Freak Scene #84: The Sawtelles Send 'Postcards' on New EPs
Also, have you been pronouncing "apizza" all wrong?
A Guide to Music in Western Mass. (and sometimes Connecticut)
This week in Freak Scene, we check in on Connecticut duo the Sawtelles and the companion EPs they’ve recently released, one of which features Hank Hoffman from the Alex Butter Field. Also, two guys immersed in the New Haven music scene helped curate an upcoming museum exhibition on pizza, and who doesn’t love pizza?
The Sawtelles have been a mainstay of the Connecticut indie scene for more than two decades. Married couple Peter Riccio and Julie Riccio have been self-releasing albums and EPs since 2002 — 23 of them now, including their latest projects, the EP Postcards and a companion piece, Psych Pop Postcards.
The former is a five-song collection featuring Peter on guitar, Julie on drums and both of them on vocals. Psych Pop Postcards takes four of the songs from Postcards and expands them with contributions on electric sitar, guitar and keyboards from Hank Hoffman, the Wallingford musician behind psych-pop band the Alex Butter Field (who I wrote about here).
Peter Riccio plays guitar in alternate tunings, which give his parts a distinctive, almost drone-like feel that contrasts with the vocal melodies and harmonies he and Julie Riccio sing. Their vocals are prismatic and hypnotic on “Spotlight” over a syncopated tap-tap-tap beat, though the lyrics are uneasy and a little anxious. Opener “Margins” has a sunnier feel as the Riccios sing about living a dream they’ve defined together. With her drums and their vocals at the front of the song, his guitar is almost a background instrument that offers texture — a compelling inversion of the more typical emphasis on guitars over rhythm.
Psych Pop Postcards doesn’t sound vastly different from its source material, thanks to Hoffman’s judicious approach. He augments “Margins” with subtle electric sitar parts that make the original arrangement pop in a more vivid way. The electric sitar adds depth to closing track “Winding Down,” and lends a sense of exoticism to “Time,” where Hoffman also finds space over Peter Riccio’s acoustic strumming for a whirring organ sound.
The Riccios have long since honed their approach to making music, and Postcards stands just fine on its own — not least because it includes “Spotlight” while the other EP doesn’t (it’s in a different guitar tuning, which is why). That said, handing the other tracks to Hoffman to tinker with is a fun experiment. It’s like a DIY indie-rock remix that stays true to the source material while adding a new perspective.
New Haven Music Scenesters Co-Curate Pizza Exhibition
There is surely a sizable overlap between the worlds of music and pizza, but few people are more squarely in the middle than Dean Falcone and Gorman Bechard. Falcone plays guitar and writes songs in New Haven band the Shellye Valauskas Experience. Bechard has made a number of documentaries about musicians, including the Replacements, Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart, Archers of Loaf, Lydia Loveless and Wilco’s Jay Bennett.
Together, Bechard and Falcone are part of What Were We Thinking Films, the New Haven production company behind the 2019 movie Pizza: A Love Story. That film, an exploration of New Haven pizza, led to their latest endeavor: Pronounced Ah-Beetz, an exhibition about New Haven pizza that opens Oct. 9 at the New Haven Museum.
Bechard, Falcone and Colin M. Caplan, author of Pizza in New Haven and a co-producer of Pizza: A Love Story, curated the exhibition with Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, director of the New Haven Museum’s photo archives. The show traces the history of pizza in New Haven, from the opening in 1925 of Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana on Wooster Street through the arrival of its chief competitors — Sally’s Apizza across the street and Modern Apizza nearby — down through the latter-day New Haven pizza scene. Along with photos and video footage, the exhibition features vintage artifacts, including, Falcone says, the first pizza box and one of Frank Pepe’s hats.
Opening night of the exhibition is free (though registration is required) and will include slices from Pepe’s, Sally’s and Modern. As for the name of the show, “ah-beetz” is the proper way to say “apizza,” which apparently stems from “la pizza” in Italian. Though it makes me wonder whether that pronunciation reflects the Americanized Italian that Atlas Obscura wrote about in this story a decade ago, where prosciutto becomes “pruh-zhute” and ricotta somehow turns into “re-goat.” Regardless, Pronounced Ah-Beetz runs through October.
Upcoming Concerts
The Iron Horse in Northampton hosts Deer Tick Dec. 30 (tickets).
The Drake in Amherst hosts a hometown screamo band with the charming name godfuck Oct. 23 with Holder, Gingerbee and morning dew (tickets), Connecticut-born singer-songwriter Jake Minch Nov. 22 (tickets) and Afghan traditional musicians Homayoun Sakhi and Salar Nader March 6 as part of Music at Amherst series (info).
The Marigold Theater in Easthampton hosts Slant of Light, Les Dérailleurs and Saliba Oct. 4 (admission is $10), and rumor has it there’s new music on the way from Slant of Light. Also coming to the Marigold: New York City metal band Tower, Connecticut doom-rockers Bone Church, Boston metalpunks the Humanoids, and Western Mass. thrash band Goblet on Oct. 11 (tickets); and Modern Ego, Bunnies, Neon Fauna and Warm on Nov. 8 (tickets).
R&B singer Mariah the Scientist performs Feb. 25 at College Street Music Hall in New Haven (tickets).
Jake Minch also performs at the Space Ballroom in Hamden Nov. 25 (tickets). The Heavy Heavy are there Dec. 13 (tickets).
That’s it for now, but Freak Scene is always seeking submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
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