In the early 1990s, concertgoers in Bellingham turned to people's homes to find high-octane, highly interactive shows.
The show shares an ethos with other underground movements, where musicians are empowered to work their own way without being attached to a major label, and all ages are welcome to participate.
A house show is a concert held at a location other than a designated music venue, such as a bar, an after-hours facility, or a person's home, often near Western Washington University.
Homes can only be discovered by asking for the address in person or on social media. Shows are often held in basements or living rooms, depending on where you have the most space.
Bands are much closer to the audience than many designated music venues with high stages and barricades. At house shows, the band may be in the crowd, and the audience and musicians may feed off each other's energy.
There are three house show venues still operating in Bellingham, said Kelly Sobel, operations manager for the Make.Shift art space. Bellingham's scene is now the most diverse Sobel has ever seen, especially in age and ethnicity. Hip-hop and jazz shows are rapidly expanding, thanks in large part to Black Noise Records, a Bay Street record shop and label.
“This is really an ongoing and growing scene. Even a band playing a show here for the first time will probably draw 100 people,” Sobel said.
House show history
In 1987, Dave Kreider founded the Bellingham-based independent record label Estrus Records, bringing garage bands to the forefront of local music. Young people realized they could join the burgeoning independent scene by hosting shows at home.
In the late '90s, the all-ages venue called Show Off Gallery hosted both local and touring bands, said Kelly Sobel, operations manager for Make Shift Art Space. It became a popular tour base until the early 2000s. Around that time, Bellingham's bands began to gain popularity by appearing on extensive tours, such as in 1990, when Bellingham's band The Posies opened for Western Soundgarden.
From 2011 to 2012, Camila Wilde lived at a house show venue called Champ House just outside of downtown, where she said the energy was “chaotic and vibrant.” She reaches out to bands through her Facebook and has at least six of her bands perform each year. Wilde had planned to perform in her living room, but there were so many people in her house that the floorboards sank in.
Many of Bellingham's designated music venues are 21+, so house shows tend to draw younger audiences and bands, usually college-age youth, whereas Wilde's bands and audience are slightly older, around 25 ~ I was 35 years old. A poster advertising the show had an address that read, “Ask your local punk.”
One of Wilde's roommates at the time, Ally McFarland, first encountered local music on a trip to Bellingham. She asked an Everyday Music employee for recommendations of local bands, and he gave her the Federation X album American Folk Horror. Ms. McFarland said the album made her want to “experience life in a town with the culture that fostered her music.” she heard as she drove down Chuckanut Drive that night. she”
McFarland said she met Wilde and another Champ House roommate, known as Velvet, at a rock show and decided she wanted to be part of Bellingham's house show culture. At Western University, she met her future roommate, Wilde, and Violet Vasquez, a Champ House regular who went on to front the Bellingham rock band Mount Saturn.
The house show scene at the time was “three to five shows in Bellingham, all in people's homes for free.” At another venue near Western, bands like Swain, Livingston Segal, Weed and Cowar all had roots, McFarland said.
On-site safety and culture
Occasionally safety issues such as sexual predation occur at house shows, but current organizers are aware of these issues and are working to prevent and stop them.
Make.Shift addresses these issues in scene safety workshops held every six months. There, those hosting and attending house shows will share their experiences and share ways to improve safety and alleviate problems.
West Sound Records shares upcoming shows, including house shows, weekly on Instagram (@westsoundrecords). To distinguish between house shows and regular gigs, posts often say “DM for address.”
To preserve the underground music scene nature of house shows and protect people's housing, house venue addresses and other distinctive information should not be shared publicly.