by | May 16, 2024 12:07 pm | Comments (0)
In the back room hookah lounge of the Mediterranea Cafe, Love n’Co gave a sneak peak into their musical take on chocolate and hope, a week before it lands on the band’s first-ever EP.
by | May 10, 2024 8:47 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photo
Corpse Flower at Cafe Nine.
Grace Yukich picked up her first acoustic guitar in high school, in Opelika, Alabama, in the mid 1990s. Women like Alanis Morissette and Courtney Love ruled the burgeoning alt-rock music scene. But Yukich didn’t personally know any non-famous women, let alone moms, who also played rock music — and certainly none who wanted to start an all-woman punk band.
So, perhaps subconsciously, Yukich put guitar playing on the back burner to pursue other things —theater, a PhD in sociology, marriage, and, in her 30s, a move to Hamden, and the birth of her daughter.
Things seemed to be going fine, until early 2020, when her marriage started falling apart.
Continue reading ‘Moms In Bands, Outnumbered By Dads In Bands, Chase Rockstar Dreams’
by | May 9, 2024 9:19 am | Comments (0)
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Ceschi (center) at Cafe9 Wednesday.
Hip hop and folk punk came together Wednesday night at Cafe Nine to offer stories of persistence, hope, and detective work as DJ Halo, Tommy V, MJ Bones, Indigaux, MC Homeless, and Ceschi performed for an enthusiastic audience in a show organized by Ceschi.
Continue reading ‘Hip Hop And Folk Punk Bring Hope To The Stage’
by | May 6, 2024 7:57 am | Comments (0)
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The Decemberists' Colin Meloy ...
... and opening act Ratboys, at College St. Music Hall.
The Decemberists brought May to a magnificent start on Saturday night when they returned to College Street Music Hall for the fourth show of their 2024 A Peaceable Kingdom North American tour.
Fans filled the room from floor to balcony, up the stairs and to the edges of the stage barrier, to bask in the multicolored hues of the lights and lofty sounds of some of their favorites, mixed in with new material from the band’s aptly titled upcoming album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again.
by | Apr 29, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (0)
"Addiction."
The arts and sciences, the movement and stillness, the rhythm of breath and step: on Saturday afternoon, all came together in the performance space at St. Paul and St. James Episcopal Church on Olive Street for Creative Circle, a delightful dance and music performance that saw two dance companies — the New Haven-based kamrDANCE and the New York-based SYREN Modern Dance — engage each other as well as the audience in their latest works in progress.
Continue reading ‘Creative Circle Asks Community To The Dance’
by | Apr 26, 2024 2:32 pm | Comments (1)
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Ceschi perfomring on WNHH FM's "Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51."
Like the rest of us, Ceschi, a.k.a. Julio Ramos, had long since emerged from the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But he hadn’t forgotten.
Nor had he lost hope.
Fuck your neighbor to survive
Eat your neighbor to survive
We were hiding our faces long before pandemics arrived …
by | Apr 26, 2024 10:05 am | Comments (1)
Dereen Shirnekhi photo
Waxahatchee at Toad's Place.
“I’ve been yours for so long / We come right back to it.”
It was a refrain I’d heard maybe hundreds of times at that point, the croon of Katie Crutchfield’s voice and the banjo backing her committed to memory. But Thursday night, as I heard it live and sang along with a crowd filling up Waxahatchee’s sold-out show at Toad’s Place, the song felt new.
by | Apr 25, 2024 8:52 am | Comments (0)
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Sketch Tha Cataclysm at Three Sheets.
“Hello several people, rap professionals, and various cool people,” said Sketch Tha Cataclysm from the Three Sheets stage, as he and fellow New Haven hip hop stalwart Mo Niklz hosted a group of touring artists from Chicago for a night of high-energy indie hip hop.
by | Apr 22, 2024 1:11 pm | Comments (6)
Brian Slattery photo
At the New Haven Composers Spotlight at NXTHVN.
Composer and violinist Alyssa Chetrick was taking a solo as part of her vertiginous piece, sardonically titled “Equilibrium.” If some of the previous passages had offered a sense of calm, Chetrick was now going for chaos, spurring the ensemble around her to join her. Her phrasing pushed the musicians around her to dig deeper into the music she’d written, as if they were looking to break it. Would they?
by | Apr 19, 2024 9:04 am | Comments (0)
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Sam Carlson in the WNHH FM studio.
Sam Carlson broke a string as he tuned up his Guild D‑50 acoustic guitar to perform live on radio. But no worries — he had a backup Guild M‑20 with him as well.
by | Apr 18, 2024 12:19 pm | Comments (0)
After a day of driving heavy machinery, Joe Ballaro plugged in his bass, and the show began.
by | Apr 12, 2024 9:13 am | Comments (0)
Charlie Widmer performs on WNHH FM's "Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51," opening with his new single.
Charlie Widmer didn’t expect people to want to hear “What Do I Need With Love?” Now it’s the first of his songs some people will ever hear.
by | Apr 11, 2024 12:36 pm | Comments (1)
In the backroom lounge of Mediterranea Cafe, among centuries-old hookah pipes and patterned cushions, a fairy rising from the Underworld sang about darkness — and love, too.
by | Apr 11, 2024 9:51 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photo
Marco Benevento.
In front of a packed house that was ready to have fun, two touring acts at Space Ballroom — the New York City-based Ghost Funk Orchestra and the Woodstock, N.Y.-based Marco Benevento — brought humor, relaxation, and armfuls of danceable beats to the Hamden club on Wednesday night.
by | Apr 8, 2024 12:45 pm | Comments (0)
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Blick Bassy.
A triple bill at Cafe Nine on Saturday Night headlined by Cameroonian touring artist Blick Bassy featured two younger New Haven acts who tipped their hats to those older than they were, even as they showed everyone in the room that the future of music in the Elm City is in safe hands.
by | Apr 8, 2024 9:06 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery photo
Voices filled the space of Bethesda Lutheran Church on Sunday afternoon, raised in song. But the harmonies weren’t what many may have been used to in a church; they were sharper, more angular, provoking of thought. Nor was the text from the Bible; it was a dispatch from halfway around the world, from the present day.
“We sense something grave is happening around us. We don’t know what the future holds,” the choir sang. “The land we tilled for generations is shrinking; salt water poisons what’s left of our fields. Many people have gone, displacement and death everywhere.”
by | Apr 5, 2024 12:00 pm | Comments (1)
Paul Bass Photo
Johnathan Moore at WNHH FM. Below: Performing.
Johnathan Moore was ready to add a layer of sound. He reached for the Boss RC 600 loop station pedal and … nothing.
Moore said nothing. He made no excuses. He kept the beat going. He pivoted to a new plan — and the music played on.
by | Apr 5, 2024 11:25 am | Comments (1)
Still from Within Our Gates.
As Yale Film Archive launches into the last quarter of its 2024 spring semester programming, it offered something a little different on Thursday evening: silent films that each had a special distinction.
The first, presented in conjunction with the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, was a selection of Solomon Sir Jones Films from 1924 to 1928 that are currently a part of the library’s holdings. The second was a showing of Within Our Gates, a 1920 film written, produced, and directed by Oscar Micheaux; it’s the oldest known surviving film with a Black director. One more bonus: both films on this evening were accompanied by live music, played by pianist Donald Sosin.
by | Apr 5, 2024 9:15 am | Comments (1)
Mistina Hanscomb Photo
Klein.
“Shapes of the Things to Come,” from The Quiver — the new album from In These Trees (a.k.a. New Haven-based musician Binnie Klein) and Australian musician Tartie — begins with a searching guitar, heading somewhere, building atmosphere as it goes.
Bass tones ground it, setting Tartie’s direct, emotive voice free. “Life’s not a road, it’s an alley / We try to fit inside,” Tartie sings. “Every day we set the ground / Stretched end to end / But we can bend / Move with me / Through the new shapes / Of the things to come.” The words are by Klein; the music by Tartie, and The Quiver is the result of years of work, 10,000 miles apart.
by | Apr 4, 2024 9:10 am | Comments (0)
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Chappell Roan on Wednesday at College St.
The jury is still out on whether American culture, or the music industry, can create another superstar, like Michael Jackson or Prince, like Madonna or Bruce Springsteen. Maybe Beyoncé, now 42 years old, and Taylor Swift, 34, are the last of their kind. But if future superstars are still possible, one of its more likely candidates — Chappell Roan — played at College Street Music Hall on Wednesday night to an ecstatic, sold-out crowd that couldn’t get enough.
by | Apr 3, 2024 9:38 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Greco.
Pete Greco had a series of requests for the audience at Cafe Nine on Tuesday night. Did anyone know how to tune a guitar? Did anyone have any tattoos? The questions were all good-natured jokes in the service of serious music, as Greco and his band took the last slot on the inaugural night of First Tuesdays at Cafe Nine, billed as “a songwriter’s showcase featuring live bands, focused on shining a light into New Haven’s tremendously talented songwriting circuit.”
by | Mar 29, 2024 11:07 am | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
MJ Bones in the WNHH FM studio.
“If love is like an ocean,” MJ Bones was singing, “I’m lost at sea.”
Meanwhile, they sounded right at home, right where they belonged: Performing revelatory original songs on the ukulele, in New Haven.
by | Mar 29, 2024 9:18 am | Comments (5)
artidea.org
Jazz vocalist Samara Joy, an A&I headliner this year.
Shakespeare in circus, choral fusion, climate activism and optimism talks, making your own empanadas: this eclectic mix of events and more is part of this summer’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas, which is returning with a full schedule of programming that covers just about anything an arts and culture lover would have a taste for — and maybe something they have never tasted before.
by | Mar 28, 2024 9:52 am | Comments (0)
Videodome.
Two releases by two of New Haven’s currently active bands — Videodome and Wally — show how bands can reap musical success in two very different ways.
by | Mar 25, 2024 9:14 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Shandy Lawson.
A chair and a guitar. A table holding an old-fashioned radio. A vase full of purple flowers. A teacup and saucer. Was this a scene from an oft-told tale or real life? At Best Video on Saturday, it was the setting for “Stories: An Evening with Shandy Lawson,” in which the New Haven-based singer-songwriter shared a collection of songs that offered a bit of fiction, a bite of truth, and a tasty twist on each.
Continue reading ‘Shandy Lawson Sings Stories at Best Video’