Date and Time
Saturday, October 26th, 2024
7:00 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm)
Pumpkin Head Ted:
“30 Years in the Making”
About the Band
Just over thirty years ago in a downtown haunt named Kricket’s Club, a pick-up band consisting of Tom Short, John Neiman, and Mike Lavoie, played the 6-10 songs they all knew, all night long. From these humble beginnings, a New Bedford musical institution was born, soon to be called: Pumpkin Head Ted. Over the last 30 years, the band has gone through several permutations in both personnel and repertoire, but has now settled into a core group of members consisting of Tom, John, and Jason Smith. A group of superb bass players have taken responsibility for the low end over the last several years, most recently, Giulio Manfredonia, who first played with the band in the mid-1990s. The band has played all over New England during this time. Though loosely fitting under the Americana genre, Pumpkin Head Ted feeds on a steady diet of blues, jazz, country, swing, Afro-Latin, rock and roll, show tunes, punk, alternative, and any other eclectic sounds that may catch their ear. Though Tom and Jason are from afar a field, heralding from Flint, Michigan, and Long Valley, New Jersey, respectively, the band members make their home in New Bedford and the area. Pumpkin Head Ted has released two CDs, Swamp Yankee from 2000, and The New Bedford Knockabout, from 2010. When not playing with a full band, Tom, Jason, and John have been exploring acoustic trio arrangements of classic PHT material and newer songs, both covers and originals.
