Karen Ponzio Photos
rickoLus.
“This is a reunion” said Richard Colado, also known as rickoLus, after shouting out the emcee of the night — Ceschi Ramos — who put together a four-act bill of four friends and fellow songwriters that made Cafe Nine on a Sunday night feel like not just a musician’s living room, but an old friend’s one as well.
Ramos himself had just flown in from Minneapolis to be there for the show he curated: the currently on tour rickoLus and Dear Rabbit, New Haven’s own An Historic, and the Vienna based Anna Kohlweis — known as Squalloscope — who made a stopover between coasts on her trip through the U.S.
“I told Ceschi I was going to be in Connecticut and he asked me if I wanted to be on the bill and I said yes,” said Kohlweis before the show. Kohlweis and Ramos met in Vienna around three years ago at a show booked by mutual friends. Since then she has had an album released by Fake Four Inc, Ramos’s record company, called Exoskeletons for Children. A multimedia artist and illustrator, Kohlweis has also contributed artwork to Ramos’s recent projects (such as the video for the song “Electrocardiographs” off of the album Sad, Fat Luck) as well as collaborated on a song with him on his newest album, Sans Soleil. She continues to do illustration work for album covers and posters and is hoping to get back to writing her next album soon — though she has also recently been busy with a performance-art piece in Germany focusing on the work of 19th-century German poet Annetta Droste, for which she wrote “pop songs based on samples of her music.” Kohlweis expressed her joy in meeting “my friends from the Internet” on her stop here, and was looking forward to performing her songs acoustically on a guitar she was borrowing from RickoLus.
First up to the stage was An Historic, the project of Adam Matlock, who performed with his accordion, occasionally using an iPad for backing tracks as needed.
“It’s a Sunday night at Cafe Nine,” he said, “and you should always tip your bartender, especially when he is also doing sound.” Matlock made his way through seven songs with his trademark prose-like lyrics and kaleidoscope of sound, including “The Rain by the Ocean.”
“This song is about a dream,” he said, “that makes for good songwriting practice” In performing “Makes Me Right,” he said that it ended up being recorded and put out on a three-song EP by Ceschi and Fake Four aptly called Three Songs back in 2015. Always soulful and occasionally even a little punk, Matlock created a set of melodic art pieces that enraptured the audience while also tossing a bit of humor in between, like when he told the audience he still had tapes and would give them out for free to keep him “from using them as insulation.”
Ceschi made it up to the stage after Matlock’s set to thank everyone for being there and to speak of his friends who came from “all over” to play this show. He then asked people to bring up their stools to the front of the stage for the next set, which many did. When Kohlweis settled in on stage, she began by saying, “here I am, and there you are. How did you get so close?” This garnered laughter from the group.
“I know half of you from the internet. Have you heard of the internet? I love it.” Her intimate set of six songs, many from the Exoskeletons album. Their poetic lyrics were laid bare as her sweet yet strong vocals, and soft yet searing acoustic accompaniment, were interspersed with stories and commentary about each. The song “Hate Cake” “might be about a birthday,” she said, and if anyone had a birthday that night, this was “their song.” I claimed it as mine since my birthday is next week. She smiled and said that was “close enough.”
She also offered to answer any questions. Matlock asked her at one point “what year is it?”
“It’s the Year One in my calendar. Every year is Year One in my calendar,” she said, which made many laugh and nod. It sounded like a nice option to emulate. This was an honest and as hopeful a set of music as one might hear. Not unlike her lines from the stunning song “Being a Person” — which say “I’ll fix this world / I’ll make it right for us / I’ll make nice people out of all of those assholes” — it felt like after this set one could be inspired to fix this world as well.
Next to the stage was rickoLus of Jacksonville, Fla. who for some songs simultaneously played guitar, bass drum and tambourine and for others was accompanied by keyboard only. He played selections from his newest record, the May 2019 released Archways, including “Clarence Clemons” — named after, of course, the late saxophonist for the E Street band — about how he “always wanted to play the saxophone,” and “Tree Fort,” about an apartment “where you did all the good things you do when you’re eighteen.” That song including the lyrics “we made the very best mistakes.” An audience member shouted out at one point “behind the scenes, man!” but rickoLus had already been offering quite a bit of story and insight to his songs and interacted continuously with the audience. He even paid homage to his friend by announcing at one point “I learned this from Ceschi.” He then jumped off the stage and climbed on to the bar, where he sat with his guitar and played the song “Rivers and Lakes Part One” while everyone turned their seats around and faced him. The fun yet poignant set was made even more interactive when he asked the audience for help with the song “Coyote and Mule,” requesting a howl like a coyote at certain points. The audience readily obliged.
“New Haven, you’re beautiful people,” he said.
Last up for the night was Dear Rabbit from Colorado. The four-piece band got loud but continued the night’s proceedings of friendly interaction and lyrics that made you take note — beginning with a song called “Tree Fort” that was not the same one rickoLus had played. With songs from their record Shy, such as “And To Her I Will Sing My Songs,” “When I Get to the Next Town I Don’t Know If You Will Write Me a Letter,” and “Oh! How I Love Dogs Like That,” this band laid down an almost soundtrack-like feeling that made you anticipate what they might do next after each song was over. Part garage rock, part punk explosion and all fun and frenzy, Rence Liam’s vocal stylings were of storyteller and seismic earth shaker. Dear Rabbit was a fine ending to the night, not unlike one of those gatherings where just a few of your old buddies show up, but the house feels like it’s full and fresh, throbbing with life.
rickoLus and Dear Rabbit are both continuing on tour. Please check their Facebook and/or Bandcamp pages for further info.