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In the sleepy hollow of St. James some of the best local, national and international folk artists come to perform anything from rock to blues to ragtime. You name it—if it’s acoustic it’s here, and it’s all the rage. In fact, Acoustic Long Island (ALI), a weekly concert series that includes a one-hour open mike and a one-hour featured performance, is so popular it had to change its digs from the local coffeehouse, CoolBeanz, into the larger, historical space of Deepwells Mansion down the road. And it’s the No. 1 acoustic podcast on iTunes, hitting every continent worldwide. Each week’s performance is taped, then edited down to 2½-hour segments recorded on a podcast.
Often this type of music is played in intimate surroundings such as local cafés or coffeehouses, and whether it’s scheduling or location, people often find it hard to attend. For this reason, podcasts are perfect—replicating the personal experience that Dave Dircks, who founded the series with his brother, Rob, describes, “You can actually hear the clanking of the coffee cups in the background—we have microphones in the audience so they get not only the musical experience, but the live event experience. It’s all about immersing yourself in the moment,” he says. Currently, ALI delivers two weekly podcast performances and video podcasting as well. When the video podcasts began back in May, they were an iTunes feature and immediately took off to become the No. 39 podcast of all music podcasts on iTunes.
Ad execs sharing their own business, Dave has been playing music since high school as a way of overcoming his natural shyness while Rob is self-taught on the guitar, banjo, classical guitar and ukulele. Dave had always wanted to do an open-mike show, and Rob had been talking about podcasting. They became one of the first podcasts on iTunes, which currently downloads 90 to 95 percent of all podcasts. Now ALI has a loyal fan base that’s growing by the minute. The Dircks just recently filed for not-for-profit status as a company with the intention of going after funding, grants and federal money to help build a staff.
The Dircks’ original intention was to build an environment for independent musicians like themselves. The podcasting helped to expand this community and attracted a higher caliber of performers who were interested in the exposure. “They know they’re going to get between 7,000 to 10,000 listeners on their podcast. It’s very hard to get that except if you’re on the radio,” Dircks says.
Perhaps the greatest asset ALI has to offer the Island is the incredible number of local musicians who now have the opportunity to be discovered. “There’s so many great musicians right here and every time I hear one, I think, This person needs to be heard…it’s almost a compulsion that I want to make sure they’re noticed,” he says. On a grander scale, the podcasts draw artists from around the world who make “the pilgrimage” as the Dircks call it, to perform or listen to performances at Deepwells. Definitely a man with a mission, Dave Dircks believes there are hundreds of people who are worthy of being on the radio and his goal is to get them all up on stage.
Of course, now the stage is much bigger and so is the venue. But, says Dircks, “There was something about hearing the cappuccino machine and the cash register at CoolBeanz that made the experience a little more café-ish…I do miss that.” Still, Deepwells is able to accommodate a much larger audience for the live shows every Wednesday night, an audience that will likely grow further with ALI’s next venture: Web streaming. Internet listeners will be able to go onto ALI’s site and click on a link and a screen will pop up with a video feed of the live show in action.
But says Dircks, “What we’re really excited about is to have people all around the world watching and responding in real time because they’ll be able to instant message back to us on the same computer that we’re sending the feed out from.” Internet listeners who go to ALI’s site will be able to watch video feed of a live show as it’s being taped. Now that’s a global sound.
ALI in July
July 11th Jud Caswell
July 18th Jack’s Waterfall
July 25th Phil Minissale
