Tag: 250306

Power trio

River Sang Wild plays a ski resort weekend

By Michael Witthaus

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A year ago River Sang Wild played an apres-ski set at Pats Peak to a crowd that was so appreciative they’ve been asked to return for a two-day run beginning March 8. Typically, the power trio amps up places like Strange Brew and the Press Room with a big and boisterous sound, but these shows will be closer, sonically and spiritually, to Nirvana’s Unplugged.

“We do a more stripped down set there,” the band’s drummer Harrison Foti said in a recent phone interview. “Because our normal one is pretty high volume, high energy, that type of thing. We can’t really do that in the room they have us play in.”

The band formed during the pandemic, a few years after Danny McCarthy and Foti first connected at a North Shore open mic night hosted by Brian Maes of Barry Goudreau’s Engine Room. When Foti’s band Victim of Circumstance broke up, he began jamming in McCarthy’s basement, along with bass player Brad Hartwick from his old group.

As live music returned, the three began to play out. Concurrently, Foti and Hartwick were the rhythm section of Feverslip, led by ex-Red Sky Mary singer Sam Vlasich. In 2023, Hartwick left to devote his attention to that band. Rainor Vigneault took over on bass, completing River Sang Wild’s present lineup.

Heartbreak Recital, a five-song EP, was released in November 2023. It kicked off with “The River,” written by McCarthy, a bracing rocker that also included the band’s name in the chorus. “I’m actually the jerk that planted that lyric,” Foti said of making it a theme song. “I’ve heard some people do that and I’m like, why not? Personally, it’s one of my favorite songs.”

Other standouts in the collection include the jangly, fuzz toned “Love Train” and “Rewind,” another up-tempo bop with a radio-ready boogie feel. “Bloodlines” is another crunchy gem. The band’s influences include post-millennial rockers like Black Keys and Kings of Leon, but they also cover Cream, and play The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” with aplomb.

“We definitely thus far have had a classic rock influence upon our music,” Foti said, while adding, “I hope to stray away from that, because my musical tastes have certainly changed, even within rock. I feel a bit the same about the other guys too…. I think that they are very open to exploring other avenues.”

“Devil or Not,” released late last year, and another single in the works reflect new member Vigneault’s role.

“I feel that Rainor’s definitely been incorporating more into the songwriting,” Foti said, adding. “Danny’s really the one bringing forth the lyrics, the song ideas…. I partake in helping with arrangements and, of course, laying the drums down.”

Approaching its fifth anniversary as a band, River Sang Wild is upping its profile in a few ways. Christos Alamaniotis, a graphic artist who’s worked with The Misfits, Papa Roach and Car Seat Headrest, is doing their latest cover art, and the band is finalizing plans to record a live session with Philadelphia-based Cart Music soon.

“Essentially, they videotape a whole set [and] give you the audio and video,” he explained. “They reached out to us within the last week and we’re looking to set up a date with them along with a couple of Philly shows, and most likely New York, since it’s kind of right next door.”

Last summer they played a second stage set at Bank of NH Pavilion ahead of the Dave Matthews Band. Hopefully, they’ll be back on the venue’s Hazy Little Stage again next summer.

Beyond that, River Sang Wild is focused on creating new music and refining its sound. They are currently working on new songs, with hopes of recording more material in the coming months. They’re playing the new tracks at shows, Foti noted, but the studio sessions will begin a path to their official release.

Since forming his first band in 2017, Foti is partial to the power trio format, demanding though it may be. “It’s definitely a challenge because you can’t really hide a lot. Everything is out in the open, and everyone’s very much equally responsible for filling in the space when necessary — and knowing when not to fill in the space with a trio is also important.”

River Sang Wild

When: Saturday, March 8, 6 p.m. and Sunday, March 9, noon
Where: Pats Peak, 686 Flanders Road, Henniker
More: riversangwild.com

Featured Photo: Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 25/03/06

By Michael Witthaus

[email protected]

• Arena laughs: With an act that begins with an entrance riding a Vespa, Sebastian Maniscalco is well-suited to hockey rink humor; it’s been years since the comic has appeared in a nightclub or even an opera house. His It Ain’t Right is in town with Maniscalco’s trademark physical comedy, as well as Pete & Sebastian Show podcast sidekick Pete Correale opening the show. Thursday, March 6, 7:30 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester, $39 and up at ticketmaster.com.

• SoCal sound: Some alt-rock fans bristle at their favorite bands being called classic rock, but Everclear’s Art Alexakis is honored by the moniker. Friday, March 7, 8 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $55 at tupelohall.com.

• Electric cowboys: The twang-fueled alter ego of prog-rock band Mindset X, Horsefly Gulch performs at an adult fun house that includes axe throwing, arcade games and augmented reality darts aimed at laser targets. This critic watched them early on and called their sound “Link Wray meets Primus by way of Crazy Horse, or Rush playing incognito at a cowboy bar.” It still stands. Saturday, March 8, 8 p.m., Smitty’s GameLAB, 630 W. Main St., Tilton. Visit horseflygulch.com.

• Good guy: Performing in support of his latest album, Time is a Thief, Marc Broussard stops in Portsmouth. The record, produced by Eric Krasno and Jeremy Most, is Broussard’s first collection of originals in seven years and follows the 2023 collaboration with blues rock chart topper Joe Bonamassa, S.O.S. 4 Blues for Your Soul, part of a series of benefit releases from the vocalist. Sunday, March 9, 7 p.m., Music Hall, 28 Chestnut St., Portsmouth, $37 and up at themusichall.org.

• Blues rocking: With slide guitar augmented by Hammond organ, Barrett Anderson Band rips through standards like Bo Diddley’s “Mona” with fierce reverence, calling their sound “hypnoboogie.” The Cambridge-based trio plays a midweek set at a downtown eatery that regularly hosts live music along with tasty smashburgers and fun items like the Bad Bird and DRTY MNKY shake. Wednesday, March 12, 8 p.m., BAD BRGR, 1015 Elm St., Manchester. Visit barrettandersonband.com.

Paddington in Peru (PG)

Paddington and the Brown family go on a quest to find a missing, possibly treasure-hunting Aunt Lucy in the Amazonian jungle in Paddington in Peru, the sweet and perfectly acceptable third entry in the series.

The second Paddington movie was basically family movie perfection — which leaves a lot for this movie to live up to and it doesn’t, quite. The movie in whole is a bit like the character of Mary Brown: Emily Mortimer has taken over the Brown mom role from Sally Hawkins and Mortimer, like the movie, is fine — she just doesn’t quite have the sparkle that Hawkins brought.

The Brown children — college-bound daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris) and teenage son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) — are mostly busy doing their own things and mother Mary (Mortimer) misses the years of more family togetherness. Marmalade-loving bear Paddington (voice of Ben Whishaw) receives a letter from the Reverend Mother (Olivia Coleman) at the Home for Retired Bears in Peru where his beloved Aunt Lucy (voice of Imelda Staunton) is spending her golden years. It appears Aunt Lucy has become withdrawn and is desperately missing Paddington. He asks the Browns to come with him to Peru to see her and they jump at it — Judy can use a travelogue to help her college essay, Mary gets her family time and her husband/kids’ dad Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville) decides to take this opportunity to follow his boss’s advice that he take more risks. When they get to the Home for Retired Bears, the Reverend Mother tells them that Aunt Lucy is gone — apparently set off into the Amazonian jungle on some mysterious quest. The family heads to the docks to find a ship to take them up the river to the spot where she’s started her trip and they find Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas), who gets a funny gleam in his eye when they tell them where they want to go. His daughter Gina (Carla Tous) tells him it’s not a good idea for them to go to that part of the river but he overrides her and takes the charter, possibly because his ghostly conquistador ancestor is bullying him into continuing his search for gold. Meanwhile, back at the Home for Retired Bears, family caretaker Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters) is suspicious of how many things the very chirpy Reverend Mother tells her are not suspicious.

Paddington in Peru is lighthearted and fun. Even though the two slightly sketchy characters of Antonio Banderas and Olivia Coleman do not quite equal the one Hugh Grant of the second movie, this movie’s kooky adults mostly embrace the gentle cartooniness of any mischief. I (and my kids) found the movie’s hour-and-46-minute runtime a little longer than it needed to be but overall this is some of the warmer, cozier kid entertainment. B In theaters.

Mufasa: The Lion King (PG)

The photo-realistic version of The Lion King gets a prequel with a wraparound sequel story in Mufasa: The Lion King, directed by Barry Jenkins.

In the sequel bit, King Simba (voice of Donald Glover) and his queen Nala (voice of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter) are preparing for the birth of their new cub, leaving oldest cub Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) to be watched/entertained by Rafiki (voice of John Kani in his older incarnation, Kagiso Lediga as a younger monkey), Pumbaa (voice of Seth Rogen) and Timon (voice of Billy Eichner). To pass the time, Rafiki tells the story of Mufasa (voice of Braelyn Rankins as a cub, Aaron Pierre as a more grown-up lion), father of Simba and Kiara’s grandfather.

Before he was James Earl Jones, Mufasa was just a little lion cub who got separated from his parents by a flood. When the raging river finally slows, far from his home, he is nearly eaten by a crocodile before another young lion cub, Taka (voice of Theo Somolu as a cub, Kelvin Harrison Jr. when he’s older), and Taka’s mom, Eshe (voice of Thandiwe Newton), save him. Taka’s father, Obasi (voice of Lennie James), is all about Taka’s future as king of the lion pride and doesn’t want this stray nobody around taking up space, I guess to show us where Taka, the eventual Scar, gets his snottiness from. Eshe takes Mufasa in — as long as he stays with the females, Obasi demands — and Taka is delighted to have a brother to play with. As the years go by, Taka and Mufasa remain close buddies, even if Mufasa spends his time learning lady skills like hunting and tracking and Taka learns the dude skills of hanging out and waiting for a challenge. Eventually the Outsiders, as a pride of white lions is known, show up and do offer a challenge. Sensing that his pride isn’t strong enough to defeat the pride of Outsider king Kiros (voice of Mads Mikkelsen), Obasi sends Taka away, to find his own lands to be king of, with Mufasa serving as his protector. But Kiros, seeking vengeance after his son was killed in an earlier battle with Obasi’s lions, continues hunting Taka and Mufasa even after singing a disturbing “I’m going to kill you” song called “Bye Bye” (as in, now I will make you go bye bye) to Obasi and Eshe. Taka and Mufasa decide to head for the Milele, a land of abundance that Mufasa’s parents used to tell him about. Along the way, they meet feisty lady lion Sarabi (voice of Tiffany Boone) and her scout bird Zazu (voice of Preston Nyman) and the younger Rafiki. All set out together to Milele, with the Outsider lions on their various tails.

Throughout the story, Pumbaa and Timon in the wraparound story break in to provide the comic relief — basically doing comedy bits like commercial interruptions in an otherwise mostly laughs-free story. This sometimes breaks the flow but it also, I think, helps hold kid attention, which can wander during segments of Kiros talking about his quest for total domination or Taka’s feelings for Sarabi, who of course has feelings for Mufasa.

It’s all just enough, perfectly fine, unmemorable but inoffensive. The songs are all serviceable but only “Bye Bye” became a kid favorite in my family — the menace of the scene where it’s sung is maybe a lot for younger kids who get what’s going on but for older elementary schoolers who are getting bored I guess the implied violence is welcome. From an adult perspective, the whole endeavor feels kind of tepid. Mufasa is a puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit with The Lion King, Taka’s turn to Scar feels abrupt and motivated by the plot’s need for him to break bad more than anything going on with the character. Likewise, the movie seems to want to deliver a “together, my animal brethren, we can stand up to bullies” message which doesn’t completely snap together with the whole “circle of life” thing which, as Kiros points out, is just a polite way of saying predator and prey. The movie doesn’t feel like a seamless, tonally similar part of the original Lion King universe but it is so beholden to it that it can’t be its own thing either. B- In theaters and available for rent or purchase.

Featured Image: Paddington in Peru (PG)

Penitence, by Kristin Koval


Penitence, by Kristin Koval (Celadon, 320 pages)

If former lawyer Kristin Koval’s debut novel, Penitence, were a court case, it would be called Potential vs. Execution. The main storyline has great potential, the writing itself is solid, and I wanted to keep reading to see the resolutions to the plot and various subplots. But getting there was often a slow, meandering journey that weaved back and forth between timelines and third-person points of view — and the resolutions that I kept hoping to find as I made my way to the end of the book never came to fruition.
There are two families at the heart of this novel, the Sheehans and the Dumonts, whose lives have intertwined in various ways for decades. The matriarchs of each family used to be best friends, and their kids were high school sweethearts, until an accident mired in questionable decisions broke them all apart. Another tragedy, decades later, brings them back together.
The story begins in rural Colorado with the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Nico, dead at the hands of his 13-year-old sister, Nora. Their parents, Angie and David Sheehan, request legal help from local lawyer Martine Dumont, the mother of Angie’s first love, Julian — who works as a criminal defense attorney in New York City and agrees to help with the case as well. So he flies back to his hometown, where Angie has remained all this time. Lots of memories dedicated to each of their points of view of what happened “back then” ensue.
Does it feel like I glossed over the fratricide? That’s what reading Penitence felt like — this major crime was overshadowed by chapters devoted to Julian and Angie’s past and the years-ago incident that changed their lives forever. Those chapters, to me, felt repetitive and boring; I kept finding myself trying to rush through them to get back to that small matter of fratricide.
In that storyline, Nora is pretty much mute, which seems like a convenient way for Koval to avoid answering The Big Question: Why did Nora kill her brother? Instead, we get a little bit of speculation about that and a lot of extraneous characters and side stories.
Angie’s mom, Livia, for example — she’s not a likeable character in the “back then” storyline, and in the “now” storyline she’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and barely knows who anyone is. I understand that this mother-daughter relationship is a piece of the family-drama puzzle that Koval has put together, but like many of the subplots, it was given too much space.
Koval wants us to “consider whether the worst thing we’ve ever done is all that defines us,” according to the jacket blurb and the numerous references to that idea that are littered throughout the book. And I appreciate that she wove together several storylines that allow for contemplation of that question.
But oh my god, give me some closure. I wasn’t looking for a happily ever after here, but I did want an ending that made the read feel worthwhile; instead, I felt frustrated. This would actually be a great book club choice, as I imagine opinions and debates would be intense.
There is one twist in Penitence that I didn’t see coming, and that was the highlight for me. But a “suspenseful, addictive page-turner,” as it bills itself to be? I think that’s a bit misleading — perhaps I would have enjoyed the book more if I had been expecting the slow burn that it is. Or perhaps it would have been more of a suspenseful page-turner if more attention were given to Nora’s crime: her motive (I wanted so badly to get inside her head!), how her case played out in the court system and how it affected her parents.
Koval writes in the Acknowledgements that she thought fratricide might “provide the right framework for a novel about forgiveness,” and she’s right. David and Angie react very differently toward Nora after the murder — she is their daughter, but she killed their son. David turns toward her, while Angie turns away. It’s fascinating, thinking about how people might feel in that tragic situation.
I wish Koval had stuck more closely to this framework, that the book had been more singularly focused on that crime and the aftermath. Penitence had the potential to be great, but ultimately there’s just too much going on. C+ —Meghan Siegler

Featured Image: Penitence, by Kristin Koval

Album Reviews 25/03/06

Anika, Abyss (Sacred Bones Records)

Since the assimilation of punk, New Wave, et al. by the corporate Matrix (it happens every time), rock and rebellion have been business partners more than any sort of combined force for socioeconomic or culturally equalitarian progress. You can quote me on that, but chances are that you’re already well aware of it; most of the tuneage that lands on this desk (from white-kid bands especially, let’s note) has no idea that “the system” is their real problem, not their awkwardness or generational malaise. Yet they persist, for the most part, but once in a while a record does bumble in here that evokes memories of artists who seriously wanted to break stuff rather than resign themselves to forlorn inevitability. This British-born, Berlin-based singer channels Patti Smith more succinctly than anyone I’ve heard recently; she actually wants people to direct their energies toward creating “safe spaces” where people can vent and collaborate on ideas for better living in an unlivable world. The tunes are rough and jangly and decidedly punky; she comes off like a ’90s-grunge Grace Slick with no-wave sensibilities. I hope she keeps sticking to this formula, put it that way. A+

The South Hill Experiment, Earthbreaks

Brothers Baird and Gabe Acheson left Baltimore for Los Angeles several years ago and the move is finally paying off: “Open Ocean,” the single from this, their band’s third full-length, hit No. 1 at KCRW, the seminal Santa Monica NPR affiliate. This is decidedly DIY stuff, probably recorded in their bedrooms, which afforded them the opportunity to experiment, as heard in album opener “Rifting,” built around backward-masked percussion and gentle vocals that have the reverb set to 11 (it’s not shoegaze, just to clarify, it’s a lot more experimental than that: Think early Luke Temple or a more technologically adventurous Gorillaz). But things change quickly here, with “Maybe It Takes Time” borrowing its bubbly ’70s-radio-pop undergirding from Michael McDonald, and then we have the focus track, “Open Ocean,” a deep-house-adjacent dance-along combining Atlas Sound with Jamie Lidell. This is all to say that it’s definitely worth investigating, I assure you. A

Playlist

• Feb. 28 is a Friday, which means new albums will be released en masse! Now, one thing we Professional Music Journalists always have to remember is that not every band with “Bear” in its name sounds the same, even if OK, they basically do. It’s sort of like bands that have “Deer” in their names: Deerhoof and Deer Tick are both supremely boring indie bands, but my mnemonics go like this: “Deerhoof helps me fall asleep faster than Deer Tick when I’m stressed,” or “Don’t even bother trying to name a Deer Tick song, because even their fans don’t remember any of them.” You see? But I digress, which I can do because it’s my multiple-award-winning column, so let’s get back to the “bear” thing. I liked Grizzly Bear, but only because I didn’t really hate them; they can indeed be borderline interesting with their skronky noise approach, and Minus The Bear was a great prog band but for some reason no one cared about them or their potluck formula of Rush-meets-Jackson Browne, so they broke up, and it made me sad. But the really sad news is that for the purposes of this week’s column I have to pretend I know who Panda Bear even is if I ever hope to win another award, let’s go have a look, because their new album, Sinister Grift, is coming out this Friday! Oh, OK, Panda Bear is what Noah Benjamin Lennox calls himself, in order to get dates with awkward college girls just like all the other indie rock bros. Lennox is co-founder of Animal Collective, a band that was relevant during the Aughts when college radio stations nationwide became hypnotized by their use of “fractal” music patterns, back before Nels Cline of Wilco invented the fractal riff to “Love Is Everywhere,” which was so cool that it instantly made people forget who Animal Collective even is (what took you people so long?). Anyway, at first, the “Defense” single sounds like a Hank Williams Jr. song about sitting in a Dumpster drinking Jagermeister, which would be cool, but then it turns into a really boring mess, something you could tell your little brother was considered too stupid to be added to the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack and he’d totally believe you.

• Brooklyn R&B singer Jonathan Josiah Wise is more famously known as Serpentwithfeet, and since we were just talking about Grizzly Bear, his Wikipedia page says that he opened for them for a while. Boy, this Wiki page may be the most boring one I’ve ever seen — blah blah blah, his mom forced him to join a boys choir, he worked with a producer who worked with Bjork, yadda yadda. Whatevs, his new album is Grip Sequel, featuring the single “Writhing In The Wind.” The beat is kind of cool, like Blue Man Group doofing around with Aphex Twin, and Wise is singing like Keith Sweat. Is that what all the children are listening to now, I simply must know.

• Andy Bell used to play bass for famous indie-pop band Oasis, but now he is on his own because everyone in Oasis hates each other. Pinball Wanderer is his latest “opus,” and the single “I’m In Love…” is very neat because it sounds exactly like Wire circa Change Becomes Us, except there are girls singing. I endorse it.

• Lastly it’s British metalcore band Architects, whose new album The Sky The Earth & All Between is on its way to your eardrums if that’s the sort of thing you enjoy doing to yourself. This is pretty loony stuff, reminiscent of Dillinger Escape Plan and such, but with occasional Cannibal Corpse vocalizing. What does that mean? It means that their listening experience is lightning-fast and scary, but one of the things chasing you is the Cookie Monster, and he really wants your tasty, tasty cookies!

Featured Photo: Yes, Relayer (Atlantic Records), Rush, Permanent Waves (Anthem Records), & Eric Comstock & Barbara Fasano, Painting The Town (Human Child Records)

Corn Fritters

By John Fladd

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This recipe came from what most of us call an “Old Church Lady Cookbook.” “Old” in this case refers to the cookbook. For a few decades in the mid-1900s, many small organizations made up mostly of women would raise money by publishing cookbooks with recipes contributed by the women themselves. These recipes often give less-than-precise instructions, like “cook until done” or “add a lump of bacon fat about the size of a hen’s egg.”

This particular recipe came from Mrs. Ralph E. Parmentier of Exeter. It is in her own handwriting, which is an adventure to decipher. “Pints,” “lumps” and “pinches” have been converted to more contemporary measurements of cups, grams and blobs.

Corn Fritters

2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 Tablespoon sour cream – the original recipe calls for sour milk. You find this in many old recipes; it’s there to add acidity to react with the baking soda and help fluff up the fritters as they fry. Sour cream, buttermilk, or plain Greek yogurt will work just as well.

2 teaspoons sugar

1 cup (135 g) corn kernels

1 medium-spicy chili pepper – a serrano or Fresno – seeded and finely chopped

1⅓ cup (300 g) whole milk

Heat 2 to 3 inches of oil in a pot to 350°F.

Whisk the dry ingredients and sugar together in a medium-sized bowl. Stir in the corn, chili and milk, until it is the consistency of thick pancake batter.

Use a one-tablespoon scoop to measure the batter for frying. If you don’t have one, use two spoons to drop blobs, each “the size of a walnut,” according to the original recipe.

Drop the blobs of batter into the hot oil, being careful not to crowd the pot. You hear this a lot in recipes. What it means is that each blob of dough that you drop into the hot oil will reduce its temperature. You want to keep the oil as close to 350 degrees as possible. That’s hot enough to cook the fritters all the way through, but not hot enough to burn them easily. If the oil is hot enough, the fritters will bubble in the hot oil. That is caused by steam forcing its way out of the cooking batter. As long as the steam is pushing itself out, very little oil can make its way into the fritter, which would make it greasy.

Fry each fritter until it is deeply golden brown on both sides. If you managed to drop fairly round blobs into the oil, weirdly, the fritters are likely to flip themselves over in the oil, as first one side becomes slightly lighter from losing water in the form of steam, then the other, as the top-heavy blob flops over, like a fat man standing up in a canoe. “They can’t order me around, Martha,” you can imagine the fritter saying belligerently to one of its fellows. “I’m a full-grown fritter and I’ll make my own decisions, than-you-very-much! Whoa!” Flip. Gurgle.

This process will take eight minutes or so. This is an excellent opportunity to listen to an audiobook. I would suggest Alfred Molina reading Treasure Island.

Drain the fritters on a paper towel or a brown paper grocery bag. Like most fried foods, they are best straight out of the oil, hot and crispy. Mrs. Parmentier suggests serving them with maple syrup, which is an excellent idea. I’d also add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

If you get distracted from the fritters by a shocking confession from a family member or something, and they cool off and lose their crispness, they can be restored easily in your air fryer.

Featured photo: Corn Fritters. Photo by John Fladd.

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