A Conversation with Jack Williams (continued)
JW: Yeah, that's the kind of thinking that can get us in trouble, because it starts to get institutionalized. Of course, the thing is though, that it's already changed in some places. People have put out extra expense and energy to do house concerts. Like in a particular place in Florida, they actually built their house with a room set up to accommodate fifty to sixty people sitting and a stage, and they have a recording studio in the back, and they can show the show by video.
PM: Incredible.
JW: So, lacking a real folk venue--which is hard to come by in the Tampa area, because to rent a space you better have a bar if you're going to make money. To rent a folk space is kind of hard to do, so the real folk venues become the homes. Broward County, Florida, you go down there, and it's the house concerts--that's where the people play, at least until you get to the auditorium level, if that's what you're after.
But these folks have built this on, and they take a percentage of the door. And that's kind of a hard nut to swallow sometimes, because the basis of the house concert thing is that I'm supposed to get paid, and I just come in. Of course, they put you up and feed you and you hang out with them. But these folks have made it somewhat of a venue, it's like a little bit of a business. But since they've put all this money and they draw a great crowd, I'm willing to go ahead and give them their thirty percent, because I still do well. They always have a bunch of people. They have a built-in following. And I've played there maybe four times, coming up on my fourth or fifth in April. But if you look at it not as a house concert, if you look at it as a venue with a ready-made audience, the only drawback is that you can't put posters up all over town.
If you are going to play at The Ark in Ann Arbor, for instance, you can go and plaster the town with your posters, and you can do a certain kind of promotion that says where you're playing. And people are saying, "Oh, he's at The Ark," because everybody knows The Ark. But when you do a house concert, you run into a publicity problem, that this is a private venue, although not a private function, and how do you tell people about it? In that respect, this house concert thing in Florida is not a real folk venue, commercially. But that's the way I have to treat it, because they want the percentage off, and if I want to play for them, if I want the benefit of their set audience, then I have to go along with their way.
PM: I wonder if you do a house concert donation only, if can you get it on the NPR station as a public service announcement.
JW: Some places, yes. Some places do that. I checked in with South Carolina Public Radio, and sometimes they will announce a house concert. On another occasion, some person there said, "You know, I'm sorry, that doesn't fall under the category." But I think it just depends on the region, and just how anal retentive somebody who's at the helm happens to be.
PM: And that's something that should never be underestimated. [laughs]
JW: That's right. [laughs]
PM: You know, as an alternative to The TV Age, it really is amazing, and I wish more people were aware of it. Especially in quite a number of towns and cities in America where not only the touring talent abounds, but the residential talent as well.
JW: Right. And when you say The TV Age, I'll throw in The Music-In-The-Bar Age along with it. Because for most people, unless they went to a big concert somewhere and paid big bucks for the concert and the name performer, the only place they got their music was from a bar--other than CDs. Other than mechanically reproduced, they had to go to the bar. And so this is the great alternative for those people who got tired of the smoke and the liquor and the bullshit.
PM: Right.
JW: But you said, "I wish more people knew about it." I've got mixed feelings about that, because I've found--I've seen it happen--it's not for everybody. There are some people who can't make that transition from the bar to the home. And I've also had people on my older mailing lists who have seen me out, and I've said, "Hey, you guys haven't come to hear me play in a long time." They said, "Well, Jack, we just love your music, but there ain't no way I'm going into that church."
PM: Because?
JW: It's a church. [laughs]
PM: Ahh.
JW: And then others will say, "Well, we can't drink." And I've said, "That's quite true. You may have to put something out in your truck and go out during the break."
PM: [laughs]
JW: And they say, "But we're used to drinking when we go out for our music." And then I say, "Well, now we know where your priorities lie." And it's true. And I'm not being mean when I say that, but it is absolutely true that there are people whose feeling is "Well, I love your music, but only in the setting in which I can indulge with my other needs."
PM: Right.
JW: And so the audience has sharpened itself. And there aren't that many people in this culture who are willing to sit quietly and listen to a stranger play music they never heard before. It's not a thing that everyone is going to take to. And in fact, we turned on the TV last night, and I caught my first glimpse of what Judy says is something that's been on prime-time TV for years. [to Judy: What was it called?] The Fear Factor.
PM: Oh, yeah. Reality TV.
JW: Yeah. I saw a woman who was falling out of her top, running along carrying a dead rat in her mouth which she was supposed to spit into a garbage can.
PM: [laughs]
JW: And I thought, "This is network TV, prime time."
PM: So it's come to this.
JW: And I thought, "You know what? Nobody watching this is going to come to a house concert."
PM: [laughs] Because you're just not going to carry the dead rat for them.
JW: Well, it's just that they've--the lie is being told. The music industry, the media, they tell it to themselves and to us. The lie is: "We're just giving people what they want." And it's not, that's not it. The entertainment industry is completely out of its mind. They're feeding people, and they're always trying to top themselves for fear that people won't like something low-key and easy going, or just a little more subtle. Whoever is planning our media path in this culture just really thinks that everything has to be topped.
And now people
have the idea that we've got to keep pushing it, keep topping it. And
what happens is, our attention spans and our willingness to just do simple
things, like sit with your family at a picnic table for three hours [laughs],
or just be outside and watch birds, or just lie there in the creek, we're
losing our ability to do that. It just scares the hell out of me. And
I think the people who are still willing to do those things are the ones
that come to house concerts, and find out that, "Hey, this is for me."
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