New Songwriter Series Comes To Cafe Nine

Pete Greco had a series of requests for the audience at Cafe Nine on Tuesday night. Did anyone know how to tune a guitar? Did anyone have any tattoos? The questions were all good-natured jokes in the service of serious music, as Greco and his band took the last slot on the inaugural night of First Tuesdays at Cafe Nine, billed as ​“a songwriter’s showcase featuring live bands, focused on shining a light into New Haven’s tremendously talented songwriting circuit.” 

Greco plans to make First Tuesdays a monthly night with a rotating cast of characters that Greco will invite to play. If this first First Tuesday was any indication, the recurring event will feature songwriters from a diversity of genres and writing styles, united by an emphasis on songs that know their way around a line both lyrically and musically, yet aren’t afraid to deliver big, affecting emotions.

Love ​‘N Co. — the duo of Lovelind Richards on vocals and Lamar Smith on guitar — set the tone, and a high bar, with a set of songs that featured both performers at their direct and acrobatic best. Love ​‘N Co. in its full five-piece form is a high-energy party band where the performance takes center stage. In Tuesday’s stripped-down format, the songs themselves, and the individual performers, had more of a chance to shine. Smith outlined the intricacies of the songs’ harmonic structures, while Richards brought out the strength of the lyrics, by turns funny and vulnerable, biting and kind. 

The band also took the time to expand on the general message of their music. ​“We can be anything,” Richards said. ​“I believe we’re our first best friend and our first worst enemy,” and ​“it’s really important how we talk to ourselves, because we are programming ourselves.” With Smith providing ample backup, Richards could pour all the energy and emotion into the songs, as if with a full band. But the quieter numbers stood out the most, lie a moving song about the difficulties of love that doubled as an ode to Koffee? on Audubon.

Most of all, though, Love N’ Co. stressed being true to oneself. ​“You know who you are,” Richards said, ​“even when people try to tell you about yourself. You know you.”

Brian Larney was up next with a set of originals that married direct melodies and Beatlesque harmonic structures to a sharp, arch lyric sensibility, which he delivered with full rhythm guitar work and a strong, emotive voice. He laid his sympathies on the table when he asked the audience to ​“raise a glass to all the miserable grumps in your life,” the people who chase children off their lawns. ​“I’m one of them,” he added with matter-of-factness. 

Larney showed a way with a sardonic lyric hook, with lines like ​“sometimes the Devil tells the truth” and ​“write it on the calendar, I’m coming someday.” He even flagged his serious approach to songwriting with ironic flair, declaring that ​“anybody with an acoustic guitar has to write a train song.” But this song came with an emotional story; Larney had written it with Pigeon English bandmate Rob Nelson, who died of a heart attack in 2021. He taught the audience to sing the harmony parts, putting them all together at the end of the song. Sure enough, it sounded like a train.

Greco, on vocals and guitar, closed out the night with a set of originals performed with a full band of Marquis Gould on keyboards, Trever Somerville on bass, Terrence ​“Smokey” Ivory on drums, and Josh Wyrtzen on rhythm guitar. The songwriting — some by Greco solo, some by Greco and Wyrtzen together — landed comfortably at the musical juncture where country and R&B meet, with a dab of rock ​‘n’ roll thrown in for good measure. The band excelled at the supple, stately grooves the songs asked for, deep and unshowy, rich in texture and feel. 

Greco explained that the band performed together in church on a regular basis, but this was the first time playing Greco’s songs out and they were getting the feel for them. If so, they were off to a marvelous start, as the band members traded smiles, signals, and meaningful looks throughout the set. Together they made music that simply felt good, even if the lyrics spoke sometimes of complex romantic entanglements. In this musical world, everything was going to be all right, and for the duration of the set, it was an altogether welcome place to be.

In introducing a song late in the set, ​“Good Thing,” Greco said that it was ​“about new beginnings.” As he closed out the first night of what he hopes will become a monthly gathering, the warmth in the room felt auspicious and right.