2005: I remember driving around my small college town with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah pouring out of the speakers back when I was barely old enough to vote. Their self-titled debut was still new in the world and it had the unique distinction of having gained notoriety not only based on the strength of its thoughtful lyrics and timeless yet singular, fresh sound, but because they were one of the first music acts ever to achieve said recognition via the blogosphere and social media.
Before Justin Beiber became YouTube famous, back when the idea of interactive music videos sounded like science fiction, CYHSY were becoming a self-powered indie-rock machine, crafted by their artistic virtuoso and ragged charm and propelled forward by the internet’s recognition of these qualities.
Fast forward nine years and I’m sitting on the arm of a leather fireside chair six feet away from the band’s front man, Alec Ounsworth, as he stares at a pile of notes and harmonicas at his feet while serenading his small crowd. He’s doing this as a part of solo tour in which he foregoes venues like festival tents and music halls in favor of something vastly more intimate — a living room offered up by one of his fans and shared by a handful of people lucky enough to be one of the few in attendance.
Due to the fact that he is recovering from a virus of some kind, or perhaps to avoid complaints from the neighbors, he sings sweetly, keeping his trademark yodel-like wailing to a minimum. Thirty or so other people are watching. Their faces, illuminated by the soft orange glow of Edison bulbs from fixtures that surely came from Restoration Hardware, are transfixed. No one is tweeting or turning around in their seats to take selfies with the star in the background. It’s like sitting around a campfire with a bunch of friends and listening to that one guy who always insisted on playing his acoustic guitar, except no one is wishing that guy would just shut up and die because in this case he’s actually talented and what he’s treating us to is miles away from Dave Matthews Band covers.
We paid for his talent; we earned it, and the bard wants us to be there as much as we want us to be there. Somewhere between a gorgeous cover of Tom Petty’s “Yer So Bad” and “Gimme Some Salt,” he asked how everyone was doing, which we at first responded to with silence. It was a query we had all heard from front men before but once we realized the question wasn’t rhetorical, the pedestal he was sitting on was a figment of our imaginations, and that we were actually in a position to respond, the flood gates of banter opened up.
We talked about how Tom Waits doesn’t cop out, the best cheesesteak in Philly (Chubby’s), and what made him want to do something as weird as sit in a stranger’s living room and be gawked at by a bunch of cross-legged, doe eyed music nerds. “When you blow up,” he explained in probably his most candid moment (aside from, you know, all the song lyrics), “it takes you away from what I liked about making music in the first place.”
It makes sense. I could imagine that when you’re performing on whatever show Jimmy Fallon’s hosting nowadays or when blaring overhead lights are forcing sweat from your pores and thousands of individual voices are lost in an auditory sea of tipsy shouts of endearment, it becomes hard to distinguish whether you’re making art or a product. The lines between craftsmanship and salesmanship can become blurred, even if what you’re doing on stage hasn’t really changed all that much since you started out.
At the Cotton Mill Lofts on February 24th, however, there’s no question about what Ounsworth is doing: he’s hanging out. He did so for just under an hour and a half and played songs ranging from all over CYHSY’s (and a few other artists’) discography. The next day he’ll get back in his van and trek to “Wherever [his manager] says.” Let’s hope he says Atlanta again some time real soon.
To see more Living Room Tour artists and shows, head to Undertow Tickets.
