Daryl.Hall.This.Old.House.visits.Live.from.Daryl's.House.WEB-DL.[PSoul]

This Old House
Season 32: Ep. 24
23:43

Daryl's segment 12:10-19:14

Norm Abram travels to upstate New York to see how preservation carpenter Brian Cooper helped music icon Daryl Hall assemble and restore an 18th century-era estate where he records the Live From Daryl's House show, which is an internet and cable sensation.

(Since LFDH is on hiatus I thought you all might enjoy this in the meantime. - PSoul)

Here is a recent MSN interview:

Daryl’s House finds a new home
Still on Palladia but now going to two other channels
By Mark C. Brown Feb 28, 2013 5:06PM

Daryl Hall and John Oates have always found ways to stick to their core yet move with the times. Oates, for example, is set to be musical director of a soul segment of this year’s Bonnaroo Festival. In 2007 Hall launched the Internet-only music show “Live from Daryl’s House,” where he had musicians from Nick Lowe to Pat Stump of Fall Out Boy (and more recently Joe Walsh and Shelby Lynne) come in and talk about music – and make some, of course.

It became an Internet sensation that was picked up by the HD channel Palladia. Now Hall and his manager/co-producer Jonathan Wolfson are expanding that base to two unlikely channels owned by the RURAL TV network: RFD-TV (which caters to rural music and topics) and FamilyNet (formerly owned by Jerry Falwell). Hall believes it’s all about picking your audience, and sat this week to chat about the evolution of “Daryl’s House.”

Was it always your plan to eventually take the show to TV? Fans can still stream every episode through your website.

“When I started the show I knew that the only way I could do the kind of show I wanted to do was to do it on the Internet. It was a certain freedom of format and a different set of expectations that the internet provides. … I won’t use the word 'revolutionary' but it is sorta revolutionary in that it turned things around. You can’t do that on a network. I went to the networks and got the same runaround: ‘Have a contest, have an audience,’ the same old (expletive). So I walked away from that immediately and proved myself on the internet then was lucky enough to be noticed by Palladia. I already had a tried-and-true format that fit in with what they do. .. it allows me the freedom to not have anyone standing over me telling me what to do and what not to do. I think that’s what people like about it. It’s free of constraint and purely spontaneous, real and true.”

And sometimes it’s not even from your house.

“Yeah! Daryl’s House is a state of mind. Daryl’s House is wherever I am. I travel the world, still do, but why not turn it upside down and bring it right into my living room, right into my house.”

You and John have kept vibrant careers; he’s at Bonnaroo this year, you’re both doing stuff outside of your comfort zones.

“One of the reasons John and I came together as kids is that we looked at the world slightly differently than the people around us. We’re both very free-thinking people. Our comfort zone is so big it encompasses everything. I’m not held down by success, failure or anything. It’s all just work to me and I’m always looking around the corner, always observing what’s happening around me, and trying to fit what I do into interesting situations. John does it in his own way… I know a lot of my contemporaries are very reticent and scared to try new things and step out of what people’s expectations and their image is. I don’t have that feeling at all.”

You’ve had great success aiming your show at very specific audiences.

“Instead of trying to be all things to all people in the world of entertainment it’s very narrow, very narrow-casted. The people trying to do everything are kind of missing it.”

You’ve always had that curiosity. Tommy Mottola’s new book talked about Hall and Oates always doing what wasn’t obvious, making it harder to sell a product that is constantly changing.

“We had a very, very close but at the same time tense relationship. And that was one of the things about it. Tommy wanted to sell the obvious, and I was never into the obvious. It wasn’t just Tommy, the whole record business. There was always this confusion of ‘Why is he going there? Why is he trying this?’ My answer was because I have to. It’s what I do. And I never took the safe route.”

How has "Daryl's House" evolved since the first show?

“The shows that are gonna go on RFD are the early shows. I find it interesting to see how it evolved from those days. Some of my favorite shows were the first ones. We had no idea what we were gonna do. I love that on-your-toes feeling that comes from spontaneity and insecurity. The first show I had was Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes. I had no idea how this was all going to click. It all clicked beautifully. That was typical of a lot of the new artists – there are a lot of blind dates going on here. A lot of artists will walk into my house, look around and go ‘Whoa! What have I gotten into?’ And me looking at them going ‘What’s this kid all about?’ I love the inter-generational give and take, as well as the people like Smokey Robinson who I’ve loved since I was a kid. There’s a lot of interesting interplay between generations.”

Why these two new channels?

“I met Pat Gottsch who sort of is RFD. It’s his baby. I got along with him immediately. I met him in Nashville when we were playing a show there. I’m a guy who grew up in the city and the country. We click on that rural thing. I watch that channel because I think it’s so unique and so brave. Talk about tribal – it appeals to a group of people that nobody really pays attention to and sometimes patronizes – the American rural society. He just throws it out there in its true reality. I love that station. I’ll watch during the week when they have agricultural shows on…. I immediately wanted to get involved.”

And it fits your narrow-casting niche, also hitting an audience that might not have been aware of what you’ve been up to.

“Sure. Absolutely. It just expands the tribe. It’s all good.”