I was a fan of Brian LaRue’s band The Tyler Trudeau Experience long before I induced him to join the staff of the New Haven Advocate, but the paper figured in our acquaintanceship early on. When I reviewed a Tyler Trudeau EP for the Advocate, Brian turned the review into impromptu song lyrics at a coffeehouse concert. The mutual admiration society was secure.
After enlisting him to oversee one of the Advocate’s Annual Manual issues, then supporting the paper’s hiring of him as full-time listings editor, I encouraged Brian to take over what I’d always seen as one of the plum gigs at the Advocate: Music Notes columnist. Not only did our desks face each other’s (and our desktop musics bleed into each other’s airspace) for years, I was also his

Brian left full-time Advocate employment the same day I did, three and half years ago. We both continue to write for the paper, as freelancers. More importantly, Brian has continued to make music. He also moved to New York City. But while his writing career has shifted a bit with the new location, his music appears to have come full circle.

When many of us first discovered The Tyler Trudeau Attempt in the pages of the New Haven Advocate (as the very first subject of Kathleen Cei’s now-sadly-defunct “Stuck in a Corner” local band interview column—again, years before Brian joined the Advocate staff), the band was part of what seemed to be a thriving indie rock scene at Southern Connecticut State University. Besides Tyler Trudeau, SCSU students figured in The Battlecats, The Sarcastics (later The Frills, and whose leader later formed Bourgeois Heroes) and (alongside Yalies) The Cavemen Go and The Vultures. All could summon an old-school garage rock feel and wrote clever lyrics. The Battlecats broke up and The Vultures became a multi-styled scene of their own, but the other three bands continued to project a sonic symmetry of smart, humble heartfelt pop-rock with ironic twists.

In reality, I was assured by more than one of the bands, this scene had been happenstance. The bands didn’t hang out much, played shows together largely by coincidence, and weren’t mutually motivated into creating a scene or genre or community or any achievement larger than the already sizeable one of just keeping their bands going.

Yet, seven or more years after the SCSU “scene” started, the small Connecticut-based label releases a free digital compilation—One Year of Original Music from February Records—which brings together The Cavemen Go, Tyler Trudeau Experience, Bourgeois Heroes and a more recent Brian LaRue project, Women’s Basketball, all in one place. They all have maintained that core cool-shy-kid-in-the-corner grooviness that made them stand up in the first place, and they’ve all built upon it. There’s also more connection among the bands than before—LaRue has played bass in The Cavemen Go for two years now, and Brian mentioned to me once that “We Got the Look” evolved from a joke he shared with Jason of The Bourgeois Heroes, and that he initially offered that song to the Heroes before doing it himself.

The comp’s title, One Year of Original Music, is a misnomer—the lead-off track, “I Thought You Wanted to Know,” has Watertown’s Secret Charisma covering a Richard Lloyd tune from the 1980s, best known as the first single released by Chris Stamey and the dBs. But the 19 tracks are mostly as original and recent as advertised. A favorite is Tyler Trudeau Attempt’s “We’ve Got the Look,” which lightly parodies a certain Go-Go classic while lyrically mocking acts which care more about appearance than musical ability. I’ve been enjoying that song for over a year now off of a Tyler Trudeau demo, and it’s always thrilling to have one’s infatuations echoed by those who actual take the time to release records on their own labels.
The Cavemen Go’s contribution is one of their quicker, jauntier affairs, from the 2009 album New Lives, with crisp vocals by keyboardist Emily McMinn. The Bourgeois Heroes offer a live 2004 version of Elizabeth is Bored.
Though Abby Mott’s pushy “She Don’t Play Nice” comes close, the nostalgic genre feel of the SCSU scene of the early 2000s is not sustained by the other bands on the comp—Boy Genius does their alt-pop harmony thing, The Month of June recalls late-‘70s Brit dancepop, and Even Artichokes Have Hearts stands alone with its old-school ukulele friskiness, and the Two if By Sea and Summer Library both languorously reference railroads (“Westbound Train” and “Past the Railroad Tracks” respectively).
February Records is a wonderful resource for thoughtful Connecticut pop bands. Just one year in existence, it’s already an invaluable time capsule of creativity in Connecticut. More than that, this all-too-current label remakes history by showing us that the SCSU scene wasn’t a fluke but sustainable.