Brian Slattery Photos
Wow, Okay, Cool.
As a heavy rainstorm pounded the pavement outside on State and Crown, drummers pounded skins inside Cafe Nine, propelling a night of raucous guitar, muscular bass, and vocals that pushed the throats of their singers to the limit, as three bands filled the Ninth Square club with the sound of the latest iteration of a now-venerable music form: The rock band.
The New Haven-based band Wow, Okay, Cool — Tim Fitzpatrick on vocals, synths, and guitar, Julian Michaels on guitar and vocals, Dan Barletta on bass and vocals, and CJ Dioguardi on drums — started right in with a shriek of guitar and four punishing beats on the drums. From there, the band was off like a shot, a blaze of energy and ideas, with Fitzpatrick’s voice cutting through it all like a chainsaw. Wow, Okay, Cool’s songs spoke of problems personal and social (“this one’s about murdering CEOs,” Fitzpatrick said by way of introducing one song), but the music came across as the cathartic antidote. The answer was to let it out, a direction carried through in the funny, self-deprecating banter between songs. The combination drew the audience in fast.
“How are we doing on this beautiful sunny Wednesday evening?” Fitzpatrick said, as torrential rain doused Crown Street outside. “We’re Wow, Okay, Cool. We make music to upset my father.”
Though “my dad is in the audience,” Barletta noted.
Michaels, meanwhile, beckoned the audience to come closer to the stage. “What are you doing back there, playing Magic: The Gathering?”
“In this economy?” someone from the audience responded.
Fitzpatrick excelled at the kind of punk vocals that veer from fervent declarations to blistering screams, while he tore into both synths and guitar. Michaels switched ably from surf-drenched leads to walls of squall, while Barletta and Dioguardi kept the songs’ breakneck pace and rhythms tight. The four-piece marked a dramatic development in Wow, Okay, Cool’s sound; a year ago Fitzpatrick was performing as a solo artist with keyboards, and as hard as that hit then, the full band hit ten times harder, with a sense of real revelation. Musically and lyrically, Wow, Okay, Cool had a lot to say, and a lot of fun saying it.
Wow, Okay, Cool’s energy was a fitting handoff to the New Haven-based Videodome — Killian Appleby on drums, Rebecca Kaplan on vocals, Keenan O’Connor on guitar, and Mike Tobey on bass — who ripped into a high-energy set of their own songs replete with jokes and calls to action. They began with a lurching beat, rumbling bass, and stabbing guitar; all pitched to a darker register, leaving space for Kaplan’s piercing vocals. As she sang, the rhythm switched to a gallop, and Videodome was commanding the stage. With driving drums and bass and a guitar creating sheets of sound, Videodome made for a big presence.
In the best punk tradition, the band also delivered sneering, pointed commentary both in their lyrics and banter. One song was about “an NSA agent who falls in love with the man he’s monitoring,” Kaplan said. Another, called “TERF War,” had Kaplan delivering a little explanation: “If you know what a TERF is, you know they deserve neither love, nor happiness, nor peace.” Another song, “Model Citizen,” was “about all those poor straight men who are cruising on Grindr.” They pulled the audience closer, even getting them to headbang a little to the odd-time-signatured, rhythmically complex song that closed their set. In their raging politics, exploratory music, and explosive deliveries, both Wow, Okay, Cool and Videodome gave an ample taste of what New Haven’s rock scene is up to.
The New York-based Oboy! — Mara Northland on vocals and guitar, Cliff Gruskoff on bass, and Benjamin Brumley on drums — finished up the night with a set that declared allegiance to the rock trio. Brumley’s pounding drums and Gruskoff fuzzed-out bass provided the solid foundation for Northland’s riffage, extended solos, and vocals that went from seething to screaming in the space of seconds. Oboy! also showed a predilection for quick tempo changes, from churning rockers to sludgy metal, that kept the ear perked, waiting for the next turn. The band was the right capper for a night that showed how, decades into their being a staple of popular music, people keep discovering electric guitar, bass, and drums, and keep finding new things to do with them.