Lewiston Auburn music – Pocket Full of Mumbles

November 12, 2024

Mumbles return to Side By Each, recommend Potential Spam Smoked Brown Ale

AUBURN, Maine — Pocket Full of Mumbles, southern Maine’s favorite purveyors of smart, toe-tapping twang, return to Side By Each Brewing Co. on Friday Night, Nov. 15. That’s THIS Friday. Show time is 7 p.m.

All three sets will be thoroughly entertaining and completely apolitical. The band will debut several new tunes Friday night, among them “Please Read the Letter,” a song written by Jimmy Page and more recently recorded by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss. The Mumbles will also trot out “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” from the Beatles’ White Album.

Neither song choice carries with it any hidden partisan meaning (we’re not even sure we’re spelling partisan correctly). But the Mumbles are of the mind that most live bands should make the effort to tackle at least one Beatles tune each time they play out. Other than that, look for the eclectic mix — originals, Son Volt, Simon & Garfunkel, Cracker, CSNY, Bob Mould, The Band and Jackson Browne — that folks across South-Central Maine have come to expect from these neon gods.

There will be time between sets, potentially, for gloating or handwringing of all kinds, but that should be done outside… Mind you, it’s going down below 40 degrees Farenheit this Friday night. What’s more, Side by Each is located at 1110 Minot Avenue, a fairly busy thoroughfare with two lanes traveling in either direction. Speed limit: 50 mph. The Mumbles strongly advise against wandering anywhere near the roadway on foot.

Best to stay inside, enjoy the music and tuck into some of the House Risotto, and maybe a pint of the Potential Spam Smoked Brown Ale, which recently earned the “Cheers to Independent U.S. Craft Breweries” (Level 82) badge.

July 17, 2024July 17, 2024

Beat Heat with The Mumbles: Saturday night, in AC, at SBE

AUBURN, Maine — Pocket Full of Mumbles, those increasingly percussive purveyors of smart twang and Scarborough Fair-caliber harmonies, return to Side by Each Brewing Co. on Saturday night July 20.

Show time, inside the air-conditioned confines of Lewiston-Auburn’s finest craft brew purveyor, is 7-10 p.m. So mop your brow, put away your sweaty cares, and join the band for an evening of climate-controlled fun.

The Mumbles are also delighted to announce they will again play the Topsham Fair, on Wednesday, Aug. 7 — the noon slot, as the gates open. PFOM will also return to Side by Each on Oct. 19, so do circle that date on your calendars.

For ongoing gig and band information, visit www.PocketFullOfMumbles.com

March 24, 2019February 2, 2021

PFOM back at Guthries April 5, 8 p.m.

Pocket Full of Mumbles returns to the stage April 5, for an 8-10 p.m. set at everyone’s favorite oversized, burrito-serving, craft beer-pulling living room, the She Doesn’t Like Guthrie’s Restaurant & Café, in Lewiston.

The duo comprising Pocket Full of Mumbles (PFOM), Mike Conant and Hal Phillips, formed in 2017 as an acoustic homage to the harmonies and hyper-literate songwriting of Simon & Garfunkel. Twenty-eighteen saw PFOM expand the brief to include the similarly stellar talents of Jay Farrar, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Neil Young and, at the risk of paled comparisons, Conant and Phillips themselves. Expect a sampling of all this on April 5.

If the primary inspirations for PFOM were Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, its secondary influence has been the seminal alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, the fertile collaboration of Farrar and Jeff Tweedy. Indeed, PFOM nearly named themselves The Belleville Boys, after these two native sons Belleville, Illinois, where, incidentally, Conant was also born (his father had been based at nearby Scott Air Force Base).

The long-term goal of PFOM is to present a complete evening of live music: a two-man acoustic set followed by a second featuring full-band treatment of like material — to further demonstrate the remarkable versatility and power of top-drawer songwriting. Re-animating the Uncle Tupelo sound is PFOM’s hope for Set II.

Farrar and Tweedy would dissolve Uncle Tupelo amid not insignificant rancor in 1994, almost immediately following this club show in St. Louis. It’s an amazing performance at the peak of their powers when apparently — according to an oral history recently published in Rolling Stone — the two band principals were not speaking to each other.

Farrar would soon form his own band, Son Volt, further advancing the alt-country genre; the landmark album Trace (1996) at first gave the impression that perhaps he was the true genius behind Uncle Tupelo. Tweedy quickly complicated that assessment with the album Being There (1996), the second effort from what would become the prolific, indie super-group Wilco.