Tag: 250814

Kiddie Pool 25/08/14

Family fun for whenever

UFO Fest

The Exeter UFO Festival returns to downtown Exeter with events Saturday, Aug. 30, and Sunday, Aug. 31, according to exeterufofestival.org. The event features a speaker series that runs both days on a variety of UFO and alien topics, closing with a panel discussion of the speakers on Sunday at 4 p.m. (see the website for a full listing of talks and participating speakers). The UFO-curious can also check out Exeter Incident Site Trolley rides (running Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; rides are half-hour long and go to the site of the “Incident at Exeter in Kensington”) and historic videos shown continuously from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the website said.

For those more interested in the fest fun, Saturday will feature the Exeter Police and Fire departments selling their patches (the police patch benefits Maple, the department’s comfort dog), an alien costume contest at noon with parade on the sidewalk near Town Hall Common Park, an alien pet contest also at noon at the park, a dance party with Johnny B at the park after the parade, and a jazz piano concert with Eric Mintel on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Congregational Church (21 Front St.; free), the website said.

On Saturday and Sunday, check out the UFO Festival souvenir shop from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; food and drink sales from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and kids’ activities such as lawn games, face painting, UFO crash site creations, gifts and kid refreshments, the website said.

See SEE

The SEE Science Center, 200 Bedford St. in Manchester, see-sciencecenter.org, is open through Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 1) — weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The center will then close Sept. 2 through Sept. 5 for annual renovations and reopen Saturday, Sept. 6, with school year hours when the center is closed most Mondays (except for some school vacation holidays), according to an email from SEE. The center also begins a program of offering sensory-friendly and immunocompromised-friendly sessions with the first sensory session on Sept. 7 and the first immunocompromised session on Oct. 5; registration for these days will open a month in advance, the email said.

Back to the garden

Greenery, art and music at Wildflower Fest

Thanks to a decision by her manager, Joni Mitchell didn’t perform at Woodstock, but she did write a song that defined the legendary 1969 festival. Thus, it’s fitting that some of the Woodstock generation’s grandchildren are carrying on the spirit summoned by Mitchell’s words “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden” on its anniversary date.

For most of his childhood, Griff Comtois remembers Keyes Memorial Park in Milford as a Superfund site, surrounded by chain link fences. When the EPA declared it clean enough for public use, a stone and wood amphitheater was built there. Early on, Comtois thought it was underutilized. It prompted him and his friends to launch the first Wildflower Festival in August 2023.

The Wildflower Festival will mark its third year on Saturday, Aug. 16, at the Keyes Field Stage. Three stellar acts top the bill: Nova One, who appeared at this year’s Newport Folk Festival; Lazy Trail, a project led by Boy Scott’s Emma Willer, and Sneaky Miles, a Seacoast band that performed at the first fest.

The initial vision for that event was “a really cool concert for all our friends and everyone in the community,” Comtois recalled recently. Three bands were booked, but it quickly grew, to include an art fair with dozens of vendors. From there, he continued, “we were like, well, we should also raise money to do something.”

They netted $6,500 in contributions. With it, a pollinator garden was planted near the park’s gazebo. Buoyed by success, the festival returned last year, with more bands and art vendors, and raised enough money to install a meadow strip in the park. Both are regularly tended by a core group of volunteers.

“We all are really passionate about our environment and want to find ways that we can make a difference,” Comtois said. “One of my biggest interests is how can we make the spaces that we already live in more sustainable, rather than all this grass and concrete. How can we blend the line between wild nature and where we live?”

A big list of local acts will perform, including singer-songwriter Lily Soleil, Interstate 10, the Manchester-based duo of guitarist Corbin Sage and singer Kevin Lundstrom, Tin Fish, Portsmouth trio Bird Friend, Vale’s End, Burnin’ Shores, Trash Sun and Born Fools.

Darth Brandon rounds out the performers, and one of its members was instrumental in organizing music for the festival.

“Andrew West is really connected in the local music scene,” Comtois said. “He used to run open mic and different music events at Union Coffee in Milford, so he got a lot of the more local bands from there.”

West and Comtois first saw Sneaky Miles while both were at UNH, and Comtois is keen for their return.

“They really get people moving and they’re so fun to dance to,” he said. “They know how to keep the energy flowing … they’ll bring you really high, keep it going, give you a little break, then bring you back up. They throw a great concert.”

Even more artists will be on hand this year. “Everyone’s excited to be part of something, especially when it supports the environment,” Comtois said. “Every year I’m amazed by how much art they have, how well their stands are set up. They sell everything from stickers and prints to original paintings … sculptures and figurines. There’s a lot of pottery, upcycled clothes, woodworking and crocheted items.”

Comtois didn’t plan for his festival to coincide with Woodstock.

“I didn’t know, but August is a good time for festivals,” he said. But the garden motif will be strong, with a plant sale starting at 11 a.m. “Two hundred-plus plants, and I’d say it’s going to sell out probably before 1 [p.m.], because plant people are crazy. If you want some plants, I’d get there early.”

Wildflower Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 16, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.
Where: Keyes Field Stage, 45 Elm St., Milford
Tickets: $10-$20 (sliding scale, pay what you can) at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 25/08/14

Local music news & events

• Twofer: As the field crowds, tribute acts are getting more creative. Bostyx performs the music of two late-’70s rockers, a trick that Foreigners Journey has also successfully accomplished. Standing in for Styx’s Dennis DeYoung and Brad Delp of Boston, lead singer Karthik “Raj” Seshan is a fan favorite — one called him “the true ‘Babe’” and another gushed, “the notes he hits, flawless.” Thursday, Aug. 14, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $40 at palacetheatre.org.

• Bluesy: Classic cars and vintage music meld as the Michael Vincent Band performs a rootsy outdoor show at an event called Rev, White & Brew, now in its fourth year. Legend has it that ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons once stopped by when his band was playing the BankNH Stage. Main Street will be shut down for pedestrian-only traffic and a steady parade of sweet rides. Friday, Aug. 15, 4 p.m., NH Vintage Vinyl / Defiant Records, Main & Canal streets, Laconia, defiantnh.com.

• Streetwise: Named for the Aztec god of dance, Latino rockers Ozomatli celebrate 30 years as the soundtrack of their L.A. hometown. “A virtual melting pot of musical style,” wrote critic Brian Baker recently, “an unconventional hybrid of every conceivable subset of Latino music … as well as ska, funk, reggae, jazz, hip-hop and punk, all presented with the panache of a savvy rock band.” Saturday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $56 at tupelohall.com.

Album Reviews 25/08/14

Friendly Rich, The Birds of Marsville (We Are Busy Bodies Records)

It’s not often that I mumble “Oh shut up” at a record, but the spoken introduction to the first of these two 18-minute experimental-cabaret tracks had me doing that. Once the babbling (mostly chatter about how he’s — Rich Marsella — chasing a Ph.D. in musicology and how bizarre his music is, etc.) finally stops, the tuneage reveals itself to be something the steampunk crowd will go wild over. I’ll make it even easier: This guy is the Captain Beefheart of steampunk, and I won’t be surprised in the least if I happen upon him someday at some nerd convention and get mad at myself for not remembering how on Earth I first heard of him. Contents: Calliope (you know, the mechanical organ stuff you hear on a merry-go-round), tempos changing with no rhyme or reason, Hammer horror frightwig soundtracking, spastic Bride Of Chucky ballistics, bell-and-whistle stuff out of Monty Python, you get the idea. He’s gathering a following, fair warning. B

Still in Love, Recovery Language (Church Road Records)

Always cracks me up to be presented with an informational one-sheet from a hardcore punk or extreme-metal band, and when it gets to the stuff about the musical messaging, the verbiage suddenly starts looking like an ad for a yoga retreat. In this case, I’m informed their new album “delves into themes of personal struggle, resilience, and emotional catharsis, offering a sonic journey through the complexities of the human experience,” all of which is, I suppose, more elegant than just writing “GRAHHH” in 52-point font, which would be more succinct. Either way, yes, more of this please. The band is something of a supergroup, composed of members of the biggest (for want of a better word) hardcore bands stomping stages and breaking stuff in the U.K., and boy are they out to break stuff. Two-minute songs that aren’t speed races, no gimmicky screamo yowling, no nonsense, and the guitar sound is absolutely filthy. A+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Wuh-oh, frantic fam, the new albums of Aug. 15 are afoot (and I assume that’s what most of them are going to smell like when I go check them out in a minute), but in the meantime I’m sure that parenthetical segue will only serve further to convince my small platoon of haters (they’re out there, folks, and I mean that in more ways than one) that the only music I actually like is made by noise bands from Boise, Idaho. As someone once said to me, “Just what the world needs, a music column written by someone who hates music,” after I’d mentioned that I thought AC/DC has been hilariously overrated since Day 1 (obviously your mileage may vary, but I don’t really want to know about it), but either way, that’s not part of my actual mission statement. I don’t view this column as a platform for me to change people’s minds but instead to find and promote the occasional artist/band I find worthy or interesting. This isn’t a Nylon column written by a 23-year-old intern who lives for getting free CDs from the big record companies; if I think something’s dumb, I can say so, and in the meantime, sending me a Facebook message in ALL CAPS that’s basically the music-related equivalent of “Maybe if you weren’t such a poopyhead you’d appreciate the exotic, tantalizing flavor of a freshly made peanut butter and guacamole sandwich” isn’t going to change my mind any more than my strapping you into a chair and forcing you to listen to Kiss albums is going to make the lights come on in your attic. OK, with that completely unaccomplished, let’s turn our attention to this week’s slate of decent things and peanut butter and guacamole sandwiches, and there’s tons of ’em, so let’s start with the big one, Maroon 5’s Love Is Like! Ha ha, I totally changed my mind about Maroon 5 and love them now ever since the other week, when they put that AI CEO guy in an old pickle by shining the Kiss Cam on him and his “Chief People Officer” lady friend while their spouses waited for them to finish “working late,” wasn’t that the stupidest — oops, wait, someone in my earphone just informed me that that wasn’t Maroon 5, it was Coldplay, my bad, doesn’t Andy Grammer sing for both those bands anyway, nothing to see here! Whatever, the new single, “Priceless” is a bootylicious yacht-hip-hop tune featuring Lisa Manoban from the South Korean girl group Blackpink, who does a fantastic job sounding exactly like Kesha, but wait, there’s more, OK actually there isn’t.

• Recently divorced nepo baby Chance the Rapper shows he can still rhyme in half-speed-reggae-triplet-rhythm just like everyone else on the planet on the title track from his second full-length album, Star Line! His fans are hoping this LP is a lot better than The Big Day; the tune is pretty edgy but there are so many people who can’t wait to diss the album he probably should have just had Lil Wayne guest-rap on the whole thing or at least just stuck to mixtapes.

• I’ve gushed over bluegrass/Americana artist Molly Tuttle before; she’s won awards for her “clawhammer” guitar-picking style and for being awesome in general. However, the single “That’s Gonna Leave a Mark” from her new album So Long Little Miss Sunshine is pretty basic, sounding like a cross between Amy Grant and Reba McEntire, but if that sounds great to you, well, peanut butter and guacamole it is, you do you.

• Ending this week’s exercise on a positive note, synthpop/trip-hop singer Alison Goldfrapp releases her second LP as a solo artist, Flux! “Reverberotic” is an electropop single in the tradition of Britney Spears and ’90s-era Madonna, nothing too innovative but it’s, you know, nice.

Tequila Sunrise

In the late ’70s there was a brief trend of songs that romanticized problem drinking. Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville” springs to mind, of course, and Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” is an outstanding example, but “Tequila Sunrise” by The Eagles is a classic My-Liver-and-I-Have-Made-Some-Questionable-Decisions song that I think of from time to time, when I wonder, “What is up with these people?”

  • 3 ounces blanco tequila
  • 6 ounces fresh squeezed orange or clementine juice
  • ½ ounce grenadine
  • 2 ounces grapefruit soda – Fresca is a good bet for this

Fill a pint glass full of ice.

Pour the tequila and orange juice into the glass, over the ice, then stir thoroughly to chill with a long-handled spoon.

The twisted handle of the bar-spoon will help mix everything so that it chills quickly and efficiently.

“I’ve got this, Coach,” the spoon will say to you with a youthful crack in his voice.

Alternatively, you can just use a chopstick or the back of a butter knife.

Pour the grenadine in the center of the glass and stand back for a minute or two. This might be a good time to fix a snack. The grenadine is denser than the tequila mixture, so it will sink to the bottom of the glass.

Mostly sink. Some of it will get hung up on the inordinate amount of ice you’ve used, so you’ll end up with a deeply red layer at the bottom of the glass, which will ombre itself through shades of orange, moving up in the drink.

Top the drink with a couple ounces of grapefruit soda, which will give you a hit of carbonation, just when you need it.

It’s at this point that you will need to make a fairly serious decision. Will you drink your Tequila Sunrise with a straw, which will give you a sweet start to the proceedings, which will get progressively zestier, as you work your way through it, or will you drink it strawless, from the top, starting with a zing of carbonation, and work your way down to the sweet layer of grenadine, which will — assuming you don’t drink too quickly — be well diluted by melting ice by the time you get to it?

Either way, this is one of the most attractive drinks a home drink-mixer is likely to make. It is shockingly pretty. Given how sweet the combination of orange juice and grenadine can be, the muskiness of the tequila is needed to assert some authority here. If you tried making this with vodka or rum, the sweetness would run the risk of being bland. Matched with the whip-crack of tequila, it is perfect for watching the actual sun go down.

Featured photo: Tequila Sunrise. Photo by John Fladd.

Many cultures at We Are One

Festival brings together foods from Caribbean and Central America

According to Peter Escalera, if you want to learn about a culture you need to learn its national anthem and eat its food.

“We are connected in so many different ways,” he said. “National anthems of countries speak about the country, what they were going through when they were formed. With food you will see the similarities of various different meats, seasonings and vegetables and fruits that have different names but are consumed by so many different people.”

Escalera — “In Spanish, it means ‘stairs,’” he noted — is in charge of organizing the food vendors at this weekend’s We Are One Festival in Manchester. The festival, which focuses on the food and music of cultures throughout the Caribbean and Central America, will bring together vendors selling foods from Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Mexico, Jamaica and many other countries.

“We have Pal Carajo restaurant coming,” Escalera said. “It’s a Puerto Rican restaurant, and they’ll be having stewed chicken and stewed beef and empanadas and maduros, roast chicken and all types of tropical drinks. Don Quijote restaurant will be having the yellow rice or croquetas, and pernin, which is the roast pork. We’re excited this year because everyone’s bringing in a lot of different types of flavors, the guacamoles and the different seasonings from various different countries.”

Escalera’s personal favorite food each year at the festival is mofongo.

“Mofongo is plantains,” he said. “They are put into this round, long mortar and pestle. You take 15 or so pieces of fried plantains and you mash them until it becomes a butter. You mash [them] with a little salt, a little pepper, and some nice garlic. You mash it until it’s soft, and mound it up on your plate. On the side you will have camarones al coco. Camarones, meaning shrimp; it’s in a pink coconut sauce that will have you saying, ‘Ooh, la, la!’”

Francisco Murillo is the owner of Pal Carajo. His restaurant, which specializes in Puerto Rican and Honduran foods, has only been open a few months; this will be his first We Are One Festival. One of the foods he is planning to serve is alcapurrias, a deep-fried Puerto Rican dish. “It’s made with green plantains — green banana. You can put green pepper, red pepper in it. You mash it, put that in the fryer. This is so good. It’s very traditional in Puerto Rico.”

Another specialty is Pal Caraho’s tripleta sandwich.

“The tripleta is a personal sandwich,” Murillo said. “It’s named for three different meats; it’s ham, it’s pork, and steak, with mayo and ketchup.”

“And then,” he said, with a grin, “you put on the nacho cheese. You can put lettuce, tomato and potato sticks, too.”

One of the challenges of serving hot food at a festival, Murillo said, is that it is very difficult to deep fry it on site, which makes serving empanadastricky.

“Everything is cooked here at the restaurant,” he said, “then [we] bring it to the park. It’s difficult. We’re planning to serve maybe 200 empanadas, 100 alcapurrias, 100 tripletas. A lot of people will be there.”

We Are One Festival
When: Saturday, Aug.16, from 11 a.m to 6 p.m.
Where: Veterans Memorial Park in downtown Manchester.
Admission is free.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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