April 2009 Archives

Friday night local favorites Hot Day at the Zoo christen Gemstones, Lowell's newest music venue on Market Street above the Blue Shamrock. With a growing legion of fans, HDATZ continue to impress audiences up and down the east coast. Last month they played Johnny D's in Somerville nearly bringing down the house with their foot stomping, dance inducing rhythms and high octane live show. At the end of May, the band plays the Mountain Jam in upstate NY. In its fifth year, the Jam has become one of the most celebrated music festivals in the country making Rolling Stone's top ten list. This years line up includes the Allman Brothers, Michael Franti and Spearhead and Govt Mule. Hot Day take the stage Friday night, May 29. Three day passes are sold out but single night tix are still available. Should be a great weekend of music!

What do Donald Fagen, Phoebe Snow, Elvis Costello and Emmlou Harris have in common? They all showed up to sit in with Band vocalist/drummer/mandolin player Levon Helm at his Midnight Ramble sessions in Woodstock, NY. Improvised takes on Dylan tunes, Band songs and country folk traditionals ramble on long past the traditional hour and a half set of most musicians often lasting four hours or more. With a killer house band that includes daughter Amy, virtuoso guitarist Larry Cambell and a kickin' horn section, the Ramble has been a hot ticket since the sessions began in 2004 as a tribute to the travelling medicine shows Levon remembered from his youth. Ever the gracious host, Levon has been known to greet fans personally as they vie for one of the 125 available seats in the barn/recording studio of his hideaway nestled in the Catskill Mountains.

The Ramble starts up again on May 2nd and continues each Sat night throughout the month. Tickets are $150.00 each or $100.00 for three or more. So if you're looking for a musical road trip, this one promises to be one soul stirring celebration. For more info visit the Midnight Ramble.

Freshman year of high school I cut three old lady’s lawns to get enough money to buy a song I had heard on the radio. I ran four miles to the nearest record store on a blazing hot summer day. Todd something - I didn’t get the last name. Thirty something years later, I still get crazy with anticipation at the mention of a new Todd album. Last year's Arena, Rundgren's 20th solo album, was a riff rockin', power chord fueled assault on the senses as the artist reclaimed his status as guitar god. Last night, in front of a packed house at the Iron Horse in North Hampton, Rundgren laced into one dazzling solo after the next with a fierceness and intensity that left no question he's still as vital as ever. After beginning the night with a fistful of 70's rockers from his vast and varied catalogue, Rundgren launched into Arena playing all 13 tracks in order and barely coming up for air.

In 1977, nearly every page of my trig book had some Rundgren lyric scrawled in a corner: "I'd rather live by a dream than live by a lie"; "Souls come so cheap some people give theirs away"; "Chapter 6 and verse 11, if you want to get to heaven you've got to ask the man who owns the property." And during his performance of Courage, track 5 on Arena, I found one more Rundgren lyric to hold onto..."And when push came to shove, I lost the thing I loved, when I lost the courage of my convictions.' And for three and a half minutes or so, everything seemed right with the world.

Just when you think you've got your summer concert line up all figured out, the Lowell Spinners organization throws the ultimate curveball trumping all cards and announcing that Wilco will be playing LeLacheur Park on July 11th. By all accounts, last summer's Wilco show at Tanglewood was nothing short of awe inspiring and to think in a few short months Jeff Tweedy and crew will be bringing their pseudo-psychedelic-country pop sounds to Lowell, well, that's a concert worth getting excited about. Their latest release, 2007's Sky Blue Sky, harks back to the organic sounds of their brilliant debut Being There sounding right at home with Neil Young's Harvest and the Band's Big Pink. Crazy to think that Ani DiFranco AND Wilco will be performing by the banks of the Merrimack only a short paddle away from each other.

Tickets go on sale Saturday morning at 11:00 at wilcoworld.net. Not sure how they did it but the Spinners may have pulled off the biggest Lowell concert event of the year, quite possibly the last decade.

With the addition of Derek Trucks, Ronnie Earl and zydeco favorite Terrence Simien, the Lowell Summer Music Series is starting to look like a real sizzler. And with the hip hop/reggae feel good sounds of Michael Franti and Spearhead already in the lineup, this could be one summer to remember. Of all the great acts to grace the Boardinghouse stage in the coming months, working class songwriter Jakob Dylan and his band the Wallflowers could very well prove to be the highlight of the "09" season.

After dismal sales of their eponymous debut CD, the Wallflowers were dumped by Virgin. Their follow up, Bringing Down the Horse , brought the band out of obscurity producing two radio hits with One Headlight and the infectious 6th Avenue Heartache. Since then, the Wallflowers have recorded one solid album after the next sounding very comfortable in the company of fellow heartlanders like Springsteen and Petty.
Not to be overlooked is Dylan's 2008 solo release Seeing Things, an intimate and starkly bitttersweet album brimming with personal and politically charged songwriting.

Planning to attend any shows? How does this years lineup compare with past seasons? For a complete schedule visit the Lowell Summer Music Series.

The Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry, NH continues to book some amazing acts: Rickie Lee Jones; Marc Cohn; Edgar Winter; Jonatha Brooke. And now they are partnering with a group in Salisbury to bring a Saturday night concert series to the beach with fireworks after each show. And best of all...it's FREE! Remember when the Boardinghouse concerts were a very affordable $5.00? Yeah, so they weren't pulling in the likes of Daryl Hall or Levon Helm, but in this economy, I'd take a free concert at the beach over $40.00 to see Joan Baez in my own backyard. Don't get me wrong...I love Boardinghouse; I don't think there is a prettier spot to see a summer show. But when you can see top notch musicians like harmonica legend James Montgomery, the Bruce Marshall Band or the Fools for free, and with an ocean view, that's well worth the 30 minute jaunt up 495. And one other thing...while Gloucester and Rockport continue to charge outrageous amounts to park at their pristine beaches, I'll happily fork over the $7.00 to park at the Salisbury Reservation any day.

For more info visit beachfests.org.

After years of playing the support role in numerous local blues and roots bands like Red Devil Lye and the Contra Banditos, Groton bluesman and all around nice guy Arte Kenyon steps into the spotlight on his debut CD Be a Man. From the opening track Red Moon in the Morning, Arte bellows his way through a collection of old timey tunes, his deep, resonating voice at the font of the mix and sounding very much like a seasoned veteran. Though the blues influence is evident throughout the album, it's the country twang of Why I Always End Up Alone and the gospel spirit of Be No More Crying that keeps things interesting, highlighting the many influences that have shaped and molded Arte along the way.

With a core group of musicians including Justin Beaulieu on drums, Steve Esposito on piano and local guitar great Carl Johnson playing on nearly every track, Arte also gets help from Wayne Morgan on harmonica, Carl Ayotte on bari sax and Jim LeBoeuf on guitar, the band sounding like they've been playing together for years. Studio wizard Bob Nash of Wonka Sound continues to prove he's the best kept secret in NE with another crisply engineered production.

Check out Be a Man at CD Baby or catch Arte and Steve Esposito at the Devens Grille on April 9th.

Etablished in 1804 by Napoleon, the Pere Lachaise Cemetery was originally considered to be too far removed from the Paris center attracting few funeral services. In a brilliant marketing campaign, the administrators had the remains of infamous lovers Abelard and Heloise transferred to the site and within a few years the cemetery population skyrocketed from a few hundred to 35,000. The cemetery is now home to over 300,000 including famous musicians Rossini, Bizet, Poulenc, and Chopin. One of the most visited graves, however, is tortured artist, poet, and Doors legend, the Lizard himself, Jim Morrison.

Acclaimed photographer Susan Wilson and violinist Rebecca Strauss have created a memorable and moving multi-media performance of slowly dissolving photographic images accompanied by commentary and live music from the Parisian cemetery’s famous composer-residents. Check it out Saturday, April 4th at the Indian Hill Music School in Littleton. show time is 7:30.

One final note: the Mt Auburn Cemetery was inspired by the Pere Lachaise with it's peaceful pathways and landscaped grounds providing a tranquil sleeping place for the departed. A few years later, the Lowell Cemetery modeled itself after Mount Auburn emphasizing the beauty of the surroundings and becoming one of the first garden cemeteries in the country.