Staying live

Playing through, and past, the pandemic

If a Concord bar is offering live music, there’s always the possibility that Andy Laliotis will get involved. He’s a member of several groups, and a regular presence at open mic nights. If a friend is playing, he’s always ready to jump on stage and jam.

The guitarist is a Capital City native and musical mainstay, dating back to his early days with Lamont Smooth, a band that marked its 25th anniversary this year. He’s part of several other acts; currently, they include Grateful Dead channeling Blue Light Rain, the roots acoustic Diamond Joe and Menthol Rain, which formed, then folded, at the end of 2020.

“Covid lasted longer than that band did,” Laliotis said in a recent phone interview. “It’s too bad, man; we were sounding good. Mostly, we were playing a lot of covers. It didn’t work out, but I’ll be playing with some of those guys again soon, so maybe we can talk about getting together again.”

A hunger to play defines Laliotis, and it’s managed to keep him busy during the pandemic. Between Penuche’s Ale House, Area 23, and the occasional Manchester show, there were gigs enough to keep him sane — but just barely.

“It’s been a core group of guys getting together,” he said. “With weather hopefully getting nice and the vaccine happening, there’s hope we can get out there and play more and more. But it’s been a lot of duo shows.”

On April 10, a power trio version of Lamont Smooth will perform at Penuche’s — Laliotis, his brother Chris and Scott Seeley, the band’s original bass player. They’re listed on the bar’s chalkboard schedule under an alias.

“Maybe there’s a little too much confidence in what we can do, but it is limited capacity,” Laliotis said. In later months, “we look forward to getting back at it with the full band again — we’re a six-piece.”

In February the band contributed a 15-minute video to Bank of NH Stage’s Local Band Mixer, part of the venue’s Mud Season Sampler. Concord performers Dusty Gray Band, The Special Guests with Lucas Gallo, Mallory Weiss, Andrew North & the Rangers, Supernothing, Will Hatch & Co, Bosey Joe, Trade, and Ethyric & B.Snair all appeared.

“We had to be in and out in an hour,” Laliotis said, “but it’s actually good to be in there again playing.”

A fresh outbreak of Covid cases in the state caused the cancellation of a scheduled Blue Light Rain show at Bank of NH Stage in early December.

Lamont Smooth will also do an outdoor show at Area 23 on May 8. He’s a big fan of the out-of-the-way Concord tap room and restaurant, which hosts local performers several times each week. Venue owner Kirk McNeil “helped us a lot last summer, booking us a bunch of times with different acts,” he said. “You get so used to playing a lot of shows and when it’s gone, that creative outlet all the other stresses in life kind of build up on you, you know?”

Consistent with his ubiquity, Laliotis will join Jared Steer and Friends a week after the Lamont Smooth show at Penuche’s on Saturday, April 17.

“We’ll be doing Dead and Jerry Garcia Band, as well as other stuff,” he said.

His Dead tribute is in its 13th year.

“I get to make a set list of my favorite tunes, and it’s good to be playing with my friend Rob [Farquhar], who’s the original bass player,” Laliotis said. “When we started, it was supposed to be a one-off gig, but it just stuck.”

Blue Light Rain also provides Laliotis with a chance to play with another musical brother, George — Lamont Smooth’s original drummer and a big reason he found music as a teenager.

“He picked up the guitar and I was around,” he said, “then I started getting more and more into going to shows.”

Lamont Smooth released one album, in 2003, and Laliotis has hopes of returning to the studio for a follow-up.

“There are so many songs we haven’t even touched,” he said.

The band’s eponymous record is on TouchTunes, a digital jukebox that’s in every Waffle House in the country, among other places. It’s surprisingly popular, even now, Laliotis said.

“I get random texts from people all over the country saying that they played it in North Carolina or somewhere else, because it’s in boxes all across the country,” he said. “It’s pretty wild.”

Andy & Chris Laliotis and Scott Seeley
When: Saturday, April 10, 8 p.m.
Where: Penuche’s Ale House, 16 Bicentennial Square, Concord
More: $15 at headlinerscomedyclub.com
Andy Laliotis appears with Jared Steer & Friends at Penuche’s on Saturday, April 17

Featured photo: Andy Laliotis. Photo by Cory MacEachern Ghelli.

The Music Roundup 21/04/01

Local music news & events

• Maine man: Even with a socially distanced crowd, comedian Bob Marley can fill a room with laughter. From his Upta Camp jokes to riffs on his home life, like inventing nonexistent tools and terms to weasel his way out of home repair jobs, Marley is a top draw in the region. never doing the same show twice. He made the Guinness Book of World Records a while back for longest set — no repeats. Thursday, April 1, at 5 and 8:30 p.m., Dana Center, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, tickets $36.50 at anselm.edu.

• Sing along: When he’s not performing as one half of Acoustic BS, Shane Hooker plays solo gigs like one upcoming at a New Boston restaurant and bar. Hooker has a wide range of material to draw from; he played with the heavy rock band GFY in college, and can really liven up songs like Sister Hazel’s “All For You.” His band’s name, in case the question came up, is a combination of his and mate Bob Fillion’s first names’ initials. Friday, April 2, 5 p.m., Molly’s Tavern, 35 Mont Vernon Road, New Boston, facebook.com/shane.hooker.

• Guitar magic: Enjoy Easter brunch and tasteful music from Phil Jakes, a guitarist who lets his instrument speak instead of vocalizing. He gives expression to songs like 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” and Tool’s “Sober” that reveal them in ways not heard in the originals. The only thing more enjoyable than listening to Jakes’ intricate arrangements is watching his fretwork, fingers fluidly moving up and down his custom guitar’s neck. Sunday, April 4, 11 a.m., Copper Door, 41 South Broadway, Salem, facebook.com/philmacrakken.

• Game playing: Those looking to flaunt their College of Musical Knowledge bona fides will enjoy Music Bingo. Patrons receive a card with 25 squares, a DJ from Florida-based Musical Bingo Nation starts playing songs, everyone listens carefully to a short snippet and crosses off matches, until someone gets five in a row and jumps up to yell (or sing) the winning phrase. Wednesday, April 7, 8 p.m., Shoppers Pub at Indian Head, 18 Lake Ave., Manchester, more at shoppersmht.com.

The Father (PG-13)

Anthony Hopkins is heartbreaking and Olivia Colman is heartbroken in The Father, a sad but excellent movie that is nominated for six Oscars.

Anthony (Hopkins) is a retired man living in London and Anne (Colman) is his daughter — this much feels certain. But, after a fight with yet another caregiver, has Anthony gone to live with Anne or has she come to live with him? And is it just her sharing the apartment with the increasingly agitated Anthony, who feels certain she’s trying to wrest his flat from him, or is her husband (maybe Mark Gatiss or maybe Rufus Sewell) there as well? Anthony and the patient if increasingly despondent Anne frequently butt heads, leading Anthony to tell whomever’s around how much better he gets along with his other daughter Lucy — but Anne’s silence whenever Lucy is mentioned suggests that there’s more to her absence than just a busy schedule.

That Anthony is constantly losing his watch may sometimes feel a little too nail on the head for his lost grip on time — he relives moments over again and forgets who people are or how long it’s been since he’s seen them last. He is a man grasping at sand and still sinking. The movie (and Hopkins’ strong performance) lets us feel his confusion, frustration and sense of complete disorientation. The story has the build of a psychological mystery thriller and works even though we understand what the mystery is that Anthony seems unable to unwravel.

Likewise, Colman puts us inside of Anne’s grief. Her love for her father, their relationship difficulties, her frustration with his limitations, her conflicted thoughts about what is truly best for him (and for her) — we can see all of this, often just from a look on Colman’s face or the way her eyebrows raise during a smile. The very last time she’s on screen, she gives this little nod that does the work of a whole speech.

The Father is not a fun movie but it is exceptionally well-made and so well-performed that it is an engrossing watch even when it is achingly sad. A

Rated PG-13 for some strong language and thematic material, according to the MPA at filmratings.com. Directed by Florian Zeller with a screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller (from the play of the same name by Zeller), The Father is an hour and 37 minutes long and is distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. It is screening in theaters (including via Red River Theatres’ virtual cinema) and available for rent.

Especially special effects

The Oscar’s visual effects nominees offer some good examples of films that were able to transcend the “TV-ness” of 2020.

Because the nominees provide great answers to “what should we watch tonight?” I’m spending the pre-awards ceremony (on April 25) weeks running through this year’s nominees. I previously discussed two of the visual effects nominees — Tenet (available for purchase and coming to HBO Max on May 1) and Mulan (available on Disney+ and for purchase). Both wowed with their visuals, Mulan perhaps more for costuming (for which it’s also nominated) and set design. Tenet’s coolest element is its use of characters traveling in opposite directions through time in the same scene (and if that makes no sense, buckle up for the “time travel and stuff”-ness of this movie), which would probably make it my pick in this category.

Other visual effects nominees:

• Love and Monsters It’s so cool this sweet, sorta silly creature movie/love story got a nomination. A 20-something guy hikes through some 80 miles of a monster-infested California to see the girl he’s loved since high school in this fun, sort of optimistic movie with an “end of the world” premise. The monsters are pretty well-rendered too. The fun movie night movie is available for rent or purchase.

• The Midnight Sky I can see why this total bummer of a George Clooney movie received a nomination: It features bleakly beautiful shots of the Arctic (where Clooney’s scientist is the final remaining human — maybe) as well as a storyline that takes place on a spaceship with occasional scenes of weightlessness and space-walks. But I have a hard time recommending this downbeat end-of-the-world movie (available on Netflix, if you’re in just too good a mood).

• The One and Only Ivan This Disney+ family live action film (or, you know, “live action” since the photo-realistic animals are CGI creations, according to a New York Times story) is based on the true story of a gorilla named Ivan who made art. The Ivan here (voiced by Sam Rockwell) is the star attraction in a fading mall circus run by human Mack (Bryan Cranston) and filled with other animals (voiced by the likes of Helen Mirren, Phillipa Soo, Chaka Khan, Ron Funches and Danny DeVito). This older elementary family movie is probably adequately entertaining for family movie night (despite some moments of sadness with sick moms and poachers and the like).

I discussed where to find best picture and best animated feature nominees and the films that received acting nominations in the March 18 issue and last week (March 25) tackled most of the other “mainstream movie” categories. (Find them all at hippopress.com.) Programming updates: Red River Theatres in Concord now has multi-category nominee The Father available via its virtual cinema as well as fellow nominees Minari and Collective. Nominated short films may be available as well starting April 2.

Featured photo: The Father

Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf, 303 pages)

If you tell Alexa to turn on your lights, have named a Roomba or asked Siri to navigate around the Suez Canal, you already have a sense of what it’s like to have an “artificial friend.”

However, while we readily embraced using artificial intelligence to do work for us, we’ve been more hesitant to rush along the path where this ultimately leads, where “social robots”— robots that serve primarily as companions — await. Social robots already exist, of course, but they mostly look like toys, even ones like ElliQ that have been designed to serve as companions to the elderly. But in his eighth novel, Kazuo Ishiguro leaps ahead to a time in which artificial friends (or AFs) are commonplace in our homes, not for seniors, but for children and teens.

The world of Klara and the Sun is not quite a dystopia but feels like one, as children have been divided into groups of “lifted” and “unlifted,” learn from home on devices called “oblongs” and get together sporadically in formal “interaction meetings” so they can learn to get along with their peers.

In this world exists Klara, an AF who narrates the story, first from the store where she waits to be purchased, where she is already a generation behind the newest models. Although as a B2, fourth series, model, Klara is not as technologically advanced as the latest B3s, she is extraordinarily sensitive and observant and the store manager considers her to have the most “sophisticated understanding” of any of the AFs in the store.

She is, in a way, like Good Janet from the TV show The Good Place — human looking, or at least human enough, yet robotically “off,” speaking as if English was a third or fourth language, while constantly processing new information. After brief interactions with a teen who is interested in her, Klara can give the girl’s eye color (gray), the pitch of her voice (a “range between A-flat above Middle C to C octave”) and identify a weakness she notes in the girl’s left hip.

She can not only “think” but also feel and philosophize, as when she says this of a bull she spots in a field: “Its face, its horns, its cold eyes watching me all brought fear into my mind, but I felt something more, something stranger and deeper. At that moment it felt to me some great error had been made that the creature should be allowed to stand in the Sun’s pattern at all, that this bull belonged somewhere deep in the ground far within the mud and darkness.”

The girl with the weak hip is Josie, and she feels a bond to Klara and after several visits convinces her mother to buy Klara. Klara is happy, inasmuch as AFs can be happy — indeed, that is one of the intriguing questions that runs through the novel — how much, if at all, AI can acquire of the human heart and its emotions. But soon, she realizes that there is more wrong with Josie than the physical weakness she detected in the girl’s hip and shoulder.

Josie, it is gradually revealed, is suffering from a worsening illness that appears to have been caused by something her mother did when deciding whether to “lift” her daughter through some sort of genetic editing. She is desperate to help Josie, as she has already lost another daughter to illness and a husband to divorce. Josie’s father is among the “Post-Employed” (presumably displaced by all the robots in a radical reshuffling of society) and now lives in a community enamoured of fascism.

Klara is not Josie’s only friend; she is also close to a teenage boy named Rick, who lives nearby with his mother. When Klara, who runs on solar power, decides to help Josie by asking the sun for his help, Rick helps Klara, as much as she will allow him. But to Klara, the sun is essentially God, a mysterious but occasionally benevolent being whose “nourishment” bestows energy and healing. She makes a short pilgrimage to where she believes the sun goes to rest, to strike a deal with him in order to ask for Josie’s healing.

This simple act of faith sets into motion a series of events that are not overtly religious but still evoke ancient stories of sacrifice and redemption. (Also, it’s hard not to puzzle over Ishiguro’s intentions when the conversation involves “the Father” and “the Sun.”) But that is but one layer of many in this fine-grained examination of what could well be a realistic future for many people who are alive today. It’s much easier to imagine a Klara than it was a time-traveling Delorean. The Klaras are not here, but they are unnervingly near. What will become of them, and of us, is worth contemplation, maybe while taking in the nourishment of the sun. A

Books

Events

• THERESA CAPUTO the star of TLC’s Long Island Medium will present “Theresa Caputo: The Experience Live” at the Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St. Concord, ccanh.com) on Wed., April 7, 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $39.75.

• MICHAEL TOUGIAS Author of The Waters Between Us presents. Virtual, via Zoom. Part of Concord’s Walker Lecture Series. Wed., April 7, 7:30 p.m. Free. Call 333-0035 or visit walkerlecture.org.

• SCOTT WEIDENSAUL Author presents A World on the Wing. Tues., April 20, 7 p.m. The Music Hall, Historic Theater, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth. Tickets cost $46. Visit themusichall.org or call 436-2400.

• ERIN BOWMAN Author presents Dustborn. Hosted by Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord. Virtual, via Zoom. Tues., April 20, 7 p.m. Registration required. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com or call 224-0562

Featured photo: Klara and the Sun

Album Reviews 21/04/01

Dan Blake, Da Fé (Sunnyside Records)

Fourth full-length from bandleader Blake, a Brooklyn-based sax player and board member of Buddhist Global Relief here busying himself at contributing something to the full slate of activist movements, including Extinction Rebellion, the Poor People’s Campaign and Show Up for Racial Justice. Sound-wise, Blake tries to emulate 1980s-era Wayne Shorter, and does make a good go of it when things get chaotically urban; you can practically smell the fried asphalt cooling outside. Doesn’t start out that way, though; in the message-sending prologue (“A New Normal”) pianist Carmen Staaf introduces the record with a slow, menacing solo bit whose augmented feel is fit for an old Vincent Price horror movie. It’ll be a bit unsettling to listeners who show up here for the sizzling, stubbornly retro vibes that take hold for pretty much the remainder. Things get the most animated during “The Grifter” (now who on Earth might that be referring to); the band lopes along like a herd of jacked-up gazelles in that boss move. “Doctor Armchair” is the obligato skronk workout. B+

Jazz WORMS, Squirmin’ (Capri Records)

I suppose it’s a given that every major city has a best jazz band in residence, and this five-piece (“WORMS” is an acronym that collects the first letters of the last names of the band members) is Denver’s. Coronet, piano and sax are the major instrumental components here, intertwining nicely in order to table ’60s-ish post-bop-ish advanced lounge stuff that’s simultaneously feel-good and mildly challenging. I know, I know, that pretty much describes approximately seven billion working jazz bands currently in business, but man, these guys are a lot of fun, even when they’re engaging in a workable level of skronk (basically minimal, praise Allah) and allow each member to stretch out without letting things get too wonky or drag on for any uncomfortable amount of time. Lots of experience in this 34-year-old band, including coronet guy Ron Miles’ bandleader releases on the Blue Note label. Just a terrific record all around. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

April 2 will bring our ears new albums, and hopefully some actual hints of actual summer, after this long Covid winter of going quietly insane! We will start with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose new album, G_d’s Pee AT STATES END, is on the way! I know nothing about them except for the fact that they’re from Montreal, Canada, and there are nine members. So, ipso facto, even though they claim to be into “space rock” (a made-up genre that means drone-y psychedelic rock), I’ll bet this stuff sucks, because all the band members are, of course, white and quite privileged-looking, and there are, repeat, nine members, and one of ’em plays a fiddle. As well, the band is named after an obscure Japanese movie (so edgy!). Get all that? I am expecting pure horror and barfing as I proceed to the next step of this little write-up, the bit where I actually submit my ears to this unlistenable nonsense. Ready? OMG, this all just got even worse. The teaser song is called, and I quote, “4521.0kHz 6730.0kHz 4109.09kHz.” It is a nonsense song that sounds like noise from a transistor radio that has super-bad reception. No, I’m serious, and one of the whopping seven people who left a comment on the YouTube for this idiocy exclaimed, “I cannot express with words how exited [sic] I am for this.” For my part, I am very excited to exit this part of our show.

• Since we’re on the subject of godspeeding and whatnot, I would also like to bring up an album that I’m sort of excited about, Glasvegas’ Godspeed, which will probably be decent, but there’s always the chance that it will disappoint and I won’t invite them to my Slip n Slide party when it gets warm! The band is from Scotland, and in the past they’ve done some right smart shoegaze-goth music. I just checked in with the second single, “Dying To Live,” which has been around for several months already, while the band got their act together enough to release the album. This is like a cross between U2’s first album and, I don’t know, probably Sisters Of Mercy. I like the tune, even if all it does is wander around acting edgy and not settling on any real melodic line. Your pet toucan might like it, who knows.

• Flock of Dimes, a Baltimore singer lady whose real name is Jenn Wasner, has played with Bon Iver and Wye Oak, and thus she is the most important musician in history in the eyes of people who love that kind of music (I don’t). This project’s third album, Head of Roses, is on my examination table, and boy, the new single, “Two,” sounds kind of like PJ Harvey trying to make something out of a chintzy Figurine cheese-techno line. Eventually it’s successful, but jeez, come on, people.

• To wrap up the week we have Du Blonde, the nom-de-stage of English musician Beth Jeans Houghton, who is also an artist, animator and video director, as well as a frequent wearer of belly shirts; she’s directed and animated music videos for Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ezra Furman, among others. Her third Du Blonde album is called Homecoming. In the video for the single “Medicated,” she has Kiss-style Gene Simmons makeup on, and it’s totally no-wave and grungy and spooky, but aimless. At least it’s irritating, thank heaven.

Spring rosés

Time to stop and sip the wine

It’s spring and perhaps Mother Nature may cooperate and provide us with continued spring-like weather. The sun warms the soil, the snow banks are receding, and a few trees are already beginning to set buds. The perfect pairing for springtime fare is a chilled rosé wine.

Our first wine is an Italian sparkling rosé, Val d’ Oca Extra Dry Sparkling Rosé, originally priced at $15.99, reduced to $7.99 at the NH Liquor & Wine Outlets. It is a bright sparkling wine with a light pink color and floral, strawberry and raspberry aromas. The nose of the wine carries through to the palate, with a short but pleasant finish. This is a wine that is perfect as an aperitif or with fresh seafood or grilled fish. It is also ideal to be served opposite soft, young cheeses. Produced in Veneto, the northeast region of Italy and home to prosecco, this wine is also made from the glera grape, used in the production of prosecco. But added to the glera grapes are pinot noir grapes, bringing along their color and a fuller mouth to enhance the wine. Val d’Oca is under the Cantina Produttori di Valdobbiadene, a group of nearly 600 growers within about 2,500 acres of vineyards. The making of this wine consists of separate vinification for the glera grapes and the pinot noir grapes, including soft pressing and fermentation for the glera grapes and red maceration for the pinot noir grapes. Blending of the two happens before the second fermentation, employing the Charmat method (trapping bubbles in the wine via its own carbonation in large, cool steel tanks).

Our next two wines hail from the south of France.

Château Montaud Côtes De Provence 2019 Rosé (originally priced at $17.99, reduced to $12.99 at the NH Liquor & Wine Outlets) has a pink color approaching amber. It has a subtle nose, but to the mouth there are notes of peach, strawberry and citrus, followed by a mineral finish. It is refreshingly both smooth and crisp. It pairs well with vegetarian, fish, shellfish, pork and poultry, quite a diverse offering. This wine may not be complicated, but it is still lovely and can go beyond a dinner pairing wine to one that is enjoyed on the deck or patio in the warm spring sunshine with some cheese. This wine is a blend of grenache, cinsault, syrah and mourvedre.

Gérard Bertrand 2019 Cote Des Rosé (originally priced at $17.99, reduced to $15.99 at the NH Liquor & Wine Outlets) is from the Languedoc region in the south of France, just west of Provence. Bordering Catalonia Spain and the Pyrenees Mountains, the region is known as the largest wine-growing region in the world and produces one third of France’s wines. It has a soft coppery-pink color and a nose of cassis and red currant, along with some floral notes. The palate is light, but with a ripe fruit character and some spiciness. Citric notes provide a lengthy feel and interest to the mouth. A blend of grenache, syrah and cinsault, this wine is different from the Pierrefeu rosé. There is more acid to the tongue, coupled with a taste of oak and tangerine rind.

Any, or all, of these rosés are a great way to celebrate spring.

Featured photo: Val d’ Oca Extra Dry Sparkling Rosé

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