The beat goes on at the me & thee
 by Kathy S-B  ·  11 October 2006

From the Marblehead Reporter, October 5, 2006

By Kaitlin Melanson
Photos by Nicole Goodhue Boyd

By day, they are regular working folk and retirees.

By night, however, they are the steady-beating heart of the folk-music world, insuring that members of the Marblehead community and beyond have the chance to share in the relationship that forms between a performer and their audience in an intimate venue.

“They” are the volunteers of the me & thee coffeehouse, who, according to founder Anthony Silva, are the reason the coffeehouse still thrives today.

Whether it be manning the doors, handing out goodies and beverages or checking the sound system, volunteers are the only way the Mugford Street doors open each Friday night.

“It takes a lot of manpower to hold a show each week as well as a lot of commitment,” said publicity director Kathy Sands-Boehmer. “Volunteers only have to work one night a month, and of course there is the perk of free admission to all of our shows.”

Silva added, “There is a strong structure of volunteers that has been created, making it so that if one person leaves the whole thing does not fall apart.”

As a teenager in the ’70s, Silva was part of a musical family and loved going to folk concerts. After joining the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead, he decided to take that love for music and turn it into something in which the whole community could share.

“The church was built for performance, but had not been used for performances for a long time,” Silva said. “As a teenager coming before the [church] board, they had their doubts seeing it was something that had never been done before. But they agreed to host a ’night of folk music,’ with chaperones in attendance.”

From the very first night, Silva said the shows attracted a mixed audience of both teens and adults, and after the first couple of weeks, the me & thee was formed, with the chaperones becoming some of its very first volunteers. Silva says he has since passed on the torch to the volunteers, who have taken his dream further than he could have ever imagined.

Though there are some newer volunteers, many have been apart of the me & thee family for over a decade.

Ron Lamkin has been a volunteer at the coffeehouse for 15 years, making the transition from audience member to sound person.

“I was always the type that would just drop in to see what was going on, but then my wife saw a request for volunteers so we decided to help out,” Lamkin said.

Originally working as a member of the house crew, Lamkin soon found his real calling sitting at the soundboard.

“I am an electrical engineer, so of course the sound system was of interest to me,” Lamkin said.

Web and print designer Cliff Garber said he had been attending me & thee concerts from the beginning and finally decided to use his Web-design skills to help further the reach of the coffeehouse in 1998.

“I was breaking into Web design and approached a friend who was a member who asked [Silva] if he would be interested in having a Web site,” Garber said. “The Web site is one of our front lines of communication with the public, whether it be to see who’s playing, get directions and other info, buy tickets, or check out our new blog.”

Garber added, “I was given free reign of the design and editing of the page, and I could test new techniques as I learned them.”
Retired General Electric employee Phil Murphy decided to use his new found extra time to volunteer, making his way to the me & thee, as many others had, for the love of the music. Murphy is now one of the house coordinators.

“We get there around 6:30 and begin to convert the sanctuary into a stage,” Murphy said. “We run sound checks and communicate with the performers, making sure they have everything they need to go on that night.”

Though the three men lead different lives outside of the coffeehouse, their shared love for the music is what keeps them coming back to volunteer year after year.

“I think that anyone who goes to a me & thee concert feels a sense of intimacy that you don’t find at commercial venues,” Garber said. “I don’t know of any other organization that has retained its core members for 10, 20, even 30 years. There’s a ton of great music being played by a whole new generation of artists, and these musicians know what came before and know how to use it to keep it alive while making it new.”

Murphy added, “The people who volunteer are great. Everyone is passionate about the music and we get more comments from first timers that they love the venue.”

One thing that has come as a surprise to many of the volunteers is the lack of knowledge of their existence by people who live in town.

“I have seen people who live on Mugford Street and don’t even know we are here,” Lamkin said.

Added Sands-Boehmer, “Having lived in town for many years, I think a lot of people take the me & thee for granted. I feel a lot of people think of folk music as one guy sitting on a stool strumming a guitar, but this is no longer our parents’ folk music.”

She continued, “We are not old fogies pining away for the days of Pete Seeger. Folk music has become more eclectic and covers all styles, from rock to country.”

Sands-Boehmer said that there is a wide misconception that the me & thee only sponsors religious music because it is held in a church, but she assures people that that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

As one of the oldest coffeehouses still in existence, the me & thee has played host to several big names, including Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams and Livingston Taylor. The coffeehouse was also the site of Tracy Chapman’s first-ever live performance.

“Many singers feel their career is not complete unless they play the me & thee,” Sands-Boehmer said. “It’s humbling when you hear how thrilling it is to play your venue.”

Garber added, “Listening to music in the Mugford Street church is like hearing it in your own living room. It’s a little bigger, but there is the same kind of comfort, the same kind of feeling, that you get when a friend drops in.”

Silva noted, “We are not a street corner, but we are also not the Orpheum. [Sands-Boehmer] continues to push the envelope on what is played here, and having a wide range of talents and styles is the trick to making it work for a mixed audience.”

Silva encourages everyone to simply “try it.”

“Check out the Web site and see what we are and what we do,” Silva said. “It is a very laid-back atmosphere, and you’ll never feel out of place.”

Silva added, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would still be going after 37 years, but our volunteers really stepped up and carried the ball. There is a movement now to enjoy music alone, whether it be in the car or on your iPod, and this provides just the opposite, bringing people together with the same interests all around, creating a shared experience, which makes this so dynamic.”

For more information about the me & thee coffeehouse, see www.meandthee.org.

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