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Joining together

Music and food benefit Ukraine

A charity focused on humanitarian aid for a war-besieged country is the beneficiary at an event that includes traditional food and a variety of music. Voices United For Ukraine began as a way for local musician Val Blachly to do something, even from a distance, to help.

“I thought a musical event would be a really nice way of going about raising money, so that’s how I got involved,” she said. “The country’s in need with what’s been going on and we really wanted to give back, and give to the people there.”

Hot Skillet Club will headline the show. They’re a newly formed trio that includes Blachly on upright bass and a pair of musicians she’s played with in other groups: guitarist Liza Constable, part of retro-swing group Swing A Cat, and Ellen Carlson, a fiddler she began working with in Sweet, Hot & Sassy, which had a 12-year run starting in the early 1990s.

A pair of Ukrainian accordion players will serenade during dinner, followed by Northern Lights, a vocal group organized by Concord musician Peggo Hodes. Acoustic quintet Wholly Rollers follows with old-time bluegrass and gospel, and what their website dubs “sea shanties and land shanties.” Folk singer Andriy Zharkov, another native of Ukraine, will perform between sets and speak about his journey of how he came to the United States.

After looking at some venues that didn’t fit the benefit’s modest budget, Blachly approached Concord’s Unitarian Church and found a perfect match. After a sit-down meeting, “I said, ‘this is my vision, I’d love to do something for the Ukraine, incorporate music and some people from there,’” she recalled. “They both looked at each other and said, ‘Oh, my God, this is exactly what we want to do … we’ve been talking about doing something like this.’”

Ukrainian native and activist Natalia Karaulova connected Blachly to Sunflower Network, an organization that directs donations to where they’ll do the most good. Karaulova found out about them while visiting Ukraine a few months ago, after a chance meeting with an old high school friend who was working with them to bring aid to the ravaged country.

“Everybody’s trying to help each other, to help displaced people and the army, because they are fighting the fight and making sure that the rest of the country is safe,” Karaulova said from her home in Warner. “That’s how I learned about Sunflower Network, just having that personal connection.”

Asked about the dinner preceding the concert, she said, “If somebody asked me to describe Ukrainian cuisine, I’d say it’s very earthy. People still grow most of their food…. It’s very hearty.” The evening menu will include staples like borscht and cabbage wraps, along with dumplings and a special dessert.

For their set, Northern Lights will perform “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” and a Ukrainian folk song picked by Hodes with help from Karaulova. “She had Natalia assist her and the women in the group with pronouncing the lyrics,” Blachly explained. “This particular song was written by a Russian, so the pronunciation was a little different. Peggo called her in and said she really wanted to do it with a Ukrainian accent.”

Closing the show, Hot Skillet Club will draw from an array of selections. Their set will have throwbacks from the Boswell Sisters, a proto-swing vocal group at the center of Blachly and Constable’s band Honest Millie, along with Bob Wills and Asleep at the Wheel-flavored material delivered with a feminine touch.

“We’ve been listening to Swing Sisters and women that came into Western swing, the music that they came out singing, and picking up ideas,” Blachly said. “Ellen has that down on the violin, so it’s kind of a combination of the two.” They’ve also worked up a great version of Merle Haggard’s “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down,” now up on Blachly’s Facebook page.

More recently, the trio started rehearsing gypsy jazz pioneer Django Reinhart’s song “Limehouse Blues.” The best part is the honey-sweet three-part harmonies that come easy for the old friends. “We’re all stepping up to the plate,” Blachly said.

Beyond the benefit show, there’s more on the way from Hot Skillet Club.

“It’s amazing that in the little time we’ve had together we have a fair amount of tunes,” Blachly said. “We’re so new we don’t even have our website up yet. And we already have 10 gigs.”

Voices United For Ukraine
When: Saturday, April 1, dinner at 5:30 p.m., concert 7:15 p.m.
Where: UU Church, 274 Pleasant St., Concord
Tickets: dinner $15, concert $20 per person (under 5 free)

Featured photo: Hot Skillet Club. Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 23/03/30

Local music news & events

• Thirty years on: When their breakthrough album River Runs Red was released in 1993, Life of Agony lead singer Mina Caputo identified as a man; she came out as transsexual (her term) in 2011. Her grunge-limned alt-metal band performed its first concert with her as a front woman in 2014 and has gigged steadily since. Their latest tour marks the anniversary of that album, by a very different group, three decades ago. Thursday, March 30, 7:30 pm., Wally’s Pub, 144 Ashworth Ave., Hampton, $25 at ticketmaster.com.

• New thing now: Mindset X pivots from prog rock into Horsefly Gulch, a band described on its web page as “a mixture of rock, folk, spaghetti western and whatever else comes into play.” The trio makes its hometown debut on a what should be described as a triple headliner bill, laden with local favorites, including blindspot and A Simple Complex. Their first single, “The One That Got Away,” debuted a few days ago. Friday, March 31, 8:30 p.m., Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester. See horseflygulch.com.

• Gate City gala: After helping open Nashua’s new Center for the Arts, Ruby Shabazz celebrates her birthday with help from her husband, rapper Fee The Evolutionist, along with Adam Payne, Mighty Ceej & Blvck Vynl. It’s a great day for the city, with the new venue selling out its first event weeks in advance, and promising a bevy of big-name talent in the coming months, including Suzanne Vega on April 15. Saturday, April 1, 8 p.m., Fody’s Tavern, 9 Clinton St., Nashua. See facebook.com/rabihah.shabazz.

• Calling all kids: With a brand of folk music that reaches adults but especially children, Okee Dokee Brothers is the duo of Denver pals Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing, who grew up in the Rocky Mountains and decided to use their talents to urge kids and their parents to get outdoors and enjoy nature. They’ve earned four Grammy nominations, winning in 2021 but declining the statue due all the contenders being white. Sunday, April 2, 2 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $20.75 – $30.75 at ccanh.com.

• Upta camp comedy: As he begins a six-show run, Bob Marley is a comedian who never does the same show twice. The Maine-centric funny man entered the Guinness Book of World Record with the longest-ever set by a comic a few years back while barely repeating a joke. He’s a perennial favorite at this downtown hall. Wednesday, April 5, and Thursday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, April 7, at 6 and 8:30 p.m., and Saturday, April 8, at 5:30 and 8 p.m.. Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester, $39.50 at palacetheatre.org.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (R)

Keanu Reeves gets what feels like more fight scenes and even sparser dialogue in John Wick: Chapter 4.

John Wick (Reeves) has recovered from being shot by friend/Continental Hotel manager Winston (Ian McShane) at the end of the last movie (a benevolent shooting, I think?). He’s hanging out with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne, who is still having the very best time), who gets him a new suit. And off John Wick goes to the desert, to try to get someone to lift his “excommunicado” status in the assassin world (which means that killers worldwide are looking to take him out to collect a sizable bounty).

Meanwhile, back at the Continental, the classy assassin hang-out, the High Table (the underworld’s ruling body) has decided to mark the hotel as condemned, which is even worse than when it was deconsecrated or whatever in the last movie. An hour after The Harbinger (Clancy Brown) shows up to deliver the news about the hotel’s condemnation, the building is demolished like a faded Las Vegas casino and Concierge Charon (Lance Reddick, who was awesome in everything and died on March 17 and will be missed) is, uhm, let go.

The person behind all of this punishment aimed at Winston for the crime of helping John Wick is the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), a snootypants we will enjoy rooting against. The High Table has given him a blank check to do whatever needs to be done to put an end to John Wick, both the man and the legend. The Marquis calls into service Caine (Donnie Yen), a former assassin who like John Wick tried to leave the life behind (possibly agreeing to have himself blinded to do it?). But he has a daughter and to keep her safe he occasionally freelances, I guess. He reluctantly takes the job to kill John Wick, an old buddy.

Caine is also old buddies with Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada), manager of the Osaka Continental, which is where John Wick goes for help. Shimazu’s concierge and daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama) isn’t so keen on Wick’s presence at the hotel; she’s less concerned with old friendship and more concerned with their continued survival in the here and now, especially when High Table henchmen show up with Caine.

Also at the Osaka is a character we come to know as Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), a contract killer with a loyal dog because somebody in this movie has to have a Very Good Boy who can do cute doggie faces in the midst of balletic violence. Mr. Nobody is in the game to get John Wick but first he wants the “getting” price to go up and helps orchestrate this bounty inflation by occasionally knocking off competing assassins.

There are several memorable set-piece battles in John Wick Chapter 4: Caine fights a series of dudes in a kitchen using motion sensors; John Wick fights guys standing in the street while fast-moving traffic flows around and between them; John Wick fights in a building as we watch from overhead, giving an illusion that we are watching a continuous shot filmed through several rooms; multiple characters fight multiple characters on a steep set of stairs with the up and down climbing and falling part of the choreography of the fight. And in between that are several scenes of smaller battles and one-on-one fights. These scenes are all exciting and extremely well-choreographed. Like, there needs to be an Oscar that recognizes the skill of creating an energetic, technically beautiful fight scene that is also believable both for two humans to participate in and in the context of the movie. There needs to be an Oscar for this and it needs to go to a John Wick movie because this is a skill.

And yet.

And yet maybe this movie could have had fewer of these scens? I can’t believe I’m saying that but I think fewer and better highlighted would have been the way to go with these stretches of the movie which, when I think back to consider them individually, really were a marvel. In the movie, however, there is a frosting on frosting on frosting effect in the way this movie piles up fight scenes without the cake that allows the punch of sugar to really come through. The original John Wick was an hour and 41 minutes long. Each sequel has been a little bit longer than its predecessor, with this one clocking in at two hours and 49 minutes. Somewhere in here is a solid, well-paced, energetic hour-and-50-minute movie. But this nearly three-hour version gets bogged down in its questing — John Wick going here to engage with this person, then there, then we’re meeting these people. This has always been a part of these stories, particularly in the second and third installments, but it seemed a little more spinning-its-wheels here than it did in previous movies. Also, I did have the sinking feeling that some of this was setting up potential side-quel elements — Caine, Akira and of course Mr. Nobody and his dog.

So, Chapter 4? Loved the Keanu, as usual; loved the Fishburne and the McShane absolutely acting to, not just the back row, but the people on the street in front of the theater. Loved the precision of the fights, loved the ideas and the cleverness that went into them. This movie isn’t the gleeful ride of its immediate predecessor but it was an overall better-than-average bit of entertainment. B

Rated R for so so so much killing (“pervasive strong violence and some language” is how the MPA describes it, according to filmratings.com). Directed by Chad Stahelski and written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, John Wick: Chapter 4 is two hours and 49 minutes long and is distributed in theaters by Lionsgate.

Featured photo: John Wick: Chapter 4

Wolfish, by Erica Berry

Wolfish, by Erica Berry (Flatiron, 380 pages)

After Erica Berry was awarded a fellowship to work on a book about wolves, she took a train from Minneapolis to Portland, where she would spend a few weeks alone researching and writing in the delightful paid-for isolation awarded to writers of promise. By the time Berry had settled in her seat, I had already learned something new: that Amtrak cars are segregated into “families/couples” and “singles.” Maybe everyone in the world but me knew this already, but our brains like learning new things, and I discerned that Berry’s book about wolves and fear would be quite a trip. And it was, just not in the way that I expected.

After Berry settled down comfortably in her seat, happy to “watch the prairie buckle into the mountains” and read, she was dismayed to be joined by a somewhat threatening man who was eventually forcibly removed from the train. It was the first, it turns out, of many times that Berry felt threatened by men, causing her to move throughout the world in the emotional state of a rabbit or other small mammal that is always on cusp of being somebody’s dinner.

Enter the wolf.

More than a decade ago, Berry became interested in the politics of wolves in the West, where in some places wolves were being reintroduced to areas where they had gone extinct. (“More wolves, less politics” is actually a slogan for some wolf advocates.) Some of the wolves have been outfitted with tracking collars (despite the fact that some don’t survive the stress of temporary capture), and they had a cult following as they crossed state lines and found mates. Their exploits, and those of the people who follow them, are in fact more fascinating than much of what is found on network TV.

But Berry took it further. She started to think deeply about archetypes of wolves and why they are so embedded in our culture as animals that inspire fear, so much so that we compare terrorists to wolves. (It is a good question — why do we so frequently identify a killer as a “lone wolf” instead of, say, a lone Grizzly bear?) Wolfish is the result. The book is a gorgeously written, deeply researched and smartly plotted examination of animal fear that will be well reviewed and possibly win prestigious awards, but will be read by hardly anyone.

That’s in part because Berry is telling two painfully disparate stories: that of these beautiful, wild, unafraid creatures, and that of the crippling anxiety that seems to be part and parcel of the lives of so many young adults, especially women. In the world that Berry describes, young women are always moving through a terrifying forest with wolves around every tree; it is a story that we’ve been told since childhood, and it’s interesting to learn the origins of “Little Red Riding Hood.” (The oldest version in print dates to 1697; similar stories have long histories in China, Korea and Japan.)

And Berry does not seem to be exaggerating in terms of her own life. She has had a staggering number of threatening encounters with men, to include being surrounded by a silent group of men wearing white T-shirts (with slits for eyes) over their faces, to men who follow her in a park, whistle at her while she runs and murmur obscenities to her on a bus — to the point where she says friends have “suggested I was prone to ‘bad luck,’ as if the encounters I had were mistakes, aberrations, not just blips in the field of female — of human! — life.”

No woman, of course, should have to be subjected to constant threats and harassment, and every woman, whether or not they are as beautiful as Berry as is, has stories about feeling threatened — stories that even years later can leave us, in the language of Emily Dickenson, zero at the bone. But the narrative that Berry employs — interspersing tales of the famous wolf known as OR-7 and his travels, with stories of murdered women and children, and her own crippling fears — makes for unnecessarily dark reading, with just enough light for the occasional eye roll.

Cases in point: her agonizing over the ethics of flying to England for two weeks of wolf-watching paid for with yet another grant (“What could I observe about the wolves to justify two-pickup-truck-beds worth of sea ice melting, the amount the emissions from my round-trip seat will hypothetically finish off?”) and her guilt about calling authorities on another genuinely threatening man who showed up at her home (“It was a story about the power of my white female fear, a fear that could ignite the apparatus of a police state I had long ago come to doubt.”)

And so we go on like this for nearly 400 pages, Berry luring us forward with delectable wolf stories and treats while the reader wishes she had gotten professional help for her fear. Even her mother, it seems, has felt this way; Berry writes, “Whenever I used to tell my mother about being afraid of this or that, she would look worried,” she writes.

“How much fear should you stoke to stay alive? How much trust can you afford before it kills you?” Berry asks, and they seem to be questions she asks in her own defense. Fear is, of course, an evolutionary tool to keep us alive. It is also, like physical pain, more difficult to control once it gets past a certain point. She quotes from the Robert Browning poem “Ivan Ivanovitch,” which is about wolves attacking a family traveling by sled: “Who can hold fast a boy in a frenzy of fear?”

That poem and other stories Berry tells, such as that of a young Alaskan teacher killed by wolves in 2010, remind us that there are in fact frightening beasts in the world that most of us will spend our lives comfortably distant from, seeking adrenalin elsewhere. Wolfish plumbs the depths of fear in interesting ways, but ultimately suffers from an author too much in its grip. B+

Album Reviews 23/03/30

Glitter Wizard, Kiss The Boot (Kitten Robot Records)

Sure, these guys are good for what they do, which, for over a decade, has been sort of a cross between T-Rex and the first two Kiss albums (stop cringing). This is a crew of five dudes from San Francisco who are into combining psychedelica, old glam rock, punk, and (sort of) prog in order to table a That 70s Show party vibe. The lead guitarist is decent, reaching for the acid-rock stratosphere with squealy, pinched notes around every corner, but what I actually like best is that the backing vocals are a complete mess, probably having been recorded on the cheap with the remaining 20 minutes of recording studio time. I’d venture to say that fans of Black Lips would be jiggy with this, but in the end, if this bunch sticks with this off-the-rack lo-fi engineering, they could probably end up putting out a single that ends up replacing Gary Glitter’s “Rock ’n’ Roll” at football games. Do I expect that to happen? Well, no, but who knows. A

The Church, The Hypnogogue (Communicating Vessels Records)

I’d say everyone who was club-hopping in the ’80s has heard of this Australian New Wave quintet, but being able to name one of their songs is a whole ’nother trick. If you rack your brain hard enough you might come up with the title of the one song that charted in the U.S., “Under The Milky Way,” which was sort of like what it might have sounded like if Lou Reed had stolen “Eleanor Rigby.” Anyway, they’re back, still led by bass player and singer Steve Kilbey, and they do seem to have evolved a little. They’re still purveyors of a lay-back-and-drink vibe; for instance, “No Other You” has the same sort of laid-back rawk energy as Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” but with a more, you know, throwback New Wave sound. The title track tables the same sort of sleepiness but takes something of a Savage Republic approach. Not sure why I’d ever listen to this record again, but you do you. A

Playlist

• A lot has come in lately, so let’s play a little catch-up with some releases from earlier this month, that’d be great. May as well start with So Much (For) Stardust, the new album from emo-rock heroes Fall Out Boy. I saw those dudes open up for someone years ago, I think it was Motley Crue, and they were only provided around a quarter of the stage on which to move around and sing their little emo songs. You’ve heard them before for sure, probably at a Chuck E Cheese or someplace else that has a lot of little kids running around and spazzing to barely punk-ish music that’s sort of like the Velveeta cheese version of Iron Maiden, i.e. the prototype for Imagine Dragons, like that one song of theirs that always plays over loudspeakers when you least expect it, “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark,” with its spazzy millennial-whoop “oh-oh-oh” verse and matching chorus; it’s actually OK now that it’s too old for anyone to really care about anymore, like if you told a 9-year-old it was heavy metal they’d have no choice but to believe you. So this Illinois-based band, which originally tried to be taken seriously in the Chicago punk scene before choosing to rip off Taking Back Sunday and all those guys, wants you to know about this new album and its single, “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” a totally worthless, biodegradably recyclable hunk of music-trash that sounds like Dashboard Confessional trying to rewrite the main theme to Footloose, but first, at the top of the tune’s video, they insist that you watch them “pull a prank” by pretending to kidnap Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo from in front of an ice cream stand or something, but it all hilariously backfires and a bunch of girls start chasing them around like they’re The Monkees, and the total effect is like watching early MTV, when the world got its first insights into how rock stars shouldn’t try to make comedy videos. Talk about awful stuff, let’s move on.

• Borderline-goth-pop pioneers and closet Ultravox wannabes Depeche Mode are back, with their 15th album, Memento Mori. There are approximately 3,291 goth bands I like more than Depeche Mode, but owing to their rabid fan base, I think I can feign interest in them for a short little writeup here, so let’s go. David Gahan and Martin Gore are still in the band, but that’s about it, not that the fact that the band is barely Depeche Mode anymore could possibly detract from their sound, and remember, I don’t care in the first place, but never fear, people who love this band, literally nothing has changed: The single, “Ghosts Again,” may as well have come out in 1987, yes, it’s that dated. You know, Pet Shop Boys are literally a hundred times more listenable than this stuff, even though they’re also really old people, but if you insist, go ahead and pretend it’s relevant, I cannot prevent it.

• You’d probably have heard of British synthpop lady Ellie Goulding, but for the most part she’s really only popular in other countries. This is typical, of course, because the only singers Americans care about are Taylor Swift and Willie Nelson. Her new album, Higher Than Heaven, is coming out this Friday and it includes “Let It Die,” a Michael Jackson-ish tune that showcases her Dolly Parton-esque soprano. It’s OK.

• Lastly, look, it’s those three little Japanese teenage girls, Babymetal, with another album, The Other One! Did you even know they existed? I didn’t, but now I know that there is a band that combines Slayer with happy, super-high-pitched singing that would be more at home on a joke album. These little rascals have played shows in which Rob Halford from Judas Priest got up and sang with them. I give up.

If you’re in a local band, now’s a great time to let me know about your EP, your single, whatever’s on your mind. Let me know how you’re holding yourself together without being able to play shows or jam with your homies. Send a recipe for keema matar. Message me on Twitter (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

In the kitchen with Kassandra Santana

Kassandra Santana is the executive chef of Tuscan Kitchen (67 Main St., Salem, 952-4875, tuscanbrands.com), a regionally renowned restaurant known for its artisan Italian cuisine. A native of Lawrence, Mass., Santana joined the company in early 2011 as a busser before ultimately working her way up the ranks at both the Salem restaurant and its accompanying market. She is the first — and, to date, the only — female executive chef of Tuscan Brands, which also has restaurants in downtown Portsmouth and in Burlington and Newburyport, Mass., as well as in Boston’s Seaport District.

What is your must-have kitchen item?

A spoon, because I’m constantly tasting everything.

What would you have for your last meal?

My go-to would be some miso ramen soup.

What is your favorite local restaurant?

That would be Grand India. It’s pretty new in Salem. I love their mango shrimp curry — it’s outstanding.

What celebrity would you like to see trying something on your menu?

I would say Zendaya, the actress. I’ve always loved her, and she seems like a very kind-hearted person, for sure.

What is your favorite thing on your menu?

That would be the tortelli brasato [braised short rib stuffed pasta]. That was the first dish I actually walked to a table when I first got my chef jacket. … I’ve always loved it, and I think it’s because that sauce is the most time-consuming sauce to make. It takes about six hours just to cook the demi to create that sauce, so we put a lot of time and effort into that dish.

What is the biggest food trend in New Hampshire right now?

When it comes to trends in New Hampshire, I feel like it’s comfort food [and] cheesy dishes — the type of food that you take your time cooking all day. … Our wild boar ragu with truffled gnocchi is a good example and checks all of those boxes.

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I can’t go wrong with something from my own culture. I like to cook a true traditional Hispanic meal — it would be different types of rice and just a nice braised steak or an oven-roasted chicken.

Oat banana bread
From the kitchen of Kassandra Santana, executive chef of Tuscan Kitchen in Salem

2 large bananas
1 large egg
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
Walnuts or chocolate chunks (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl or blender. Whisk or blend on high until the texture is smooth. Add chocolate chunks or walnuts to your liking. Pour batter onto a greased loaf pan. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice and enjoy.


Featured photo: Kassandra Santana, executive chef of Tuscan Kitchen in Salem. Courtesy photo.

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