Rocking the house

Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric didn't rock out on stage during their three-hour show at Jen and Dave's house in Moorestown last weekend....

That was because there was no stage.

Instead, there were two microphone stands and a couple of amps set up beneath the wood-beam ceiling in Jen Hilinski and Dave Khanlian's living room, where a full house of 50 or so in-the-know fans sat on folding chairs, sure that they were in on something special.

That they were.

"I'm just imagining somebody driving by," said Rigby, as the sharp-eyed indie songwriter and her pop-punk cult-hero husband bashed through Eric's "Take the Cash (K.A.S.H.)," on a small-town New Jersey Saturday night. "They look in the window, and there's a rock concert going on in the living room. And they must think that they're driving in their sleep, because it doesn't seem possible."

It's not only possible, it's increasingly common in the Philadelphia area. Under-the-radar house concerts, often featuring touring acts like Rigby and Eric (last name: Goulden); or Oklahoma songwriter Samantha Crain, who played recently at Bob Beach's Concerts at the Beach House series in Lansdowne in Delaware County; or the Upstate New York rock band the Figgs, who will play at Dave and Ann Marie Inglis' house, also in Moorestown, on Oct. 25.

When evaporating CD sales have made touring ever more important for musicians seeking to make ends meet, house concerts offer an inviting alternative.

For the hosts, there's the thrill of having their favorite acts perform in their homes - and maybe stick around for breakfast the next morning. "We've always been really big music fans," says Khanlian, who began putting on shows with his wife, Hilinski, in 2002.

Their walls are decorated with autographed CDs and posters that display the adult-alternative acts they've hosted, including Mary Lou Lord, John Wesley Harding, and Graham Parker. "It was always a dream of ours to have artists we were fans of come play in our house," Khanlian says.

For the artists, who usually take home 100 percent of the cover charge, which was $20 for Rigby and Goulden, and $15 for Crain and her band the Midnight Shivers at the Beach House, it's a working gig with a more comfortable atmosphere than a dingy club. That's gas money, and more - sometimes more than comes in from an official advertised gig, after the club takes its cut. Plus, a chance to play their songs, and sell CDs, to an attentive audience.

"If people come here, it's because they want to listen to the music," said Crain, the 22-year-old singer and guitarist from Shawnee, Okla., whose Southern gothic six-song EP, The Confiscation, is one of the stunning debuts of the year.

"When you've been out for 20 days, and playing in clubs where half the people will be real unresponsive and are just there because that's the hangout and they could care less about who's on stage, this is like a real recharge," Crain said before going on at the Beach House. "You can play to people who are really supportive of what you're doing, and get a bedroom upstairs and a meal at night."

For the fans, it offers an up-close-and-personal experience that can't be duplicated in a more "professional" concert setting.

"The environment is just so comfortable," says Liz Bressi-Stoppe, who lives across the street in Moorestown. "It's people you know, and who you're friends with."

And the best thing about it "is just how intimate it is," says Mark Hines, another Moorestown resident who has caught the house concert bug and hosted Philadelphia folk-rockers John Train and Birdie Busch. "You can really see the artist up close. They take more risks."

The casual vibe can make for chatty evenings. Goulden, 54, the English rocker best known for his much-covered two-chord punk-era masterpiece "Whole Wide World," and who now lives in southwest France with Rigby, was especially loquacious.

He nattered on about how an audience member's Obama shirt reminded him of a Queen album cover, and about how he first met Rigby at a club in Wales four years ago.

Too many house concerts can be a bad thing, said Rigby, 48, while being interviewed in Khanlian and Hilinski's kitchen, and trying not to block the BYO beer line or have a cast-iron pot fall on her head.

"It's not a commercial, high-visibility gig," she said. She and Eric, who released their eponymous debut as a duo this summer, played the North Star Bar in Brewerytown in September. "Because you want the public to still come and seek you out in a club."

In a club, she says, "there's an air of mystery. And there's the wall. You can choose to break through it if you want to. But here, you don't really have a choice. You have to break through from the beginning. If you don't, the people don't really feel comfortable, and you don't feel comfortable."

Luckily, "Jen and Dave are like the Bill Graham of house concerts," says Eric. "They know how to do it. If they tell you the sound is all right, it is."

House shows can be key for up-and-coming artists, says Dolphus Ramseur, of North Carolina label Ramseur Records. He put out Crain's Confiscation EP, and another of his acts, world music folk band Bombadil, will play the Beach's front parlor on Nov. 11.

"You're not getting a lot of media exposure," says Ramseur. "But you can still get in front of people who are influential. And they'll still come to see you when you play the TLA or the World Cafe Live," where Crain will play, as part of the Hotel Cafe tour, on Oct. 29.

Beach is an accomplished harmonica player who often sits in with Philadelphia hillbilly gospel-rockers Hoots & Hellmouth, who will come over for a "bring your Thanksgiving leftovers" jam on Nov. 29. He also books the Lansdowne Folk Club. Like Khanlian and Hilinski, he gets news out through word of mouth and word of Web.

On a sticky summer night in the century-old house where Beach lives with his wife, Deborah, and daughter, Kate, he sat in with Crain and the Midnight Shivers, in front of a crowd of a dozen and a half people happy to be turned on to new music in such an intimate space.

"As a musician myself, I played house concerts for years," Beach says. "They're some of the most appreciative audiences. People who come here aren't here for the beer, or the special coffees. They're here to hear the music."

Concerts at Sixth Street in Media (www.sixthst.com). Next show: Christine Havrilla, Dec. 6.

Concerts at the Beach House in Lansdowne (www.myspace.com/concertsatthebeachhouse) Next show: Bombadil, Nov. 11.

Lou and Rain's House Concerts, Hightstown (www.myspace.com/louandrainshouseconcerts) Next show: Anne McCue, Nov. 2.

House Concerts With Dave and Ann Marie, Moorestown (e-mail: btnchm@comcast.net) Next show: The Figgs, Oct. 25.

Jen and Dave's House Concerts (www.jdhouseconcerts.org), Moorestown. No shows currently scheduled.

House Concert Resources:

www.houseconcerts.us

www.houseconcerts.com

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