Katie Knipp believes in
serendipity.
When not playing festivals and
theaters across the West, the veteran of blues and Americana
sound often takes the stage at Sacramento concert venues such as
The Sofia theater and Harlow’s nightclub. But on a recent winter
night, the local songstress wasn’t leading her bandmates into one
of their usual haunts, but through the doors of a large house on
a suburban cul-de-sac.
Dubbed Theater 5150 for its
Carmichael address, this private residence is where Knipp chose
to record her new live album. Her reasons were threefold: She had
already performed at Theater 5150 enough to know that it has
pristine acoustics and draws an audience laser-focused on her set
list. But more importantly, the house is where, in July 2023,
Knipp had a chance encounter that altered the trajectory of her
songwriting and stage presentation.
Though she plays festivals all over the West Coast, Katie Knipp
has also performed four times at Theater 5150. (Photo by Phil
Kampel)
Back then,
Knipp was between bass players. Trying to get a substitute for a
show at Theater 5150, Knipp agreed to let a friend of a friend
take the gig. This stand-in was Pancho Tomaselli, the longtime
bass player for the band War. Knipp says that she and Tomaselli sparked a
musical connection during the concert. They hit it off so much
that what was supposed to be a brief, last-minute job for
Tomasselli morphed into a full membership in Knipp’s band. He
also served as the producer for its next two albums.
So, as Knipp and her group fired
up their amplifiers at Theater 5150 on January 10, they thought
there couldn’t be a more thematically appropriate spot for laying
down tracks that captured how they’d evolved since adding the
funky, punchy prowess of Tomaselli’s bass.
And Knipp was convinced audience
members showing up to the Carmichael abode would understand
that.
“This is the one kind of venue
where every single person in the room is there for the music,”
Knipp says. “As someone who plays a lot of venues, that’s
unfortunately hard to come by these days.”
Her band kicked off the night by
launching into “Lava Pot.” The crowd leaned in, listening to the
sultry, low-down swing of the song’s gutbucket intensity pulsate
between high ceilings and hardwood floors. Two people who were
enjoying every note were Emily and Mark Kassenbrock, the owners
of Theater 5150. The couple has been hosting house concerts for
10 years. Though they’d already seen the Katie Knipp Band perform
everywhere from the Torch Club in downtown Sacramento to
the Nevada Theater in Nevada City, Mark was convinced that her
group was finding a special kind of power in his living
room.
Emily and Mark Kassenbrock, left, stand next to songstress
Jessica Malone, center, and her band after a performance in
mid-February. (Photo by Phil Kampel)
“That was probably the best I’ve
ever heard Katie play,” he says after the show. “Emily and I have
been out to watch her probably 15 or 20 times now. But on this
particular night, she was just on fire.”
Mark added that his home has had
that effect on other musicians.
“The place has a great, big sound
inside,” he says. “You can hear a pin drop when the artists are
performing. Nobody in the audience is talking because they’ve
truly come to hear the music. And as a result, the artists are
almost always at the top of their game.”
Homeowners stumble into
house shows
A decade ago, the Kassenbrocks
hadn’t even heard of a house concert. That changed when
Sacramento folk singer Sandra Dolores Swanfeldt invited them to
one at her own place in 2016. Arriving to watch Swanfeldt test
new songs for the road, Mark and Emily were struck by how
naturally laidback and friendly the atmosphere felt. They also
noticed that Swanfeldt’s satin voice and sterling guitar notes
weren’t competing with any background chatter. The Kassenbrocks
sensed they were part of something like a shared, sacred
meditation on Swanfeldt’s visions.
About 10 days later, Swanfeldt
emailed Mark and Emily to ask if they would ever consider hosting
a concert at their own house.
“Literally, I thought, ‘Hell
no,’” Mark remembers with a laugh. “That sounded like a lot of
work.”
But then the retired attorney
who’s played guitar for 50 years began contemplating the unusual
layout of his house. It was originally designed for the Dariotis
family, who founded The Old Spaghetti Factory in Sacramento in
1978. They had it built with a wide sunken living room — similar
to a ship’s hull — that can act as a de facto auditorium. It also
has a spacious kitchen and a library tailored for
entertaining.
“I just thought, ‘You know, this
house is really kind of made for it,’” Mark admits. “So, I ran
the idea by Emily, who had none of my initial reluctance. She
just said, ‘It sounds like fun.’”
Swanfeldt was the first artist to
perform at Theater 5150. As the Kassenbrocks evolved into hosting
full bands, they were simultaneously doing outreach with their
neighbors about possible concerns. Most of those living close by
just wanted to be invited to the shows.
The way house concerts generally
work in Sacramento — and the way they go down at Theater 5150 —
is that they’re conducted as party events on private property.
There is no commercial aspect to attending, though the hosts ask
guests to donate a certain amount of money that’s entirely for
the performers and sound engineer. From an artist’s perspective,
one obvious advantage to playing house concerts is that there’s
no split at the door — 100 percent of the money goes to the
talent.
Unlike some house concert hosts,
the owners of Theater 5150 advertise all their shows on an
official website, and anyone can attend.
In Carmichael and other parts of
unincorporated Sacramento County, an ordinance dictates that sound levels in residential
neighborhoods — including from music — have a noise allowance
that can’t exceed 55 decibels between 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 50
decibels between 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Anyone throwing a house
concert must follow these guidelines.
Just how soundproof Theater 5051
is became apparent five years ago, when the Gold Souls performed
at the house. It was Mark who urged the Sacramento group to play
his favorite number by them, “The Coffee Song,” which is a
sizzling groove with fat bass and relentless drums.
Lead singer Juniper Waller asked
Mark if that was a good idea. He remembers barking, “Yes!” Then,
guitarist Darius Upshaw made direct eye contact with Mark,
stressing, “Are you sure?”
Mark says that he bellowed,
“Yes!”
The Gold Souls hit the crowd with
the song’s full, fun-loving power. “Everyone left happy and
amped,” Mark recalls. “The next morning, I went to my neighbors
and told them the story. And it turned out that nobody heard
anything.”
That development led the
Kassenbrocks to start hosting louder acts like Boot Juice, the
Lab Rats and the Katie Knipp Band.
On the night Knipp and her group
recently recorded the live album, two people participating in the
audience were Larry Riddle and his wife, Gloria Lawson-Riddle.
They have been hosting music shows in their own backyard in
Carmichael for nearly 10 years. They call it the R Yard house
concert series.
Larry Riddle and Gloria Lawson-Riddle host the R Yard house
concert series in Carmichael. (Photo by Scott Thomas Anderson)
For Gloria, facilitating these
performances has allowed her to bond with music fans from across
Sacramento and enjoy a real collaborative relationship with some
of the most talented roots-Americana performers in the
nation.
“I really love the proximity to
the artist or band who’s performing,” Gloria says. “That, and how
everyone there pays so much attention to what they’re doing. We
have regular attendees who can’t wait to see which performer is
coming next, and we’ve become friends with a lot of them.”
Lasting memories from
music
Gloria and Larry were introduced
to the house concert concept while touring the Caribbean. They
were on a Cayamo cruise in 2017, a sea-touring company that hosts
live music as part of the experience. Gloria and some friends
were on the boat enjoying an up-close, intimate performance from
singer
Sarah Potenza. She had
recently grabbed the nation’s attention while being a contestant
on The Voice.
“I was just mesmerized by the
power in her vocals, and she was different from most people I’d
ever heard singing,” Gloria recalls. “When she was done, I got up
said, ‘Hey, this was a really great show — do you tour?’”
In response, Potenza asked Gloria
if she’d ever consider hosting a house concert for her. Gloria
says that, before she could fully formulate an answer, her pair
of friends had already volunteered her. Looking back, Gloria
knows this exchange put her and Larry on the road to finding
years of rewarding moments.
In October of 2018, Potenza — who
hails from Rhode Island — gave a concert in a garden-chic yard in
Carmichael for 52 strangers who were clinging to her every note.
Gloria had even made special napkins with Potenza’s face on
them.
Since then, R Yard has hosted
indie performers from around the country. These appearances have
included Gabe Lee, Crys Mathews, Heather Mae and Susan Werner. Gloria and Larry say they usually have
about 60 people attending their shows. Similar to Theater 5150,
the neighbors who live on R Yard’s street are often part of the
audience.
Sun sets on a house concert at R Yard in Carmichael. (Photo
courtesy of Gloria Lawson-Riddle)
For Gloria, the most memorable
scene so far involved Susan Werner’s performance. The
award-winning contemporary folk singer was playing a driving
acoustic piece she wrote called “Recumbent Bike.” At one point,
Werner dropped onto the ground, laid on her back and pedaled her
legs up in the air as she kept the guitar chords chiming.
Larry’s favorite show was a
recent appearance by bluegrass maven A.J. Lee, whose duet cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest
Moon” with The Brothers Comatose
currently has more than 10
million views on YouTube.
“A.J. Lee played here with her
band, Blue Summit, and everyone loved it,” Larry says. “People
were dancing and having a good time. These concerts are
multidimensional. People can just relax and be themselves, and
it’s a wide variety of different people who are coming. It’s
wonderful to see everyone get along.”
Someone who’s been to a number of
the R Yard shows is Jenny Stanionis, who decided last summer to
host her own very first house concert in Auburn. Stanionis and
her late husband, Michael, had been attending house concerts for
30 years. They were both huge fans of cowboy and Western songs.
Michael was a radio broadcaster who always dreamed of throwing
that kind of musical soiree where they lived.
Jenny Stanionis went to house concerts for decades before
deciding to host one herself last summer in backyard in Auburn.
(Photo by Scott Thomas Anderson)
Unfortunately, it was only after
he was gone that the stars lined up for Stanionis to make that
happen in the wide, terraced backyard with flowers and redwood
trees behind her house. The artist she hosted was Nashville
singer-songwriter Robby Hecht. Ultimately, 30 people showed up,
most of whom had heard about it through word of mouth.
“Some of my non-music friends
thought I was a little crazy to let people I didn’t know come
over to my house,” Stanionis says. “If I hadn’t been a house
concert-goer for so long, would I have been so gung ho? I don’t
know. I just know that the people I’ve met who love music have
never given me a concern. … It’s kind of like that garden party
that you’ve always wanted.”
Stanionis plans to host more
shows.
No regrets
David Hill and Shirley Nemke have been bringing memorable home
performances to their Carmichael neighborhood for nearly 14
years, though they’ve focused mainly on the classical genre.
Hill, a retired building maintenance engineer, has played piano
for decades. He never felt his own skills were on a performance
level, though wondered if a large, auditorium-like room in his
house with vaulted ceilings and acoustic treatment could be an
ideal spot for others to share their musical gifts.
In 2013, Hill and Nemke hosted their first concert, which
featured Yana Reznik, Russian-born pianist from Los Angeles.
There was so much appreciation from their circles of friends
they’d invited that Hill and Nemke decided to continue on,
deeming their new house concert venue Harrison Oaks Studio. The
room holds about 80 attendees, with its guest list being
invite-only.
Hill notes word got out fast about what he and Nemke were doing.
In less than a year, performers from as far away as Israel and
Africa were dropping by to enliven Harrison Oaks while on their
broader tours of the U.S.
“This world is so small, that everyone hears about everything,”
David muses. “What I like about the classical music scene is what
a community it is, and how everyone seems willing to help each
other out.”
It’s hard for Hill to pick a favorite memory around Harrison Oaks
Studio so far. However, one that really stands out is when Bay
Area vocalists Richard Sims and Hope Briggs, and pianist/vocalist
Othello Jefferson, performed together, all while doing a fair
amount of storytelling with the crowd about how the compositions
were connected to the African diaspora. Hill says it was a
special night.
“You know, I didn’t have to retire when I did,” he reflected.
“But I wanted to make sure that I did something with music and
not just spend my whole life working, and then wake up one day
and wonder what happened.”
The next performance at Harrison Oaks Studio will be with cellist
Dylan Jowell and pianist John Kiunke on June 6.
Meanwhile, Knipp is starting to
get tracks back from the sound engineer who recorded her band at
Theater 5150.
“The sound quality is so good
that the hair is standing up on my arm,” she says. “It’s great
that there are people like Mark and Emily who are so selfless
when it comes to supporting artists. If there were more people
like them, the world would be a better place.”
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