Katelyn Richards encourages active audience participation at her numerous gigs. The Holyoke singer and guitarist sets out claves, cowbells, egg shakers, tambourines—even a double-sided agog?—and invites anyone in the crowd to sing, dance and jam along.
Over the last several years Richards has certainly given folks plenty of chances to join in, by maintaining a hyperactive schedule that includes playing out three to five nights per week.
“I am a North American nocturnal creature,” she says. “I used to struggle through a 40-hour work week as a teaching assistant, so it was difficult for a while. Now I’m focused on music as a career. Since I don’t play any breakfast gigs, the late nights don’t interfere with any engagements and I usually have my days free and early weeknights to write, learn new material, and promote gigs.”
In addition, Richards is hard at work in the studio finishing up The Lawn Chair Soapbox, an album she calls “a compilation of many moods and situations ranging from satirical, somber, upbeat, sexy, hopeful [to] discouraged and uplifted.”
The full-length, featuring production and accompaniment by locals Michael Cooper and Brian Tool, will include “In a Town (Called Holyoke),” a popular request at Holyoke’s own Elizur’s Pub, where she performs every Tuesday night at 9:30. She says patrons love the tune’s “Irish pub jive” and the local sentiment encapsulated by its signature line: “In a town the news says is so bad/ I’m having the best time I’ve ever had.”
Since receiving a guitar for her birthday a few years back, the UMass grad has been writing music, drawing on a well of influences that includes Ani Difranco, Elvis Costello, Ween, Frank Zappa, Jack White and Diana Krall, to name a few. She’s settled into a sound that is best described as a high-energy acoustic blend of folk, rock and pop. She calls it “Soundalicious.” Her hope now is to form a full band so that she can focus more on lyrics and vocals.
To complement her sounds, Richards is always looking for new networking and marketing angles. “I hand out s’mores at events with a fire pit,” she says. “And I’m starting a new marketing scheme with homemade egg shakers. I am also starting a video project where I will encourage spectators to cell-phone tape me playing—and themselves if they want—and send it to my email address to compile footage with a new editing program my loving and supportive boyfriend picked up.”
In addition to her weekly Elizur’s gig, Richards invites everyone to join her at Bishop’s in Northampton on Fridays from 6 to 8 p.m. to check out her music and volunteer talents.”
For shows and more information, visit http://www.katelynrichards.com.
