Ifeanyi Awachie Photo
On the Saturday night before Independence Day, an explosive concert in a Fair Haven living room proved that New Haven’s music scene is a force to be reckoned with.
The multi-artist lineup, featuring New Haven-based rappers Teake and Mooncha and funk/progressive/jam band food. took the stage at the Brenner Brothers, a venue just off of Grand Avenue. In the backyard, the Brenner Brothers and their friends served clam chowder and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for their guests. Max Duenkel of Haphazard Glass worked on glass blowing. An adorable Corgi-esque dog named Chip roamed, making fans of everyone he passed. The event was equal parts cookout, house party, and live show.
Three-man outfit food. kicked off the music, warming up with covers of Outkast and Michael Jackson. They then launched into a sound that was hard to define and clearly complicated to execute without the musicianship of band members Tyler Kamens, Nic D’Amico, and Bridgges Stanley. Their long numbers — five to seven minutes apiece — sounded at first like ska topped with metal-style vocals, anchored by frontman Tyler Kamens’ saxophone. At times, you could bob your head to a heavy bass beat or snatches of melody, but the music was generally richly arrhythmic, reminiscent of jazz improvisations. To end their set, food. invited Teake and Mooncha onstage for a cover of Flobot’s “No Handlebars” that grew more and more powerful as the song progressed, culminating in freestyles by both rappers and a scream-rap crescendo by Kamens.
Teake treated the concert crowd to rarely performed songs and two new tunes duetted with his producer, PB Rocket, who made his debut that night as a singer. In a pink Calvin Klein t-shirt, Rocket played the R&B charmer to Teake’s charged emcee, singing lovesick lines such as “Misery needs company / There’s one of you and one of me” over an effervescent Autotune version of his voice. Teake unleashed the song “Strange Fruit,” set to Kanye West’s “Blood on the Leaves,” that began quietly and built to a growling, rapid demonstration of the rapper’s trademark social commentary and intricate wordplay.
Mooncha prefaced her performance by announcing that she produces all her songs herself, on her iPad and iPhone, no less, but the quality of the full, danceable, and entrancingly space-themed beats would fool you. Mooncha herself burst onstage with high-powered movements that made her relatively small frame seem to fill the entire room. With slick footwork and catchy and confessional choruses like, “White girls never leave me alone” and “You know you broke my heart, right,” Mooncha infected each member of the audience with her bubbly, edgy energy.
“There’s not a lot of people who look like me doing this,” the short-haired black female rapper, clad in jersey and baseball cap, said. As she spoke of the ways her music reflects her personality and addressed many of her songs to a nameless “girl,” it was clear that this emcee possessed the honesty and genuineness that marks a true artist.
The sound quality throughout the concert was crisp thanks to engineering by Dylan Champion of Brick Wall Studios, who adjusted levels for each of the artists and played guitar for food. at one point. The crowd was intimate enough for the artists to make eye contact with every single person in the room, and yet immersive enough to get lost in. Considering the production quality, the caliber of the artists — all of whom performed simply for the love for performing — the food, the coziness of the venue, and the uniqueness of the experience, it is remarkable that the event was offered for free.
It is clear, however, that the hosts weren’t in it for profit. “My favorite thing is to see people collaborate together, and to know that I was a small part of that,” said Louis Brenner of the Brenner Brothers. On this weekend commemorating independence, the concert was a celebration of collaboration — among homebrewers, glassblowers, musicians, and sound engineers alike — of New Haven music, and of good times. Here’s to many more.