Submitted photo Goose’s visit to the River Street Jazz Cafe in Wilkes-Barre is part of the band’s fall tour, coming between gigs in Cambridge, Mass., and New York, N.Y. - Submitted photo The band’s name, Goose, came from a word that had many meanings to Rick Mitarotonda and his one-time co-workers at a taco restaurant in Colorado. - Submitted photo The four musicians of Goose include Peter Anspach on vocals, keyboards and guitar; Trevor Bass on bass; Ben Atkind on drums and Rick Mitarotonda on vocals and guitar. -

IF YOU GO What: Goose in concert When: 10 p.m. Oct. 25. Doors open at 8 p.m. Where: River Street Jazz Cafe, 667 N. River St., Wilkes-Barre Admission: $8 in advance. $12 at the door. Call 570-822-2992 or see riverstreetjazzcafe.com. Event is for ages 21 and older.

“I’m sick and tired of picking these thorns from my leg,” Rick Mitarotonda wrote for a song called “Turned Clouds.”

“I’ve packed every inch of the getaway car for someplace new,” he penned for a song called “Lead the Way.”

“And I’ve been saving shotgun for you.”

Then there are the words from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu sacred text, that he included in song called “Indian River.”

If you’re intrigued by Mitarotonda’s lyrics, or the idea of a band called Goose that blends contemporary folk and funk with a touch of jazz and blues, reggae and rock, and even a hint of Sanskrit, you can hear more during a concert set for 10 p.m. Oct. 25 at the River Street Jazz Cafe.

Goose, a four-musician band based out of Norwalk, Conn., that performed in July at Scranton’s Peach Music Festival, includes Peter Anspach on vocals, keyboards and guitar; Trevor Bass on bass and Ben Atkind on drums.

Mitarotonda sings and plays guitar and since he writes the songs, a reporter just had to ask him about the inspiration behind those lyrics.

“At the time, I was struggling with a lot of physical illness,” Mitarotonda said of writing that line about metaphorical thorns in his leg. “It took some time to really figure it out, but the real cause of that physical illness was emotional — the grief and drama. The line largely refers to that.”

While he’s worked through that difficult period, he said, “for the most part, life continues to throw new things at you. You graduate from one challenge and level up to another.”

Meeting people at a Hare Krishna Temple in Denver — “They were fantastic musicians and singers,” he said. “They made this great food and everybody sings these chants” — sparked his interest in Eastern culture, and led to his inclusion in “Indian River” of the words avinasi tu tad viddhi yena sarvam idam tatam, which speak of the indestructibility of the soul.

As for “Lead the Way,” the song about the getaway car and a friend named Sadie who would get to ride shotgun, Mitarontonda said, “It was actually my dog. I wrote it while she was passing away.”

“The beginning of the song is just like, ‘Let’s get out of here and we’ll go away.’ I knew she was dying. It’s like you’re losing something and you’re rejecting it (the idea.) You’re in denial and holding on really tight. But the end of the song is the acceptance of it. The last chorus, instead of ‘won’t you stay with me forever’ is like ‘lead the way to our heaven.’ ”

When asked how the band got its name, Mitarotonda said he used to work for “a hole-in-the-wall taco place in Colorado,” where he and his co-workers would call each other Goose, just for the silliness of it all, or use the word in place of a common restaurant phrase such as “to go.”

“It was just a stupid, mindless joke,” he recalled. “The kind that comes up when you work in a kitchen all day with colorful characters. I thought it would be a funny word for a bar band. Each time I tried to change it, it wasn’t happening.”

The band’s press materials say “the atmosphere Goose radiates could be likened to a keg party in the woods,” and the band actually did record its debut album, “Moon Cabin,” at a cabin in New Hampshire near a frozen lake.

“We were pretty much inside working for 12 days,” Mitarotonda said. “The only time we went out was to the grocery store.”

Well, there was one other time. “Our good friend and engineer that we brought with us — his name is Kenny Cash — he strung microphone cables together and we went out 50, 60, 70 feet onto the lake” to record a song. “He wanted to get that natural reverb.”

“To be honest the tonal quality doesn’t sound that great,” Mitarotonda said. “But us knowing that we did that is kind of special.”

Goose’s visit to the River Street Jazz Cafe in Wilkes-Barre is part of the band’s fall tour, coming between gigs in Cambridge, Mass., and New York, N.Y. https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_Goose-Full-Band-picture-1.jpg Goose’s visit to the River Street Jazz Cafe in Wilkes-Barre is part of the band’s fall tour, coming between gigs in Cambridge, Mass., and New York, N.Y. Submitted photo The band’s name, Goose, came from a word that had many meanings to Rick Mitarotonda and his one-time co-workers at a taco restaurant in Colorado. https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_goose2-1.jpg The band’s name, Goose, came from a word that had many meanings to Rick Mitarotonda and his one-time co-workers at a taco restaurant in Colorado. Submitted photo The four musicians of Goose include Peter Anspach on vocals, keyboards and guitar; Trevor Bass on bass; Ben Atkind on drums and Rick Mitarotonda on vocals and guitar. https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/web1_Goose-Press-Photo-Spring-2019-1.jpg The four musicians of Goose include Peter Anspach on vocals, keyboards and guitar; Trevor Bass on bass; Ben Atkind on drums and Rick Mitarotonda on vocals and guitar. Submitted photo

Genre-blending musicians to perform Oct. 25

By Mary Therese Biebel [email protected]