6 pm show
Join us for this outdoor concert, in Congress Square Park! Show is 6-8.
FREE with generous support from our sponsors.
The name Cantrip is an Old Scots word meaning a charm, magic spell or piece of mischief and it aptly describes the unexpected twists and turns in their musical arrangements, likewise the compelling potency of their musicianship. Swirling border pipes, raging fiddle, thunderous guitar and three rich voices blend to create a sound energetic enough to tear the roof off. Echoes can be heard of trad music from the 1960s and 70s, but the years have slowly infested their music with the sounds of funk, metal, bluegrass, swing, and even klezmer. Cantrip sprung from a local session in Edinburgh nearly twenty years ago. Their driving music immediately caught the attention of the masses, and they were quickly signed to the Foot Stompin’ label. With their first album “Silver” (2001) in hand, Cantrip made its way across the water to the United States, where they were received with roars and shouts (of enjoyment). After years of significant touring, the band parted ways with Foot Stompin’ and began producing albums on their own. Two albums later (“Boneshaker” in 2005 and “Piping the Fish” in 2008), Cantrip had cemented itself as a perennial figure.
After a period of hiatus in which children were born and continents were left for new ones, Cantrip redefined its sound. The band tightened its arrangements while expanding its influence. New inspirations began creeping into the sound, complementing the traditional foundation of the band. This more mature sound debuted on “The Crossing” (2016), to high acclaim. In 2019, the band gathered 50 of its closest friends and fans and returned to its roots, re-recording Silver in a live format (Cantrip Live), re-arranged yet with a more youthful sound than the original. The process inspired a new approach for the band, which they implemented for their fifth studio album “Undark”. In late 2019, they spent a week in their original home of Edinburgh creating and recording new music. All of the tracks on this album were captured live in one take by engineer and longtime friend of the band Reuben Taylor. This seminal album shows a new, darker side of the group while preserving the elements that audiences have come to know and love. After 20 years of touring, Cantrip has found a character like no other. Dan Houghton, Jon Bews, Alasdair White and Eric McDonald stir the elements in a witches’ cauldron, slowly coalescing into chaotic order.
7 pm doors – 8 pm show
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- AT THE DOOR: $25
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In the presence of the strange digital drone of hospital machines, David Wax’s thoughts turned to 13 songs and the changes they give voice to. After suddenly and inexplicably collapsing, Wax—half of David Wax Museum alongside wife and bandmate Suz Slezak—was headed for a heart catherization in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri, his doctors suspecting a heart attack. At a moment with more questions than answers, he hurriedly signed his name to a waiver—and was struck by a revelation.
“Lying there on that stretcher the thing that kept running through my mind was: at least we made You Must Change Your Life,” Wax recalls. “Whatever else happened, I felt at peace because this record exists.” The album, out May 5 on Nine Mile Records, is an openhearted manifesto – a collection that embodies, then transcends bedrock elements of the band’s 15-year recording career.
For Wax, music has guided every step he holds sacred; he’s followed its palpable power, abiding by its requisite unpredictability. After graduating at the top of his class at Harvard, he wandered off an academic path to southern Mexico, finding what he calls “a clear before/after moment in my life.” There, he studied folk music “at the feet of the masters” and internalized structures and rhythms that continue to drive the band today. He and Slezak fell in love on their first national tour, setting in motion a future full of vivid waking dreams. Together (now with their two children in tow) they’ve logged 1,500 shows in every corner of the globe. From the back of a pick-up truck in Nome, Alaska at a solstice parade, to a surreal moment in a tent filled with a thousand Czechs hollering along to their iconic song “Harder Before It Gets Easier,” these dreams continue to unfold for Wax and Slezak.
Their latest effort encapsulates this wildly winding spirit and delivers the past-, present- and future-tense promises Wax and Slezak consider their shared purpose as musicians. To borrow lyrics from early highlight “Luanne,” the duo’s life—just like the album—is a shape-shifter, fate-twister, truth-sifter, dream-drifter, seam-ripper.
In this way, the album is fit for a world tilted off its axis, colored by a collective resistance to old norms. Wax and Slezak give listeners permission to answer the whispers around and within them—Be patient / Don’t tell me that you’re unworthy—affirming and exhorting the pursuit of new ways of living.
During this season of oddly borrowed time, Slezak crafted her NPR-praised solo debut, Our Wings May Be Featherless, and initiated what she calls a “rebalancing” of her own creativity. The result—her power—is undiluted. On You Must Change Your Life, Slezak is a choir, a conscience, an instrumental trailblazer. And when she takes the lead on “Go Break Some Hearts,” she delivers a dazzling, dreamy innocence, evoking a kinder, gentler likeness of David Lynch’s iconic Twin Peaks soundtrack.
David Wax Museum blends the ancient and ever-relevant rhythms of traditional Mexican music with amber pop hues, their unabashed rock riffs emanating an air of AM radio circa 1975, all tethered together by seductive harmonies. It’s a seamless tapestry of boundless curiosity, an artful display of what Wax frames as “the lines blurring and dissolving between musical cultures and eras.” As it humbly beckons listeners to fulfill its title, You Must Change Your Life sounds out a thousand minor- and major-key ways one can do just that.
Producer Dan Molad (of Lucius, Coco, JD McPherson) brings a particular brilliance to David Wax Museum’s makeshift orchestra, an array of instruments bewildering on paper but perfectly intuitive to the ears. The album features everything from electric guitar and bass clarinet duets to the large-bodied Mexican huapanguera; tubular bells a la Pet Sounds to Jagger-esque heavy breathing; fiddles and marimbas adventuring through effects; and a saxophone “pitch-shifted several octaves into a helium state of excitement,” as Wax puts it. He credits Molad’s instinct with making the songs “3-D,” each tune inching toward pop glory.
You Must Change Your Life refracts the light of a band whose vibrancy has been globally recognized by the highest tier of tastemakers. Since their early breakout as a buzz band at the revered Newport Folk Festival, Wax and Slezak have transmitted their kinetic energy in platforms including CBS This Morning: Saturday, Tiny Desk Concert, and NPR’s World Cafe. They have soundtracked love stories on and off screens, from the Netflix #1 show Firefly Lane to the wedding of US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.
Throughout You Must Change Your Life, Wax and Slezak convey how a single response to the heart’s cry—returning a stolen glance, ripping off a bandage, stepping out in faith—can make our world over. Pain and peace attend every shift. After all, Changing your life ain’t like changing clothes, Wax sings on “Your Heart’s a Pinata.” The band has held tightly to this truth, attending to Wax’s ongoing health journey and reshaping their career with intention. The album boldly testifies: Your life will change with deliberation, but also in the mere act of living.
The album is a celebration and an invocation, pure and infallible: It’s never too late. What are you waiting for? You must change your life.
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7 pm doors – 8 pm show
Lyle Divinsky made his living in the New York City subways for over 5 years. While singing underground by day and above ground by night, he slowly crafted his self-released album, Uneven Floors, which launched him into ears around the globe – reaching #2 on the UK Soul Charts and radio in every continent.
He wasn’t able to tour around it though, because within weeks of the release, he was picked up by the Colorado funk powerhouse, The Motet, which took him to some of the biggest stages in the country – from Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden to legendary venues like Tipitina’s in New Orleans and The Fillmore in San Francisco, as well as festivals like BottleRock, Summercamp, Electric Forest, Bumbershoot, Jam Cruise, and so many more.
He has truly taken his music from Subways to Stadiums.
When the world shut down, it gave us all time to pause and reflect upon who we are, what drives us… to recognize the complexities of this world and what it is to live in it. This drove Lyle into one of the most prolific creative periods of his life. The only thing… none of it was in the funk idiom, so the decision had to be made. After 5 years, 2 studio albums, 2 live albums, over 600 shows and over 10 million+ streams with The Motet, it was time to get back to his journey.
7 pm doors – 8 pm show
Lyle Divinsky made his living in the New York City subways for over 5 years. While singing underground by day and above ground by night, he slowly crafted his self-released album, Uneven Floors, which launched him into ears around the globe – reaching #2 on the UK Soul Charts and radio in every continent.
He wasn’t able to tour around it though, because within weeks of the release, he was picked up by the Colorado funk powerhouse, The Motet, which took him to some of the biggest stages in the country – from Red Rocks and Madison Square Garden to legendary venues like Tipitina’s in New Orleans and The Fillmore in San Francisco, as well as festivals like BottleRock, Summercamp, Electric Forest, Bumbershoot, Jam Cruise, and so many more.
He has truly taken his music from Subways to Stadiums.
When the world shut down, it gave us all time to pause and reflect upon who we are, what drives us… to recognize the complexities of this world and what it is to live in it. This drove Lyle into one of the most prolific creative periods of his life. The only thing… none of it was in the funk idiom, so the decision had to be made. After 5 years, 2 studio albums, 2 live albums, over 600 shows and over 10 million+ streams with The Motet, it was time to get back to his journey.
6 pm doors – 7 pm show
We’re back from a summer slumber!!! And we’ve missed you. We’re excited for yet another music-filled evening, hosted by Leslie.
We are primarily a music-oriented open mic, but other formats are welcome, like a poem, story, or skit. Performances must be 10 minutes long, at most, or two songs. Mics, a keyboard, and a DI system will be provided onstage for you. The signup sheet is all in person– participants can sign up starting at 6pm at the OLS front door. The list caps at about 10 performers and everyone is welcome to get in line to enter their name. We will post clearly once the list is full- it fills up fast. We will have future open mics, and look forward to hearing you from our stage soon!
Please reach out to Leslie@onelongfellowsquare.com with any questions!
6 pm show
Join us for this outdoor concert, in Congress Square Park! Show is 6-8.
Come hungry- Black Salt food truck will be at the park!
FREE with generous support from our sponsors.
Funkationland is a Portland based group of 12 of the best musicians in Maine. Playing music of groups such as “Tower of Power”, “Earth Wind and Fire”, “Steely Dan”, “Stevie Wonder” and many more, Funkationland bring this style of music to Portland for one night only. The group boasts 6 horns (2 trumpets, trombone, Alto, tenor and Bari Sax), 6 rhythms players (2 guitarists, Keyboards, Bass, Drums and Latin Percussion) as well as loads of vocals which will literally “fill up One Longfellow Square” with horn-based funk music.