123 Pleasant Street hosts fundraiser for city’s warming shelter
Nicholas Larson, to quote “Auld Lang Syne,” will take a cup o’ kindness every chance he gets during the holiday season.
Especially in Morgantown, which has been his home address for the past few years.
The Iowa native came here for WVU — and stayed for the community.
“Yeah, that’s really what it is,” he said. “It’s the community, the people. That’s why I’m here tonight.”
“Here,” in this case being 123 Pleasant Street, Morgantown’s downtown music venue at the address of the same name.
The bar over the years has hosted sets from psychobilly thrashers, neo-goth slashers, good old honkey-tonkers and just plain sonic keepers of all things Americana.
Sunday night’s set may have included elements of all the above — in ways that managed to be musically adept, sonically fun and spiritually reverent … all at the same time.
The occasion was the now-monthly gig by Beer & Hymns Morgantown, a musical group that combines hops and heart in its approach.
Of pubs and pulpits
Lest you think the pairing in the band’s name might be on the blasphemous side, well, you may want to reconsider.
The group gets together, sings songs of faith (and seasonal joy, in the case of Sunday night), and the price of admission for the benefit shows is your monetary donation to a worthy cause.
Husband and wife Rich and Alise Chaffins came up with the idea in October.
Both are music educators, and musicians, who have been singing and playing in church since they were youth group kids.
Rich, who studied jazz guitar at WVU, worked as a music director at local churches, in fact, before launching a career as a luthier, a craftsman who makes custom guitars.
Sunday’s show raised money for the maintenance of the Friendship House warming shelter, which reaches out to Morgantown’s homeless population.
The couple said they simply wanted to help people of all circumstances in divisive times.
All performances are non-denominational and free of dogma or any kind of preaching, said Alise, who sings and plays piano for the assemblage.
“You don’t even have to drink beer if you don’t want to,” she said, laughing.
The concept was born in pub culture in England, she said, before making its way across the Atlantic to the U.S., where contemporary Christian artist Amy Grant once famously dropped in at such an event in Nevada to sing some of her hits.
Rich and Alise found out about the Beers & Hymns musical model through friends in Orange County, Calif., who launched their performances there for charitable outreach.
“It just seemed like a good thing to do,” Alise said, “and people seem to be enjoying it.”
Altruism, amen
Beer & Hymns’ first gig at 123 Pleasant Street two months ago was for Empty Bowls Monongalia, which combats food insecurity across the region.
All proceeds from November’s show went to the West Virginia Family Grief Center, in Morgantown.
The venue filled up quick on this evening’s show for the warming shelter.
There were families with toddlers in tow. One very friendly border collie dispensed Yule-nuzzles to everyone she met.
With his favorite libation and a lyric sheet, Larson’s vocal chords were poised.
“Oh, yeah, I’m ready,” he said. “I like that this is hitting after Christmas but right before New Year’s.”
“Am I gonna sing?” Elaine Schwing said with a grin. “Of course I’m gonna sing. Not very well, but I’m gonna sing.”
The happy clamor stopped in the second before the set list.
Rich and Alise settled in behind their microphones, as did percussionist Zac Morton and fellow vocalist Natalie Shaffer.
Casi Null slung her bass guitar over her shoulder and Sara Loughney leaned into her fiddle.
“Before we get going, let’s all lift our glasses,” Rich said.
“Let’s drink to community. Let’s drink to love. Let’s drink to the intrinsic worth of every human.”
With that, he hit an infectious, string-bending riff on his acoustic guitar.
A decidedly funky “Joy to the World,” it was.
And, on a foggy, rainy night in Morgantown, four days after Christmas, heaven and nature — with the help of a lot of souls at 123 Pleasant Street — sang.
