Will Sheff grew up comfortably in Meriden. Both his parents were teachers at Kimball Union Academy, the private school in the heart of the village, and Sheff was in charge of the campus where he also studied.
When he moved away, however, he encountered difficulties. St. Paul, Minnesota, where Macalester College is located, was an important negotiating site after Meriden.
Although he did not return to the Upper Valley, Sheff sought solace in the company of his circle of friends from KUA. He persuaded a friend, Seth Warren, to move to Austin, Texas, where another friend, Zach Thomas, lived, and the three formed a band, Okkervil River.
That was about 25 years ago, and the band has gone through many changes since then. Thomas and Warren, now known as Warren-Crow, left the band to start families and find more permanent jobs.
Sheff, who now lives in Los Angeles, still considers the Upper Valley home. On Friday, he’s bringing together a number of his high school friends and former bandmates for a benefit concert at Whaleback.
“For many of us, it’s really a homecoming and an opportunity to play in this landscape that inspired us,” Sheff said in a phone interview.
Warren-Crow and Thomas will accompany Sheff, as will other musicians they played with at KUA, including Lise Micheline (Lise Johnson during her high school years), Alex Arcone and Christopher Kimball. Shamus Good, a Hanover native and Okkervil River fan who later learned of the band’s local roots, will join on guitar. Western Terrestrials, the Vermont-based country band from outer space, will open.
The show is a benefit for Whaleback, the nonprofit ski resort in Enfield, and the Upper Valley Land Trust. Advance tickets are sold out, but tickets will still be available at the door as weather allows for the outdoor show to accommodate more people.
“It’s just fun,” Sheff said of the show. “For us, it’s a way to raise as much money as we can” for the two nonprofits and to pay tribute to the Upper Valley.
The group of friends who played music together in high school were, as is common in high school, both supportive and competitive. This was in the early 1990s, so they recorded cassettes on four-track recorders.
“Lise made this tape of her own songs and it was so much better than what I did,” Sheff said. Instead of trying to outdo her, he tried to recruit her. For Friday’s show, at least, he was successful.
A group of kids who love music, art and theater can transform the high school experience. Friday’s show will be an opportunity to rediscover that youthful energy, Sheff said.
“Some people are lucky enough to get into a little whirlpool like this with their friends,” he said.
The show is not Sheff’s first foray into his hometown. Okkervil River’s seventh LP was titled “The Silver Gymnasium,” named after Meriden’s Charles Lewis Silver Memorial Gym. Sheff shot a short film in Meriden to accompany the 2013 recording and brought it back for a screening in 2015.
This was his last artistic venture in the area. He and his partner, musician and writer Beth Wawerna, moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2018 for more creative opportunities. “The number of musicians is kind of overwhelming,” Sheff said.
Sheff’s last recording, released in 2022, was his first solo release, and Okkervil River is still on hiatus. In recent years, the band had become more of a vehicle for Sheff anyway. Friday’s show doesn’t bode well for a return, he said.
For Sheff, now 48, it was enough to have a career in music. “I’m like a fisherman who lives off lots of little fish,” he said. “I don’t mind not having a family or security. … I think it was a good path for my soul.”
He is able to visit the Upper Valley, where his younger sister spends time and where he still has many friends from elementary and high school. His parents left KUA and the area to take other jobs when Sheff was 19, which explains why he felt a little lost at the time.
“For me, the Upper Valley is a spiritual home,” he said. “It’s like holy ground to me.”
Welcome back.
For more information about Okkervil River’s show on Friday at 5:00 p.m. at Whaleback Mountain, visit whaleback.com.
If an artist brings something called “The Illuminated Atramentarium Sympathetic Medicine Show” to this neighborhood, it will probably be at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction.
That’s the case here. On Friday night, Thomas Little, a self-proclaimed alchemist and owner of A Rural Pen, will talk about the process he uses to turn guns into ink. I don’t usually like quoting from artist biographies, but Little’s is a cut above: “He gathers threads of alchemical imagery, chemical phenomena and mystical observations to weave them into a holistic synthesis theory of art-science-magic. Through operations in the chemical theater, he hopes to generate excitement and open the mind to the wonders of the psyche and cosmos that reside within the humble inkwell.”
The program begins on Friday at 6 p.m. Before and after, David Fairbanks Ford, the museum’s resident Gremlin, will play his piano as he always does on Friday evenings. Admission is a donation, but no one will be turned away for lack of money.
It’s a good thing the Okkervil River Show is outdoors. COVID is still with us.
Last week, the virus hit the Parish Players. Two cast members of Thetford Theater Company’s production of Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” contracted the novel coronavirus. As a result, the company had to cancel last weekend’s performances. Performances have been rescheduled for August 30 and 31 and September 1.
Reach Alex Hanson at [email protected] or 603-727-3207.
