Tag: 250904

Not One Direction

Chad Price brings varied sound to Shaskeen

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

It’s fair to say that during a career that began in the mid-’80s, Chad Price has been all over the road; no one tells him to stay in his lane. He rose to prominence as the third lead singer of Descendents spinoff ALL, joining the melodic punk rockers just in time to work on their major label one-off Pummel in 1995.

He made rootsy Americana with Drag the River and led the relentless, metal-edged A Vulture Wake, while touring as a solo singer/guitarist during downtime between those projects. All the while, he’s chased a muse that’s rooted in the progressive rock of the ’70s. Lately, that’s all he really wants to do.

Last year Price sang with Mass Nerder, a Portlandia ALL/Descendents tribute band, and bonded with them over a shared love of prog rock. Inspired, he recruited drummer, guitarist and keyboardist Corey West, and Anthony Medici, a vocalist, bass and guitar player, to work on fleshing out some of his songs.

Quickly naming it The Chad Price Peace Coalition, the three recorded the 10-song album, A Perfect Pearl, releasing it in late May. Joined by touring drummer Kyle Bird Moore, the band is set to appear Sept. 5 at the Shaskeen Pub, with local favorites Lenny Lashley and the Brad Marino Band.

The new effort reflects many musical moods. The brooding “A.M.” was the album’s first single; shifting rhythms and sharp guitar flourishes drive the song. “Wake Me” has a Pink Floyd vibe, along with lovely, layered harmonies. Both tracks reveal the influences of a decade that Price regards with reverence.

In particular, he’s a big Jethro Tull fan.

“From ’70 to ’79, I don’t know any other band with a body of work like that, it’s just so good,” Price said by phone on his way to a show in Providence. “One thing that’s crazy to me is how it was possible that Tull was the biggest band in the world, yet made that very complex music.”

The rest of Perfect Pearl is wide-ranging, from gentle acoustic forays like “Alchemists,” “Sunflowers” and “Tell Me” to the ethereal power ballad “Rose.” On another note, “Tongue” lopes deceivingly then strikes hard, just like so many great bands did with their music back in the day.

“There is a sound, but we’re free to do whatever we want [and] there isn’t a specific genre,” he said. “Basically anything is fair game. I mean, listen to a Led Zeppelin record — you have your rock, your folk, you might have a little bit of reggae or something, and that’s just one album.”

When Price began working with West and Medici, they sent him a batch of ALL songs done in his new songwriting style, but the idea didn’t last. The only old stuff showing up in concert these days are from his Drag the River days. Otherwise, he sticks to the new album, and solo material like One Week Record, his most recent LP.

There’s a recent book called Sellout about the early ’90s music business feeding frenzy that Nirvana and other alternative bands spurred, and Price’s then-new band got swept up in. He has a few memories of the time, most of them good. Which isn’t a story his bandmates would likely tell.

“I was just happy to be in a touring band and play, let alone ALL, my favorite band,” he said. “It was great … we had A&R people fly us out to L.A., we got wined and dined, all this stuff did happen. I was taking in anything that was going on, just enjoying it. That question would be very different if you asked the other guys.”

The Shaskeen show came together quickly. Price had an open date, posted on social media looking for ideas, and he heard back from the Brad Marino Band. He performed solo before at the Manchester venue, and is keen to be returning with his new project.

“I do love the Shaskeen, and I wanted to play there, but I didn’t know if it was going to happen,” Price said. “I have been doing solo acoustic tours for years. Now that I have a band, it’s like, wow, let’s play a f-ing rock ’n’ roll show. We’re not guys with acoustic guitars.”

Chad Price Peace Coalition w/ Brad Marino Band and Lenny Lashley

When: Friday, Sept. 5, 9 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
More: 21+ / chadpricepeacecoalition.com

Featured photo: Chad Price Peace Coalition. Photo by Lindsey Lu McGuire.

The Music Roundup 25/09/04

Local music news & events

• Kiss face: Two years ago the band that made Ace Frehley famous played its final show at Madison Square Garden, but the guitarist wasn’t there, along with drummer Peter Criss. Kiss is at this point a vanity project for Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley — the two are readying a Vegas residency — but Frehley is still out on the road, playing “Rock and Roll All Night” and other hits. Thursday, Sept. 4, at 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $75 and up at tupelohall.com.

• Doom town: After two months away from the stage, Churchburn is back playing dark songs. They’re joined by three other New England bands for a night of heavy music dubbed Summer of Doom 2025. Rounding out the bill are Vigil, who released And the Void Stared Back last year, Vacant Eyes — their last LP was 2020’s A Somber Preclusion of Being — and the doomy band Conclave. Friday, Sept. 5, 8:30 p.m., Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester, $20 at the door, 21+.

• Ginger laughs: Raised in New York City, Steve Hofstetter had a father who watched Dick Gregory perform in Village comedy clubs in the early 1960s, so he grew up to be a smart comic. Don’t interrupt his set; Hofstetter’s retorts draw blood before an offender even knows there’s a knife in the scene. Want proof? He has a YouTube page dedicated to heckler management. Saturday, Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $44 and up at palacetheatre.org.

Album Reviews 25/09/04


The Beths, Straight Line Was A Lie (ANTI- Records)

This Auckland, New Zealand-based band has made a name for itself in the twee/rock space over the years, serving up gentle-awkward but mildly aggressive tunes that made them a good fit as an opening band for Pixies, the Breeders and Death Cab For Cutie. After the critical success of the band’s 2022 LP Expert In A Dying Field, leader Elizabeth Stokes found herself out of song ideas, so she hung out in Los Angeles, immersing herself in Akira Kurosawa movies and listening to Drive-By Truckers, The Go-Go’s, and Olivia Rodrigo. The first two bands are vibe-checked here, toward a Pavement/versus fashion anyway, in the title track (she even rips off the “Round and round and round” bit from “We’ve Got The Beat”), but it works better when those influences aren’t crazily obvious but definitely close (“Mosquitoes” sounds like something that was left off an Aimee Mann or Michelle Branch album, so yeah, her approach to this one was pretty lazy. Better luck next time). C —Eric W. Saeger

Prayer Group, Strawberry (Reptilian Records)

We turn our gaze to Richmond, Virginia, the home of this noise band, who’re responsible for this (quite rushed, if I’m reading between the lines correctly here, not that that’s a big deal when the band is, you know, a noise band) seven-song 10” mini-LP. The “related-if-you-like” list includes Big Black and Jesus Lizard, which is accurate in its way (a heavy dose of drone, lots of yelling, and bashing stuff), but a look under the hood finds some Jello Biafra worship and plenty of things that make it more comparable to Swans, various Throbbing Gristle projects and so forth. To the uninitiated, this might sound like three or four twentysomethings trying their hardest to get their band evicted from their parents’ basement, but in that alone there’s some real authenticity, take it or leave it. If you have the slightest, foggiest idea what Adebisi Shank sounds like, there’s a similar amount of technical ability on board here, but the guiding influence is 1980s Steve Albini for sure. A —Eric W. Saeger

PLAYLIST

• Gross, it’s September again, and new albums will be released on Friday, Sept. 5, summer’s officially over already, life isn’t fair. I’m not looking forward to all the pumpkin spice stuff being shoved in my face on my “socials,” but we all know it’s the worst on Facebook; people are so happy that it’s getting cold, so they get to wear sweaters and make their houses smell like cinnamon witch brooms and toadstools, all of which brings out my inner curmudgeon because really folks, I don’t like it (OK, except for those sunny, early October days when all the leaves have color and haven’t yet covered the streets in their colorfulness, where they begin to decay into a slippery, moldy mass of worm-slime, I should really just move to Hawaii). In any event, albums: Some of you were adult-ish in the 1980s and remember the salad days of New Wave, a musical fashion statement that saw bands like The Motels and Television and Romeo Void sing about the exact same lovey-dovey nonsense as Stephen Foster did in the 1800s, except with lots of hairspray. Know who else was big back then was Devo, and if any of you rotten Zoomer children want to know how cool that band was, there’s a new documentary on Netflix that’s awesome and hilarious (fun fact: Devo was a mixed-art project that didn’t firmly decide to become an actual band until they realized it was the most effective way to annoy as many people as possible), you should watch that show, but another rebellious fixture of the New Wave scene was David Byrne, whose new album, Who Is The Sky, comes out this week! The album’s songs all began their lives as rudimentary concepts and were fleshed out by the Ghost Train Orchestra ensemble; the first single, “Everybody Laughs,” is an upbeat dance tune remindful of Blondie’s “The Tide Is High”; it examines how people aren’t as unique as they think they are, which reveals more about Byrne than anything else, really.

• Here’s one for your nerdy friend who’s the only person you know who reads Guitar Player magazine (I know, I know, guitar nerds really just buy it for the hott sexxy pics of Flying Vs and Stratocasters, you know how creepy those guys get), the type of guy who insists that Jeff Beck is the greatest rock guitar player ever because, you know, just because, even though two of his fellow guitar gods, Jimmy Page and Tony Iommi, have sold, to date, a grand total of 252,963,481 more albums than him. Yes, I’m going somewhere with this, because we’re talking about Chosen, the new album from similarly geek-worshipped singer/bassist Glenn Hughes, formerly of Trapeze (no, I’ve never heard a Trapeze song either, so don’t feel inferior), who is much more famous for being the temporary frontman for Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in their darkest hours than singing for Trapeze. No, I kid Glenn Hughes, two of the songs on Sabbath’s Seventh Star album are good, let’s just leave it at that. Chosen’s title track is half ’90s-grunge-metal and half hair metal, for those who, ahem, can’t decide whether they feel like listening to Foo Fighters or Thin Lizzy.

• English rock band Suede is similar to Savage Republic, specializing in noisy/surfy post-psychedelica; they had only one hit in the U.S., the forgettable “Metal Mickey” in 1992. The band’s new LP, Antidepressants, includes the tune “Disintegrate,” which isn’t too bad if you like early Wire (translation: it’s rough, noisy and bored-sounding).

• We’ll wrap it up this week with Moments, the new album from Australian goth-adjacent synth-poppers Cut Copy. The new single, “When This Is Over,” nicks its yacht-’80s essence from Duran Duran and has a kids’ chorus for no reason whatsoever.

Featured Photo: The Beths, Straight Line Was A Lie (ANTI- Records) & Prayer Group, Strawberry (Reptilian Records)

Double Ka Meetha

Many years ago, we planted a peach tree. Jump forward two decades and we have more peaches than we know what to do with. Two words spring to mind: peach daiquiris.

Peach-Infused Rum

Peaches are full of delicate flavors, colors, and, er, peachiness that are alcohol-soluble. If you cut up a bunch of peaches and soak them in liquor for anywhere from a few hours to a week you will end up with something special. Don’t bother to peel them; peach skins have flavor compounds and colors that will serve you well.

Rinse your peaches, just to make sure you’re not including any dust or bugs then slice them into chunks into a large container, and cover them with rum. For an application like this, your best bet is probably to use a medium-shelf white rum. (Vodka will work perfectly well, as will whiskey. Maybe even tequila.)

I usually let it sit for four or five days, stirring or shaking it once or twice a day. When I think it’s ready, I taste a spoonful or so, then strain it through a fine-mesh strainer. If I’m feeling fancy I’ll strain it again through a coffee filter.


Peach Syrup

Wash a bunch of peaches, then dice them up. Again, I wouldn’t worry about the skins. Freeze the diced peaches for a few hours or overnight. By freezing them you’ll poke holes through all the cell walls with ice crystals.

Later, when you’ve got a little time on your hands, cook the frozen peach chunks with an equal amount (by weight) of sugar. Stir the mixture from time to time, until the juice comes to a boil, then strain that, too. If the syrup needs a little zing, squeeze a little fresh lemon juice into it, not worrying too much about measuring anything.

This syrup will last for two or three weeks in your refrigerator.

Peach Daiquiri

2 ounces peach-infused rum (see above)

1 ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice

2/3 ounce peach syrup (see above)

Combine all three ingredients, with ice, in a cocktail shaker. Shake until a frost line appears in the condensation on the shaker, then strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Is this rummy? A little.

Is it limey? Just limey enough. Lime is everybody’s best friend, and it gets along beautifully in this situation.

Is it peachy? Sweet Leaping Moses on a Popsicle Stick, yes. This is the perfect drink for when a child is whining. After two or three sips, you can assure them that living is easy, that their daddy is rich, and their momma’s good-lookin’. The child’s confused silence will be a little bonus.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Roast beef and Italian-style pizza

Zo’s 2 opens downtown

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

For Harpreet Singh, opening a restaurant was a leap of faith.

Singh, who opened his second restaurant, Zo’s Place 2, in Manchester in August, said he opened his first restaurant with no experience.

“It was very overwhelming,” he said. “And financially I was drained too. For 10 years I saved all my money and then I just put it in one restaurant. I didn’t get a loan for it, because I didn’t have any background. I went through a phase where I was literally crying every day.”

Singh bought a roast beef place in Nashua and threw himself into learning everything he could about running it.

“That’s where we started,” Singh said. “That’s where I learned everything.” His son was about to be born. “I told myself that before his first birthday I’d do something that he would remember his whole life, so that’s when we opened the first place.” The Singhs named it Zo’s Place, after their son. “Before his first birthday, we opened in Nashua. And then, around his second birthday, we decided to open a second place.”

Not surprisingly, when Singh was building the menu for Zo’s Place 2 he started with roast beef. “Obviously,” he said, “everybody who knows me, who knows my background, knows that roast beef is one of the things I bring wherever I go. It’s one of our signature items. It’s not just sandwiches. We do it in a calzone. It’s called roast beef three-way calzone. Basically mayo at the bottom, and then a little bit of cheese and roast beef, and we’ll put James River barbecue sauce, and then cheese at the top, and then it will be a calzone. We make a roast beef three-way pizza … we put 10 slices of roast beef on it. We want to keep our beef rare and tender. So we drizzle some barbecue sauce and mayonnaise on top of the pizza. And then we have roast beef sandwiches and also club sandwiches that we do [with roast beef]. We do a roast beef salad too.”

Singh decided to go in a different way for Zo’s pizza.

“We do hand-tossed Italian pizza,” he said. “We know that in Manchester the majority of the pizza is Greek style. And that’s what we do at our Nashua location too. But here, I wanted to hand-toss Italian pizza. It has a thinner crust, and different sauces and cheeses, too. The dough is fresh-made here in the house. Our Italian [sauce] is a little sweeter and we go lighter on cheese.”

Singh said that aside from the pizza “a lot of the menu is Greek-style. The salads that we do [are] really good, like the fresh chicken kebab salads. That’s all Greek-style. We use Greek feta with onions. And then we have gyros. We do chicken gyros, and we do lamb and beef gyros. We have rice bowls, steak tip rice bowl, chicken kebabs, grilled chicken rice bowls, chicken parm rice bowl, eggplant parm rice bowl, and then veggie rice bowl. And then we have club sandwiches, which you can get with anything you want on it — tuna club, ham and cheese club, roast beef club, cheeseburger club.”

“We have a pretty solid menu.”

Singh said it was important to him to use the same ingredients in multiple dishes.

”Let’s say we bring in a new item,” he said. “If [its ingredients are] not used in all the different menu items, they’re going to sit around for one item.” On the other hand, he used eggplant parmesan as an example. “It can go in an eggplant parm rice bowl, it could be an eggplant parm sub, it could be eggplant parm ziti, it could be the eggplant on a pizza.”

Zo’s Place 2

Where: 102 Elm St., Manchester, 836-3905
Hours: Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., and Sundays noon to 1:30 a.m.
More: zosplace.com

Featured photo: Harpreet Singh holding a Junior Roast Beef. Photo by John Fladd.

It’s all in the spices

Egyptian food fest feeds Nashua

By John Fladd

jfladd@hippopress.com

What you have to understand about Egyptian food, according to Kyrillos Gobran, is that while it has many similarities to the foods of other Mediterranean cultures, small details make it distinct.

“When you go from one place to another,” he said, “[the foods] might look similar but the spices that are being used add very different flavors to them, and each one that you will eat will taste different even though it might be the same piece of meat.”

Gobran is a priest at St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church in Nashua, which will hold its annual Egyptian Food Festival this weekend.

“We use cumin a lot,” he said. “We use nutmeg. We use mixtures of different kinds of spices mixed together, which is good for grilling and it just adds an Egyptian type of flavor to it.”

Gobran said the foods on offer at the festival provide a window into Egyptian culture.

“In Egypt, they love their food and they love to eat in the morning, evening, at night, and even late at night — restaurants are open for all [types of food] until the late, late hours of the night.” These are the types of foods that his church will serve at the festival, he said.

“A lot of what we offer are meats,” he said, “like the beef kabob, chicken kabob, lamb kabob, stuff like that. That’s really very authentic to Egypt. It’s very tasty, very juicy. One of the great comments that I get from people that come every year is that, we come here, we enjoy the food and we are so happy that the quality and the taste of it doesn’t change from year to another. Keep it up, keep this coming.’”

“We have shawarma,” he continued, “beef shawarma and lamb shawarma as well, and Egyptian sausage. Of course, many of the foods we offer will be vegan and non-vegan. There will be falafel, and stuffed grape leaves, and something that is one of the most famous vegetarian food in Egypt. It’s called koshary, which is like a rice mixed with brown lentils, elbow macaroni, chickpeas, and it’s flavored in a way — it has like tomato sauce on top … The flavor in it is very tasty when you mix all of these together. Of course, it’s topped with fried onions as well.”

Not everyone comes to the festival for savory foods, Gobran said.

“In terms of desserts, we have lots of them — things like baklava,” he said. Egyptian baklava is subtly different from the Greek version, he explained. “It’s different in the syrup — we don’t use as heavy a syrup. We use a little hint of vanilla, for example, just to give it a smell and a good taste to it. One of my favorite desserts that we’ll be having this year is om ali.” This is a bread-based dish made from flaky bread or pastry, soaked in sweetened milk and baked with nuts and cream. “We’re going to be having fresh mango juice as well, and so many other desserts and drinks that are related to Egypt.”

It’s probably not possible to try everything in one visit.

“Some people come for the three days,” he said, “and they try different things because they cannot try everything on the first day, so they come back and try different things every day.”

Egyptian Food Festival

When: Friday, Sept. 5, from 4 to 9 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 6, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 7, from noon to 6 p.m.
Where: St. Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church, 39 Chandler St., Nashua, stmarycoptsnh.org
More: Rain or shine. Admission is free. Search for Nashua Food Festival on Facebook.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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