The Manchester woman who has been hosting bands in her home for over 30 years
Including such names as Sufjan Stevens, The National, Joanna Newsom, Big Thief, St. Vincent and even Michael Cera...
After a very impassioned last newsletter, I wanted to start this week off with a positive experience I had over the weekend, A story that I hope will maybe set up the start of your week on a positive note as well.
A story about an incredible woman named Bernie.
So, I’ve been away from home on tour for about five weeks now, with threeish weeks remaining. I love being on tour, as I’ve mentioned before it’s a great way to see the world and interact with locals who attend the shows who are keen to take us to their favourite spots and give us top tier food recommendations (I thought I’d loose a few KGs on this tour, but it’s honestly been the tour of delicious carbs). For someone like me who has social anxiety, being thrown in the deep end with chatting to people post-gig in some places where English isn’t the first language has been really good for me and my anxiety.
On Friday night, we played Manchester and it was a blast, a great set, a decent crowd who were deeply familiar with the catalog, and some good post-gig chats. Our accommodation this night was at a local woman’s place who regularly hosts touring bands for next to nothing. “It’s a not-for-profit,” she explains when we get talking.
We arrived at this home around 1:30 am and we’re greeted by a small older woman standing on the porch. She helps direct our touring van into the allocated parking spot before bringing in our gear in the rain (it was Manchester’s first day of rain in three months; in classic local banter, they blamed us for bringing it in). We are a bit wet from the load out, tired from an 8-hour drive, and a full hour set.
As we walk into her house, she introduces herself as Bernie. Her home has tall ceilings with walls covered in protest art, band posters, and plants, She has a huge record collection with some very rare records. She shows us our rooms (we have a room each with a double bed! A luxury for a band at our level on the road) and she’s chucked on the electric blankets so they are toasty when we slide in.
After a much-needed sleep and late rise just before midday, we head downstairs and see she’s made us a full breakfast: everything you could dream of: bagels, eggs, salmon, fruit, yoghurt, fresh avocado, all the jams, and of course hot cups of tea.
We get to talking and it turns out Bernie has been hosting bands since 2003, literally hundreds of bands, and she has kept a record of them all, and the names had us in astonishment.
Notable names include Sufjan Stevens, The National, Daniel Johnson, Tiny Ruins, Joanna Newsom, Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts, Fazerdays, Aldous Harding, Kurt Vile, Deer Hunter, Big Theif, St. Vincent, Snail Mail and Michael Cera - yes the Michael Cera who was playing bass for a friends band in the night of his celebrity.
Some have stayed multiple times, and I don’t blame them; the hospitality and stories Bernie provided felt like a massive recharge to the soul halfway through a long and exhausting tour. Out of these hundreds of names, she’s only had problems with two, just classic big egos, she’s says, nothing she couldn’t handle.
I asked Bernie if anyone has ever proposed doing a documentary about her and her years hosting some of these bands. She said that the New York Times wanted to do a “feel good piece” on her, and had lined up some of the high-profile bands that had stayed who were keen to sing her praises.
But after they started pushing to take photos of her home and being, well, “very American” about it, she pushed back, she didn’t want her home advertised for the world to see as bands park gear and valuables there. A fair point in my opinion, after they kept pestering her, she did some research on the NYT as she wasn’t super familiar with them (she doesn’t use social media, uses a blackberry phone, and hates the BBC). After finding out they had fired some of their journalists for speaking up on the genocide in Gaza, she sent a very lengthy email dropping out of the piece and calling them out in their passive complicity in not covering what is happening in Gaza.
“It was a lengthy email, my daughter said I could have just made my point in two sentences, but I wanted them to know exactly how I felt about what is happening to the Palestinian people.”
What a badass.
But that’s the other great thing about Bernie, her next passion outside of music is a good protest and sticking up for the disenfranchised. Her walls, hallways, and fridge are covered in stickers, picket signs, posters, shirts, and pins from her various protests from over the years, and once she gets talking about these causes, you see her eyes light up and she’s full of passion. Yet she’s so hopeful about the future from the people she’s interacted with, and passion she’s experienced on the front lines, and the videos she sees of young people pushing back.
I could have stayed another night and just spent the day having cups of tea and listening to more stories from Bernie, alas, we had to head to Glasgow. But she told us to come and stay next time we play Manchester and sent us on our way.
People like Bernie are why I love touring as a band, they open their homes, feed you, and as cheesy as it sounds, just recharge your soul, sending you on your way, reminded of why you love this.
Meeting people like Bernie also gives me a bit more hope in people and the world, it’s so easy to be cynical and bummed out by everything in the world, then you just get a much needed reminder that there are people out there filled with kindness, passion and whose joy in life is looking after and uplifting others.
There’s a lot of awful people hogging up the spotlight at the moment, it’s nice to meet a Bernie to cleanse the pallet and be reminded of what’s good in the world.
Maybe I should just get a BlackBerry and drink more tea.
Danz
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