Tony Contini / Tahoe Onstage file
Live music will return this month to the Crystal Bay Casino.
Loud As Folk, a singer-songwriter revue, will be presented with two performances in the Crown Room on Saturday, Oct. 24, the casino announced today on its Facebook page.
Jackie Greene, one of the CBC’s most popular national touring artists, will play shows on Thanksgiving weekend, Friday and Saturday, Nov. 27-28. Greene, who has played back-to-back New Year’s Eve shows in the Crown Room, will make his first appearance at the venue since 2017. Nov. 27 will be his 40th birthday.
The shows will be limited to 130 seated concertgoers, who must purchase tickets in bundles of two or four. Ticket holders must enter with their entire group. Temperatures will be taken before entry, which will be spaced apart from each group. Seating will be distanced. Cocktails will be served.
The last show in the Crown Room was March 7, when Mustache Harbor performed. Shortly thereafter, public gatherings were banned all across the nation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On Sept. 29, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced public gatherings with seated audiences of up to 250 or venue capacity of 50 percent are allowed.
The first show will feature artists local audiences will know. Loud As Folk began in Spring 2011. It’s a monthly singer-songwriter showcase with an annual four-day festival in Reno. The host is Spike McGuire.
The first Loud As Folk presentation in seven months will feature McGuire, Greg Gilmore, who is in the Reno band Silver, Dave Berry and Cliff Porter from Jelly Bread, and headliner The Sam Chase, who is from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Last month, McGuire and Gilmore created the Loud As Folk Record Club, in which albums are cut in McGuire and Gilmore’s studio they made in 2016.
“We started inviting friends from the showcase down to record a new album every month,” McGuire said. “We’ve always done a lot of fun stuff but it’s always been on a back burner because we’re always putting on so many of these shows. Now that we haven’t been putting on shows, we’ve been putting in more time in the studio.”
There is tiered membership for the record club, which starts at $1 a month. CDs, cassettes and vinyl records are offered. Each artist who makes an album also cuts a bonus song, which is included in a compilation album that will be given to members who stay with the club for eight months.
Keeping in the spirit of Loud As Folk, the recordings are made in one take. There is no dubbing or separate vocal recordings, and for the first time McGuire and Gilmore are recording on analog tape.
“We’re trying to create a portrait of the songwriters in the most honest, stripped-down sense,” McGuire said.
“We’ve got plenty of signups already,” Gilmore said. “The more people we can sign up, the more we can do. We do single take. The idea will be to put the listener right in the room with the performer as if there are hearing it as they are playing.”
The debut album was a compilation of various Loud As Folk artists from six studio sessions, three live shows and one from the Loud As Folk Radio show.
Headliner of the returning show at Crystal Bay, The Sam Chase is an artist named Sam Chase who has performed at High Sierra, Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festivals. Chase also performed at the 2019 Winter Hoedown at Crystal Bay. Chase plays as resonator guitar and has a quick wit – a quintessential live folk-singer performer.
To purchase tickets, click the links. EARLY SHOW. LATE SHOW. Phone: (775) 833-6333
-Tim Parsons
