CIYH House Concerts

In way of a beginning, here's a blog I wrote to explain house concerts to some of my mailing list that had not experienced one yet.

Music From The Heart, Not For The Charts

I was looking at my mailing list and wondering why in a year’s time of presenting house concerts, relatively few have come to one of our shows. Another host commented that he’d recently had a friend confess he really wasn’t sure what a house concert was all about. I could understand that because I still remember my initial impression when our friends in Texas told us they hosted house concerts.

Back then, I figured that Billy Bob (not a real artist) from down the block came over with his family band and they did a repertoire of familiar cover songs in a somewhat boozy sing-along type affair. Karaoke at home, for all intents and purposes. I had also run across a mention of a Living Room Concert on Janis Ian’s website. For $14,999 Janis would do a show in your living room for up to 40 people, with a rather long list of guidelines and limits. The money went to Janis’s charity. In my ignorance I assumed anyone I’d really care to hear would charge quite handsomely for playing somewhere as small as a private home.

Then in 2006 we took our first trip to Texas and visited our friends who were hosting house concerts. That evening, Canadian singer songwriter Romi Mayes, accompanied on dobro by Dan Walsh, presented her original songs and they were GOOD. And she was funny - she actually told stories about her life and how the songs came about. And Dan played great!

We were hearing live acoustic music, good music!?, in someone’s living room. I was blindsided - I had no notion whatsoever that I could so enjoy a house concert by artists I’d never heard of. When the evening was over, we got to speak with the artists, we ate from the potluck and had a beer with them, they signed their CDs for us, we took photos together, we exchanged email information. In the back of my mind I was already trying to figure out how I could have this experience again.

Upon returning home, I started doing research on house concerts. When I found www.concertsinyourhome.com, I realized house concerts were a legitimate and growing phenomenon. It took a year to screw our courage up and begin presenting, but now a year later I can’t help wanting to let the world in our secret.

For music lovers, house concerts are nirvana! In a club environment, you are fighting the bar noise, the talkers at the next table, the pool table racket, the waitresses trying to take orders, etc, etc. Even at concert venues like the Ryman, I have been driven within an eyelash of physical violence when some nearby inebriated dullard insists on shouting over the music I’m trying to enjoy.

At a house concert everyone is listening, and you’d be amazed at how much these artists will share when folks are actually listening! Our evenings start earlier and end at a reasonable hour for those who appreciate that. And there is a shared social interaction that occurs between music fans when they gather and share a potluck spread, talk about their favorite music, exchange recipes, share upcoming anticipated concerts, that is so natural and sustaining. I’d even say magical. Music has that power!

But by far, the biggest surprise of house concerts for me, is the quality of musicians who will play in someone’s living room for a nominal $15- $20 per person and an appreciative, attentive audience. From artists that I revere and admire and have followed for years, to artists I may have only recently discovered but whose music is SO much better than what I find on contemporary commercial radio or TV. Artists who make music because it’s in them and has to come out, not the sort of Nashville Music Row writing-to-a-formula-for-hits type music that leaves me empty at best and often disgusted

The living room is a viable music venue… Before it was a commercial commodity or an advertising support medium, music was a communicative channel, connecting kindred souls, reaching out to new opportunities, and calming the savage beast, so to speak. Small, intimate gatherings honor and celebrate those functions.
–Bill Littleton, songwriter

Attending a house concert is visiting the home of good friends you didn’t even know you had. It is warmth, wonder, discovery, companionable sharing of the passion that is live acoustic music…hearing it, savoring it, presenting it, performing it. It is remarkable. It gives you live music like you’ve never experienced before — in the informal, intimate setting of an exceptional music lover’s living room, where the performers, despite their astonishing talent and musical skills, are just friendly folks who love to make the music that makes your heart flutter.
~ Willa, fellow music nut!

House concerts are a perfect venue for performing songwriters. Generally, you have a very responsive audience who appreciates good music and the opportunity to see a performer up close. You are also not singing in a room full of cigarette smoke, and you are not competing with the drunks at the bar, who after a couple of drinks think they are the show. Clubs are fine, but here is the big difference; most clubs do not spend the time and energy to properly promote their shows like house concert presenters do; it is a business to them, often to sell drinks or food, and not a passion for the music.
-James Talley, songwriter http://www.jamestalley.com

Playing in someone’s home is an honour, both humbling and inspiring. In less personal environs, you get a less personal performance, but in a lived-in house there is history, both evident and invisible. Delivering a house concert brings traditions and history to life, in the moment. You know, in 18th century Iceland there were nomadic singers who travelled house to house, singing rimur (old rhyming ballads) in a cappella fashion, as well as telling stories. They were welcomed as guests, and during their stay they brought life to the families they visited. It was a way to help people on remote farms cope with the bitter winters. Some of those ancient songs survive and are given the respect of hymns. When I play a house concert,the folk traditions of the world inform my spirit, directly or indirectly, and there is no other setting that does this. It is an intimate experience that goes right to the heart of the troubadour tradition.
–Doug Lang, Troubadour http://www.myspace.com/dukelang

I would say a house concert is the last best chance at something “pure.” While the musician stands to gain something, nobody is gonna get rich and most promoters do it out of sheer love. In fact, that’s mainly why the performers do it too. That’s why the fans come too. So it’s an all around giving kind of thing. A pure exchange with no middleman. It offers something to a community and to life in general and reminds us there is a better way than the wild world outside presents. I always call them “Pure gigs”.
–Steve Young, songwriter http://www.steveyoung.net

A house concert is probably the most intimate musical experience you will ever attend. We’ve had performers whose songs have hit number one. You’ve heard those songs on the radio. We’ve also had performers, who may never write a number one song, make an entire room full of adults cry their eyes out and laugh out loud. House concerts give the audience a chance to interact with the artist too. Hanging out in the kitchen, drinking a cold beer with someone you’re a fan of is much different that being told to “stop stalking the artist” by security. Bars focus on selling beer; concert halls focus on selling tickets; house concerts focus on the music. This is music in the buff/raw – personal and real. If you love live music, you won’t get any closer than a house concert.
-Jimbo Lattimore, host of Memphis House Concerts http://www.myspace.com/memphishouseconcerts