Sofa Salon 2018 News

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2018, Austria, Östereich, Georgie Fisher, gigs, Linz, Listen to Leena, new music, news, Orit Shimoni, photos, TEDx, The Antler King, Trolli Truffle, upcoming events, video

Photo request, TEDx, and February and April Salons

 

Dearhearts, Welcome to Sofa Salon!  Don’t forget to  us on Facebook.
Meine Lieben, Willkommen zum Sofa Salon! Bitte nicht vergessen bei Facebook „Gefällt dir“ anzuklicken.

I hope you had a good slide into 2018. Do you feel positive for the year ahead? I’ve come back from a month at my Mum’s house feeling energetic! Join me this year for some amazing events.

1. Sofa Salon goes to TEDx Linz
EN: On February 10, I will give a talk at TEDx Linz. The theme is house concerts as the new normal in independent music. My talk will be in Deep Space, Ars Electronica’s 360-degree projection room, and to create a spectacle, the talk will have huge projections and live music from Austrian artists Listen to Leena and Trolli Truffle. A mini Sofa Salon!

But I need your photos. If you have a high-resolution photo of artists or audience at a Sofa Salon that I could use, please email me. I will credit you as the photographer, and you will see your photo in the eventual TED talk video.

DE: Am 10.02.18, ich bin eingeladen, einen Vortrag beim TEDx Linz halten. Thema: Hauskonzerte – Die neue Normalität für indie-Musiker. Man findet mein Gespräch in Deep Space statt – der 360-Grad Vorführraum im Ars Electronica. Sodass es spektaculär ist, benutze ich den Beamer und Live Musik von Listen to Leena und Trolli Truffle! Spannend, ja?

Aber ich brauche dein Fotos. Wenn du hi-res Sofa Salon Fotos von Künstler oder Publikum haben, bitte schreib mir ein E-Mail. Ich biete natürlich Bildnachweis an, und Man der Fotos im kommendem TEDx Video sehen kann.

You can see my TEDx welcome video here:

Samantha Wareing @ TEDxLinz 89 views

2. Next Salons
The next two Sofa Salons are a collaboration with the lovely crew at indieBerlin. We’re planning to create some amazing events together in Berlin this year!

Friday 16 February – Sofa Salon #76: The Antler King (BE) + Georgie Fisher (AU/Ber)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1688429681215778/

Friday 13 April – Sofa Salon #77: Orit Shimoni (CA) + guest TBC
https://www.facebook.com/events/384290252000754/

Please reserve your places by email. Bitte Plätze per E-Mail Reservieren.
Time/Einlass 19:30. Price/Eintritt 8-15€

3. After losing my domain name to a useless online sniper who wanted to sell it to a furniture shop for 2000€, the website is back online: www.berlinsofasalon.de

Nach dem Verlust meines Domain-Namen an einen Scharfschützen, der für 2000 € an einem Möbelhaus verkaufen möchte, ist meine Website wieder online. Prima!

I wish you all proper snow and a little sunshine.

Kind Regards,
Samantha

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Sofa Salon at Berlin Music Week

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Ben Salter, Berlin, Berlin Music Week, Elyas Khan, festival, First We Take Berlin, house concert, Kreuzberg, MELT!, MELT! Booking, Miranda Gjerstad, private, reservation, Sam Wareing, September 2013, September 4, September 5, showcase, singer-songwriter, Sofa Salon, Sweet Jean

UPDATE: We are nearly booked out. E-mail for the last available places for Sofa Salon/First We Take Berlin/Berlin Music Week.

First We Take Berlin and A Headful of Bees Presents
Sofa Salon for Berlin Music Week

Sofa Salon is again delighted to host two showcases for Berlin Music Week. This year, MELT! Booking is running the First We Take Berlin showcase program and I’ve assembled four of the most interesting and world class singer-songwriter acts from around the world.

Guests need to email berlinsofasalon [aet] googlemail.com to reserve their place and get the address. Guests with a First We Take Berlin pass will have free entry. As usual, Sofa Salon guests pay 8€ for the highest quality live and intimate music experience.

Here’s the lineup. Here’s the Fb event for those of you so inclined.

MITTWOCH 4. SEPTEMBER SWEET JEAN (AU) + MIRANDA GJERSTAD (SE)
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SWEET JEAN is Sime Nugent and Alice Keath. Since forming in late 2010, Sweet Jean have built a reputation for their evocative songwriting, razor-sharp harmonies, and stirring live performances. The AU Review said Sweet Jean “can break your heart one minute and mend it the next. The duo has a natural ability to transport their audience to the heart of their songs.” Sweet Jean’s debut album Dear Departure was released on July 4 2013.
WEB: http://sweetjeanmusic.com/

MIRANDA GJERSTAD
At the age of 16, Miranda Gjerstad started to make a name for herself in the Swedish music scene. After moving to Berlin in 2009, she began a long term collaboration with Berliner epic indie rock duo Lonski & Classen and released the single Danger in November 2012. With her pumporgan, a powerful voice, direct songwriting and cabaret-inspired performances she has been seen playing at parties in the dark woods, in rock clubs and theaters, wearing glittering clown costumes and feathers.
WEB: http://mirandamiranda.bandcamp.com/

DONNERSTAG 5. SEPTEMBER BEN SALTER (AU) + ELYAS KHAN (UK)
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BEN SALTER rose to acclaim as an incredibly prolific songwriter and collaborator in two very different Brisbane bands, the punk rock Giants of Science and Country Rock supergroup The Gin Club. His clever lyrics span history, human frailty and good times sung in an honest and authentic Australian urban voice. His debut solo album The Cat was co-produced with another great Australian songewriter, Gareth Liddiard of The Drones. This is his second long tour of Europe.
WEB: http://www.bensalter.com.au/

ELYAS KHAN is a creative powerhouse who mixes the gorgeous Quuali-inspired singing of his Pakistani-British heritage with the acid guitar and art-synth processing of his NYC years.
Now based in Berlin with his fourth album to be released in France and Germany in 2013, his incredible musical freedom makes for an intense, ecstatic live experience.
WEB: www.elyaskhan.com

Do: host your own house concert

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Berlin, community, community-building, Couchsurfing, Croxton Records, DIT, DIY, DO, earning a living, Europe, food, friends, GOOD, house concert, How Do?, intimacy, Konzert, live music, Mick Thomas, musician, new ideas, potluck, sharing, Sofa Salon, Suzanna Espie, touring, wine, Wohnzimmer

Around 2007, legendary Australian songwriter Mick Thomas told me a story about one of the artists on his Croxton Records label, the great soul-country singer Suzannah Espie. She had booked two gigs a week apart in Perth, some 3,400km away from her home in Melbourne. The cost of two return airfares was prohibitively high, some AUD$600. Suzannah rang the venues and anyone she knew in South-West Australia and asked if they could help her find some fill-in gigs to get her through the week. What she found was a handful of willing hosts who offered to put her up, feed her and invite their friends around and pass the hat if she’d play a concert.

Copyright Kate Seabrook 2012

After permanently relocating to Berlin in 2009, and remembering Suzannah’s story, I started my own monthly Berlin house concert series called Sofa Salon and started touring Europe as a solo musician under the name Wasp Summer. Over two years, my planning preferenced house concerts, filling in with some club gigs rather than using house shows as convenient, short-lead-time fill-ins for a club show tour.

Most of my touring is organised through the various Couchsurfing.org forums devoted to house concerts. Most of the Sofa Salon artists come from personal recommendations, email requests and acts that I see or hear of personally.

Copyright Jordane Chaillou 2012

I love hosting, watching and playing house concerts for the same reasons that I like dinner parties more than nightclubs – intimacy, connection, attention. It’s one of the great pleasures of my life in Berlin to sit in front of great singer-songwriters and hear them in company but with few distractions. The audience necessarily offers a higher level of attention which encourages the performer to offer greater intimacy and honesty no matter their style. It can be confronting for first-time guests and performers alike but most participants come away beaming. A large part of the audience for Sofa Salon comes from repeat visitors and word-of-mouth guests.

Copyright Orange ‘Ear

As hostess, guest and performer, I’ve discovered there are as many different ways to host a house concert as people to host them. I’ve played house shows in France, Germany, Australia and Spain – all with different policies on inviting guests, raising money for the artist, food, drink.

There are some general underlying principles to hosting a house concert.

1. Your musician should be paid.
Some hosts will never charge an entry fee on principle, but will pass the hat for the musician. The risk is that your guests won’t be generous. One night, I made 20€ after travelling 6 hours and playing for 1 1/2 hours. O the next your, I made 240€ from the hat and CD sales. Some, like myself, set an entry fee to guarantee a base level of income. I aim for 100€ per artist but I can guarantee at least 30 people at every Sofa Salon. Some hosts set a ‘suggested donation’ of 5-20€. Some artists with a bigger profile ask for a set fee and ask the host to arrange to cover it. As you like.

2. Offer dinner, drinks, accommodation
I always offer a bottle of wine and dinner for my artists as part of the deal. On tour, I am nearly always offered accommodation as part of the deal. Frequently, I am picked up from the train station. This makes touring much more cost efficient for the musician and is greatly appreciated.

3. Bring an audience.
There are various ways to arrange this. Some hosts like to make their events open to the public. Some only invite personal friends. Some find guests through facebook or couchsurfing events. With Sofa Salon, I have created a Berlin-wide network of hosts and, to protect their security, I only accept reservations by email and only send the address a day prior to the show to people who have reserved. It also gives me new names for my Sofa Salon email list which runs to over 1000 people after 2 1/2 years of shows.

Other variations on the hospitality theme include running a cash bar with cheap drinks or allowing the guests to BYO, making food to share or asking guests to bring food for a potluck dinner and hosting outdoors in the Summertime.

Why should you DO a house concert? If you love music, you can have it as a living intimate part of you life, witnessing excellent performance up close. You can gather your friends and community together for a heart-opening experience of sharing. You can offer practical and material support to touring musicians. There’s no reason why this could not be extended to film, dance, activist talks, educational nights, slide nights with visual artists. It’s an open-source, open-ended, community-building activity and it’s the best thing I ever created.

Sofa Salon #33 Wrap Up August 2012

Tags

Berlin, folk, folk rock, house concert, james cruickshank, Konzert, review, singer-songwriter, Sofa Salon, Wohnzimmer

Dearhearts,

I write to you with the melting head of the profoundly hungover, but what an amazing night last night was.

Ned Collette, Mark Geary and Ben Salter offered three very different but complimentary approaches to the solo singer-songwriter format, three different lyrical takes on the world and three compelling performances in the glorious surrounds of Ned, Amy and Paul’s Schöneberg apartment. Thanks to them, and neighbours Sascha and Mirjam for the Pommes Frites, children and positivity.

It was a warm evening and around 65 people spread out across the living room and the Peter Falk Memorial Bar and Smoking Balcony. As always at Sofa Salon, guests end up making new connections or often find that people they know have also turned up to enjoy the vibe, the cold Schultheiss and the great music. It was a large Salon and also a longish one, but people were relaxed, offered their attention and left happy.

Quote of the night went to Mark Geary, explaining to James Cruickshank how the general public sees musicians, “Is that a real song or something you wrote?”

Highlights included German actor and Pommes Frites mogul Sascha Gersak recreating his vocal on Ned’s excellent ‘Long You Lie’, Mark Geary instigating an audience singalong in the dark and Ben Salter’s rich, emotional singing and self-deprecating stories. Also, the look of joy on Ben’s face after his set knowing that he’d just won the entire audience. This, my friends, is what Sofa Salon is made of.

Afterwards, an amenable posse went to that excellent Schöneberg kneipe Resonanz to sustain the mood and have chat with Berlin’s best barkeep. Several friends dropped in late to say hi. The Big Friendly Giant and I left around 4:00 and finished off the night with an early swim at an almost-deserted Plötzensee.

Cheers,

Sam

Please view these videos from Sofa Salon’s three August musicians:

Ben Salter – The Coward

Ned Collette – Long You Lie

Mark Geary – Volunteer

Sofa Salon April 2012

Thanks for dropping by the Sofa Salon website and checking out my upcoming shows. As always, doors at 19:00 and reservations are vital! Email berlinsofasalon@gmail.com to secure your seat. If you want to invite friends, the facebook event listing is here.

This month, I continue to explore the work of the many amazing women musicians resident in Berlin. The show is on Friday April 27 and features a solo set by Holly Mae Haddock from Holly Mae and The Painted Room and a set by Susanna Berivan.

FRIDAY APRIL 27

Holly Mae and the Painted Room is a literate art-folk project that draws inspiration from myth and fairytale, heavy on swooning, sparkling production and harmonies.

Susanna Berivan is a smoky, delicate sounding chanteuse pinning her Delta Folk/Blues songs with a downhome guitar style.

SOFA SALON PODCAST NUMBER 4

Every month, I make a podcast featuring the upcoming Sofa Salon performers plus singer-songwriters and poets from around the world whose work I’m digging right now. I host it on SoundCloud and you can stream or download the podcast which features performances from Holly Mae and The Painted Room, Susanna Berivan, Ned Collette, Julitha Ryan, Miranda Gjerstad and Gaby Bila-Günther:

Sofa Salon Podcast 4: April 2012 by SofaSalon

UPCOMING SALONS

MAI 11		Wasp Summer ‘Close as a Slow Dance’ album launch
Many of you only know me as the hostess of Sofa Salon, but I am about to release my debut solo album under my nom-de-Kunst Wasp Summer. It’s also my birthday, so Sofa Salon is hosting its first Album Launch Party!

MAI 12		Sean Nicholas McMahon + A Seated Craft
As Sofa Salon continues the tradition of being a Berlin home for Australian independent music, we present two Australians: Sean Nicholas McMahon and his plaintive Alt.Country/Folk sounds. He comes from acclaimed Melbourne roots band Downhills Home. A Seated Craft is the warm, gossamer music of Alexia Peniguel. The underlying melancholy in her emotive music is leavened by its great, delicate beauty. JUNI 16 Sofa Salon SAND Journal Summer Party Sofa Salon again joins with SAND Journal, Berlin’s English-language literary magazine, to create a day-long festival of incredible Scandinavian music and spoken word. We will be holding this in a secret new venue somewhere in Berlin.   JULI 6 Lapingra (It) + guests Italian toycore band Lapingra is a collaboration between two quirky musicians with shared passion for Barbie, bake-a-cakes, Björk, Disney soundtracks and Bauhaus. Their album uses toy instruments to bake oven-fresh and original songs. SUMMER AND BEYOND: AUGUST 18 Ben Salter (Aus) + Ned Collette (Aus) This night features two of Australia’s critically acclaimed songwriters and their brand new albums. Ben Salter came from Brisbane bands Giants Of Science and alt.country collective The Gin Club and co-producing his debut solo album The Cat with members of The Drones. Ned Collette is a past host and performer at Sofa Salon and brings us literate musings from his album with his Australian band Wirewalker, 2. SEPTEMBER 1 Ian Fisher (USA) + guest His American folk visions and acerbic wit fall somewhere in the vicinity of Woody Guthrie, or Elvis Costello, Ian Fisher brings us stripped-back versions of songs from his new Ian Fisher & The Past album.