Cafe Nine | Music | Arts & Culture | COVID-19
| Cafe Nine Owner Paul Mayer: "It was a nice break in the beginning, when everything was quiet. But it’s getting really old now. At this point, I’m just trying to move ahead." Mayer removed his mask only for the photo. Lucy Gellman Photos. |
Most days, the bar is still quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Tables sit unoccupied, so clean that the wood looks perpetually polished. Sunlight stretches out across the floor, in no particular rush to get out. The taps are dry. On the back curtain, star-shaped lights dangle in a soft purple-white, casting delicate shadows as they spin.
A drum kit sits in the middle of the stage, as if it has been left on pause. But or the first time in months, it isn’t continuously empty.
That's the story at the corner of Crown and State Streets, where Cafe Nine owner Paul Mayer is rolling out new measures to keep the lights on—and the music playing—in the midst of COVID-19. Months after starting a virtual tip jar for out-of-work employees, he is opening up the cafe as a COVID-19 safe rehearsal space and announced plans for an outdoor concert. He has also started selling t-shirts with the venue’s logo, set against the New Haven skyline in mustard yellow. They are designed by New Haven artist Sara Scranton (Lipgloss Crisis), who used to work at the venue.
Currently, the space is planning to host Dust Hat outdoors on Sept. 18, for the group’s record release party. Future concerts have not yet been announced.
“I want to have my old life back,” Mayer said during a recent interview at the venue, after propping the door and windows open to let the fresh air in. “It was a nice break in the beginning, when everything was quiet. But it’s getting really old now. At this point, I’m just trying to move ahead.”
Mayer started scheduling rehearsals in mid-August, as a way to bring a little extra money in while the venue remains largely shuttered. In its current setup, Cafe Nine provides a drum kit and bass amplifiers. Bands have to bring their own vocal microphones, snare and cymbals. Mayer, who feels like a natural extension of the space, does the sound. The whole package runs $30 per hour for groups.
After Mayer announced the idea on social media and by email, Fake Babies’ Robert Nuzzello gave him a call. Then he heard from Ray Hardman and The Sparkomatics. He got an inquiry from Sam Perduta, who was passing through New Haven and wanted to make time for an impromptu Elison Jackson reunion. Plans for the rehearsal came together in just three days.
Cafe Nine holds a special place in Perduta's heart: it was the first bar where he gigged 10 or 11 years ago, after outgrowing what was then The Space in Hamden. He has since played there dozens of times, sometimes late into the night. It was also the last place that he played before COVID-19 shutdowns, when he hopped on a March 6 bill with The Yawpers. By the following week, schools and businesses were closed. Music venues were ordered by the state to shut their doors, and haven't since reopened.
While Perduta now works at the Free Library of Philadelphia and lives near Germantown, he comes back through Connecticut every few months, to visit his mom in Berlin. Bassist Greg Perault, who also lives in Philadelphia, heard about the rehearsal option from Margaret Milano, who produces concerts at the bar under the moniker Drink Deeply. The group found an open spot on a Sunday that worked for them.
Ilya Gitelman, Dan Hollenbeck, and drummer Mark Sev joined in. Suddenly, Perduta was looking at a full reunion. It was the first time he’d played with anyone since early March. While he still has his library job—for which he said he feels grateful—he’s watched months of gigs disappear overnight. When the five filled the stage, it felt like old times—except with masks, social distancing, and risk assessment.
“It was fun,” he said, adding that he was thrilled to be in the space, despite playing to a deliberately empty house. “It was definitely worth it. It was cool to play with people, honestly, because we haven't really played together for five months. And it sounds good in there. It felt like Cafe Nine always is. I mean, without the people.”
He praised Mayer for the idea, noting that the setup made practice easy for the group to slip back into its groove. The band is currently spread across two states without a drum kit. COVID-19 has made meeting up nearly impossible and cancelled a whirlwind tour that was scheduled for late March. Mayer was there to welcome the group back, like a homecoming.
“He’s one of the good ones,” Perduta said of Mayer. “Like, he gives a shit about people.”
Cafe Nine is also kicking off a series of outdoor concerts, starting Set. 18 with a socially distanced Dust Hat album release party. While Mayer is still ironing out the final details, he said he plans to hold the concert in the parking lot, as the band plays from the roof. Masks are encouraged; social distancing is required. Inside the cafe, the Milford-based shop Wierdo Wonderland plans to hold a pop-up. Attendees can order food from Firehouse 12’s menu.
Brendan Toller, who covers both guitar and vocals for the group, said he is excited to be kicking off a return to dancing in the streets. Or, at least the parking lot. Dust Hat released a full album—fittingly titled Come Back—in early July. The chance to dance to it has been limited to a network of computer screens, one-inch Zoom cubes, and fiberoptic cable.
"Cavern Club, CBGB, First Avenue—that's the legendary lineage an artist feels when they set stage at Cafe Nine," he wrote in an email Tuesday. "For a small city we have one vibrantly shining music bar. We feel honored to be playing atop a mural of Sun Ra. An artist who knew this place was inhabitable—that we should seek for possibilities in the infinite. Space is the place. All this aside, Dust Hat is ready to ROCK!”
After the first concert, Mayer said he can see continuing the outdoor series for months. He suggested that music fans are resilient and hungry for live music, in a city where many of its stages have gone dark. Many New Haveners don’t have the money—or the wheels—to make it out to Premier Concerts/Manic Presents' new spot at South Farms in Litchfield County.
Besides, he joked, they’ve toughed out cold weather before. Visitors shedding scarves, wool sweaters and snow-crusted boots were a frequent sight at Cafe Nine through the winter months last year. This just asks them to do the reverse.
“I think we can go until at least December,” he said, a glint in his eye. “And maybe by then, we’ll have figured something else out.”
To book rehearsal space or learn more about Cafe Nine's new T-Shirts, email bookcafenine@gmail.com. Tickets to the Sept. 18 concert, which are free, are available online here.