The last Saturday of almost every month (we take July, August, and December off!) The Peace Region Songwriters’ Association organizes and runs a coffee house at Under the Willow Cultural Cafe in Dawson Creek, BC. We’re very lucky to have access to this cafe. Jennifer, the owner, is a real arts booster and is very generous with her facilities.
I thought I’d take a little time to talk about the coffeehouse and the people who come to perform and the people who come to watch and listen. The cafe only holds about 50 people so the coffee house is, of a necessity, a small affair. There’s no ’stage’, just a spot in the corner where the sound equipment is set up. We bring our sound system in and my partner, Bill, mans the board. This makes it fairly easy for performers as all they have to do is step up to the mic and/or plug in their instrument. We run the open mic sections from 6 to 7:30 pm and from 8:30 to 9:30 or 10pm. In between we feature a special performer who has worked on a one hour set of entertainment. Straight ‘open mic’ can be quite a mish-mash, and the featured performer is a quality anchor that not only provides an enjoyable, longer set, they are often the ‘draw’ that brings different people in to the coffee houses (and then they are more likely to come back again). We definitely have some people who are regulars, but it’s also very encouraging to see the wide variety of people who attend, all age groups, and because there’s always such a variety of performers, quite often we have a variety of listeners too. People who normally only attend concerts of a certain genre of music will still attend our coffeehouse. It’s interesting to see the reactions of some listeners to some of the music. You can tell it’s a new style of music to them and there’s often a real look of discovery on their face, like “Hey, I’ve never heard anything like this before - I LIKE it!”
We have found that to put forward a good evening of entertainment we needed to charge a little something to cover some expenses, so we instituted a $5 admission fee. I haven’t heard anyone complain that they don’t get their money’s worth, and really - $5 will barely buy you one of those fancy coffee things with sprinkles on it, so it’s a pretty reasonable admission charge!
We’ve had poets reciting, lots of singer/songwriters, and some very hot musicians. We’ve enjoyed cowboy poetry as well as excerpts from a new play. We’ve also found that more and more often musicians and singer/songwriters start ‘backing each other up’ or ’sitting in’. This is huge for the Peace Region Songwriters’ Association - we love to see artists collaborating!
The feature performer for May is Ian Smith and if you’ve been to my website or if you have either of my CDs, you’ve heard Ian. He did all the guitar work on both of my CDs. He is a very talented musician and will surely put on an excellent show.
For the last coffee house before the fall (June coffee house) The PRSA will be presenting “Our Peace River Home” - a musical collaboration by members of the association that features original songs, poems, music, and stories about the Peace River area.
We don’t run the coffee house in the summer because there are so many festivals and other things running and we want to be supportive of those events!
So there you have it - our coffee houses - just another way of bringing artists together and showcasing their talents to our community. I will definitely sign up for a set at the May coffee house, I always do - it’s a fun place to play and all my friends will be there! You should join us!
Next Coffee House - May 29 - doors open at 6pm - Under the Willow Cultural Cafe - corner of 9th Street and 103 Avenue, Dawson Creek, BC
Here we are in 2010, and although I am usually dead set against new year’s resolutions, I think I’ll take this opportunity to start blogging with a vengeance!