Friday, September 26, 2008

Shaki this Sunday

Sunday, September 28, 2008 - at BAR:
ENDLESS BOOGIE w/Federale


LOCATION:
BAR
254 Crown St
New Haven CT
FREE - 9:00PM - 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Meet Endless Boogie, the best-kept secret in New York's rock scene. The band's sound is a meltdown of metal, psychedelic and classic rock with a heavy dose of riffage, a kick-ass beat and super-cryptic lyrics. It's thunderous and mellow at once. To put it another way, it goes well with beer. (papermag)

"...Federale relies on the oldest tools of the trade: loud guitars, pounding drums, great musicianship and hooky songwriting. Their self-released debut is a triumph of twisted blues and boogie played loud and fierce and frenetically... this is not a record of dark and sludgy dirges, this is rock and roll." -Josh Madell (Other Music)
JD

Eerie Show Tonight

Friday, September 26, 2008, from Manic Productions:

MOUNT EERIE w/Julie Doiron and Calm Down, It's Monday


LOCATION:
People's Center
37 Howe Street
New Haven CT
$8 - 7:00PM - All Ages

DIRECTIONS:
Click here

BUY TICKETS NOW:
Click here

Mount Eerie (songwriter/producer/Microphone Phil Elverum) is set to release the new LP Lost Wisdom, October 7 on his P.W. Elverum & Sun label. The album is a collaboration with vocalist Julie Doiron (of '90s band Eric's Trip) and guitarist Fred Squire, which leans heavily on folk sounds, taking a break from the "punkest incarnation of Mount Eerie" featured on 2008 10" Black Wooden Ceiling Opening. Like most of Phil's stuff, it bears distinctive marks of his Anacortes, WA studio. (brooklynvegan)

Canadian singer-songwriter Julie Doiron may be little-known in the United States, but in Canada she is widely admired, both as an ex-member of the band Eric's Trip and as a solo artist. Her songs have earned her a Juno Award--the Canadian equivalent of the American Grammy Award--and she has been critically acclaimed for most of her musical career. Often compared to folk singer Joni Mitchell, Doiron is noted for her typically serious mood and the spare presentation of her songs.

Calm Down, It’s Monday is a guitar and drum duo from New Brunswick, Canada playing stripped down indie rock songs.
JD

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Merge Records Showcase

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - at Cafe Nine:
The Broken West, Wye Oak, and aeroplane, 1929







LOCATION:
Cafe Nine
250 State Street
New Haven CT
$8 9pm 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

The Broken West play stylized softpop suitable for discotheques and your older sister's dinner parties. The songs are slick (they are from L.A) but remain consistently pleasant. Their latest on Merge, "Now Or Heaven," comes out on Tuesday.

Wye Oak are a duo from Baltimore, MD. Andy Stack (drums, keyboards, backup vocals) and Jenn Wasner (vocals, guitars) play a woozy brand of 90's rock with an emphasis on the lush vocals. The guitars are detuned and there is feedback aplenty, but there's a well-groomed pop sensibility to it all. They appeared on Merge's 2008 Record Store Day split 7" with Destroyer and head to Europe in October to tour with Dr. Dog. (Fun fact: The Wye Oak used to be the honorary state tree of Maryland and the largest white oak tree in the United States).

New Haven's own aeroplane, 1929 open. Fresh-faced locals play clean and well-crafted indiepop with an alt.country bent. Folky arpeggios and overly-earnest lyrics abound.
KB

Friday, September 19, 2008

Shaki this Sunday

Sunday, September 21, 2008 - at BAR:
DEATH VESSEL w/Micah Blue Smaldone


LOCATION:
BAR
254 Crown St
New Haven CT
FREE - 9:00PM - 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Death Vessel is Joel Thibodeau's work as both a solo artist and band leader. His music, captured on the resplendent record "Stay Close", is an eloquent distillation of a life's tales. Born in Berlin, Germany before The Wall fell... raised in Kennebunkport, Maine before the senior Bush's presidency... this musician lived a childhood where the ghosts of Cold War casualties and seaport tragedies haunted the alleyways and beaches. Leaving Maine as a teenager, Thibodeau moved to Boston, Providence and New York. In Providence he was a founding member, songwriter and performer of the group String Builder. Now as then, Thibodeau captures the surreal and the sublime in wondrous song.

Thibodeau's vocal delivery is astonishing. Perhaps his singing is best-described as descendent from "the high lonesome sound" - unleashed upon the world by Roscoe Holcomb in the early 1960's. With this voice, Death Vessel delivers stunning lyrical poetry that transcends the "whisky 'n' haystack" imagery of its neo-folk contemporaries. Thibodeau brings this same unusual experimentation to the acoustic guitar (his primary instrument). The daringly melodic plucking of strings and the odd tempo changes provide expertly unexpected accompaniment.

To watch Death Vessel perform live is to watch an audience under a spell. This applies whether it's just Thibodeau alone with an acoustic guitar or with an expanded lineup that often includes regular contributors to Death Vessel Pete Donnelly (The Figgs) and Erik Carlson (Area C).


Micah Blue Smaldone stepped from his punk band The Pinkerton Thugs into gloriously stripped down folk. Impressive.
JD

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Manic Mania Saturday

Two shows courtesy of Manic Productions this Saturday, September 20, 2008:

JOHN WIESE w/Sickness and Heaven People


LOCATION:
People's Center
37 Howe Street
New Haven CT
$7 - 7:00PM - All Ages

DIRECTIONS:
Click here

BUY TICKETS NOW:
Click here

John Wiese is a noise and experimental music artist. He is extremely prolific, releasing many albums both as a solo artist and as a member of groups such as Bastard Noise, Sissy Spacek, and LHD, and he frequently collaborates with other musicians, including Sunn O))), Wolf Eyes, Thurston Moore, Lasse Marhaug, and Merzbow.


Sickness started in the early days of 1986-1987 as a tape-loop/ industrial project. Now, so many years later, it has grown into the infestation you see before you. To further the destruction, Sickness formed its own label, Ninth Circle Music, and it has been around for over six years, releasing special limited edition tape only releases.

Heaven People are a New Haven based duo who destruct and reconstruct the environmental and artificial sounds and energy. They create pulsating spirit drones through modified acoustic guitar, electronics, vocals, samples, music boxes and thumb piano. They await their 1st LP on Ecstatic Peace! and plan to tour thereafter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and then there's

HORSE THE BAND w/Heavy Heavy Low Low, So Many Dynamos and Raised By Falcons


LOCATION:
Heirloom Arts Theatre
155 Main St
Danbury CT
$12 - 6:00PM - All Ages

DIRECTIONS: Click here

BUY TICKETS NOW:
Click here

Horse the Band: Stumbling out of Los Angeles, CA, Horse the Band has been many people's favorite little secret since their inception in 2000. The godfathers of the sound already coined as "Nintendo-core", they've built a sizable worldwide fan base just by being creative and having a slightly demented sense of humor. Deconstructing hardcore and metal trademarks and soaking them with a sharp tongue and inventive keyboard leads, Horse the Band has risen to the forefront of eclectic and extreme hard rock music.

Heavy Heavy Low Low is Robbie Dalla, Danny Rankin, Chris Fritter, Andrew Fritter, and Matthew Caudle. They have a broad range of influences and create music that is both expressive and emotional, combining various elements of grind, hardcore, metal and late 90's 'screamo' with a slight dose of catchiness. From San Jose, CA.

So Many Dynamos meld pop with disco, punk and R&B ala The Dismemberment Plan/Cake. From St. Louis, Missouri.

Raised By Falcons is a Metal/Grind band from Fairfield, CT.
JD

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Toad's this week

Unless you've been dead asleep for the last few months, you are already aware that a few big fish are swimming upstream this week to play in our 5,544 square mile backwater. At Toad's Built to Spill play with Meat Puppets on Wednesday night, and Dinosaur Jr. on Friday night. You know these guys well enough, but what about the openers?


The Built to Spill / Meat Puppet show has The Drones opening. They play a laid back shred of bluesy punk garage and are all the way up from Melbourne, Australia.


And opening for Dinosaur Jr. is Om, a project with Al Cisneros on bass and Emil Amos of Grails on drums. There is no recording that could possibly do justice to this duo's sound. They drone - rock's rhythm section meditating through song. If G. I. Gurdjieff had an electric bass and an amp back in his time, he would have been the one channeling what Cisneros has tapped into. It does take patience and focus to get past the repetition, but the trance his playing puts you in is exhilarating. Not since Hoover's song Electrolux has simplicity sounded so intense. The one gripe might be that Emil Amos's drumming is a little too polished to match Cisneros's playing. Even so, Om are the Whirling Dervishes of psychedelic rock. I can't decide what's more impressive, Amos having to duct tape his blisters mid-song or Cisneros's fingers apparently being so shredded that he no longer has to worry about the pain.

No coincidence that all these guys are in town, as each are playing ATP Festival in upstate New York this weekend. Nice of them to stop by for a little taste for those of us unable to attend ATP.

Hey, maybe there's a secret third act playing that Dinosaur Jr. show... My Bloody Valentine anyone? Nah.
JD

Friday, September 12, 2008

Shaki this Sunday

Sunday, September 14, 2008 - at BAR:
M.T. BEARINGTON w/Begushkin


LOCATION:
BAR
254 Crown St
New Haven CT
FREE - 9:00PM - 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Matt Thomas knows how to write a song. That much is certain. Who he'll be performing these songs with, is a different thing entirely. He's been the front person for many a band; In Vain, Leaves of Lothlorien, Weigh Down, Short Pants Romance, and the short lived but still talked about Orange Forest. Amidst the chaos of the last couple years, as one band fell apart and another reunited, Matt started writing songs for himself, bringing them home and recording them in his house at the end of late nights, early mornings, and whenever he found the inspiration. The end result, "Cloak Of Nouns And Loss" (SMR011) is a beautiful collection of pop psychedelic folk bliss, owing as much to Brian Wilson as to Roy Wood, complete with highs and lows, perfect harmonies and lush tones. With the exception of a bass line here and a drum track there, the album was recorded, mixed, and performed by Matt Thomas alone. Now, with Weigh Down on hiatus, Matt has assembled the Bearington band to bring his bedroom recordings to life.

Begushkin: "Amidst layers of circular, minor-key guitar passages and a full band which includes instruments like violin, accordion and singing saw, Smith colors his stark songs with rich imagery that's just surreal enough to keep things from being too dirge-y. His throaty waiver and lyrical abstractions are actually reminiscent of Destroyer's Dan Bejar, only Smith seems to be reaching for many of the same trad-folk songbooks that Will Oldham goes to, as opposed to Bejar's well-worn copy of Hunky Dory. Unlike either of the two, however, Begushkin's songs twist through more exotic locales, be it tip-toed flirtations with Gypsy music during "Stroll with Me" or the Middle Eastern-inspired guitar snaking through "Hearth Light of Our Home." - Other Music
JD

Tonight at Toad's

Friday, September 12, 2008 - at Toad's:
OPPENHEIMER w/Etta Place


LOCATION:
Toad's Place
300 York Street
New Haven CT
$10.00 - 9:00PM - 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Roll back nearly two years to a small room in a house in Belfast Northern Ireland. Toying with ideas and pushing all the buttons on their keyboards led duo Rocky O’Reilly and Shaun Robinson, otherwise known as Oppenheimer, to fall into a sound that the BBC called “all poetic and blip-tastic.” After looping, cutting and recording enough tracks, they soon started playing in local clubs. Encouraged, they started sending music to their favorite labels, Bar/None Records being the first. In the six months that it took an intern in the Hoboken office of Bar/None to dig their CD from a pile, the two had continued writing and recording two minute slices of pop, and were making friends at home. They played shows with acts like Ash, Architecture In Helsinki, Tilly & The Wall and The Bravery and were proclaimed to be “immensely watchable pop-peddlers‚” by the Belfast Telegraph.

By the start of 2006 Oppenheimer put the final synthesizer bleeps on their debut album. After completing a session with guest vocalist Tim Wheeler of Ash. A limited edition, hand printed 7” was released in the UK in April, selling out quickly. Bar/None released the album on June 6th, followed by releases in Australia, Japan and Thailand. What followed was hundreds of shows, sixteen weeks of touring in the states and another sixteen in Europe that helped Oppenheimer hone their lush electronic pop sound.

At the same time their tracks began finding their way into television shows like How I Met Your Mother and Ugly Betty and commercial campaigns for Fujifilm and Nike, switching even more people onto this Irish two piece.

Oppenheimer were then invited by They Might Be Giants to tour North America, before returning to Ireland to record again…

And now the dynamic duo are set to release their sophomore long player for Bar/None, brazenly titled Take the Whole Midrange and Boost It. We ask, is it a shot at the shallow pre-fab pop machine, a heady and complicated insight to their own sound engineering techniques or are Rocky and Shaun going macro, rendering a title that we’re supposed to take as a metaphor for Life on Earth?

The new record embraces some pretty esoteric themes: politics? fireworks in New Jersey and Cate Blanchett impersonators to name a few. But they’re certainly not all above the neck. The band’s soaring, visceral approach is pure pop for now people, winning the love of friends, fans and press alike-- Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol proclaiming, “Oppenheimer are like the Irish Flaming Lips or Mates of State. It’s extremely rare for a band from Belfast to have that otherworldly sound. They’re an incredible new band.” Alternative Ulster Magazine voted the band #1 Most Likely To Succeed Amongst Irish Music Professionals and Ireland’s Hot Press has said, "Their warm electro pop make Oppenheimer stand apart in a city dominated by dreary guitar bands.” And it hasn’t only been the obvious giving the duo their props, "I am stoked and thankful to have been a part of this record," says Matt Caughtran of thrash-punk godheads The Bronx who lent his voice to the appropriately heavy handed “The Never Never.”

The other 11 songs embody Oppenheimer’s trademark epic synth and guitar driven pop, but introduce a more obvious mandate to rock hard. While the album kick off “Major Television Events,” is reminiscent of “Breakfast In NYC” from their 2006 self-titled debut, the step up to a poignant grind is undeniable. Scribe Gordon Matthews even said, "Look Up may be Rocky and Shaun's 'Born to Run.'" The aforementioned “Cate Blanchett” is a vast pop soundscape, “Support Our Truths” harnesses a sweet, memorable melody in classic Oppenheimer form and “Only Goal And Winner” slides from a swirling haze of synths and chorale voices before locking into a beat that takes it to another level of pop ingenuity. And that’s just to describe a few. But why dance about architecture?

In a few short months, (June, to be exact), Oppenheimer’s Take the Whole Midrange and Boost It will be released on Bar/None Records. Hang tight till then. The band will be joining They Might Be Giants for another string of North American dates come February, so we’ll keep you posted on that.


Opening is Etta Place (a CT Indie fave, but it looks like they have flown the CT coop for NYC). "Their sound is equal parts indie and rockabilly, using a plethora of instruments from synced strings to electronic noise (alongside the use of almost the entire percussion family). The result is smart orchestration in tracks such as "Before the Bumblebees Die," where looped percussion creates a somewhat creepy, somewhat peppy electronic feel. (New Haven Advocate).
JD

Last Tuesday's Thrills

Last Tuesday, September 9, 2008


LOCATION:
Cafe Nine
250 State Street
New Haven CT
$8 9pm 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

CT Indie missed this:

SHAKI PRESENTS: Pontiak w/ ArbouretumThrill Jockey Records label mates Pontiak & Arbouretum are releasing a split 12" of singles and John Cale covers titled "Kale" on July 22. Pontiak have wowed the Elm City twice before, come check out this amazing show.

But, head on over here for a review of the show: CLICK
JD

Thursday, September 11, 2008

I AM FESTIVAL this Saturday

Don't forget that the I AM FESTIVAL is happening this Saturday, September 13, 2008.



Waterfront Park
111 Union Street
New London, CT 06320
860-447-5201
$Free - 12:00PM to 11:00PM - all ages

"It's not easy to describe exactly what makes the growing New London music scene so special, but I AM Festival manages to get right to the heart of things, growing in scope each year alongside a solid collective of bands that has helped put the shoreline on the proverbial musical map.

In 2006, Girl Talk helped establish the annual end-of-season festival as a force to be reckoned with. Last year brought an even bolder, more eclectic lineup, with MC Chris, Chinese Stars and Pete Francis of Dispatch fronting the bill.

This year, there's something from everyone, from garage-punk headliner Jay Reatard to Rock the Bells vets Kidz in the Hall and much-revered singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright. Oneida and Oakley Hall lend I AM some Brooklyn flavor, and all nooks and crannies of Connecticut are represented by the likes of Fatal Film, M.T. Bearington, Panda and Child, Suicide Dolls and Aeroplane, 1929.

If that stellar lineup isn't enough of a draw, you can also check out the indie craft fair, live graffiti demonstrations and other interactive workshops and art exhibits. And don't miss the after-party at the old El-n-Gee, featuring Quiet Life, Wonderlust and Gone for Good."
JD

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Danbury: Rock City


The following article appeared in the Fairfield County Weekly back on Thursday, October 18, 2007:

Danbury: Rock City
It hasn't become The New Seattle, Thurston, but the Sub Rosa Party, the Heirloom Arts Theatre and Billy Baloney's are making Danbury the best place in Fairfield County to beat the cover-band scene.

"Oasis, Jewel, Korn, Frank Black, Blink 182." Mike Mori sits in the Manhattan offices of the global Agency Group and lists the bands that played Tuxedo Junction when he was the booking agent for the Danbury club in the mid-to-late-'90s. Mori says Blink 182 "opened for about $100 a night back then."

Billy Willy, aka Billy Baloney, who ran Billy Willy's at the same time and the Empress Ballroom from 2000 to 2004, has his own list: My Chemical Romance, Story of the Year, Simple Plan, Fall Out Boy (who played for $150), plus "tons and tons of local bands."

But the most important band to ever stop into Danbury—judging by the impact of the show if not the prominence of the band—was Sonic Youth. At a 1993 Tuxedo Junction show, guitarist Thurston Moore declared onstage that Danbury (population 66,000 according to the 1990 Census) would be the "new Seattle."

Maybe he was feeling a bit jolted by the good reception; maybe the Bethel-raised Moore was being kind to his old stamping grounds; or maybe he was so impressed by locals like China Pig, Monsterland and G'nufuz that he meant it.

In any case, a Rolling Stone reporter was in the audience and Moore's declaration was to the Danbury music scene of the 1990s what cries of "Gold!" were to the California economy of the 1850s—hype that had a real and lasting effect.

Danbury bands would accrue fan-bases stretching as far as the real Seattle; local record label Mudd Industries would become as much as an industry power player as would be cool in the era of the slacker; the Gas Ball was to be elevated from yearly local festival to a "cultural event" that attracted buses of college kids; the counterculture shop Trash American Style would (literally) sell the scene; Danbury would be a must-stop destination for national bands on route from New York to Boston; and airplay on Western Connecticut State University's WXCI would be an indie-rock breakthrough.

At least some of the above was supposed to happen.

Only WXCI asserted its Thurston Moore-given right to relevance. "It was one of the first stations dedicated to alternative rock," says Mori. "These were the days before MP3s or blogs, where, if you were really into alternative rock, you had to tune in to a college radio stations." Today, the 3,000-watt WXCI is still one of most prominent college rock outlets in the Northeast, and helps gear WestConn's 5,000-plus students to shows.

On the other hand: the local top dogs provided a staple of quality musicians that have been recycled into new local top dogs. Mudd dried up. The Gas Ball was canceled due to a lack of sponsorship. Trash closed up last year. And, the concert scene...

"I remember that there was this awesome scene in the '90s," says Jay LaPierre, who runs to Heirloom Arts Theatre in the space where the Empress once was. "I went away to school and came back and there was this hardcore scene that eventually left everyone cold."

One of the blessings and curses of Danbury is its appeal to young concertgoers. Twenty-one percent of the population is under 18, and the city seems safe compared to, say, Bridgeport or Hartford, meaning parents in the surrounding suburbs may have fewer qualms about sending their kids off to a show.

So when a ticket to the Family Values Tour made you the baddest kid in the ninth grade, teen mosh pits started erupting in Danbury clubs.

"It was a tough time," says Billy Willy, who's always run alcohol-free, all-ages clubs. "Most shows went off without a hitch and even in the ones where there was an incident, it was only two or three kids causing a problem. But a few bad apples can really ruin the bunch in that case."

Everyone interviewed for this story remembers an incident at Tuxedo Junction that seemed to epitomize the problem. New Haven-based Hatebreed, on their way up through the metal ranks, stopped in and "a security guard grabbed someone who was a friend of the band and they sicced the entire audience on them," says Jeff Jowdy, whose cousins owned Tuxedo Junction at the time. "A lot of people didn't need the hassle anymore and stopped booking as many national acts."

Mori confirmed the event happened but says "that was just one show, and I'd prefer to think about all the hundreds of ones that did go well."

Besides, the other shoe was starting to drop.

"It's a blue-collar town and you couldn't always bank on indie rock," Mori says. "I love Frank Black but we lost money when we brought him in." WRKI 95.1 set up shop and became an anti-WXCI of sorts, bringing in '70s and '80s bands that were still touring but were, shall we say, low-profile enough to consider a city the size of Danbury worth their while: Ratt, Dokken, Dio...

"At the tail end of it, I was just burnt out," says Mori. "National acts weren't selling as many tickets and they were skipping us for Toad's Place." A new owner took over Tuxedo Junction and moved most of its live music nights to its sister business the Monkey Bar.

Mori says he doesn't send many of the acts the Agency Group has a hand in managing to places like Danbury. "On a tour for a smaller or mid-sized act, you have to be very focused and I want them in all the major cities where people will want to write about them."

Still, Danbury is a blip on some rock & roll radar screens.

"When you're doing a basic track around Connecticut, you usually hit Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Danbury", says James "Fuzz" San Giovanni, who's made countless such tracks as guitarist of Deep Banana Blackout and his current band Rolla. Note that Danbury beats out the more populous cities of Stamford, Waterbury and Norwalk—which are in a 40 mile radius of the city.

No doubt Danbury has all the components needed to be a concert hotspot. But its fate may lie in the hands of a few club owners. The new Heirloom Arts Theatre, the two-year-old Sub Rosa Party at Cousin Larry's and the soon-to-be-opened Billy Baloney's—alongside old stalwarts like the City Ale House and the Monkey Bar—are vital to the revitalization of the scene.

The Heirloom Arts Theatre

Some of the kids stand back near the bar that serves only snacks and sodas and press their fingers into their ears. Some of them stand at the edge of the stage and stare at "ghettotech" ensemble Fag Muscle as if they weren't musicians but ice sculptors or contortionists—exotic performance artists whose work engenders intense curiosity. A few parents sit at the Heirloom Arts Theatre's only bench along the wall and wonder when the sound check is going to end.

Jay LaPierre, who opened the Heirloom Arts Theatre (or HAT) last summer, "got one noise-rock band and then another and decided to make a night out of it." Four acts (New Haven's Fag Muscle and florida = death, along with Brooklyn's Slasher Risk and NonHorse) will entertain, fascinate and confuse a group of mostly high school-age kids with compositions that can't quite be described as songs.

LaPierre, was raised in Newtown, "sort of fell into" taking over the space that used to be the Empress Ballroom.

"I was back from school and wasn't doing much" (indie scene-wise, he means, as LaPierre is director of operations at the ritzy Ridgefield Playhouse) "and the owner was looking someone to take over the space and I was like, 'Fuck it. I'll do it.'"

Between the closing of the Empress in 2004 and the opening of HAT in 2007, the theater, which is hidden within a mammoth business plaza on Main Street, had fallen into disrepair and the first step was clearing out trash, repainting the walls, getting the bathrooms to a point where they "half-work" and restoring the above-crowd veranda to turn it into a "beer balcony" for the over-21 set. LaPierre wants to get couches and an espresso machine and turn the Heirloom into a seven-day hang out spot with a schedule of art-film screenings. But his goal for now is "to just be self-sustaining."

So far the venue has racked up an impressive line-up of artistically viable bands from outside the area, far outside—Japanese noise-rock band Melt-Banana is playing Nov. 10 and the venue is already selling tickets. Other upcoming shows include Los Angeles' No Age, a Sub Pop?signed one-time Spin Band of the Day (Oct. 24) and Orange County-based the Blank Tapes, a favorite of the OC Weekly (Nov. 12).

LaPierre says the best event the venue has hosted thus far was August's "D.I.Y tag sale," for which the owners of Trash American Style unloaded some of their stock, a torch-passing of sorts. LaPierre has also inherited some of the problems of the old days.

"During one of our first shows, some kid made his way onto the balcony and threw paint down," says LaPierre who, when we spoke, was still in the process of renovating the venue. "I guess he thought it was funny but it's all over the [downstairs] bar now."

Sub Rosa Party

Cousin Larry's Cafe is half sports bar and half rock club, and I mean that almost literally.

On one end is a bar facing shelves full of TVs perennially tuned in to ESPN or Giants games and ornamented with neon signs from the usual breweries.

Across the room, the carpet stops and black and white tiles that comprise a dance floor begin, leading to a stage decorated with flyers from past shows. A curtained-off "bands only" area is cubby-holed to one side and a space for a state-of-the-art soundboard to the other.

This is where, for the last two years, Anthony Yacobellis, whose pedigree includes local bands Sneakthief and Human Vice Patrol, hosts acts from across the Northeast and beyond at his Sub Rosa Party (sub rosa being Latin for "under the rose" or, for our purposes, "beneath the radar).

"We're not a niche bar, never have been," says owner Larry Stramiello. "This is just a place where anyone can come and have a good time." He has a soft spot for local music and has acted as a sugar daddy to the local scene, lending Yacobellis cash to record an album and not just hosting the Sub Rosa Party but bankrolling its stage and sound system.

After the old guys in flannel jackets pay their tabs and the long-haired kid in the WXCI shirt starts taking a cover at the door, the vibe is loud. Rolla, Boston's Ben Crespo, Danbury's Chris Kiley and Stratford's the Way Up complete with college kids playing pool and downing drinks and a chatty waitress approaching each patron to offer a $2 fruity shot that comes in a plastic test tube.

It's a far cry from the my-first-rock-show crowd of the Heirloom Arts but it can't be said that Sub Rosa doesn't introduce crowds to new bands.

"We had the Mathematicians, a band from upstate New York, in and everyone left a Mathematicians fan," says Yacobellis, who wears a t-shirt of Greenwich punk band Elvis McMan. Other favorite shows from Sub Rosa's first two years include Kiss Kiss, also from upstate N.Y., and Earl Greyhound and the Outside from New York City. (An anniversary show is booked for Nov. 17.)

Sub Rosa started as a weekend showcase but it was so well-recieved, Yacobellis took over all of Larry's booking and now plans up to five shows a week—featuring mostly indie bands from Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts—and hosts a WXCI show previewing the upcoming week. In addition, Yacobellis is a math teacher at the progressive Calhoun School on New York's Upper West Side (a two-hour commute).

The same things that make Yacobellis an exceptional teacher make him an exceptional concert promoter: He never tires out; he's relentlessly positive; and he gives everyone individual attention.

"Tony is very good about caring for bands," says John Pioli, guitarist-vocalist of the Way Up. "He's good at compiling shows so you're always on with acts that match up well and he makes sure everyone gets paid."

Yacobellis can and did talk at length about the painstaking care by which he divides profits. In short, every band gets what they were promised, even if the club doesn't make a profit, and bands are not responsible for selling their own tickets.

"Most nights we do well but there've been dry spells that have lasted for weeks," he says. "If I added up all the money I've made and all the money I put into Sub Rosa, no, I probably have not made a profit."

He says he does it for Danbury, his hometown where he still went regularly for band practice when he lived in a $2,000-a-month box in Manhattan.

"If a band comes through and is treated well and has a really positive experience, they'll remember it and word will get around."

Billy Baloney's

The Danbury music scene has eaten up and coughed out the man known as Billy Willy and Billy Baloney more than a few times but it's only made him stronger.

A perennial member of some local punk band, Billy opened Billy Willy's on the Brookfield border in 1996. "It was a dance studio during the day and a rock club at night," he says with the relish. "The overhead was ridiculously cheap and we'd have killer shows for $3 or $5 a person."

In 1999, he moved on up to the Empress Ballroom downtown. The bigger space allowed for bigger bands and bigger crowds, but also a bigger rent. "I'd have the bands sell the tickets and say, 'Okay, you sell 50 tickets and you're on the bill.' They'd come back selling 10 tickets and I'd still let them on, but I picked up the difference." He adds, "It could be hard to make a profit when you are selling no alcohol."

It wasn't just about rock and roll anymore; it was about business, and that's hard for someone who goes by "Billy Willy" professionally. He'd see large crowds come to the Empress and didn't see a scene blooming. He saw potential liabilities because of that one "bad apple." Bands, audiences, musical genres—these things he loved had to be factored into a budget now. "It seemed like I was getting whacked on all sides, trying to improve the Empress, get the acoustics better, pay rent and promote the music I loved and I didn't think I could do all of that," he says.

After the infamous 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire, his insurance skyrocketed and the Empress closed.

Recently, he's put together Billy Baloney's, a club on Ives Street and amazingly, after what he's been though, he's operating the same way, keeping the booze out, inviting the kids in and lining up a mishmash of punk, hardcore and ska bands.

"You can't keep me away from this stuff," he says. "I love putting on shows and promoting shows." Billy is still wading through zoning permits to start regular operations but he's booked a few lineups that show he kept a Rolodex through his decade in the scene: The Toasters played the venue's maiden show in September and the Color Fred, featuring Fred Mascherino of Taking Back Sunday, headlines Oct. 28.

Asked if he has any advice to new promoters, Billy keeps it simple: "Bring music, man. Don't let anyone get in your way or any stipulation stop you, just bring the music back to Danbury."

nkeppler@fairfieldweekly.com (The writer would like to thank Weekly contributor and Danbury musician Bruce George Wingate for his invaluable assistance.)
JD

Show this Friday

Friday, September 12, 2008 TOBY GOODSHANK w/Schwervon! and Brook Pridemore


LOCATION:
Heirloom Arts Theatre
155 Main St
Danbury CT
$5 - 8:00PM - all ages

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Lyrics like "Staple my penis shut and nail it to the wall" usually suggest cheap potty humor; but, in the world of Toby Goodshank, even the most perverted images retain a soulful grandeur, sung with a tender baritone that could melt hearts and cocks alike. After recording 14 solo albums in just five years, Goodshank is a veritable gland of lo-fi acoustic gems -- a legend in his Anti-Folk community and a mystery to bio-musicologists: how does he do it? The soft-spoken, enigmatic Goodshank made his high-profile debut playing acoustic guitar in The Moldy Peaches (Rough Trade). Once that band began its indefinite hiatus, Goodshank kicked his solo career into overdrive, pumping out albums the way some men pump out semen, touring Europe twice with the likes of Jeffrey Lewis (Rough Trade) and fellow Moldy Peach Kimya Dawson (K Records). In a relatively short amount of time, Toby Goodshank has become a crucial voice in the underground NYC music scene, with unconventional song-structures and surreal lyrics supported by an uncommonly professional approach to his performative craft.

His records range from the soothing (2004's lush "Safe Harbor") and simple (2003's voice-and-guitar "We Can Build You") to the frenetic (2004's electronic "Come Correct") and preposterous (2002's erratically joyous "Music for Heroes, Volumes 1-3"). Recent albums like "Jyusangatsu" (2005) and "di santa ragione" (2006) find Goodshank synthesizing his history of sonic moods into a seamless blend of chunky guitars, crystal-clear vocals, fringe sexuality, and a rotating cast of Anti-Folk comrades.

A prolific performer, Goodshank inhabits the stages of NYC both solo and with bands Double Deuce (along with sister Angela Babyskin) and The Tri-Lambs (with Angela and her sister Crystal Babyskin). These projects have "Goodshank" written all over them, with his signature heart-felt pornographic tendencies lending the songs a sense of erotic wonder and innocence. If Anti-Folk has ever known a legend in the making, destined to have his records collected by the troubled teenagers of the future, it is Toby Goodshank.


Schwervon! have been making DIY rock music since 1999, soon after they met and fell in love amidst the fertile gutters of downtown New York City. Together they have released two albums (Quick Frozen Small Yellow Cracker and Poseur) on Olive Juice Music and on Teenage Fanclub Drummer Francis MacDonald's label Shoeshine Records. They have made two videos, one for the song "Dinner" from their debut album, and one for the song "Swamp Thing" (Poseur). They have fully embraced their "Sonny & Cher meets the Pixies" comparisons and are not afraid to to fight, cook dinner, and deconstruct rock scenes all in a days work.

Their third record is entitled I Dream of Teeth. A couple's therapy session gone awry - they reveal their dirty truths unashamedly as anxious lyrics fringe dinosaur stomp drums and walls of guitar squalls. Their reconciliatory keyboard acts like a third bandmate. There is a rap song and a group sing along. There is a Herman Dune cover. There are a couple horns and some harmonies. But there is mostly Matt & Nan, warts and all, duking it out in true psychedelic pop glory.


Brook Pridemore was born on the lowest rung of the middle class in Detroit, MI. Obsessed with melody from the get-go, he banged on pianos, drums and whatever else he could find, until he was got his first guitar at the age of fourteen. Arguments erupted over influences, genres and who would play what, and bands dissolved quicker than you could say "artistic differences." As the Nineties ground to a schreeching halt, Brook found himself clean-scrubbed, wide-eyed and brandishing a shiny new acoustic guitar. Actually, it wasn't very shiny at all, it was black, but it served its purpose. He wrote a whole batch of songs about his favorite bands, girls he wanted to meet, and people who had done him wrong.

Flash forward a few years. Brook found himself living in New York (actually, New Jersey), coping with life in the big city and trying to meet other like-minded songwriters. The culmination of those last few Michigan years was documented in compilation form with Metal and Wood, a collection of home recordings and acoustic tracks. Much traveling and friend-making ensued, planting the inspirational seed for First Name/Last Name, the first fully-realized studio recording of Brook Pridemore songs.

More traveling, love, loss, and the deaths of several close friends led to the writing of The Reflecting Skin, a new album of singalong-able songs for eager crowd-participation enthusiasts. On The Reflecting Skin, Brook Pridemore strives to put the PUNK in punk-folk, tries to play his guitar like a drum set, and, hopefully, earns redemption. Eleven danceable folk songs that'll make you dance. Serious metaphor buried in nonsensical jargon and cheeky pop-culture referencing. Brave new world.
JD

Friday, September 5, 2008

Shaki this Sunday

Sunday, September 7, 2008 - at BAR:
LATITUDE/LONGITUDE w/Pillars and Tongues


LOCATION:
BAR
254 Crown St
New Haven CT
FREE - 9:00PM - 21+

DIRECTIONS: Click here

Latitude/Longitude are new to me and I'm absolutely loving everything I'm hearing of theirs online. They make me think of old Supreme Dicks as played in the distant future. They're a Bruce Conner film in musical form. They meld incidentals like no other improv band I've heard. It's music I imagine bees hearing in their little heads while drunk on the sun soaked juices of rotten apples.

New Haven's Advocate had a pretty good write up on this upcoming Shaki show. Here it is:

"Lucky for true lovers of the avant-garde and not just catchy rhythms in the guise of weird, one has to look no further than BAR on Sunday night to a performance by Latitude/Longitude, a truly uncategorizable instrumental trio that would leave Sincabeza scrambling for a better descriptor.

Latitude/Longitude's sound defies labels. The sparse instrumentation shifts. The tempos are sometimes non-existent. It's sort of jazz, if only because that's what critics may call it for lack of a better word, but jazzheads would scratch their
jazzheads.

In fact, it's hard to even call Latitude/Longitude a band, because the word "band" implies that there are songs, says drummer and New Haven resident Jason Labbe, and songs are something they don't do.

'We play with varying instrumentation and our performances are totally improvised,' he says.

A quick perusal of the videos on their website or a listen at their MySpace page and one knows Labbe ain't lyin'. These are some texture heavy, plinkity-plink, whackity-whack, thumpity-thump, go-with-the-flow sounds. The music ranges from gleeful to somber to droning to pulsing, sometimes within the same performance.

It breaks down like this: Labbe plays drums. Michael Garofalo plays keyboards (including a Farfisa — hello, 1967!) and various electronics. Rounding out the trio is Patrick McCarthy on guitar and mandolin.

'We stick with a single idea and play it until it's not interesting anymore,' says Labbe. 'You just have to find a good idea and develop it and go with any inspiration or good feeling you may have.'

The outcome is different each time. For musicians who can pull it off, the result can be exhilarating for the band and for the audience — if they're willing to submit to something new. Thankfully, Labbe and his cohorts are acutely aware of the challenge that improvised music can present to listeners and they make a conscious effort to keep it accessible.

'Sometimes it's quiet and subtle and sometimes it will be louder. We try to have range,' he says. The crowd's vibe and other bands on the bill are something Labbe, Garofalo and McCarthy consider. (For those fearing a noise-fest along the lines of the Thurston Moore/Ryan Sawyer gig at the People's Center in May, delicious though it may have been, fear not.)

This Sunday's musical feast also features Pillars and Tongues, a Chicago band with more structure but no less adventure than Latitude/Longitude. How they'll recreate their classically-fueled sound should be a compelling listen.

The members of Latitude/Longitude soon plan to release a cassette — yes — on a label run by Titles drummer John Miller. Too bad cassettes aren't sold on iTunes. The 'Uncategorizable' category would be much more interesting."
JD

Heirloom Arts Theatre tomorrow plus secret noise Sunday

Saturday, September 6, 2008 HAT CITY INTUITIVE CD Release Party with LA OTRACINA, OPEN STAR CLUSTERS, A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN, SALVES and OAK


LOCATION:
Heirloom Arts Theatre
155 Main St
Danbury CT
$5 - 7:00PM

DIRECTIONS: Click here

HAT CITY INTUITIVE - you know them.
LA OTRACINA - Brooklyn.
OPEN STAR CLUSTERS - homegrown.
A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN - Vermont.
SALVES - ??
OAK - Vermont.

...enough said.

And then on Sunday more A Snake in the Garden and Oak:


LOCATION:
To find out where this event is happening, go to Redscroll Records before 9PM.
24 North Colony Road
Wallingford CT
$5 - 9:00PM

DIRECTIONS: Click here

The Vermont-born noise acts stay over for a second night. Oak, A Snake In The Garden and Tucker Andrews, also from Vermont, take their Summer Ender tour through Connecticut on Sunday, playing with natives Medicine Lake and Glace-Neuf.
JD