I moved to Louisville last March after deciding to leave Los Angeles, the city I had called home for almost four years. New in town, I was eager to dive into the local music scene (and also expand my record collection), so I purchased a copy of the gorgeously understated “Baptist Girls” by local folk musician Bro. Stephen, to whom I had recently been introduced. At a time when I was feeling a little nervous about some of the big changes I was making in my life, the package arrived in the mail with a nonsensical giraffe scribbled onto the cardboard in permanent marker. “Welcome to Louisville,” read big block letters within a cartoonish speech bubble. “You’re going to love it.” The giraffe, as it turns out, told no lies.
Of course, Bro. Stephen – Scott Kirkpatrick to you and me – knows a thing or two about loving Louisville, a city he proudly calls the greatest in the nation. Born and raised in Kentucky, the friendly, soft-spoken Kirkpatrick has spent the last few years traveling around the country with a guitar case slung over his shoulder, couch-surfing his way from gig to gig, and playing for anybody who would listen. Despite the fact that he describes his fifth and most recent tour as his best yet, with a very encouraging response to “Baptist Girls,” absence made his heart grow fonder. Bro. Stephen was ready for a Kentucky homecoming.
“I had spent two and a half years traveling,” said Kirkpatrick. “And it was frustrating not having an anchoring point. When I finally made it home to Louisville last year, I was just really excited to be back. I have two or three records worth of music recorded now, so I didn’t feel so much pressure. I could settle down for a bit.”
But what does settling down look like for a modern-day troubadour? For Kirkpatrick, it started out normally enough, with a new job (bartending at RYE) and an apartment hunt. However, he was looking for something more than your average anchoring point.
“I wanted to have a place where I could put on shows – an intimate setting where I could control how the artists are welcomed and received,” said Kirkpatrick. “I’ve met this huge network of musicians who put their lives on the line and take that huge risk to get out there and get better. And I wanted to be able to reward that with an ideal setting based off of my own touring experiences.”
Kirkpatrick certainly has a wealth of experiences to draw from. Having played a bounty of shows in dozens of cities and in almost every setting imaginable, he is well aware of the difference the right venue can make. He described one of his favorite shows, a small gig that took place on someone’s rooftop outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, all organized by a friend of a friend of a friend’s friend.
“I didn’t know any of the people there,” said Kirkpatrick. “I was kind of going into it blind. It was a small crowd, but everyone wanted to be there. We were out in the woods with all of these paper lanterns hanging from the trees. And someone brought a big pot of vegetarian gumbo. And I played my set and people were just really into it.”
Of course, Kirkpatrick knows that magical nights like that tend to be the exception, not the rule.
“Not all house shows are great, I can vouch for that,” said Kirkpatrick. “There’s always this, ‘I hope this isn’t a total bust’ feeling, because that definitely happens sometimes. Sometimes you just don’t feel welcome. Those kinds of experiences aren’t just frustrating – they can feel defeating.”
Kirkpatrick was determined to be different. So, in August of last year, when he stumbled across a run-down old general store in Germantown that had been rehabbed into a livable unit, he jumped at the chance to sign a lease. The “store” wasn’t much at first glance – just a small, mid-century floorspace renovated into a living room with an attached kitchen, with newspapers pasted over the front display windows for privacy and the tiny back office fixed up to serve as a bedroom. But in Kirkpatrick’s eyes, he had found his perfect venue – a cozy place where he could both throw shows and house the road-weary artists afterward, perhaps offering them a hot fried chicken dinner and a glass of bourbon before they retired to the living room couch.
So he moved in, cleaned the place up a little bit, and, before long, was planning his inaugural show at “The General Store” – an October triple bill featuring sets from Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s Kalispell; local artist Cheyenne Marie Mize; and Bro. Stephen himself. The word-of-mouth crowd was small, but the goal was quality, not quantity.
“There aren’t a ton of shows and they can’t be huge,” said Kirkpatrick, noting that The General Store can only accommodate an audience of 40 people at most. “But if I can do my part to welcome great musicians into town and pair them up with local stuff that I like, then that’s what it’s all about.”
With this philosophy in mind, Kirkpatrick set out to keep the momentum going. Building off of the modest success of the Kalispell show, he booked Owen Ashworth of Advance Base – formerly of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – for a November set. With local musician Telephobia opening, the night was a sell-out success, with an eager cluster of fans packed into the living room for an uncommonly intimate set from a beloved indie favorite.
“The Advance Base show was awesome,” said Kirkpatrick. “Owen is a great guy. He had just finished opening for Ben Gibbard’s tour, so he was passing through on his way back to Chicago. Everything just kind of came together. It was the perfect show for the space – definitely one of my favorite musical moments.”
This new dual role as both a local artist and a local patron of the arts is a natural next step for Kirkpatrick, who’s already served as a makeshift ambassador for our city and its music scene by virtue of his dogged tour schedule. Now, after less than a year of Kirkpatrick’s particular brand of settling down, it’s hard to deny that his work at The General Store has quickly become a big part of why the musicians who come to Louisville tend to – as that giraffe promised me – love it here. Whether it’s Kalispell, Advance Base, or Richard Buckner, who played a stunning and intimate December set at The General Store just two days prior to playing at New York City’s famed Mercury Lounge, each new show that Kirkpatrick throws is just another reason why the city he loves so much ought to love him right back.
“I don’t always know how I can make the world better, but I know that I can put on shows of the highest quality and share the music I love with the people I love,” said Kirkpatrick. “It’s like introducing friends. I want you to know each other.”
For more information on The General Store and regular updates on upcoming shows, “Like” the Facebook page at facebook.com/thegeneralstoreky.
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