“We’re in This Boat Together:” Handsome Hound, the Folk Scene, and Leaving DC
Like most working musicians in D.C., Claire Daviss and Cuchulain Kelly of Handsome Hound, have day jobs. When I first spoke to them, they were just leaving work for the day, and the garbled sounds of the city came through my phone receiver.
At the time they were in the midst of transformation as a band, deciding whether Handsome Hound would be a massive side-project, one that took up a majority of their time outside of work, or a full-time band. Their largest push towards the latter was right around the corner: They were preparing to go on their largest tour yet, up and down the East Coast.
They would need to make a decision about which direction to take.
“People are moving [to D.C.] and driving the cost of housing up. In other cities that are cheaper, you can actually live off shows,” said Cuchulain, referencing the city’s population boom in recent years. “There’s no way in hell we could quit [our jobs]. At least in our scene, the indie folk rock DIY scene, the vast majority of the musicians that we know are playing music on the side.”
For a band whose members all work day jobs, aligning vacation days for a multi-city tour is a massive lift. In that way, Handsome Hound was designed for the city, where they could run into potential French horn players and bassists on the street. D.C. seems to have an excess of musicians that are hungry for more opportunities to play live.
“The city is pretty transient; there’s little pockets you can plug into,” says Cuchulain, “We met our trumpeter through a grocery co-op in Mount Pleasant.” Recreating that collaborative ragtag attitude on the road would be exciting and challenging prospect.
However as we continued talking, they carried a healthy skepticism about their future in D.C. Cultivating a fan base had been difficult at times. “People don’t move here to listen to music,” says Claire, and “venues don’t have established crowds. We’ve had to work really hard to get people out. It’s not as challenging now, but it used to be.”
There’s pressure for groups like Handsome Hound to build an ecosystem that can convert D.C.’s mass migration into audience members at shows. “I feel like for a long while there most people that came to our shows were our friends,” says Claire, “for a while it felt like we were holding parties that people paid for.” Since then, Handsome Hound found success in nurturing a smaller more intimate group of fans that can follow them from house shows to places like the Black Cat, where the band had their most recent album release show. Eventually their shows became a showcase of interesting musicians from around the city. “We all know that we’re in this boat together,” says Claire, “so it’s pretty supportive.”
Cuchulain recalls a show of his which also featured a Balkan women’s choir and a funk band on the roster. “I haven’t met a bad egg in the D.C. music scene.” says Cuchulain.
When the band returned from tour they announced a farewell show. The band is breaking up; Claire and Cuchulain are moving out West where they plan to give Handsome Hound a fresh start in a totally different musical ecosystem. “The tour was fantastic.” says Claire, “We also took a lot of time to explore, hike, and see friends.”
Now they talk about D.C. with the instant nostalgia that comes from preparing to leave a place you’ve called home for so long, “D.C. has definitely shaped us as musicians,” says Cuchulain, “We’ve benefited from the close-knit, DIY music scene in this city, and many, many artists have helped us along the way. More than anything, it’s just been fun.”
While it has been challenging for them to build a strong following in D.C., he believes the city’s lack of a having a large folk music industry presence formed stronger bonds between the musicians in the city, “In DC, musicians honestly seem to appreciate the inherent value of music as a form of expression, a way to relieve stress, a way to bring people together…that positive energy fueled us throughout our time in this city. We hope to carry that with us more than anything as we head to the West Coast.”
Ahead of their farewell show we asked Handsome Hound to talk about their favorites shows in D.C. and bands they’ll miss:
We played Millennium Stage back in August 2016. Earlier that year, the organizer of the Millennium Stage series had seen us play at another folk festival and invited us to do a Millennium Stage show. We were overwhelmed with excitement, given the history of the stage and the Kennedy Center. The show also forced us to get on top of our game. We had exactly 60 minutes to perform, tops, so we were careful about timing our rehearsals and planning transitions ahead of the show. In that way, it was more than just a mile marker in our journey as a band; it was also a good motivation to polish our act. The audience at that show was really interesting, not our normal rowdy concert venue. Millennium Stage has a strong regular audience of DC-area folks, and they also get a lot of tourists looking to explore the Center and see some music on their trip. We were so grateful that folks listened closely and stayed after the show to talk. And some of the folks that came to that Kennedy Center show have continued to come to Handsome Hound shows in the city ever since!
In February of this year, we played a show called Handsome Hound and Friends down at Union Stage. We invited some of our favorite musicians to join us on covers we both loved. We had Andrew Grossman from The North Country, Kelly Servick from Near Northeast, Nefra Faltas from Humble Fire, Kate Taylor Mighty, DuPont Brass, and Lauren Calve.
In terms of bands we’ll miss, there are far too many to name. To shout out a few (beyond those already mentioned above), the Foggy Bottom Whomp Stompers, Stranger in the Alps, The Bumper Jacksons, Elena y Los Fulanos, The Iris Bell, Bearcat Wildcat, Boaty Oatis, and of course the Cuchulain Kelly Trio!
