nothin Sam Carlson Goes Solo | New Haven Independent

Sam Carlson Goes Solo

How I Got Fat from Living Skinny,” from Sam Carlson’s first solo album — the self-titled S.G. Carlson — was born during one of the artist’s figuratively leaner times both personally and professionally.

It was written during this one particularly terrible winter I had where I wound up living alone paying all of the bills, and I went completely broke exhausting my savings trying to afford oil,” Carlson said. It was cold out, so I holed myself up in my house, ate cookies, and watched Parks and Rec for like a month.”

The song is almost comforting — as catchy musically as it is lyrically, even though Carlson speaks of feeling betrayed,” and explores a subject most are reluctant to talk about publicly: what we think about when we’re alone and things aren’t going our way.

My current thing has been my thing for about the last year or two: being unglamorously honest. Radical honesty is a good approach as is radical softness, being real about who you are and what you do,” Carlson said. I think it’s good for everyone to acknowledge that they do spend a lot of time sitting around and watching TV, and that you do have a pile of clean laundry and a pile of dirty laundry in your room and stuff like that … just little human things … they’re not glamorous but that doesn’t mean they’re uninteresting.”

The same might be said of Carlson, whose unassuming demeanor masks a rich musical background and artistic presence in New Haven. Carlson grew up in Fairfield and began playing in bands as a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist since around the age of 14. Goofing around” with his father’s guitar got him into music in the first place, but playing drums was the first thing I was good at, the first thing that people said oh, you’re really good at that,’ so I thought if that’s what I’m really good at then I’m going to stick with that and do that every chance I get.”

Carlson has lived in New Haven for the past seven years, playing in Ports of Spain (as drummer and vocalist), Laundry Day (as guitarist and vocalist), and The Proud Flesh (as drummer and vocalist). He’s occasionally the drummer for his father’s band Rob Carlson and Benefit Street, and plays and records all of the drums on his father’s records and plays with him live when he can. He’s the drummer on new recordings backing a duo consisting of his dad and Beth Bradley, a fingerstyle guitarist.

We have a nice musical relationship. I know all the songs. He trusts me to show up without practice,” Carlson said.

Carlson is passionate about having a specific project to work on at all times, which is how he ended up recording his first solo record. At the end of 2016 Laundry Day had just finished recording an album and the Proud Flesh experienced unexpected delays in recording their next effort.

Meanwhile I desperately needed something to do,” Carlson said. He found a bunch of pieces of songs that hadn’t made it into any other project, and he thought it would be a good use of my time” to finish and record them. If I don’t have an ongoing project I get into this other loop of not doing anything and then I get really used to not doing anything and then it’s tough to get started again. Actually a lot of the lyrical content of this album is about that basically, how people honestly use their free time.”

Destructive Free Time

I try to use my free time effectively because if I don’t have an ongoing project to focus on then I end up sitting at home and eating in bed and watching cartoons all day … very useless destructive free time,” Carlson said. He mentioned that President Theodore Roosevelt would get incredibly depressed quite often and would combat that by going out and getting involved in anything — from a safari to building the Panama Canal. If he sat still he would backslide.

I’m similar to that, though I think that’s where my similarities to Teddy Roosevelt end,” he said with a laugh.

To Carlson the song In Search of Lost Time,” named after the series of Proust novels, is a good destructive-use-of-free-time song.” It was written during the same stretch of time as the How I Got Fat” song.

Meanwhile, Carlson consumes music in a specific way. I’ll find an artist I like, OD on it, and then move on. While I’ve listened to a lot of music at any given time I’m really only into two or three acts at a time,” he said.

That kind of consumption doubles as inspiration. Carlson cites Maps and Atlases, Sufjan Stevens, and Todd Rundgren as early influences. Rundgren made me want to self-produce my own crazy albums. He had all these weird moments with different sounds.” He also drew influence from Fake Four artist Gregory Pepper and His Problems (“a great writer who doesn’t hold a lot back”) and Pulp (name-dropped in the opening song to S.G. Carlson). And regarding Teenage Fan Club and The Wedding Present, his current obsessions, both TFC and TWP were the sound I was aiming for production-wise,” he said.

Sam Carlson Photo

Carlson had recorded a duo album with Annalise Chiarelli a few years back on which she sang and helped write the songs, but he played all the instruments and did production. After that, I knew I could do a record myself,” he said. For S.G. Carlson, he also combined the influences of his work in Ports of Spain, Laundry Day, and The Proud Flesh, but with zero outside input.” Carlson played all of the instruments, wrote all of the songs, and produced as well as mixed it. The upside was that he could go nuts with it.” The downside was that without outside input, the target you hit may not be the target you see.”

In addition to Carlson’s musical output and working at Cafe Nine as bartender, booking agent, and sound guy, he works the box office and writes the newsletter at the Fairfield Theater Company. As a visual artist, he had a series of satirical nudes of himself on display at the MAC650 Gallery in Middletown. They consisted of what people actually do in the nude at home, including drinking out of a gallon milk jug and working on their computer.”

Next on Carlson’s agenda is recording a new Ports of Spain album. I’ve learned that I have to do it until it’s done because if I try to do things a little bit at a time, it will take forever to finish it,” Carlson said. So that’s the next thing I get to hyper-focus on.”

S.G. Carlson will be released on May 1 and celebrated that day with a free show at Cafe Nine, supported by Kam Ryn and Jacket Thor. Doors at 8 p.m.; show at 9 p.m.

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