My friend and hero Waxmannequin, one of my favourite songwriters, hosts these tiny concerts in his mother’s art studio, about once a month, usually featuring a visiting icon of Canadian alternative music (case in point Carolyn Mark in the photo above). I was asked to share the bill this past Saturday with Carolyn; I’d be surprised if more than 20 people could fit in the space. But something I’ve learned from the few house concerts I’ve done in my life is the size of the crowd does not co-relate to your nerves going in, does not indicate the importance of the event at hand.  Tiny shows put you in such intimate proximity to the audience you can’t hide or obscure much. Tiny shows also have radically charged social contracts that bind them.  Everyone in the room puts on the show.  Nothing is really transactional or profitable in any conventional sense, thus whole effort feels like a collective stretch for something higher; every audience member who risked being awkwardly trapped in a weird circumstance is just as brave as the performer I think.  It makes playing music as close to an act of pure devotion as I’ve ever experienced.