When a press release with the name “Ladies Auxiliary Ukulele Orchestra” crosses your desk, you have to investigate. After all, it’s not often ukuleles are heard in the Northwest Corner, let alone a whole orchestra of them. Bernice Lewis, cofounder of the “LAUO,” along with Catherine Schane-Lydon and Amy Rose, says there’s been a “huge renaissance” of interest in the petite instrument. She points to a recent Time magazine article about how the ukulele seems to thrive in depression periods. The LAUO began on a whim with the three musicians in 1994. Then Rose married and moved to England, and the group lay low for a while. Then a few years ago, the two found another uke player, Sarah McNair, and the LAUO came back to life, performing regularly throughout this region. The band’s website (www.ladiesauxiliaryukuleleorchestra.com) calls their music “ukulele mayhem.” Lewis, who has had a successful career as a singer-songwriter and educator for more than three decades and now lives in Williamstown, says with a laugh, “We’re more organized now.” The band plays “unusual arrangements of an eclectic mix of covers,” she says including Sting and David Bowie, Radiohead and old standards, as well as some original songs mainly written by Lewis. Tight harmonies, jaunty rhythms, and a healthy dose of humor remind me of The Roches, albeit with that unmistakably sweet and mellow ukulele sound. The LAUO will be at Dewey Memorial Hall in Sheffield this Saturday, part of a “Dewey Hall Folk Series” that itself has been running for three years. The hall is a historic Victorian building of fieldstone, marble, and shingle, with “magnificent acoustics,” says Priscilla Cote, president of the board. The set-up is café style, with refreshments served. And now, for the added bonus, the musicians bring extra ukuleles and hand them out to audience members for a “uke-in” toward the end of the concert. “After all,” Lewis says, “we are an orchestra.” And some instruments will be provided by a couple who make the famous “Fluke” ukulele — and have just moved to, where else, Sheffield! Ladies Auxiliary Ukulele Orchestra will perform May 7, 7:30 p.m., at Dewey Memorial Hall, on the Green in Sheffield, MA. For information, go to www.deweyhall.org.
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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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