by | Nov 26, 2018 6:17 pm | Comments (44)
Newman Architects
Last look? This design will change, perhaps along with architect.
Paul Bass Photo
Spinnaker’s Fowler: To the rescue?
One of the city’s busiest developers has signed on as a partner to restart the stalled plan to build a new urbanist mini-city on the gravesite of the old New Haven Coliseum.
Continue reading ‘Bullish Builder Signs On For Coliseum Site’
by | Nov 22, 2018 10:54 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Falcone.
Ed Valauskas stood on Cafe Nine’s stage Wednesday night with a bass slung over his shoulder, checking a long list on the wall. He turned to the crowd and called yet another friend from the packed house to take the stage.
Without further ado, the band executed a nearly note-perfect rendition of the Pretenders’ “Brass in Pocket,” from 1979.
The occasion was the 22nd annual Vomitorium, organized by guitarist Dean Falcone. And why 1979?
by | Nov 20, 2018 8:41 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Elizabeth and the Catapult.
Elizabeth Ziman — stage name Elizabeth and the Catapult — began her set solo, with a song that found her fingers racing across her keyboard to tell a story of tumultuous love.
By that point in the evening no fewer than three couples were dancing across the open floor of Cafe Nine. They slowed when the song got more spacious, and leapt into frantic activity when the notes took off.
“Wow. Well, good night everyone!” Ziman joked at the end of the song. Then she got serious: “That is the biggest joy of my life, having you dance in front of me. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
by | Nov 19, 2018 8:48 am | Comments (5)
Brian Slattery Photos
Möbius Striptease.
There was a long drone from the keyboard, a pulsing wave of chord after chord. A flourish from the drums. The bass joined in, creating a quietly churning rumble. Then the projections began behind the drummer’s head.
“It was long ago,” the captions read. “It was far away.”
The drums escalated to a big, expansive rhythm as a smoke machine kicked in, filling Cafe Nine with haze and drawing cheers from the crowd.
Then the singer took the stage in a silver cape and approached the microphone. The music got more sparse, and she began to sing. Those with sharp ears in the audience would notice that it was a Meatloaf song, “For Crying Out Loud,” though it was recontextualized, transformed. An electronic voice gave exposition, fleshing out the beginning of a story about a dancer whose star is fading and she knows it. But she still has some life left in her.
by | Nov 16, 2018 8:30 am | Comments (5)
Thomas Breen photo
742-750 and 754 Chapel St.
A Greenwich developer cleared the last administrative hurdle in his plans to convert the upper levels of two adjacent Chapel Street buildings into 29 market-rate apartments.
Continue reading ‘Downtown Office-To-Residential Proposal Clears City Plan’
by | Nov 12, 2018 8:49 am | Comments (0)
Allison Hadley Photos
Christensen.
It is rare that a concert takes so much time to meditate on its most fundamental element: sound. The triple billing of Stefan Christensen, Weeping Bong Band, and Nathan Bowles Trio all deliberately stayed beyond the paradigm of song and instead lingered in a prolonged meditation of sound itself, and how sound, when extended and distorted, can be all that one needs.
by | Nov 5, 2018 1:30 pm | Comments (0)
Daniel Shoemaker Photo
Moore and company.
Saturday evening’s show at the State House on State Street, featuring and curated by indie rock legend Thurston Moore, brought an eclectic assortment of performers together for a night of multimedia boundary pushing that defied the conventions of your average “music icon comes to town” nostalgia act. On this night, no laurels were rested upon. Acknowledgments were made to each performer’s rich past, but all of them trotted out new ideas and projects in a way rarely seen from behind the safety of a long and laudatory career.
by | Nov 5, 2018 8:30 am | Comments (0)
Peter Gannushkin Photo
Baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton — who is scheduled to perform as part of Predicate Trio at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street this Friday with cellist Chris Hoffmann and drummer Tom Rainey — didn’t expect to be in the middle of a real conversation about how people make a living playing music. In a broader sense, he didn’t expect to be playing music at all, anymore.
Continue reading ‘Josh Sinton Takes A Break From Taking A Break’
by | Nov 1, 2018 2:11 pm | Comments (0)
Despite having formed a quarter of a century ago, and having played any number of basement shows in town, The Van Pelt will make its first-ever club show appearance Friday night at The State House — ”at least as best as I can recall,” said drummer Neil O’Brien. “If anyone has a flier to the contrary, I’d like to see it.”
For a band completely comprised of non-residents, The Van Pelt has deep New Haven roots. Its members have been connected to New Haven’s indie rock scene for decades. And lately, it has written new material here — material that the Elm City will get to hear first.
by | Oct 31, 2018 12:10 pm | Comments (0)
The night before Halloween goes by many names — Devil’s Night, Hell Night, Mischief Night — but all are associated with chaos involving everything from mild trickery to destruction of property. There was nothing mild about the show at Cafe Nine Tuesday night, as two trios took to the stage and took down the crowd with an onslaught of sound. Goth rock legends Christian Death headlined the evening with an opening set by New Haven-based rockers Witch Hair, with between-set sounds by DJ Richard.
Continue reading ‘Rockers Find The Devil In The Musical Details’
by | Oct 25, 2018 7:36 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Rituals of Mine.
Carried away by the music, singer Terra Lopez of Rituals of Mine leapt off the stage while drummer Adam Pierce held down the beat. She began howling into the microphone, a caterwaul that sounded like pain but also catharsis. As her voice grew and grew, she pulled the microphone farther from her mouth until, to the astonishment of all around her, she was soaring over the drums, filling all of Cafe Nine with just the power of her voice.
by | Oct 22, 2018 3:01 pm | Comments (0)
Paul Bass Photo
Kat Wallace and David Sasso debut at Cafe Nine Sunday.
Kat Wallace and David Sasso reached back for something old to try something new Sunday.
by | Oct 22, 2018 7:35 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Renegade Lounge
Tim Goselin of Renegade Lounge thanked the audience for “staying out late on a school night” to see his surf band play the last set of a three-act bill that included longtime local favorites The Tommys and Happy Ending.
“We’re Renegade Lounge, and we’re gonna play some rock ‘n’ roll for you.”
by | Oct 18, 2018 7:51 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
J.P. Harris.
J.P. Harris got a song out of riding a freight train through freezing weather into Washington state. Brian Dolzani got a song of his own out of driving across Indiana. Both acts brought their travels and their tunes to Cafe Nine on Wednesday night to turn it into a honky tonk, with sets of songs that connected New Haven to the highways around it, and the country beyond.
by | Oct 17, 2018 7:42 am | Comments (0)
Thomas Sayers Ellis
James Brandon Lewis Trio.
“It takes a lot of gumption…a lot of work to really map yourself,” said tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, “and get beyond your taught norm.”
He was speaking of his formative years in school and of his career path since — which will lead him to perform with his trio at Firehouse 12 this Friday night, Oct. 19.
Continue reading ‘James Brandon Lewis Charts A Course To Firehouse 12’
by | Oct 16, 2018 3:01 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
Agora’s Matt Fantastic, one of the new owners of The Grove.
A team of punk rock game designers has taken ownership of a popular downtown co-working space, with a new game plan.
by | Oct 16, 2018 8:06 am | Comments (14)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
Downton Alder Abby Roth with Hill Alder Dolores Colon after Monday’s meeting.
Tom Breen Photo
The Ninth Square.
The Board of Alders voted final approval Monday night a deal that aims to keep housing affordable in the Ninth Square.
by | Oct 16, 2018 7:52 am | Comments (0)
Allison Hadley Photos
Burnet.
A single chair, illuminated on the stage, defined the night as three songwriters — normally leaders of bands in their own right — took the State House on a deeply intimate journey through what it meant for each of them to have a solo set.
by | Oct 9, 2018 6:04 pm | Comments (11)
Thomas Breen photo
485 Grand: Take a last look.
Commission Chair Pedro Soto, Nemerson embark on van tour.
Part of English Station is coming down. Half of Church Street South has been demolished. And barbeque is coming to Fair Haven’s new tech hub.
Those were some of the takeaways of a 45-minute van tour Tuesday focused on past, present, and future economic development projects in the center of the city.
by | Oct 9, 2018 7:53 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
The Lost Tribe.
The breath of an accordion. Three people seated in a row playing drums, who couldn’t stop smiling at one another and the musicians around them. A warm, distorted guitar. A soaring violin. A swirling dance floor.
All that could be experienced on a 50-yard stretch of State Street Monday night as Cafe Nine hosted Lil Sluggers, Elison Jackson, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw, while a few doors north, a State House Show featured The Lost Tribe and Orquesta El Macabeo. All the musicians played to packed, enthusiastic houses, in a four-hour stretch that showed just how good a night in the Elm City could be.
by | Oct 8, 2018 7:55 am | Comments (0)
MOLLY MONTGOMERY PHOTO
Hundreds of artists, dozens of chefs, and crowds of New Haven residents were relaxed as noodles on Friday night.
Continue reading ‘Democratic Noodles Abound At 3rd Annual 9th Square Street Fest’
by | Oct 8, 2018 7:54 am | Comments (0)
Slate Ballard Photos
Shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nadav Peled and the rest of Anbessa Orchestra took to the stage at the State House and, with little ado, leapt headlong into a set and a half of blazing Ethiopian-inspired tunes. Over the course of a dozen-odd selections ranging from reverent covers to deftly arranged originals, the Brooklyn-based group managed to transform a crowd of 30 or so swaying bodies into an undulating mass more than double that size over the course of their performance.
Continue reading ‘Anbessa Orchestra Makes State House Sweat’
by | Oct 4, 2018 12:12 pm | Comments (0)
Rolando Silva Photo
Orquesta el Macabeo
Rick Omonte recalled the first time he heard of the band Orquesta el Macabeo on a trip to Puerto Rico, the band’s native island.
“My entire life I’ve gone to Puerto Rico,” Omonte said. “I found them while looking for underground punk music there. People asked me if I had heard of them while in record stores there digging around for punk and salsa records.” The band “popped up on radar” because “they have roots in salsa but also grew up listening to and playing punk and metal music.” He finally caught the band in San Juan about five years ago after missing them many times, and opened a dialogue with the bass player, José Ibanez. The two kept in touch and traded playlists according to Omonte, who not only spins records on WPKN and at local clubs under the name DJ Shaki but is also a bass player himself for New Haven-based bands Mountain Movers and Headroom.
Their mutual goal: to get the band to play in New Haven.
by | Sep 27, 2018 1:42 pm | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Chem-Trails.
“Thank you to The State House for taking a chance on a young bunch like us,” Jim Martin joked in between songs with his band Chem-Trails, a long-time local band, Wednesday night at the newest entertainment venue on State Street.
“They’re friends” he added.
Both friends and fans filled the room to see three bands from as close by as New Haven and as far away as Sweden play punk music. All three bands were described as hardcore and also of the sub genres D‑beat and crust punk. Exactly what do these terms mean? I could get into a deeper description of each, or I could tell you to just read on and watch the videos. Punk rock to me is more of a feeling, an experience, than a verbal explanation. It definitely was on this night.
by | Sep 26, 2018 7:46 am | Comments (25)
Thomas Breen photos
LCI chief Serena Neal-Sanjurjo (right) pitches deal with transit chief Doug Hausladen and Beacon’s Dara Kovel.
The Ninth Square.
A deal to keep affordable housing in the Ninth Square received a needed preliminary approval Tuesday night amid discussion about why it needs a two-decade tax break.