Anyfolk, a free listening room series organized by local singer and songwriter Tyler Meacham, challenges performers to make as much magic as they can with one microphone, an acoustic instrument, and all-original songs.
The challenge to the audience: be quiet and listen.
Style Weekly reached out to Richmond-based songwriters who performed at recent Anyfolk shows to ask for a backstage view. A common thread in their responses was that Anyfolk feels like a place where music is more than entertainment. Meaningful connection is possible – both between performers and the audience, and among the performers themselves.
Songwriters say Anyfolk gives them a chance to perform songs too personal or sonically subtle for a standard bar gig. Isaac Friend explains, “When hired to play as background entertainment, there’s often an unspoken incentive to play more uptempo, penetrating songs to match the atmosphere.” Anyfolk, by contrast, “creates a space where the faint notes are as audible as the bolder ones. One single mic, a big open room with a quiet audience – it’s an ideal setting for a songwriter to play songs that may otherwise get washed away.”
Cam Lovings lays out the way Anyfolk’s stripped-back format effects the emotional experience of performing, and of what matters in a performance. “With each note I conveyed, I met someone’s eyes,” he says, recounting his experience at a June show. “Authenticity is the primary currency that holds weight within the walls of an Anyfolk show. It’s truly changed my perspective on how I should tell a story to an audience.”
Lovings says that at his first Anyfolk performance, he was still relatively new to performing in ‘professional’ settings and went into the performance wanting to “blow people away.” He explains that he picked songs that were “upbeat and required difficult vocal chops for me, and afterwards I found myself wishing I had slowed things down.”
The second time, Lovings took a different approach.
“The audience that’s grown within Anyfolk is supportive to a level you’d gladly share your secrets with them,” he says. “With that in mind, I opted for a more melancholic set the second time around and found myself comfortable sharing my stories in a place where they were accepted and understood.”
Woody Woodworth also says that the feeling of attentiveness and acceptance from the audience at Anyfolk gave him an opportunity to take artistic risks.
“I felt so comfortable in that setting that I played two new songs, and a third really personal sad one. One of the new songs was so new I had to pull out lyrics on a piece of paper to perform. That was risky, and I even fumbled through a line or two.”
But Woodworth thinks the audience appreciated the vulnerability, he says. “What Tyler is doing is creating a safe space for creativity and allowing the artist to present their craft to a welcoming and hungry audience.”
Another boon of performing at Anyfolk, according to Sravani Kameswari, is the opportunity to connect with other musicians. Kameswari, a medical student, says watching the other performers at Anyfolk reminds her of learning medical procedures and techniques by observing residents.
“I’ve been looking at people’s hands to see the chord shapes that they’re doing, trying to emulate that and seeing what sound that makes,” she says. Kameswari also says that Anyfolk’s quiet environment is ideal for contemplating other writers’ lyrics.
Many Anyfolk performers lead bands, even if they take to the Anyfolk stage alone. Jon Tyler Wiley says he intentionally writes songs that can work in either context. “I don’t want songs to be saved by the band, I want a good song to be able to stand alone,” he says.
Wiley notes that the opportunity at Anyfolk to talk to the audience about a song before playing it can give context that allows the song to be more deeply felt. “If you allow [listeners] to come in to your world, a lot of time they’re going to.”
Many songwriters mentioned that members of the audience find them after the show to share how a song or lyric moved them. “Knowing it made that connection with someone… it’s one of the best feelings in the world,” Kameswari says.
Anyfolk’s name, announcing the event as “any kind of folk for any folk to hear,” suggests the eclectic nature of the music curated. Kameswari says the series lives up to its title, serving as a sample of the “vast variety of experience and emotion” of artists in the Richmond scene. “Anyfolk serves as a big reminder of how we might think our community is pretty small, but it’s so rich,” she says.
Anyfolk occurs twice monthly, typically on first and third Wednesdays. To find the date and location of the next show, visit Anyfolk’s substack or instagram. Recorded music by Anyfolk performers is available at this playlist.
