Kenny Stopped By The Other Day
And He Came With Music
The other day, my buddy Kenny Wyman (that’s him at right of the photo above) popped into the library to drop off a CD for me. Kenny’s the guitarist, mandolin and harmonica player for Black Pudding Rovers, a local band led mainly by Mike Becker THE Post Bohemian. The core of BPR is also Gary Hunter on clarinet or saxophone.
I’ve known one iteration or another of these three guys since all the way back to my early journalism days in New Hampshire with the arts and entertainment newspaper The Hippo, and even further back than that.
There’s more to them than that, of course. Sometimes BPR spreads out into Butch on drums, Joe on violin and Alec on bass. And they’re always switching off this way or that. At some point, a bunch of them made up the Smoked Kielbasa Band. I remember them doing a gig along side the road at a city marathon, just out there playing classic rock on a clarinet as we all huffed and puffed by.
Mike’s the brains of the lot of them, though Kenny and Gary would tease me for saying so, and Mike would say if he’s the brains, he feels sorry for the others. I’ve had one of Mike’s early albums, “Strawberry Haze,” on rotation since all the way back in 2007. He always reminded me of one of those mid-70s, Gordon Lightfoot/Neil Diamond/Tom Petty voices that I grew up with.
Put them all together and it’s sort of like the Grateful Dead, only, you know, if the Grateful Dead were any good. (I’m gonna catch flak for that, aren’t I?) They are like the Wrecking Crew of New Hampshire.
So where am I going with this? Oh, right, Kenny…
Kenny is such a good guy. Our library recently held an Eclipse Party and we needed some music, so Kenny showed up in jeans, a t-shirt and a guitar and stood in our parking lot and played “Dark Side of the Moon” to the delight of the community that had come to witness the eclipse.
He stopped by to drop off a copy of Mike’s latest CD, “The Music Floats Upstream.” Kenny kills it on a couple of the songs with his harmonica. I think most of the rest of the guys play on the CD too. Kenny said Mike spent some time in California so some of the songs were written there. Or produced there maybe? Honestly, I’m not sure. But for a local musician, the sound production and engineering on the disk is high end.
The CD is a real eclectic mix. You can hear some jazz in there, and plenty of bluegrass roots.
We spend a lot of time, Little Bean and myself, exploring, meeting and engaging with smaller or local bands or musicians. We do that because we can, of course - I mean, even I have no ability to swing a meet and greet with AC/DC.
But also because it’s just fun. Little bar bands. Festival circuits. Road side clarinetists. Music teachers. Sometimes, just plain fans and lovers of music. It provides a common community and core foundation for a hobby that’s been energetic, a bonding experience and, who knows, maybe will lead her to Carnegie Hall!
Meantime, if you are anywhere near Candia, NH tomorrow, do yourself a favor and drop by the Barnyard to catch the boys in the act. And tell ‘em Dan and Little Bean sent ya. Here’s a link to Mike’s website, go check him and them out and support local music - Mike Becker THE Post Bohemian
Finally, check the Housekeeping Note below for a special announcement.
Housekeeping Note: Hey there! After chatting with Little Bean and hearing some suggestions from the music communities we hang out with, we've decided to create a YouTube page just for our music adventures. We're calling it Dispatches From the Rail. Nothing super professional, very casual, just little bits and pieces of concerts and learning how to play related to our love of music. We haven't posted anything yet, but we are going to post our first vlog of last week’s The Warning concert in a couple days. We’d love to have a handful of subscribers in there before we begin. Might that be something you'd be interested in subscribing to? If so, here's the link and thank you for being so encouraging and kind to us. Horns in the air, click here - Dispatches From the Rail
Thanks for the info about the band. But, hey - The Grateful Dead? - Never was a Dead Head, but you cannot beat "Shakedown Street". (and they did make a lot of people happy)