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Littlest Man Band back together at Pub Rock
BY ALEX GALLAGHER Progress Staff Writer
After attempting to live what he called a “normal life” working in IT and various positions at a grocery store, Scott Klopfenstein realized how much he missed being a full-time musician.
So, he made the bold decision to move his family from New York to California and focus on music for the first time in more than a decade.
He had also felt inspired by his non-musician life to create art that empathized with his fans.
“I needed to come off the road because I needed to figure out what being a person was like after I had been touring since I was around age 15,” Klopfenstein said. “I needed to know what it was like to be a person to make art that is about people and for people. I feel like I’ve had experiences now and a perspective that I hope is worth sharing.”
In 2003, he formed The Littlest Man Band.
“When I moved back to California in July 2020, my manager asked who I wanted to play with and I said, ‘let’s get the gang back together,’” Klopfenstein said.
He re-recruited bassist Jake Berrery and guitarist/pianist Vince Walker and the band got back to jamming. Klopfenstein said it felt as if no time
Klopfenstein: Scott Klopfenstein is set to hit the stage with The Littlest Man band June 11 for an enchanting evening of music. (Special to the Progress) had passed since they last picked up their instruments in the same room. “I think that’s the beautiful thing about music and artists in general: it’s such a transient living and existence that we can pick up where we left off and the communication lines that were there are still there, especially with cats that understand how I work,” he said. Klopfenstein also began stream���BAND ���� 38
OdySea Aquarium has brought back its conservation art challenge for a second year where kids ages 12 and under can receive a free ticket for creating an endangered animal out of recycled materials and fi lling out a submission form. (Special to the Progress)
OdySea’s conservation art challenge returns
BY ALEX GALLAGHER Progress Staff Writer
After receiving northwards of 300 art pieces last year, OdySea Aquarium has re-launched its conservation art challenge for kids 12 and under.
They are invited to create an works that resemble endangered species out of recycled materials and earn a ticket for free admission.
Each piece must resemble one of the over 40,000 species of wildlife listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species. Artists must also fill out a printable submission form and turn that and their work to the OdySea Aquarium Aqua lobby by June 8 on what is also known as World Oceans Day.
“I just want to tell anybody that participates in this program, like, first of all, thank you so much for taking the time to make an impact,” said Jess Tammen, the supervisor of dive operations and conservation at OdySea Aquarium.
“Hopefully, letting other people see your artwork and draw some sort of emotional connection to the animal that you chose.”
In addition to receiving a free children’s admission ticket, the young artists will see their works on display in the aquarium’s “Kid’s Corner Gallery” near the facility’s penguin habitat and
ing small concerts from his home via Twitch as often as three times a week for between two and three hours.
When Klopfenstein felt comfortable enough to bring the band back to the stage in October 2021, he had several goals he wanted to accomplish with live performances.
He reflected on what made his shows special when he played rhythm guitar and trumpet for the ska band Reel Big Fish for nearly 20 years and how he could recreate that magic.
“That was the thing that Reel Big Fish had was a big show with interludes and it was entertaining,” Klopfenstein said.
He also aimed to create a space where fans felt a sense of belonging.
“The idea of re-forming a band was to create a place where people belonged and felt like they were people with ideas and strengths,” Klopfenstein said.
He also hopes to generate a catharsis among fans who flock to see him and the rest of the Littlest Man Band play at Pub Rock on Saturday June 11.
“I want to be able to provide a full spectrum of emotions and experiences and I want there to be a catharsis,” Klopfenstein said. “I want people to laugh, feel stuff, get some energy out and feel hopeful. At the end of the day,
SCOTTSDALE PROGRESS | WWW.SCOTTSDALE.ORG | JUNE 5, 2022 the most important thing to leave people with is hope.”
He aims to do that with a curated set of tracks from The Littlest Man Band’s discography as well as tunes from his solo career.
“It’s going to be a mixture of The Littlest Man Band record ‘Better Book Ends’ … along with some of the stuff I released over the year or so like ‘Welcome to New York’ and ‘The Hilarious’ as well as three new tunes, two of which should be out before the show,” Klopfenstein said.
No matter which tracks fans jive to, Klopfenstein is eager to get back on stage and interact with his fans.
“We’re just excited that the world is allowing us to go out and see people again,” he said. “To see people’s faces, to watch them dance, watch them smile, sing along and laugh at jokes is a treat.”
If you go
What: The Littlest Man Band with Scott Klopfenstein of Reel Big Fish with special guests When: 8 p.m. Saturday June 11 Where: Pub Rock Live 8005 E. Roosevelt St., Scottsdale. Cost: $15 Info: pubrocklive.com and scottklopfenstein.com
CONSERVATION ���� ���� 37
The OdySea Aquarium Conservation Committee will judge the artwork and award prizes to the best submissions.
The grand prize for the top five artworks is art created by some of the aquarium’s animals like seals, sloths and penguins.
“Paintings for the top five winners that will be made by an animal in the building, it will either be an African penguin, one of our sloths, or one of the sea lions and it’ll depend on the animal team who wants to paint that day,” Tammen said.
“Penguins typically walk through paint and then they’ll walk across the canvas, the sea lions, some of them do nose prints where we’ll put paint on their nose, and they’ll press their nose up against the canvas And some of the animals can hold paintbrushes also. So, it depends on the animal.”
Although there are incentives in the challenge, Tammen hopes that creating art from recycled materials inspires children to make conservation efforts of their own that could help rescue these endangered species from extinction.
“I hope that by kids learning about these different animals that they take away some information from it and by turning in these art pieces, they’re also impacting other people and helping make this change,” Tammen said. “I always like to tell people that conservation can be this big overwhelming issue but you don’t have to do conservation perfectly. A whole bunch of
Kids have over 40,000 animals on the red list to choose from and recreate out of recycled materials (Special to the Progress) Kids have until June 8 to submit art to OdySea aquarium.
(Special to the Progress)
people doing imperfect conservation is still going to be better than not making any changes and a whole bunch of people making one tiny change ends up having a huge impact on the environment.”
Tammen also hopes that it will open kids’ and parents’ eyes as to how species of animals end up on the red list.
“If you get on the red list and you look up all these animals individually, something that you see quite often is a common denominator is humans and kind of the impacts that we have,” she said. “Whether it’s through unsustainable fishing practices, or it could be pollution, or it could be all these different plastics that are being released out into the atmosphere, which is a different type of pollution.
“To see all these different animals, and then think that if I make one small change to my day, it could have a positive impact on the environment in the future.”
So far Tammen and the rest of the crew at OdySea Aquarium have been astonished by the entries.
“There have been some amazing pieces that have come in so far, we have a California condor piece, which is awesome,” Tammen said. “There’s also this huge like foot and a half sunflower star that’s made out of packing material and that the kid that brought that in went above and beyond.
“Not only did they fill out the worksheet and bring in this cool art piece, but they also printed out a whole bunch of sunflower star facts, which is so neat. So, all that’s on display right now.”
Tammen has also been wowed by the number of works that have been submitted and hopes to smash last year’s number of submissions.
“We have gotten quite a few submissions in the last few days, so at this point, I’m going to say we might break that number this year, but I guess only time will tell,” she said.
