The hottest new music venue in the Valley is right in your backyard. Actually, it is your backyard, or your kitchen, or your living room.
House shows, where bands perform sets in people's yards and homes as opposed to traditional music venues, are the venue of choice for dozens of up-and-coming and established bands in the Valley, who are looking for a smaller, cheaper and more intimate stage on which to perform.
English literature and secondary education sophomore Elizabeth Koebele, who performs bass and back-up vocals for the band A Technicolor Yawn, played her first house show four years ago as a high school junior.
"It's a more intimate way to play music," Koebele says. "You're all playing in a room and you're listening to music together."
Koebele actually met one of the lead singers of her current group, biology graduate student John Douglas, when he was performing a house show as a solo act. Since A Technicolor Yawn formed in June, Koebele says the band has performed at Phoenix venues like the Modified, the Ruby Room, the Paper Heart, Casablanca and Trunk Space. But the band still performs house shows, she says.
"I think people are a lot more inclined to go to house shows," she says "They can drive their bikes, hang out, [and] listen to music for free."
One danger in house shows, though, is that sometimes people can be more into partying than listening to the band.
"Sometimes they can turn into house parties and they become a little less about the music than they should be," she says.
Ben Horowitz, who's performed as Porches since the beginning of 2006, says he's performed about 25 house shows in the past year. Though he also says they have sometimes turned into "frat parties," they are usually a positive musical
experience.
"There's just something about being in a room with 75 people that are just there to listen to you. They're not talking to each other; they're not drinking at the bar," says the 2007 journalism and political science graduate, who moved to Chicago this summer and now performs house shows in the Windy City.
A stronger relationship can form between performers and audiences in house shows than many traditional venues, Horowitz says, because there aren't physical barriers like a stage, huge speakers and security guards.
"It's like if you're an actor and you're performing in theater, you're obviously wanting people to see you performing as opposed to a videotape of your performance," he says.
After he hosted his first house show — which Horowitz compares to "a religious experience" — at his former Tempe home, he says many people came up to him and told him that it was the best concert they'd ever been to, and not just because of the quality of the performances.
"They'd never been at a show where everything was so focused on a community and a community of music," he says. "It's that sort of feeling that drives the house show movement … until the cops show up [for a noise violation] and shut it all down."
