The Bollard Bulletin for January 20, 2025
Local Music Monday: Little Oso's dreamy new album
Local Music Monday
Portland dream-pop foursome Little Oso is back with their first full-length release, How Lucky to Be Somebody, and their timing is impeccable. This lovely, laidback record provides a calming counterpoint to the chaos to come as our country slides avalanche-like into the second Trump Administration. “Try new things then change your mind,” singer-guitarist Jeannette Berman advises on the opener, “Good Things.” “Keep yourself out past midnight. Recall that good things happen twice. And every choice you’ve ever made will lead you to a place where you may not be happy, but you won’t be afraid.”
There’s definitely something frightening afoot. The family described in “Other People’s Lives” wonders, “What about those boots in the hall? The guitars on the wall? The neighbors who are at war? There’s a man I’ve never seen before, and another one who doesn’t live here anymore.” But as the first song suggests, bliss can be attained when you free yourself from the fallacious American Dream and adjust your expectations downward so as to appreciate all the good things we already have.
“No grocery lists, nor politics, nor taxes,” Berman daydreams aloud on “The Frogs Sing for No Reason.” “We’ll replace them with our dreamlike trill and racket. The frogs since for no reason, and so do we!” And on the closer, “Ruski’s,” a paean to Portland’s beloved West End neighborhood tavern, Berman and guitarist Ricky Lorenzo sing an autobiographical duet that brings the point home. “When I first started writing little things, didn’t think it’d lead me here. Got kicked out to make a better deal. Now I’m in a band and singing songs about a meal. Was it always my favorite, or is it just ’cause I’m with you?”
The answer to that question is obvious, but Little Oso reminds us how important it is to ask it and then realize our best hope is in our bonds with one another.
Music
Brookside Food and Drink
Kyle Avila
6 p.m., free (all ages)
Three Dollar Deweys
Henry Honkonen
6 p.m., free (all ages)
club guide
Performing Arts
The First Parish Church (425 Congress St., Portland) offers an Inauguration Alternative event during which poetry by past Inauguration Day poets Richard Blanco, Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Amanda Gorman and others will be read in candlelit silence, at noon. Free. 773-5747. firstparishportland.org.
Brazen Bandits, the trans art collective, presents “Let Me Hold That for You,” an interactive performance art piece by Sampson Spadafore and Ian-Meredythe Dehne-Lindsey at SPACE (538 Congress St., Portland) at 6 p.m. Free (RSVP encouraged). 828-5600. space538.org.
Comedy open mic at The Whaler (20 Staples St., Old Orchard Beach) at 8 p.m. No cover (all ages). 934-9853.