Ransom schedules her own tours by talking fans - and their friends and relatives - who have never organized a house concert into letting her play. Instead of performing in the established circuit of living rooms, Ms. Duckett imagines, thanks to a new twist on the idea developed by Kimberli Ransom, a 30-year-old singer-songwriter known by fellow musicians as the queen of house concerts. Duckett, who runs the Web site There may be even more house concerts than Mr. ''We have about 90 places around the country that hold house concerts listed on our Web site, and we believe that it's very possible that there are three or four times that many going on around the nation,'' said Mr. The Internet has made it possible for those who run house concerts to promote the shows at no cost, keep in contact with one another and hunt down possible performers. Though house concerts seem like a throwback to a time before the rise of the nightclub and concert hall in America, their rejuvenation is largely a result of technology. Someone is coming in to present wares and make money, and someone holding the party gets a few free dishes. I look at it this way: we're not any different than a Tupperware party. ''The fire marshal has been in my home for a concert. ''In our community, I wouldn't think anything like that would come up,'' said Glen Duckett, a computer programmer who runs a house concert series called ''Flowers in the Desert'' in Brenham, Tex., an hour outside of Houston. Gardner said - and promoters and artists say they haven't heard of anyone who has had problems with the police, with lawsuits or even with complaining neighbors. Many people who present house concerts remain unaware of local ordinances - ''I just put on my blinders,'' Mr. In addition, the audience is generally more attentive, more enthusiastic, and more willing to buy CD's after the show. Because most homeowners already have jobs and are happy just to have these performers in their living rooms, they usually give them all the door money. Last month, in an effort to give the performances more legitimacy, the Gardners even turned their house into a nonprofit corporation, complete with a board of directors and an advisory committee.įor the musicians, who range from up-and-comers who can't get a club date to some of acoustic music's most celebrated musicians, like Bela Fleck and David Wilcox, the cover charge at house concerts is generally higher than at clubs. Steve and Celeste Gardner hold a concert series in their home nearby.
Hubbard, writer of the honky-tonk shout-along ''Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother.''Īnd Mr. But once a month, with the help of a local college radio disc jockey, they become music promoters, plastering the city with posters advertising concerts in their living room by relatively well-known singer-songwriters like Mr. Elliott, 44, works for a computer company and Ms. The hosts of these concerts are generally ordinary people who like music and don't mind handprints on the wallpaper. I've done a lot of shows where by the end of the night I've known every person in the audience at least by their first name.''
''That's why when people go to their first house concert, they're amazed that people can do something like this. ''Part of the reason for the boom of house concerts right now is people are so hungry for community but lacking in ways they can get together with other people in an intimate or friendly way that isn't commercialized,'' said Dave Nachmanoff, a singer-songwriter from Southern California who began performing house concerts a year and a half ago after finding out about them on the Internet. From Seattle to Waco to Queens, more than 300 homeowners have become part-time concert promoters, turning their living rooms into mild-mannered clubs for a night, and scores of performers are discovering that they can make good livings simply by touring these private residences. House concerts, as these events are known, have recently blossomed into a full-fledged national movement. And for two hours that night 80 music fans, most of them strangers who had bought $10 tickets to the sold-out performance, camped out in the couple's living room and ate their food. This was clearly no ordinary club: it was the home of Chris Elliott and Carolyn Maynard.
And the backstage area was a small bedroom where guitars rested against the wall next to a vacuum cleaner.
The stage lighting consisted of a single black desk lamp clamped to the top of a chipped window frame. In more than 30 years of touring, the Texas singer Ray Wylie Hubbard had seen far more professional-looking spaces than the one he performed at on Wednesday evening.