Last Thursday, we headed to the House of Yes in East Williamsburg to show support in a fundraiser for their House of Yes Music Studio. As the artist’s space already hosts Skybox, a huge aerial training facility and Make Fun, a fabric workshop for costumers and designers, the addition a music studio seems like a logical extension of their desire to provide workshops and space for a variety of creative folks in the area. There was the bonus that recent KotGB musical obsession Tecla was performing along with The Peeps and Tayisha Busay.

The House of Yes space is pretty amazing. On a block that is half industrial area and half residences, nestled a few blocks from the High School for Legal Studies, you enter what looks like any one of a million local galleries. Walking past the front door through foyer there’s the space where with a temporary stage set up. It seems like a larger Vaudville Park. Until you look up.

There, thirty feet above you, with ropes ties and the other ephemera of aerial acrobatics, the ceiling extends almost into nothingness. Looking up, you can make out the ceiling if the lights are right, but upon first seeing it in the darkness, there was a temporary moment of vertigo. The thought of actually being up grasping ropes attempting the requisite “death defying stunts” as advertised on circus broad sheets of old was enough to send chills down my spine.

Doors were at nine PM, but we had no way of knowing how efficient or timely this venue would be over others, we made it there a bit early. I was able to meet face to face and talk to her a bit before her show. I was also able to meet another Gordon Voidwell bandmate of Tecla’s, Guillermo E. Brown, who patiently talked to me while I asked what must be the more common questions he gets asked.

“What is that thing you play?” “A zenfone?” “I’m sorry, a what?” “A zen…fone.” “How is that spelled?” “Just like it sounds” “And it’s basically just a wireless MIDI controller?” “Yes.” “Do you do any performing outside of Gordon Voidwell? Do you have your own releases?”

I learned about his most recent release, Shuffle Mode, on Cleveland Tapes. Where he uses a variety of sounds to create what is scatter shot IDM backed raps. The name Shuffle Mode is very appropriate as the musical mélange beneath the raps varies wildly and is always interesting and at times challenging. I’ll confess I haven’t had much opportunity to dive in beyond a cursory listen, but I liked what I heard. You can pick it up from Bandcamp here for $5. His next performance will be with eleven members onstage, happening in June. I’ll have more information for you when I can get it.

The opening act was Newburgh, New York’s The Peeps, an upbeat dance rock party punk band incorporating Latin American instrumentation and rhythms that extends to a bilingual singer who was adept in both Spanish and English. At times the band traded out their second guitar for what I think was a charango, a small ukulele-like instrument that added an excellent counterpart to the lower frequency intensity of the rest of the band. This is more in like with what you’d expect to hear from somewhere in the South West as opposed to an hour north of Brooklyn.

The band uses thigh vocal harmonization, the atypical Latin infusion into punk, the ability to create both pop gems and intense blasts of more typical punk sounds. It comes across a bit like a ska band minus the horn section, especially in “So You Wanna Know” that could be pulled from a Streetlight Manifesto album while “Musketeers” sounds like your favorite Epitaph Records artist from the 90s. You can download their newest release, Our Crazy, a six-song EP, for free from here. Be warned that it’s a poor substitution for seeing them live.

Shortly after their set was Tecla. As I’ve already written, I am really enamored of her music. Her blend of pop with socially conscious lyrics and a forward looking music that isn’t afraid to look over it’s shoulder reexamining older sounds instantly synchs in a way many 1980s nostalgia projects don’t.

I’d seen Telca perform live a number of times as a keyboardist of Gordon Voidwell, but I think this was her first time performing the new material live. I was curious how much of it would translate from the album and if she would be able to carry herself being the sole focal point of the audience’s attention. Though it wasn’t perfect, she did put on a good performance that was at times skittish and unprepared that by the end morphed into strong and commanding.

With Guillermo E. Brown recruited to play live drums, Tecla was able to round out what would have been mostly just her and instrumental tracks from her EP. Though a keyboard was plugged into her Macbook, it wasn’t used for more than two songs relying predominately on her ample charisma and enthusiasm to carry the songs.

There were a few technical issues, such as songs starting when Tecla was unprepared, some songs forgotten, and bass taxing the speakers a bit causing everything to sound a muddy and indistinct. She apologized at first saying she “was so unprepared” while thanking us repeatedly for our patience. These issues fell away to nothings when she sang.

Tecla’s voice and stage presence were strong. Her musical training and performance history with previous bands gave her the skills needed to keep our interest and enthusiasm up even as the previously mentioned technical problems seemed prepared to tear it all down.

Her energy and the strength of her songs propelled the crowd to move as one while a cluster of fans up front sang along with every word. Tecla herself came down from the stage to sing with the audience as we surrounded her and it was less performer and audience but more she was like us. There is a commonality in her songs like “So Have I” and “When I was a sinner” that we can all relate and this coming down to the audience only helps reinforce that theme of the commonality of human experience.

It’s heady stuff if you think about it, but you won’t have time to do so when she’s performing. You’ll be too busy smiling, laughing and dancing your ass off.

I’d like to see Tecla perform with a full band sometime, so that she can concentrate solely on singing while other members of the band take care of the music backing her. She has the charisma and songwriting part down, but fettered to other equipment, I think that it kind of split her attention, so she couldn’t focus on giving us all of her that the audience was demanding.

Minor quibbles to be certain but don’t let this dissuade you from attending Tecla live, as I’m certain that as she practices this more, she will get better. It won’t take much more to make her solo efforts as exciting and dynamic as Gordon Voidwell’s amazing live shows.