When Grant Beachy moved to Goshen last year, he was hoping to find an active music scene, and as the former drummer for Ohio rock band Staple, he knew that he wanted to get involved somehow.
Fortunately, The Electric Brew, a coffeehouse located in the heart of downtown, regularly featured quality entertainment by many regional performers.
“I hung out here a lot,” Beachy says recently in an interview at The Electric Brew. “This is a cool environment.”
The coffeehouse's intimate surroundings offer a perfect, relaxed atmosphere for acoustic Americana music.
“I was brainstorming on ways to get involved,” Beachy says. “I wanted to get involved in the music scene, but I wasn't sure how. I record a lot. I do a lot of recordings.”
Beachy, who operates Electric Angel Studio in an old theater in downtown Goshen, came up with the idea of recording live performances of some of the area's best performing artists at The Electric Brew for a compilation album.
Beachy approached Myron Bontrager, one of owners of The Electric Brew, who thought it was a great idea and suggested giving all proceeds from sales of the album to The Window, a Goshen-based food pantry.
“My initial idea was figuring out how to get plugged into the scene around here,” Beachy says. “But Myron gave me the idea of donating all of the profits to The Window, which is a food bank. They do a couple different things, but it is all related to helping out the underemployed and unemployed in the area.
“That was probably the best idea of the entire thing, because once that was in place, everybody felt really good about putting their efforts into it. It wasn't that anybody was going to make money. It was just a good way to get everybody together.”
Beachy scheduled a series of concerts at The Electric Brew for five consecutive Saturdays this past spring and asked friends for recommendations of artists to appear on the compilation. Amazingly, the top five on his list — Venitia Sekema, Andru Bemis, Goldmine Pickers, B.B. Wolfe and Wilson's Reservoir — all agreed to contribute to the CD.
“It blew my mind,” he says. “I had five dates I wanted to fill. I gave all of them my tentative dates that I wanted, and everyone last one of them could do it. I was expecting to juggle it around for a month to get it together.”
Beachy says all of the concerts went off without a hitch.
Sekema “is a great songwriter,” he says. “Her voice is awesome and real professional. I had seen her once, and that actually was the first person I saw play here. I knew she was good at what she did.”
Bemis is a traveling musician from South Haven, Mich.
“That guy is crazy, man,” Beachy says. “If you haven't heard him, he is like real roots, old folk type of stuff. He travels around with a banjo and a guitar on his back. He rides trains everywhere. He is like half of a hobo. He always sounds like his voice is going to lose it, like he is not going to make the next note, but he hits them every time.”
Local favorites Goldmine Pickers played an after-hours show at The Electric Brew.
“They packed this place out, man,” Beachy says. “There were people sitting on the counters, there were people on the floor. There were no chairs left anywhere.”
Wolfe is a great songwriter with a wonderful whiskey-soaked voice.
“I like him because I think he has one of the more authentic voices,” Beachy says. “I heard his voice, and I said, ‘Man, that would fit so well on what we are doing here.' Just real simple, just a guitar and him, but it sounded really cool.”
Wilson's Reservoir is a local Americana/folk type band with a rock 'n' roll background.
“They were loud,” Beachy says. “They brought in just a snare drum, a bass player, banjo and guitar. I was wondering how people would take it, because it would be too loud for here. Three songs in, people started getting into it, and there on out, man, they had them.”
Beachy, who did all of the organizing, recording and mixing of the CD, is happy with the results of the album and hopes it will encourage and support the musical talent in the area.
“I have lived a lot of places and I love this area,” he says. “It is a small town, but it has got enough things that it doesn't feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. The downtown has a real tight-knit type of feel to it. This is a dream, but I feel like this could be a center of the arts in the area, and it already is in a way.”
CD release
“Live @ The Brew '09” will be available for purchase Friday at The Electric Brew, 136 S. Main St., Goshen. The price for the CD is $10. All profits from the CD go to The Window, a local food pantry. For more information, call (574) 533-5990, or visit the Web site theelectricbrew.com.Fortunately, The Electric Brew, a coffeehouse located in the heart of downtown, regularly featured quality entertainment by many regional performers.