Karen Ponzio photo
Michael Slyne at Volume 2.
On the day after Thanksgiving, many scattered through stores to find the best prices on holiday presents. Others settled into couches to catch college football. A select few found themselves making their way to FiFac’s House, a monthly music series held on the last Friday of each month over the past year at Never Ending Books. Not unlike the multitude of series held at the State Street gathering space — both before and after its reimagination under the Volume Two collective — the night offered an array of performers that established a symbiotic relationship between creator and listener via dissonance, dreaminess, and experimentation.
The brain child of area musician Jeff Dragan, who performs throughout the state as FiFac, the series began in December 2022 as a one-off show with no immediate plans to continue on a monthly basis. Dragan noted that idea came about “more naturally.”
“Really I just wanted to have a guaranteed day where I knew I would play every month,” Dragan said with a laugh, adding that they had an idea who they would book for future shows.
“I wanted to put people that complimented each other together,” they said, at first booking “the immediate people that I knew” and then adding in performers they had already played shows with. “I had played with a lot more people than I thought, so I did have a lot of people I could dip into, and it was fun,” they said with a smile.
They also wanted to try to get people from out of town into New Haven as much as they could, noting that they liked getting people who tended to not play as many shows. Most acts leaned toward “experimental improvisational noise type stuff,” but they also had a singer-songwriter night back in May and have also had two hip-hop focused shows.
Jeff Dragan aka FiFac.
Dragan themselves has been on the bill for all of them except three: May, July, and Friday night’s, though at the July one they joined Lys Guillorn for part of their set.
The monthly series ends with the next show on Dec. 29 — but fear not, FiFac fans: there will be more in 2024, just not on a monthly basis.
“It’s not dissolving entirely,” said Dragan, noting that the next show will be in March after they take a winter break, during which they plan on “going to other people’s shows.”
Dragan has proven to be a superfan of the space in general, attending a multitude of events there on a regular basis, offering an ongoing enthusiastic supportive vibe and their ever present smile. They hope people continue to come back next year for more of the same, though they noted each FiFac’s House has been wholly unique.
“I’ve just been really happy that each one has been really special … whatever circumstances happen, everything seems to work out, so that’s what’s been the most special. We just roll with the punches and the audio problems and all of that stuff. It’s part of the experience.”
pretty princex
On Friday evening three acts from Connecticut created their own unique experience for the intimate crowd that came in from the cold. Taking the stage, and the floor, of the venerable bookstore’s performance space would be pretty princex, Sunday School, and Michael Slyne.
Dragan welcomed everyone from the side doorway of the room and thanked them for coming out, then introduced the first act of the night, the New Haven-based pretty princex (a.k.a. Luke Devereux). Coming to the stage with their guitar and effects pedals, they let the audience know they were going to play “some stuff I have written.”
The set was in two parts. First was a piece Devereux later said was about “their younger trans self having a conversation with their older [trans]self.” The second was about “what cis people take from trans people.”
Both pieces saw Devereux layering and looping their own vocals to create harmonies and backing vocals. In the second piece in particular the effect of the word “take,” layered and repeated, as well as the phrase “dissociation keeps me here,” combined with the warm and moody strings and added distortion, let the incantatory lyrics settle deep into the bones. They grabbed the mic and dragged it across the guitar strings and used guitar tuning to create another layer of sound to add to the atmosphere. I was unable to find a link to pretty princex’s discography, but I suggest following them on Instagram to hop on that when it happens.
Next to the front of the stage was the New Haven-based Sunday School (a.k.a. Stephen Longcoy), who set up a table with a four-track tape player and effects pedals. He also had a collection of cassette tapes, which he proceeded to trade in and out of the machine as well as manipulate throughout his set by rewinding both through the buttons and manually. He also layered and looped the spoken parts of some of the cassettes while background music played, effectively creating mantra-like vocals using phrases such as “take you to another place” and “part of this is realizing” that felt like erasure poetry set to music. The short but impactive set was one I wouldn’t mind having a copy of myself to play when I need to get myself a bit more out of my own head.
The last act to the stage was New London’s Michael Slyne, who brought up two guitars, a four-track tape player, and an array of effect pedals. His set, bookended by a layering of taped dialogue and sounds, began with a host of haunting instrumentals. He created sounds on his guitar that ebbed and flowed into every corner of the store, evoking images of spirits rising out and above, mingling with the audience as well as the now near completely bare tree branches framed by the window over the top of the stage. The red curtain at Never Ending Books has always given the stage more than a hint of a Twin Peaks vibe, but with Slyne’s performance it became even more Lynchian: dreamy, dark, and deeply memorable.
The second half of the set saw Slyne trade guitars, but not before using the unplugged lead to create more sounds, including distortion and feedback once he plugged in again. That guitar had a drumstick set behind its strings, and Slyne used another drumstick to take the sounds to another level both in a percussive sense and otherwise, eventually getting up out of his seat and coming down to the floor to slide the neck of the guitar along Longcoy’s shoulder. He then used the space’s organ to create another set of sounds, eventually leaving that guitar there to complete the set back up on stage with his effects pedals and tape machine. The audience received it all with joy and appreciation, especially Dragan, who then stayed after to chat with everyone before they made their way back into the frigid November night.
It was a fine way to begin the coming season. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t necessarily celebrate any specific holiday, it’s always nice to be invited to someone’s house and have it feel like a home.
FiFac’s House is back at Never Ending Books on Friday, Dec. 29. For more information about that show and all future FiFac events, check out the FiFac’s House Instagram page and/or the Volume Two website.
