by Greta Sproul, Face Magazine, 04.01.01

I hadn't planned on attending Mitch Alden's performance at The Seadog in Bangor last Saturday night, mostly because I had never heard of Mitch Alden until that night, but also because brew pubs, while integral to the basic needs of mankind, have never struck me as a good venue for listening to "serious" music. I knew from reading the review of Alden's CD in Face, that the singer-guitarist took himself pretty damn seriously. But then, anyone who purports to want to be "the biggest music act in Maine by this time next year" would have to take himself pretty damn serioulsy - regardless of whether he should.

At any rate, I accepted the invitation to see Alden perform, drove to Bangor, grabbed a corner booth behind some hanging drapery stuff at the Seadog, and waited to be impressed - or not. It took a while, but ended up being very impressed. Not only because Alden has a good, strong, slightly husky-edged voice, or can play his instrument, or writes songs with literate and interesting lyrics. What was most impressive about Alden was the fact that he played with such passion, even when he was playing the cover songs that I assumed were in the set list as a concession to those people not familiar with his own music.

His "band," NOW is NOW, consisted of a bass player and a drummer, neither of whom are really in a band with Alden, but like all the musicians with whom he plays, are friends in the business who agreed to back him up for the night and did so very efficiently, without much in the way of practice time. Despite the somewhat surreal quality of the night - Alden and company doing a little head-banging thing while punching out a powerful, dark chorded originals as an oldish guy in a pink dress shirt did disco moves on the dance floor with a woman who looked like Nurse Ratchett - it was a fierce, very forceful performance by a guy who has a right to take himself pretty damn seriously.

Greta Sproul is a freelance writer for Face Magazine, 207-288-4500, mail@facemag.com