Vapors of Morphine.
The bass comes in rumbling yet clear. It’s joined by pulsing drums and burbling sax. Then the singer’s rich voice intones the words. “You’re good, good, good — so good, good, good.” The lyrics are simple, but the pushing rhythm gives them a deeper meaning. It’s pulling light from darkness, hope from despair. It’s the band Vapors of Morphine playing at the State House on State Street. The set was from October. The State House, having recorded it that night, is streaming it now. And there’s much more to come.
The streamed shows are the idea of Carlos Wells and Slate Ballard, co-owners of the State House, in answer to the question of how to stay in the minds of New Haveners during the government-mandated shutdown due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
“Our initial plan was to broadcast shows” — as in, invite groups to play in the empty space and then use the State House’s equipment to stream the show live — “but it didn’t feel right,” Wells said. There were the obvious personal safety concerns. He also worried that he might be gouging artists, who themselves were looking for ways to make money. “Everybody who’s got a guitar is streaming and has got their tip jar out,” Wells said. “If we charge $3 a stream, maybe we’ll make $30, and then you sour a couple people.” Plus, as an audiophile, “the snobbish side of me wondered what the sound quality was going to be like,” Well said, as people listened to the State House’s carefully mixed audio over their iPhones.
So, Wells said, “we were looking at our recordings.” Over 90 percent of the shows at the State House have been recorded using a mix from the sound system with additional audio supplied by room mics to capture the sound in the club itself. “There’s an energy in the live recording you don’t hear from the studios,” Wells said. “You can hear the band playing from the room.”
Wells is no stranger to live recordings. While he worked at Cafe Nine, “I did a lot of live recordings for Safety Meeting,” a record label, “and started putting them out on vinyl.” He was particularly happy with a recording of a live set from the band Acid Mothers Temple. “It’s insane that it’s Cafe Nine because it sounds like a stadium. You hear solos shredding and people cheering,” Wells said.
So he started asking bands who performed at the State House if they’d be willing to let Wells put up their live sets on the internet for people to hear — just for a week. “It’s almost like a show,” Carlos said, “with a specific start and stop time.” The band Vapors of Morphine, which played at the State House in October, was the first to say yes. Well reported that the bass player joked that he’d forgotten he’d broken a string until he listened to the playback.
Other upcoming sets will include alt-rockers The Van Pelt and hip hopper Dinco D, whom Wells joked that he may have overpitched.
“You ever feel like you’re saying too much for something that’s already decided in their head?” Well said, laughing. He offered Dinco D. a lengthy explanation for why he would love to include him in the State House streaming, only to have Dinco D. very quickly agree to it. He has also reached out to BKO Quintet, Nigerien guitarist Mdou Moctar, and the Haitian band RAM, whose bandleader grew up just outside of New Haven. “I sent an email to him and tugged at his New Haven heartstrings,” Wells said.
“They’re all free for a limited time,” he said.
“I Miss It”
“We were just a year and a half in, and things were starting to click. We were getting better pitches. The calendar started having recurring events. We were just getting some roots,” said Wells. The first week the State House closed after the shutdown “was crushing. We lost a ton of shows,” from nights featuring local acts to internationally touring groups like Damo Suzuki from Germany, which had taken over a year to book.
“The staff is kind of in the wind right now,” Wells said. Like Cafe Nine, the State House has created a virtual tip jar for its employees to help them through the closure. “Every bit helps,” Wells said.
Karen Ponzio Photo
Wells.
On a personal level, Wells is counting his blessings. His wife is the exhibitions coordinator for art and architecture at Yale, so she is working from home. He has sold a few records through Safety Meeting to make money. “We’re healthy, which is the most important thing,” he said. “We’re overdosing on family time.”
Wells expects to reopen the State House after the shutdown. “We’re pretty committed to doing as much as possible to stay afloat and make it through it. We’re hopeful we can pull it off,” he said. Like many other businesses, they are applying for relief under the Small Business Administration. “I’m kind of wondering how long it’s going to take for the money to get around,” he said. “These things historically take time, but the bills are always due.”
Meanwhile, “we’re doing what we can to weather the storm,” he said. But “how many businesses are not going to come back when all this is done?”
Wells is looking tentatively at planning future shows. “I’m putting some events far enough away that it might be safe, but I’m not putting ticket sales up yet,” he said. “There are enough events to reschedule that when we’re ready to reopen, I can start slotting them in place.” Many of these acts are local and regional, as they’re able to put some plans in place. The international acts that the State House has become adept at booking both take more time and need firmer plans. “They’re not booking tours yet,” Wells said.
Even when the government restrictions are lifted, Wells wonders how soon people will start returning to clubs. “Is there going to be a boom of people going out? Or are people going to be gun shy and want to stay away? Just because it’s safe to swim in the water, it doesn’t mean people aren’t afraid of sharks.”
Wells is preparing to reopen the State House with even more technical improvements to its sound system. “I’m taking this time and researching things,” he said. “As soon as we can get down to the State House, we’re going to do some repairs and upgrades.”
He also talks wistfully about the bookings the State House had made this year. “We had a really great lineup and we had to kill that. A lot of the shows are being rescheduled, but you can’t plan for anything until you know for certain,” he said. When he listens to the live recordings to prepare them for streaming, “it’s kind of heartbreaking,” he said. “That was a great show,” he thinks as he listens back. “I miss it.”
Tune in to the State House’s streams of live shows by visiting its SoundCloud page. Visit the State House’s virtual tip jar here.
The State House has also created a Bandcamp page to make available some of their live show recordings (there is one up so far, by Bone Church). https://statehousepresents.bandcamp.com/releases
Like Cafe Nine (and, I'd like to think, Best Video, which I run), The State House is an essential part of the local live music ecosystem in this area. Hats off to Carlos and Slate for being creative in deploying their recordings to keep their public engaged. Their programming has been diverse and amazing.
I share with Carlos the trepidation over how our society-wide PTSD over this pandemic will impact music fans willingness to gather publicly. If we lived in a developed country with a fully-financed public health system and universal testing, easing back into something resembling a normal life might be easier to envision.