James Wyrtzen and the Barnburners on WNHH FM.
For a half-hour, the backroom of Mediterranea transported across time and space, bringing blues-inspired classic rock to the modern age.
The harbingers? Three high school students, who by this point might qualify as veteran performers.
Wearing a Muddy Waters shirt and a guitar strap adorned with Sun Studio and Wu-Tang Clan pins, the group’s front person, 18-year-old James Wyrtzen, kicked off James Wyrtzen and the Barnburners’ set for last week’s episode of WNHH’s Tuesday @ the Mediterranea Cafe.
“A broken CD and a missed phone call / From back when you said I had no faith at all,” began the aptly titled “Broken CD.” Wyrtzen wrote the song sitting by his bed, where he thinks there really was a broken CD, and he saw something in it. The song is addressed to someone, alludes to a complicated relationship.
“We had to kick you out of the basement,” Wyrtzen sang at the end. “After that, I’m not sure of where you went.”
The band, which formed this year, consists of vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Wyrtzen, a senior at Educational Center for the Arts and Hamden High; drummer and New Haven Academy senior Alec Pedersen; and bassist Mairin Yantorno, a junior who lives in Guilford.
Wyrtzen and Pedersen have known each other for years. They first appeared in the Independent four years ago, as freshmen in high school, when they turned into Allen Ginsberg and Jimi Hendrix on the day of the 2020 election. Before the Barnburners, they were both in a band called Down Payment. Yantorno, who mostly plays jazz, met the two through the local music scene, and also played a bit with Down Payment.
Wyrtzen and Pedersen aren’t the same musicians they were back in 2020. Now nearly finished with high school, they’ve toned down the political. They’ve changed their playing. They’re growing up.
When asked between songs what it’s like to be a local teenaged musician, Wyrtzen replied, “Sometimes it’s hard, but it’s very fun because there’s a lot of people who want to hear music and they will ask you to play them music. Or you can just go do it.” He and Pedersen played Bob Dylan songs on street corners during Covid.
Wyrtzen’s been writing and making music since he was a toddler, and he hasn’t stopped. In middle school, he listened to a lot of the White Stripes and Smashing Pumpkins.
“My guitar playing was very just —” Wyrtzen nimbly demonstrated by playing three bright chords in quick succession. In high school, as the pandemic hit, he listened to more Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix, learning every Hendrix song that he could (which, he clarified, wasn’t that many at the time).
“Belly up and come easy / Sure as hell ain’t a fact,” Wyrtzen sang as the band performed “New Car” — a smooth, rocking number that Wyrtzen described as his “Zach Bryan and John Mayer” song.
“Go away, I don’t want to see you when you come back.”
It’s storytelling music. The instrumentation — characterized by Wyrtzen’s guitar playing, so natural that it looked effortless, as well as the solidity of Pedersen and Yantorno’s accompaniment — was sound. It was easy to nod along with the sway of the music, to feel the crashing of the drums. I felt the influence of the blues, of jazz, of a region hundreds of miles down south.
But it was the lyrics that I paid the most attention to, listening closely so that I wouldn’t miss a word. I wanted to know where Wyrtzen was taking us.
“New Car” felt like the lyrical cornerstone of the band’s set, full of images and relationships. With mention of “silent pasta and cataracts / brand new suit on a race track,” Wyrtzen brought tension to the forefront.
He’s thought about the world around him, the way things go. “Run away and trip don’t turn around / Money comes from an old wedding gown / Stories come and that’s how it goes,” he sang. “How should I feel if everyone knows / I took what’s mine and left with yours?”
The band’s sound is in line with Wyrtzen’s musical inspirations: Jason Isbell, Bob Dylan, Gillian Welch, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Alex G. “Anything that is good to me,” Wyrtzen said, “that makes my ears happy, I will try to write it.”
The band’s last original song was “Turning Around,” a more defiant number. It started in the thick of things, with Wyrtzen rasping, “And the moon and the stars got me tripping over my shoes.”
“Many men / Turn around and don’t come back again,” Wyrtzen warned. Then, later, “Working boy go and pick up the slack / Army’s on the hill, they’re waiting to attack / Are you turning around?”
The band closed out their set with a cover of “Sway,” the second track on The Rolling Stones’ 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Slotted in among their original songs, the track felt like their own.
As the school year comes to an end, the band is gearing up for their next stage: college. Pedersen will be off to Wesleyan, while Wyrtzen will be going down south to Loyola University in New Orleans. (Yantorno still has another year left; she plans on “going to New York as soon as” she graduates.)
But college is months away. For now, it’s just summer, and they want to spend it playing.
If your band is interested in performing on Tuesday @ the Mediterranea Cafe, reach out through the “Email the Author” form above.
Previous “Tuesday @ the Mediterranea Cafe” performances: