Hosting a house concert

Over the years I've hosted occasional live-in-the-living room concerts with top-notch artists--Peter Mulvey, Louise Taylor, Jennifer Kimball, Stephen Fearing, Sons of the Never Wrong...and most recently Galitcha, a group from Ottawa that mixes Indian folk and Bollywood songs with elements of western folk and jazz. Every time I experience music in this down-home environment, I feel so privileged. Even people who love acoustic music get so few chances to hear great instrumentalists and a singers in a room, without the sonic hyping of either a PA system or a recording studio, and without the separation of a stage.

Some artists have told me they find house concerts a little too intimate--the audience is literally at their feet, dead quiet, and not hidden by stage lighting. But for musicians who are comfortable being this up close and personal with listeners, the interaction before, during, and after the show can be exhilarating. And for the audience, not only is the music itself often a revelation, but there's a palpable sense of supporting creativity. When you buy a CD or a 99-cent download, you may have a vague notion that a portion of your money goes to the singer, player, or songwriter. But at a house concert, the creator is right there, singing and breathing and strumming and greeting you afterward. The human connection--the thing we miss the most in this atomized age--is real and immediate.

Billy Bragg mondegreen

Mondegreens, for the uninitiated, are misheard lyrics--e.g., hearing "'scuse me while I kiss this guy" in "Purple Haze." I was spinning the great Mermaid Avenue CD the other day, on which Billy Bragg and Wilco set rediscovered Woody Guthrie lyrics to music, and I was reminded of how I first heard Billy Bragg sing one of the tracks in his thick Cockney accent: "Way over yonder in the monarchy."

The lyric is "Way over yonder in the minor key"...but I still like the monarchy version. Sounds like a song Bragg should write.

Check out Wikipedia's list of mondegreens here.

Listen to my NPR review of the recent Billy Bragg box set here.

Under the radar

Several conversations lately about the indie music business have led me to the same conclusion: that the percentage of music being made and sold under the radar of the corporate musiz biz is increasing to the point where hardly anything registers on the radar anymore. Sure, there are hits in different segments of the Balkanized music listening public, and there's American Idol, but all that has little or nothing to do with the realities and even aspirations of the vast majority of today's musicians.

The radar is rising.