Right in the Folking Living Room.

Lead Story — By admin on April 15, 2010 7:37 pm

“Music is coming around / Back playing in people’s parlours / It’s just me singing for you.”

-Corin Raymond, musician

By Peter Worden

Photos by Neville Palmer

Something beautiful is happening in the living rooms of the nation – something powerful and, at the risk of sounding ambiguously alliterate, something patriotic too.

It requires surprisingly little: kitchen chairs, couches, ottomans maneuvered in a semi-circle, room for a band of musicians to perform, and enough tushes to fill said seats and make said band’s time worthwhile.

They’re called house concerts. You’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of it before. Some know them better as ‘Living Room Shows.’ For those who came to Turner Valley’s Diamond Willow Artisan Retreat it was maybe just, ‘That Thing at Pat and Doug’s Place.’ All amount to the same thing.

Essentially they’re paid gigs for musicians, same as any small town pub on a Friday night, but with two differences: venue and impact.

Pat and Doug Lothrop hosted one in January. The Winnipeg-band The Crooked Brothers played their living room; a homey venue with cinnamon scented candles. Their dining room chandelier was the band’s spotlight. A staircase acted as the nosebleeds. Floor seats were seats on the floor. Backstage was an alcove next to the fireplace mantle. It was a venue that perhaps reminded you more of your Aunt Molly’s than anything.

“It’s a great way to play music,” the band’s banjoist, Matt Foster, tells me about the house setting. “We’re not just playing for a bunch of anonymous fans.”

That’s the secret in a nutshell. The audience is far more attentive to the musicians. Seventy-eight ears listened honestly to music, mic-less, the way it was meant to be. Socked feet tapped along to the rhythm. Foster in fact is the only one in house not in socked feet but barefoot altogether. It sounds better for stomping on the hardwood. Music like this would be lost – played in a bar amid the cacophony of bottles clinking, games of pool and nonplused patrons brooding around drunkenly.

At one point in the evening the band ended a song singing so quietly guests listened like dogs acute to low volume. Softer and softer, subsonic almost, sotto voce, until the lyrics faded into complete silence and the crowd broke from its mesmerized spell to applaud. For the pessimistic music-enthusiast lamenting the downfall of modern music, house concerts should give hope.

For the band, the benefits are practical. Working-touring musicians, such as they are, cannot afford to travel big-city-to-big-city. It’s business-savvy to perform in living rooms across a country of a million small towns. Room and board can be part of the deal, drinks are on the house, and because most are BYOB anyway, attentive aesthetes among the audience spend their money on CDs and T-shirts.

“It’s more than a growing trend,” says Foster. “It’s a new way of touring.”

At the end of the night the crowd trickled out the front door and the large semi-circle of furniture was shoved into a smaller circle. Foster and band mates, Jesse Matas and Darwin Baker chatted with the remaining half-dozen guests. Pat made mini-pizzas and poured wine. Doug handed out Kokanees. The mandolin, banjo and guitar came out for an impromptu rendition of “Good Night, Irene” as an outro for one guest.

It turns out, there’s something about beer, folk music and socked feet, which makes for a catalyst of Canadian identity. It’s a peaceful sort of patriotism and the whole house joined in the serenade.

“‘Good Night Irene’ is one of those songs everyone has in their blood,” Foster says out loud, as the front door closes and a blast of winter air enters the living room.

I’m pretty sure he’s right.Listen Now to Crooked Brothers: Sweet Lemons

Tags: Crooked Brothers, Diamond Willow Artisan Retreat, folk music, Peter Worden, routes, Routes Magazine