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ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULE


Alan Cook will assume the spotlight from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday,February 11. Alan, who teaches music at the University of Maine in Machias, comes from a family of nine, all of whom played instruments. Family gatherings, he says, were a hoot. Alan himself started guitar at age five. The university hired him to teach based on his life experiences. He says he went from high school dropout to college professor in one fell swoop. Today he takes pride in his versatility—performances can include tunes from the twenties to recent original compositions.




Juliane Gardner of Castine and Chris Poulin of Winslow will appear on Saturday, February 18. They call their group, which frequently includes guest artists, "Shades of Blue." Juliane says her father's love of jazz was her first major influence. As a small child she was associated with Castine's Cold Comfort Productions, and by age nine was featured in vocal solos. Throughout her college years, Juliane joined and formed many groups. She fronted everything from Top 40 bands to Jazz Trios before shifting her focus to her own song writing. Chris Poulin studied jazz and classical guitar at Youngstown State University in Ohio. He got his bachelor's degree in jazz guitar from UMA. When he moved back to Maine he joined Ezra Rugg's group, Antigravity. He says he is influenced by a wide variety of instruments, artists, and genre.


 Bobbi Lane will perform from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, February 25. Bobbi's musical roots go deep. Her father, a municipal court judge in Bridgton, Maine, played trumpet and cornet in a  Dixieland band. She says she can remember her first gig—at age five. She sang “When the Saints...” for all her stuffed animals. In Middle School, she taught herself guitar, borrowing heavily from Leo Kottke and Joni Mitchell. In High School, she says, she was a geek, the loner hanging out in the music room when she wasn't getting shoved into lockers. Still, she says she never missed an opportunity to play—in bars, ice cream shops, art shows, kids' parties. In college, she studied music science, but never really took to classical music. Instead she went on to spend seven years playing all over the country, including gigs in Colorado and California, before returning to Maine where she commenced playing here and there and everywhere.


George Larakis will appear from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 3. When George was a high school student in Massachusetts he went from bummer to strummer. Laid up for several months with a broken leg from a motorcycle accident, he let time pass by teaching himself guitar. Eventually this drew him into the folk music scene in and around Boston and into a lifelong passion for music. Following a very active career, George says he has grown tired of late-night bar gigs and now enjoys the quiet intimacy of places like Dennet's Wharf in Castine and the Riverside Cafe in Ellsworth. When he isn't making music, George, who lives in Harborside, works with special needs students as an ed tech.


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