Dave Shaheen is a man of many accomplishments. He has worked in television production, teaches television production, and he is also a professional musician. Shaheen has been the leader of the popular cover band Hurricane Alley for many years.Hurricane Alley has become an institution in the clubs that host the band.Shaheen played his first paid gig in 1979, a high school graduation party in a friend’s backyard. He was born in Revere. His parents had five boys and four became musicians who played in bands together.
Hurricane Alley was born after Shaheen took six years off from the business to raise his kids. In 1994, Shaheen’s brother, a drummer, was in a band called Smokin’ Toad that was hosting an open mike night in Londonderry, New Hampshire at the now defunct T.R.’s Tavern.
“He sort of talked me into bringing my guitar and doing a few acoustic tunes by myself, and I did,” Shaheen said. He went over well and received encouragement to get back into it.
That trio had included Tim Pike on guitar, Rich Knox on bass, Steve Shaheen on drums. They eventually invited Dave Shaheen to join the band.
“It was a total mind blower for me because they were a working band. That’s all they did for a living. I always had other jobs.” Smokin’ Toad bought a van and drove up to the White Mountains and spent many nights sharing hotel rooms.
Smokin’ Toad eventually replaced Rich Knox with Shaheen’s cousin Tony DeGennaro while Smokin’ Toad was going through the process of breaking up. Things took a turn for the better. A man who had seen the band at T.R.’s Tavern turned out to be local booking agent Paul Costley. Costley asked Shaheen and his cousin Tony if they wanted to do any work as solo and duo acts. The Shaheens were soon playing up in Guilford, New Hampshire. The duo format worked better as it allowed for more harmony.
“While we were driving up there, we were trying to think of what to call ourselves,” Shaheen recounted. “There were a lot of hurricanes in the news. It seems like the east coast is Hurricane Alley these days, and we thought it would be a one time gig but it went over well, and Paul Costley kept booking us for solo, duo stuff.”
By 1997, Hurricane Alley was a full force gale on the New Hampshire music scene and beyond. Band gigs came next and Shaheen’s younger brother, Phil, became the drummer for Hurricane Alley. The trio traveled from Canaan, Vermont on the Canadian border to Woodstock Station in the White Mountains to Whippersnappers in Londonderry, New Hampshire and back up to Kittery, Maine. They also played onboard a steamship on Lake Winnipesaukee.
“Paul Costley has been very helpful to us over the years finding places for us,” Shaheen said. “From private parties to gigs at ski resorts to large nightclubs to small nightclubs. He’s somebody I want to bring up as somebody who’s kept Hurricane Alley alive.”
That doesn’t mean Shaheen won’t share a chuckle at Mr. Costley’s expense. During an overnight gig on Nantucket Island, Shaheen and his band had to spend the night at Costley’s place. Sleeping on a bed a few feet away from Costley, Shaheen couldn’t get a wink because Costly “snores like a mountain gorilla.”
Shaheen also credits Lisa Guyer and Gardner Berry from Mama Kicks who invited him to sit in at their gigs at Player’s in Salem, New Hampshire after they had initially formed Mama Kicks.
Shaheen’s favorite things about Hurricane Alley is that he met his wife, Minda, at one of his gigs. “The original trio, Tony, Phil, and I were playing at Woodstock Station. My wife at the time, she was 24 years old, and working for an environmental consultant out in Utah. They sent her to New Hampshire to do an environmental impact study for the U.S. Forest Service at Loon Mountain back when they were still trying to put the new trails at Loon. And she made the mistake of having dinner at Woodstock Station. The rest is history.”
“I should extend that by saying my favorite thing about Hurricane Alley is meeting all sorts of cool people, folks I wouldn’t ordinarily have met, and it’s made life more interesting.”
Shaheen uses a rotating cast of musicians for Hurricane Alley. It’s almost never the same line up as the last time you’ve seen them. “I do it because the gigs have slowed down in recent years,” Shaheen said. “So, it’s hard for me to keep one group of musicians together. Most of them do other work with other bands. A lot of the guys I work with are either full time musicians or they want to be working every weekend.”
Hurricane Alley has been playing at Whippersnapper since the mid-1990s. The band comes across good musically while the presentation is very informal. “We want to have a good time above everything else,” Shaheen said. “So, we don’t try to do the most popular music of the day to get bigger, fancier gigs and stuff like that. We’d rather play a small club where we can joke around one on one with folks close by and where we can play the music that we enjoy.”
Whippersnappers is the smallest room his band plays in. Hurricane Alley usually play the room on Sundays, and the band is put in the middle of the lounge, to the side of the bar and in front of the tables.
“I really like playing like that,” he said. “I would rather play in somebody’s living room than play in a casino with a thousand people. To me, there’s a certain intimacy about the music, and I just try to enjoy that.”
Shaheen’s set list goes over well at Whippersnappers. He said the songs are simply songs that he likes. At one point, his booking agent said he could get more gigs if he learned Top 40 stuff. So, for the first time of Hurricane Alley’s history, the band went into rehearsal seven or eight times before they realized they were hitting a brick wall.
“We all looked at each other and said, ‘This is not what we’re about.’ We’re not trying to impress anyone. We’re not trying to learn current stuff and get more gigs. We just want to play the music we love and if we can find a club that will have us, great.”
Shaheen’s favorite memory of playing at Whippersnappers came a few years ago when his friend Rex Trailer came up to play with his band. Shaheen befriended the former host of the children’s TV show Boomtown while working with him in the Boston television market. Shaheen also got to work with Mark Goddard(Major West on Lost In Space) in the local market.
Shaheen sometimes plays with a wedding band called Intrigue that got him into Palmer’s Restaurant and the country clubs in Andover, Massachusetts. Shaheen has been teaching Media Production at Methuen High School for 15 years, and he volunteers one night each week as assistant professor for Rex Trailer at Emerson College. Shaheen has produced many TV shows and he produced the official Laconia Bike Week DVD in 2003, 2004, and 2005 with his former Smokin’ Toads bass player Rich Knox.
Shaheen has a hit song on YouTube called “Take Your Attitude And Go Away.” The tune is about an ex-girlfriend’s step mom who was not the nicest person. He also has another YouTube hit called “You’ve Got Depends” that he sings to the tune of “You’ve Got A Friend.” The “Depends” song was not meant for public display. It was a song he wrote for an uncle who was turning 70. He wrote it as gift because he couldn’t make it to his uncle’s birthday party, and it was played over a PA system. Shaheen makes these recordings on his home equipment.
Well-connected in the Boston music scene, Shaheen got to sing lead vocals on some Pink Floyd songs with the Berklee College Contemporary Symphony Orchestra. When the conductor couldn’t find any students who were right for the part, Shaheen’s friend Jon Finn got him the job. Shaheen was told there were some musicians looking for a guy to sing Pink Floyd songs. He walked into the rehearsal room, and saw it was a hundred piece orchestra.
“After shitting myself, I did my best at the rehearsals and they liked me. I got three rehearsals, and then they performed at a cathedral in Boston, and I got to sing the Pink Floyd stuff and it was a total blast.”
Shaheen credits Jon Finn for much of his success. Finn is a world renowned guitarist who has helped Shaheen improve his guitar playing. A Berklee College of Music professor, Finn is the musical director of Hurricane Alley. The guitarist/professor, Shaheen reported, has also recorded all of Hurricane Alley’s demo recordings. “Just by being near him, I end up playing better,” Shaheen said.
Shaheen played a gig with Rex Trailer at the Hatch Shell in Boston on the same day he and Trailer were scheduled to play another gig later in the same day at the White Mountains. Shaheen and his friends arrived just in time for The White Mountains show as it was videotaped for a segment of Channel Nine’s Chronicle television program. “That was a nutty day in the life of Dave,” Shaheen said.