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Falcone.
Ed Valauskas stood on Cafe Nine’s stage Wednesday night with a bass slung over his shoulder, checking a long list on the wall. He turned to the crowd and called yet another friend from the packed house to take the stage.
Without further ado, the band executed a nearly note-perfect rendition of the Pretenders’ “Brass in Pocket,” from 1979.
The occasion was the 22nd annual Vomitorium, organized by guitarist Dean Falcone. And why 1979?
“I wanted to celebrate 1979, which was the year I started playing songs,” said Falcone, who has been a fixture of the New Haven scene for decades.
But the annual Vomitorium isn’t just a celebration of music, but of the dozens of people Falcone has met along the way, and in a broader sense.
Falcone pointed out that this may have been the 22nd “official” Vomitorium, but “1990 was the first time it happened. It was an accident.”
That year, Falcone landed a gig on Christmas Eve, “and I so didn’t want to play on Christmas Eve,” Falcone said. “But I had a bunch of friends who said, ‘We’ll come and play with you.’ One person was kind of a celebrity, so everyone wanted to sing with her.”
And how did the event get its name? “One guy was really drunk and ended up spreading some holiday cheer on stage.”
Falcone realized just how many of the musicians he loved to play with who had moved away from New Haven came home for the holidays. So the next year he tried it again. “Maybe I can see what friends are in town,” he recalled thinking, “and I can book a gig, and we’ll get to play together.”
It worked again. And again. And again. He moved the event from Christmas Eve to Thanksgiving Eve due to “stress,” he said with a laugh. “Thanksgiving is way less stressful than Christmas.” And, “it turned out I had more people coming home for Thanksgiving than Christmas.”
In time, people started to write him, sometimes as early as August, asking if they could be a part of it, too. Falcone was game. “I love playing with people I don’t know,” he said. “I love making new friends.”
But anchoring this year’s event were “people I played with since I was a kid,” Falcone said. There was Valauskas, and drummer Jim Balga, who “I’ve been playing with for 30 years. You can get less for murder,” Falcone said. There was also Rick Mealey on keyboards. “He’s the secret weapon,” Falcone said.
Falcone sought to preserve some of the spontaneity of the first Vomitorium. “I try to leave some slots open for being able to pull people out from the audience. It keeps the band on their toes, it keeps everybody on their toes.” He thrives on those times when it’s not altogether clear that it’s going to work out. “Those are the magic moments.”
Another element keeping the band on its toes involves switching up the repertoire. The year 1979 was a fruitful year for Falcone to pick from. “Cheap Trick and Pretenders are two of my favorite bands for a long time,” he said. “Then it was just a matter of figuring out who can sing the songs.”
Revisiting them as a seasoned musician was a bit of a thrill. “These are songs from when I was 14 years old — those are in deep,” Falcone said. “I couldn’t even contemplate playing those songs then. I still can’t,” he said, laughing again. But he also relayed how experience counts. Songs that seemed difficult then were easier now. Certain moves on the guitar that he thought very complicated he knew now were simpler than that, sometimes a case of moving just one finger at the right time.
On Wednesday night, there was no sense of struggle in Falcone’s playing, as he and friends tore through an hours-long set of songs from the Pretenders, Cheap Trick, and others. A parade of singers, guitarists, and others hopped on and off the stage to get a piece of the action. Some stayed for longer stints — five songs, eight songs, a dozen songs. But it was really Falcone’s show, as he worked through each song with energy and grace. In between songs he found time for quick banter. “This is just like Woodstock,” he joked as he encouraged people to come closer to the stage to make room for others still coming in. “Keep away from the brown acid and stay off the cranes!”
Later, with the crowd very much filled in: “There’s some bad language in this song, so if there are any children, just … go to the bathroom,” he said.
And at a certain point in the night, he asked a possibly dangerous question: “How many people here were born after 1979? Raise your hands.” Only four or five hands went up. “That’s it?” Falcone said.
To this reporter’s eye, there were a few more than that. But Falcone’s comment made a point. Falcone used the night to pay homage to his childhood musical heroes. Nearly 40 years have passed, and close to 30 Vomitoria, if you count the unofficial ones. The packed turnout alone — both in musicians and listeners — is testament that Falcone himself has become a hero of the New Haven scene. In those decades, the musical landscape has changed so much. Rock has changed. Hip hip and R&B now dominate the charts.
But in New Haven last night, there was room for all of it. As the house at Cafe Nine stayed packed, around the corner at the State House, younger rock bands the Hulls, Bilge Rat, and Sperm Donor saw a steady stream of visitors for a benefit for Downtown Soup Kitchen. A few blocks away, the R&B collective Phat Astronaut was celebrating its second anniversary at Pacific Standard Tavern on Crown Street with West African groovemongers The Lost Tribe and local hip hop stalwart Ceschi Ramos. Maybe new heroes keep getting made all the time.