Brian Slattery Photos
Maya Elise and the Good Dream.
On Monday night three acts — Low Ceilings, Kendra McKinley, and Maya Elise and the Good Dream — brought the warmth of connection and culture to an appreciative crowd at Never Ending Books, turning the communal spot at 810 State St. into a sanctuary.
“It’s Monday, it’s hot, and I appreciate you all hanging out,” Ben Mueller of the Low Ceilings said near the start of his set. Based out of Windsor, CT, the Low Ceilings have been making “folky indie rock with a prog twist,” as Mueller describes his sound, since 2015. He set the tone for the evening with a series of energetic, upbeat songs, with lyrics full of wry, absurdist humor that several times pulled genuine laughter from the audience.
“I try to take the regular stuff that happens to people and make it cerebral and silly, so I hope you enjoy that path,” Mueller said.
“Yee ha!” said someone from the audience.
“Is the correct response,” said Mueller, without missing a beat. With song after song, and hilarious aside after hilarious aside in between songs, Mueller made everyone in the room friends. With another mention of the heat in the room, Mueller said, “whoever gets the sweatiest gets a prize at the end of the show. Who’s it going to be?” he said. A few songs later — including a number Mueller said was about “revenge” except “they don’t even know” you’re exacting it because “you’re being so petty about it” — he mentioned that “this stage light is making me look cool, but it’s also making me pretty —”
He did not say “hot.”
“Want me to turn it off?” someone offered from the audience.
“No way, got to win that prize!” someone else from the audience said.
Mueller nodded with approval. “Eyes on the ball,” he said.
A third audience member spoke for the room. “This is really fun,” she said.
“It is fun! Thank you,” Mueller said.
Kendra McKinley took the stage next, setting the mood by using just her voice and a looper to create a song rich with sinuous three-part harmonies and sneaky rhythms. She built it up more and more, finding space for more melodies and harmonies before it all faded away.
“Wow,” someone said at the end.
McKinley, hailing from the Hudson Valley, remarked that this was her second time playing in Connecticut. “The first time was at a funeral, the second time is at a bookstore. What’s it going to be next, a pet store?”
McKinley’s self-deprecating humor in between songs made for a poignant counterpoint to her songs, which employed atmospheric guitar and her agile point to create compositions that swam in harmonies and shifting rhythms. Its richness of feeling proved to be a bridge for the act that followed.
Toward the end of her set, McKinley revealed that she had taken advantage of Never Ending Books’s policy of simply allowing people to take books; she snagged an Italian-English dictionary and a book about carpets. “What’s the vibe?” she said for her final song, offering sassy, Appalachian, or pouty. The audience chose Appalachian, and she ended as she began, layering her voice to create a sound to get lost in.
Maya Elise and the Good Dream, based in Oakland, Ca., then continued down the path Low Ceilings and Kendra McKinley had set, as Elise remarked that this was the first time she had played in Connecticut. “Before today I didn’t know anyone here except 15 people who are buried in a cemetery here.” They were her grandparents and members of her grandparents’ generation. “Some of the people I’ve loved most in my life are here,” she said. Which meant that the first time she had been in the state, like McKinley, had been for a funeral. This disarming, vulnerable, and funny statement drew appreciative laughter from the audience.
“It’s important to laugh at death because it happens to all of us,” Elise said.
One could say that was the vibe of the entire set: wistful and a tad melancholic, but more warm, optimistic, and uplifting. It began with the strength of the songs themselves, propelled by Elise’s guitar and given depth and breadth by M’Gilvry Allen on violin and Jordan Lowe on bass. But their heart lay in the luscious harmonies from all three singers. Elise’s voice sparkled on its own, but together with Allen’s and Lowe’s supple voices, the sound was radiant. The applause from the audience grew thicker with every number that passed.
The band ended its set with the members descending the stage to gather around the piano at Never Ending Books. They sang “Ghost Song,” off Elise’s latest album, Everything We Watered. Lowe played sparse chords, which sounded all the better for being out of tune. The three singers’ voices filled the air. Everyone else sat in silence, in the thick, humid summer air.
This reporter doesn’t usually come out from behind the curtain for an article like this, but the final song of their set ushered in something of a small epiphany. As a reporter and a musician myself, I have noticed that, in some ways, the music scene — not only in New Haven, but elsewhere — feels hollowed out. The ripples of the pandemic and its shutdowns are still felt. Touring remains difficult, even if people aren’t getting sick quite as much anymore. Many venues have closed or are on the brink of closing, and the ones that survived aren’t booking as much. Three years after March 2020, it’s still harder to make money from music than it was in 2019, and there are fewer places to play. A few musicians seem to have hung it up for good, and it’s understandable.
But music isn’t just about commerce; as Elise pointed out, it’s about culture and family and connection, to our past and to one another. In the final minutes of their performance, Elise, Allen, and Lowe felt like keepers of that culture and that connection, small candles in the dark, and three of thousands upon thousand across the country. They were reminders that musicians and music will keep playing regardless of what happens. It’s our greatest weakness, that people know we’ll fill the air with sound in the end because we love it, even after the money’s gone and the power and the lights go out. It’s also our greatest strength.
