Deadline day finds me stranded in the wake of Irene, without power, and, so, without access to the usual digital lineup of upcoming musical events to report to you. Go to the Compass Calendar for listings. But in my brief life as a shut-in, I came to think about musical depictions of meteorological events. Like “Stormy Weather,” Harold Arlen’s song of heartbreak has to top the list. It’s been covered countless times and made more than a few Grammy-winners. Ethel Waters was the original, though perhaps Lena Horne is best associated with the song, which she sang in the movie of the same name. (Bonnie Raitt’s beautiful “Storm Warning” is in somewhat the same vein, though softer and less jazzy.) Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony: The depiction of a violent storm in the penultimate movement is one of the most spellbinding moments in classical music, and represented a significant breakthrough in Beethoven’s style. He uses rumbling double basses and then rolling kettle drums for thunder, piccolos for wind, and startling dissonances and piled-up chords to dramatize the height of the gale. For the finale, the sun comes out and a beautiful major-key song prevails. Then there’s “La Mer” (“The Sea”). Few composers were better than the French impressionist Claude Debussy at painting pictures with music. While this signature symphonic piece does not, strictly speaking, contain a storm, each of its three sections paints a specific scene: “From dawn to midday on the sea,” “Play of the waves,” and “Dialogue of the wind and the waves,” which is anything but a calm “dialogue,” and ends with blaring brass and crashing chords. “Grand Canyon Suite,” Ferde Grofe’s romantic composition evoking one of the wonders of the American landscape, includes a stirring “cloudburst” that owes much to Beethoven’s model, but is even more literal, with swirling strings and piano blowing wind, cymbals as lightning and drums for thunderclaps. Of course, we cannot end this list without mentioning the folk ballad “Irene, Goodnight,” as we say goodbye to she-whose-eye-passed-right-overhead. It was first recorded by an early 1900s blues artist — and criminal — named Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, at the instigation of the great folk musicologists, John and Alan Lomax, but is said to be based on a song that dates back to the previous century. It was Pete Seeger’s group, The Weavers, who made it famous in the 1950s, in a slightly less bleak version. This is a song, lest we forget, in which the narrator threatens to “jump in the river and drown.” Fortunately, having been spared a really bad blow from Irene, we can forgo such a notion.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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