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Brian Slattery |
Mar 14, 2023 9:02 am
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Lloyd.
For Nick Lloyd, owner and chief engineer of Firehouse 12 on Crown Street, the announcement of the space’s spring concert series — kicking off March 24 and running every Friday through June 23 — is both a return and a rejuvenation. As in the past, the concert series features many of the leading lights of the experimental music scene, locally, regionally, and nationally. Those groups, however, will get to play in a renovated space that reflects, after two decades, Lloyd’s even surer sense of what a concert venue can sound like, and what it can do for players and audience alike.
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Adam Matlock |
Mar 14, 2023 8:54 am
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Guo, Miller, and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
There are two responses to the notion that classical music’s canon is too narrow. The first is to turn one’s back on the canon entirely, and the second is to dig deeper into the canon, looking for lesser-known works from famous composers.
Arnold Gorlick saw one of the best leading-actress performances on the screen — then was outraged not to see it acknowledged Sunday night at the Oscars.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 13, 2023 8:59 am
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The Jovial Crew.
Rick Spencer eyed the growing crowd at Cafe Nine Sunday afternoon after the St. Patrick’s Day parade, a healthy mix of parade-goers, families, and groups of friends, as The Jovial Crew took the purple-lit stage at the club on the corner of State and Crown.
“Good evening,” he said, gesturing toward the band. “I’m Shane MacGowan. This is Dolores O’Riordan, Bono, and Van Morrison.” The references to famous Irish singers drew appreciative laughter from the crowd, and set the tone for the show to follow, as The Jovial Crew turned Cafe Nine into a regular Irish pub, right on time for the holiday.
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 10, 2023 8:50 am
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Perennial at Gather.
Four acts packed the room Thursday night at Gather, from coffee counter to chalkboard walls to bookshelves lined with everything from Eric Carle to Descartes. The lineup included Square Loop from Worcester, Mass., touring in support of their latest album, as well as local acts Perennial, Snowpiler, and Tj Redding.
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Adam Matlock |
Mar 8, 2023 8:35 am
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Tania Miller.
“When programming for an orchestra, I believe in curating experiences that will have a profound impact. Programming in a way that brings people in,” said Tania Miller, candidate for music director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. “So we don’t start with music that is unreachable.”
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 6, 2023 9:07 am
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Cloudbelly.
Corey Laitman, a.k.a. Cloudbelly, smiled at the eager crowd about halfway through their set Sunday afternoon at Cafe Nine. “I’ve never done a matinee show,” they said, marveling at the experience of performing earlier in the day. “I don’t feel tired at all. I don’t have to rally.” Laughter rippled through the room.
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Brian Slattery |
Mar 3, 2023 8:32 am
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The pulsing hook of Ionne’s “The Last Time” reverberated through the speakers at Lilly’s Pad, the upstairs stage at Toad’s Place. Dancer Tadea Martin-Gonzalez struck a pose, then moved from it, her actions graceful and strong. As the beat churned to life, Ionne himself (a.k.a. Maurice Harris) sang the first few lines, clear, concise, mixing mournfulness and hope. “All we ever feared / Was killing time / Several hundred years / Amount to / Castles that we’ll never own / And songs I write / But cannot sing myself / Our dreams of spaceships / And their secret plans / To take us somewhere else.”
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Karen Ponzio |
Mar 1, 2023 8:49 am
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The Cadavers.
Before punk was a word people tried to define, before it was a movement and state of mind, there were the live shows that brought music to many who were hungry for more than what they were getting from sharing albums with their friends. Among those many were the few who carried it out of basements and back rooms and into people’s memories.
Larry Loud, local punk legend, was a teenager in Bridgeport when he played a show with his band in 1978 that would later be heralded as the first original punk music show in Connecticut. That show will be celebrated this Saturday night, March 4, at Cafe Nine with Loud’s band The Cadavers, the New York-based Live Ones, and Bridgeport’s own Bad Attitude.
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Adam Matlock |
Feb 28, 2023 9:11 am
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Netta Hadari and Mark Rike, violins, Tina Lee Hadari, viola, Rebecca Patterson, cello (l. to r.).
In his introduction to “Brahms’ Alarm Clock,” by composer and pianist Istvan B’Racz, violinist Netta Hadari told the full house in the recital hall at Neighborhood Music School that at one point while working on the piece, he had asked the composer for “just a bit more of one section, to help complete it for me emotionally.” B’Racz obliged, and the full work, sometimes driven by a frenetic two-note motif with sudden jumps from string to string, was an impressive display. With quotes weaved in from Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and references to Hungarian folk music, the piece was a compelling study of the violin’s tone. And Hadari’s joy in playing it was clear.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 24, 2023 9:13 am
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Stone.
Cult band Buttery Cake Ass are playing what might be their final show, and it might be their best. There aren’t many people in the audience, but what they’re hearing is blowing their minds. The saddest songs make them all cry. The songs filled with rage seem like they could set the hall on fire. The band members are engaged in the kind of musical alchemy that maybe only happens a few times in every musician’s life. Somewhere on the soundboard, a tape is rolling. What will it sound like when they take it home?
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 21, 2023 8:41 am
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Album Club flyer for February
Nearly everyone is familiar with the set up of a book club: a group agrees on a book to read and then gathers a month later to discuss that book after reading it. Apply that same dynamic to a classic record and you have Album Club, one of many monthly programs at Volume Two, the State Street linchpin of both literary and lyrical offerings.
Since August 2022 the queer and feminist-centric group has been gathering once a month to discuss a classic album chosen by the participants. This Monday evening, the platter being served up was Amy Winehouse’s already-classic Back to Black.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 16, 2023 8:25 am
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The Vultures had taken their places on stage, instruments in hand.
“Do you guys want to try something?” the sound person suggested, to make sure everything was working. None of the band members said anything.
“No?” the sound person said. “Okay!” She had read the band right, as the Vultures, with three words to say to the audience (“we’re the Vultures”) kicked into a set of fuzzed-out guitar, driving drums, and rumbling low end that immediately made the mood on Wednesday night, as the New Haven-based surf-punk heroes opened up for the skatepunk-dub duo Cardiel, originally from Venezuela and now on tour from Mexico City.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 15, 2023 8:56 am
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From hip hop to dream pop with a few stops in between, New Haven’s musicians have been hitting the studio recently, and coming up with a strong start to 2023 for recorded music in the Elm City.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 13, 2023 8:35 am
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Alexandra Burnet and The Proven Winners
“I missed the view from up here,” Alexandra Burnet said as she stood on the stage at Three Sheets Friday night. “I’ve thought about it every day for years.” Three years, to be exact, as Friday night saw the first multiple-band show at the Elm Street bar since before the pandemic began.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 9, 2023 8:44 am
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Courtesy Retrosolo
Loor at the State House on Saturday.
New Haven high-school student Miguel Loor, a.k.a. Retrosolo, found an online following for his music a few years ago, but truly found his place by planting his feet in the Elm City as a performer and show organizer, packing clubs and DIY spaces from Crunch House to Space Ballroom. Now, as he contemplates doing a few out-of-town shows, he also has a sense of things coming full circle.
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Karen Ponzio |
Feb 7, 2023 9:04 am
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Alexander Silver Angeloff and a sampling of his creations.
When you walk into The Cultured Café on State Street, you are greeted by the feeling that you’ve walked into as natural a habitat as you can find that is not actually outside. Philodendrons wind around glass jars full of fermenting vegetables on a wooden counter. Above, cotton ball-like clouds dot a blue sky ceiling. What the café serves is also as close to nature as it can be, courtesy of the café’s owner Alexander Silver Angeloff, who is trying to make the path into the world of natural health safe, welcoming, and delicious.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 3, 2023 9:00 am
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As the Afro-Semitic Experience — the band headed by pianist Warren Byrd and bassist David Chevan exploring Black and Jewish religious music and the connections between them — readies for a year of concerts and recordings, it also finds itself marking a big anniversary: The band played its first concert, at Congregation Mishkan Israel, 25 years ago.
In the years since, it has recorded 11 albums and played concerts around the country. Band members have come and gone, and a couple have passed. But the creative camaraderie between Byrd and Chevan persists, as they continue to find common ground and work toward unity in the community.
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Thomas Breen |
Feb 2, 2023 12:10 pm
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Stanley "Stan the Man" Welch and Jesse Hameen II on Wednesday.
Living local jazz legend and accomplished drummer Jesse Hameen II started out his musical career at the old Winchester School with a humble pair of instruments: his own two hands, which he put to work in a “hambone” body-percussion performance in the first show of what would become a decades-long career of finding the rhythm in his home city.
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Brian Slattery |
Feb 2, 2023 8:40 am
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Stefan Christensen.
The healthy-sized audience at Cafe Nine on Wednesday night found itself treated to a night of improvised music that was somehow both energetic and soothing, harsh yet mellow, as three performances and a DJ set offered a chance to trance out from the cold.
Stetson Branch Librarian Diane Brown with Chris "Big Dog" Davis at WNHH FM.
Chris “Big Dog” Davis signed up to co-produce an update of a hit song Stevie Wonder wrote. Little did he know at first that he would also be recording the song with the legendary musician.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 30, 2023 8:41 am
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Dan Soto's Artificial Energy.
Two bands shook up Best Video this past Saturday night — one new to town and one very familiar with the local performance space. Missiles to Malta, hailing from Bethel, was playing its first show at the beloved Hamden haunt, while New Haven’s own Dan Soto’s Artificial Energy was back bringing its own unique brand of high-octane hits to friends old and new.
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Kimberly Wipfler |
Jan 27, 2023 3:52 pm
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Kolton Harris and film student Joaquín Morales.
At Thursday's BITE kickoff.
“Who would have ever thought I’d be back in here watching a film?” asked Tracey Massey, in a hushed whisper, in the back row of a film screening at the former Stetson Branch library building in the soon-to-be-demolished Dixwell Plaza.
On the projector played “Black Joy,” a musical short film by Kolton Harris, which tells the story of a group of Black students in detention who find pride and celebration in their Blackness through song and dance.
“I came to this library 40 years ago as a child growing up in this neighborhood. It is here where we learned the first stories of Black joy. Here’s where we read books about Martin Luther King Jr., where we heard the first Michael Jackson song, the first Nina Simone song. We learned about Malcolm X. All of those stories generated out of this library.”
“It was joy. It was magic. [Harris] is reminding us of that. It was really just like it is in his film,” said Massey.
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Karen Ponzio |
Jan 27, 2023 8:52 am
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Bluegrass Jamming
The back room at Next Door was jam-packed with bluegrass music lovers as the Humphrey Street restaurant featured its latest installment of the Bluegrass Jam, held on the fourth Thursday of every month and hosted by the New Haven-based band Five ‘n Change. According to band members Ken McEwen and David Sasso, the jam has been growing steadily since it began back in the spring of 2022.
