review by Jacob Zlomke | photos by Andrew Dickinson

The Hamburglar pumps beer from a keg into her plastic cup.

Her breath materializes in puffs of condensation as she listens to friends next to a small space heater, the garage’s only source of heat on a frigid October night. At least the garage, with its roof and walls, will trap in some residual body heat. The same can’t be said for the adjacent backyard.

Lincoln-based country/folk outfit Speedsweat plays on, beneath ropes of white and yellow Christmas lights. The band plays on despite the dropping temperature, despite the small crowd driven closer and closer to the small fire, and further from the band, at the other end of the yard.

“Guys, I know it’s cold, but come on,” vocalist Catherine Lindsey tells the crowd, once the gap between performance and audience has grown to 20 feet of grass.

Lap steel player Joe Salvati, in costume, is the spitting image of Richie Tenenbaum, perhaps the least likely Wes Anderson character to be sipping moonshine from a mason jar while playing honky tonk at a backyard costume party house show. Such is the magic of Halloween.

It’s opening night for the Poor House in Lincoln’s Near South neighborhood, and despite the drastic temperature drop between sunup and sundown, the backyard’s atmosphere is warm, made warmer by flasks of whiskey and jars of moonshine. For Shannon Claire, the show’s organizer who lives at the home-turned-venue, that’s the point.

“To me, (house shows) bring more intimacy with the band performing,” Claire says. “The music doesn’t have to be soft to be intimate. It can be loud and raw and all in your face, and the level of connection is so much more powerful than at a larger venue.”

Still, the band plays on while Claire talks with police officers out front, eking out every last moment of sound before the operation is shut down.

“We only had to cut Speedsweat short by one song,” Claire says. “I was stalling out front talking to the cops so they could keep playing.

“Note to other house show venues: If the cops come, just keep asking questions and be polite, and you’ll be able to squeeze two more songs in.”

Root Marm Chicken Farm Jug Band was slated to take the grassy stage after Speedsweat, but with the recent interruption, the future of the tonight’s show remains uncertain. People mill around in the garage. More people start showing up — houses shows usually start at 10:30. They do not end at 9:30, Facebook event times be damned.

Different characters from pop culture and classic horror movie monsters take the opportunity to warm up inside the house.

Announcements and plans travel by word-of-mouth. Soon it’s getting around that Root Marm Chicken Farm Jug Band is going to squeeze into the house’s small basement for their set, but each time somebody says it, the news is prefixed by an “I heard maybe…” and other non-definitives, so who knows until something really happens.

Claire says that although basements serve as the familiar staging ground for most house shows, she had no intentions to use the crowded space that night. But with the threat of another intervention from the police, plans change and the basement is the only alternative.

“You have to figure out what will work with each group if you move it down to the basement,” Claire says. “Will a drummer fit between my furnace and stairway? Will a guest smack their head heading back upstairs? Yes to both, actually.”

Claire’s goal for the Poor House is primarily in joining people together. She references poor houses in the 19th century that intended to provide food and shelter to those in need.

“I want to provide a house to those that are in need of creativity, to those that need a dose of it and to those that want to share their creativity and energy with others.”

Moreover, Claire sees the shows as an opportunity to bring bands together that may not otherwise have met each other, especially across locales.

“There is so much great music in Lincoln and Omaha that I would love to bridge the two at the Poor House as much as possible.”

And the show goes on, as the limits of the space are either overcome or ignored. Root Marm Chicken Farm Jug Band, from Lincoln, squeezes four members of their revolving lineup as best they can along one wall, and it doesn’t take long before the intimacy, the warmth that Claire, bands and audience members enjoy about shows like this, returns. The camaraderie is bolstered by the sense of accomplishment in waiting out cops and confusion, and here, now, is the reward for such persistence: more moonshine, more music.

Root Marm Chicken Farm Jug Band plays a rootsy, banjo and jug-based Appalachian blues. Perhaps by predetermination, perhaps with wariness of the neighbors, the band plays unplugged. Claire would like to continue that tradition at the Poor House.

“I want the Poor House to be more of an acoustic house, but with bands that are typically more plugged-in and loud,” Claire says.

For her, the night succeeds in introducing her space to friends and bands. Friends and bands are receptive.

Root Marm plays joyously and closes the night with an unplanned second set.

Things went wrong or circumstances were less than ideal. Where a rock club would surely lose some patrons for confusion and change in course of plans, here it only makes the night more memorable.

Remember that really cold night when the cops came and we all had to crowd in the basement and on the stairs just so we could see Root Marm?