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Brian Slattery |
May 1, 2023 8:56 am
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“Mr. Dynamite,” the first song off Killer Kin’s latest (and self-titled) album, starts with a churning two-note riff that acts as a distillation of the band’s whole approach to making music — raw, propulsive, and sexy. When the rest of the band slams in to kick up the energy a few more notches, it feels like a promised fulfilled. The singer’s barked vocals culminate in a bare-bones, ruthlessly effective chorus: “dynamite’s coming, you better run / dynamite’s coming, you better hide / dynamite coming, you better run.” It’s a warning that you don’t want to listen to, because the explosion of the rest of the album is worth sticking around for.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 28, 2023 8:39 am
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T. Charles Erickson Photos
Steven Sapp.
To a rapt audience at Space Ballroom on Thursday, Steven Sapp, of the theatre company UNIVERSES, was finishing a riveting spoken-word piece. “We bite the hand that feeds us,” he said, “because it hasn’t fed us enough.” The line resonated through the room, a breath before another onslaught of singing and rapping, harmonies and rhythms that formed the backbone of Long Wharf Theatre’s production of Live from the Edge, running at the Hamden music club now through May 21.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 27, 2023 9:04 am
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On San Juan's bustling Calle Elisa Cerra.
In Castor and Raúl Ayala's showroom in Loíza.
San Juan, Puerto Rico — Four men with frame drums gathered in front of the microphones set up on Calle Elisa Cerra. They turned up the volume, hit their instruments hard, and sang, and plena was suddenly rocking the block.
Esquina El Watusi, one of three busy bars at the intersection, turned its music off. The DJ that had been playing pop music among the street vendors sounded far away. And a crowd made a semi-circle to listen, sing along, and cheer.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 26, 2023 8:45 am
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A small sculpture hangs from the ceiling of City Gallery on Upper State Street and floats, as if it’s alive and capable of hovering in midair, or perhaps is a bit of plant life floating in the ocean. All around it, the walls are decorated with pieces that read like fungal growth, or the traces of growth, or perhaps the tracks left by some land or sea creature. They and the rest of the pieces in the gallery are so thoroughly integrated that it would be possible to believe that they were made by a single artist. But it’s really the work of two artists — Meg Bloom and Cyra Levenson — working in conversation with one another. And as the title of the show — “Regenerations,” running through April 30 — suggests, that conversation has been nothing but fruitful.
Sandy Birner cut through the Courtyard Marriott parking lot on Howe Street Tuesday morning with two Stop & Shop bags filled with sneakers and hats, in search of the right place to show them to the world.
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Karen Ponzio |
Apr 25, 2023 8:22 am
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Joe Walsh Band show on 1/18/23 at Café Amici.
If someone said that one of the best places to hear the latest and greatest in bluegrass was based in Hamden, you might not believe them. And yet it’s the case.
GuitartownCT Productions has been bringing storied bluegrass veterans and up-and-coming stars to this area since 2008. On May 5, the series — now operating out of Cafe Amici at 1640 Whitney Ave. — will celebrate its 15th anniversary and its 120th show. It’s a milestone that Chris Wuerth, head and founder of GuitartownCT, never saw coming. In 2008, he was just a fan who wanted to bring his “bluegrass hero,” the legendary Tony Rice, to town for a show.
Roughly 100 students at an Audubon Street arts magnet school walked out of their classes and into the city’s public arts district to protest staffing cutbacks and to stand in solidarity with affected teachers.
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Allan Appel |
Apr 24, 2023 8:41 am
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Team Popcorn Colonel leader Ariel Unger with designer ball and gifts of floss.
The tension was mounting (well, sort of) late Saturday afternoon at East Rock Park: Team Popcorn Colonel — dressed in matching Orville Redenbacher outfits, complete with red suspenders and bow ties — were busy jumping on a trampoline while trying to sink a beachball-size papier-mâché popcorn kernel into a bucket.
Nearby across a blanket strewn with bike look-alike food (Cheetos and toothpicks in the shape of a two-wheeler?), Team Bicycle were forming themselves into a human velocipede.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 24, 2023 8:38 am
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MO
transformation.
The painting, titled transformation, is literally visceral, but fantastical at the same time. It is an act of carnage, though not necessarily one of violence. Are we witnessing creation or destruction? Are they part of the same thing?
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Lisa Reisman |
Apr 17, 2023 3:33 pm
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Lisa Reisman photos
A shower of pink, for 50th straight year.
Valentina Simon doing her thing at Sunday's fest.
Amid a riot of pink blossoms, the scent of spring in the air, and the sounds of Airborne’s “Groovin’ on a Sunday Afternoon,” Valentina Simon leapt and spun and twirled in front of the bandstand, prompting others to join her.
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Adam Matlock |
Apr 17, 2023 9:01 am
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New Haven Symphony Orchestra music director candidate James Blachly went out of his way during Sunday’s concert at Southern Connecticut State University to invite the audience closer: to himself, to the performers, and to the music.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 14, 2023 8:26 am
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Ben Wrobel: "How do we shift decision-making power to people with lived experience, people who are proximate to the problem?"
Ben Wrobel had just finished the beginning of his pitch, about the need for solutions to public policy programs that come from people’s lived experiences. The audience at NXTHVN on Henry Street in Dixwell was listening. “So why am I here today?” he said. “Well, last month I quit my job.”
Before he could continue, there was a hearty round of applause. It was support for his willingness to take a risk, on an idea that might lead to some good.
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Adam Matlock |
Apr 14, 2023 8:24 am
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Symphony director hopeful James Blachly.
For New Haven Symphony Orchestra Music Director candidate James Blachly, conducting was partly about finding a listener’s perspective. “What drew me to this field in the first place was a magical experience as a listener, and I spend my career trying to continue that experience for other listeners and musicians, in every hall I enter.”
Salsa's owner joins city officials to cut the ribbon ...
... on outdoor dining on Grand Ave.
Fair Haven diners can now enjoy chicken flautas on the sidewalk-adjacent patio of Grand Avenue’s Salsa’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant a month earlier than usual, thanks to the city’s expansion of outdoor dining season — which will extend year-round for qualifying businesses.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 13, 2023 8:25 am
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Greg Aimé
Sir MacArthur and Pope Francis
Greg Aimé’s Sir MacArthur and Pope Francis are already intricate enough from a visual perspective. They are riffs on, even explosions of, classic European portraiture. They are collages to get lost in, places where cultural signifiers blend and collide. They capture the scrum of history, the messy generation of culture, where suffering, celebration, experience and investigation commingle. Aimé then adds a layer for anyone with a device that can read a QR code; there’s music, narration, that gives more context, broadens and deepens the themes. The layers of aural and visual components are a statement in themselves. There’s always more to learn, always ways to dig deeper.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 12, 2023 8:38 am
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Showrocka.
It’s fitting that “peace, peace,” are the first words on the album Dear Aires, the latest release from the New Haven-based Showrocka and Ansolu. They set the tone for an album about getting older that is jubilant and nostalgic, energetic and laid-back, and always guided by two MCs who are old enough to know who they are, be at home in their style, and at the same time, ready to see where it takes them. Dear Aires is one of a few new releases from New Haven-based artists that shows the music scene as vibrant and diverse as ever, in genre and feeling.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 11, 2023 4:46 pm
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Now-former Ely Center employee Max Schmidt: "I think we can do better."
A now-former employee at a Trumbull Street visual arts gallery left his job after finding out about a board member’s decade-old child pornography arrest.
That employee is now speaking out about what he describes as an insensitive and unsupportive workplace, as well as an alleged exodus of board members sparked by their former colleague’s criminal record.
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Karen Ponzio |
Apr 11, 2023 8:16 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos.
Townwide Tyler and DJ B to the T Jr. strike a pose.
Jazz floated in the air between whispers and animated conversations as people sipped wine and coffee and munched on pita chips and popcorn this past Thursday at Best Video. It was another installment of Lounge Night — a monthly event at the film and cultural center where, over the course of four hours, patrons are treated to movies, music, and conversations about both. On this night, the crowd was treated to three short films from the New Haven 48 Hour Film Project as well as music from DJs Townwide Tyler and B to the T Jr.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 10, 2023 12:47 pm
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Conversation facilitator Kim Weston: "I want young people, and children, and anyone who walks into this space to be safe."
A downtown visual art gallery has kicked off a public reckoning with how to become a “safe” workplace in the wake of resignations by several board members and an employee.
