An Affair to remember in New Haven

On the basis of a forthcoming EP, I described New York band the Affair as sounding like "Ronnie Spector fronting X." So how'd they do live at Cafe Nine Friday? Very, very well. The show was their first U.S. performance outside NYC, so they're still a little green on stage. But singer Kali Holloway about caved in the back wall of the club with the power of her voice. She has PIPES, and the Affair's songs bristled with live energy.

A woman also fronted Common Response, another band on the bill. She looked demure when she sang, but turned into an axe-slinging demon when she stepped away from the microphone, shredding on guitar like Jimmy Page getting poked with a cattle prod. I didn't catch her name, but she's an unbelievable guitarist.

Then there was some guy in jeans with a dog-eared copy of one of Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled Philip Marlowe novels shoved in his back pocket. OK, fair enough: A little hipster cred on a Friday night. But what was up with the toothbrush poking out of his hip pocket?