If you’re looking for a restaurant in the Seacoast, the options can be overwhelming. Upscale or affordable, big chain restaurants or intimate local cafés, there are as many choices as there are menu items. The same goes for shopping — you can start at a massive box store, end at a tiny boutique, and hit every kind of store in between.
But, when it comes to live music and entertainment, arguably the Seacoast’s primary attraction, venue choices are limited, especially for touring acts. There are small venues, like The Press Room in Portsmouth, The Stone Church in Newmarket, and the Dover Brickhouse and Sonny’s Tavern in Dover. And there are big venues, like The Music Hall and Prescott Park in Portsmouth, or the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in Hampton. But there are few in between.
And that can make things difficult for musicians and audiences. Medium-sized venues fill an important niche in a region’s music scene, booking touring and local acts with growing fan bases that might be too big for a small stage, but not quite big enough to fill a 900-seat venue.
That’s changing. This summer, Michael Behrmann and Lee Consavage plan to open Birdseye Lounge, a 3,000-square-foot music and entertainment venue in downtown Portsmouth with capacity for 250 people. Birdseye follows close behind 3S Artspace, which opened on Vaughan Street in March and features a mid-sized performance space with standing room for 400 people.
As new venues are emerging, so are new production companies. The latest is Bright & Lyon, a new venture by Ben Anderson and Chris Hislop that aims to bring touring acts to the Seacoast with shows at a variety of venues. (Full disclosure: Michael Behrmann and Chris Hislop are both contributors for The Sound.)
Birdseye view
Birdseye Lounge is “an effort to help expand the quantity and quality of the entertainment scene on the Seacoast,” Behrmann says.
He hopes the new venue will build on the vibrant arts scene already in place here. “There are a number of different locations and some amazing people doing great work that have really laid an extraordinary foundation for the arts and entertainment,” he says.
Birdseye should be open this summer; Behrmann says city building permits have already been filed and renovation work will soon begin on the space, located at 41 Vaughan Mall in Portsmouth.
The name comes from the fermata, a musical symbol — a dot inside a half circle — that denotes a pause. It’s commonly known as a birdseye.
“We’re going to start with four nights (of music) and build up from there,” he says.
Behrmann is a long-time Seacoast resident and business owner. He and Consavage own Revolution Energy, a Portsmouth-based alternative energy company, and you can often find him hanging out at The Press Room during his off-hours. He’s hoping Birdseye Lounge will fill a void in the local music scene — a midsized venue that’s dedicated to music and entertainment.
Food and liquor will be available through a partnership with Legends Billiards & Tavern, which is in the same building. “We don’t want to compete with the restaurants. There are too many good restaurants. The space is dedicated to … entertainment,” Behrmann says. “You’re coming in and buying a ticket, you’re coming to see a show.”
Above and at top: Michael Behrmann in the space soon to be occupied by Birdseye Lounge. (photos by Michael Winters Photography)
The Vaughan Mall site was most recently occupied by Club Boutique and City Shoes before they moved to Pleasant Street. Before that, the space was home to the Portsmouth Ballroom. The hardwood floors and mirrored walls are a reminder of its days as a dance studio — and, according to Behrmann, offer a perfect foundation on which to build a new music venue. It’s a flexible room, capable of supporting bands big and small, along with other entertainment — stand-up comedy, televised events like the World Cup, and so on.
As for music, Behrmann says Birdseye will feature local and touring acts across genres, from indie rock and jazz to country and punk.
“I know a lot of people around here like country, and Portsmouth never has country acts. I want people to be able to see those different genres,” he says.
Behrmann also plans to collaborate with other venues in the city. Before moving ahead with plans for Birdseye, he met with the owners and directors of several other venues to make sure there wouldn’t “be any conflict whatsoever.”
“This is a collaborative process. One of the goals from the beginning has been … to create that collaboration between all the venues,” he says. “We don’t want to be double-booking, and we don’t think there’s an issue with competing right now. As long as people are talking to each other, that can work out great for everybody.”
Pulling together
Music venues are only as good as the shows they book, and that’s where Bright & Lyon comes in. Its founders have extensive experience booking musical acts; Ben Anderson is executive director of the Prescott Park Arts Festival in Portsmouth, and Chris Hislop is the festival’s programming assistant and a former managing partner at The Stone Church in Newmarket.
Their first show, featuring Americana-folk band The Stray Birds, hits The Stone Church on April 17. They plan to work with other venues throughout the Seacoast on booking future shows.
“Our mission is to present music we’re passionate about,” Hislop says. “The community, as we see it, is bigger than just Portsmouth.”
Ben Anderson and Chris Hislop of Bright & Lyon (photo by Alyssa Grenning)
Hislop and Anderson have been working together at Prescott Park for two years. The new venture is a “natural next step” in their working partnership, Anderson says, a chance to bring acts to the Seacoast that, for various reasons, wouldn’t fit into the festival’s normal schedule.
“It gives us a freedom we don’t necessarily have in the park,” Anderson says. “There are a lot of acts that are coming through here and heading down to Boston from Canada that are outstanding.”
The Bright & Lyon logo features two oxen, and the name refers to the oxen teams in Nova Scotia, where Anderson grew up. There, most oxen teams are traditionally named Bright and Lion (the ox on the right is always Bright; the left ox is always Lion).
“It speaks to the rootsy, earthy, team element,” Anderson says. Hislop adds, “Oxen are the hardest-working animals on the planet. You can’t mess with oxen.”
Though technically for-profit, Hislop says the venture would be more accurately described as “not a profit in sight.” Proceeds from each show will go to local nonprofits; for the Stray Birds show, the money will go to the Prescott Park Arts Festival, which, Anderson jokes, “is close to our hearts.”
The Stone Church is also close to Hislop’s heart. He left the Church as a partner in 2008, and though he’s often been back to see shows, the Stray Birds show will be the first he’s put on there in seven years.
“I don’t want to call it a full circle, because I don’t want that circle to close, but it’s great to be back in there,“ he says.
One of Hislop’s fondest memories of his tenure at the Church is booking the Avett Brothers there in 2007. They were still relatively unknown then, just a few years away from becoming hugely popular. But about 100 people turned out for the show. Hislop and Anderson say Bright & Lyon will carry on the tradition of bringing new music to eager fans.
“That’s what I love about the festival, and to replicate that in a small-venue setting is very exciting,” Anderson says.
It’s still too early for either to say what else may be on the horizon for Bright & Lyon. For now, the focus is on the music.
“You’ve just got to come to the shows,” Hislop says.