Laugh in the New Year

Six comics help Portsmouth welcome 2019

When comedian Steve Scarfo booked his first New Year’s Eve event in Portsmouth, he was doing what he’d always done. He’d gotten into stand-up in the mid-90s, and was promoting within a few years. “When you start out, you’re really just chasing spots, chasing time,” Scarfo recalled recently. “So we said, ‘why wait around? Let’s do our own shows.’”

So that first First Night, it was Scarfo and few pals; but from those humble beginnings a tradition was born. 2018 marks the 10th anniverary of the Live Free or Die Laughing event, and the stars have aligned to make it memorable. Five comics, led by Jimmy Dunn, will ring out the year with jokes and smiles.

Getting Dunn, who lives in nearby Hampton Beach, is a big deal. A veteran of the Boston comedy scene, he’s known for his role on the CBS sitcom The McCarthys, Red Sox commercials and Comedy Central specials. “I can’t say enough good things about him,” Scarfo enthused. “It makes it a little more special for the 10th anniversary, having someone who’s a local celebrity.”

Feature comic Abhishek Shah, who appeared on NPR’s storytelling series The Moth and is a regular at Laugh Boston and Giggles, precedes Dunn. Also featuring is Mike Whitman, a 10-year comedy veteran who’s been on Fox’s Laughs and headlined The Stone Church in Newmarket last month. Ryan Gartley, who was goaded into comedy by his friends on a Portsmouth booze cruise in 1999, and newcomer Mark Moccia round out the lineup.

Though there are two shows scheduled, but the early one is already sold out. Tickets are still available for the late show at 10:30; $38 admission includes a champagne toast at midnight and party favors. As in each past year, Scarfo will host.

Scarfo got into standup after going to grad school in Virgnia. “A friend of mine said he was going to try it,” he said. “Up to that point I didn’t even know it was something you could do. I always loved comedy; I grew up listening to Bill Cosby. I don’t know if that’s in vogue to say, but his bits were the first thing I memorized. Then came Steven Wright and Robin Williams in high school.”

For his first time out, Scarfo worked up a tight five minutes. He went to the Comedy Vault in Boston – “I brought 30 of my friends to see me, which is kind of crazy in itself” – and killed. Added to this first time fortune was a Boston Globe writer in the audience who was doing a story on new comics. He ended up featuring Scarfo as one of the night’s funniest.

“It was pretty cool but it was also, as the old cliché goes, a blessing and a curse,” he said. “Looking back, I can’t believe I had such a good set on my first time out, but it was also what hooked me. The adrenaline rush of coming on stage and people actually laughing and enjoying it, it’s like the best drug on the planet that you don’t have to pay for.”

Unlike a lot of other comics, the married father of two performs close to home. “I looked around at the guys who were doing comedy, and the full time comics were doing all road work,” he said. “Being in a hotel room, on the road and away from your family wasn’t the life I wanted to have.”

He opened a club in Kittery, Maine that lasted a couple of years. “When that ended up not working out, there was a moment in time where I almost moved to California, but I chose not to do that, or do road trips” he said. “I never even pursued working on cruise ships, though I think it would be a lot of fun… I definitely respect the guys that do it, because not only are they pursuing their dream, there’s personal sacrifice too.”

Live Free or Die Laughing 10^th Annual New Year’s Eve Comedy Show

When: Monday, Dec. 31, 10:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m. show is sold out)

Where: Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel, 250 Market St., Portsmouth

Tickets: $38 at LiveFreeOrDieLaughing.com

Starring Jimmy Dunn, Steve Scarfo, Abhishek Shah, Mike Whitman, Ryan Gartley and Mark Moccia

This story appeared in the 19 December 2019 issue of Seacoast Scene

Finding Ben Orr

NH writer publishes bio of late Cars bassist

Once upon a middle school Christmas, Joe Milliken asked his dad for a Cars album. He became a fan first via the pages of Creem, Trouser Press and other rock magazines, later as the band became ubiquitous on late 1970s radio.

Born in Boston and raised primarily in North Walpole, New Hampshire, Milliken grew up to be a writer. He freelanced for the record collector magazine Goldmine and other publications, and runs a web site calle Standing Room Only. Recently, he published his first book, about the band that made such an impact on him as a youngster.

Let’s Go! Benjamin Orr and The Cars is unique in a genre where tawdriness and tell-all are common. Instead of focusing on rock stardom and its trappings, it tries to learn how a young Benjamin Orzechowski – “Benny Eleven Letters” to friends – grew up to be Ben Orr; Cars bassist, singer and general hearthrob, as well as the first Cleveland native inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

It took 11 years for Milliken to complete Let’s Go!, primarily due to a fact he learned early on – Orr was a very private person out of the spotlight. On top of that, he’d passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2000. “It’s not like I had a chance to talk to him myself and draw insights,” Milliken said in a recent phone interview. “I didn’t have that luxury.”

Many of the people he interviewed were reluctant. “My biggest challenge was as much as they liked what I was doing and thought it was a cool thing, they were also very apprehesive. They’d say to me, ‘Joe, I’m sure you’re a nice guy and your intentions are good, but … I’m a little hesitant to talk to somebody I don’t even know about this man’s life.”

One by one, he won them over, from grade school pals to members of the house band Orr performed with in the early 60s on Cleveland’s version of American Bandstand. Milliken spoke to a huge swath of the Cars’ orbit, though Orr’s bandmates Ric Ocasek and Elliot Easton declined interviews, as did producer Roy Thomas Baker and Maxanne Sartori, a Boston DJ who was key in launching their career.

Milliken did manage to talk with Orr’s two ex-wives, a long term girlfriend, the mother of his son, and the partner at the end of his life, who later managed his estate. “I’m pretty proud to say that all the significant women in his life in the end trusted me enough to participate in the book,” he said. “That really meant a lot.”

The interviews draw a portrait of a young man driven to play music from an early age, first on drums and later guitar. Anyone who’s ever wondered about the journey from musical aspirant to rock star will find many clues in Milliken’s book. It also contains a wide range of photos, from baby pictures to his final appearance with The Cars before his death in 2000.

“A lot of people have asked if I’ll follow up with a book of just photos,” Milliken said at a hometown book launch in October, adding that more than a few women readers who followed his progress on Facebook were a bit crestfallen that Let’s Go! contained more words than images. “I ended up with hundreds of pictures from Ben’s friends.”

His timing is fortuitous. Published by Rowan & Littlefield, it arrives during the holiday gift giving season in the year The Cars were inducted into the Rock Hall. In the spring, Milliken traveled to the ceremony as a menber of the media, and a guest on television and radio stations.

As a native New Englander who grew up admiring one of the region’s most successful bands, it was a dream come true.

“Here I am at media day before the ceremony. I’ve never been to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or even Cleveland, and I’m there doing a TV interview,” he said. “It was surreal; I’m a little local guy, being able to participate in all that. Every once in a while I had to pinch myself – am I really doing this?”

Let’s Go! Benjamin Orr and The Cars
Author: Joe Milliken
Price: $34 hardcover, $29 e-book
More: standing-room-only.info

This story originally appeared in The Hippo, 6 December 2018

Join the band

Danielle M & the Glory Junkies put it all together

Appeared originally in Seacoast Scene, 20 September 2018

Playing alone, Danielle Miraglia is a dynamo; all stomp, holler and fiery slide guitar; with a voice like Janis Joplin’s – if the late singer had mixed honeyed tea with her Southern Comfort. Miraglia has built a solid living as a solo performer, leaning toward the blues and earthy folk with a probing world view.

But growing up in Revere, Mass., she’d locked onto J. Geils Band and The Cars; the first album she bought was the Stones’ Tattoo You. Someday, Miraglia was bound to be in a band.

So a few years ago, with the help of husband and fellow musician Tom Bianchi, she enlisted violist and longtime duo partner Laurence Scudder, guitarist Erik White, drummer Chris Anzalone and bass player Jim Larkin. Borrowing the title of her then-current solo album for the band’s name, she unleashed Danielle Miraglia & the Glory Junkies on the world.

The five meshed immediately. “We have this chemistry because everybody is in a band with someone else,” Miraglia said in a recent phone interview. Scudder, White and Larkin are in Spotted Tiger; Anzalone is ubiquitous around Boston, along with a steady gig playing in Roomful of Blues. “I just love these guys, enjoy their company, they’re my friends for a long time, so it’s a no brainer. It’s my favorite thing to do right now.”

Towards the end of last year, the group released its debut album, All My Heroes Are Ghosts. Recorded live in the studio, it’s badass to the bone, blending crunchy power chords, rootsy harmonies, Americana shuffle, swampy blues and straight up rock and roll.

Highlights include the churning rockers “Everybody’s Wrong” and “All on Fire,” both songs lamenting the modern world, and the whimsical “Aim Low.” The latter questions the notion of hard work as its own reward – “don’t set the bar too high” is its refrain – or whether it’s worth it to try hard at all. “I was probably feeling lousy about where I was in life … it was a quick write,” Miraglia said. “I stand behind everything, though.

The title cut is a tribute to the many musical greats lost in recent years, leaving “smoothed out edges” and “a pile of dusty records.” It came to Miraglia shortly after Tom Petty’s death, and it name checks her biggest hero. “Prince is gone, you can burn the stage, he’s the only one they’ll ever make,” she sings, while proclaiming to remain a “grown woman with a child in her heart, reaching anywhere and everywhere to find that spark.”

“Rock Star” is a charming love song dating back to her earliest days with Bianchi; they’ve been together 15 years, married for seven. One line, “you look at me like you understand/you’ve been right in my shoes,” hits at why their union is the only possible dynamic for Miraglia.

“It’s probably easier for a man to be married to a woman who’s not a musician than the other way around,” she said, adding it takes a person “at least in the arts to understand why I’m driving to Pennsylvania to play an hour gig … what the point is for that.”

Miraglia spoke those sentiments as she prepared to play a set in Hershey’s Chocolate Town Square, after a showcase in Stroudsburg, but constant touring isn’t her ideal. “I have a lot of little projects [and] I love to be home doing that stuff, like giving lessons,” she said. “It helps me not have to take a crap gig I don’t want. I know people who are willing to live on the road and I have so much respect for that, but a lot of us want a balance. … having many irons in the fire makes it easier.”

Like most performers, she uses crowdsourcing sites to rally her fans. Lately, Miraglia launched a Patreon page. “I’m still figuring out how it all works,” she said. “I like the idea of putting exclusive stuff and covers that I wouldn’t want to post for the world … it will grow as it goes along. So far all the people on there are generally good supporters. They’re willing to be patient with me while I figure out what I’m putting up there, and why.”

More: http://www.thegloryjunkies.com

Ketchup and mustard

Altercation Comedy Tour hits Portsmouth with a double bill

Stand-up comedian JT Habersaat is a native New Yorker who relocated to Texas in the mid-2000s. The change made him “softer around the edges,” he said. “Which is a positive for me.” Returning to the region, however, causes old instincts to kick in. Habersaat just rolls with them. The tour stops in Portsmouth on December 6.

“I always say I have dual citizenship because Texans view their state as a country, and New York is a very proud spot to be from as well,” he said by phone from Austin. “My East Coast lies somewhat dormant until I get back; then it springs to life. My step immediately increases in pace, and my ‘let’s get this done’ attitude jumps.”

Habersaat’s on-stage style is frenetic and intense, much like the punk rock bands he admires and whose road ethic informs the Altercation Comedy Tour he launched in 2008. Frustrated with the industry’s inflexibility, he began booking rock clubs and dive bars, zigzagging the country in a van full of comics with a penchant for coloring outside the lines.

Ten years on, the tour’s attitude remains the same, but it’s “more streamlined, leaner and meaner now. It’s evolved from what was more of a Ramones gang mentality,” Habersaat said. “Now I basically fly out to a region, and use a strong feature … that I really trust.” In each city, like-minded locals join the headliners on stage, like Kevin Cotter in Portsmouth.

Manchester comic Jay Chanoine is on the current tour; the two gig together frequently. “Jay and I have a very similar kind of aesthetic,” Habersaat said. “He’s like a Ramones and Devo guy, and I’m a Black Flag guy. So it makes sense in terms of a punk comedy tour vibe. While we’re both ranty, we have very different approaches. It’s ketchup and mustard.”

When Habersaat began Altercation, he was a trailblazer. “It was a weird thing we were trying to do,” he said. “Used to be the comedy clubs were the only place, and their set of rules were the only way, unless you wanted to do what we did or what the Comedians of Comedy ( Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford) or Doug Stanhope did, which is to say fuck you; but man, was that harder!”

Road life is now much saner, and the business also got easier in the intervening years. “I’ve been around a long time, so I have the contacts and stuff, but also it’s the fact that there are so many different types of venues,” he said. “The definition of what is a comedy room is so broad … it’s more of a level playing field, and you don’t have to play the reindeer games.”

Along with touring and writing the recently published road diary, Killing For A Living, Habersaat’s Altercation Comedy Festival is in its third year as an annual event in Austin. “I think it’s successful because I constantly dragged feet. People asked me to do a festival for years and I said no. I didn’t have the right mindset. I think just intentionally waiting until everything was right is why it’s been doing well. Also, I’m lucky to have friends that are headliners to help me out.”

In January, he’ll do a series of spoken word events with musicians like Cheetah Chrome (Dead Boys), Kyle Schutt (The Sword) and Mike Wiebe (Riverboat Gamblers) dubbed Altercation Road Stories. “I host and do kind of comedic stories,” Habersaat said. “Then they come up and tell insane stuff about touring with Metallica or the time that Cheetah got into a fist fight with Iggy Pop … just crazy stuff like that.”

Whether it’s recalling the night an Altercation comic’s dalliance with the girlfriend of a Misfits cover band’s drummer got the entire tour chased out of Grants Pass, Oregon by a caravan of pickup trucks, or tour craziness in Alaska, storytelling is Habersaat’s favorite format. “When it’s done right, it’s super powerful,” he said.

Though tempting, the current political scene is mostly off limits in his act, however. “I talked about Charlottesville when that was going on because I come from the East Coast punk and hardcore scenes and we have very strong opinions about how to deal with Nazis… but it’s something that I wasn’t enjoying talking about on stage,” he said. “So I kind of decided I’m going to take people out of that, make it a break… because it’s so important to have times where there is a break.”

JT Habersaat and Jay Chanoine, with Kevin Cotter
When: Thursday, Dec. 6, 9 p.m.
Where: Trigger House, 135 McDonough St., Suite 24, Portsmouth
Tickets: $8 at eventbrite.com

This story originally appeared in the 7 December issue of Seacoast Scene