Dave’s Photo Blog

With overused comparisons to Ben Folds and after catching the attention of Fountains of Wayne, Stephie Coplan and the Pedestrians are quickly establishing themselves as a band on the rise. They have played for delighted audiences in New York and New Jersey and recently performed at Toad and Precinct in a small Boston-area road trip. Stephie Coplan is no stranger to those venues. She only recently moved to the New York area after honing her skills performing solo in clubs like the Lizard Lounge. I had a chance to both watch the band and interview them on their recent trip through Cambridge and Somerville.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to photograph a great show at Toad with local favorites Dan Blakeslee and Jess Baggia, and with a rare local appearance by Nicole Berke. What transpired was hours of musical enjoyment from some great performers at the top of their game. I love Toad – it’s free and [...]

Samantha Farrell is a local – she grew up in central Massachusetts. She’s just returned from a number of years in LA. While she was there, she met LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band. Moore recognized the potential in Samantha’s music immediately and signed on to produce her album. Sadly, Moore passed away before the album was released. But the Dave Matthews Band chipped in to help, most notably by promoting Samantha through an email announcement just prior to the show at the Burren. The back room at the Burren was packed that night with young, local fans who wanted to see a breakout local performer.

Those who know me and follow the blog probably know that I’m a big fan of Nicole Berke. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her perform five times over the last two years. But most of those performances were either short sets with only a few songs or in coffeehouses. When Nicole lets loose in a place like Toad, it’s a very different show indeed.

Thursday night in Cambridge was crazy. I was hopping between the Lizard Lounge and Toad. I’ve wanted to see the Baker Thomas band for some time now, and on Thursday I made it happen. I’ve been looking forward to seeing them because of the line-up, which includes Tom Bianchi (seen here on the left playing [...]

I confess I had not seen a performance ‘in the round’ before. Basically, all the performers take a seat on the stage and then one at a time they come up and play a song. There were six performers (but one duo, so five ‘acts’) and they each sang three songs.

There is a certain feeling I get sometimes when I know a good song is about to be written; it’s almost like the song is already there and I just have to bring it to life by putting music and words to it.

Although my schedule is quite difficult, I have managed to see a fair amount of live music lately and this post is a run-down of some of the more interesting acts. Most of these performers are not local to the Boston area, although one is. Read on to find out which one and to hear my brief review of Calexico at the Somerville Theatre last week.