Dave’s Photo Blog

C3, in Central Square, is a classic and fascinating mix of all things Cambridge. C3 is short for Clear Conscience Cafe. It’s a fair trade cafe with food and beverages attached to the Harvest Co-Op Market. But actually, to call it a fair trade cafe is a little disingenuous. This is a place where they everything they do reflects a set of core values: fair-trade, environmental consciousness, organic food and being a postive force in the local community. Every Thursday night, however, c3 literally transforms into a live music venue where you can see local and international performers for free. That’s right, it’s free.

I got a chance to experience C3 when I met with Seth Glier to work on a profile I’m doing. Seth and I met back in December. It’s an interesting space, being attached to the co-op and was renovated as a green space – the materials used are environmentally responsible. It’s located in the heart of Central Square right next to the infamous Pearl Art & Craft Supply store. I was able to get there when it was still light out and talk to Seth (and Ryan Hommel who is touring with him). And at this time, C3 was a cafe. There were tables and comfy chairs, free WiFi and, of course, fair trade coffee and organic food.

When I returned for the performance, however, it had been transformed. The front of the cafe had been cleared and a performance space had been created complete with a live sound board. There were several rows of chairs in front of the stage and then tables and chair behind those. If you were walking down Massachusetts Avenue, this is what you would see.

But there was also a surprise in store for me. Although it was not advertised, there was an opening act for Seth Glier: Prairie Jewel (pictured below, from left to right, Sarah Hatherly, Katherine Johnson). They are one of those hard-to-describe groups, which usually means there’s something interesting there. They describe themselves as juicy prairie folk fusion. More simply put, they are both very strong musicians, songwriters and performers. They sing very melodic songs with lots of harmony – putting both of their voices to good use. They had a short set – just a few songs. I think one of them was Fly, which is also on their MySpace page. It sounded a bit different to me live and I enjoyed it perhaps more than the recorded version. Prairie Jewel hails from Winnipeg, Canada. They were in Boston to do some recording and then heading down to the Folk Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee (Seth and Ryan are also working their way down there). Unfortunately for us Bostonians, this was the only visit to the area they have planned for the foreseeable future.

After Prairie Jewel, Ryan Hommel came up and sang a few songs to warm the crowd up even more. Then it was time for him and Seth Glier to play. In the photo below, Ryan is on the left, Seth is on the right. They performed a lot of material from Seth’s latest album, The Trouble With People, including the title song and another crowd favorite, I Just Want to Make My Daddy Proud. They played at least one song that predates the album and one that was written since, but much of the material came from the album. This is the second time I’ve seen Seth play and the first time I’ve seen him play with Ryan. Both of these guys are very strong musicians and performers. They both have good voices and are very versatile. Although Seth stayed on the piano all night, he also plays a very good guitar as well as a few other instruments. Ryan plays guitar, bass, banjo and a few others as well. It shows in the performance, because they are pretty unshakable. They are just on and it gives them the space to put emotion and feeling into the music. It comes across much more strongly in live performance than on the album. That’s not a slight against the album – in some ways it’s a truism. But having listened to only the album for some six weeks or so, I was struck by the difference in the energy in their live performance. It was really engaging.

While I was there, a friend of mine came in unexpectedly. He told me that he had walked by a number of times and wondered what the place was about. But when he saw the musicians and realized it was free, he had to come in. There was an interesting crowd in attendence. There were clearly people who were there to see this specific show. There were also people who were just there to see music. And there were folks that seemed to want a place to hang out with each other that had music in the atmosphere. And as I looked over the schedule, I noticed that the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble is playing in a few weeks. I may have to go check it out and see if they play Central Square. Maybe you should too.