Three For One

Framingham jammers come home to roost

By Don Fluckinger

Name a few Massachusetts cities that have spawned more than their share of good bands: Boston, Worcester, Northampton, and . . . Framingham? Not likely on that last score.

Yet on Saturday three bands with Framingham connections, The Mudhens, Addison Groove Project, and Apartment Three, will play in Nevins Hall at the city's Memorial Building.

The latter two are jam bands all the way, while the Mudhens are a pop band that keeps popping up on jam-band bills. The Mudhens shared a stage on the 1997 H.O.R.D.E. tour with the now-disbanded Ben Folds Five, another unlikely group to see at such a major groove-rock gathering.

"That was a really eclectic H.O.R.D.E. bill," says Mudhens bassist Pete Chandler, who adds that, like Ben Folds, the Mud Hens shy away from extended improvisation. "We've always felt that everyone in the band can play, but it should serve the song rather than show that good players we are."

Hanging with jam bands was working out, though, for the Mudhens. So when their good friends in Apartment 3 approached them to play in Framingham, they readily agreed. "One of the things with jam bands is that the audiences tend to be receptive to various styles of music. It's not our main thing, but we've always been able to play to that crowd," Chandler says. What is their main thing? Strong melodies and catchy choruses, and the players' common love for the Beatles and Aimee Mann.

Named after the Toledo, Ohio, minor-league baseball team, the Mudhens recently recorded an EP titled Vinyl with two new members, keyboard player Steve Trenouth and lead vocalist Emily Fontano (formerly of Soup Baby), who grew up in Framingham. While this edition of the Mudhens might have been new at the time of the recording, you'd never know it by listening to Vinyl, thanks in part to producer Anthony Resta, whose credits include CDs for bands like Collective Soul and Duran Duran. The group recently hired a new manager and a radio promotion staff in hopes of landing a new label contract. "We've been approached in the last two months by three different entertainment attorneys," Chandler says. "We're talking to them, trying to decide what would be the best direction to go in. . . . We went around that block once before [under previous management], and one thing we learned was not to make any rash decisions. We still have a lot of work."

Most bands have a member or two who play with musicians outside the group in side projects, but only the Mudhens can say they played with Doug Flutie at the Super Bowl. Two Mudhens (Tom Groleau and Mike Smith) traveled to Tampa last week to play classic rock with Doug and his brother Darren as part of the Flutie Gang, who also took on Howard Stern's band The Losers in the King of All Media's Battle of the Celebrity Bands on January 18. Most of the proceeds from the Flutie Gang's shows go to Doug Flutie's foundation for autistic children.

Like the Mudhens' Fontano, Addison Groove Project's keyboard player Rob Marscher hails from Framingham. AGP approaches its groove-rock from the jazz-funk side, professing devotion to guys like former James Brown saxman Maceo Parker, John Coltrane, and Cannonball Adderly. AGP tenor saxophone player Ben Groppe was lucky enough to hang out with Parker at a gig last September when AGP opened for Maceo's band at the Roxy.

"That was cool," says Marscher, whose band just released Wicked Live, its second CD. The sextet elected to record a live show, he says, in part because the members are currently attending college and have limited time to spend in the studio.

Apartment 3 also features two Framingham natives, drummer Francis Castagnetti Jr. and bassist Bill Egan, who lit out to California with the rest of the band after high school "to be rock stars," as Castagnetti puts it. They moved back to the area after a year, with only the name (it was part of their Oakland address) and some newly written tunes to show for their time out West. They've spent the last few years perfecting their acoustic pop grooves (mixing in jazz and R&B when the spirit moves them) in Boston clubs and touring along the East Coast. For the next few months, Castagnetti says the band plans to stay in the Boston area writing and recording a new CD that's likely to be released late in 2001, and playing more gigs for the fans that helped them break into the Boston scene.

"We're from Framingham. A lot of people who made it possible to do what we do and who were dedicated from the beginning . . . a lot of them don't really travel that much into Boston," says Castagnetti, whose band programmed and promoted the concert. "We basically wanted to bring a night of Boston bands to Framingham and make it worthwhile for them to come out."

Apartment 3, The Mudhens, and the Addison Groove Project play a 21-plus show at 8 p.m. on February 3 at Nevins Hall in Framingham. Tickets are $10. Call 508-628-1393.