DJ Makes New Haven Shake

Brendan Toller — whose inaugural dance night at Cafe Nine, ​“Shake ​‘N’ Vibrate,” happens this Sunday, June 24 — recalled the first time he walked into Cafe Nine on a Sunday evening for the monthly Sex Beat Dance Party with Kid Congo Powers.

“I remember going the first night and being super thrilled because I could already tell it was my aesthetic, my taste and there it was right in front of me. It created this rock ​‘n’ roll realm … this small tight knit group where you get to know everybody, like it or not, because it was on the dance floor. Even if you didn’t know them by name you knew what kind of moves they were doing. It was a real open space — all of his flyers said ​‘All Stripes Welcomed’ — and it was just free and magical, the best elements of rock ​‘n’ roll as an art form and as a political force coming together. It made for a really fun night.”

Toller never missed another one. When he found out that Kid would be ending his run due to moving, he was worried that the community that had been built would vanish. Thus Shake ​‘N’ Vibrate, with DJ B the T Jr., was born.

Toller, a lifelong musician, writer, and documentary filmmaker with a keen interest in the history and preservation of rock ​‘n’ roll music, had been motivated by another political force around that same time.

“The day after the 2016 election I was super sad and depressed about the direction the country decided to go in. I called my dad and said maybe what I’m doing isn’t enough even though my film had just been released. I thought, ​‘I need to try to do more.’”

That film was Danny Says, about a music journalist turned publicist whose career collided with — and shaped — everyone form the Beatles and the Doors to Iggy Pop. It was bought by Magnolia Pictures and premiered and sold out at Lincoln Center. It was widely reviewed. People continue to find it and enjoy it on DVD, Netflix, and Amazon. ​“I got to do so many amazing things with it,” Toller said. ​“Michael Stipe was Instagramming about it. Anthony Bourdain was Instagramming and tweeting about it. It was insane.”

By that time the beginnings of Toller’s groovy glam rock dance band Dust Hat had already taken shape. He also started collecting 45s, and soon after was booked to DJ at Firehouse 12. He also kept attending that monthly dance party at Cafe Nine just down Crown Street.

“So I didn’t miss one because I feel like it’s really important in this town to support and show a physical presence at the acts and art and music that you want to see,” Toller said. If you want it to stay in this town, and you want it to be in this town and exist, then you have to show up. There’s an illusion with social media that everybody has a crowd. I can tell you from booking and playing and being at shows that it is not always the case. It’s really important and you yourself can make the difference. Everybody thinks, ​‘oh well my vote has no impact,’ but your presence definitely has an impact in the art scene. Whether you’re just being a fan or audience member or you’re creating.”

“I think the first night Kid performed at Cafe Nine I went up and introduced myself, and we had this crazy moment because he was the Ramones fan club president in L.A. at age 14, and he’s in a bunch of Danny’s photos and I didn’t know that, so it was sort of a kindred spirits-parallel lines thing going on,” Toller said. They jockeyed discs together at Home Sweet Home in NYC, filling in for Jonathan Toubin, ​“who might as well be my hero in my DJ realm,” says Toller. ​“Another time we split the difference at Sex Beat when Kid was just back from tour. We did sets and that was a lot of fun.”

When Toller heard Kid Congo was moving, he thought, ​“oh, no.” Even though Sex Beat was on a Sunday, ​“which is an uphill battle, there hadn’t been one night really where nobody was there. It was always pretty well attended with enough people for a small city.”

Toller was eating lunch out one day when Kid Congo showed up and sat down next to him. ​“I said to him, ​‘hey it would be a real shame if this community sort of vanished and if this event wasn’t going to go on anymore.’ So he encouraged me to take it on,” Toller said.

The name Shake ‘N’ Vibrate is derived from the Sir Latimore Brown song from the ‘60s. The name DJ B the T Jr. is derived from Toller’s own father, “because my father was a DJ in the late ‘70s. He was the program director at WNHU and he was B the T. I didn’t want people who knew of him to get confused, so I added Jr.”

Toller’s inaugural dance party in Sunday starts at 9 p.m., and as always, admission is free. “All Tribes Welcome,” the invite states.

“It’s going to be 45s and 12-inch records only” from Toller’s own collection. “I never considered myself a collector, but now I’m specifically buying stuff and songs I’ve always loved, and I’m buying the 45s to DJ…. 45s are pressed pretty hot from the ‘50s and ‘60s so it’s a different sound. And there is something with the speed of it, going that fast, that’s exciting.”

The eras Toller is choosing to play are also fairly exciting to those of us who enjoy dancing.

“The music is definitely all pre 1980. Most of it is R&B and soul from the ‘50s and ‘60s, not too much into the 70s, but there is also an element of punk and glam that is all ‘70s. This will be similar to Sex Beat in that it will sort of traverse different styles, but it’s got to have that driving dance beat.”

Toller has booked four dates at Cafe Nine — all on the last Sunday of the month — and is already looking to grow. “The idea is to maybe get a little bigger with it if we can, hopefully book certain bands that fit the aesthetic of it for short sets paired with DJ sets,” he said.

Toller is also awaiting the release of his own band’s first record, a vinyl release that is taking time to come to fruition but is another labor of love from Dust Hat, a five-member band with origins rooted in friendship, rock ​‘n’ rol,l and a little bit of good timing.

“Well, I had a free basement space,” said Toller with a laugh.

“I always toyed with the idea of having a band, and for most of my life, I was too nervous to sing and to play. This is my first band pretty much. The space was there. It was free. I could throw things at the wall and see what stuck.”

Toller started playing guitar at the age of nine, ​“but I was always a basement player,” he said. Toller has known Dust Hat guitarist Jeff Slocum since Toller was four. ​“We’ve always wanted to have a band together. I knew Rob Ruby” — Dust Hat’s drummer — ​“and we were all at a cookout once joking and saying ​‘people should be in rock ​‘n’ roll bands like people are in softball leagues,’ so the three of us played and it just worked. I sort of convinced Robin” — Woerner, vocals and tambourine for Dust Hat — ​“to join.”

Woerner is currently at SpaceCamp for a few months, ​“but she still makes creative decisions with us, plus she’ll be on the new tracks we record and she is on the new record,” Toller said. Dan Soto, bassist in Dust Hat, ​“was the missing link. I had known him, and he expressed interest in playing bass with us.”

At first, Dust Hat’s ​“only goal was to play Cafe Nine,” Toller said with a laugh but then got serious again. ​“But our approach was a response. A lot of the music in New Haven I know and I love, but I wanted to see something different. I wanted to see something more rock ​‘n’ roll, more dance, more exciting, more throwing that beach ball into the audience and having it come back. We have no beach balls,” he laughed again, ​“but metaphorically I wanted that.”

“There are a lot of bands now in NHV that sort of share that same approach to the music and it’s really exciting,” he added.

The self-titled six-song EP includes two original songs written by Dust Hat and four written by others. It is at the vinyl pressing plant, according to Toller, and will hopefully be out and available mid-August — though this week they are premiering an original song from it called ​“Little Jean Jacket” and preordering of the record is also now available.

It was recorded in two days according to Toller, tracking instruments on the first day and vocals on the second, at Gold Coast Studios in Bridgeport with Chris Ruggerio producing.

“We recorded to half-inch reel-to-reel 8 tracks, all to tape” said Toller. ​“It has a real big expansive 1970s bass and drum sound. What it does on vinyl, since it’s a 12 inch pressed at 45 which is the best sound you can get, it is sort of city destroying.”

“I think we’re treating the music special and treating the experience with honor,” he added. ​“That’s sort of like all my work, investigating these antiquated forms and trying to preserve them and keep them alive.”

Which brings us back to Toller’s work as a documentary filmmaker. He received his film degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. ​“It’s sort of a renowned place for documentary filmmakers,” said Toller. Ken Burns went there, as did Brett Morgen, who made Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck.

“My thesis film there was I Need That Record. It was about record stores and why they should continue to exist. That was finished in 2008. Pitchfork had the trailer out before I graduated and before I even finished the film.” Danny Says, his follow-up, took him seven years to make.

Toller is as committed to continuing to make documentary films as he is to his music, always with preservation in mind. ​“How we look at and interpret the past informs today and informs ourselves,” Toller said. ​“There was Danny, a guy inventing himself and then eventually helping invent a culture, and none of what he did was mainstream by any account. What he did was scary and daring. It’s art. It has a ripple effect, and it lives on.”