Shortly before 7 p.m. on a Thursday night, The Boiler Room in Kalispell is nearly empty. A few people mull around, ordering coffee, but for the most part no one notices the five people moving chairs and tuning banjos, guitars and mandolins.
But when they finish their final tweaks and sit down to play, people begin to take up seats and more wander in as songs of long forgotten battles and overlooked outcasts waft out the door. Together they’re forming a community and that is just what Alex Hogle hoped for when he helped organize a twice-monthly bluegrass session at The Boiler Room, every other Thursday night throughout the winter.
The jam sessions began two years ago at Colter Coffee, Hogle said, but they moved so the informal event could grow. The sessions are usually played by four or five bluegrass musicians and about a dozen players rotate in and out. At the center of the informal group will usually be Hogle.
Hogle said he has had an appreciation for music all his life and started “picking” when he was a teenager. Although he works as a county planner by day, Hogle plays in two bands during his free time, Spring Wagon Stringband and BirdHop!
“We all need to create outlets in our life to keep the days feeling right,” he said.
While Hogle and the other musicians called it a “bluegrass” jam, he said the type of songs they play can’t just be categorized in one genre. Many of the songs have Southern or Appalachian roots. Others have those same roots, with a Rocky Mountain twist: “We all don’t live in the Shenandoah Mountains, so lets sing about the Rocky Mountains,” Hogle said.
Why they play is even more complex.
Hogle said it is possible to trace the country’s history through song and in that history community is a constant. It’s one of the primary reasons Tina Bertram has made the drive down from Fortine to play for the last two years.
“It’s just great; the roots of the music is playing in a community setting and it’s great to continue that,” said Bertram, who teaches at North Valley Music School in Whitefish.
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The fingers of Steve Stafford, left, and Alex Hogle fly across the fiddle and mandolin. |
And the community of people playing bluegrass music is only growing, Hogle said, with a handful of bands throughout Northwest Montana.
Hogle, who was born and raised in Northern Utah, said the bluegrass scene is just as strong down there and he thinks it is because the West shares the same frontier spirit as the region in which the music originated.
“It doesn’t matter where you go, you can find people to pick with,” he said.
And at least for the next few months, that means playing at The Boiler Room on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street in Kalispell. Hogle said they plan on playing the second and fourth Thursday of every month, except on holidays, throughout the winter. Admission is free.