A Venue for the Anti-Pop

by Janice Brown

New Haven, CT – As part of a city-wide urban renewal project that began in 1999, New Haven, Connecticut has commissioned one of its nine districts, the ninth, in fact, to become the city’s center for the arts and entertainment. Producer/engineer Nick Lloyd is just one of the arts establishment proprietors new to the area, and possibly the most unique- he’s opened a recording studio/performance venue in the district’s old firehouse.

A Yale alum, Lloyd returned to the New Haven fold in 2000, while in the process of moving himself and his studio out of Brooklyn to attend graduate school at his alma mater. He learned that the city was seeking a suitable buyer for the firehouse, and quickly mapped out a proposal. “I submitted my application to the city, detailing all the components of my plan for the space and the budget, and how it would fit with their vision for this area,” says Lloyd. ” I argued that by getting interesting music in here, specifically the type of music that had not had a place in New Haven before, I’d be filling a niche. Also, there’d be this very public aspect to it…