Erin McKeown Planning to Perform From a River

If you want to leave your house to see singer-songwriter Erin McKeown, you usually have to go to a club or theater or some similar venue. Thanks to the Web, you can see her perform in a very unique place -- an actual river.

McKeown will be performing in the environment she is most at home -- literally, in and around her home in Western Massachusetts. After putting up her own money to record her latest album, 'Hundreds of Lions' (due out in October), she's offsetting the costs by hosting 'Cabin Fever,' a series of four "house concerts" broadcast live over the Internet.

The first one will broadcast live from her living room, the second from her front porch, the third from a river that passes close to her house and the fourth, which will include the entire 'Hundreds of Lions' album in sequence, from her front yard, with her touring band. (If it rains, the outside dates will happen from inside McKweon's van).

Wait, there's something strange about that third one. Webcasting a live music show from a river? "We're going to put a bunch of chairs in the river," McKeown tells Spinner. "Hopefully it won't have rained too much. The idea of sitting in water singing songs about water is just hilarious to me."

McKeown has been tinkering with the technical side of promotion for a decade, since her impatience with waiting for things to change on her site inspired her to learn how to do it herself. After she parted ways with her last record label, she decided to make this album on her own, and use what she learned about the Web to promote it.

That led to her footing the bill herself, but it also led to more creative freedom. The result isn't an enormous departure form her previous work, but some aspects of the music, she says, are more "beautiful, organic, and patient." "What I wanted to do in this situation is make a record without having to answer to anyone," says McKeown. "And I think the integrity of the music is much more sustained in that situation. I mean, then I can really hand in this record and say, 'I made this, I like it.' And if you don't like it, that's okay."

There will be no planned audience at McKeown's home, other than the technical people and perhaps a few neighbors that might drop by. Fans can chat in their browser windows during the show but the idea was to get as close to a pure Web concert as possible, with the audience watching from home or their office or wherever they happen to be. That means no immediate feedback like applause, but McKeown says she's faced that before. "I have to say that, having been involved with promoting records for a long time, I have definitely, definitely played to audiences that did nothing," she says. "Specifically many times I have played for music business people in conference rooms."

'Cabin Fever' debuts July 7 with special appearances by Jonah Smith, Sonya Kitchell and Kris Delmhorst.