by | Jun 12, 2019 1:00 pm | Comments (0)
Western Centuries; Jim Miller at left.
As a veteran musician in a young band, Jim Miller knows what it’s like when things come full circle, yet are new at the same time. So it will be when his current band, Western Centuries, arrives at Cafe Nine on Friday to play in the town that helped turn him on to the music he loved decades ago.
by | Jun 3, 2019 2:08 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
Residences at Ninth Square.
A Boston-based developer has closed on its purchase of the 335-unit, mixed-use complex that anchors the Ninth Square, thereby preserving over half of the buildings’ apartments as affordable in exchange for a 20-year tax break.
Continue reading ‘New Owner Closes On 9th Square Properties’
by | Jun 3, 2019 7:34 am | Comments (2)
“Do you know any places where I can listen to the blues?” my best friend Deborah Ranilla asked me a few weeks back.
Funny you should ask, I told her, because I had stopped by The State House just a couple of weeks before on a Sunday to check out their monthly blues show, but I had only caught the tail end of it and wanted to return.
Deb and I have been best friends since our childhood in East Haven, and we have had our share of late nights out in the New Haven (most of them would be considered off the record), but times and lives change, and we had not been to a show here just the two of us in many many years. We made plans to go to the next State House blues show, which happened to be last night. I told her to come hungry because not only would there be music, but there would also be food.
Continue reading ‘Blues N’ Brisket N’ Best Friends At The State House’
by | May 31, 2019 12:28 pm | Comments (0)
“Dude, that rhythm section is pretty great!” I overheard as the Haitian band RAM fired through its first rounds of mizik rasin, a brew of vodou and good old rock ‘n’ roll.
by | May 31, 2019 7:33 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Killer Kin
New Haven was experiencing its third night in a row of torrential rain, and the streets were pretty quiet for a Thursday, but the sounds inside of Cafe Nine more than made up for the gray and gloom surrounding it. Presented by Please Kill Me, a website based around the works of authors Legs McNeil and Gilllan McCain and dedicated to culture and entertainment, from music and art to books and movies, the night’s inaugural show featured the debut of a local band and a return of a legend.
by | May 24, 2019 7:40 am | Comments (0)
Erin Lee Antonak
Sky Woman, Relative(ity), and Cosmic Joke.
The works on the wall are made of bright concentric rings, like tree trunks or onions, but also like astronomical objects, orbits. They’re things to enter, things to fall into. There’s a sound in the room, faraway and soothing, and there’s something different even about the air of the room. It’s hard to place exactly how it all adds up, but it does. And the overall effect is that rare thing in today’s politically charged art world: It’s soothing. Which is all the more impressive when you discover that there’s meaning behind the solace.
by | May 22, 2019 7:38 am | Comments (2)
Bernadette Despujols
Bimbo Chair 1 and I Chose Not to Be a Mom Chair.
Two chairs face each other in the window of Artspace’s gallery on the corner of Orange and Crown. One is interwoven with hair. The other one is occupied by an enormous, amorphous pink blob. In another part of the gallery is a schematic of the plans highway developers really had for the city of New Haven decades ago — plans they may well have implemented if the federal funds hadn’t run out.
The chair and the highway plans are connected. How?
by | May 16, 2019 12:18 pm | Comments (0)
Allison Hadley Photo
Los Mirlos.
Ah, the sounds of the Amazon. Leaves swaying. Birds chirping. Monkeys calling. Driving percussion. Psychedelic guitar. Heels hitting the hardwood floor of the State House on Wednesday night: With its sonido amazonico, the legendary Peruvian band Los Mirlos took New Haven on a special journey.
by | May 13, 2019 7:15 am | Comments (0)
Peter Ganushkin Photo
There’s an austerity to the music of Fly or Die, the quartet led by trumpeter Jaimie Branch. The band’s second set at Firehouse 12 on Friday night was cinematic, about 50 minutes in length, during which they displayed a wide scope of expression. Whether fluidly navigating between open spaces for part or all of the band, or playing pieces with tight grooves and prominent vocals and lyrics by the leader, the music felt grounded and present throughout, displaying a sense of trust between the members — and a puckish sense of humor.
by | May 10, 2019 7:25 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
The Drawbar.
Nick Lloyd looked out from the seat of his Hammond organ to the full house that had come to Cafe Nine to hear The Drawbar — Lloyd, guitarist George Baker, and drummer Sam Oliver III — play together in public, as a trio, for the very first time.
“We’re just going to start playing,” Lloyd said, “and then we’ll talk about it later.”
by | May 7, 2019 11:51 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
TEEN
As she took some time to tune her guitar between songs, Danielle Capalbo of daniprobably told the audience Monday night at Cafe Nine, “TEEN is so great and they’re really fun. We are all going to figure this out together.” She received a few shouts of yes right back at her from the crowd.
by | Apr 24, 2019 7:01 am | Comments (0)
Kholood Eid Photo
Kidambi.
There is a matter-of-factness to how vocalist, keyboardist, composer, and improviser Amirtha Kidambi sings the text “eat the rich or die starving” toward the end of the opening track of From Untruth, the newest album from her quartet Elder Ones. The group plays in support of this album this Friday, April 26, at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street.
by | Apr 18, 2019 11:24 am | Comments (1)
Thomas Breen photo
Firefighters on the scene at 746 Chapel St.
A dumpster fire in a back lot caused heavy smoke damage inside the Chapel Street federal post office, and led to the temporary closure of stretches of Chapel and State. No one was injured.
by | Apr 9, 2019 4:47 am | Comments (0)
Adam Matlock Photos
Smith.
When trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith presented the first CREATE Festival at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street in 2017, the endeavor served to introduce, or reintroduce, people to Smith’s body of work as a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer.
From the atmosphere in the room on Sunday, this year’s CREATE Festival — the third — was as much about the celebration of a musical family, old and new.
by | Apr 8, 2019 7:52 am | Comments (0)
With the performance of Mauritanian griot musician and singer Noura Mint Seymali and Brooklyn-based Ethiopian jazz act Anbessa Orchestra in late March, and the upcoming shows from Brooklyn from Zimbabwean rhythm kings Mokoomba on Tuesday, April 9, the State House, our fair city’s most precocious young venue, has kicked off its World Beat concert series, allowing locals to explore the fertile frontier of international grooves without having to leave the comfort of the Elm City.
by | Apr 5, 2019 7:30 am | Comments (0)
Noah Kim photo
Stamford musician Furious Stylesz received an email informing him that his song had been selected as one of seven to be played for an award-winning music supervisor. The next night, he caught a train up to the Elm City to see how it would be received.
Continue reading ‘“Secret” Songwriters Rock The State House’
by | Apr 4, 2019 7:49 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photo
Thelma and the Sleaze.
“It’s great to be here in New Haven on a … what day is it?” asked L.G., lead singer and guitarist for Thelma and the Sleaze.
“Wednesday!” someone yelled.
The energy and atmosphere at Cafe Nine last night had enough of a party vibe to make anyone forget that it wasn’t already the weekend, as three bands steamrolled through the first true hot and sweaty night of the season.
by | Mar 25, 2019 7:42 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
FUTURE PUNX
“Hi, we’re people making noises,” said Emily Rose of Glambat, the opening act of a three-band bill at Cafe Nine on Friday that filled the small space with large waves of sound, loads of mirth, and lots of movement.
Brooklyn band Future Punx headlined the night, supported by local bands Pleasure Beat and the aforementioned Glambat, who when last seen by this reporter had begun working on a record and had a few different members.
by | Mar 21, 2019 8:01 am | Comments (8)
Tenant Patricia Hoskie: “It sucks.”
Free parking will soon be a perk of the past for tenants at a 335-unit Ninth Square apartment complex on the brink of changing hands.
Continue reading ‘Farewell Free Parking For 9th Sq. Tenants’
by | Mar 20, 2019 12:10 pm | Comments (0)
Charmaine Lee Photo
If you like the guitar, complicated music, or poetry, Wendy Eisenberg wants you to come to her Friday gig at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street.
by | Mar 13, 2019 7:13 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Private Language.
Ryan Sindler of Private Language let loose a couple chords from his guitar. It was all bassist Matthew Peddle and drummer Nikolai Corey needed to fall, and they were off. Only after the first song did Sindler introduce the band.
“Hello,” he said. “Now let’s go around,” he motioned to the small but enthusiastic audience. No one responded.
by | Mar 11, 2019 7:39 am | Comments (1)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Todd Rogers.
Anthony Apuzzo and Michael Cooper were set up next to each other at the Junk Fed Pop Culture Bazaar at the State House this past Saturday. Both of their tables were filled with items they had collected over the years but now were trying to sell to make room in their homes. They thought they had perhaps hit a bit of a snag in their plans, though. There was also a lot of stuff at the bazaar they wanted to purchase.
“Everything we make we’re gonna spend today,” joked Cooper. “I already bought something off Anthony!”
by | Mar 6, 2019 3:28 pm | Comments (14)
Paul Bass Photo
Coliseum site; developer Fowler (inset).
Conference center? No longer key to the project.
Continue reading ‘Coliseum Site Plan No Longer Hinges On Conference Center’
by | Mar 5, 2019 1:05 pm | Comments (12)
Shelby Head
Power Figure.
There’s a body in the hallway of the Yale Divinity School. Maybe it’s a mummy wrapped in linen, or a cast with a form inside it. Whatever the case, it’s on an ironing board, and it’s hard to miss the spikes driven into the spot where its sternum would be. Look again, and you see that a cable is wrapped around the body. One end goes to an outlet in the floor. The other to the iron itself. It is, in a sense, the embodiment of domestic violence — and standing next to it, it feels like a rebuke. Could you have done something to stop it?
by | Mar 1, 2019 2:45 pm | Comments (3)
Brian Slattery Photo
Delerme and Corcoran inside Baobab.
Ewing at the controls.
Piyar Delerme and Kayte Corcoran, hosts of Midwife Crisis, sat in front of the microphones in New Haven’s new podcast hub, Baobob Tree’s storefront studio on Orange Street. They debated which genre to choose for the theme music. Corcoran offered punk music. Delerme demurred. Corcoran quickly offered ‘90s R&B.
“We can get together on ‘90s R&B,” Delerme said. “The punk is not going to work, despite the fact that I kill Doc Martens.”