Front Porch House Concerts Blog

I know I have been lax in my recent posts…I will try to stay more current. Life has been flying by at 90 miles per hour and balancing family, work and our concerts has been 3 full time jobs…

Reflecting back to our January show- Tom Kimmel and Michael Lilly were great. Really warm, funny and talented. They put on a crowd pleasing show, and stuck around to chat for a few hours afterwards. A real treat…

You know, I look at our shows the way I look at my children (I know that sounds odd) - I try not to play favorites-

All of our artists have been great and have enriched our lives in one way or another.

Having said that- we may have had the best show of our 2 ½ years of doing this, last week! The Laura Love duo (Laura and Jen Todd) were unbelievable. Not just amazing musicians, with vocals that would compete with anyone, but spontaneously funny, high energy and it is clear they are doing something they are passionate about. Not afraid to speak her mind, Laura has clear views on the current administration, the environment, and the war in Iraq. By the time they left, it was like saying good bye to old friends. We would look forward to the day when we could have them back.

Now, looking forward, I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about our upcoming shows. I have been in communication with Todd Snider’s folks for over a year now, trying to get the pieces fall into place. Well it finally happened and we have Todd booked for our March 6 show. Although I don’t agree with all of Todd’s opinions (I happen to be a regional leader of sales- for those that keep up with Todd’s lyrics), I agree with most- but appreciate his thoughts and forthrightness. On top of that he has to be one of the funniest performers out there.

After that, we have my hopeful- maybe the first person we’ve ever had that could make it big in main stream music- Carey Ott. I first heard Carey’s music on XM Radio and was immediately impressed. With a few lucky breaks, I wouldn’t be surprised if Carey was playing large arenas a few years from now.

In closing, if you are not aware, with the help of my friend Brian Patrick, we are now doing LIVE streaming for all of our shows (as long as the artist will allow it)- If you can’t make it to a show, check out the LIVE streaming- it is way cool!

Thanks for your interest in music and what we are doing…

Jon

This writing will be the first of Front Porch House Concert Blogs. This will hopefully be a two-way forum where I will write about our series…the good, the bad and if need be, the ugly. I would love to hear feedback from you, our participants in person, or through the Internet.

First off, let me say how thankful we have been in growing our series to the point where we are now. Thanks to our audience, the artists, the agents, to Jim Williams at Swallow Hill Music, to Brian Patrick (our web designer and audio/ video guy), and to my wife Lu, for allowing all this to go on in our house.

Well sometimes this whole adventure is just surreal. From the time we put an artist on our wish list, to contacting the agent, going back and forth trying to secure all the details, to finally securing a date…then waiting for the date to arrive…it seems with all that build up, the actual show is over in the blink of an eye. Sort of like coming down from a high. I guess like most addicts ( yes some say I am becoming addicted to this); there is always the next “high” to get ready for.

Well, such was the case with our last show- Catie Curtis. Maybe our most exciting booking, and anticipated show. We have been huge fans of Catie’s music for years, and been trying to get her for the past 2 ½ years. The details came together, and the day arrived last Wednesday. Catie showed up hours before the show and hung out for the better part of the afternoon. If there is a nicer, more genuine, “what you see is what you get”, performer out there, we certainly don’t know of them. It was a joy to spend time getting to know her.

The show itself was fantastic as Catie played most of our requests (all 14 of them), and injected insights, stories and humor between them. We could have listened to her all night long.

She spent the night in our guest bedroom, stayed to chat and hangout more the next day, and then “poof”, she was gone.

I only hope we can look forward to her coming back next year….

Jon