If you think live professional music only occurs in official music halls and venues, Sofar Sounds has a message for you. A worldwide organization, Sofar Sounds is dedicated to subverting the norms of booking, attending, and curating live music performances.

Want to host a musical soiree in your living room? That could happen. On a rooftop? Absolutely. With networks of volunteers and artists programming shows in Providence, Worcester, Boston, and New Haven (just to name a few), Sofar Sounds is quickly establishing itself as the go-to resource for New England artists looking for a paid gig in an unusual space, as well as a place for music lovers ready to experience live music in a different space.

Here’s how it works.

A band or individual artist applies to perform at a Sofar Sounds show. Sofar volunteers choose three acts from the pool of applicants, and secure a space for the performance that isn’t a conventional venue. Once the show is booked, Sofar Sounds’ members near the show’s location get a notification stating the date of the show and the neighborhood where the show is located. Typically hundreds of people sign up, so only a subset of people get an invite to the show. Once invited, show-goers learn where the performance will be and what bands are booked.

Mark Schafer, an ambassador at Sofar Sounds in Boston, says his team works hard to program the right kind of shows and select a diverse group of performers. “We’re very careful to make sure that we curate shows based on quality and diversity,” he says. “We want to make sure we represent all the voices in the music community.”

A recent show in Boston, for instance, featured a pop singer, a stripped down punk band, and a folk duo in the same night. “We intentionally do that kind of thing when we can,” says Schafer. “The hope is you’ll love everything, but if you see something you don’t like, all you have to do is wait a little bit for the next act, which is going to be something totally different.”

The band Aria Lanelle, Sofar Sounds, Myles Tan photography

Sofar’s subversion of music industry norms doesn’t stop there. The group almost exclusively works with local musicians and selects spaces that are not conventional venues for live music performance, essentially any space that isn’t a bar or venue.

Using unconventional performances spaces keeps Sofar Sounds bookings hyperlocal. “We’re able to tap into the local music scene much easier than a traditional venue can,” says Rachel McCandlish, another Sofar Sounds volunteer. “It’s great to be able to help those smaller bands and guarantee them an audience.”

“We pretty intentionally go for people who are either completely unknown and haven’t even put out a record yet, or artists that are on their way up,” says Schafer.

In addition to exposure to a guaranteed number of dedicated music lovers, bands who play a Sofar Sounds show get compensated for their time and performance. Artists either get paid, receive some form of hospitality, and/or are featured in a professionally shot and edited video of the live performance.

As the organization grows and adds new networks across New England, Sofar Sounds wants to become the platform for up-and-coming performers in their networked cities and bands as they pass through New England towns. “We want to make it so everyone who comes through Boston on their way up plays a Sofar show, because it’s consistently the best show featuring emerging artists,” says Schafer.

“We don’t want to get bigger and bigger bands,” adds Schafer. “We want to make sure we get the best bands and intentionally continue to get artists that many of the people in the audience have not heard before.”

Mark Schafer and Rachel McCandlish, Sofar Sounds
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Images courtesy of Myles Tan Photography

The post Rooftop Rock from Sofar Sounds appeared first on Take Magazine.

This article originally appeared in our September 2015 print edition. 

Peter McLaughlin launched his music career in Portland, Maine, and never looked back.

McLaughlin’s work as a drummer, composer, sound engineer, producer, and collaborator makes him one of the highest-regarded champions of the city’s music scene. His new project—Pretty Purgatory, which launched late last year—is both an Americana and folk-focused record label and an art collective. The label has released new offerings by Family Planning; Butcher Boy; Lisa/Liza; and McLaughlin’s own band, The Milkman’s Union. The latest is a split 7″ single featuring Maine’s Jacob Augustine backed by the psych-folk band Bad Braids from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Peter McLaughlin at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine.

“It’s easily my proudest release so far—from music, production value, right down to the art and packaging, designed collaboratively by Jakob Battick, Megan Biscieglia, and Tom Ryan,” McLaughlin says.

What is it about this coastal city, with a modest population of just over 66,000 and a reputation that rests more on chefs than musicians, that attracted the Needham, Massachusetts, native? It turns out that while Portland’s culinary diversity lures tourists, its cultural vibrancy has inspired an influx of savvy, dynamic, and creative music makers.

Upon his 2010 graduation from Bowdoin College, where he studied composition with celebrated American composer Elliott Schwartz, McLaughlin flirted with the idea of moving to a larger metropolitan area before turning his focus to Portland. “I was choosing between Boston, New York, Portland, and Northampton [Massachusetts]. I thought that the Portland music scene was honestly more interesting. It seemed to be a tight-knit community of people creating exciting music, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

On top of running his record label, McLaughlin also programs SPACE Gallery’s musical performances.

McLaughlin immersed himself in the scene by expanding on his college job experience as a soundman and talent booker for Bowdoin’s campus pub. He landed a gig at the busy nonprofit arts-and-music venue SPACE Gallery. Today he is the organization’s music programmer, bringing in such notable acts as Screaming Females, Death Vessel, and Today Is the Day. It’s a job that allows him the flexibility to continue touring as a musician.

“I’ve hit the road hard these last couple months, doing short tours and multi-week runs,” McLaughlin says. “I’ve traveled all over, and my travels always reaffirm what I know about Portland—that it’s a unique place. You get all the niceties of a small town with many of the advantages of a big city.

“It is attractive to young people, artists, developers, and the folks moving into these developments for the same reasons—it’s a thriving, artistic town,” he says. “And all of these people need to be careful that Portland remain just that.”

Peter McLaughlin’s Five Under-the-Radar Musical Paragons of Maine

Tom Kovacevic
Oud-playing Arabic music cognoscente. Weaver of delicate and idiosyncratic songs like no others.

Caethua
Enchanting hymns truly out of the forest. Makes bleakness resplendent like the winters she knows so intimately.

Big Blood
High priests of don’t-call-it-psychfreak-folk-new-weird-whatever-because-it’s-just-transcendent-goddamn-music.

Asa Irons
Exalted dirges, full of light and grit, like the salt of the New England earth. Always sounds like home.

Colby Nathan
Torch bearer and medium of feelings: nervous laughter, wide-eyed awe, honest tears, and subtle serenity.

Peter McLaughlin – owner, Pretty Purgatory
Portland, Maine
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Photography by Cara Slifka

The post Indie Music’s Maine Man appeared first on Take Magazine.