This article originally appeared in our September 2015 print edition. 

Peter McLaughlin launched his music career in Portland, Maine, and never looked back.

McLaughlin’s work as a drummer, composer, sound engineer, producer, and collaborator makes him one of the highest-regarded champions of the city’s music scene. His new project—Pretty Purgatory, which launched late last year—is both an Americana and folk-focused record label and an art collective. The label has released new offerings by Family Planning; Butcher Boy; Lisa/Liza; and McLaughlin’s own band, The Milkman’s Union. The latest is a split 7″ single featuring Maine’s Jacob Augustine backed by the psych-folk band Bad Braids from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Peter McLaughlin at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine.

“It’s easily my proudest release so far—from music, production value, right down to the art and packaging, designed collaboratively by Jakob Battick, Megan Biscieglia, and Tom Ryan,” McLaughlin says.

What is it about this coastal city, with a modest population of just over 66,000 and a reputation that rests more on chefs than musicians, that attracted the Needham, Massachusetts, native? It turns out that while Portland’s culinary diversity lures tourists, its cultural vibrancy has inspired an influx of savvy, dynamic, and creative music makers.

Upon his 2010 graduation from Bowdoin College, where he studied composition with celebrated American composer Elliott Schwartz, McLaughlin flirted with the idea of moving to a larger metropolitan area before turning his focus to Portland. “I was choosing between Boston, New York, Portland, and Northampton [Massachusetts]. I thought that the Portland music scene was honestly more interesting. It seemed to be a tight-knit community of people creating exciting music, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

On top of running his record label, McLaughlin also programs SPACE Gallery’s musical performances.

McLaughlin immersed himself in the scene by expanding on his college job experience as a soundman and talent booker for Bowdoin’s campus pub. He landed a gig at the busy nonprofit arts-and-music venue SPACE Gallery. Today he is the organization’s music programmer, bringing in such notable acts as Screaming Females, Death Vessel, and Today Is the Day. It’s a job that allows him the flexibility to continue touring as a musician.

“I’ve hit the road hard these last couple months, doing short tours and multi-week runs,” McLaughlin says. “I’ve traveled all over, and my travels always reaffirm what I know about Portland—that it’s a unique place. You get all the niceties of a small town with many of the advantages of a big city.

“It is attractive to young people, artists, developers, and the folks moving into these developments for the same reasons—it’s a thriving, artistic town,” he says. “And all of these people need to be careful that Portland remain just that.”

Peter McLaughlin’s Five Under-the-Radar Musical Paragons of Maine

Tom Kovacevic
Oud-playing Arabic music cognoscente. Weaver of delicate and idiosyncratic songs like no others.

Caethua
Enchanting hymns truly out of the forest. Makes bleakness resplendent like the winters she knows so intimately.

Big Blood
High priests of don’t-call-it-psychfreak-folk-new-weird-whatever-because-it’s-just-transcendent-goddamn-music.

Asa Irons
Exalted dirges, full of light and grit, like the salt of the New England earth. Always sounds like home.

Colby Nathan
Torch bearer and medium of feelings: nervous laughter, wide-eyed awe, honest tears, and subtle serenity.

Peter McLaughlin – owner, Pretty Purgatory
Portland, Maine
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Photography by Cara Slifka

The post Indie Music’s Maine Man appeared first on Take Magazine.

In the pseudo-industrial section of Portland, Maine known as Bayside sits a warehouse space that functions as a rehearsal spot, an art studio, and, occasionally, an informal all-ages venue. It is a space as celestially mysterious as its name, the Apohadion Theater. While there are countless stories to tell about this location and the artists that nurture it, one particular theater troupe that originated here — Lorem Ipsum Theater Collective — is making a name for itself.

Ubu Roi | Directed by Tess Van Horn | Photo by John Donnell

The story begins in 2010 when Tess Van Horn, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence and newly arrived actor, director, and producer, gathered a group of actors at the Apohadion to rehearse and produce Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, a 19th century comedy as subversive as it is odd. Under Van Horn’s direction, the play used puppets, shopping carts, and exaggerated cardboard props to comment on the vulgar overindulgence of the bourgeoisie. A vivid and inspiring experience for those fortunate enough to catch it, the production was met with such tremendous response that soon after the troupe performed it again in front of another packed house at SPACE Gallery, also in Portland.

Until this point, Van Horn and her collaborators were “doing shows with no official organizational name,” explains company member Nick Schroeder. “People thought the name of the company was Tess Van Horn, and that was weird.” Lorem Ipsum — commonly recognized as Latin placeholder text used during design until the real text is inserted — is a name, he says, “that people can step into and inhabit that isn’t totally foreign, but it also doesn’t tell you exactly what you’re getting into.”

Our Late Night | Directed by Nick Schroeder | Photo by David Meiklejohn

Lorem Ipsum proved itself worthy of its chosen name in 2011 when it ventured into street theater with a commissioned piece for a popular summer block party. The Pageant Wagon featured a mobile stage for a modern-day take on the medieval mystery play. Simultaneously, the collective was rehearsing Bertolt Brecht’s Threepenny Opera.

That multitasking is typical, Van Horn says. “We tend to overdo it a lot of the time and take on more work than we are maybe equipped to handle, but looking back, it always seems like the most exciting and creatively stimulating.”

Another notable piece produced by Lorem Ipsum, 2013’s Gargantua, was written by company member Ian Carlsen and performed at a transformed Urban Farm Fermentory. The play-within-a-play-within-a-play was beyond ‘meta,’ bordering on the absurd — and it was brilliant. The protagonist, Bolduc Bolduc, is a playwright and director desperately trying to bring to life his misunderstood masterpiece. With a beleaguered band of actors and a shoestring budget, he battles against the most imposing source of frustration — his sponsor, the Learning Committee.

Gargantua | Directed by Tess Van Horn

Beyond the variety of its programming, Lorem Ipsum differentiates itself by its decision to be a collective. The seven company members all take turns acting, directing, producing, and designing. “We try to keep things as democratic as possible,” says Van Horn.

Unlike other area theater companies with dedicated venues and season-long subscribers, Lorem Ipsum relies on word-of-mouth endorsements from enthusiastic allies working in many tourism-reliant industries throughout Portland. “Theater opens people up in ways that make them better listeners, better communicators, and more compassionate people, whether audience [or] performer,” says Schroeder. “I want a city of those people, whether they care about theater or not.”

The post What’s in a Name appeared first on Take Magazine.

Having made a name for himself as a supporting vocalist for notable acts like Dean Ford and Lady Essence, Tubbs has impersonated many a popular artist, from Etta James to ABBA, for the long-running, weekly live music series at Empire called Clash of the Titans.

What sets him apart from every other hard-working musician is that Conor Leigh Tubbs is also Cherry Lemonade, a dynamo of a drag artist with a tremendous voice and unassailable presence. At times, Cherry’s appearance is playful and punkish, but in the bat of a lash, she is simultaneously a young Connie Francis and an edgy version of Turkish pop star Hande Yener.

Whether she’s hosting her eponymous Cherryoke night at Styxx or emceeing a variety of LGBT-related events, Cherry has built up her audience and generated a lot of excitement around her rising star. Recently, she flirted with the national spotlight via her run on American Idol XIV. Preliminary auditions for the show were held last summer in cities all over the country – among them, Portland.

“People that I’ve known for years in the [music] scene were lined up at the Maine State Pier, and one by one they were turned away,” says Tubbs. Cherry, however, sailed through several more rounds of producer auditions, advancing to Kansas City where she earned a golden ticket to the coveted “Hollywood Week” in LA on the strength of her a cappella rendition of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.”

Alas, one of the most-watched shows in the nation ultimately excluded much of her experience from the final edit. In a recent Facebook update, Tubbs posted, “I got to put myself out there in front of industry professionals and compete against 150,000 other people, only to land in the top 200. I wanted to bring a strong LGBT figure into the public eye, and I did that unabashedly.”

Born and raised just across the Casco Bay Bridge in South Portland, Tubbs studied musical theater at the Hartford Conservatory in Connecticut, honing his talents as an arranger and jazz/pop vocalist before returning to Maine and immersing himself in all things Portland.

“It is the most accepting place I’ve ever been,” he says. “Nobody is trying to get in the way of another person living their life the way they choose.” Regarding the thriving arts scene, Tubbs adds, “It’s refreshing that everyone around me is creating, be it on a stage, in a studio, in a kitchen…”

So what’s next for Cherry? “Keep your eyes on me. As far as I’m concerned, Idol was a jumping-off point. I aim to audition for RuPaul’s Drag Race, as I haven’t done so before, and now that I’ve played the Hollywood game a bit, I think I’m ready.”

Photo by Lauren Kennedy

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