Empathy is always a trait associated with live music venues. At one point, locally owned venues doubled as watering holes for locals, and patrons were greeted with cigarette ash and dimly lit stages. Over the years we have seen venues shape up and improve their standards and practices, but there is still plenty of room left to innovate, that’s where Washington DC’s Songbyrd comes in. The new and improved Songbyrd location is dedicated to creating intimate moments between artists and fans and their community-centered approach to running both Songbyrd and Byrdland Records allows for their connection to go beyond their walls. Since their move in 2020, their dedication to the local DC art scene and bringing refreshing sounds into the city has only become stronger as they continue to set the bar for balancing the two worlds.
Glide spoke with Joe Lapan, co-owner and marketing director and Alisha Edmonson, co-owner & general manager to discuss their recent move, their inspirations behind the venue, and much more. Check out their website below for tickets and upcoming shows: https://songbyrddc.com/
As stated on your website, Songbyrd has proven itself as an incubator and launchpad for an eclectic mix of up-and-coming local and national bands looking to gain a foothold in the Washington, D.C. region. What local bands, in particular, have Songbyrd helped gain both a bigger local and national following?
First of all, we wouldn’t try to take credit for the success of any particular band or artist. There is a give-and-take happening at the point of any show or performance where we are giving our platform and resources to an artist and vice versa. Shaed played their last show under a prior name at Songbyrd to a sold-out crowd and it was clear that their sound was really coming together. Nick Hakim played two shows about a month apart from each other and it was clear that interest in his music was skyrocketing. Aside from local artists, New Zealand’s The Beths played their first DC show in our “Vinyl Lounge” where we would do donation-based shows for 60-80 people. Shortly after that, they sold out our larger space. All of these are examples of how a small, independent venue can stay nimble and connected to the artists people care about and get them in the venue multiple times in a short period of time. We’ve also had some good success in getting the local press to pay attention to what we present, which never hurts.
What are the advantages of having a 200-capacity venue for the artists, attendees, and your staff?
Most obviously, the advantage of a smaller venue is the intimacy and accessibility to really high-quality artists and music. It is absolutely sensational how close you can be to amazing artists at the price point at which we sell tickets at. Mind-blowing, really. So just the fact that in a venue of this size, we can really look out for the artist and the fan experience is the primary advantage. Support your small, independent venues… you won’t be disappointed!
For being such a young venue, the list of acts who have performed at Songbyrd is impressive and diverse. Is there a common thread that connects all of the artists who grace your stage?
We think that the programming and artists that have come through Songbyrd has really just built on itself and taken on somewhat of a life of their own that grew out of the original kernel of our passion and care for what we started. Somewhere in that first year or two, something about the energy in the place was attracting staff and local artists and bookings that built on each other brick by brick and started adding up to this funky and interesting “house”. We are truly proud of all the artists and acts who have come through and proudly think of them as Songbyrd “alum”.
As music fans yourself, what venue have you visited that most inspired the direction you took with Songbyrd?
As we got serious about opening Songbyrd Music House around 2013/2014, in addition to drawing from all of our formative experiences, we’d say we were certainly inspired by places we visited like Baby’s All Right in New York, Mississippi Studios in Portland, Oregon and a place called Balliceaux in Richmond, Virginia. We were inspired by places that really seemed to be striking a great mix of being both “cool” and approachable in terms of design, programming, and menus.
How do you guys balance national touring acts with local favorites? How would you compare the prep for hosting a band like Joy Again to getting ready for an event like your upcoming Mac Miller Tribute party?
It’s funny you ask this because we’ve been having some internal debates over dates lately on exactly this topic lol. We want to have the best touring acts AND the best local headline shows and events and we think we do a pretty good job balancing the two. When it comes to booking, the devil is in the details, as they say. But once we book a show or event, the preparation is mostly the same. We want to treat all shows and events with the same professionalism and dedicate high-quality marketing, production, and sound personnel to each event we host. As we all saw during the pandemic, small venue touring is subject to a lot of macro factors, but your local community is always right here with you.
Being that Songbyrd is named after Charlie Byrd and the thriving jazz scene that called D.C. home a few decades back, in what other ways has that scene inspired your venue?
We aren’t a jazz club, but the honor of that legacy is probably the most important impact and inspiration for that part of our history here in Washington D.C. We really researched Charlie Byrd to the best of our ability. We read as much as we could, visited the Washington Historical Society and the Charlie Byrd archive at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and found loads of amazing photos and artifacts. What we learned about Byrd was that he was an artist that worked to expand goodwill via music and one that freely and regularly shared his talent with the world almost until the day he passed. These are excellent values to try to live up to.
How did the idea to open Byrdland Records come about? What is your selection like there and did you take any inspiration from record shops you visited when you were a young collector yourself?
Byrdland Records was actually an extension of the vinyl record retailing we did at our prior Songbyrd Music House location in Adams Morgan. We always envisioned a daytime gathering spot for music lovers and a record shop is quintessentially that. The opportunity to open Byrdland Records in the Union Market area came about in 2020 during the pandemic era and, since we couldn’t do live shows, we really threw ourselves into the record shop. Our selection is honestly just a really well-curated stock of new music, popular music, used records, and a variety of interesting rabbit holes you can go down based on our tastes and the tastes of our staff and customers. We aim to be interesting and accessible. To be honest, we grew up in the CD era and our exposure to vinyl was initially from our parents’ collections. As far as inspiration from other shops, we just love clean, approachable, and engaging stores where you’re allowed to touch the product; tried and true shops that are embedded in their community, like Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon, or The Sound Garden in Baltimore, Maryland are heroes to us.
Do you notice any commonalities between your curation process at the record shop and your booking process at the venue?
We’d say a similar “spirit” guides what we present at the venue or the record shop. We look at whether there’s a group of people who love an artist or album or whether we think there’s a potential group of people that will love the music. We’ve always aimed to pitch a large tent that is inclusive of music lovers of all types. More literally, we stock a “Played at Songbyrd” vinyl section where we try to carry as many artists that have played at our venue as possible. We are excellent merch table customers of our own bands!
You guys are constantly hosting open mics and other events that involve your community and local acts, why do you feel it’s important for venues like Songbyrd to give back and interact with the city that hosts it?
We alluded to this in the answer above about the balance between local and national acts, but yes, the local community is critical in so many ways and part of our DNA. Everything good that has happened for us results from some concentric circle of local focus and engagement. We could go on about this topic and recite the platitudes (which happen to be mostly true) and things we’ve done to engage with our community, but the truth is that there just doesn’t seem to be any other good way operating a culturally-focused business and we were those kinds of people before we were business owners.
You guys have some really interesting designs for your logos/posters. Who is behind those designs and what was the process like when choosing the colorful bird that represents Songbyrd?
The core Byrd logos have been the same since the beginning. Once we established the name of our venue, we began to conceptualize the visual representation and were actually inspired somewhat by vintage sports logos. People tend to have a pretty strong love affair with their sports teams and the logos and designs can become iconic over time. We initially worked with a designer named Alexis Thornlow to establish our Byrd designs and went through numerous rounds of back and forth on those. More recently, we’ve worked with a designer named Brian Raupp aka Brain Rapp to enhance and enliven our visual branding.
What was the process like when putting together the menu for Songbyrd? What offerings have gotten the most praise so far?
We just make the food we like and that works within the space we have. In our prior space, we had two kitchens and restaurant seating so we really got to experiment and have fun. In our new location, we have kept it more to handheld food. Co-owner Alisha Edmonson oversees the food & beverage program; she is originally from California and has been a vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore in her life, so we like making dishes that can work for all diets. Our burgers have always been our signature, but we’re not shy when it comes to experimenting with different items and seeing what pops. We recently had an old regular that moved out of town message us to ask us for our mole quesadilla recipe, he said he used to eat that 3-4 times a week! We’ve been voted Best Place for Dinner and Live Music multiple times by the Washington City Paper.
During the Pandemic, Songbyrd moved locations. What went into the decision to move the venue and has the new location brought any new, cool opportunities for the venue to grow?
Yes we did! The decision to move was related to the pandemic in a couple of key ways. First of all, the health and safety of staff and patrons in a “post-pandemic” world clearly became paramount and we sought a space with more light, air, and ventilation. Secondly, the pandemic gave us this opportunity to step back from the day-to-day operation and (after getting past the absolute shock and terror of the first few months) think about what we wanted our next chapter to look like. We decided that we wanted a more open and inspiring space and to be in a part of town that we felt was most amenable to this “post-pandemic” world. The move has brought lots of opportunities. There are a lot of great partners that call Union Market home, for example, we did the vinyl records pop-up at this year’s All Things Go Music Festival, which has its offices near Union Market. Also, the space itself has allowed us some great opportunities that may not have come otherwise, for example hosting the 2022 NPR Tiny Desk Concert Tour.
