PocketFullofMumbles – Pocket Full of Mumbles

December 15, 2023December 15, 2023

Mumbles return to Side By Each Saturday night, Dec. 30

AUBURN, Maine — Pocket Full of Mumbles, those expert purveyors of smart alt-country twang, are back at Side By Each on Saturday night, Dec. 30, just in time to prepare one’s groove for 2024. Show time at the popular Minot Avenue brewing company & eatery is 7 p.m.

With a variety of guest drummers and soloists, the Mumbles today complement those originals with canny selections from Son Volt, CSN, Neil Young, Cracker, vintage Jackson Browne, fIREhOSE and Bob Mould, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ryan Adams, James Taylor, Liz Phair and The Band. PFOM last appeared at Side By Each in June 2023.

The lovely and talented Nancy Durham will join PFOM on percussion Dec. 30. The Mumbles will also debut their newly dedicated “Telecaster Set”, featuring Mr. Howie on his vintage, case-less Fender which, while it appears to be held together with chewing gum and baling wire, really hums.

Beer tip: Side By Each remains one of Maine’s most innovative and skilled brewing operations. If you like a brown ale — good examples of which are notoriously hard to find in North America — check out SBE’s Fat Charlie the Archangel.

June 20, 2023June 20, 2023

Mumbles back at Pineland Farms for Strawberry Moon PYO: June 22-24

NEW GLOUCESTER — Pocket Full of Mumbles, Maine’s favorite purveyors of eclectic, crowd-pleasing twang, will again headline the annual Strawberry Moon Celebration here at Pineland Farms this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Show time is 4-7 p.m. each day, June 22-24.

This three-day event, the ultimate yard party, takes place entirely within the Pineland Farms property at 752 Mayall Road in New Gloucester. Festivities, which also run from 4-7 p.m. each afternoon, include, music, PYO strawberriues galore, food-truck fare, games, sunshine, farm equipment, dessert tables, horse-drawn carriage rides, special moonlit picking hours, and plenty of room for kids to run wild. The cost: Just $5 per person — but don’t forget to put your ticket price toward your PYO purchase at checkout. Children under 2: free.

The Mumbles will bring the musical ambience, next to the big tractor, from a proper flatbed stage. Food & drink vendors include Craft Curbside, Cruzin’ Slice, Shut up N’ Eat It, Cheese the Day, the Pink Waffle, and our very own Pineland Market strawberry shortcake station.

For more information, visit the Pineland Farms website or call the Farm at (207) 657-2877.

It’s a lot to absorb, but don’t overthink it: Just drop by, harvest a few quarts of delicious strawberries from the rich Maine soil, listen to the music, have a beverage, a bite to eat and, if you need more strawberries, come back the next day and do it all again.

May 4, 2023May 4, 2023

Mumbles Make Side By Each Debut Saturday Night, May 6

Pocket Full of Mumbles, Maine’s favorite purveyors of smart twang, has emerged from winter hibernation straight into show season. The three-piece will make its 2023 debut at Side By Each Brewing Co. in Auburn this Saturday night, May 6, with a return engagement scheduled for Friday June 9. Each show will run 6-9 p.m.

Pocket Full of Mumbles debuted in 2017 as a Simon & Garfunkel tribute act, featuring close harmonies and largely acoustic instrumentation from fiddler/bassist Mike Conant and guitarist Hal Phillips. Early in the pandemic, they added Tim Howie on pedal steel, Telecaster and banjo, lending amplification and twang to their portfolio of S&G and original songs. With a variety of guest drummers and soloists (Bald Hill mando player Ben DeTroy will sit in June 9), the Mumbles stock each set with selections from Son Volt, CSN, Neil Young, Cracker, vintage Jackson Browne, fIREhOSE and Bob Mould, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ryan Adams, James Taylor, Liz Phair and The Band.

Later in June, the Mumbles will again play in residence at the annual Strawberry Festival, a three-day, pick-your-own extravaganza held June 24-25-26 at Pineland Farms on the Mayall Road in Gray. The event has grown a great deal through the years: What had been a quiet, 1-day, pick-your-own affair has matured into a three-day family-friendly blowout complete with food trucks, craft brew vendors, farm equipment (for climbing) and, of course

May 13, 2021

PFOM to play Strawberry Moon forever (actually, just June 24-26)

NEW GLOUCESTER — Pocket Full of Mumbles will make their public 2021 debut June 24-26 as part of the Strawberry Moon Celebration here at idyllic Gillespie Farm, the Pineland Farm location on Mayall Road. South/Central Maine’s favorite alt-country interpreters of Simon & Garfunkel, Son Volt and Jackson Browne will preside Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 4-7 p.m.

Strawberry Moon has become a highlight of the pick-your-own strawberry season north of Portland. The three-day event, hosted at 752 Mayall Road in New Gloucester, features live music but also food trucks, cash bar, dessert tables, horse-drawn carriage rides and special moonlit picking hours. For more information, visit Gillespie’s Facebook page or call the Farm at (207) 657-2877.

But don’t overthink it: Just drop by, harvest a few quarts of delicious strawberries from the rich Maine soil, listen to the music, have a beverage and, if you need more strawberries, come back the next day and do it all again. Strawberry season in Maine is like life: All too short. So don’t miss out.

The members of Pocket Full of Mumbles (PFOM) are greatly looking forward to this engagement, as the last 15 months have been very tough on musical acts in Maine and around the world. The band looks forward to communing again with its massive, devoted fan base (known as “The Mumble Core”) and riding what feels like a significant wave of pent-up demand for live music.

Indeed, for PFOM, the Strawberry Moon event is only the first public event of 2021. The band has already played several private parties and looks forward to many more. Anyone interested in booking such an event should reach out at booking@pocketfullofmumbles.com.

“I don’t think it’s clear to anyone, at this stage of the pandemic, just how practical it is to play traditional shows inside,” said PFOM fiddler/guitarist Mike Conant. “It’s starting to happen, but unknowns remain: from the perspective of host venues, from the folks who might attend, and bands providing the music. We in Pocket Full of Mumbles are all vaccinated and ready to play anywhere. But we understand why clubs, fans and bands might feel differently.

“We’ve always played private parties because we love the casual vibe, the requests, the intimacy. And today, in 2021, they’re certainly an excellent way around all those concerns, especially when they’re held outside.”

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.