From Duluth to the world
On a quiet residential street in Duluth, just a minute or two off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, Steve Kirschner is chasing his dream. Combining his love of music, his affinity for business management and his experience with technology, Kirschner has created The Guest House Live (TGHL), a recording studio and performance/rehearsal space with a unique twist: the capability to broadcast high-quality live “streaming” audio and video over the Web.
Kirschner officially launched the site (www.theguesthouselive.com) Nov. 14, hosting a National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences party that featured live webcast performances from Kristen Hall, Jan Smith and others. The evening concluded with a jam session that featured former Ted Nugent vocalist/guitarist Derek St. Holmes and .38 Special guitarist Jeff Carlisi, among others.
The origins of TGHL date back to 1997. Kirschner, a music fan and guitarist (and an MBA graduate of Harvard), who’d spent more than 20 years in marketing and technology management, decided to upgrade his home recording studio into a professional recording setting.
“I wanted to finally do something serious for my music,” Kirschner recalls, “and share it with other artists that I know.”
By 1999, the studio was complete, but Kirschner — who is part of the work-in-progress pop-rock band Star Dot Star — had more in mind than just creating a place to record. “We started to pursue what it would take to put the whole thing up on the Internet,” he says.
Kirschner formed a company to write the software for webcasting a high standard of audio and video, and has recruited a team of studio pros to make the studio and the site a reality. Clearly, his aspirations go beyond those of the typical guitar-slinger.
“There are parts of me that want to just go off and play my guitar and write songs,” he says. “But what I’d like to do with The Guest House Live is to bring the creative process, and the whole sort of magic of the music process, to as many people as we can bring that to. The artists that we have in here are people who play with feeling, and if you can bring that kind of joy into people’s lives, you’ve done a great thing. That’s the highest good that can come out of this, and probably my top goal.”
One such artist, guitarist Ross Pead, aka Peadboy, performed a live set last month, accompanied by guitarist John Ferguson and bassist Bob Visentin. Pead notes that it was a rare opportunity for friends and fans outside of Atlanta (in particular, some in Indiana) to see his live show, and the feedback was extremely positive. Other recent performances include Bachelor Red and Paul Melancon. The site often features lunch performances and jam sessions.
Kirschner, who now lives in the house next door to TGHL, hopes to make the venue and website a commercially viable venture through several means. One is by offering services to musicians and bands. In addition to the traditional services offered by a recording studio, artists can, for a fee, perform on the TGHL site, receive a “streaming media” CD copy of their performance (including video and audio), have an artist biography on the site and have the entire performance available in an online archive for two years. TGHL also will offer its webcasting expertise, software and services to live entertainment venues, either for specific performances or for long-term webcasting arrangements. In addition, Kirschner is developing two independent record labels that will have ties to TGHL.
It’s a brave new world, to be sure, and Kirschner is prepared to adapt to its possibilities.
“We haven’t quite defined what it is yet,” he says. “But this is a new kind of creative community, [one that’s] breaking new artists that people haven’t necessarily heard before. We’ve talked to so many people in the music industry, and based on everything that we’ve been able to determine, we’re the first and the only ones doing this.”
For more info, visit The Guest House Live at www.theguesthouselive.com or call 770-246-1700.
This column is a weekly feature covering music outside the Perimeter. E-mail or mail “outside” music news to Bryan Powell, 830 Josh Lane, Lawrenceville, GA 30045.??