If you walk into Tapp’s Art Center on a Tuesday night, you might find a collection of people buying drinks and mingling before heading to the back theater for the main event. They are all gathered for Songversation, a mashup of a concert and a Q&A, where a performer plays music and answers questions from the audience.
“The performer has a chance to talk to you about ‘this is where my music comes from, this is my inspiration,’” said Al Black, the founder of this event. “And, so, it is a song-versation.”
Tapp’s brings in different artists from the Columbia area every month to take part in Songversation. Not only does this give performers in the city the opportunity to play in front of an attentive audience, but it also allows the attendees to experience different genres and perspectives on songwriting.
Self-proclaimed psychedelic-folk artist Quark Lepton was one of the performers on March 14. His alter-ego (or main ego) is high school English teacher Steve Nuzum, a USC graduate. He decided on the eccentric stage name after reading a physics article about the two subatomic particles.
“It was just a way to have a persona to pretend like someone made this music and get honest feedback about it,” he said.
Lepton took the stage and engaged the audience right away through witty, self-deprecating banter and explanations of his music. Throughout the night, he picked up a guitar, a banjo and an Omnichord to accompany his lyrics — staying true to his promise of trippy folk music. He took the time to answer questions from the audience, giving advice on writer’s block and talking about books he has read, short stories he has written and other musicians as his main inspiration.
“It’s kind of intimidating, actually. I’ve never tried to explain the songwriting process or anything like that,” Lepton said, “but it sounded like fun.”
This event gives both the audience and the performer a unique experience. The audience gets a behind-the-scenes glance into how music is made while the performer gets feedback on songs and can even ask questions of the audience, as Lepton sometimes did. It allows for a conversation, when in most other cases, there isn’t one.
“It’s like a symbiotic experience that’s happening in there,” executive director of Tapp's Caitlin Bright said, “... bringing a little bit of humanity back to the listening experience, the musical experience.”
Tapp’s holds Songversation on the second Tuesday of every month and tickets cost $5 to $20.