New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Looking for the silver lining
ROCKER SAM CARLSON CONTRIBUTES MANY TALENTS TO NEW HAVEN’S MUSIC SCENE
New Haven-based indie rock musician, songwriter and recording engineer Sam Carlson found a silver lining during the COVID-19 quarantine. When plans to tour with his just-released album came to a screeching halt last April because of the ban on live concerts due to the pandemic, Carlson decided to make the best of the situation. He already hired three musicians to back him up on stage for the tour, and at the same time, he and a partner opened a recording studio in downtown New Haven.
“We had release shows booked, and all of those disappeared when COVID happened,” said Carlson, during a recent interview. “We had this studio space that just opened up, and we couldn't really book anything there. I had a couple more songs that I wrote after the album was finished, so I thought, ‘Why don't we just record those right now in the studio. We'll move on to something different, if we can't play shows.’ It's like keeping the ball in the air.”
Carlson’s back-up band soon became his fellow bandmates in a new ensemble called The Tines, featuring Sean Koravo on bass, J Thompson on drums, and Ilya Gitelman on lead guitar, with Carlson singing lead vocals and playing rhythm guitar. The Tines’ debut recording “The Enemy Is Listening,” was recorded during the pandemic at Sans Serif Recording, the newly opened studio, and released last October as a five-song EP on Free as Birds Records.
Carlson explained that the recording process “was completely different from the way that a band normally starts. Typically, you all
get together, you workshop songs, and then play shows where you can test out the songs in front of an audience. You can adjust them as you go on. This was completely the opposite of that.”
The songwriter explained that he first recorded voice and guitar demos and then had the other musicians come into the studio individually to add whatever they heard to the songs. “It was ‘first thought, best thought. Whatever you think the part should be, just do it,’” he said. “And for me, I think it captures an excitement about it, where whatever was the initial thing that someone got excited about was what wound up on the record. When I listen back to it, I can hear it more as a listener than as the person who made it, because I didn't have a chance to overwork it.”
Look for The Tines to be performing at Café Nine on August 28. The band is now working on a new record at Sans Serif in a more conventional manner. “Everyone's in the same room at the same time,” he said. “We've been recording live, the overdubs are minimal, and we all record at the same time in the same room.”
The Tines is one of many New Haven bands Carlson works with. He booked shows and bartended at Café Nine, worked in marketing and the box office at the Fairfield Theater Company, sang and played drums in Ports of Spain, and performed solo as S.G. Carlson.
When he was in the altcountry band The Proud Flesh, Carlson explored the idea of opening a studio in New Haven with a fellow bandmate in that band,
Patrick Dalton, who is also an experienced sound and recording engineer.
“We were both making a lot of records for local artists. If I wasn't making it, Pat was. We thought that if the two of us opened a place together, we probably would be able to corner that market, pool our resources, and make a good space to work out of,” he said.
They signed the lease for Sans Serif Recording’s location at 770 Chapel Street on March 1, 2020. “It was probably the least convenient time to start a lease anywhere in the last one hundred,” lamented Carlson, but he’s happy with the decision. “It took forever to find a place that was even interested in having a recording studio in New Haven. But it's great being right in downtown. Our landlords are big supporters of the arts.”
Carlson is also optimistic about the local music scene he’s a big part of. “New Haven has a really amazing infrastructure for entertainment
that speaks to the number of quality artists and the number of interested audience members in town. It wasn't really challenging to find good artists that we wanted to work with and that wanted to work with us, especially since we're playing in bands and working at venues.”
Some of the many New Haven acts who’ve recorded at Sans Serif include the punk band Killer Kin, rhythm & blues singer STOUT, indie-rockers Youth XL, and rapper Ceschi.
Carlson, a Southern Connecticut State University graduate who majored in English Literature, also has musical genes. His father, Rob Carlson, is a wellknown musician, songwriter, voice-over artist and recording engineer. The elder Carlson was in the acclaimed music trio Modern Man and continues a successful solo career. He’s got a new album out, too, and his son plays drums on all the tracks.