Nurse Your (Love) Hangover at Littlefield

Valentine's Day means a lot of different things, depending on whom you ask.

Freshly formed couples use it as an excuse to revel in their blissed out haze while single people are forced to pine for what they don't have, enduring an endless barrage of red and pink reminders.  

Some folks prefer to just grumble at the whole mess.

Whichever category you might fall into this year, Cobble Hill resident Richard Alwyn has you covered.

Alwyn started The Love Hangover, a multi-artist musical event that takes place on the day after Valentine's Day, in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2000. Since then, Alwyn has staged over 23 shows with over 150 performers in five cities.

Each show features a line-up of musical duos singing songs that celebrate the joy, the pain and all other relevant matters of the heart.

"When I was living in Raleigh, I started organizing singer-songwriter shows, and some of them had a theme," Alwyn said. "The Love Hangover was the first show that I required the other players to follow the theme as well. They would all be love song duets."

Alwyn moved to Brooklyn in 2005 and quickly began doing The Love Hangover at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg. He has continued to host and perform the show every year in various Brooklyn venues, and this year, the show goes on at Littlefield in Gowanus.

His cohorts in Raleigh kept the show going down there as well, and other show participants started chapters in their respective home towns of  Kansas City, Chicago and Ann Arbor.  

This year's line-up is stellar. In addition to Alwyn, who will host and perform with Lara Ewen, other participants include Caitlin Cary and Matt Douglas, Anders Parker and Kendall Meade, Greta Gertler and Adam D. Gold, Michael Arenlla and Alan Cary, and Jessi Robertson and Greg Thomas.

Caitlin Cary, who is a solo artist and founding member of  alt-country legends (and Ryan Adams' first band) Whiskeytown, has played the Raleigh show six times and will be making her debut New York Love Hangover appearance this year.

"I've done the Hangover in Raleigh numerous times with numerous partners," Cary said. "Does that make me sound cheap? I'm a Hangover Hooker!"

Indeed, Cary met her current bandmate in The Small Ponds, Matt Douglas, through a 2009 Love Hangover collaboration.

"I consider it such a brave thing to take part in the Love Hangover," Cary explained. "You really have to get up your nerve to ask a fellow musician, often one you don't know well, 'Want to come over and listen to my favorite love songs?'"

Cary aptly likened The Love Hangover to a "musical show-and-tell."

"You're asking the audience to let you play your best mix tape live," she said. "'This one made me feel all that-a-way when I danced to it at the 8th grade dance' and 'This one got me through the time my first love left me and I cried for three weeks.'"

Five-time Love Hangover participant Kendall Meade, of the shimmering pop outfit Mascott, also likened the experience to playing a mixtape.

"Playing covers is so fun, and I am happiest when I’m collaborating with someone," Meade said. "The first year I participated we played The Zombies, Squeeze and Bill Withers. It was like playing side A of my favorite mixtape ever."

"As long as Richard keeps asking, I'll say yes," she continued. "Also, I have a soft spot in my heart for love songs or breakup songs because — when it’s a good one — they’re as honest and true as a writer can get."

Meade will be performing this year with Anders Parker, a solo artist and indie-rock veteran of such bands as Varnaline, Gob Iron and Space Needle.

"I’m so happy to play with Anders, and he’s driving down from Vermont to play the show," Meade said. "I’m trying to get him to do the Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet 'Picture' but he has conveniently ignored my text about it."

Audience members can expect a night of great music, to be sure. Part of the fun, is the element of surprise.  

"The most exciting part of the night is seeing what people play," Meade said. "Last year two acts did Prefab Sprout songs. When does that ever happen?"

Alwyn agrees.  

"The frequent appearance of Lucinda Williams songs has been interesting," he said. "I think there's been one a year until 2007 or so." 

Ultimately, Alwyn is a firm believer that The Love Hangover is a show with something to offer everyone, no matter where they lie on the spectrum of love.

"Broken hearts will heal, believers' hearts will be reaffirmed, and open hearts just might find the love they've been looking for," he said. "Bitter cynics and sadsacks will likely also find a song or two to gripe along with.

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The Love Hangover is at Littlefield on February 15.  Doors are at 7:30pm and tickets are $12.