The Artists Den

It’s shortly after eight on a raw, rainy Wednesday night in Chicago—the kind of night that typically yields an anemic turnout of about 20 soaked music fans, as is the case at Schubas Tavern. But as the SundayRunners take the stage, the atmosphere fills with palpable electricity that has nothing to do with the freakish lightning outside.

The Runners brandish a delightful, British-tinged sound more befitting a weekend headliner than a midweek placeholder. They’re also playing a much earlier set—and shorter, at 30 minutes—than you might expect with a three-act bill. But for people with jobs and families, it’s a whole lot easier to catch a live band just after work and head home with plenty of time to hit the sack at a reasonable hour.

Tonight’s Schubas show is part of an ongoing entrepreneurial experiment making this new scenario possible-an experiment that has packed New York clubs these last 18 months merely by announcing the words “The Artists Den,” and not leaving a clue as to what the night’s entertainment will be.

What exactly is The Artists Den? With teams in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, The Artists Den seeks to revolutionize live music at the local and regional level, largely by taking out the guesswork (if not the guessing game) for music fans, by hosting early evenings in comfortable, intimate venues. The idea is that you trust these folks to pick top-notch bands to showcase, then arrive and expect to be pleasantly surprised.

Singer/songwriter David Poe serves as curator and host, playing a live set and accompanying The Artists Den as it hops from city to city. To date, the acts and performers joining this traveling scene is impressive. A partial list runs the gamut from members of Counting Crows and The Jayhawks to Tina Dico (of Zero 7) and Duncan Sheik.

Even the venues defy expectations: a private loft in New York’s Tribeca; the Apple Store in Soho; Tiffany & Co. on New York’s fifth Avenue; and WXPN-FM’s World Café Live in Philadelphia.

“The governing principle behind this is that The Artists Den believes great music deserves a great audience,” says Poe. “Whether you’re talking live music or selling music online, that’s the thing missing from most people’s model.”

Quality control

For this first Chicago Artists Den, Poe clearly expects more, even as spectators begin to swell the ranks. Still, he relishes the chance to break new ground—and his role in launching the enterprise by overseeing talent searches in each city. “I’m the conscience, because the element I bring to this thing that makes it work is what they call, in business, ‘quality control.’ Our genre of music that we’re working with is ‘good.’”

If anyone can make this venture sing in the dicey music business world, it’s Artists Den founder Mark Lieberman, who has a venture-capital background and passion for quality sounds. “I’m a musician [a guitarist] and I’ve always invited musicians to my home to play for friends,” he says. “I’ve found that was the best way to connect audiences to new music.”

Savvy use of the Internet doesn’t hurt, either. Artists Den fans in other cities have a habit of circulating emails spreading the good news; some local mailing lists approach 10,000 names.

Does it work? Something’s afoot at Schubas, as the room fills up to nearly 100 people by the time Poe performs a solo acoustic set at 9 p.m. And just ask Katherine Cunningham of Chicago, who came out after receiving an alert from a fellow Williams College alumnus. “Somehow, the way [the email] was written, I thought it was credible,” she says.

The music—and the crowd that showed despite the foul downpour—clearly impressed Cunningham: “You see people trying to do stuff like this all the time,” she says. “But this already seems to have a buzz to it.”