Tag: 251127

Collective joy

Model Airplane’s Funksgiving returns

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Singer Lyle Divinsky has moved around a lot in the past 10 years, living everywhere from the West Coast to Nashville to Colorado. But every Thanksgiving he heads back to Portland, Maine, for a musical party with Model Airplane, the band he and childhood friends Pete Genova and Dan Boyden started back in 2004.

They call the annual bash Funksgiving, and in recent years it’s included a southern edition at 3S Artspace in Portsmouth. It happens on the flip side of Friendsgiving, Friday, Nov. 28, with the finale at The Aura in Portland on Saturday, Nov. 29. A crowded stage will also welcome Gina & the Flight Crew and Kenya Hall.

Hall and Model Airplane played the first Funksgiving in 2010, though it wasn’t officially named that until later.

“We got everybody together to play a show for our own selfish reasons,” Divinsky said by phone recently. “To create this moment after everybody hangs out with their family, while they’re still around. We all get to hang out together, we all get to be with the chosen family, not just the blood family that we have on Thanksgiving.”

When Divinsky left Portland to join The Motet in 2015, he took steps to ensure Funksgiving would continue.

“I knew that I was going to be on the road a bunch and wouldn’t be able to play as much with Model Airplane because of that,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that it didn’t go away just because I was taking this opportunity.”

So he reached out to Gina Alibrio, a New Hampshire native who’d moved to Portland after stints in Boston and Seattle. Conveniently her roommates were Model Airplane drummer Boyden and his future wife. He invited her to come by the band’s practice space after hearing her sing, and things moved from there.

“It was cultivated,” Alibrio recalled in a recent interview. A new, aviation-themed name was coined by keyboard player Tyler Quist, and the transition, she continued, “was hard, because everyone loves Lyle, but we managed to move in a bit of a different direction with the songs, lineup and the vibe.”

This year’s show will recognize two influential artists who passed away in 2025, Sly Stone and D’Angelo.

“We’re going to definitely give a little nod to both of them,” Divinsky said. “Then also drop classic funk that laid the groundwork, modern funk … and then originals as well, just to show how it’s all kind of influenced and seeped into our whole bloodstream.”

He bonded over the genre with his father, who sang in bands and frequently shows up to guest at Funksgiving. During the heyday of file sharing the two would swap songs. His dad would point out the source of sample, for example, and when the young Divinsky heard a Motown song, he might also recognize where it had been used in a newer track.

The influence of Divinsky’s parents — his mom grew up in Philadelphia and soaked up its sounds — shaped his taste.

“I was a slightly weird kid,” he said. “When all my friends were listening to Dookie by Green Day, I was listening to like Jodeci, Boyz II Men, Tupac and Biggie — way too young.”

Far-flung performers will arrive from many places, like keyboard player Dane Farnsworth, who tours with Keb’ Mo’ and others, who’s coming from Austin. Rehearsals happen Tuesday, and Wednesday before the holiday, but preparations have been ongoing for several weeks.

“The biggest thing that sets Model Airplane, Gina & the Flight Crew, Kenya and the whole family apart from other shows is — I feel I can say this because I look up to my friends so much — it’s some of the highest-level musicianship that I’ve ever experienced in New England, and in a lot of ways around the country.”

Divinsky and the rest enjoy the experience both as performers and music lovers.

“Everybody’s got, as I call them, Dumbo ears on stage,” he continued. “We’re all listening to each other because we love each other so much, and that joy spreads into the audience. Every show is two and a half to three hours of uninhibited joy that’s also musicianship.”

Alibrio is especially happy that everyone has the chance to perform their own songs. “I feel very lifted up by that,” she said. “This particular setlist this year seems super-focused on things that everyone is going to execute really well. Each person who’s soloing is going to absolutely smash it, so I’m really excited.”

Model Airplane’s Funksgiving
When: Friday, Nov. 28, 8 p.m.
Where: 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St.,
Portsmouth
Tickets: $17 at eventbrite.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 25/11/27

• Leftover laughs: Now in its third year and becoming a tradition, Emily Ruskowski hosts a post-Thanksgiving comedy show with Chris D, Adam Hatch and Dan Donahue. “People are home and looking to decompress from travel or holiday stress,” Ruskowski said ahead of the first show in 2023. It’s also a good way to shake off the tryptophan and memories of any oversharing relatives. Friday, Nov. 28, 8 p.m., Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester, $34 at palacetheatre.org.

• Roots champion: Nominated for multiple categories at this year’s New England Music Awards, Nate Ramos won for Americana Act of the Year. That’s fitting; the singer-songwriter’s inspirations include Noah Kahan and Zach Bryan. His band finds a solid country-rock groove on songs like “Catching Up,” which opens their fine 2024 debut album, Across The States. Friday, Nov. 28, 8:30 p.m., Derryfield Restaurant Lounge, 625 Mammoth Road, Manchester, nateramosmusic.com.

• Raucous rock: It’s always a hilarious good time when The Fools play a show. Next to fried clams, the irreverent band is the most famous thing to come from Ipswich, Mass. They’re known for the late ’70s hits “It’s A Night For Beautiful Girls” and “She Looks Alright In The Dark,” along with the proto parody “Psycho Chicken.” The group is fronted by the very funny singer Mike Girard. Saturday, Nov. 29, 8 p.m., Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry, $42 at tupelohall.com.

• Season sounds: Get in the holiday spirit as the Heather Pierson Trio is back with an evening of music from A Charlie Brown Christmas. The intimate show at a Lakes Region winery is preceded by a complimentary tasting. Pianist Pierson’s performance of the holiday special includes other Vince Guaraldi songs and jazzed-up favorites. Sunday, Nov. 30, 12:30 and 5 p.m., The Loft at Hermit Woods, 72 Main St., Meredith, $39; more dates at heatherpierson.com

• KISS uncovered: Though they’re paying tribute to one of rock’s most visual acts, Kuarantine eschews the makeup and sticks to the music of KISS, and they’re era-specific, playing ’80s material only. Oh, and their front man is wrestler Chris Jericho, who won the WCW championship in 2001 by pinning The Rock. Accordingly, he’s considered one of the sport’s all-time greats. Wednesday, Dec. 3, 9 p.m., Rock N Roll Meatballs Angel City Music Hall, 179 Elm St., Manchester, $44 at ticketweb.com.

Album Reviews 25/11/27

Hirons, Future Perfect (Western Vinyl)

This debut EP earned at least an A grade before I even plopped the record on the (yes, literal, many thanks to Western Vinyl) turntable, what with its being helped along by experimental-pop genius Luke Temple, a constant fixture in this column for many years now (if you haven’t listened to him yet, please do). Jenny Hirons is an unabashed, deeply educated art-wonk who’d obviously love to delete her dreary LinkedIn forever and simply flit around, Zola Jesus style, from makeshift museum soundstage to sweaty nightclub and back again, but wouldn’t we all; such things require interesting, really good tuneage, which she duly exhibits here with this short set of airy, light but sturdy experiments. Her voice is a dead ringer for Toad The Wet Sprocket’s Glen Phillips in upper-register mode, with more than a touch of José González, which explains the “sturdy” adjective, but again, we’re in experimental territory here. “Vertigo” combines Caribbean percussion with circuit-bending to captivating effect; “Being The Cause” is waltz-time yacht-pop; “TV Sermon” blends Enya with Bowie, and the balance forward completes her pastel dream that involves, as she describes it, “shaking off drudgery, returning to play and becoming the cause of our own lives.” Irresistible stuff. A+ —Eric W. Saeger

Bog Band, Mocashno Days (Headlamp Records)

You’re forgiven for noting this duo’s name and assuming they’re an Irish outfit playing drunk-ass pub rock, but you’re actually half right: They’re from Ireland, but there’s literally nothing Irish-folk about this record. Elsewhere on this page I mention Luke Temple, and his brand of highly listenable alternative/experimental pop is in the same church but a different pew. The shoegazey vocals are floaty, detached and Beach Boys-esque, but more in the manner of Sigur Ros, Spandau Ballet or Wham! than anything else I could name-check for normie consumption, and the overall vibe is more Aughts-hipster than Temple would ever bother with. Now, these are laptop guys who’re quite good at their craft, pulling off some really sweet melodies that’ll remind older people of the sort of radio-pop that was common throughout the entirety of the ’70s, but their impression of disco (“Apryl Fools”) draws more from the depleted soil of the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack and Jamie Lidell’s stuff, than the original sources. But other than that it’s fine. A —Eric W. Saeger

PLAYLIST

• I’m too afraid to look yet, but hopefully a few new albums will be released this Friday, Nov. 28, the literal day after Thanksgiving, so I will have something to talk about in this multiple award-winning column! OK, I looked, and it’s even worse than I thought; according to the Metacritic website there’s just one album coming out on the 28th, namely Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time, from Jessie J! Yes, out of all the holiday traditions, the stupidest one continues: Almost no new albums are released on the biggest shopping day of the year. Now, I know what you’re thinking, how does this make my job harder as your favorite music journalist? Well, traditionally, my short answer has always been, “Fine, I’ll just Google it and begin the grim task of weeding through the vast wasteland of music journalism websites that have nothing but misinformation or news about ‘new albums’ from 11-year-old rappers who bust rhymes about their pet lizards and the joy of eating their mom’s spaghetti.” But wait! We are in a brand new era, the time of AI, a “technological marvel” that’s in a bubble that will eventually destroy Oracle and a bunch of other Godzilla-sized tech companies that think that throwing literally tens of trillions of dollars at a technology that doesn’t have an actual business model (aside from maybe-probably charging people to use ChatGPT, which will certainly fail horrendously when tiny companies that don’t need trillions of dollars in revenue eat their lunch) is smart strategy. So while we wait for the tech economy to collapse a hundred times worse than it did in 2000, you better believe I was going to ask the free Google AI bot “What new albums are coming out on Nov. 28?” and guess what, it knew about plenty of new albums, that I can talk about in this space, for you to read about! And no, I’m not talking about devil-metal albums from Scandinavian bands with unreadable band logos (although there is one, Winter Mass, the upcoming live album from Norwegian band 1349, and yes, just as you’d expect, it sounds like a hyper-speed punk band with down-tuned guitars playing as fast as they can while their Cookie Monster frontman yells at the crowd at the top of his lungs, demanding everyone’s COOOKIEEEES), I’m talking about actual album-albums! Come look!

• West Texas Degenerate is the third LP from Odessa, Texas-based Treaty Oak Revival, which specializes in an amalgam of Red Dirt country, southern rock, and punk! Sometimes they wear funny French-chef hats, and they don’t like people in general, which means they’ve earned your wholehearted approval! They recently appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, which means that even Nashville is taking them seriously; there are no preview songs on YouTube with regard to this new album, but they have a snippet on their Instagram that sounds like a cross between Primus, Molly Hatchet and Black Sabbath, and one of the guys punches a whole watermelon as hard as he can and the thing basically blows up, this is my new favorite Southern rock band, at least for the rest of today!

• Who says the French can’t do dub riddims? OK, fine, most non-French people do, but if you’ll just be open to new ideas, you’ll probably like Dub Inc, whose new album Atlas includes a pretty killer track called “Décibels!” Just picture Method Man covering a Bob Marley tune and — oh, you’re buying it now, good idea!

• We’ll wrap it up with Jessie J’s Don’t Tease Me With A Good Time, just to prove I didn’t forget that I mentioned her at the top of this column! No, I’m kidding, it took her five years to finish this record and it shows, “Living My Best Life” is a great wide-screen diva-soul tune that’s better than anything Mariah Carey’s ever done. —Eric W. Saeger

Featured Photo: Hirons, Future Perfect (Western Vinyl) Bog Band, Mocashno Days (Headlamp Records)

Cranberry Jack

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

From my cranberry extravaganza in last week’s cover story, here’s one more cranberry recipe.

One of the most popular cocktails of the early 1900s was something called a Jack Rose. There are all kinds of theories as to who Jack Rose actually was, but the most likely explanation for the cocktail’s name is that it is made with apple brandy — apple JACK — and it is a rosy pink color.

There is an alternate theory that it is named after a mob enforcer from the 1880s named Jack Rose. Unlikely as it is, I like this theory, because I can just see a florid giant of a man in a bowler hat and with a nose that had been broken too many times, sitting in a dimly lit tavern with sawdust on the floor. The place is hot, smoky and crowded, but there is about five feet of empty space around this lug in every direction. He holds a tiny cocktail glass in his ham-like fist and lifts it up to the light to admire its delicate pink color before taking a sip and sighing with pleasure.

Traditionally this drink gets its color from a few dashes of grenadine. If you made the cranberry syrup from the Nov. 21 cover story (you can find that in the digital library at hippopress.com), you can use that instead.

1½ ounces apple brandy

1 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice

1 teaspoon cranberry syrup or grenadine

Combine the brandy, juice and syrup over ice in a cocktail shaker, then shake thoroughly. Pour into a Champagne flute or the smallest cocktail glass you own. I have one that I rescued from a thrift shop. I suspect it might have actually been a candlestick originally and the whole cocktail situation must confuse it.

Be that as it may, this is an extremely tasty Tiny Drink. Lime juice, as always, goes well with everything and provides an elegant link between the apple brandy and the cranberry. Ask your digital assistant to play some ragtime music during cocktail hour and serve several of these on a tray.

“At five o’clock I was in the Hotel Crillon, waiting for Brett. She was not there, so I sat down and wrote some letters…. I went down to the bar and had a Jack Rose with George the barman.” — Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises.

Featured photo: Jack Rose. Photo by John Fladd.

Upscale grazing

Wine Club takes some of the mystery out of wine

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

The world of wine can be daunting. Nobody knows this better than Emma Round, the owner of Unwined Wine Bar in Milford.

“Wine is something that so many people are interested in and they enjoy,” she said. “But not many people know much about it. Some people find it a little intimidating, I think, because there’s so much to know when it comes to wine. What makes it worth drinking? Why are we paying $50 for this bottle of wine and $20 for this one? Wine can be very pretentious. And people in the wine industry can be very kind of elitist, if I’m completely frank. You don’t need to spend lots and lots of money on a really great bottle of wine and you shouldn’t be afraid to kind of ask questions and learn more about it.”

In order to answer some of these questions, Round has started a Wine Club that meets at her wine bar once each month. The club is designed to give an introduction to curious wine newcomers, and to introduce experienced wine enthusiasts to new labels and varieties of wine that they might not know about. Participants try a handful of wines, which Round uses to explain qualities like “tannins,” “astringency,” “dry versus juicy” and the differences between different types of wines. The wines are served with a charcuterie board of meats, cheeses, fruits and other foods with flavors that complement or contrast with them.

“So many people are very hard and fast about pairing food and wine,” Round said. “For me this is an opportunity to show how many things you can have with wine and how those different flavor profiles will affect the wine. Some people, for example, drink red wine and really enjoy sweets, fruits and chocolate, and other people really enjoy a peppery salami. But they both bring out very different profiles. It allows people to kind of get an understanding of their own palate and to also see what other people like and how other people react with it.”

At the first meeting of Unwined’s Wine Club, participants tasted wines from five basic categories: a white, a red, an orange wine (which, Round emphasized, is not made from oranges, but is orange in color), a rosé, and a sparkling wine (in this case, a dry prosecco). Round said future Wine Club presentations might feature different wines from a particular region, from within one particular style, or from one variety of grape.

After the first Wine Club, Round tried to get a feel for what the participants were interested in learning about.

“I handed out questionnaires to allow people to influence the direction that we’re going to take,” she said. “The majority of people seem to want to learn more about different regions and the wines that come from those regions. So going forward, I think that’s what we’re going to do. I think we’ll be starting in Italy, just because I am partial to my Italian wine — if you look at our wine list, there are a lot of Italians. … We’ll try to highlight some of those more like unknown grapes … like they’re on the shelves in the liquor store but you might not always pick them up because you don’t know what they are.”

“I spent a lot of time getting qualifications in wine,” Round said. I’ve spent a lot of time studying it abroad. And most people don’t really have the time or the energy to do that; I completely understand that. I think Wine Club is a chance for us to just kind of get to know wine better. For me, Wine Club is an environment where no one’s going to judge you. When we taste [wine] together, people will come up with some really interesting notes, but nobody is wrong, because everyone’s palate is different. It’s all so subjective.”

Wine Club

Where: Unwined Wine Bar, 1 Nashua
St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com
When: Third Wednesday of every month,
6 to 8 p.m.
Cost: $50 per person.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

Intimidation-free sips

Wine Club takes some of the mystery out of wine

By John Fladd
jfladd@hippopress.com

The world of wine can be daunting. Nobody knows this better than Emma Round, the owner of Unwined Wine Bar in Milford.

“Wine is something that so many people are interested in and they enjoy,” she said. “But not many people know much about it. Some people find it a little intimidating, I think, because there’s so much to know when it comes to wine. What makes it worth drinking? Why are we paying $50 for this bottle of wine and $20 for this one? Wine can be very pretentious. And people in the wine industry can be very kind of elitist, if I’m completely frank. You don’t need to spend lots and lots of money on a really great bottle of wine and you shouldn’t be afraid to kind of ask questions and learn more about it.”

In order to answer some of these questions, Round has started a Wine Club that meets at her wine bar once each month. The club is designed to give an introduction to curious wine newcomers, and to introduce experienced wine enthusiasts to new labels and varieties of wine that they might not know about. Participants try a handful of wines, which Round uses to explain qualities like “tannins,” “astringency,” “dry versus juicy” and the differences between different types of wines. The wines are served with a charcuterie board of meats, cheeses, fruits and other foods with flavors that complement or contrast with them.

“So many people are very hard and fast about pairing food and wine,” Round said. “For me this is an opportunity to show how many things you can have with wine and how those different flavor profiles will affect the wine. Some people, for example, drink red wine and really enjoy sweets, fruits and chocolate, and other people really enjoy a peppery salami. But they both bring out very different profiles. It allows people to kind of get an understanding of their own palate and to also see what other people like and how other people react with it.”

At the first meeting of Unwined’s Wine Club, participants tasted wines from five basic categories: a white, a red, an orange wine (which, Round emphasized, is not made from oranges, but is orange in color), a rosé, and a sparkling wine (in this case, a dry prosecco). Round said future Wine Club presentations might feature different wines from a particular region, from within one particular style, or from one variety of grape.

After the first Wine Club, Round tried to get a feel for what the participants were interested in learning about.

“I handed out questionnaires to allow people to influence the direction that we’re going to take,” she said. “The majority of people seem to want to learn more about different regions and the wines that come from those regions. So going forward, I think that’s what we’re going to do. I think we’ll be starting in Italy, just because I am partial to my Italian wine — if you look at our wine list, there are a lot of Italians. … We’ll try to highlight some of those more like unknown grapes … like they’re on the shelves in the liquor store but you might not always pick them up because you don’t know what they are.”

“I spent a lot of time getting qualifications in wine,” Round said. I’ve spent a lot of time studying it abroad. And most people don’t really have the time or the energy to do that; I completely understand that. I think Wine Club is a chance for us to just kind of get to know wine better. For me, Wine Club is an environment where no one’s going to judge you. When we taste [wine] together, people will come up with some really interesting notes, but nobody is wrong, because everyone’s palate is different. It’s all so subjective.”

Wine Club

Where: Unwined Wine Bar, 1 Nashua
St., Milford, 213-6703, unwinednh.com
When: Third Wednesday of every month,
6 to 8 p.m.
Cost: $50 per person.

Featured photo: Photo by John Fladd.

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