It was a Sunday afternoon, and my first visit to Crunch House while the sun was up. I shimmied between two large white trucks and found Lawrence Butler — LJ to friends and LasuJe to audiences — weeding and sweeping the narrow corridor that leads back to the space.
During shows, the corridor is often a surreal obstacle course of extended legs and jutted hips, dramatic shadows cast by floodlights, and a potpourri of stares both curious and indifferent. That Sunday, it was a work site; Crunch House, fast becoming a fixture for New Haven musicians and audiences, is a labor of love.
Butler signed the lease on Crunch House, located on Gilbert Street in West Haven, in late 2016. He took over the space, which shares its building with an industrial laundry facility, from Sean and Al, a pair who had managed it since 2012 after a hip-hop collective decollectivized and stopped using it.
“I started coming here for hardcore shows,” Butler said, “and I saw a bunch of cool doom metal bands.”
Those shows still happen at Crunch House, alongside “folk punk, noise, sometimes pop … just weirdo music,” Butler said. “Every group that comes here thinks they own the place, but there’s this whole other side no one sees. The Connecticut music scene has so many tribes, so isolated. They all manage to find us.” The diversity of music at Crunch House is undoubtedly a strength. The real fun begins when folks come for one kind of show, dig the space, and return another night to discover a whole new sonic world.
Sam Moth Photo
Butler, at right in photo.
“I’d say we average about 10 shows a month,” Butler said, “sometimes way more. In May we had, like, 21.” Butler has help managing the space in the form of the Chwases (two men, both named Chris, both nicknamed Chwas), but said that Crunch House’s busy schedule can be “hard to fit with a personal life, and a personal art practice.” Butler takes care of the space and returns messages, doing what he can to make it a place musicians can use.
He’s also trying to expand Crunch House’s scope and reach. When asked about the space’s future, Butler mused that he would like to see “more community involvement — workshops, art shows, and just more people coming out to more shows.”
Donning work gloves, I helped identify and remove some poison ivy along the entry path.
“And you’ll be back to cover the show on Friday,” Butler said. He smirked. “Friday’s gonna be sick.”
I arrived early for the show on Aug. 25; several regulars, including The “Real” Chwas, were already there, lounging on the couch and folding chairs sprinkled variously along the wall. Butler was in and out of the sound booth, in and out of the front (back) door, making sure things were ready for show time.
When asked about his vision for Crunch House, Chwas said he would like to “just have it keep doing what it’s doing. It’s just a place where people can do whatever they want, plain and simple.” (Well, almost anything. The space isn’t a for-profit club. It’s a practice space that can host an audience. Everything is suggested donation. You can’t smoke cigarettes in front of the neighbors’ houses, and you have to dispose of your garbage in the proper receptacles or pack it out. Crunch House thanks you.)
“It’s a very liberating space, which is important to the DIY community,” remarked Danny, a regular visitor at the space. I was reminded of an earlier conversation during a recent show, in which a woman remarked on people’s tendencies to leave items unattended at Crunch House. I told her, and it’s true, that people feel safe here. Yes, it’s a place to see and discover music, but it is also a place to be who you are. A little later, as DJ No Chill (a.k.a. Ross Menze) spun and the crowd began to fill in, a young man told me, beaming, “it’s my first time here … I love it.”
Underwear, a soulful experimental noise project, kicked off the Friday night show at 10 p.m. Nick Gruenrud’s set was glitchy but cohesive, dancey but tender. Audience members gave him their full attention in the form of laughter, dancing, or intense concentration as they tried to imagine what might happen next. In the second set of the night, Old Self treated the audience to a “word art gallery” of hip hop in “various styles.” The set was fast and furious, his between-song banter nearly as quippy as his lyrics. The juxtaposition of his intense, focused delivery coupled with the banality (and universality) of his subjects — “Relationship fat / Relationship fat / I let myself get / Relationship fat” — kept the room giggling and nodding to the beat.
At this point, it must be confessed, this reporter hit a wall. I took a brief power nap in the car, missing Safe Word’s set. Witnesses told me it was “intense, and cathartic,” as Mike Manzer, Safe Word’s creator, screamed his heart out and threw himself around the space. I managed to catch 404 Not Found’s joyful and energetic techno; the pair of longhaired lovelies bounced exuberantly to their own beats, radiating love to the crowd.
At 1:15 a.m., my body would no longer do my bidding and Buttress had yet to spit her bars. Spying the Chicago-based Buttress, a.k.a. Bethany Schmitt, in the crowd, it took me several minutes of eavesdropping to confirm my suspicion that this petite, friendly person with her hair in a sloppy bun and her body shrouded in an oversized hoodie was the same woman I had seen gyrating in a crop top, short shorts, and Ariana Grande-esque pigtails, staring down the camera and shouting, “Art is dead! Buy my shit!” But there she was, smiling wide and talking enthusiastically to anyone and everyone about anything and everything. When I heard her talking about the role of expectation in music appreciation — the way that our brains anticipate the resolutions and drops, and the satisfaction that comes with having that expectation vindicated — I knew I was going to like this woman. My source on the scene assured me that her set “was dope. It was just Bethany and my laptop. She used a flash drive. The levels were out, but it didn’t really faze her performance. As if the only thing that really mattered was her punchlines.” And lucky for you, dear reader, there are videos — many of them.
At Crunch House I’ve watched Susan Alcorn play her steel pedal, Laundry Day let loose their riffs, the acts mentioned in the paragraphs above, and many more. The next show at Crunch House is coming up on Sept. 5. If you’ve never been, there’s a handy video to help you get there. See you there?