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Matt Smith is a living legend with his unbelievable run at Club Passim, the historic folk venue nestled in a Harvard Square basement. Currently Managing Director at Passim, Matt is the most passionate music lover I know. As Basic Folk’s producer Laura McCarthy said to him, it’s easier to name the episodes that don’t mention Matt’s name and unwavering support. Matt has used his platform at Passim to help establish artists like Lori McKenna, Anais Mitchell, Lake Street Dive and so many more. I met Matt while working as a student at WERS, where he was bringing in fantastic shows into a listening room filled with people who were clambering for honest music in an intimate space.
In this rare opportunity to have a long conversation with Matt, he talks about his early love for music and his first music job (Strawberries!). He tells the fateful tale of how he (finally) found Club Passim and how he came to start as a volunteer and worked his way up to booking all the shows at the venue. Matt shares the origin story of Passim’s bi-annual festival that he founded in 1998, The Campfire, which has turned into the biggest artist development tool for the club. His role in artist development in the folk world is actually pretty enormous and it’s hard to imagine what the genre would be like without him. This episode is a must listen to any musician or musical gatekeeper! Enjoy, share and subscribe!
I *finally* found the time to listen to this interview. I think I’ve had the tab open in my browser for 2 weeks? Any music fanatic like myself could totally relate to Matt’s stories and love/lust for music. Although a smaller portion of we weirdos also do the serious collection aspect as well. I don’t know Matt and have never met him, but I feel like I know him. One experience (unfortunately) that I do not share with him, is finding my musical nirvana folk club, and then later in life, running the venue itself. That’s some crazy-cool karma type thing going on there. Wow! Thanks to Matt for his contributions and love of the genre. And thanks, Cindy, for letting us hear his story, directly from him. It’s fairy-tale lore, and a wonderful reminder that fairy-tales can be real! Matt’s sense of humor is great, and his knowledge of the art of booking shows; immense. My very fave thing that he said was that “at some point, there’s got to be someone there, purely because they love the music”. Yup.