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Live From Daryl's House

Started by Steve Phelps (Shoeless), October 02, 2010, 08:26 PM

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Steve Phelps (Shoeless)

I've been working my way through this site:
http://www.lfdh.com]http://www.lfdh.com

Daryl Hall has guest artists over to his upstate New York house for cooking, wine, eating, drinking, talking about historical home restoration and jamming. They do the guest artist's songs, Hall and Oats songs and old soul standards and really anything they feel like and videotape the whole thing. There are some real gem performances here, folks. Shawn Pelton is the drummer for the most part, but I know Kenny Aronoff is in at least one episode. Go to the show archive and check out the episodes, you'll be glad you did.

Chris Whitten

I watched a couple of clips a few months ago - but my internet connection is tediously slow.  :'(

Anyway, first thing that popped in my head was - what an amazing house and what a fabulous place to live.  :)

Bart Elliott

Quote from: Chris Whitten on October 02, 2010, 08:41 PM
I watched a couple of clips a few months ago - but my internet connection is tediously slow.  :'(

Anyway, first thing that popped in my head was - what an amazing house and what a fabulous place to live.  :)

I agree ... very cool house; love to live there.

Jim Martin (cavanman)

+1 about the house. Goodness!

My next thought was - I sure would like to able to do that. Especially the part about having music, food (good wine too) and friends over and creating some great musical experiences....that are well recorded, well filmed, well edited, etc.

The other thoughts going through my mind were: How much does it cost to put this thing together and who's footing that bill?
When projects come together like this there is a major labor of love going on but still - there has to be some kind of money behind it. Even if its to break even. Hard to see how  these players and musicians are cruising up to rural upstate New York for no financial return whether it be for increased downloads, concert tickets or other income generating products. In the case of Shawn Pelton or some of the backup guys - more session work?

For me, this web show is slightly reminiscent of Sting's 'All this Time' video he shot back in 2001 (in fact the DVD included real reaction to 9/11 which happened the day before the band was supposed to have a concert). You should rent the DVD but the quick synopsis is that Sting decides to have a fairly large ensemble of players and singers he's worked with come and stay at his incredibly large Italian country home (sort of a mansion but think wine company location). He ends up rehearsing, filming and performing all at his home. Lucky band members get flown/driven out to the location, stay in rural Italy, and get fed gourmet food. Not bad work if you can get it. ;)

But - I doubt ANY of those musicians did it for free or low dough. The DVD sales probably financed the project although I'll bet Sting and/or his production company underwrote the initial cost until recoupment. He had players from all over the world: U.S., England, Morocco, France (Manu Katche!), etc and just getting everybody there cost a few bucks. I can do the math more easily on this. A sellable product resulted. Not so with a free web show.

Money is short for everyone these days so I am very interested in internet based shows like this and how they make a profit, The main thread connecting the Sting DVD and Live From Darryl's House is that you have talented, wealthy singer songwriters doing live music, documentary/concert style video. Maybe an artist having the money personally to do something like this and underwriting the cost is how these things get made but again - not to be Joe Mercenary - the profit opportunity has to be there in the real world.

I'm trying to keep my envy dog on the leash but man it does look cool (sigh). I wonder if this was something Darryl Hall wanted to do and just threw down the platinum card.....NAAHH!  ;D

Thoughts?

Jim


Chris Whitten

Focusing on the money is probably not the way to go.
I try not to get into that myself.

In short, I imagine a lot of the band musicians and film crew (if any) are being paid.
But who really knows?

I merely mentioned the house before because when I last heard, Daryl hall was living in London.
I even passed him in the street a couple of times.
You really couldn't live in a house like that, or engage in music events like this in central London.
So when I came across it on YouTube I thought 'good on him'. Living in a great house and putting on music.....then finding a way to let us all in on the party.

KevinD

I think this is an amazing project/show. Really high production values, the sound is great, the video is well done, just a fun show to watch. The players all sound great too. I especially enjoyed watching T-Bone Wolk, an amazing musician and seems like he was a heck of a nice guy. Terrible shame.

As far as the house, I have to admit I had never even heard of his show until there was a story about it in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year (or maybe last year). Apparently Mr. Hall really likes to buy up old properties, fix them up and then sell them. As Chris mentions, he did a similar thing in London a few years before.

The interesting thing about that house is that it is actually two houses that originally stood several miles apart from each other in that area. Mr. Hall had each of them moved to the site shown on his program. Then he had them grafted together to form the structure that you see on his show.

At the time of the article the house had been for sale (along with something like 200 acres) for about $16mil, but was dropped to about 10 or 11 mil (I'm just waiting until it drops to about $8m :-) I wonder if it is still on the market? I think he had already started on another refurbishing project. (I no longer have access to the WSJ site so I can't look it up.)

As far as the musicians, I would imagine there is some compensation involved (maybe it is just the ribs from the BBQ place :-) but I would like to think (or hope) that even at that level, some of those players would be willing to get together for a chance to play with those other great musicians in an environment like that.

It seems like Daryl Hall is really into meeting all of these different players and seems to be having a lot of fun and that makes it even more fun to watch.

The house is about 75-80 miles from the city, not exactly a short drive, the train stops about 10-15 minutes from there, it is about a 90 min trip, although an easy trip, once you factor in travel and rehearsing and playing, it is pretty much a day killer. So if you are one of those horn players who gives up a bread and butter session to head up there it may cost you some money to attend that hang. That said, I'm sure Mr. Hall is aware of that.

But I'm sure some of the others featured in these programs (like John Oates) are not too concerned about that.

In any case I throughly enjoy this program.


lopan

I watched a few clips of the show, and it's great!  I haven't watched regular TV (cable, satellite, etc) in some time as most of the programming has deteriorated, but I'd tune in if this were on.  The sound quality of the recordings is impressive. Thanks for posting the link.

Jim Martin (cavanman)

I know I've always thought that if the equation is right per Tommy Tedesco's equation then no matter what the gig was, you do it.

(quoted from The Wrecking Crew film site):
...My father used to say there were reasons to take a job. It had to have one of these things. A] Connections to the future b] learning experience c] money d] just for fun. If it didn't have any of these you could walk away. And he would also say that there was the music and music business. Sometimes they would mix but for him, not always.....


I'm sure the players involved all had something they could take away from the above. From my experience in Los Angeles (and at my level of involvement) it gets harder to have something of this quality level emerge with low to no dough being available. It's not that everybody's money hungry, they just have to make good decisions when it comes to time and money.

Without something important being on the line: reputation, immediate paycheck or a good cause of great personal worth (Richie Hayward's recent fund raisers come to mind), you may get some that participate - but usually an uneven, unpredictable mix of commitments. Usually not of Shawn Pelton's rank and usually not something that is as good as LFDH.

More than anything I'm trying to test the gig/music event waters now to see what the current or new standards are and how to function effectively in them. Since KevinD mentioned that Darryl's become a real estate investor of sorts, we know his 'mind is on his money and his money is on his mind'(yes I'm quoting Snoop Dogg :D). Whether DH deals in other realms or not, the budget for something like this had to be assembled beforehand. I'm just curious how it went down.

Jim

Quote from: Chris Whitten on October 03, 2010, 09:26 PM
Focusing on the money is probably not the way to go.
I try not to get into that myself.

In short, I imagine a lot of the band musicians and film crew (if any) are being paid.
But who really knows?

I merely mentioned the house before because when I last heard, Daryl hall was living in London.
I even passed him in the street a couple of times.
You really couldn't live in a house like that, or engage in music events like this in central London.
So when I came across it on YouTube I thought 'good on him'. Living in a great house and putting on music.....then finding a way to let us all in on the party.

Steve Phelps (Shoeless)

Quote from: Chris Whitten on October 03, 2010, 09:26 PM
Focusing on the money is probably not the way to go.
I try not to get into that myself.

In short, I imagine a lot of the band musicians and film crew (if any) are being paid.
But who really knows?

I merely mentioned the house before because when I last heard, Daryl hall was living in London.
I even passed him in the street a couple of times.
You really couldn't live in a house like that, or engage in music events like this in central London.
So when I came across it on YouTube I thought 'good on him'. Living in a great house and putting on music.....then finding a way to let us all in on the party.

The KT Tunstal episode is from London, from what I assume is his London Home

Bart Elliott

Tis the season to be jolly, and there's no more joyful way to greet the holidays than with Daryl Hall and Latin music legend Jose Feliciano, who join together for a special holiday edition in the 37th installment of the award-winning Live From Daryl's House web show.


The Puerto Rican-born, eight-time Grammy winner first exploded onto the pop music scene 40 years ago, earning Best New Artist and Best Pop Song of the Year at the 1969 ceremony for his hit version of The Doors' "Light My Life," which he performs with Daryl Hall on the latest Live From Daryl's House web show, premiering Dec. 15 exclusively at  http://www.lfdh.com]www.lfdh.com .