On the porch of a home in Clayton’s Ellenwood neighborhood sits a sign: “The Batchelder Room Welcomes The Black Feathers // Tonight at 6 p.m.”
Neighbors shuffle through the door, and out-of-town guests—from Seattle to Memphis to Mexico—pull up to park along the tree-lined street, as the husband-and-wife duo that forms UK-based The Black Feathers sets up in the living room. Affectionately named The Batchelder Room, after the tile maker who created the tiles for the pre-Great Depression fireplace, the space is now lined with mismatched chairs and loveseats, which face a bay window that will serve as the stage.
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The band, who resides in a small town in Wales (with “just one shop that sells only two types of cheeses,” they joke), combines Americana, folk, and acoustic indie rock to form a sound that goes down like honey and lyrics that are hauntingly heartsick. The duo’s enchanting vocals dance around their poignant chemistry, which is displayed in equal parts through their harmonies and their banter between songs.
For the neighborhood, the night will be a way to connect and enjoy an evening together. But for homeowners Dan and Allyson Lavender, the evening serves a much greater purpose: scoring a vibrant soundtrack for their children’s lives.
“My wife and I both grew up with music around,” Dan explains. “In our households, that was just a constant. When I was a kid, there were always family singings, and I had relatives who were amateur musicians. That was just part of who they were. Nobody was a professional or anything like that, but I had an uncle who played guitar and lots of other family members who were singers. Unfortunately, my wife and I don’t really live near family anymore, so that opportunity for people to get together that easily has not been there for my kids. For a long time, we talked about what we could do to give our kids the same experience growing up with music as a part of their lives.”
Dan was introduced to the concept of house concerts by way of his stepcousin in Nebraska. Families host professional musicians who perform intimate sets in their backyards or living rooms for friends, neighbors, and community, often to fill dates on the road in between venue gigs and festivals. “We thought the idea was so cool. So after the pandemic finally got to a place where we could have people in our home again, we put ourselves out there on a Facebook group that is all about house concerts,” Dan explains. “At some point, there was a band that posted saying, ‘Hey, we’re coming through St. Louis. We’re looking for anybody that would host us.’ We listened to their music and then raised our hand and said, ‘Sure, we’ll give this a try.’ That band was called South for Winter, and we ended up hosting them three or four times—we still see neighbors walking around in their T-shirts. Their booking agent eventually put us in touch with The Black Feathers as well.”
The ticketed events function as true concerts, with merch tables, intermissions, and stage-like setups, but the guest count typically hovers around 30–50. On this night, for instance, The Batchelder Room is hosting about 40 people, and The Black Feathers are slinging brand-new merch—from tea towels to coffee mugs—in the entry way. As the room fills, Dan teases that their street has a reputation to uphold at these shows: to sell out every bit of band merch.
So far, the Lavenders have hosted six concerts, and they intend to host many more. “It’s an insane amount of work,” Dan says with a laugh. “We have to empty out our entire living room and reconfigure it as a concert venue… The ideal schedule for us would be somewhere between three and four times a year. And since this is a matter of inviting people into your home, you want to be somewhat careful and cautious of finding the right music and right folks to bring in and share with the community.”
For the first concert that the Lavenders hosted—a perfect reintroduction to social living post-COVID—invites were fairly personal and extended to neighbors and school friends. “We didn’t really know what we were doing yet,” Dan recalls with a laugh. “We went a little overboard. We actually provided an entrée—grilled burgers, pork shoulder, and everything—and invited people to bring sides. It was fantastic. The community really showed up for us, and we ended up with more food than we could have imagined. So after that, we were like, ‘Well, that was lovely, but let’s dial this back.’ Every other show, we’ve just provided beverages and some snacks, just like you would get at a venue.”
Since that first experience, the invite list has expanded in a way similar to an underground supper club. “From that initial group of neighbors, other folks have heard about it, and we’ve added them to the invite list. We send out an email several weeks in advance of the concert to anybody who has come in the past. We’ve had fans of the bands themselves reach out to us or to the band and say, ‘Hey, we see that you’re hosting a concert. Do you mind inviting us?’ And that’s amazing to attract those existing fans.”
The Lavenders hope to continue expanding the mailing list in the future. “It’d be amazing if we could get to a point where we can make sure that we’re able to provide a really nice and varied audience for these bands that we are lucky enough to get to host and to be able sell out quickly,” Dan says.
Tickets typically run about $25 per person—all of which goes to the bands. Dan hopes this approach might appeal to those who enjoy live music but may be tired of paying much higher prices. “These aren’t bands that are just fly-by-night, who get together on the weekends and practice; these folks are professional musicians. And to be able to have that experience in our home and share that with our kids, neighbors, and, friends is something special.”
The Lavenders’ 9-year-old daughter, Callie Mae, and 12-year-old son, Thomas, are the true inspirations behind the homegrown artistic exposure. Both of them are no strangers to creative pursuits, even at their young ages. Callie Mae has her sights set on fashion design, and Thomas, who plays piano and violin, wants to compose music for video games or design the games themselves one day. The family tries to instill diverse interests for the kids, from travel to culinary arts—evidenced by the array of international and local menus framed on the kitchen wall. “My kids are not chicken tender kids; they really like to try new things,” Allyson says as guests pick through snacks and drinks around the kitchen island before showtime.
The home concerts are an organic extension of the Lavenders’ hands-on, creatively motivated parenting style, which they hope enriches their children’s lives in multiple ways. “When the bands show up, the kids go out and help them unload and reload their vans and help them unpack their instruments, and they get to see what it means to have to go through a sound check,” Allyson says.
“They see there’s a lot of work that goes into it for the bands to be able to produce such amazing art,” Dan adds. “It’s been very good for our kids to be able to experience it—and to be able to sit there for a 45-minute set and listen to this music, like good little people.”
The last time The Black Feathers were in town, the evening concert was followed by a jam session in which the kids were able to join in, which Dan describes as one of his coolest family memories to date. During this night’s performance, The Black Feathers shout out a rendition of The Addams Family theme song that Callie Mae learned in school to remember the days of the week, which she taught them during their last visit. Even the family’s dog joins in during the band’s cover of Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky,” making the already-classic a real crowd pleasure.
“I hope being able to see this and have this be part of their life, that [Callie and Thomas] are going to feel the need to share this with their kids one day—this idea of having music in your home,” Dan says. “My son is in fact trying to learn to DJ these days, which is quite a bit different than this kind of stuff—but it’s the exposure to music that gives him ideas. It’s cool to be able to take whatever exposure you can give to these kids to music and see what they can do with it.”
The kids aren’t the only ones benefitting from the exposure to the arts, though. “Our particular community, especially along our street, has always been a pretty tight group,” Dan says. “But there are people who we only saw come out of their house occasionally and we knew their names. It’s pretty cool to be able to have them in our home and get to know them better, to find out something like we have one neighbor who is a musician himself and builds mandolins. We get to move them from a category of just being neighbors to friends as well.”
It’s not just the love of family that propels the Lavenders to host such events; it’s also for the love of music. “The other important part of this is being able to give these bands exposure,” Dan says. “These are folks who are out there, trying to make it into the music business, working incredibly hard. They just haven’t had that insanely lucky break to start playing at venues that are 10,000 people. It’s pretty cool to be able to provide an opportunity for them as well, to give them exposure in the community and grow their fan base. Some of them are really gonna go somewhere one day, and even if they don’t, they’re able to earn a living making music. What can be better than that?”
For Ray Hughes and Sian Chandler of The Black Feathers, the real benefit to house concerts is the human connection. “There’s some kind of magic created in these intimate shows, where friends and artists are sharing this moment in time,” Hughes says. “We’ve been doing house shows for about 10 years now, and this is a beautiful room, but the enthusiasm of Dan and Allyson is what’s really infectious and keeps us coming back.”
This is by no means the band’s smallest crowd ever—they once played to one man in a coffee shop in Memphis—and Hughes says the house-tour circuit just keeps getting bigger. He jokes to the room that the rule of attending a house show is that you have to host the next one.
The duo closes out the night on a warmly lit stage, in front of an audience loosened by communal laughter, bottles of wine, and sweeping melodic acoustics, with a singalong to “Homeward Bound” by Simon & Garfunkel. (“Don’t worry—we fixed it,” jokes Chandler.) The song ends with a standing ovation and a heartfelt thank-you from the hosts.
“You—all of you—are pure joy,” Allyson says. “This is so special to our family. Thank you for being a part of it.”
