Somebody much wiser than me once said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

If this is the case, then musically speaking, Steve Peer is invention's baby daddy.

A long time musician, Peer began promoting music locally along the “Bar Harbor-Bangor corridor” after returning from a long stint drumming in Halifax. Finding himself paying out more than seemed feasible for hall rentals and generously feeding and housing traveling bands, he looked for a more cost effective venue. It was then that Peer decided to strip his home and convert the first floor into “America's favorite house concert.”

What started predominately as a vehicle to showcase Gaelic performers, 430 Bayside in Ellsworth has offered a stage to acts almost as diverse as Peer's own musical tastes and genres in which he is a proficient drummer.

“By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.”

-Duke Ellington

For much of my life, I believed that there are two significant genres of music; anything by the Allman Brothers Band and anything that had the word “booty” in it. Well friends, I stand corrected. Little did I know my musical horizons would be broadened on a Tuesday night in Bangor, ME.

Thanks to Wells Gordon, his jazz quartet the G Majors, and their perfect venue Nocturnem Draft Haus, I've become a believer. A big ol’ finger-snapping believer.