Hi and Welcome!

This page will tell you, the artist, a little bit about our venue.

How do we pick who plays here? First, we have to hear about you and then we have to hear you and then we have to smile and say "yes, that would sound good in the back yard." Sometimes we ask our friends for advice, sometimes we don't. We're often impulsive but we're impulsive with a plan. We know it when we hear it. If you're interested in playing our venue, read through the rest of this page and send us an email. We would love to hear from you.

We're a house.  We live here.  We're not a night club or a theatre. We have a big back yard that always seems to have a breeze. It is peaceful.  The loudest thing around is a pair of roosters. Except when we have a show and then it is you who is the loudest. We like it that way. Our neighbors, three acres away, don't seem to mind.

We like music. A lot. But not just any kind of music. We like homegrown music. We like human music. We like the stuff you hear around a campfire. We like it to have meaning and tell stories and reveal emotion and make us sad and then happy. We absolutely respect good guitar skills. We also respect the harmonica, the mandolin, and the stand up bass. Having someone break out a saw and play us a song on that and we're just giddy with respect. We hope you'll take chances when you play. Try something you've never done before. No one's going to ask for their money back.

We're family friendly. We like kids. We have one and we encourage our audience to bring theirs. When our daughter was five, she fell in love with a banjo player at an evening show at Flipnotics. She got over him when she realized he was too old for her, but she decided she wanted to play music too. Now she plays guitar and she has even written a song or two. She'll be at all the shows. Usually, there are quite a few kids at each show. In light of the young ones, we ask that the artist not say or sing or act out anything that might offend the kids or their parents.

We're an amateur outfit. We do have a P.A. (yeah!) and we have lights up in the trees. The P.A. consists of a powered mixer with 8 inputs (Yamaha EMX 512SC); two large speakers (Yamaha C115V); and two microphones (Shure SM58). We also have mic and speaker stands. If you want more and we encourage you to always want more, then we'll work with you to try to get it. You're encouraged to visit the site one evening prior to the show so you can check out first hand what you might need to make your show perfect.

We're not the attraction, you are. The evening is really about you and your music. We'll get up and introduce you and tell everyone where the bathroom is, but after that you're in control.  We encourage you to tell stories or jokes or hand out candy. You can invite a friend up on stage to sit in or you can walk around and sing to the audience members individually, whatever you want.  Usually the night has two sets, with a break for you to mingle with your fans. Be sure to bring CD's and T-shirts to sell. We give away hot dogs, but eat early 'cause sometimes we run out.

We have an after party. We encourage our artists and our audience to hang around after the show. You can mingle, sign autographs, or just sit by the campfire and regale the hangers-on with stories of life on the road. How long has it been since you did that?

You're working for tips and a hot dog. We strongly encourage each audience member eighteen and over to donate ten dollars which goes entirely to you, the artist. We cannot and do not guarantee any income. Hey, sometimes people don't give, but mostly they do. We cannot and do not enforce a collection. So far, the performers we've had have done well (at least they haven't complained to us). We want you to do well. That is one of the reasons we do this. The other reason is that we get to see and hear some really great music in the comfort of our own back yard. Oh yeah, we give away hot dogs and you can have as many as you want.

We're not a PR company.  We have an email list (currently about 900 people) to whom we send out 2-3 notices for each show. And that's about it. We count on you and your own publicity to help bring in your audience. Feel free to tell everyone who will listen that you are performing at the Wyldwood. You obviously know the web address - spread the word.

We don't even know what a rider is. Actually, we do. We've both worked at luxury hotels and had to deal with riders that were 30-40 pages long. We're a house in the countryside. If you want something special, ask nicely and we'll do our best. We're pretty sure we didn't need to include this paragraph, but we did, just in case. If it isn't obvious yet, we don't make a penny off of these shows, we don't get a cut, we don't get a kick back, no one underwrites or sponsors us. We believe that music was born in the home and around a campfire among small groups of people who were desperately clinging to each other for survival. We believe music and songs sound better and there is a stronger connection between artist and audience in a tiny venue. Big venues to us are more about being in a crowd and standing in line for beer and we do ACL every year and we love it. But the Wyldwood Shows are about giving another human being, the artist, a chance to speak their mind, to sing their heart out, and to express to the rest of us what it is that makes that human being unique.