There is no doubt about it. The pools of sweat building under my winter-fed chest tell the whole story: summers here, the nights are getting longer, and by-God, the streets are bathed in music.<\/p>\n
Really, they are.<\/p>\n
Right here in town, four nights strong, some fantastic performance is taking place, delivered in a cover song, a windy original or rollicking mix of musk and \u201cfarm funk,\u201c as the DoBros from Warner do so well.<\/p>\n
Pick a place, any place. The True Brew. Good room, great acts, tasty beverages, and I think there\u2019s food. Coffee for sure. And beer. Plenty of that. And the music you\u2019ll witness might have you saying to yourself, as I often do, \u201cWhere do these people come from? And how do they do that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh, it\u2019s great to be outside this time of year, evenings after dark specifically. Myself, I was standing in an alley in downtown Manchester recently. It was late but not trouble late. Just late enough to see the wobble in the eyes of the growlers. We were heading to see the Hornitz, a deliriously fun band from Boston, at Penuche\u2019s and I couldn\u2019t help but stand and marvel at the evening. Brass and breeze, green lights and sweaty streets. The night had that \u201cdive your face onto the dance floor\u201d feel to it.<\/p>\n
I took a big gulp of air and announced to the other travelers as we strolled comfortably into the midnight, \u201cDang, this feels good.\u201d Their swollen eyes agreed. And how could they not. Just look around, feel the heat coming off the revelers. A hundred or more, trolling around in all styles of garb, from hot mess to gutter glamour. Everyone heading to feast on adult portions of elation.<\/p>\n
An earned escape after the winter haul.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not just happening in the city, no. It\u2019s happening everywhere. A month back I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee watching the great Sturgill Simpson at the Tivoli Theatre and let me tell you, there is beauty in those hills too people. A shocking level of beauty comes out of the south. Inside and out \u2014 the music, the food, the people themselves, the weather that allow you to walk casually all year round, inspired by the history of sound and culture.<\/p>\n
Back in Granite State, I have no problem sitting in a smokey private club four months straight watching old cats rip into Grateful Dead songs. My lungs cry on the inside, but my heart is with those musicians on stage, working as if their playing to a sold out Silver Dome.<\/p>\n
Still, as these next few months hustle towards winter, I really just want to park my back against the grass at \u201cJim Mitchell Park\u201d in Warner and listen to some folk songs. Or bake outside in the heat wearing jeans, watching the blues maestros take over in New Boston at this years \u201cBarn Full of Blues Festival\u201d.<\/p>\n
I plan to sit with a Guinness in hand and let the salt eat my face at Hampton Beach. Heck, I\u2019ll happily, yet under protest, sing along to a set of Jimmy Buffet songs and pick my teeth with an tiny umbrella anywhere in Laconia. No sweat.<\/p>\n
Think of this time of year as one long snow day. Feel giddy and get out and make snow angels in a field of green. Tap a glass with a stranger. Hit that dance floor. Shake what you got. Let that winter chest fly.<\/p>\n
Who cares if it\u2019s a Wednesday. Go make it feel like it\u2019s a Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Which is where this all started. And I suppose, where it all must end.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Rob Azevedo<\/strong><\/p>\n Rob Azevedo, from Manchester, has been hosting a weekly radio show called\u00a0\u201cGranite State of Mind\u201d<\/a>\u00a0for the past three and a half years which showcases musicians from around New Hampshire and beyond. \u00a0\u201cGranite State of Mind\u201d is an hour long program that features artists performing live in-studio\u00a0each week,\u00a0now exclusively on WKXL<\/strong>.\u00a0 Azevedo also writes a weekly music column called\u00a0\u201cSound Check\u201d for the Concord Monitor<\/a>\u00a0and hosts a monthly \u201cArtist in the Round\u201d style series at New England College in Concord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is no doubt about it. The pools of sweat building under my winter-fed chest tell the whole story: summers here, the nights are getting longer, and by-God, the streets are bathed in music. Really, they are. Right here in town, four nights strong, some fantastic performance is taking place, delivered in a cover song, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9290,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"GSM Blog: The Earned Escape","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"category-granite-state-of-mind"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Rob-Azevedo-2.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9426,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9425\/revisions\/9426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nhtalkradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}