Kristen Ford performs her new song "Best Friends" on WNHH FM.
Onstage, a touring indie singer-songwriter was singing a Mother’s Day song paying tribute to a woman who made a difference in her life.
On a stool near the back of Cafe Nine, a woman retrieved a packet of tissues. She pulled one out. She needed to use it several times before the song was done.
The song was about her: The performer onstage, Kristen Ford, is her stepdaughter. It wasn’t the first time the stepmom, Diane Whittie, had shed tears over the song.
You didn’t have to be related to Ford to be touched by the song. You didn’t even have to be a mom or a stepmom (though if you have kids, it may have helped).
“Happy mother’s day / Even though it’s not your name …” Ford sang. “I will always be your kin …” She had the whole audience, not just her stepmom, with her at each step.
Ford’s unvarnished, passionate vocals added to the poignancy, as did the guitar arrangement, which made use of open high strings as a foil for a descending chord progression. Her skills as an arranger were on even more obvious display as her high-energy set continued; using a guitar, a microphone, and a loop pedal, she was able to create the sound of a full band, and like the best loop-pedal users, she made the creation of that sound part of the show, as the audience got to watch each song constructed in front of them.
Ford was in New Haven on a stop in a national “Pride” Tour that doubles as an introduction to the tracks on War in the Living Room, her new (and fifth) album.
Before heading to Boston for her next tour stop, Ford played “Mother’s Day” and stripped-down versions of two songs from the new album amid a discussion about her music and career during a visit to WNHHFM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. Click on the above video to watch her perform the album’s first single, “Grey Sky Blue.”
Ford, a familiar face over the years on stages in New Haven — where her father and stepmother live — has seen her career start to take off. In addition to the new album and tour, she has an acting role and two songs on the soundtrack album to the 2021 film Valentine Crush. (She plays a roller derby-er named Knockout Nancy.) She has embarked on side projects including Evrgrn, a project with cellist Kels Cordare, and the hip-hop duo Blu Janes, with rapper MC Genesis Blu.
Based in Nashville, Ford is described as an “indie rock singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist.” I might describe her sound as “Ani DiFranco meets Tracy Chapman meets the Ramones.” (At Cafe Nine she updated “Give Me A Reason” to reflect on American’s downward slide toward fascism.)
Whatever labels one tries to attach to her, Ford is a talent to watch as she continues spreading her wings. She returns to Connecticut for a June 16 stop at Bridgeport’s Park City Music before the tour heads west.
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Brian Slattery |
Jun 9, 2022 8:45 am
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Seny Tatchol Camara, giving instructions on how to strike the drum.
On a recent Saturday, the main hall of Yale’s Afro-American Cultural Center echoed with the sound of drums, playing driving, intricate rhythms together — compelling enough to bring someone in off the street to ask if she could join in. She was in luck: the drums were part of an African drumming and dancing class offered by the New Haven School of African Drum and Dance, which, after a long Covid-imposed hiatus, has resumed, holding classes Saturday afternoons and Monday evenings for the forseeable future.
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Brian Slattery |
Jun 2, 2022 8:59 am
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Them Airs.
“Exploded Whip,” from the new album of the same name by the New Haven-based Them Airs, starts with chiming guitars, keys, and bass, a steady rhythm with skittering beats beneath it. “He drive exploded car,” the vocalist sings, “he never intended to die / I watched as he spun out / turned his human skin outside.” The dark surrealism of the lyrics is set at an oblique angle to a song that sounds written by musicians with a lot of experience, yet who are still bursting with ideas.
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Brian Slattery |
Jun 1, 2022 8:46 am
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Beach Side Property.
Two high-energy bands — Beach Side Property and Seeing Double — shook the floorboards of Never Ending Books on Tuesday night, turning the State Street community space into a frenzied dance club.
The Shoreline-based emo band Beach Side Property — Kate Burton on guitar and vocals, Ruby DeGoursey on bass and vocals, Patrick LaLonde on guitar and backing vocals, and Ryan Shea on drums — immediately tore into a set of mostly originals with a cover or two sprinkled in for good measure that showcased what the band was all about: tight musicianship, sharp songwriting, and the ability to draw and hold a crowd. Shea on drums was a constant source of propulsion, while DeGoursey’s muscular bass playing provided pulse, rumble, and slyly sophisticated harmonies. On guitars, Burton and LaLonde created shifted textures of sound out of one hook after another. All this was the grounding for Burton and DeGoursey’s earnest, funny lyrics, delivered with a lot of heart and a sly grin. If the lyrics were often about anxieties, heartbreak, and insecurity, the voices of people moving into an uncertain future, the music itself conveyed a constant message of strength and hope — a message amplified by the sheer amount of fun the band was obviously having playing music together. That enjoyment was infectious, packing the room of Never Ending Books with cheering, dancing fans, and giving the touring band that followed the warm-up they deserved.
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Karen Ponzio |
May 31, 2022 9:05 am
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Perennial.
“Come on can you do the skeleton dance? Can you foxtrot from the crypt? Can you waltz three four five six? Yeah, it goes like this, it goes like this,” sings vocalist and keyboardist Chelsey Hahn before she and the rest of the post-hardcore power-punk band Perennial — Chad Jewett on vocals and guitar and Wil Mulhern on drums — create an absolute onslaught of sound that could both wake the dead and get them on the dance floor.
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Brian Slattery |
May 31, 2022 9:00 am
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Dunn.
“It was kind of like I was squished so hard it leaked out,” Sarah Dunn said of her first EP, Thank You — coming out this Saturday, June 4, with a release party at Gather on Upper State Street — and the torrent of songwriting that followed, in between shifts in nursing homes during the depths of the pandemic. “I happened upon a very strange way of having silence, and it allowed the space inside my head to put things down that maybe had been festering there for a while. I didn’t have the opportunity before, but suddenly I was provided the time, so I did it.”
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Colin Roberts |
May 26, 2022 9:24 am
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On Wednesday night, Cafe Nine hosted a gem of a show to a small but captivated audience. Blues and rock were the musical selling points, but the artists who shared the stage all brought an extra dimension — that of showmanship and sincerity — that can only happen in small venues like the New Haven club.
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Brian Slattery |
May 23, 2022 8:31 am
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On Sunday afternoon, dancers blessed the elements in four cardinal directions, following the traditions of generations — traditions carried from Oaxaca, Mexico to New Haven, and presented in the Elm City’s first-ever guelaguetza.
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Colin Roberts |
May 23, 2022 8:23 am
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With Honor.
For two sold-out nights at Space Ballroom, Connecticut’s own With Honor delivered to their fans after a 10-year absence, bringing an energetic and positive communal vibe to the Hamden club.
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Brian Slattery |
May 16, 2022 8:31 am
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The Town Green District’s New Haven Night Market once again drew throngs of people, as the event closed the intersection of Orange and Crown and its surrounding streets to car traffic, turning those city blocks into a bustling bazaar of food, art, and crafts. But there was also evidence that the event was expanding more informally, as artists and businesses beyond those blocks threw events to attract their own parts of the crowd.
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Maya McFadden |
May 15, 2022 2:48 pm
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Raheem DeVaughn performs at Shubert.
Freedom Fund 2022 honorees.
After a three-year hiatus, the annual Freedom Fundraiser held by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) returned full-force Thursday evening with a rhythmic and intimate remixed celebration at the Shubert Theater.
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Karen Ponzio |
May 13, 2022 9:35 am
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Mykael Ross and Band.
A most perfect early spring evening shined even brighter with the sounds of Sun Ra Thursday night, as Best Video in Hamden, in conjunction with The International Festival of Arts and Ideas, presented a Sun Ra Tribute concert on its patio to an appreciative audience of all ages.
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Laura Glesby, Nora Grace-Flood and Maya McFadden |
May 11, 2022 4:27 pm
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Independent reporters Laura Glesby, Maya McFadden, and Nora Grace-Flood on scene at New Haven's newest direct-connection destination.
It took less than ten minutes through TSA, two hours on a plane, and a timeless rock track sung by a musician moonlighting as a Lyft driver to transport a trio of New Haveners to Nashville.
In the same amount of time, three hyperlocal reporters and homebodies were transformed into tourists, traversing beyond transportation-themed press conferences into new territory bordered by bluegrass, barbecue and surprisingly substantial bike lanes for a car-centric state.
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Brian Slattery |
May 2, 2022 8:52 am
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“Your Voice,” the first song from Stephen Gritz King’s latest album, Conversations, doesn’t start with music, but a single female voice. “So there’s this saying, and this saying says that you’re only as sick as your secrets,” she says. “And for me, I was tired of being sick.”
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 29, 2022 9:52 am
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As a sketched plane lands on a runway, the driving drums give way to a big hook from a guitar, the kind you get to write after you’ve already written a million songs. Stephen Peter Rodgers — a.k.a. Steve Rodgers, formerly of Mighty Purple and the Space — follows it up with an equally sharp vocal. ” Driving all alone / silence wreaking havoc in my head / I turn the radio on / they’re talking about the end of the world again / this crazy human life / this worlds as fragile as it’s ever been.” Then, at the end of the chorus, he delivers the message: “let’s stop just getting through / it’s time live a real life / wake up, wake up / let’s live a real life again.”
Update: The plan is off for John Hinckley Jr. to return to the area on July 16, this time with a guitar rather than a gun, 41 years after he tried to assassinate then-President Ronald Reagan in an effort to impress actress (and then-Yale student) Jodie Foster.
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Randy Laist |
Apr 27, 2022 8:14 am
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A piece exploring resonant frequencies; plucking a string makes a cymbal vibrate, and striking a cymbal makes a string vibrate.
The Earth vibrates at a frequency of 7.8 Hertz. Tuning forks can be used to tell time. A stretched-out Slinky can be used to produce a Star Wars-style laser-blast sound.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 26, 2022 8:33 am
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Colombian neo-cumbia. Egyptian avant garde. Arabic surf guitar. And a baby boy. All this and more has been on the mind of musician and music promoter Rick Omonte as he rolls out a new series of shows for 2022 through his nom de booking, Shaki Presents.
The boys in the band: Nolan Wazni, Jack Marchand, Ben Card at WNHH FM.
A rising band of New Haven pop-rockers had a new album to put out. But first they had to:
• Find a place they could practice and record. • Factor in the fact that the lead vocalist’s voice was changing. • In one case, get a ride from mom for the pre-release radio interview. • In another case, get permission to leave school for an hour.
Such are the extra challenges of making your mark in music if you’re also a bunch of high-school juniors.
Yaira Matyakubova and Lyala Stowe at gathering on Peck Street.
The room was hushed when Lyala Stowe began to speak. Her voice was soft. She is from Ukraine, and she was about to recite poems by Ukrainian poets.
Stowe apologized that most audience members would not comprehend the words, spoken in her native tongue. Regardless, the room held onto every syllable.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 14, 2022 7:56 am
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“Stunted,” the first song from Ghost Tones’ latest release Live at the Cellar, starts with a long flourish from an electric guitar, a horn winding its way through it. Then the drummer settles in on a pounding rhythm that, without any other instruments playing, could be a few different genres. Maybe it’s a pop song. Maybe it’s punk. Then someone in the band counts off a measure — one, two, three, four — and the sound, especially from the guitar, chopping out offbeats, becomes unmistakable. It’s ska. And ska of the third-wave variety at that.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 13, 2022 9:07 am
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Fuller.
“7/16 Samba,” from Keep Hope Alive, the latest release from Jeff Fuller and Friends, starts with light yet complex chords from the piano. A couple hits from the drums, a couple notes from the bass, and the trio falls in together. The piano states the melody with unhurried precision while the bass surges below it. They open the tune up soon enough, though, taking their time working through the changes, giving each other plenty of time to let their solos breathe. It’s the sound of musicians who have played together for years, relaxing into the joy of being reunited and creating sounds together again — even in troubled times.
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Brian Slattery |
Apr 11, 2022 9:53 am
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Addys Castillo beamed as she looked at the crowd assembled Saturday evening for the inaugural show of bomba group Proyecto Cimarrón. To her, it was fitting that the show be held where it was, at the Citywide Youth Coalition on Chapel Street, which Castillo referred to as the Black and Brown Power Center. “This space is a space for liberation,” she said. “A place for people to laugh, have joy, and plan revolution.”
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Karen Ponzio |
Apr 11, 2022 9:50 am
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Ceschi Ramos
Four artists rapped their way into the weekend at The State House this past Friday night, and whether on that stage for the first time or for the first time in a good long while, they brought the crowd forth and kept them there, hanging on every word and rhyme like a lifeline.
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Colin Roberts |
Apr 11, 2022 9:40 am
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Buried Alive.
On Sunday afternoon, the State House brought back the iconic Sunday matinee show, a staple of the hardcore scene since the ’80s. Anchored by Buffalo, N.Y.’s Buried Alive — a highly influential late-’90s band — the show boasted a stacked lineup of unique bands, mostly newer and younger than the headliners.
