Karen Ponzio Photos
The Proud Flesh
“I love playing music” said Quinn Harley right before she began her set on Friday night at Three Sheets. She also mentioned that it was her birthday, so it was apropos for her to be doing what she loved on such a day. Her set was the first of three as part of the Make Music New Haven After Party, part of the city’s celebration of Make Music Day, an international event held on June 21 each year held in numerous cities all over the world. New Haven enthusiastically happens to be one of them. In a variety of locations all over Greater New Haven from Best Video in Hamden to the Ely Center of Contemporary Art (see our coverage there) to Lotta Studios in Westville, musicians were scheduled to play from morning to night.
I got to Three Sheets on Elm Street at around 8 p.m., the sun taking its time to settle down and in for the night, for this was the summer solstice, the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. The bill for this event at Sheets included the aforementioned Quinn Harley, daniprobably, and Passing Strangers. Danielle Capalbo of daniprobably told me she and Adam Bensen had already played a set for Make Music Day, their first, in Torrington in the late afternoon and were excited to be playing another one in New Haven. Harley mentioned at the beginning of her band’s set that this was her sixth set of the day, having already played at “an empty church, the Ely Center, Artspace, and on a porch.” She introduced her band — which included Greg Hunter on bass, Jared on violin, and Alexis Robbins, a tap dancer — and then proceeded to deliver a lyrically poignant and lilting array of songs, most of which she said were untitled, telling the audience “if you can come up with names for any of them please let me know.” The illuminating set was punctuated by the tap dancing as percussion and the enthusiastic vibe of the band as a whole. The audience received them with joy and warmth.
Chris Bousquet
At around 9:45 I arrived at Cafe Nine on Crown Street in time to hear the final song by singer-songwriter Chris Bousquet — his most recent single, “It’s a Long Road to Be Free”. Bousquet was the opening act on a bill headlined by Howe Gelb of Giant Sand fame performing a solo set. When Bousquet was done, his friend and frequent collaborator Frank Critelli told the audience “sometimes I wake up in the morning with Chris Bousquet’s lyrics in my head,” and encouraged them to become familiar with more of his music.
Gelb arrived to the stage quietly, settled right in with his guitar, and served up a master class in how to completely captivate a room. Adding a tap of his toe to accompany his strumming, he offered a song “about self-deprecation” in a voice that dripped of honey-licked whiskey and wisdom. After two songs on the guitar he settled in behind a keyboard and told the audience that, as he was approaching 60, he said to himself, “don’t play loud music anymore.” So he wrote some standards, or “future standards,” as he called them.
“All of these either celebrate love or heartache, and they never take themselves too seriously,” he said. When he introduced one as being called “Impossible Lovers,” he also told the audience to “take notes.” I would hope that anyone there who was also a singer-songwriter, or simply a lover of rock ‘n’ roll at its most intimate and revealing, would do just that. It was another one of those shows that was seemingly custom-made for The Musician’s Living Room.
At 10:30 I headed over to The State House where Roses Wild had opened the show and The Split Coils were midway through a raucous and rowdy set of Americana-rooted rock ‘n’ roll that drew hollers and cheers from the crowd throughout. Many in the audience were hugging and dancing, and pretty much everyone seemed to be smiling. This was my first time seeing this band live, and they all seemed to be having just as much fun as those of us watching them were. Their set included songs from their February release Earth and Dust and clearly many were fan favorites, as more than a few audience members were also singing along. The Split Coils easily made the larger venue feel like a summer house party.
The final band of the show (and my evening) was local favorites The Proud Flesh. Pat Dalton, Alex Burnet, Mike Skaggs, and Sam Carlson played songs from their 2013 release Home — recently remixed and remastered by Dalton — as well as new songs that Dalton noted the band would be recording this summer. The audience was wildly receptive, singing and swaying along with well-loved classics such as “Company Man” and “Shrink Wrapped Heart” (this reporter’s personal favorite) as well as “Fanfare for the Pathetic Loser,” a single (and another crowd favorite) the band released in 2016 about the election and about which Dalton commented, “I can’t believe it’s only been three years and I’ve only aged ten years.”
The band’s newer songs, which included “Song for Dave,” “Martha,” and “Something Like a Shroud” gave the crowd a healthy taste of what’s to come, “Martha” highlighting the three-part harmonies of Dalton, Burnet and Carlson, and “Shroud” building to a more intense and epically lush sound than I have heard from the band before, solidifying my anticipation for the rest of their new music.
“I love you, live music fans. You’re my favorite people,” said J. Russell of The Split Coils during his set. This reporter is one of those fans. Thank you, New Haven, for making music on this day, and night, and always.