Hey mon: Reggae singer gets back to 'Roots'

The whole thing had a feeling of inevitability about it: Gary Shane, the man of a thousand musical identities but probably best known for his hit-making power pop band, The Detour, runs into Wade Dyce, the Jamaica-born reggae singer now living in Salem, who made his name with the band Cultural Roots right about the same time as Shane was scoring on the charts. They didn’t know each other — never heard of each other, in fact. They just bumped into each other in the hallways of North Shore Community College where, coincidently, they were both training for second careers as mental health professionals. They started talking about music. Then Dyce, to illustrate a point, started singing Jah Cure’s “Prison Walls (Reflections)” — “and he just floored me,” says Shane. The Ipswich resident says he got “a real education” in that college corridor that day, and a “burning yearning” for reggae — and he wanted more ... Read more here.

Bruising blogging from a Port punk

When Jeff Morris (yeah, that's the guy, second from the left) pulled up stakes last year, he left behind a two-decade deep, stylistically diverse musical legacy only hinted at in "Mutes in the Steeple," the Joshua Pritchard documentary focusing on the Newburyport indie music scene in the late '80s and '90s — from NPD, one of the city's first punk bands, and the Bruisers, who bashed their way out of regional obscurity with a punishing, as-hard-as-you-can-get street punk sound, to the surf-rock-with-an-edge sound of the Cadillac Hitmen, and the in-your-face improvisation instro trio Zuni Fetish Experiment, before finally returning to the song format with Death & Taxes, a straight-ahead rock outfit with no room for flash or showboating. Now Morris, who moved to Chicago last year after getting a day-job offer he could not refuse, begins telling the nasty little story on “Tattooed Hearts and Broken Promises,” his new blog.

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Reeling in the years with the Young Moderns

It’s like that old Reese’s commercial, except that instead of a collision of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s the somewhat accidental grouping of the Merrimack River Bluescruise and the spirit of Yankee Homecoming, but with a distinctly counter-cultural vibe to it, focusing on the Joan-and-Ra-era Fowle’s and the Canta Libre and Cluster School crowds. And if any of that rings a bell, you might remember this: “I feel like a vegetable, but I’m not growing much.” It’s from “Living in a Small Town,” an ode to Newburyport by The Young Moderns, the homegrown power-pop band. You might have heard them playing it in Market Square during Homecoming, or on WBCN, back in the day, when bands without a major record deal could get significant airplay. And, sorry to say, if true, you’re probably seasoned enough to have been targeted in a membership drive by the American Association of Retired Persons ‑ something that just happened to Mike Hoag, a formerly young member of The Young Moderns, and it’s freaking him out a little bit. “I still can’t believe it,” he says from his home in Florida. Mike and Mark Hoag, twin brothers on the not-so-fair side of 50, both of whom left the city about the same time for different parts of the country in 1990, are on the phone, talking about “Wasted Youth Cruise & Other Modern Adventures,” the opening salvo in the 20th-anniversary season of the popular Bluescruise series, which will put the Moderns in front of local audiences for the first time since the band, in a moment of frustration, decided to take a breather — “a break that lasted 30 years,” says Mark.

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Alan Bull: Little wheels keep on turning

Ever wonder how Alan Bull got started with that edgy, somewhat nostalgic and most definitely, emotionally charged truck series that, like it or not, more than anything, has come to define him over the past decade, despite the Port painter's diverse portfolio? The answer is obvious ... if you have a background in automotive forensic psychology: The big truck thing grew out of his childhood obsession with much smaller vehicles — those little Matchbox cars, to be precise. And, since we’re being so precise, we should make it clear for those of you with fuzzy memories that we are not talking about the much sexier Hot Wheels, which took the air out of the practical-but-kinda-frumpy Matchbox collection back during the Summer of Love when Mattel introduced its series of sports cars instead of, er, the cement and dump trucks favored by its English rival.They may have been stupid little boy toys, but, for many of a certain age, they are soaked in nostalgia, like the truck series — and, the artist says, "definitely the source of my fascination with the trucks. They started the whole thing rolling."

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Godot: The wait's over

Funny thing about “Waiting for Godot” is that, despite the intense baggage that accompanies it, the seemingly unbearable intellectual burden and endless exegesis of the work and its possible meanings, there is, absurdly, a lot of humor, warmth, even humanity, in the play. It’s existential slapstick in the countryside, a place where humor — granted, dark humor — coexists with bleak clarity, absurdity and, of course, despair that accompanies life. A state of being some of us were coming to terms with not that long ago, when, unlike "Godot," rarely performed in exurbia, came and went, leaving us waiting like the hapless Estragon and Vladimir, making that scraggly old tree look pretty inviting. Think it's strung enough? If only it weren't such a bother. No, no, no — just getting carried away with the mood of the thing. And it is a moody thing. But unlike the play, where waiting gets you nothing but despair, if you're aware, this time it paid off: Less than two months after its short run as part of a spring fundraiser for Theater in the Open, “Godot” is back in town for three shows at the Firehouse. 

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Elinor Teele: Playing the 'Waiting' game

Elinor Teele thought she was finally done with old English literature years ago — and we are talking really, really old English literature, pre-Norman conquest, the language of Beowolf, which they call English, but barely resembles it — years ago, when she locked up the doctorate from the University of Cambridge, England. Her thesis was on the "Heroic Tradition in the Old English Riddles," a collection of evocative and bawdy — okay, let's just say dirty — poems in the so-called Exeter Book. But, as the Brits might say, there you go: The playwright, who had lived on three continents before returning to what had been the family's summer home in Annisquam, is at home, rifling through the old books and papers she thought she had "put away for all eternity" after her brain "all but imploded" from the sheer academic weight of her studies. But no. She's apparently not quite done with Seventh-Century England yet. She was happy to get away from the academic part of it, but the period "still fascinates me," she says. "Such incredible characters, such incredible stories ... " That's why she's writing a play set in that period. But that's not the point of this conversation. We're here to talk about "The Waiting Room," a new full-length play that gets its first spin around the literary block with a staged reading this weekend at the North Shore Readers Theater Collaborative.

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TITO goes panto

They call it panto, a form that finds its roots in the ancient Commedia dell'Arte but is filtered through old-school British vaudeville and seasoned in the modern. But you probably could do just as well calling “Cinderella: A Pretty Princess Panto,” which Theater in the Open takes for a spin around the park this month, a pop culture Cuisinart. The show slices and dices all those beloved stories from your youth, mixing and matching their characters and whipping their stories into a thick theatrical broth that is seasoned with the buzz-buzz of news, real and pseudo, and following the trail no matter where it goes. It's both a new, original show and a pastiche. It features everyone’s favorite housecleaner, who always makes her curfew, no matter what; a dozen princesses, mostly dancing; a trio of troublemakers, Mavens of Misery — Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," Ursula from "The Little Mermaid," and Cruella De Vil from "101 Dalmatians" — who are every bit as evil as those clowns from British Petroleum who are still busy fouling the Gulf and who take a few well-deserved b-slaps during the show. You add a little singing and buffoonery, as well as a little encouraged booing and hissing and stage direction from the audience and you’ve got a panto. Add a seven-foot giraffe made from, well, whatever you manage to get your hands on, and you've got yourself a Titopanto. 

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Benny & Doc's healing musical journey

Everyone knows medicine usually leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but not the concoction cooked up on “Father & Son Playing for Small Change,” a new four-song EP by Doc Zig and Benny Z — otherwise known around the Port as Jim (father) and Benny (son) Zanfagna. (That would be pronounced zan-fawn-nya.) No, this stuff is pretty sweet. You won’t need a spoonful of sugar to make this go down. But what a strange concoction this is. Just get a load of the active ingredients, the flavors: folk, country blues, reggae, jazz. And the instrumentation: acoustic guitar, mandolin, dobro, flute, saxophone, congas. Nope, this isn’t traditional music, not exactly. It’s Americana realized through a filter of reggae and jazz. Or is it the other way around? And, obviously, it’s not actually medicine, so probably not a good idea to send the receipt to your HMO, but the project is an elixir of sorts, a home cure that combines the healing qualities of music and the physical therapy that comes along with playing it — soothing the savage breast while, for example, goosing neural pathways — as part of recovery. “It’s literally medicinal,” says Benny Z. Which is why they named their publishing company Making Music Medicine Productions. 

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Run, don't 'Walk' for Miller's latest

This strange dissociative thing comes over me when I listen to "Walk," Byfield cellist Kristen Miller's new album. It's like she's whispering in my ear, reminding me of things we have always known, hard-learned lessons that have been all but lost in the maddening rush the present, the incessant tedium of life's details. It's like catching up with an old friend in a way. But, somehow, it feels wrong, like I'm somewhere I'm not supposed to be — lurking in the shadows, ear cocked toward the confessional, eavesdropping. Not that any great secrets are being betrayed. The stories are lyrical studies in contrast and paradox, seemingly small, but significant situations that are closely observed, unfolding in front of you, the details emerging in relief. It's poetry that feels like prose. Songs about longing, love, and loss. Urgent fictions, mostly, situations that ring true, that have a terrible sense of immediacy, familiarity. You know these people, even if you've never met them, even though their stories are not completely drawn. Miller sketches, drops a few hints and lets the listeners fill in the details. 

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Now, about the new 'guy' in Epomeo ...

Got so wrapped up in the Ensemble Epomeo’s program for “Music and the Manse” and our new appreciation for the Italian language, that we forgot to talk abut the new guy. And the old guy. But it turns out that the last time we saw Byron Wallis — during Ensemble Epomeo’s Port debut last year, when the trio rolled out, among other things, a magical performance of Schnitke’s String Trio, the piece that brought the group together in the first place — will likely be the last time we ever see him. The Paris-based violinist is no longer performing with Epomeo. He’s been replaced by Carolyn Chin, a rising classical star who with a packed resume that includes leading the conductorless String Orchestra of New York City, performing as concertmaster with the Paragon Orchestra and touring the United States and Japan with the tap dancer Savion Glover.

No, there’s nothing particularly nasty going on. Just the usual “creative differences,” which often, just below the surface, are about personalities, plus the fact that working with someone who lives and performs thousands of miles away from the Center of the Universe — that would be New York — makes the whole trio thing just a little too complicated. Wallis, who frequently performs with the Orchestre Nationale d’lle de France, “is a terrific guy, one of the sweetest and gentlest guys I know,” says Epomeo violist David Yang. “We just had different approaches. We are still good friends so I think I can say the parting was mostly mutual”

Yang, who is also artistic director of the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival, performed with Chin a couple of years ago at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, always liked her and her playing. “In addition to being a truly impressive musician with outrageous chops she is also an unusually honest person, and that is important,” says Yang. “She has a core of steel, too. By this I mean she is a real leader — a strong personality in the group. A trio is so small that everyone needs to hold their weight, but even in the more democratic form of a trio (versus string quartets, in general) you need a violin who likes to lead. So personality is really important. I mean, look, we just spent two weeks together rehearsing, I kid you not, eight hours a day. You think that is going to work for very long if we don’t know how to get along? You don’t have to like one another, but you have to respect one another. We have had disagreements, but the amazing thing is how non-personal it is.

“The stakes, while they may seem small outside, can feel enormous in a group,” says Yang. “Differences in interpretation, in pitch, timing. A small disagreement can feel very personal - can you play that note a little higher? No, why would you want that? It sounds terrible? Well I think your way sounds terrible? Who are you calling terrible? How dare you? And so on. It is important to me to play with people I admire as players and also as people.”

Epomeo, which also includes Kenneth Woods, founder of the Taliesin Trio and the Masala String Quartet as well as principal guest conductor of the Stratford-upon-Avon-based Orchestra of the Swan, takes its name from the non-active volcano that dominates the landscape of the small, sun-drenched Italian island of Ischia, where the trio is currently holed up. The group is the resident ensemble of the island’s Festivale d’alla Musica da Camera d’Ischia‚ a 10-day chamber music festival and intensive study retreat. They’ll have little time, just four days, between Ischia and the Port performance, which, itself, is part of the Newburyport Preservation Trust’s weeklong festival. The program will include “Thrice blest,” a world premiere by Kile Smith that is based on music by 17th-century Newbury composer John Tufts that came from a hymnbook discovered by NCMF executive director Jane Niebling. Also on the program will be the Sitkovetsky transcription of Bach's Goldberg Variations for string quartet and Beethoven's String Trio in D major, which Yang says is the “core” of the program for the trio.

JUST THE FACTS, MAN: Ensemble Epomeo will perform at “Music and the Manse,” a benefit for the Newburyport Preservation Trust, May 21 at the 18th-century Henry C. Learned House, 190 High St., Newburyport. The program includes the Sitkovetsky transcription of Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's String Trio in D Major and “Thrice blest,” a world premiere based on music by West Newbury composer John Tufts. The event, which runs from 5:30 to 9 p.m., also includes a tour of the historic home and a wine and hors d’oeuvres reception. Tickets are $75. Reservations are required. For more information, call 978.463.9776.