to typical years. A dry summer, followed by a harsh freeze in November, and then an early, warm spring combined to stress maple trees and seriously limit the amount of sap syrup makers could harvest.

This year is much better.

“We have more of a traditional year this year,” said Andrew Chisholm, President of the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association (nhmapleproducers.com). “We’ve had a really cold winter, which is one of the big ingredients for having a good maple season. We have a fairly good snowpack out in the woods, which is another good ingredient. The forecast here for the foreseeable future is these perfect warm days and freezing nights. It looks like we are going to be producing maple syrup in New Hampshire through the month of March. I think some of our North Country maple sugarhouses will get into an April sugar season this year.”

Syrup makers depend on being able to harvest a large amount of maple sap to boil down and concentrate its natural sugars into syrup. They depend on warm days and cold nights to keep the sap running from the trees’ roots to their branches and back again, to be able to harvest the most sap. Chisholm said having snow on the ground in the woods is a very good sign.

“One of the most damaging things that we can have from a maple industry point of view is not having snowpack in the woods. Having early snow in the woods will insulate the roots so you don’t get the root system into a hard freeze. And then when we do get the hard freeze, the snowpack will keep us insulated. But then also, this time of year, when we start to get the warm-ups, the snow pack will cool the woods down a bit at night so we don’t get a thermal runaway, if you will.”

Chisholm said that while it’s tricky to depend on nature to stick to a schedule on the calendar, this year’s sugaring season has come at exactly the right time for Maple Weekend.

“Maple Weekend is the Super Bowl of the New Hampshire maple industry,” he said. “It’s when our maple producers throughout the state of New Hampshire open their doors and welcome neighbors, friends, family and customers in to experience a New Hampshire maple tradition that dates back generations on some of these farms.”

Sap buckets. Photo courtesy of Maple Producers Association.
Sap buckets. Photo courtesy of Maple Producers Association.

Even among maple syrups, New Hampshire maple syrup is something special, Chisholm said. “Our maple is potentially some of the best maple in the world,” he said. “USDA statistics put New Hampshire as some of the highest-priced maple in the world, so maybe there’s a correlation there. Price demand would suggest that maybe we are some of the best. Also, I always try to point out the fact that in New Hampshire, if you go to a sugar house in New Hampshire, the trees where your maple syrup came from are not far away. I always say, ‘Show me a bottle of New Hampshire maple and I can show you where the trees are that produce that maple.’ That is not something you will find in Canada or really some other places. It’s unique to New Hampshire.”

Maple Weekend Events

On Saturday, March 15, and Sunday, March 16, maple producers across the state will open their doors to visitors. Here are some of the sugar houses participating according to the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association at nhmapleproducers.com, where you can find more locations across the state.

  • 2 Sappy Guys (324 Joppa Hill Road, Bedford, 860-7992) will be open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days with tours of the maple sugar bush and sugar shack, according to their Facebook page.
  • Ackerman Brothers (137 Amherst Road, Merrimack, 714-9784) will be open 4 to 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
  • Babel’s Sugar Shack (323 Hurricane Hill Road, Mason, 878-3929) will be open for visitors on Saturday, March 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, March 16, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • Ben’s Sugar Shack (8 Webster Highway, Temple, 924-3111, bensmaplesyrup.com) Ben’s is open every weekend in March, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with tours and samples, according to a Facebook post. The Temple location also has a deli/cafe selling breakfast and lunch.
  • Blue Roof Sap Camp (6 Carter Hill Road, Canterbury, 234-5067, sugarbonesfarm603.com) will be open during Maple Weekend.
  • Blueberry Hill Sugarworks (31 Blueberry Hill Road, Raymond, 300-6837, wickedsappy.com) will be open both days, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Briar Bush (160 Briar Bush Road, Canterbury, 809-6393, briarbushfarm.com) will be open Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. according to its website. All available grades of syrup will be available for purchase as well as goat’s milk products. There will also be a small goat-petting area.
  • Brookview Sugar House (154 Gage Road, Wilton, 731-5214) will be open to the public during Maple Weekend.
  • Charmingfare Farm (Route 27, Candia; visitthefarm.com) will hold its “Maple Express” event this weekend and next (March 22-23) with horse-drawn/ tractor rides, sugar shack tour and more. See website for admission cost and hours.
  • Clarkridge Farm (31 Martin Farm Road, Goffstown, 620-0406, clarkridgefarm.org) will be open during Maple Weekend.
  • Dill Family Farm (61 Griffin Road, Deerfield, 475-3798, facebook.com/DillFamilyFarm) will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
  • Hillcroft Farm (266 South Hill Road, New Boston, 487-5047).
  • Ice Mountain Maple (276 Queen St., Boscawen, 341-4297, icemountainmaple.com) will be open during Maple Weekend, according to the NHMPA website.
  • Journey’s End Maple (295 Loudon Road, Pittsfield, journeysendmaplefarm.com) will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days. Activities will include a vendor pop up event, a menu of maple items and more. Journey’s End will be the site of the Governor’s Tapping on Friday, March 14, at 3:30 p.m., according to their Facebook.
  • Just Maple (475 School St., Tilton, 520-2373, justmaple.com) will be open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday with maple concessions (including maple boiled hot dogs, maple baked beans, maple bean soup, etc), live music and educational tours, including a visit to a working sugar shack.
  • K & O’s Saphouse (83 Bumfagon Road, Loudon, 848-0044) will be open during Maple Weekend.
  • Kaison’s Sugar House (75 Forest Road, Weare, 660-6019) will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday only so the owners can visit other sugar houses on Sunday. Sugar maker Mike will eagerly answer any questions about maple production. Maple products including maple syrup, maple lollipops and maple drops (small hard candies) will be available for purchase. Cash only.
  • Lamb’s Maple Syrup (228 Shaker Road, Canterbury, 783-9912) will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Maple products will be available, cash only.
  • Ledge Top Sugar House (25 Oak St., Boscawen, 753-4973) will be open Saturday, March 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and closed Sunday. Visit for treats including maple milkshakes and homemade old-fashioned doughnuts.
  • MapleSaint (28 Lang Road, Deerfield, 235-7167) will be open Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Mt. Crumpit Farm (207 Lull Road, New Boston, 325-5900).
  • Munson’s Maple (44 Blueberry Hill Road, Raymond, 303-8278).
  • North Family Farm (341 Shaker Road, Canterbury, 783-4712, northfamilyfarm.com)
  • Peterson Sugarhouse (28 Peabody Row, Londonderry, 247-5289)
  • SMD Maple Syrup (6 Falcon Drive, Merrimack, 978-815-6476, facebook. com/SMDMapleSyrup)
  • Sugar House at Morningstar Farm (30 Crane Crossing Road, Plaistow, 479-0804) will be open both days, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a pancake breakfast both days, fresh cider doughnuts, maple dogs, farm animals and syrup production.
  • Sunnyside Maples (1089 Route 106 North, Loudon, 783-9961, sunnysidemaples.com)
  • Windswept Maple Farm (845 Loudon Ridge Road, Loudon, 435-4003, windsweptmaples.com)

New Hampshire Maple Weekend

Saturday, March 15, and Sunday, March 16
For a directory and a map of sugar houses holding open houses during the weekend, visit nhmapleproducers.com.
Gov. Ayotte will open the weekend, ceremonially tapping a maple tree in a ceremony at Journey’s End Maple Farm (295 Loudon Road, Pittsfield, 435-5127, journeysendmaplefarm.com) on Friday, March 14, at 3:30 p.m.

Featured photo: Boiling. Photo courtesy of Maple Producers Association.

The Weekly Dish 25/03/13

News from the local food scene

By John Fladd

[email protected]

• New head of NH Food Bank: New Hampshire Food Bank (700 E. Industrial Park Drive, Manchester, 669-9725, nhfoodbank.org) has appointed a new Executive Director. Formerly the head of New Generation, Elsy Cipriani began her new role at New Hampshire Food Bank on March 3. Cipriani has worked in organizations helping vulnerable people in California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

• Steel Chef: Tickets are still available for theNew Hampshire Food Bank’s 9th Annual Steel Chef Challenge, to be held Saturday, March 15, at the Doubletree Expo Center (700 Elm St., Manchester, 625-1000). Approximately 680 guests will watch a live, timed cooking competition featuring some of New Hampshire’s best chefs. As the competition heats up, guests will enjoy a fabulous dinner curated by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. Proceeds will benefit the New Hampshire Food Bank. Tickets are $150 each at nhfoodbank.org/steelchef.

• Mystery dinner: Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) will host “The Leprechaun’s Secret,” a four-course mystery food and wine pairing, Saturday, March 15, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Dress in your finest Irish attire and prepare for an evening of sipping, sleuthing and savoring. Enjoy Averill House Vineyard wines alongside an Irish-inspired secret menu. Tickets start at $59 through exploretock.com.

• Crafts and corned beef: The Capital City Fine Spring Craft & Artisan Show will take place at the Capital City Sports Complex (10 Garvins Falls Road, exit 13 of I-93, in Concord) on Saturday, March 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, March 16, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event will feature 100 exhibitors including craftsmen, artists, authors and specialty food makers, according to a press release. The event will also feature green beer and corned beef to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as well as eats from Sidelines Cafe, the release said. Admission costs $5 (valid both days) and is free for ages 14 and under. See GNECraftArtisanShows.com.

• Celebrating whiskeys: Kick off St. Patrick’s Day weekend with a whiskey dinner at Unwined (1 Nashua St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com) on Thursday, March 13, at 6 p.m. The four-course dinner will feature some of Unwined’s favorite whiskey picks. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with a welcome cocktail, and each course will feature its own pairing of whiskey or whiskey cocktails. Tickets are $125.

• Chili cook-off: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (Mammoth Road at 3 Peabody Row Londonderry; stpeterslondonerry.org) will hold its 8th annual Chili and Chowder Cook-Off on Saturday, March 22, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. To compete with a chili or chowder, register at 4:15 p.m.; kids can compete in a Kids’ Dessert Competition. Admission for attendees is a $15 donation ($7 for children 10 and under).

Kiddie Pool 25/03/13

Family fun for whenever

Kids on stage

• The Palace Youth Theatre will present an hour-longDiary of a Wimpy Kid: The MusicalThursday, March 13, at 7 p.m. at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org). Then on Wednesday, March 19, and Thursday, March 20, at 7 p.m., the Palace Teen Apprentice Company will present Once Upon a Mattress Youth Edition at The Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester). Tickets cost $16 to $19.

• The Peacock Players present their Spring Youth Mainstage ProductionShrek The Musical Jr.with shows Friday, March 14, and Friday, March 21, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, March 15, and Saturday, March 22, at 2 p.m., and Sundays, March 16, and March 23, at 2 p.m. at Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St. in Nashua. Tickets cost $15 to $18 for adults, $12 to $15 for students and seniors.

• The Kids Coop Theatre will present the musical The Prom at the Derry Opera House (29 W Broadway in Derry; derryoperahouse.org) on Friday, March 14, and Saturday, March 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, March 16, at 2 p.m. See kctnh.org.

• And if your kid is looking to be on stage, the Riverbend Youth Company is holding auditions Sunday, March 16, and Monday, March 17, for 8th- through 12th-graders for The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,which is slated for a June performance at the Amato Center in Milford. See amatocenter.org/riverbend-youth-company for audition details.

Cookie season

• Win those Thin Mints and Samoas at Girl Scout Cookie Bingo at Chunky’s Cinema Pub, 707 Huse Road in Manchester (chunkys.com), on Sunday, March 16, at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $13.99.

• Or, if you just want to cut to the cookie eating, check out the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, the local Girl Scout organization, at girlscoutsgwm.org, where you can find cookie booths near you. Multiple spots are slated to operate in the greater Concord, Manchester and Nashua areas this weekend.

Family music

• Grammy-nominated family musician Alastair Moock, whose music is described as upbeat Americana for all ages, will play a concert on Saturday, March 15, at 10 a.m. at the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org), according to the Museum’s website. The concert is part of regular admission for the morning play session (which runs from 9 a.m. to noon; the museum is also open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturdays). Admission costs $14.50 for everybody over 12 months; $12.50 for 65+.

St. Pat’s fun

St. Patrick’s Day Party is the theme at Cowabunga’s, 725 Huse Road in Manchester, on Thursday, March 13, from 5 to 8 p.m., according to the website. Prices start at $20 per child for two hours of bouncing and more; adults and infants get in free with a paying child, the website said. See cowabungas.com.

Save the date

The Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St. in Manchester; currier.org) will hold a five-week in-person class called “Art Explorers” for ages 5 to 7 on Saturdays, starting March 22, 10 to 11:30 a.m. The cost is $200 and the class will feature exploration of a variety of art forms and media including watercolors, pencil, sculpture and more, according to the website.

Camp fun

Jason Cote, studio operations director at the Concord Karate Studio (89 Fort Eddy Road, Suite 3, Concord; 224-KICK; cks-nh.com), emailed with information on the studio’s camps. Concord Karate will have three weeks of summer camp — June 23-27, July 28-Aug. 1 and Aug. 18-22, running daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with early drop-off and late pick up options, the email said. The camps will include karate games, summer learning, snacks, karate class, a field trip and more. See the website for more. For our listing of camps, check out the Feb. 27 issue of the Hippo in our digital library at hippopress.com. If you have a summer camp that’s not listed in the story, let us know at [email protected].

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