While new wave icon Howard Jones’ Nov. 4 Iron Horse show will be engaging, it will not be Engage, the crowd-funded multimedia project he recently performed in London, LA, and New York that includes interactive smartphone apps for audience members, specially commissioned visuals and full-band renderings of many works. In fact, it couldn’t be further from such a spectacle.
Rather, as the title implies, it is a celebration of simplicity and intimacy he calls “The Songs, The Piano & The Stories.”
In addition to the hits and chestnuts that have helped him sell 8 million albums worldwide in his more than three decade career, next week’s Noho show will include insights and backstories behind the music he made famous.
During a recent interview for a Bay Area TV station, he revealed one such tale as it pertains to the creation of the ’80s radio staple “No One is to Blame.”
“I was running around doing radio and someone asked, what do you think of the amazing, beautiful women here in San Francisco?” Jones remembers. “And I said, yeah, there are woman all over the word that are amazing, but have my (wife) Jan and I’m not really looking. And he said, ‘You can look at the menu, but you don’t have to eat.’ And then the songwriter brain kicks in …”
Tix for Jones’ Nov. 4 show are $35 in advance, $40 at the door and available at iheg.com. A limited number of special meet and greet packages were available as of press time.
The Iron Horse’s talent buyers have sweetened their proverbial sonic stew of entertainment this All Hallow’s Eve.
On Thursday, Oct. 30, Caravan of Thieves weaves their patented gypsy-jazz tapestry of sound at 7 p.m., followed by the Saved By The ’90s Dance Party at 10 p.m.
On Halloween proper, the first family of rock — not to mention Elmore Leonard’s occasional muse — The Stone Coyotes sink their teeth into the 7 p.m. slot. Warwick, Rhode Island’s Santina King gets the opening nod on that one.
Not to be outdone — but perhaps, chronologically challenged? — Holyoke’s Waterfront Tavern counters with an Oct. 31 Thanksgiving bash.
Perhaps the night’s subtitle, “Spend Halloween With Family,” suggests the explanation: a kind of thinly-veiled reference to a tightly knit faction of the scene led by such reggae-infused rockers as The Alchemystics and Danny Pease & The Regulators. Additions to the afore mentioned other acts confirmed for this bill include Deejay Theory, Jeff Bujak, Outerstylie, Honeycomb, and Redshift, to name a choice few. Tix are $25 and available at wantickets.com.
Last but not least, scenester Scott Lawson Pomeroy checked in to report that he’s been in collaborations with Denny Laine of Wings/Moody Blues fame.
Seems this budding relationship started as summer fling that has blossomed into much more.
“The Swinging Steaks had invited me to sing additional vocals during their Stearns Square gig with Denny a couple months ago,” Pomeroy recalls. “We did ‘Band On The Run’ in its entirety plus some Denny’s solo stuff as well as ‘Live and Let Die’ and ‘Go Now.’ The response was so favorable, I’m now backing him up again for three more shows this week, concluding with back-to-back plays at the River Club in Scituate Oct. 29-30.”
Just prior to that, Lawson will also have the opportunity to step into the sizeable shoes of one Gordon Waller when Peter Asher — of Peter and Gordon — performs with Laine at Concord, New Hampshire’s Capitol Center for the Arts.
“Turns out Asher was one of the early supporters of the California country rock movement that included some of my favorite ’60s and ’70s artists like The Byrds and Fleetwood Mac,” Pomeroy proclaims. “Just completely blew me away to learn that!”•
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 394-4262 or email garycarra@aol.com.
