Jam Like a Mother found a riff they liked at Hamilton’s the other night, and rode it. For four hours.

We’re sure that’s not any kind of world record. But it felt like one. We were back in what the club still refers to as its pool room (the pool table broke apart and was removed years ago; they might as well call it the cool vibe room since it doesn’t have one of those either), chatting and guzzling with members of Old Shorts, who were under the impression that they were also playing that night. We’d spent over an hour collectively cataloging the best vegetable-themed horror movies of all time, among other austere archival pursuits, when somebody cocked an ear and said, “Are they doing that song again?” We ambled stageward, quizzed some JAMLAM fans, and concluded that in fact they hadn’t stopped playing the song the first time. And weren’t about to.

A couple of the Shorts planted themselves in view of the blissed-out Jam Likes, gave the universal mimed-wristwatch symbol for “planning to finish up sometime this year?” and were met only with shrugs. Afterwards, the

JAMLAM bums swore with straight (if goofy) faces that they had no idea there was any another band on the bill. That’s the perfect excuse, even though both acts were listed in local listings and on Hamilton’s flyers; this is not a band anyone expects to know how to read. In any case, they made a lot of noise about being “in the zone.” Which, if we were Jam Like a Mother’s mother, we’d be inclined to refer to as the “impolite zone.”

The song that took so long, you ask? You know that two- chord-plus-retro-Casio-beat current radio hit? That one. We didn’t say these guys could play, just that they could ride a riff. Like water torture, it was. Bongwater torture.

The proper amount of bands, right here: Heresy Hunters, Peeping Toms of the Camera and The All Fun Show at the Bullfinch; College Band Nite at Hamilton’s with The Red Rig-a-Jigs, His Name is Ebenezer/His Name is Smith, The Doings and Also the monk! Coillege Band Nite is not ever to be confused with the party-happy cover horrors of College Nite at the same location, the next swarm of bands at which will (ugh) include Nay! Nay!, But They Didn’t, the Duke of Spaghetti and Peach Basket Hat… D’ollaire’s is dark. No money to be made…

We played scrabble for  24 hours straight. Gar got mad because I won the tournament because I took average of the ZRXBLJ rule, and now he’s says he’s sorry he ever agreed to the ZRXBLJ rule.

The wrappings have come off the outside of the new Rudy’s Bar & Grill on Chapel Street near Howe Street. The place has been encased in boxed-out plywood partitions for the better part of a year, while renovations within took much longer than expected. The wooden outer walls had been stenciled with nostalgic enticements, cartoon speech balloons intended to remind regulars of Rudy’s previous location, two blocks down Elm near Howe. (My favorite: the clearly pre-written, or at least forced-seeming “I like the local music that gets played there.”)

Rudy’s lost that old site, but legally retains a name hallowed on the New Haven bar circuit. The bar was forced to move when its lease ran out. The landlords at 372 Elm (who run the Main Garden take-out joint in the same building) had been clear for years that they wanted the space for themselves. Turns out they wanted it so they could create their own bar. It opened a few months ago, with several old Rudy’s employees from the bar’s silver age running it, in the mid-‘90s, under the name Elm Bar. The neighborhood may already be taking it for granted—an opening for the new Rudy’s to create a splash, you’d think—yet Elm Bar continues to change, rearrange and renew. They’ve installed a pool table, for instance.

Though I haven’t drunk alcohol in a decade now, I watch the split future of Rudy’s with interest, since I lived directly next door to 372 Elm Street for 12 years. My front lawn was used by many regulars as the bar’s second Men’s Room. When the stage was built in the front room and pool room in back was created, it got a whole lot louder, but I didn’t mind. I was such a regular Rudy’s customer that mail would get delivered for me there. I would get nightcaps there in order to sleep, and help bus tables at closing time if I was still awake. I practically had office hours there when people knew to find me for my journalistic pursuits. It was considered an honor to have one’s photo on the walls of Rudy’s, and I was in at least four photos.

My wife still remembers staying over one night and being more alarmed than usual by all the noise next door, especially when a couple of men slipped out the back exit and began smoking and chatting just outside my bedroom window. They weren’t supposed to be there—that pool room door was an emergency exit only—but I’d become completely immune to the drone and hum of Rudy’s (not to mention the Yale frat houses and societies which surrounded the courtyard behind my place) and was not just tolerant but tired. Until the guys outside started talking about one of my favorite bands, Cheap Trick. “They suck,” one of them said. “That’s it,” I yelped, staggering to the ‘phone and calling the bartender Jon Flick (the very guy plucked to be the inaugural manager of Elm Bar), who rushed out back and pulled the ungrateful oafs inside.

Many people associated with the physical Rudy’s (Elm Bar) and the spiritual Rudy’s (on Chapel Street) have strenuously avoided pissing matches (not even in my old front yard!) and catfights. The bars will need to build their businesses honestly and openly if they want to attract regulars, and petty battles with other bars can’t possibly help.

But some will nevertheless take sides, and comparisons will be made. The new Rudy’s has yet to open, but we can see from its gleaming windows that it cares about design and comfort. Sunlight and moonlight will stream through those grand windows. The grand reopening may have taken oodles more time than originally announced, but Rudy’s may actually benefit from the hanging fortunes elsewhere on Upper Chapel. There’s another bar/restaurant opening soon just a couple blocks down the street—a Mexican cantina which will replace the buffet paradise Indochine. The district may well become a regular new destination for drinkers, especially collegiate ones, and Rudy’s may never even have the need to regain “neighborhood bar” status, opting for part of a new club row instead.

The band we personally continue to call the Rock Pirates—though they still do not have a new band name, and are persisting in their hit-and-run, play-unannounced ways—are on tour! They sent a tour diary (er, postcard) scrawled by at least three distinct hands:
“Yo Artie! We’re bored out of our skulls! Why else would we be writing you?
Stuff we’ve seen on tour:
Trees
White Lines (the highway kind)
Bad pizza
Bad bands
Bad local beers
Crappy clubs (except for two. That’s all we’re saying)
Cheap hotels that sell beer
The movie stink skool, about 50 times.
a guy from the Bullfinch, going to college or something.
Really disgusting gas station bathrooms.
Our navels.
See you back home next week, unless we see you first.”

The note was unsigned. Because they don’t have a name.

Pulling up nearer by: The Good Roads Movement, Rocks Ruts and Thank you Marms at the Bullfinch; BPR at that godforsaken roadhouse near the supermarket (thanks for the tip, Frenchie): and Invisible Government at Dollaire’s. Hamilton’s is closed for a massive private party, a wedding or something…

I lay on the grass for eight hours today, a little patch of grass across from Health Services. Read, fell asleep, lay in a daze. Nobody bothered me. Not even Health Services.

The Village Voice’s April 6 edition is a special Comics Issue. Don’t want to get catty, but the New Haven Advocate nailed this same concept around a decade and a half ago, and did it for three years in a row. The brainstorm came from Josh Mamis—then the Advocate’s editor, now Published of the whole New Mass Media chain, and we all jumped in with pens and brushes ablazing.
The main reason we had to stop after three years was that the freelance budget couldn’t cover all those artists—we were at least doubling the amount spent on each story. (The Voice, by ethical contrast, avoided paying some artists altogether, under that old cheapskate scam that it would give them “exposure.”)
It was also a logistical nightmare, having to move up deadlines to allow for original art and intense writer/artist collaborations, while making sure the stories would still be timely when they ran.
We also had hard and fast rules about the way we would do a Comics Issue, considerably more stringent that what the Voice has done this week. We decided that all stories which we could control would have to be rendered in comics form. That basically meant everything except the ads (though we did convince some of the advertisers to join in the fun and do their ads as comics), some of the syndicated columns we ran in the back pages (though we did profusely illustrate News of the Weird) and the listings sections (where we were able to at least turn the coming-events preview text boxes into cartoons). We comicsized the letters section, the movie and theater reviews, the table of contents, everything.
When Malik Jones got shot by an East Haven police officer in 1997, a scandalous tragedy which would become one of the biggest local news events of the decade, the story broke on the weekend before the comics issue went to press. We got Paul Heriot, an artist known for his realistic approach to cartooning (and who had lots of experience drawing policemen, having done T-shirt designs for the state police), and he worked overnight on a gritty and visceral depiction of the shooting to accompany Paul Bass’ text.
Proud of those old issues. I remember distilling a season of Yale Cabaret shows into one multi-panel cartoon, and doing a review of a Yale School of Drama show in the manner of B.C.’s Jonny Hart. I did a review of the British play Love and Understanding (co-starring Paul Bettany, now a movie star) as a perverse “Love Is…” cartoon, and while the director of the piece was not amused, my comic was stuck up on doors and bulletin boards throughout the Long Wharf Theatre.
I also remember people thinking, every year, that we’d lost our minds. Which was kind of true.

The Modern Madcaps had their Bullfinch reunion last week and unleashed surprises upon surprises. Two new (that is to say additional) members, on keyboards and violin! An entire album of new songs! And to top it off, a small label deal, with national distribution!

Kollege has been good to the band’s designer friend Harvey who clinched the Madcaps a contract when he began interning for an indie management company as a graphic designer.

But enough commerce—what are the new songs like? The violin is taking on the mournful wails that Tommy Smeth’s guitar used to specialize in, leaving Tommy free to pick up a bass. Former bassist Audrey L. now sings half the songs, while former sole vocalist Moe Tierre concentrates more on electronica tricks.

So new out-of-towner keyboardist Trina Mars (whom Tommy enlisted from HIS college, in a whole other city strangely for drummer Katnip, Trina’s full first name is Katrina) does what exactly? Accents, you could say. Auras, more accurately. Overarching angelic-choir chords. She also produced all the new tracks, and likes to take part in shows so she can collect live samples.

When we ran into Katnip just a kouple of days before this show, he was kharakteristikally klosed-mouthed. Drummer, you know? We just didn’t think much of it. Meanwhile, instead of losing another promising high school band to higher education, we’ve gained a much improved one.

Scary night in clubland; Don’t Lose Your Soul at the Bullfinch: Horse-
Courser, The Ostler and Vanholt & Duchess… At Hamilton’s: Swollen with Cunning, The Wittenbergs and Prologue (thus named, they say, because in 12 years together they’ve never been handed a headlining gig)… Cardinal of Lorraine at Dollaire’s, with Old Man…

Nobody saw Gar all yesterday. Mar saw him from a distance on campus today, but couldn’t catch up to him. He was wearing all black.

Had a typically fantastic time Sunday afternoon at Fashionista, the vintage clothing adventure at 93 Whitney Ave. in New Haven. Mabel and I were on our way to a party in East Rock, but Fashionista is always some sort of party so we stopped there first.
Mabel had taken an interest in my prized old peace medallion, which I bought in Iowa City, land of my birth, with my own hard-earned allowance, back when I was the same age Mabel is now. (Eight.) It was special moment when we found a peace medallion—a sturdy wooden beaded one—at Fashionista and could get it for her. She also got a flowery dress and pink earrings, while I had a lively conversation with proprietors Nancy and Todd.
We’re not the only ones who see Fashionista as a time travelling, story-laden, colorful and fanciful adventure, of course. Few have captured the appeal of a Fashionista visit more heartily than Bianca Turetsky, who was one of the first Fashionista customers back the store was a hit-and-run one-day-a-month affair, has penned a series of young-adult novels inspired by the shop. The first, titled The Time-Traveling Fashionista, is elegantly illustrated with bright sketches of fabulous outfits. It’s published by the teen-friendly Poppy imprint of the big-deal Hachette Book Group USA.
Fashionista doesn’t need an excuse to have, or be, a party. But having a book based on their shop is a pretty good one. Bianca Turetsky will read from and sign The Time Travelling Fashionista from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, April 10 at Fashionista (corner of Whitney and Trumbull streets, New Haven; 203-777-4434). It’s what everyone’s wearing that day.

We regularly show how distinct and predictable the live music joints in our fair city can be. There’s rarely been a more clearcut example than Tuesday. Yes, a Tuesday. At the student lounge of the college on the hill, there are three Neo- bluegrass acts: The Good Old Oldtime New Start (made up of old hippie professors), Gackscrabble and Out With the Wash (made up of their students). It’s some kind of midterm exam for a folklore class… The Bullfinch, meanwhile, hosts the kind of outer indie no other club will touch: Brains size 6 1/4, The Preserving Perversity of Perseverance and As Much as a Pelican… Hamilton’s (also known for cover bands; tune in this weekend) has a midweek mosh of young hardheads: Rank Case of Reason, A Bite of the Remedy, Scandal for School, Tiger Burns Bright, Warpath to Peace, Besson Trust Bust and Early Threat of Promise. (Many bands but short sets, understand)… Finally, at the place we aggressively misspell as Dollaire’s, there’s a blend of low-state rawk and local guitar heroes: Two Shots for the Road, Ahead in the Fridge and Bustle of Muscle.
And what have learned? Weekends have nothing on Tuesdays….