Take a deep dive into St. Louis’ music scene with Songday Afternoon

For a time, Tommy Halloran organized a musical “kitchen session” inside his, yes, kitchen on Shenandoah Street. The straightforward series of a decade back had a simple name, too: kitchenmusic. This was during the time when Frederick’s Music Lounge was a vibrant home to eclectic songwriters and Halloran saw potential in capturing live tracks by these unique voices. Some years later, Halloran and KDHX programmer Wil Wander (of Saturday night’s “Elevated Rhymestate”) are spearheading a much-more-ambitious, direct-to-YouTube project called Songday Afternoon.

Wander, who took over the physical space that long housed KDHX radio on Magnolia Street, is running the St. Louis Open Media Integration Center (aka St. Louis Open Mic) inside that same, treasured building. When the ever-busy Halloran decided he needed a new project in his life, he hooked-up with Wander on the basic concept for Songday Afternoon, which features a deceptively simple conceit: songwriters come in, set up, play inside of a completely white environment (an “infinity room”) and emerge within an hour with a sharable bit of audio/video.

In some ways, YouTube itself is a stimulus for Songday, as Halloran notes that he’s played many a set in which a phone recording winds up on YouTube. And those grainy, scratchy, blurry, dark, shaky videos aren’t necessarily what performers want out in the world as their calling cards.

“As a musician, people shoot you on their cellphone, put that on YouTube and often it’s unfortunate,” Halloran says. “You don’t get the feel of the live environment and the song may not sound as good as you thought when recording it. This is a real, real, simple way to do it.”

“I was insistent that if we did it, that it would sound good,” Wander says. “It’s not just plugging up a mic.”

“That’s definitely been the right call,” Halloran adds. “I’m frequently one that pushes stuff out there. I’m rash like that. Having Wil as the voice of reason is good for the project, for sure.”

Typically, the pair record and release one song a week, with holiday weeks getting an additional track. In doing so, they’re slowly, surely building a nice collection of tracks, reflective of what’s happening in St. Louis music, circa 2017. As with many worthy projects, it’s driven by passion, not commerce.

“We don’t own any of the content,” Halloran says. “It can’t be monetized in any way. It’s a project of art, of songwriting, and the networking that comes out of it. We’re always meeting new musicians. The dedication is to making the videos. It’s not about us, it’s about the project, itself. The belief is that with every video, the project will exponentially grow.

“So far, it’s been a lot of guys with acoustic guitars,” Halloran admits. “I’m a guy with an acoustic guitar. I happen to like that type of music, which is probably why we’ve had so much early on. But, hopefully, it will include classical, jazz, blues, or the guy who plays the Irish pipes, Tommy Martin. I only know so many people; Wil only knows so many. So we’re reaching out beyond our friends, or it’d be a short series. We hope this will grow to be hundreds of videos long. We want to invite in as many songwriters as we can.”

Here are some of the videos that particularly impacted how Wander and Halloran have viewed the project’s potential.

Wander says that the pair felt that they were on the right path from the very first session, featuring Allie Vogler, also a member of the River Kittens; for trivia-minded folks, it’s also the only one to feature a visible microphone. “I’d seen her any number of times,” Halloran says. “She performed to a standard of musicianship and competency that exceeded almost anything I’ve seen in my life.” Or as Wander says, “We knew we had something from day one.”

Halloran says that when Joe Mancuso was invited into the session, “I didn’t even know he played guitar. He played a beautiful song, a really beautiful song, that he performed amazingly. Joe blew me away.”

Halloran says that “from start to finish, it can take 20 minutes to record.” This is for the solo performer with a guitar. For those requiring some technology, it can take a bit more time to set-up, but not that much. Wander references sets by Hands and Feet and Syna So Pro as two that fit that mold, of solo musicians expertly employing all the machines:

And while not expressly stated by the duo, there’re some patterns that run through the series. Perhaps because a chunk of the series was shot through warmer months, or the fact that songwriters often come from a folk-base (what with the campfires and summer festivals and such), there are a notable group of men wearing sandals in the series. Here’re some nice cuts from Carson C. Mann and Caleb Ward:

And, lastly, here’s the early-on, most-watched video, via Tonina Saputo:

Click here for all the videos.