Four Canadian artists perform in Cape Girardeau en route to South by Southwest festival

The drive from Ottawa, Ontario, to Austin, Texas, takes about 30 hours, but for four Canadian musicians, the trip down to South by Southwest will stretch to about a week with stops to play in Cleveland, Chicago and, on Sunday, Cape Girardeau.

When Amanda Rheaume, a singer-songwriter from the neighborly north, knew she was going to be traveling to and playing at the Texas music festival in March, she gathered three other musician friends who were going and decided to make a tour of it.

"We've all kind of had different stories, but we're bound together because we're just trying to do it," she said.

Maxim

Rheaume, Tara Holloway, NLX and Maxim will stop to play a house concert from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday at the Underberg House. Maxim, the only male on the trip, sings and plays guitar. Rheaume and Holloway, who met in high school a decade ago, sing and play guitar, while NLX sings and plays keyboards.

"What I think is kind of cool, is when you travel with other artists the audience gets a different vibe on every song," Rheaume said.

The four artists will play in a singer-songwriter circle, bouncing from one to the next. Rheaume, with her clear chords and rich earthy voice, will lead into Holloway who plays and sings with passion and rasp that perfectly conveys heartache in one verse and contrasts with silly lyrics in another. NLX, whose real name is Natasha Alexandra, jumps from electronic beats to ballads, and Maxim sticks to unadulterated country folk.

NLX (Photo courtesy Andree Anne Handfield)

"You're not really able to get bored," Rheaume said.

Larry Underberg, who runs the house concert gig with his wife, Jean, said when Rheaume called him about hosting a house concert, he jumped at the chance.

"The content of it is likely to be a little more adult than you might typically get with a family folk festival," he said. "These are songs that make a statement, and they make quite a statement musically."

All the artists have an accessible sound that's both familiar and unique.

Tara Holloway

The four will be on stage at the Underberg House for two hours, the normal length of a house concert at the Underberg's, but "some more music may very easily break out after that," Underberg said.

Reserve a seat by e-mailing houseconcerts@hotmail.com. An $8 to $10 donation to the artists is recommended, and your own beverage supply is welcomed.