Stephen Stills – 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.

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 6, 2023June 7, 2023

Mumbles back at SBE Friday, June 9; Sebago Days July 15 & Topsham Fair Aug. 9

Pocket Full of Mumbles, Maine’s favorite purveyors of eclectic, crowd-pleasing twang, will return to Side By Each Brewing Co. in Auburn this Friday night, June 9. Showtime is 7-10 p.m.

With a variety of guest soloists (the lovely and talented Nancy Durham will sit in on the drums this Friday), the Mumbles do indeed stock each set with eclectic crowd pleasers. On June 9, expect newly worked up selections from Warren Zevon, the Grateful Dead and Son Volt, to go along with heapin’ helpings of originals, CSNY, Chris Stapleton, vintage Jackson Browne, Bob Mould, The Dillards, Ryan Adams, James Taylor, Liz Phair and Tom Petty.

Later this month, the Mumbles will play in residence at the annual Strawberry Festival, a three-day, pick-your-own extravaganza scheduled for June 22-23-24 at Pineland Farms on the Mayall Road in Gray. As it has done the last three Junes, PFOM will preside from its flatbed stage Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 4-7 p.m. The band will also play the Sebago Days festival on July 15 (2 p.m.), and the Topsham Fair Aug. 9 (11 a.m.), so mark your calendars.

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

June 25, 2019January 20, 2023

Stephen Never Really Got Over Judy

Besotted young men have for centuries been composing love songs for/about the objects of their affection. When it comes to qualitative productivity, however, it’s tough to match Stephen Stills’ preoccupation with Judy Collins.

They met in 1967, when Stills was immediately post Buffalo Springfield and pre CSN — a tremendously productive songwriting period for the young Canadians. She’d just released “Wildflowers”, the highest charting album of her career (wherein she covered Both Sides Now, the work of another young Canadian, Joni Mitchell). Apparently, Stills spied Collins in the audience at West Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go and the rest is history.

The resulting 18-month relationship would move Stills to write three Judy-centric tunes: Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and Helplessly Hoping both showed up two years later on CSN’s eponymous, much-heralded debut album. Another ode to Judy — So Begins the Task, wherein Stills addresses the difficulties in accepting her rejection — didn’t make the cut. It wouldn’t be recorded until 1972, when it appeared on Still’s solo album, Manassas.

Nevertheless, Pocket Full of Mumbles will cover it (along with the epic, 8.5-minute Suite) this Friday, June 28 at the Allagash Brewery in Portland.

Reproducing CSN’s 3- and 4-part harmonies is no small matter, especially for a duo, but it can be done. PFOM proves it (see the Video/Audio tab for evidence). Collins and Stills themselves further this argument: Their 2017 album, “Everybody Knows”, featured an attractive mix of new songs, catalogue selections and CSN covers. Indeed, another PFOM tune on tap Friday night, You Don’t Have To Cry, was a staple of the tour Collins and Stills undertook in support of “Everybody Knows”.

That album and tour may not have transpired had David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stills made plain, in 2016, that they’d finally had enough of one another. Each has indicated they will never perform with the others again — a sentiment Neil Young made plain (but kept reneging on) starting in 1974. Prior to her 50th anniversary tour with Stills, Collins was dismissive of the idea that she was ever some sort of stand-in.

“I’m the original girl,” she told The Guardian in 2017. “I was there before any of them.”