Come to my house for a very special concert on Friday night.
Last night I spent at least an hour swapping messages with a new friend on Facebook who happens to be the daughter of an interesting woman who lives nearby. I mentioned an upcoming concert featuring an internationally known fingerstyle guitar player at the absolute top of his game. And that she and her mother would be most welcome to attend. (This is outer Montana, very rural; every seat is a great seat, and every seat with a paying person in it counts. Which is why I work hard to sell the events. They wouldn’t happen otherwise.)
The artist in question is a music industry legend who fills concert halls and listening rooms and music festivals and who delights and thrills his audiences with every thumb-busting performance he gives. All over the world. This artist could easily win a place on a list of the top guitar players who have ever lived. At least among followers of fingerstyle guitar.
No kidding. This artist is easily a world-class performer, composer and musician, by any credible measure. One Google search would provide all the artist credibility needed to validate a decision to see the artist. But we’re not talking about what is credible here.
My new Facebook friend’s incredible ensuing interrogatory was predictable for someone who was looking—first and foremost—for a way out of “having to” attend a concert with an artist she did not yet know. She wasn’t interested in what she could learn about the artist by simply showing up, putting her butt in a seat and digesting every juicy moment of the show with the artist less than 8 feet away.
My Facebook pal wanted to know more about the artist: did he sing? Or does he “just” strum?
Well, I responded patiently, the artist in question does not sing. And he doesn’t strum the guitar either, at all. He’s a fingerpicking guitarist. His fingers dance. All 10 of them. He does things to a guitar that nobody has ever done. And the music is stunning. That’s reason enough right there for anyone with a shred of curiosity left from childhood to make the date.
It was then that I realized I was dealing with someone who had no clue about what I was doing presenting concerts in my home with brilliant musicians and didn’t want one. The lack of trust in my ability to produce a major artist in my home was palpable. This person reckoned her love of music by declaring first what she didn’t like as a way of affirming her decision not to attend the show. She basically didn’t like artists who don’t sing. She loves LYRICS. She said.
Of course, all of my responses ended with entreaties to this nice but incurably cautious, unworldly soul to come experience for herself what this artist was all about, and bring her mother, a reclusive “new age” neighbor who lives just 100 yards down the hill.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to entice her to a show. She doesn’t have Internet, so I print the poster and bring it to her, or I mention it when I see her. Yet the mother’s never attended a show here. Six years of world class concerts within walking distance for $15 bucks a show. And it’s funny how I would probably be perceived as a bad guy if I ever let slip to this neighbor my disappointment in how much genuine beauty and wonderment she’s missed over the last 25 shows here at Lapwai Lane Shredders Club.
Love music? Sure you do.
How about real live music? Do you find yourself leaning toward the music and artists you’ve already heard on the radio? Too pooped to pop for a concert ticket and plant your butt in a seat to be entertained by a real live person? Are you afraid of something? Or is it that your mind is so full of itself that there’s no room for anything new?
Don’t you ever wonder what else is out there in the music world that isn’t finding its way to your sheltered ears? Often, music you’ve been wondering about is being performed in people’s homes. Like mine. I actually built a concert hall that seats up to 60 people in my home that doubles as my home office and music room. Of course, I’m a musician too.
It isn’t easy filling one’s living room or even bigger rooms with people eager to see “emerging” artists they seldom know already. I should know, I’ve been promoting artists as a volunteer since 1986 in all kinds of top-drawer venues, including theaters, festivals, and large and small concert facilities in Utah and Montana. This includes established artists like Alison Krauss, Lyle Lovett, John Gorka, Patty Larkin, Rory Block, Greg Brown and dozens more singers and songwriters, instrumentalists, and string bands. Here’s a relatively complete list of artists I’ve presented at least once.
Nearly all these artists are or were relatively unknown to the general public when I presented them. Alison Krauss was all of 20 when I presented her at the Deer Valley Folk and Bluegrass Festival in 1990. You probably won’t hear any of them on your local radio station, unless you’re lucky enough to have a good public radio station and DJs who actually have their own sense of what constitutes “good” music. I’ve sold these artists for 25 years and have heard all the reasons people have for not attending so often that they would fill a book.
Sure, as a victim of mass media, you may not know the artist, at least not yet. But I do know the artist, and my taste in music is impeccable because it’s been leavened by 40 years of being a musician and 25 years of promoting other artists to tough crowds. When I invite you to a concert, it is I who is doing you a favor. Not the other way around. I don’t care if you don’t want to attend or why. I know what you’re missing. It’s your loss.
I don’t book bad artists. I don’t do it for money, I do it for the ART. These artists may be unknowns to you but they’re working, touring artists all the same, worthy of your respect and undivided attention for a couple of hours. Just like the well known acts populating your overtaxed brain, only you’ve never heard their names.
The musical brilliance you seek is so close, yet so far if you’re not open to new music by real people, in your face, without a filter of media to legitimize it to your preferred level of comprehension.
But even for musical diamonds in the rough, attention is hard to command in a world so preoccupied with, and full of, itself.
