Brooklyn Songwriters Launch “Live From The Vault” Series

Carolann Solebello Performs Live At The Vault/ photo by Kimberly Nicholais

A new acoustic music series – Live From The Vault: Songwriter Sessions – debuted on April 11, 2019, thus ushering in a new performance space in Clinton Hill. The Vault is a smartly re-imagined coal vault in the basement of Putnam’s Pub & Cooker at the northwest corner of Myrtle and Clinton Avenues.

Karen Dahlstrom On The Guitar / photo by Kimberly Nicholais

Amid brick and wood-slat walls, with plenty of wrought iron and a few artworks to boot, guests sit on small, cushioned whiskey barrels or tall stools on either side of the performers. Alternatively, they can park themselves in U-shaped cubicles with banquettes and a low table. The center one of these provides the best, most comfortable view, while the others afford a greater degree of privacy for those who are content to just listen, but not watch, the performances. A small but well-stocked bar occupies one wall of the intimate space.

Live From The Vault is curated by Brooklynites Devlin Miles and Carolann Solebello, with performances slated for the second Thursday of each month. The inaugural show featured Solebello, Virginia native Chris Hewat  (aka Solar Hearts), and Karen Dahlstrom of the Brooklyn band Bobtown performing in-the-round style, each singing and strumming in turn, occasionally accompanied by one or both of the other two. There were six rounds in all for a satisfying 18-song set.

Sessioners Karen Dahlstrom, Chris Hewat and Carolann Solebello / photo by Kimberly Nicholais

Solebello led off with, appropriately enough, “Brooklyn in the Rain,” a break-up song that is ultimately an ode to our fair borough. “We burn in the fire” – a coincidentally fitting sentiment for a coal vault setting – “but we’re cold to the bone,” sang Hewat next, after which Dahlstrom took the crowd 2,400 miles west to her home state of Idaho with “Galena” from her Gem State EP. On the evening went, one well-crafted song after another. Among the many standouts were “Iron Pan” and “Meeting the Muse” from Solebello’s latest album, Shiver; Hewat’s “Shine Like You Shine,” in which he tells the woman he loves that “You can be a cowgirl … a queen … a medicine woman when the healing is needed … a light for darker times” and Dahlstrom’s powerful and liberating feminist anthem, “No Man’s Land,” from Bobtown’s new album, Chasing the Sun.

Up next at The Vault, Miles will perform on May 9 with Jill Sobule and Nick Zork, followed on June 14 by Solebello and her No Fuss and Feathers bandmate, Karyn Oliver, together with Paul Sachs.