Christian McNeill and Jesse Dee of SEA MONSTERS

Sea Monsters is chock full of big Boston names, yet you may have never heard of them. They are a local supergroup that convenes every Sunday at Somerville’s Precinct Bar and creates improvisational musical fusion. Spearheaded by Christian McNeill and Jesse Dee, Sea Monsters provides a breath of fresh air for some of Boston’s best musicians who look to kick back, have fun, and build off of each other’s creativity. Sea Monsters has no distinct sound, but McNeill takes on the role of conductor, ensuring musician’s unique style can blend rather than clash.

Almost three successful years after beginning their residency, Sea Monster Sundays are holding strong and the band is recruiting bigger names to join them onstage. Most recently they have welcomed Sarah Borges, Jimmy Ryan, Rex and Jeremy from The Rex Complex, and Laurence Scudder. In the coming weeks, Sea Monsters will feature Dwight & Nicole and Reva Williams from Gretel.

In addition to their regular Sundays, Sea Monsters will be doing double duty this Saturday, headlining both Cambridge Riverfest at 5 as well as Harpoon Fest at 8 on the same day.

Sea Monsters really is one of Boston’s best-kept secrets and I was lucky to be able to chat with Christian McNeill to get the scoop on the band.

– Perry Eaton

So give me a little background on who plays what in Sea Monsters.

I play guitar and sing, Jesse Dee plays guitar and sings, Lyle Brewer plays lead guitar, Mike Miksis is on bass, Tom Arey plays drums. The Aruda brothers are our horn section, that would be John on tenor saxophone and Scott on trumpet. That’s pretty much Sea Monsters right there. The lineup changes, though. When you have a band that size and you play a residency, somebody by default has to run the band, so I kind of do that. Sometimes we bring in replacement musicians. We have Tim Gearan a lot on guitar and vocals. Dean Johnson, who is the drummer for Club D’Elf, comes in and plays with us quite a bit too. So there are a few peripheral members who are just kind of part-time Sea Monsters. We have a pretty wide range of musicians and they’re all great so we’re really lucky.

When and how did you guys form?

Well, I got the idea for Sea Monsters back in 2005, but I didn’t really do anything about it until 2007 when I had heard Jesse Dee perform and we talked afterwards. I sort of just told him that I would love to play with him and then another friend of ours had a show going at the Lizard Lounge and he asked Jesse and I to come and play with him. So that’s basically how it started. It took a few years to get going from the idea that I initially had and then it kind of started by accident through this mutual friend of ours.

So you and Jesse both had solo careers before Sea Monsters or did Sea Monsters help launch you solo careers?

Yep, we both had our own solo projects beforehand. Everybody’s focus is on their solo career. I mean, Sea Monsters is just the greatest fantasy side project you can imagine. We just do it purely for fun. It’s a real band, but it’s not like a real band in the sense that we can go on tour and stuff like that. It’s definitely a side-project and it’s something that we do because we love to play music and we love to have fun. It’s when you take the business out of music that it’s the most fun and this really is a great example of that.

Stylistically, you and Jesse are very different in your studio material, so what is the songwriting process like for Sea Monsters?

Anything goes really. We don’t rehearse. We’ve been playing this Sunday night residency at Precinct for about three years now, so the rehearsal is basically the Sunday night. So people are hearing stuff for the first time just as we’re hearing it for the first time. So we don’t really have a writing process per se, but we have our own individual writing processes and it’s a great way to try out new material. On stage sometimes Jesse and I will suggest something to the other band members, but very rarely do we tell anybody what to play. We might encourage someone not to play something rather than encourage them to play something else, you know, we let the band come up with their own parts and then we take it from there. 9 times out of 10 when you have a band like we have, everybody is so good that there is a great trust there and that’s what comes through.

Any chance Sea Monsters will look to make a studio release in the future?

Well, I think all of us would really love to, but right now, the timing just isn’t right. Maybe sometime in 2011 we would look into doing that. I personally would love to make a Sea Monsters record, I would make one next week. But right now I’m making a solo record. Jesse is touring right now and he just made a record last year. I think that the timing just has to be right.

So recently, your residency at Precinct has featured different local talents as special guest every week. How did you wind up getting such an awesome lineup of guests to sit in?

Personally, I’ve been involved in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville music scene for 13 years and I know a hell of a lot of people. Along the way, we meet new people and I constantly go and hear live music. So, even when I’m not playing music myself, I make an effort to go out and hear who’s new on the scene and from there I can just make mental notes of who would make a great guest. We’re very lucky be a part of the family of musicians that Boston has.

When you have these special guests, is it kind of the same “anything goes” mentality when building a set list?

Yeah, we play a whole mix of stuff. Lots of times the artist will bring in material or even charts for the bass player and the horn section. Usually, we encourage people to keep it simple because the simpler the song, the more fun we’re going to have with it. Sometimes we’ll meet up earlier and go over some stuff, but that seems to happen less and less these days. But also sometimes guests come back more and more and we get to learn some of their material a little better. Usually we play a couple of songs without the guests and then we bring them up. We used to have the guest join us for the entire gig, which was terrifying. It was funny to see some of the veteran performer’s reactions when we told them they were going to be up there the whole time!

It seems like Sea Monsters keeps a relatively low profile. You don’t have a website or a MySpace, and it’s tough to find any recording on the Internet. Do you guys keep it that way on purpose?

Yeah, that’s on purpose. I mean, here’s the thing, we wanted this to happen real old-school, real organically, and all be word-of-mouth. There’s no websites, no manager, no booking agent, it’s just us— a few musicians who really love what we do and love getting together every Sunday. We have some amazing fans who love it as much as we do, and this is really the first little bit of press we’re gonna have. Maybe it is time to let a wider audience know what is going on. I kind of want people to know just so it can keep ticking along, but that said, we play at Precinct and that holds about 175 people maybe, so it can’t really get too big. It would be nice for people to be aware of what we’re doing, but it was definitely intentional that keep it small. Too many times, the business of things just clouds your enjoyment of what you love to do, and that can be said of most things. So the size and popularity of the residency is not really our biggest concern, we would rather just be able to have a good time and enjoy creating new music.

With you and Jesse and Tim all having successful solo careers, do you want to ever make it out of Boston or do you keep Sea Monsters purely a Boston thing?

Yeah, we’re stuck in Boston for now! Unless someone comes along with a lot of money and wants to take 7 people out on the road, in which case we would probably do it.

So what other plans are in store for you guys for the summer?

Well I’m working on a new album and I’ve never put out a full-length solo album, so I’m concentrating on that. Jesse is starting a new record as well at some point, he may have actually already started it. Tim Gearan plays at Atwoods every Friday night. People can definitely find us, but I would really encourage people to come on Sundays and check us out, and from there you can kind of get in touch and follow everybody solo as well. The best part about Sea Monsters is that it is kind of a safe haven for musicians. The business end of things with the solo careers is just so frustrating and so boring that to be able to have Sea Monsters, it provides this successful remedy. It’s just this awesome fantasy band we can go and be a part of once a week.

Anything else Sea Monsters fans should know about?

Just come out on Sunday nights at 10 o’clock at Precinct and let the music do the talking!

Here’s our weekend to-do list. Print it out. Check it off. Enjoy.

–TeaParty

P.S. Feel free to add your own events in the comments.

[ ] Kindly ask Bonfire Bandit to demonstrate what “electro-Americana” is

at Precinct

[ ] Wash your ampersand t-shirt to welcome Pretty & Nice back to Boston

at the Middle East Upstairs with Title Tracks, Gary B and the Notions.

[ ] Say Hey Mama to Tim Gearan and Jesse Dee

when they open for Hey Mama at The Paradise

[ ] Dance like there’s…um… right.

at NO TOMORROW at Machine

[ ] Celebrate male toplessness at FOXY!

at Zuzu

[ ] See some good live music and still maintain your schoolnight bedtime

at the Ambitious Tugboat residency at O’Brien’s with Glam Hammer, The Woodrow Wilsons and The Dedicated Heads

The night started off with some straight-up unapologetic and self-aware rock n roll. Shoney Lamar’s melodic growl filled the small, dark space while he and The Equal Rights assaulted the crowd with degenerate anthems that both raised eyebrows and got heads a-bobbing.

Then, under their usual cover of semi-darkness, Sea Monsters converged into one 8-headed hydra of Americana. Fronted by local troubadours Christian McNeil, Jesse Dee and Tim Gearan, the Monsters brought out the big guns with a full horn section.

Next week, sultry, boot-stompers Viva Viva will play on the storied carpet stage, supported by the swaggering pop of Leisure.

See you there!

–TeaParty

SHONEY LAMAR and THE EQUAL RIGHTS

SEA MONSTERS

The leaves are changing, the kids are back in town, and everyone’s trading in their iced coffee for the real thing as fall has hit full force in Boston.  For the last month of this short-lived summer, Gab, Jessie and I spent at least a night a week at the Lizard Lounge and it’s smaller, rowdier counterpart, Toad.  At Lizard, we sat with jaws dropped and eyes wide at the octave-leaping antics of Jesse Dee; we then had our minds blown by the concentrated intensity of The Mieka Canon as they delivered flawless sets and handed out free copies of their new EP, From The Mouth of Paris, every single week in August.

While both of these Boston bands and artists held court at the Lizard Lounge, the feet-stompin’, hootin’-and-hollerin’ and epic vocal prowess of Tim Gearan and John Powhida were occurring simulataneously as the two men led residencies of their own at Toad.  From both Powhida and Gearan, we saw retrospective displays and departures of sorts from the two established Boston-based musicians.  Gearan, whose Monday night slot at Toad will be vacant come October, is taking his 15+ year residency and moving it over to a Friday night show each week at Atwood’s Tavern in Inman Square.  Powhida, who spent his residency sharing the stage with numerous friends as well as former and present members of his band, John Powhida International Airport, is hitting the drawing board again after his rowdy Toad shows and his performances at various festivals and charitable events in the Greater Boston area this summer.  A good thing can’t go on forever, though, and as seasons change so do the schedules of Boston’s favorite venues and nightclubs.  The Toad residencies of John Powhida and Tim Gearan were merely forums for these two to showcase their unparalleled energy, prolific songwriting abilities and unmatched appreciation for their Boston fans, and there’s only more to look forward to from this singer/songwriter stalwarts as the days grow shorter in the coming chill.

- Hilary Hughes

“Call me, TeaParty Girls, the next time you wanna go SAKE BOMBING!”: Shoutouts and Other Whimsies from John Powhida

+

A Farewell to Toad: Tim Gearan on an Autumnal Change of Scene

+

The Powerful Pipes of a Boston Boy: Jesse Dee and his Local Lizard Lounge Residency

+

“Cambridge Doesn’t F_ck Around”: Cutting Teeth with The Mieka Canon

For those who have been dropping by Toad on Monday nights to see the Tim Gearan Band do their blueey, country-flavored set, a change is in store: A couple of weeks ago, Tim let it be known that his residency at this bohemian hangout and respected music spot would be phased out over the month of September in order to start a new residency up in Inman Square’s Atwood’s Tavern.  At fifteen years and counting, Gearan is ready to move on from his weekly gig at the popular Cambridge venue.  His admiration and respect for the folks over at Toad and his loyal fan base is unwavering, and with their support he’s opting for a new spot for his band to call home at another local venue that’s become a haunt and hangout for local musicians.  Though Toad and Gearan have had a long and happy run together, Tim’s transition to Atwood’s seems a logical one to make: The bar is already playing some of Tim’s records on heavy rotation during their popular Pub Quiz nights, and with a regular lineup boasting intimate sets from members of Boston’s best folk and blues acts, his rowdy repertoire infused with a bit of Deep South soul will fit right in on the Atwood’s roster.

While we were trying to arrange for time to sit down and have a formal interview over a pint, Tim literally had to count the free hours between gigs that were scheduled for six consecutive days.  Between playing the last few nights of the Toad residency, joining his band for an early evening show at The Burren and playing on the regular alongside Christian McNeill, Jesse Dee and the rest of The Sea Monsters any given Sunday at Precinct, Tim is constantly singing, constantly strummin’ his guitar and constantly making music with his friends and fellow Cambridge/Somerville singer/songwriters.  Read on to learn about where Gearan picked up his guitar, the limitless songwriting inspiration he derives from his family and what we can look forward to in the coming months from one of Boston’s best performers.

-Hilary Hughes

THE MAIN EVENT: THE TIM GEARAN TPB INTERVIEW

What’s your back-story, Tim Gearan?

I’m a North Eastern kid. I was born and raised in New England, or in New York, specifically.  I’ve always been interested in music.  Our family stayed in New York but we’ve always been running around a lot, and my brother and sister and I were just always involved in the arts somehow.  We’re all doomed artists from the beginning, just because we needed something to sink our teeth into when the upheaval of our family occurred, with all the changes that go along with a 70s family and all that goes around with it.  In terms of a musical background, I’ve always been playing and writing.  Once I left home, I did the classic sort of 20s bop around the country/vagabonding thing, playing the couch circuit as it were, you know.  I moved out to California for a while and kind of soaked up the commercialism out there, and it started out in a negative sort of fashion, as I don’t really adhere to the LA scene so much.  I met somebody out there from Lafayette, Louisiana, and I moved to Louisiana for a year and a half or so.  That was more my speed, kind of soaking up the blues and zydeco and gospel and country music that happens down there.  I was lucky enough to be close enough to New Orleans so that I could take trips down there all the time and play music.  That’s where the idea of residencies kind of occurred to me, too: A lot of the people that live down there are sort of set in their ways and the Southern attitude is very much a casual one, and you have a lot of older folks who have lived with their music for a long time.  They don’t necessarily tour, and that’s sort of something ideal for me, the idea of a blues man in a chair in a corner.  That’s my idea of success, as opposed to that of my friends who I left reaching for the stars in LA.  I just wanted to play all the time.  So, I did that, and just played all the time, and of course was destitute and ran out of money at some point, and I ended up back here and my brother was painting houses up here and he got me back on my feet a little bit.  That was in 1988, and I’ve been here since, just picking up gigs and playing and just doing my thing.

And you’ve always been in Cambridge and Somerville?

Pretty much, man.  I’ve been in the Davis Square area for 18 years.  It’s just the convenience of it all.

Can you put your creative process into words for us?  How’s songwriting go for Tim Gearan?

There’s no real process.  I’m not one of those writers who sits down and gets a day job and goes to work everyday, but with that being said there’s always a guitar laying around, so if I don’t have anything else in my hands a guitar will be there, usually.  I can just soak up whatever I hear at any point in the day, whether I’m reading the paper or eavesdropping on a conversation or whether it’s my five-year-old daughter and whatever’s coming out of her mouth and running through her mind.

She must be a great source of inspiration for you.

She’s a GREAT source of inspiration!  My wife, too; She’s a social worker and she comes home with all these amazing stories of other people’s lives.  I spent a lot of time on the road in the 80s and 90s, but I’ve kind of settled down since I have a family, so I take it where I can get it, you know?  I got piles of composition notebooks laying around the house, and I just write down whether it’s a whole song coming out at once or little ideas, I fill notebooks with ideas and when I get the time to myself after everyone’s gone to bed I sit down and see what I can collect.  That might happen every day for a week and it might not happen for weeks at a time, it’s totally random.  Listening’s a big part of it: Listening to all my favorite players, listening to my friends’ songs as well as my favorite artists.

Who are some of those favorite artists?  Who would you say influences you?

That’s a really long list (laughs).  I really love, recently, it’s gospel music, that’s been a huge inspiration.  The Staples Singers, Blind Willie Johnson, Lightening Hopkins, a lot of the blues and gospel singers.  I kind of like what people like Robbie Roberston and the Band did with those inspirations, they brought sort of a literary bent to it.  It’s not necessarily a church thing or a religious thing; it’s more of a feel thing where you bring in your own stories.  The poetry that was superimposed on top of old gospel music, you know.  After Bob Dylan came along and sort of added this surreal bent to things, all of the rules were broken and you could take a blues tune and say whatever you wanted with it besides “My baby left me!”  I definitely have a traditional history of country music and gospel music, blues and everything that happened with that stuff after the Beatles came along and broke the rules with those traditions.  I couldn’t begin to list it all! I was just listening to Jeff Foucault before I left the house; I met him through Peter Mulvey.  We both sort of belong to the folk circuit that comes out of this area that’s sort of nationwide.  People whose music hasn’t really been generated so much, you know?  Peter Case is another guy.  All the big iconic figures and all the smaller guys running around making songs, I dig into all of it.

Are there any songs in your catalog that you feel particularly connected to?  I know that it’s kind of like asking to choose between children.  Do you have any songs that you look forward to including in your set every performance?

The new ones! The newest things that I’ve written are always the most fun to play live.  It’s not necessarily that I’m the most attached to them, but they’re the most poignant- it’s the thing that I’m relating to now, so that’s the most important thing to me and you know, that’s what I’m clinging to right now, the most recent feelings I have.  You can’t look at the songs you write without feeling sort of nostalgic, and that’s fine, but only a few of those still really make the cut when I play in front of people anymore.  It’s hard to keep them alive.  I think the really strong ones out of the 150 songs or so I’ve recorded, there’s only a small fraction of them that I still feel sort of make the cut.  Having said that, I have a friend who came down to the show the other night, Jen Kimball, and she’s moving to Ireland for a year, so there are some tunes that I’m like, “Well, I’ve got a friend who’s moving away for awhile.  I know I’ve got a song for you!” it was a song called “Moving Day”, so right now I’m thinking of that one.

You’ve mentioned people that you derive inspiration from.  In terms of local acts, you mentioned that local artists inspire you as well.  Who are some Boston bands or Boston artists that you really enjoy?

Yeah!  I like Dennis Brennan a lot.  He’s just one of those guys that, you know, he’s just a constant source of inspiration.  He never drops the ball, you know?  He sings and plays with everything he has no matter what, no matter where he’s playing or who he’s playing for.  He’s also got that thing I was talking about where he’s got a lot of background and knowledge of the roots of American music, and he superimposes poetry, his own writing, on top of that in a way that I find to be really unique and not too writerly or precious or over the top.  You never really forget the tune of the story when you leave.  I think that a lot of writers spend too much time going off on some literary, whimsical thing where it’s all about them and how many words they can get in.  It’s more an exercise in wit, or something.  With him, he keeps it really simple and yet the wit’s still there and the storyline is still there and the melody, he sings it and it’s like, amen.  That’s what I’m always looking for, you know?  I like the guys who are sort of reinventing the soul thing around town right now.  Eli Reed is doing that; Jesse Dee is doing that.  I think Christian McNeill does that like nobody else does it.  He’s taken that sort of hypnotic soul route that’s just really addictive. I get to play with these guys, you know?  I love writing, but I’m sort of a sideman and I love playing guitar, so I’m lucky to have guys in town that I can just be in the background and just add a little something.

Do you have any favorite venues in Boston?  I’ve seen you at Precinct multiple times and obviously you’ve been doing the residency thing at Toad for awhile…

Toad has definitely been there for me.  I’ve been there every Monday night for fifteen years, almost.  I will disclose now that only last week did I let it be known that I’m gonna stop doing that.  I’m gonna phase out my residency at Toad starting in September, and I’m gonna take that band, the whole Monday night crew, and start a residency or continue the residency I’ve had at Atwood’s every Friday.  I’m gonna try to make that the spot.

Why the change of locale?

It’s mostly due to my own need for upheaval and for change.  It takes me awhile to shake it up, I don’t know (laughs).  That’s a big change for me.  It’s emotional and tough for me to even talk about it because it’s such a new idea, but for various reasons, I think it’s good to leave on a high note and it’s been tough trying to fit everyone who wants to come down on a Monday night in the door at Toad because it’s so small, so finding a place that’s got a bit more room to move and to dance- Atwood’s is a place that’s new, and I feel like I’ve got a future I could build on there and the feeling that I’ve got something new started.  The guys down there, they’re there every week and they’re hands on and at my shows all the time.  They want to make it into a listening room and bring a sound guy in.  They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse as well.   Starting in October, I’ll have the Monday night residency guys down at Atwood’s.  I really can’t say enough good things about my residency at Toad, though.  I felt free to do whatever I wanted because there’s no cover so I didn’t feel any pressure.  It’s always been a place for friends, and I get to play with my best friends down there all the time.  What’s happened in the cultivation of that joint is just irreplaceable, you know?  Down the street is the Lizard Lounge and down the street from there is Club Passim.  Once in awhile the Paradise Rock Club will throw me a gig, I’ll get an opening set there every once in awhile.  I’ve been the “under-the-radar residency guy” for the longest time (laughs).  I don’t know what’s compelled me to do residencies.  I’ve moved around so much as a kid, so maybe I’ve just felt compelled to find a spot and hunker down, you know?

How have these residencies affected you, creatively?  How has your residency at Toad been beneficial to you?

We’re basically a band that never rehearses because we all just get together and play.  We’ve never rehearsed a song in the twenty or so years I’ve been playing with these guys.  We just go to the gig and play the same song every week for a few weeks, and by the end of that few week period of time that song’s basically fleshed it’s way out.  It’s kind of the same way with The Sea Monsters, too; I’ve never rehearsed with those guys and we trust each other on and offstage, too.  I mean, a song’s not rocket science.  It’s based on really simple forms.  We sort of rely on the inspiration of the time and we’re not a slave to sort of definite ideas, which is definitely attractive to me, seeing what happens with that every week.  It’s a little different every time.  There’s this bedrock and a foundation and you’ll see that songs are never the same way twice.

Let’s talk about The Sea Monsters for a little bit.  I noticed that you hear distinct differences between your songs, Jesse Dee’s songs and Christian McNeill’s songs.  During Sea Monsters gigs, do you guys kind of trade off leading when you guys are playing together?

That’s how it works!  It’s just basically a round table and we just go down the line.  Christian is a magnanimous individual, you know?  He’ll always spread the wealth and share his spotlight.  He’s got enough material to make The Sea Monsters all about him down there, but he’s really into the communal vibe that happens there and which I really appreciate.  Since Jesse’s kind of got his own thing and is gonna take off, I’ve got my own thing and I do my own thing, Christian has the opportunity to do his own thing on that night and I don’t want to discourage him from inviting his friends to come down to play.  I would like to play on more of his songs.  I like singin’ with that guy and singin’ on his songs, you know?  I’m happy to throw in my two cents and do my part, but I’m always whispering to him, “It’s your show, man!  Do your thing!”  I feel like he’s the centerpiece and he does something down there that gets everybody going.  Having said that, I want to play with Christian as much as possible.

In terms of the collaborative nature of The Sea Monsters, do you feel that being involved with the project has helped with your writing?  Do you bounce ideas off of Christian and Jesse and the other guys?

I think we bounce ideas off each other whether we like it or not because we play together a lot.  There’s only been a few times, less than I can count on one hand, with Christian [to write], usually late, late, late night, we’ll go back to somebody’s apartment and drink and play and come up with some ideas.  I think the inspiration comes – I noticed that a couple of guys in the band were saying, I’ve got these sort of anthemic ballads I’ve been writing lately, and they’re like “Where’s that coming from?! Your stuff is usually a little more opaque!”  And I’m like, “It’s coming from Christian!”  Christian is all about “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”  He’s got a million songs where everybody just sings out and everybody knows what to do, and there’s a quality in that that I definitely think I’ve taken from that experience.  You gotta play your dancing numbers when you play with Christian a lot of the time.  I’ll try doing a country number down there and get the hairy eyeball (laughs).

You had mentioned that your residency at Toad is going to be fading into a transition to Atwood’s.  Where else do you see yourself a couple of months down the road from now?

As far as The Sea Monsters are concerned, that all depends on Christian.  That’s entirely up to him.  He’s the captain of that boat.  As long as they’re doing it and they’ll have me, I’ll show up to play!  With that said, we’ve had a member move down to Brooklyn recently and some other guys from The Sea Monsters may move onto other cities too, who knows.  I mean, Boston has zero industry: It’s a great place to cut your teeth.  It’s a great place if you want to play in great clubs for wonderful people all the time, but it’s not like A&R guys are going to come through the door of the bar you’re playing in any minute and go, “You’re just what we’ve been looking for!”  At this point and this stage in the game that doesn’t really happen anymore anyway, because the playing ground is completely level, but I would understand it if people wanted to shake things up a bit by moving to another commercial level.

Well, you’ve lived in plenty of places and you’ve toured extensively.  How does Boston compare with other cities you’ve lived in or played, and how does the crowd differ here from other cities?

I think it takes a little while to warm up to Boston, but once you do it’s irresistible.  I always felt like the city needs to loosen up a little bit and I always felt like it was part of my job to help it loosen up a little bit, and people can count on us to see music you can bop around to, and Boston afforded me the opportunity to do that.  Coming from the South and having grown up in the North East and having experienced the South and the Midwest, you know, Chicago, and New Orleans, it’s wonderful that you can create something up here that people think of as an anomaly.  What I experienced musically in different cities, that was something that was always there and in the dirt, and it takes a little longer to cultivate that in Boston I think.  I think people will attest to that.  People I know who have come from out of town and decided to stay here, people who came up after the flood in New Orleans and decided to stay here, they’ve said, “Yeah, it takes a little while.”  There’s rigidity to Boston that you don’t find in New Orleans or Chicago, where there it’s automatic.  I’m not ragging on Boston, I obviously have an affinity for it and I love it here, and there’s a place, you just kind of have to seek it out here.  You have to find the best-kept secrets.  I’m not quite sure why it’s taken so long for certain acts to be covered in Boston.

I’m personally shocked that The Sea Monsters have been written up yet, frankly.

There’s a game to be played in this town and we don’t play it, you know?  The game is to get your stuff in the right hands.  People like Christian and me are sort of bullheaded about that and also not, um, savvy (laughs).  To be perfectly honest, we’re not success-driven; we’re just really here to play for the moment and I just look forward to the next time we do that.  Having said that, it can be frustrating when you know that you have something there and the people who are in charge of the media aren’t paying attention as they should be.  You sound like your tooting your own horn when you start to talk like this, but after twenty years you don’t –

[Tim’s five-year-old, Maggie, comes bounding in.  BOUNDING.]

Sorry ‘bout that.  This is another residency I’ve been doing for about four years now, here at The Burren.  It’s fun because it’s early and my daughter gets to come down and sing with the band and stuff.

Your daughter will come up and sing with you!?

Absolutely!

That’s great.  How has fatherhood directly affected you as a musician?  You mentioned that your family has had a significant impact on how you write.

You definitely get more of a sense of the bigger picture.  You get out of that little selfish bubble.  You really don’t have to compromise at all, ever.  I’ve always been able to somehow squeak out a living playing music and I’ve only had to deal with my own needs, really, and so this was the best kind of shock I could ever ask for to make you look outside that and see more of the future.  You start taking better care of yourself because you want to be there, you know?

This rain-soaked summer may be coming to a close, but the melodies emitting from Toad and the Lizard Lounge have kept us holding tight to these last long days of August all because of the month-long residencies of Mieka Canon, Jesse Dee, John Powhida International Airport and the Tim Gearan Band.  As two of Boston’s most respected venues favored by patrons and performers alike, the Lizard Lounge and Toad, found just a stone’s throw away from each other on Mass Ave in Cambridge, have been hosting all four acts throughout the month and will continue to do so tonight with Jesse Dee’s final set.  We were particularly intrigued by the parallels between the residencies and the similarities all of the artists share: Sure, as singers/songwriters who prefer the jazz, blues and rock haunts of Cambridge and Somerville to the flashier venues and clubs of the center of our fair city, these groups all tend to stick to this side of the river.  Geographical preferences aside, they’re also all brilliant masters when it comes to mixing attributes of soul, bluegrass, folk and rock standards with their own modern musical tendencies to produce exciting sounds that can’t be found anywhere else outside of Boston.  (Well, technically the Mieka Canon lives in New York now, but you get the point.)

The girls of TeaParty Boston have been hanging around Toad and Lizard over the past couple of weeks in order to catch these acts in action.  We’ve been caught with our jaws dropping during Mieka Pauley of the Mieka Canon’s heart-stopping rendition of “Marked Man”.  We’ve seen the sweat drip from Jesse Dee’s face as he wails and hollers and furiously strums along with the rest of his exuberant band.  We’ve giggled at the hilarious showmanship at John Powhida while trying to peer over the heads of other spectators crowding the bar at Toad, and we’ve envied Tim Gearan’s ability to look classically cool in his trademark topper while busting out a grin Cheshire cat-style and driving a showstopper home.

We’re sad to see our August nights in the Reptile District (as Gab so affectionately refers to this stretch of Mass Ave between Toad and the Lizard Lounge), but there’s still time to catch some of the bands in action.  Jesse’s on tonight, the Mieka Canon’s handing out free copies of their brand new EP tomorrow night at Lizard, and John Powhida and Tim Gearan will be working their magic early next week on Sunday and Monday night at Toad, respectively.  Read on below to catch up on our conversations with the Mieka Canon and Jesse Dee, and be sure to check back next week for exclusive chats with John and Tim.

-Hilary Hughes

The Powerful Pipes of a Boston Boy: Jesse Dee and his Local Lizard Lounge Residency

“Cambridge Doesn’t F_ck Around”: Cutting Teeth with the Mieka Canon

Before I properly introduce him I think I need to qualify my own stance and let the reader know that I, Hilary Hughes, am an unabashedly, embarrassingly huge fan of the Boston blues/rock/soul/big-haired/high-voiced/folk powerhouse that is Jesse Dee.  I saw him for the first time a few years ago at Harper’s Ferry when a dear friend of mine attending Mass Art invited me out to see “a friend of a boyfriend’s friend of a friend” who turned out to be Dee, and since then I’ve been spending roughly every other Sunday night dancing like an idiot to the sounds of the Sea Monsters, a side project of a handful of Boston’s most talented singers/songwriters/musicians in which Dee participates.  When I was working as the East Coast Music Editor over at Chicks with Guns, I was handed Dee’s debut album, Bittersweet Batch, to review, and gave it 5 out of 4 stars for Dee’s refreshing sound that continues to evolve while conjuring up images of vibrant, sweaty dance halls (“My Two Feet”; “Alright”) and sullen, heartbroken hole-in-the-wall speakeasys (“Still Here”, “Around Here”) simultaneously.  Dee’s lyrical and compositional prowess aside, his voice is a force to be reckoned with: With a multi-octave range rivaling Stevie Wonder’s, Dee trips over scales and riffs as though his vocal chords were created for that purpose alone.

So, yeah.  Basically, I really, really love Jesse Dee’s music and was pleased to find that Dee is just as humble and gracious as he is talented and driven.  Jessie and I were able to catch up with him over a beer at Atwood’s while he was waiting to check out the Lyle Brewer Trio on a Monday night, and over an hour we picked his brain regarding his residency at the Lizard Lounge this August.  With many of his fellow musician-friends sharing the bill each night of his Lizard stint, Dee’s shows have been intimate in the sense that they’ve included some of the heaviest hitters of Cambridge and Somerville’s jazz/blues/folk/singer/songwriter scene (which, as I note after writing all those forward slashes, has yet to be defined in a single term by the members of it.)  Tonight marks the end of Jesse Dee’s Tuesday Night Residency at the Lizard Lounge, so if you want to dance or simply sit and listen and feed of the energy of this man with a set of pipes singing songs that are wise beyond his years, head down the stairs of 1667 Mass Ave in Cambridge and take a seat.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: JESSE DEE AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Jesse: Honey Bunches of Oats.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles”, or Mouth from “The Goonies”?

J: Long Duk Dong, because … honestly, I don’t think Mouth is such a bad guy!  So, yeah.  I’m going with the “Sixteen Candles” guy just because I have Mouth’s back.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

J: A juicer.  A manual juicer.

You go to bed, wake up, walk into the bathroom to brush your teeth, and you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve turned into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

J: Bork bork bork! The Swedish Chef.  I think that guy’s awesome.  What’s the dog’s name, Rolf?  I like him, too.  I’d be Rolf wearing the Swedish Chef’s cooking uniform and hat and trying to do a Swedish accent.

Say you have a crazy night, you black out, and you wake up feeling like crap the next morning and you realize… you got a tattoo.  When you were under the influence of SOMEthing.  What’d you get inked?

J: Something really stupid and random, like a pan of lasagna or something on my gut. (Laughs) I’d get TEAPARTY BOSTON across my chest.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

J: Rodeo clown.  It’d be more exciting.  And faster too, I’d think.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what would you be?

J: A neck beard.  Or the hockey helmet!  That’s the one where you can connect your beard to your hair going underneath your ear… that’s a lot of hair.  That’s a very masculine style of facial hair.  You have to be a certain extent of hairy to pull it off.  Or maybe the soul patch.

Because “you got soul”?

J: No.  Because I’m… patchy.

If you were a type of cheese, which cheese would you be?

J: I would have to say that cheese is my favorite food.  I might have to be Muenster cheese.

What’s your favorite word?

J: I don’t think I have a favorite word.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY SKIVVIES AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

J: Marvin Gaye’s “Gotta Give It Up.”  That one you can’t resist to move to.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE JESSE DEE TPB INTERVIEW

Hi Jesse! Tell us about yourself.

Jesse: Hello!  I’m from Arlington, born and raised, which is not far from here at all.  I’ve always lived in the area and I went to Mass Art.

Right!  Aren’t you also a painter?

J: Yeah!  I don’t get to paint as much as I’d like to these days because I’m mostly focusing on my music, but here and there I do some design work and some various commissions.  I’m mostly just doing music now.  I’ve been playing in Boston for almost twelve years.  I was writing songs and teaching myself how to play guitar right about around when I was starting college, so I was playing open mics and studying performance in school and I ended up joining up with some guys from Berklee and I toured around the country.  I guess I started out as a solo performer, and I definitely came up in the folk singer/songwriter scene in Somerville and Cambridge.  I started out playing an acoustic guitar, but I picked up electric because it better lent itself to the music I wanted to play.

Yeah, you have a pretty gorgeous Epiphone.

J: Thanks!

How would you describe your creative process?  Let’s put the songwriting and music making of Jesse Dee into words.

J: There’s not a specific method at all: Sometimes there’ll be lyrics written, sometimes it’ll be a general concept of how a song can function, sometimes it’s just music.  A lot of times I find I write from just singing a song to myself and singing a melody in my head, and if I’m still singing it the next day or a couple of days later I’ll write lyrics to it.

Do you collaborate with anyone when you’re writing?  Do you have anyone to bounce ideas off of?

J: For the most part I just write by myself, and I kind of present it to my band and they’ll add their parts to it and we’ll all fine-tune it together just to see what works.  In that sense, it’s been collaboration.

What about Bittersweet Batch? I noticed that you had a lot of guest artists on it.  How was recording that album?

J: It’s been out for almost a year, and recording it was incredible.  It’s something I’m very proud of, and it was a lot of fun to do.  After performing, I love being in the studio and recording and I just felt very lucky to have so many of my friends and peers that I really look up to as musicians come in and add their part to the album.

Did you record Bittersweet Batch in Boston?

J: Yeah, in Allston.  It’s certainly opened a lot of doors that I’d never expected that could’ve been opened after recording it.

In terms of playing live and being in the studio, what do you love about both processes?  How does your music change between the two settings?

J: My approach to recording in the studio would be to capture as much of the live energy as possible.  The pro for the live show is obviously the audience, and the energy that’s created between the performer and the audience and how the two play off each other.  I try not to track vocals or anything; none of those tracks on Bittersweet Batch were more than one or two takes. I’ve never recorded with a live studio audience, so I like to capture a little bit of that energy because I think that’s one of the strengths of my band is the energy we create in a live setting.  I’ll go back and try to utilize the studio for the instrument that it is in order to make the song or the album the best of what it can be.

Are there any songs in your catalog that you feel particularly connected to?

J: Ohhh, I don’t know…

I know it’s kind of like asking you to choose between children.

J: Completely!  Being so connected to the material from the very beginning, it’s very much for me depending on how I might be feeling that night.  I might not want to play a certain song.

What about your side project with Christian McNeill and a whole roster of other musicians, the Sea Monsters?  Do you and Christian collaborate when it comes to writing?

J: We talk about our respective material and the role it could take on in Sea Monsters and I guess the parameters of what it could be, but for the most part of what we do, he does his stuff and I do mine.  That’s how it’s always been, ever since we started the band.

Now, with your Lizard Lounge residency, are you going to play songs from the Sea Monsters?

J: Nope, not necessarily.  I mean, there’s definitely a pretty big overlap, though I’ll play my songs differently with the Sea Monsters.  There’s more attention to detail when I’m playing them myself because we work out arrangements but with the Sea Monsters we don’t really rehearse anything, we just show up every week.  There’s difference in arrangements, but there are certain songs that, like, “Waves”, for example, that’s something that was a concept I was playing with in my head and I more or less wrote the song with the Sea Monsters in mind.

In terms of stuff you’re working on now, are you recording presently?

J: I recorded some stuff a couple of weeks back for a 7” 45 and a couple of songs that’ll be on the next album.  I’m gonna have a Christmas song coming out this year, too.  It’ll be digital and on a Christmas compilation.

Who would you list as your influences?

J: How much time do we have?  I mean, I listen to just about everything and I appreciate a bunch of different things, but mostly older R&B and soul music is the stuff I’m really into.  Sam Cooke is the top for me, as is Etta James.

Opening for Etta James a couple of months ago must’ve been a dream come true, then!

J: It was surreal.  It’s probably something I’ll never forget and I’ll never get sick of talking about it.  I mean, plain and simple: If I had the opportunity to pick anybody in the entire world who’s still alive to play in front of, it would be Etta James.  It was at the House of Blues, which is an incredible room.  It was just a tremendous opportunity for me and the band played great and the crowd received us very well.

In terms of people you would like to collaborate with in the future: Are there any acts in Boston that stick out as artists you’d love to work with?

J: I hope I get the opportunity to collaborate with lots of different people!

Rachael Price mentioned you, when asked a similar question.

J: Oh, that’s good because I was about to say her.  She’s definitely my favorite singer.  I love singing with Rachael.  It’s the best.  So, yeah, hopefully I’ll get to collaborate with her.

Give me some other people that you love billing with in Boston.

J: Well, definitely Lake Street Dive, Tim Gearan is right up there, Dwight and Nicole, Dennis Brennan… It’s definitely a special thing going on here and it has been that way, and I think you can find a really wonderful community here in Boston that you can’t find in other cities at all. The music scene in Boston is fertile here because the community really fosters that creativity.  Talent aside, there’s a kind of a familiar, communal aspect that just really supports that talent even further and contributes to why I think the music scene is great around here.

We have all these great musical conservatories and schools here in Boston, like Berklee and the New England Conservatory of Music.  Do you think these programs contribute to the community you’re describing?

J: A small percentage.  I think that’s just part of it.  I mean, there’s always a new crop of musicians, if you will, which doesn’t hurt at all.  It’s really… I don’t know, I think I tend to separate the Cambridge/Somerville scene from the Boston scene.

How do shows differ for you, between Boston and Cambridge and Somerville?

J: It’s funny sometimes how much of a journey it is for some people to make the trek across the river!  Obviously, Jamaica Plain has some cool stuff going on, as does Allston, but I just like it over here.

We like it over here, too.  So, you’ve toured really extensively this past year…

J: Yeah, I was in Amsterdam in April and then I was all over the place in Europe in June, and then I was in Italy for a week a couple of weeks ago, and then I’m heading back to Europe in September.

Since Bittersweet Batch came out you’ve done a lot of travel.  How does Boston differ from other destinations you’ve played abroad, or even just elsewhere in the States?

J: It’s hard for me to measure in the sense that Boston is where I have the biggest draw for people to come see me, and it’s kind of my hometown, so playing here is different than playing other cities, obviously.

Do you have any cities that stick out for you as places you loved?

J: Amsterdam is one of the greatest cities I’ve ever been to, reputation aside.  (Laughs) It’s just such an amazing city and I got to play an amazing venue there called the Paradiso, which is one of the best venues in Amsterdam.  A distribution deal with a record company based in the Netherlands is what brought me over there, so hopefully I can keep going back.  I was kind of recognized over there from the promotion of the CD and from them hearing my songs on the radio, which is strange enough.  It’s a cool kind of “weird”.  They’re playing your music on the radio, which is cool, you know?  I don’t always like hearing myself, though. (Laughs)  I’ll always be my own worst critic.

Do your songs change much between the record release and then playing your songs live after the album’s been out?

J: I wouldn’t say they do, extensively.  A good amount of them are played differently live and suddenly evolve in various ways, in that setting.  Some of them are arranged differently live, and that could come from listening to them or being like, “Oh!  It would be cool if we did this like this.”  I’ve performed a lot of it solo, so the context in which I’m playing has affected my choice of songs in a set.  A song like “Still Here”, for example: That wouldn’t be a song I’d play often with a band at all.  If it’s a big huge room of people I won’t play that song.

With the Sea Monsters, are you guys going to be recording anytime soon?

J: Maybe at some point.  We don’t have any current plans to.  I love playing with the Sea Monsters and I always have, but it’s very much so a side-project for me and not my top priority.

Yeah, I think that’s the best part of the Sea Monsters, the fact that you all have very different things going on and I think that you all contribute such a positive vibe to the project.

J: It’s nice when you can see a band having fun onstage, you know?  I feel like it translates to the crowd.

How are the songs you’re recording now a departure from the material you’ve released on Bittersweet Batch?

J: I’m not sure it’s a departure so much as an extension, maybe.  It’s very much so rooted in the same ideas as far as the sound and instrumentation of it.  The material is obviously different, and hopefully it’ll be kind of pushing things a little further on the next record.  It’s still at the point where I have more than enough material; it’s just gotta be the right material.  I need to finish up a few songs.  I’ve been working a lot on that.

Favorite venues in Boston: What do you got?

J: The Lizard Lounge is probably my favorite and that’s very much why we’re doing this residency there this month.  I just like playing there!  I did a residency there during the month of June last year, and they were looking to do another one, so I booked out August.  I think I like playing the Lizard Lounge for the same reasons I like seeing a show there.  Just the environment of it being such an intimate setting like that, you’re able to turn it into a listening room if you really want to and play really quiet, or you can play much louder, and I think it’s that the whole crowd is just there about to engulf you.  It’s certainly appreciated more after I’ve played really big stages where there are lots and lots of people but you’re very much removed from the crowd in that setting, you know?  The idea of the energy flowing back and forth between the artist and the audience – I mean, I’m trying to engage the audience and engage individual members of it as much as I possibly can, and the setting at the Lizard Lounge is ideal for that sort of thing.

I feel like the Lizard Lounge is a universal venue in Boston that’s loved by Boston bands and artists who specialize in every genre.  Are there any other venues you fancy?

J: I like Toad, too; I guess it depends on the show.  I’ve played Club Passim a number of times and I’m doing a big show there in November.  The House of Blues is a pretty amazing place to play, though I can’t say I’ve played it regularly.  I’ll be playing there on October 15 opening for Al Green.  I’m really psyched about that.  Atwood’s is a great place to play, too.

How do you feel about the politics existing between club owners and musicians in Boston?

J: It depends on the bar.  We’re all very lucky to have some of these places, especially in Cambridge and Somerville.

Do you feel like these venues that we’ve talked about are especially friendly to musicians?

J: The music itself holds a lot of weight, I think.  That’s not to say that it doesn’t elsewhere, but there are definitely places like that in Boston.

The Boston vs. New York debate is interesting, too, and there are a lot of musicians that you play with that bounce back and forth between the two or that will be moving there soon.  What are your thoughts on playing in both cities?

J: There’s no other place like New York to play.  The energy there is just amazing.  It can be a weird place to play, though, as far as building an audience goes and getting a crowd of people to come out to see you.  I feel like the Boston music community is more distinct than that in New York and I don’t think the community in New York is as supportive.

Do you have any crazy stories for us from your time on tour?  Any big adventures occur abroad for Jesse Dee?  I mean, do you remember Amsterdam?

J: (Laughs) I do remember Amsterdam.  I’m sure there’s been all kinds of stuff.  I stayed up late a few times.

Back in June, I found myself sitting underneath the vast ceiling of the Armory Center of the Arts in Somerville completely and utterly intoxicated with the swells and soaring of Nicole Nelson and Dwight Richter’s voices.  As Dwight and Nicole played to the sounds of each other’s resounding heartbeats during the first Somerville Jazz & Blues Festival, I and the rest of the audience could sense that the connection between the dynamic “rock and soul” duo was one that can only exist between two people whose incredible talents are matched by their deep appreciation, creatively and affectionately, for each other.  Dwight and Nicole have been playing with each other for years, but the couple onstage and off haven’t always been rocking out to the minimalist drive behind their guitar and tambourine driven side by side: Both musicians met while holding residencies at various jazz and blues bars in Boston, and both credit Boston as being the city in which they honed their craft and built their fan base.

Since moving to New York a few years ago and exploring the multitude of musical opportunities provided by Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs, Dwight and Nicole have recently left the Big Apple for Boston (Brookline, to be precise) in order to record a follow-up to 2007’s self-titled album.  They’ve been playing some of their favorite haunts in the city throughout the summer as well, including Precinct, the Lizard Lounge and numerous festivals and venues along the North Shore while billing with assorted artists/friends in the area including Jesse Dee, the Mieka Canon and the Sea Monsters.  With tambourine and Flying-V guitar in hand, Dwight and Nicole will continue to appease their fans from their stomping ground until the finishing touches are put on their forthcoming disc, so be sure to catch them in action at the most intimate acoustic, blues and jazz spots in Somerville and Cambridge while you can.

-Hilary Hughes

OPENING ACT: DWIGHT AND NICOLE AND THE TEAPARTY TEN

What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

Dwight: Honey Smax, or Large Frosted Mini Wheats.

Nicole: Captain Crunch with Crunchberries.

Who would you rather punch in the face: Long Duk Dong from “Sixteen Candles” or Mouth from “The Goonies?”

N: Mouth.

D: Yeah, Mouth.  I like the Cyndi Lauper song from that movie.

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

D: Toaster oven.

N: I’d be a standing mixer.  Those things are AWESOME.

You go to bed, you wake up, you go to brush your teeth… and you realize that you’ve morphed into one of Jim Henson’s Muppets overnight.  Which Muppet are you?

D: Animal!

N: I don’t know! I love Miss Piggy.  She was probably the first Muppet I wanted to be as a kid.  I love them all, though.

After a raucous night out, you wake up at some point the next day and you realize that in your fit of crazy you got inked.  What tattoo did you wake up with?

N: Some big ridiculous rainbow and clouds.  Something astral.  I have a tattoo with stars already.

D: I’d probably have “Nicole” on my neck or something.

N: [Gasps] We’re getting you drunk!  Drink up!  (Laughs)

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

N: Sumo wrestler.  I like the thong. (Laughs)

D: Sumo wrestler.  The rodeo clowns are brave, but…

If you were a particular kind of cheese, what kind of cheese would you be?

N: Oh, they’re all good!  I’ve never met a cheese I don’t like.  I’d be Brie.

D: Pepperjack.

If you were a particular style of facial hair, what style facial hair would you be?

N: I would definitely be mutton chops.

D: I’d probably be a goatee, I wear one every once in awhile.  Not a great answer, either.

What’s your quintessential “I’M GONNA DANCE AROUND MY APARTMENT IN MY UNDERWEAR AND LOVE LIFE!” song?

N: “Borderline” by Madonna!

D: “Hungry Heart”, by Bruce Springsteen.

What’s your favorite word?

N: Raw.

D: Breathing.  Probably breathing, right now.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE DWIGHT AND NICOLE TPB INTERVIEW

So, tell us the back-story of Dwight and Nicole.

Dwight: All right!  We lived in Boston.  I lived here for four years and Nicole lived here for about the same around nine years ago, and we each had bands in town, the Dwight Richards Band and the Nicole Nelson Band, and we each had a residency here.  Her’s was at the Times Pub.

Nicole: I played a lot of blues; he played a lot of original stuff.  I played mostly blues; it was a blues jam.  He used to come and sit in on my shows, and some of the people who were here tonight, like John Aruda, he’d come down a lot.  Afterwards there were lots of dance parties in the streets outside of the Cantab [Lounge] and after-parties. (Laughs)

D: I was working construction at the time, and then I’d get off a work gig, then we’d go see her, we’d eat dinner and then we’d go to my gig later.  The first time we sang together was on a tune called “Move Right” which I wrote ages ago, she came up and sang with me, and we just always had a really good chemistry together.

N: Yeah, it’s very familial.  He felt like a long-lost boy from kindergarten and we loved each other and lost each other and found each other again.  It’s a really beautiful thing.  We both moved to New York around the same time and we started playing a little bit together, but mostly we each had our own gigs.  We’d just sit in, because it was like, “Oh! Dwight from Boston’s here!  Get up and sing with me!” Or I’d get up and sing with him, and then that turned into a thing.  People were like, “Do you have a CD of the two of you, together? Because these harmonies…” and we were like “Oh, no! But you can buy each of our albums-“ and they were like “Wait. No.”

Liiiike maybe something should happen.

N: (laughs) Yeah!

D: So, we’re in Brooklyn where she grew up, incidentally, and I grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and we were low on money, so we decided to book a few shows and we got some gigs as a duo, and Nicole’s on the tambourine –

N: -I had never played tambourine before-

D: -And it just caught on.  We both feel the beat the same way.  We both sort of- I guess you’d say we compliment each other, and we just had a thing that really took on.

N: It did.

D: We recorded an EP at Club 39 in Sudbury a few years ago.

N: One day we just went in and played the songs, and we just sat down and made a five song CD in five hours.   We kind of just had to talk what we got, but we wanted to make something really beautiful.  We got lucky.  Phil, who played guitar tonight, he has a beautiful studio in Brookline and it’s called Rear Window Studio and it’s UNBELIEVABLE.  So, he was just like, “Come stay at my house and record.”

D: I think he recorded Godsmack’s record.  Phil basically dug a pit in his basement and the ceilings are twenty feet high, almost 10,000 pounds suspended by spring, so when music hits it the whole room gives.

N: We’re thinking of doing our record release at the Somerville Theatre, because we’ve got a good thing going in Somerville, but this place [the Armory] is awesome!

D: Yeah, it’s a very cool room.

N: So, yeah, that’s how we got our thing together.  Just sort of organically playing duos.

D: I’d play guitar and she’d play tambourine and we’ve developed this really cool thing as a duo, and now we’re gonna go and play with a band, a larger group.

N: Not to sound strange, but performing is a very spiritual thing for me.  It feeds me.  That conversation between the audience and us is this thing that bounces back and forth.

You can absolutely say that.  And I’m gonna blow up your spot a little bit: When we were watching you earlier, we were like, “That girl can work a tambourine like nobody we’ve ever seen before!”  The connection between you two was very strong in the sense that you were playing to her heartbeat.  That absolutely comes across to your audience.

D: We’ve been friends for about ten years and we’ve been together for almost five, and it’s so nice to be able to reaffirm that onstage a lot.  It’s cool to be able to go onstage and do our thing.

Can you take us through the creative process behind Dwight and Nicole’s music?

D: We both bring songs to the table, so it’s very collaborative.

N: I have to be in a clear-minded state in order to be creative.  When things get jumbled because of stress or confusion, I have to try to clear my head in order to feel that thing where you’re focused and creative.  It’s not easy for me at all.  I’m always critical of what’s around me.  I want it to be perfect and I want it to be very precise, I want it to have that great point, so I tend to throw things out before they’re done.  He’s the complete opposite; he’s like, “Keep going! Keep going!” and I’ll be working on a song all day, and he’s like “Work on it all year! It’s a rough draft, keep drafting!”  He’s constantly writing and coming up with ideas and riffs and tunes.  For me, it’s always been hard but it’s getting easier and I’m learning my triggers.  I know how to just clear my mind and go for a walk and sit and do that kind of thing so I can be creative.  Dwight has taught me how to get through all that stuff.

D: Thank you!  Going back ten years the Aruda brothers and I had a group that would go around town playing all over the place and that’s actually how those guys got into the original scene.  We built in a big following.  So Johnston, who plays with Club D’Elf, we released two records together, and I got going with the creative stuff with that project and just kept up with that.  This project is so cool because we’re together, she can write songs, and I can write songs, and I can talk to …. So, yeah, this thing is like a, we have a creative house that we can bring stuff into and write stuff together and do whatever, and it’s like, all under our little roof and it’s cool, you know?  The original music thing, writing tunes has always been my passion, it’s my thing, and then with her, we’re doing it.  It’s really cool.  We’re very lucky to be where we are right now.

N: And he can rap, too! (Laughs) He can freestyle.  Every little thing he can pull inspiration from!  He can start talking about your scarf and your eyes and he can turn everything into a rhyme.

Can you give us one about those Donutties on the table over there, on the spot?

D: No!  I wish I… if I ate all of those I’d have a heart attack with that round one, in a black stack of, lovely powdered sugar treats, what would be great with a whole table of eats, would be luscious donutties, perhaps some ice cream and cereal, too, but more than anything, I’d like to share… a donuttie with you.

That was great.

D: See, it’s just things to make her laugh and make our life fun.  It’s just funny ridiculousness.  So, yeah, we like to write songs.  Our influences would be EVERYTHING.  We love Michael Jackson, we love Dolly Parton, we love the Beach Boys, we love Van Halen, we love Nirvana, Black Sabbath, B.B. King, Patsy Cline, Merle Travis, Ricky Lee Jones, Solomon Burke, Sam Cooke, Jimmy Smith, Bill Hailley and the Comets, the Rolling Stones…

What about Boston bands, maybe some current local acts?

D: We like The Sea Monsters, Mieka Pauley-

N: Yeah!  She’s like my favorite singer.  You know Eva Cassidy?

Yeah.

N: If Eva Cassidy was like, rock n’ roll like Joan Jett, she’d be Mieka Pauley.  She’s amazing and writes songs and plays guitar, she’s also one of our dear friends.

D: Yeah, and Jesse Dee.  Jesse Dee’s our BOY!

[Editor’s Note: Jesse happened to be walking through the backstage area in the basement of the Armory just as he was mentioned.  Dee, upon hearing this, beamed.]

D: That’s my guy!  I love his music, I love his painting, and I love his spirit.  He’s another one of our favorites around town.  We also love Ryan Montbleu, he’s a great guy.  There are so many original songwriters here that are good.  When we moved to New York, and we’ve been there for about four or five years, I came back here and there was an unbelievable singer/songwriter scene.  Jesse, and Christian McNeill, and Danielle Miraglia… and Four Piece Suit, too!

N: Yeah!  They did all the music for Sex and the City for the first three years.  I’m gonna segue into the whole Boston thing.  The Boston music scene is very family-like:  It’s a lot of friends getting together, there are a lot of late night jams and stuff.  New York has this really ridiculous level that comes there and just any night of the week you go out in New York, any little whole in the wall, you can go and see some music.  I mean, first of all, Eric Clapton might walk in, that kind of stuff happens all the time.  The other thing is somebody just flew in, like the hottest band from Belgium or something, and they’re playing there for like, a bucket or something.

D: James Hudger!  I saw James Hudger’s first show in America.  Do you know him?

The name sounds vaguely familiar. I would probably recognize his stuff if you pla-

[Dwight and Nicole then break into song, on the couch, Nicole’s clapping and they’re both harmonizing and I’m sitting on my chair with my mouth gaping open like a four-year-old with a chronic sweet tooth who just walked into a candy store.]

D: I mean, Norah Jones, even, everyone’s out on the scene and around.  The people who are famous, Moby and those people, they hang in the scene and proliferate the buzz or whatever it is.  And everything is made up of slots, so you’ll have five bands a night- Like, we’ll take the Lower East Side, there’s like ten clubs, which means five slots each on any given night.  You could see fifty shows a night.  Here, people can actually have two or three hours to themselves to develop something like The Sea Monsters, to develop a project.  It’s not like showcases for labels, necessarily, and New York is much more a Mecca for that, and there’s a million great artists there, too, but Boston, I mean, it’s more relaxed in that area and can give someone who would be overwhelmed by New York a chance to develop their sound and their maturity as an artist, and the community here is amazing,

N: That’s what I love about here, besides the fact that it’s just gorgeous, too, it’s a beautiful city.  It’s a beautiful place to exist in with all this water and these parks and the river and all that.  There is a family kind of vibe here.  We’ll hang out with friends, like all these guys, and we’ll all jam for five or ten in the morning.  There are a lot of clubs that support that kind of thing, and they’re dwindling and it’s sad, especially the blues scene, because we came up in that and all those clubs are gone.  The House of Blues in Cambridge is gone-

D: The Yard Rock-

N: We both loved it here.  I came up in this town.

D: I love Boston, I love the musicians here, and I love people like you guys who are fiends for music.

N: And the school scene here drives that so much.  I think that so many young people are hungry for creative energy.

D: Christian [McNeill] was saying that he started out playing Matt Murphy’s or something, and just getting people interested at a little place like that.  Same thing with Tim Gearan at Toad, people get sucked in.  To bring back the blues thing we were talking about, we saw the last movement of that.  I’m talking The Yard Rock, the original House of Blues, the Cantab Lounge was like, the most unbelievable place ten years ago.  When I moved here, it was old, old cats doing their tunes, and it was absolutely insane.  You’d have every type of person there singing songs.

You have a really special place on that stretch of Mass Ave in Central Square, between the Cantab Lounge and TT’s and the Middle East…

N: Yeah!  I love the Boston scene for having those heavy roots in the blues and jazz scene.  Everything came out of that stuff, and there’s a great rock scene, too.  Boston has just all these great music scenes where you can just hang.  You can hang in New York, too, but everybody’s working all night in these spots all over the place.

I think that the fact that there aren’t really 18+ venues in Boston is a problem, too – you have a lot more of those in New York.

D: Yeah, I don’t like that at all.

N: That’s awful!  When you have a good college following that cuts your audience way down.

D: For the amount of revenue it would generate, you should be able to find a staff that’s trained well enough to card people.

N: Plus, going out at that age was huge.  Going to see people when you’re in those formative stages of creativity, that’s how you learn!  You don’t learn from reading a book about music.

D: Yeah, that’s so true.  Those are defining years.

N: A show like tonight, for example, it was 18+.  I’m like, “Hey, why can’t it be 16+?”

We haven’t touched on challenges you guys have faced, either creatively speaking or even about the transition between here and New York.  How is it for you guys, being a couple that also happens to make music together? I’m sure it comes with a whole set of difficulties!

N: It does, but we’re surprisingly well-suited for it.  We have a really, really good thing.  For me, we wear all these different hats, and sometimes we’re business, and sometimes we’re lovers, and sometimes we’re friends, and sometimes we’re maniacs who are trying to kill each other!  Well, not maniacs (laughs).  We’re like, in business mode half the time, and the challenge from that, while we do work really well together in all the different areas, we’re still always together, so we’ll be in business mode at home and dates happen less and less when we get busier-

D: I take you out on dates!  You’re crazy!  We went out dancing last week!

N: (Laughs) I know!  That’s true.  So, that’s where we found the biggest challenge, to keep all these things growing all the time and healthy and moving forward.  The New York/Boston thing?  They both have their challenges.  Down falls and great things about them?  I think our feelings about both cities are pretty positive, and they’re just different.

D: We suffered the financial thing by doing original music.

N: Yeah, but it’s worth it!  When we switched into doing original stuff, all of a sudden I switched and was doing solo stuff with a guitar, and people were used to seeing me with a big band and horns and a gown, and people were like, “What’s this? What happened?”  It’s worth it, to get to what it is that I really have to say.  Everything that Etta James already did, I’m not going to do it better, so I need to do my thing!  I guess that’s a challenge.

D: It’s a challenge going into Club Passim with a full-length beard and not scaring the crowd away! (Laughs)

So, what’s next for you guys?  You mentioned that you’ve been recording your album and that you’re excited to play in front of people again.  What was your performance tonight like, how did it feel?

D: It was so great to be with you guys.  It was fucking awesome.  It’s been a long time.  It feels so good to go back playing gigs.  We’ve worked so hard on this record and when the record comes out, we’re gonna do that whole push that everyone talks about doing with a new record.  We’ve built up a very good thing, and then we’re gonna do the thing and hit the road.  The great Boston musician Marty Blue is going to be hitting the road with us too, he plays with Dennis Brennan sometimes.  Dennis Brennan, too, he’s one of the greatest people.

N: Very rarely do I feel the whole, you know, “I don’t wanna follow that!”  But going on after Dennis Brennan?  His band is ridiculous, and I’ve definitely felt that when we’ve played with him before.

D: Yeah, the song that made us feel that way was Charles Browns “Fool’s Paradise”.  That was the tune.  Dennis is awesome.

Can we talk about the songs on the new record?  How is this a departure from previous material we’ve heard from Dwight and Nicole?

N: I think it dives a lot deeper.  With the blues and jazz and folk stuff, we were in the ten-foot deep section before, and now we’re like, in the center of the earth.  Everything is just a direct connection between what we’re hearing.  We’re so psyched.

Is that “My Hell is Burnin’ for You” song on the new record?

D: Yeah!

Yeah, that song really hit us.  Hard.

N: It stands out?  It does for me too!  I wish we could play you some new stuff…

D: (Looking around the room) Does anybody have a guitar?  Seriously?

N: We can after-hang, maybe!

(Editor’s note: This is when I became smitten with Dwight and Nicole, and wanted to become best friends with them.)

What kind of journey has it taken to get to this point, lyrically and musically, for these delving deeper new songs you’re doing?

D: Production wise, too, we’re doing a lot of different sounds and a lot of different styles.  We have this tune that we did as a duo, a song that she wrote for her grandma, and now it sounds orchestral.  It sounds bigger, and fuller, and the potential of the song has come out more because there’s more people involved musically, more musicians, more production things-

N: When I say that this record goes deeper, too, I mean that we are diving deeper into what it is that, pulling out every little influence. For me, I’ve always been like, “Well, I’m singing blues, so I’m going to sing blues”, but I think of the blues style of singing or jazz standards, and that’s changed since I’ve gotten older and that’s what I’ve been looking for.  The reason why I never did a record is because I felt, before, that I had nothing to say that hadn’t already been said.  It’s cool for me to say something new.  If you’re going to say something, say something new; Otherwise, it’s just noise.  We’ve been diving into all of those things, so you’ll hear a little Sheena Easton in there, and you’ll hear all this other stuff, and that’s all part of me so you have to dive in and get it and let it come out and get your own voice that way.  For me, that’s what it is: Not trying to sing a certain style or try to do a song justice, which is what I used to kind of do, but now, I’m not gonna think about anything and whatever comes out comes out.

Let’s talk about the Boston crowd and Dwight and Nicole’s Boston fans.  How is your relationship with them different than your audiences in other cities?  Does it go back to the familial nature of the singer/songwriter scene in Boston?

N: I feel like that the people who are working in New York and living in New York are doing really well, and it’s ridiculous to try to exist there as a musician professionally and that’s all you do, so the guys who are on a really high level are all the musicians who are on Saturday Night Live and the Letterman Band and they’re totally like that, too.  New York has this influx of all these other people all the time, so you get this sense of, “Holy Shit.”

D: Boston is our highest drawing city, so we do big publicity pushes for our shows here.  Every show counts and it doesn’t make a difference, but in New York, we’re smaller, so it’s cool to have more people in Boston and it makes our shows here bigger events.

N: I feel like there’s another difference too where I feel like Boston- like, in New York, people want new stuff, and that changed me for the better as an artist, because when I got there people didn’t want to hear covers of somebody else’s stuff at all.  They wanted us to just be ourselves.  In Boston I feel that there’s such an appreciation for the roots of the scene here, where people want to hear the jazz tradition and they like the tradition and want to hear standards.  The city, to me, feels very heavy with a lot of tradition, and people take it very seriously and respect it.  If you play old blues, people love it.