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04/12/2023 08:02 AMWhen Charlie Shafer founded the Fire In The Kitchen concert series about 30 years ago, his ambitions were modest. His daughter was young and interested in the violin, his wife also was a musician.
“We just wanted to do different music that was fun. And these weird artists were cheap, so that was cool,” he said. “And pretty much, everything from there was pretty much accidental.”
One big turning point early on was the decision to offer free ice cream from a small, locally based business, Ashley’s Ice Cream. He thought it would just be a little gimmick to get people to come. “But what really surprised me was how people then hung out and started talking with each other. And then we had people getting married, you know, meeting their spouses. And we had people changing careers and getting jobs. And the other thing that happened that I really loved is that all of the sudden families would come because it would be cheaper to bring the kids than to get a babysitter, right? And they could bribe them with the free ice cream. And then some of those kids ended up going to music school.”
And some of those kids ended up joining another of Shafer’s creations, The Skunk Misery Ramblers fiddlers’ club, which has been around for about 15 years. And those kids benefited from the concerts in another way. All the while working his day job as a contractor who specialized in historic restoration, Shafer created another opportunity for local musicians. The musicians coming here for the concerts would offer free workshops to the fiddlers and others in the community.
“So, it’s like, holy cow! That’s when I realized, maybe it’s more than the just the music that matters. Music does matter, you need good music to get people to come and keep them coming. But it was more fun when there were more things going on.”
And now he and the Fire in the Kitchen concerts have taken on yet another opportunity to serve the local community. Recent concerts have been dedicated to open space preservation, already raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for those efforts. Shafer calls his latest endeavors “music with a purpose.”
Great Music, Good Fun, Awesome Pizza
The next Fire in the Kitchen concert will be Sunday, April 16. There will be hiking all day at the venue, Deer Lake, 101 Paper Mill Road, Killingworth. Around 3 p.m. the pizza truck will show up and start making a variety of delicious and often innovative combinations of pizza pies for sale. The concert, featuring the Stillhouse Junkies, will start at 4 p.m. Shafer asks that those attending reserve a ticket in advance by emailing him at workdog@mindspring.com. Donations, $30 for adults and $5 for kids high school aged and under, will be gratefully accepted at the door.
As someone who has attended many Fire in the Kitchen concerts, I can tell you there is much to love here. Deer Lake, of course, is the gorgeous woodland of more than 250 acres that almost fell prey recently to a savvy developer who thought it the perfect place to build huge homes, an effort that would have effectively taken this geological and natural wonder out of the hands of the public and campers who had for many years enjoyed a Boy Scout camp there run by Pathfinders Inc., a local nonprofit. Pathfinders eventually prevailed in a bidding war with the developer, but is still in the process of paying off that bill.
Enter Charlie Shafer and the concerts. As he explains on his website: “We’re there to both raise a few dollars for the preserve, but also to show how it can be used for other events, like weddings, in order to help ensure it’s maintenance and future going forward,” he wrote.
Shafer would just love to see some great weather for this weekend’s concert, which would encourage lots of people to go hiking and fall in love with the place. In his heart of hearts, he probably also would love to see a game of Capture the Flag break out. But more on that later.
As for the pizza, it is every bit as spectacular as the scenery. Fire in the Kitchen pizza (www.fireinthekitchenpizza.com/) (no direct relation to the concerts, they just loved the name so they asked Shafer if they could use it) will be selling pizzas from their wood-fired oven that have names like Lemon Boy, Figgy, Hitchhiker, Truffle Shuffle, Isaac Newton, Ol'e Pappy's Heat Wave, and more.
And, yes, there’s the music. The Stillhouse Junkies will be playing. Here’s how Shafer describes them: “There are a whole host of reasons why I love the Junkies. Musically, they span a broad range of styles, from swing to alt-grass to country-western, and on down the line. They’re also a clearly western band, and clearly their own band. Living in the relative isolation of Durango, they’re not battered by the constant pressure to sound like Nashville, or L.A., Brooklyn or Boston. They’re much more likely to be hounded by the echoes of the Sons Of The Prairie, the Bar J Wranglers, or Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. There aren’t many unique bands out there anymore, so catch the Junkies while you can!”
But Is It Worth It?
Since Shafer started all of this up, about 40 kids and about 40 adults have participated in the Skunk Misery Ramblers fiddle club. If, like me, you were wondering about that name, Shafer pulled in a string band tradition where you would take the place name of where you’re from and then add a word like Ramblers after it. “The coolest name around was Skunk Misery Road up in Killingworth, so that was pretty much that.”
The free workshops? He negotiates those as part of the deal when he books a concert, so sponsors cover the costs of those. He’s offered close to 100.
As for the concerts, pre-pandemic, he offered around 200, some of them just straight up concerts, others that included events like square dances.
And then, right before the pandemic hit, he noticed something. His audiences were getting older, attendance was falling off, “and it was just getting to be a lot of work.”
Booking the musicians, creating the programs, the logistics of the ice cream. He and his volunteers had to deal with a host of petty aggravations like people complaining about where their seats were. He began to wonder if it was all worth it. There was a point where he actually was thinking of maybe walking away from the whole thing, an announcement that created a great deal of heartache among the many dedicated fans of Fire in the Kitchen and all things Charlie Shafer.
Then, the pandemic. The concerts moved outdoors, he was offering fewer concerts, and he began helping a variety of open space initiatives for land trusts. “In a weird way the pandemic sort of saved it because now all of a sudden it was a lot less work and a lot more fun with a lot less pressure,” he says. “So while the old format is gone, the new one will probably dribble along for as long as I’m able!”
Phew.
Fire In The Kitchen Everywhere
And in typical Charlie Shafer fashion, he’s already thinking about how he can share what he knows and what he does even further. In addition to raising funds for Deer Lake, he’s also hosted concerts for the Madison Land Trust and the Killingworth Land Trust. Some folks out in Colorado heard what he was doing and now Shafer is talking with them about doing the same kind of thing for the Colorado Headwaters Land Trust.
Shafer’s discovered that there is a kind of alchemy in bringing together people who love music, pizza, and the great outdoors. In addition to the proceeds from donations at the door, his concerts resulted in several people being inspired to make large donations to the Deer Lake cause. And, during his conversations with the folks from Colorado, he learned about venues out there that host intimate weddings where about 65 people might spend the night, “and their minimum prices is $68,000 for the whole night.” So he let the people at Deer Lake know about that, thinking that might be some kind of model for them.
And through his son, who is a mountain biker, Shafer learned about something called the Nutmeg Nor'Easter, which is a huge social event involving trail riding, community building, and tag sales that draws hundreds of avid mountain bikers. “They're going to Deer Lake this year,” says Shafer. “So that'll be a big income producer for Deer Lake.”
Shafer says he hopes he can just keep spreading the love and community surrounding this scary good music.
“I’d love for more land trusts around the country to see what we’re doing,” he said. “And I’d absolutely be happy to tell them, here’s how you do it. You know, I could be a consultant for free and I can hook you up, not only how to do it, but if you want, I’ll tell you who the musicians are that would love to play for you. We can get you these great musicians wherever you are in the country,” he says. “I’d love for people to pick this up and just have a huge ongoing circuit of outdoor shows all around the country in weird places. I think that would be phenomenal.”
What else does Shafer want?
He wants more kids to play Capture the Flag.
During the pandemic, when he was struggling with the future of Fire in the Kitchen, he sent me an email that said, in part: “I’m now going to devote myself full time to starting and then abandoning the official ‘Feral Capture The Flag Association,’” he wrote. “It’s the only sports association for kids high school aged and under that doesn’t allow any adult participation. None. Not ever. When we were growing up, playing stickball or capture the flag or whatever was a blast. As soon as adults organized us into Little League or basketball leagues, it stank. Adults sucked the fun out of fun.”
At the time, I laughed. I agreed! Absolutely. But, I laughed. I thought he was just being funny.
Then, during our recent conversation, it came up again.
We talk about how he played Capture the Flag as a kid and loved it. Now, as an adult, he sees it as the kind of game kids can play and enjoy, all the while developing the kind of street smarts, flexibility, and cooperative values vital to becoming a decent and effective adult, as opposed to some organized sports where kids are taught to follow instructions and, sometimes, to win at all costs.
“The ultimate goal is to get everybody to realize how important the outdoors is again by not doing structured stuff,” he says. “It’s fun! And there’s no one telling you what to do. You have to be creative. There’s no coach saying you have to be there and you go there and you run in this direction and you run in that direction. Right? Like, you run wherever you want.”