Home isn’t an easy place for Boston musicians to locate these days. The corner stages of cozy dives keep disappearing, while familiar art spaces fold and fade into the bland backdrop of an ever-commercialized city. How can artists find a “home” when something as treasured as a local rock n’ roll institution becomes a Circle K? Or when rent prices rush independent venues out of town?
Boston musician Allison Griggs doesn’t have all the answers. She does, however, have a potential solution that she’s wheeling into town.
Last month, Griggs established Our House, a DIY event planning and promotion collaborative that strives to keep the creative process in the hands of artists — and only artists. In its current phase, Our House helps Boston creatives collaborate and book performances, but Griggs’ endgame involves a mobile venue that can cater to artists’ specific goals, needs, and audiences.
Griggs first dreamed up Our House for a group project while working on her graduate degree in Arts Administration and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Northeastern University. She fleshed out the concept behind Our House for a specific semester-long assignment, but the idea reasoned with her long after the due date passed.
“Especially as COVID-19 started shuttering local venues, I saw a need to fill the gap,” she explains to Vanyaland.
If her school project represented Our House’s blueprint, then Griggs is just now laying its foundation. Our House opened its metaphorical doors this past weekend (November 27, pictured above), kicking things off with a show at Aeronaut Brewing Co. with Pregame Rituals, TIFFY, Bad Sandy, Unit One, and Griggs’ musical project, Allison & Moon. While Griggs hopes to further develop Our House’s relationship with the Somerville brewery and similar venues, her biggest goal at the moment is to open and operate a physical space, likely in the form of a tiny-house-esque structure.
“The idea of the venue is to break away from the traditional model that puts locations at the whim of landlords and rising rent,” she notes. “Inside there could be small gigs, depending on what the capacity ends up being, along with livestreaming and recording capabilities. It could also open up to create an outdoor stage. It would be movable to wherever we were able to park it and it would be flexible enough to adapt to different performance needs.”
The ownership angle of Our House is key, especially when high Boston rent prices play a major role in many independent venues closing their doors for good.
“Our goal is connection and equity, so being able to put things on in a bunch of different places is what we are focusing on,” Griggs adds. “Limiting ourselves to one brick and mortar location would be against what we are trying to do.”
In fact, the underlying theme of Our House seems to be a lack of limits in general. Griggs hopes to welcome artists of all disciplines — not just musicians and performers — and she envisions an “umbrella organization with a rotating cast of characters” who make art more accessible for both creators and consumers. For instance, once Our House establishes its mobile venue, the hurdles that come with a fixed location and rent prices will already be out of the way.
“There are a lot of bookers and promoters in greater Boston, yet I think there is always room for more,” Griggs says. “What I’m trying to do is offer an alternative path and break some barriers to entry… I want to build a reputation as a community resource, and offer a way to network and seek mutual aid with other creatives. I think there are a lot of organizations that focus on booking music only.”
It’s a model that’s as flexible as it is ambitious, but therein lies the beauty of it. When it’s your house, you get to make the rules — not a landlord, not a CEO, and most certainly not anyone who’s disconnected and disinterested in the local arts scene.
“You don’t have to wait for other people to put things together to try to get on a show, or display your art,” Griggs concludes. “You can do it yourself! You can do it together. You can create space wherever. Our House is meant to be that support and inspiration, while also offering a name to unify folks that might be nervous to do it completely by themselves.”