nothin Underground Scene Welcomes “Acoustic Shabbat” | New Haven Independent

Underground Scene Welcomes Acoustic Shabbat”

Friday night in New Haven, and the Sabbath was about to begin. For Jon Stone, so was some serious music.

Ladies and gentlemen, the pint-size, flat-top, queen of the blacktop, the fucking ace from outer space, Moonchild!” Stone shouted, grinning broadly, as the show got underway.

Having made her Daggett debut at a hip-hop show in February, a focused, slightly bashful Thai Delaine stepped forward, smiling as she picked up her acoustic guitar and went to town on a cover of Chris Brown’s Gettin Money” as the fourth act of the night. A piercing above her lip gleamed.

I’m gettin’ money, what’s a stack?
You see me gettin’ money, what’s a stack?
Been gettin’ money, what’s a stack?

Lucy Gellman Photo

She wrapped herself in the lyrics, putting Brown to shame as her voice matched the chord progressions and riffed on his original rap segments.

The small crowd cheered and clapped. A painting of local bassist Johnny Greenawalt seemed to smile from its easel in the corner.

Damn, she’s really good,” half-whispered Dan Bevacqua, who had rolled in from Milford for the concert.

Welcome to Stone’s Acoustic Shabbat,” a gathering in his creative studio in the former Daggett Street factory complex. On Fridays when he isn’t in synagogue, praying at the mic, or hosting friends for shabbos dinner, Stone welcomes music-lovers and bands, both local and touring, there for a celebration that starts with ushering in the Sabbath and ends with the musical community coming together intimately.

Stone, who grew up in Hamden and has endeared himself to many a New Havener with his whip-smart lyrics and phrases like Paint the stage in Yalie blood!” is also part of an underground scene around Daggett Street in the Hill. Last Friday, he appeared with local musicians Moonchild (Thai) and Mike Kusek and bands all my friends are Cigarettes and Vermont-based Ava Marie to welcome in the Sabbath with community and music, enough joy and support in each to lift the weight of the workweek clear off people’s shoulders.

I host live music events at the Yankee Doodle [the name he has chosen for his space] to provide an intimate, low-cost listening environment in which the focus is on the performers and in which audience members are active participants in a happening rather than simply customers at an establishment, and in which the content of performances is not subject to the burden of needing to be profitable,” he explained after the concert. 

The music, variant and incredibly luscious without an amp, was a testament to his belief. Stone has the kind of voice that marries the heaving, hewing belly of a butcher’s shop –– deep scent of meat and taste of marrow, glinting, gravelly precision of sharpening knives — with reams and reams of red velvet and white silk. When he performs, lyrics like it’s a miracle we never got caught / gettin’ sauced in the synagogue parking lot / the last summer any of us was underage” tumbling forth, you want to be alone in a room with his voice for several hours; to hold it, to carry it with you, to love it fervidly and urgently it until there is a part of it that you are never without.

Stone has a special talent for finding other local artists who perform at the same caliber, and bringing them out of the woodwork on his small makeshift stage. Like Mike Kusek, guitarist for 10,000 Blades, who brings Modest Mouse, Pavement, and Alex Winston to the party when he opens his mouth. Or all my friends are Cigarettes, whose mellowness is undercut by electric drumming and precise, delightfully blendy guitar work that transitions from jammy to melancholic.

Long before Ava Marie took the stage at the end of the evening, a silent promise seemed to have been formed between the bands: that trust and respect would be traded, almost constantly and without so many words, from sundown to the wee hours of the morning.

And thanks to it, there was something equal parts holy and relatable in this carefully curated, community-focused musical rite. As the sun sank, a hush came over the studio. Audience members stilled themselves, nursing lukewarm beers and shaking hands with new acquaintances. Baruchas were whispered or sung around a simple, clean wooden table that Stone built himself, and anyone who knew the words was welcome to join in. A kiddish cup made its way around. Tender challah was torn and distributed through the room. As two simple candles began to began to twinkle from the table, chatter resumed, and music began to flow from the front of the studio. 

God was everywhere. All people needed to do was open their ears, tilt their heads forward, and shake it out to the music. 

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