Club Helsinki celebrates first anniversary
By Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMTOWN, Mass., Oct. 23, 2000) - Without much if any fanfare, a new nightclub opened about a year ago in Great Barrington. And over the course of the past year, Club Helsinki has transformed the landscape for live popular music in the Berkshires.

Where once there were only sporadic concert series that would come and go at various venues, for the first time in memory there is a well-established, year-round Berkshire venue that presents top-notch regional and national touring artists in blues, soul, rock, jazz, world music and other styles on a weekly basis, several nights a week.

The place itself is also a gem. Its unusual L-shaped formation, its decorative display of found objects, its original artwork and its exposed brick walls lend a funky, bohemian ambiance, matched by the funky, bohemian crowd and staff.

By necessity the club is intimate, eliciting a tight bond between performer and audience. According to club manager Deborah McDowell, it’s a bond that in just one year has artists talking to each other about the club and calling up and asking to play the place.

“There are lots of musicians who really dig the place because it’s small,” said McDowell, who co-owns the club with Marc Schafler. “They like being able to turn their head and say what they’re doing next. They like to be able to talk to the other musicians. A lot of times they come off the stage and say what a great room it is, while I’m always worried that it’s too small.”

Whereas in the beginning the venue was chasing after bookings, now the daily mail brings a pile of CDs to sort through from bands wanting to play the club. “And bands like coming back,” said McDowell. “Burning Spear was here for two nights in August, and he has been recommending the club, and people have called on his recommendation. We treat musicians well, and word gets out about that.”

A year ago, live music made its debut in the club -- an offshoot of the much-touted restaurant, Helsinki Tea Company -- when Olu Dara performed. “Olu Dara set the stage for the club,” said McDowell. “He’s done so many different things with performance art, theater, jazz, blues. He’s been very helpful. He’s turned us on to other artists, like Hamiet Bluiett. He always wants to come back. He’s like a melting pot, born in Mississippi, but he’s also very urban and schooled.”

Dara returns this month on Nov. 17 to help the club celebrate its first anniversary. In fact, the lineup for the next month is jam-packed with both encores and debuts that, in typical Helsinki style, range the musical gamut from New Orleans r&b to Boston ska, from reggae to rock, from Middle Eastern to Mose Allison.

In addition to Dara’s show, other artists scheduled to perform in coming weeks include eclectic funk-rock band the Hot Heads tomorrow, New Orleans r&b vocalist/guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington (Nov. 2), bluesy soul-rocker Deborah Coleman (Nov. 3), Boston ska/reggae band Pressure Cooker (Nov. 4), Jewish world-beat ensemble Pharaoh’s Daughter (Nov. 9), and jazz saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett (Nov. 10-12). Also female indie-rockers Antigone Rising (Nov. 16), the aforementioned jazz pianist/vocalist Mose Allison (Nov. 18), regional rock legend Ray Mason (Nov. 24), blues guitarist Debbie Davies (Nov. 25), and acid-jazz jam-band Topaz (Nov. 30). In addition, Tuesday nights feature Latin dance music spun by D.J. Alvaro.

From McDowell’s vantage point, the first year has been a smashing success. “It’s really far exceeded my expectations,” she said. “It’s beeen a tremendous amount of fun, and the music we’ve been able to get has been much better than I’d ever anticipated it would be. I want to continue to have this kind of quality all year round.”

McDowell says that the core of her audience are local residents. “The community has responded, and people who I’d never thought I’d see come out to the club,” she said, adding, however, that it’s an uphill battle getting people out at night on a consistent basis. “My family is from Finland, and in Finland people go out every night,” she said. “They don’t sit at home and watch TV. But people my age don’t go out that much. And we need to change that.”

McDowell does, however, praise the local business community for their support of the club, which may well be the most exciting thing to happen to popular music in the Berkshires since the heyday of the Music Inn. In fact, Dave Rothstein, the last owner of the Music Inn, is one of the club’s foremost champions. “He’s been our biggest supporter,” said McDowell. “He comes to shows, he brings people with him and tells people about us, and he puts musicians up at his inn in Sheffield at the height of the summer season.”

When pressed to name what she considers the highlight of the club’s first year, McDowell hedges. “We’ve had a lot of more seasoned musicians here who are really interesting - people like Olu Dara, Hamiet Bluiett, the Holmes Brothers and Carey Bell. I put those in a category of their own. “But I’m really excited about a lot of the young, newer bands we’ve had on Thursdays. I’m excited about Pharaoh’s Daughter, for example. And Wax Poetic came out of downtwon New York. They’re very jazzy, soulful, experimental. “I really like roots music, but people who are doing new stuff with roots music, people who are doing something different with it, like Pharaoh’s Daughter. I happen to really like soul music, too, so we do a lot of that. “I like all sorts of music. I like good music. You know the feeling when you go into a theater and the person on stage opens their mouth or sings a note and you know you’re in good hands? That’s the experience I always want to have here.”

As for the future, McDowell doesn’t see any huge changes. She would like to expand the schedule of performances into the work-week, feature more local musicians as opening acts for the headliners, use the club for live recordings, and do more programming for youth audiences. Along these lines, Hamiet Bluiett will be doing a Sunday afternoon show for the under-21 crowd on November 12.

“I’m excited about experimental music, and I like the idea of bringing young musicians here,” said McDowell. “I can promise that I’m going to get the most interesting music I can, people who I think are going to do interesting things in the music world.”

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Oct. 27, 2000. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]

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