The sun is setting, the red-tailed hawks that hang out in the back yard are likely around somewhere, hidden in the dusk. The rehearsal is supposed to be starting now — about 45 minutes ago, actually, and the bass player is nowhere in sight. Will he show? No one knows. He’s got phone, car and work issues, apparently. A triple threat. Nobody seems too worried about it, they’re all pretty laid back about it — way too laid back. Clearly someone needs to stir the pot, and it looks like it’s gotta be me. Everybody else is too well adjusted. “You know,” I say. “You should fire his ass, if, for no other reason, to get even with him for the despicable way he treated you during the Dink era,” that period being a brief portion of middle school more than a decade and a half ago. Alexander Sandman laughs at the reference. As he probably should, since it’s such a terrible and, well, juvenile name for a band! Then again, right around the same time, Sandman was playing in an equally unfortunately named band, Dying Cat, a short-lived project with a logo showing a bloody cat with crosses for eyes. (“It was about being in a band,” he says, “not about being good — or especially clever.”) It doesn’t matter anyhow, because Benny Zanfagna isn’t biting. He wants to talk about Red Tail Hawk, his latest project, not temporarily wayward bassist Mike Gruen.
Here's a little zig to the normal zag of performance: The always-intriguing Exit Dance Theatre will be collaborating with father-and-son duo Doc Zig and Benny Z, otherwise known as Jim and Benny Zanfagna, who will be joined by local aces Roger Ebacher and Mike Gruen — yes, the same lineup as "Father & Son Playing for Small Change,” Zig and Z's debut EP — in an evening of dance and music to benefit the modern dance company. Fontaine Dubus, Erin Foley, Wendy Hamel, Nicole Duquette and a special guest or two (nope, not telling) will perform new choreography, including a dance set to the duo's single "Run, Run." Played live, of course. From there the band will finish out the night, kicking out its crazy mix of sounds that someone said is Americana realized through a filter of reggae and jazz, or the other way around. Yeah, that would be me. The show takes place at 7:30p.m. Aug. 20 at the Tannery, at the Dance Place's Studio II Black Box. Cost you $10. Cheap date. You can check out the video for "Run Run" here and look up Exit here.
