house concerts and 21st century touring

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Message from Fran:
2009 is off to a roaring start. A see a lot of enthusiasm for the upcoming Folk Alliance Conference (The Disney World of Acoustic Music!) and I’m delighted to announce some great new improvements to the site.

Major CIYH improvements:

1. New house concert calendars… they now have their own section of the site, complete with artist photos, and our new “invitation request form,” which both protects the host’s privacy, and encourages potential audience members to join your mailing list.
2. House concert e-flyers.. an extension of the calendars, allowing hosts to quickly create attractive flyers complete with photos, links, yahoo maps, and RSVP information. Much of your profile information is pre-loaded in the form, which makes it super-easy to send attractive invitations to your mailing list. Simply paste the URL in an email and you’re done.
3. Easy to navigate “host edit” area. It’s now much simpler to log in and make periodic changes to your host listing, as well as putting events in the calendar instantly.

New CIYH Hosts: (artist members can search “member since 2009-01″ using the advanced search. )

26 New House Concert Presenters in Alberta, Ontario, Netherlands, Arizona, California, DC, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

New CIYH Artists: (A big thank you for your support.)

Look for these new artists here!

Aaron Nicholson, Adam Day, Ann & Will Rowland, Beth Wood, Brian Ashley Jones, Butch Morgan, Clint Alphin, Cori Brewster, Craig Cardiff, Dan and Leland, David Hein, Debra Cowan, Delaney Gibson, Delmark Goldfarb, Don White, Eddie Rhoades, Gathering Time, George Ensle, George Worthmore, Heidi Muller & Bob Webb, J.P. Riemens, James O’Malley, Jeff Miller, Jeff Pike, Joe Gee, Joe Iadanza, Joel Plaskett, John Zipperer & Friends, Kim Richardson, King Curly, Laurie Jones, Liam McKay, Lucia Comnes, Mike Breen, Otis Gibbs, Patty Clayton, Pauline Pisano, Phil Minissale, Prairie Jewel, Preston Girard, Rachael Sage, Rex Blazer, Rick Summer Droit, Rj Cowdery, sahffi, Sarah Donner,  Seth Glier, Stephen and the Talk Talk Band, stevie tombstone, Still on the Hill, Storm Session, subvocal, Sue Jeffers, T. Edwin Doss, The Nadas, The Tree People, Trent Wagler, Trio Del Rio, Tripping Lily, Watson & Nash

Renewed Artists: (A HUGE thank you for your continued support!)

Randall Williams, Scott and Michelle Dalziel, Richard Gilewitz, Robby Hecht, Randy Weeks, Laurie McClain, Jeff Talmadge, Mark Wayne Glasmire, Audrey Auld, Lenore, Jill Knight, David Kav, Bing Futch, Chad Elliott

Schwag of the Month:

For those of you with a sense of humor, may I present my new favorite.

Tip for Artists and Hosts:

We’re getting twice as many visitors as we were just 6 months ago, so it’s more important (and worthwhile) than ever to keep your photos looking good and your information current.

Update your profiles, booking information, and pictures! The calendars and flyers will be featuring your uploaded photos…
Artists log in here |   Hosts Log in here

Letters from Ned:

Another great story from Ned Treanor, our resident historian and lover of all things acoustic. This one is about Gordon Lightfoot, the Irish Rovers and DEE-troit.

Please share this information with people you like. — fran

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Ned Treanor is a folk historian, with more memories than you’d expect from someone who was part of the Woodstock generation. Maybe the haze only filtered out the boring events.
I continue to share his enlightening and funny emails to me in what has become a monthly series.

You want credentials? Shawn Colvin used to baby-sit his kids. Take it away, Ned

Back in 1967, we had just opened the “Living End” in Motown [Detroit,MI] and were one of the first U..S. clubs to showcase the Irish Rovers and Gordon Lightfoot, [separately, of course] - both from our neighbor to the north, the Dominion of Canada.

We had previously experienced an overflow turnout with our initial showcasing of the Rovers at our relatively small club.  So for their triumphant return gig, we rented a movie theater, to be able to handle the anticipated “mob scene”. Just one small problem… Dee-troit had a nasty habit of attracting rather unpredictable weather patterns that were not especially comforting for the club owner bent on filling his/her venue for a given event. In this particular case, our “overflow crowd” for the Irish Rovers, fresh from their first “hit”, Shel Silverstein’s “Unicorn”, consisted of probably a dozen or so delighted fans, not even filling the front row! To our surprise, The Rovers insisted on doing a FULL SHOW, to the delight of the “crowd”…and then, would only allow us to pay for their return transportation costs to Canada, “donating” their fee to help offset the cost of the theater rental!

Exactly one year later, Gordon Lightfoot, for the same reason, having experienced a similar situation at his year-earlier “debut” at our club, had been booked into a similar “overflow-prevention-solution”, this time at a shopping mall, no less, only to have Mother Nature work her magic and bring Motown to a complete standstill! Again, Gordon, Red Shea and John Stockfish, his band, nearly outnumbered their audience, but insisted on performing an entire show for a “crowd” that you could have counted on two hands, with fingers left over; and then insisted on foregoing their fee in exchange for passage back to Mother Canada, across the river from Detroit…and then some!

Its memories like this that you’ll NEVER bring away from an Eminem nor Madonna gig - even though they’re both from Detroit. Thanks for the opportunity to share some of these moments with a new generation of singer-songwriter-performers who, at times, must wonder if its all worth it! Once they are able to bank a few of their own similar anecdotes, they’ll have their answer, loud and clear! Thanx, Fran.
-Ned

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