Talk to the Red Door Brauns launches Hush, Hush Sweet Harlot BY CHRIS DAHLEN

Most nights of the week, the Red Door in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, caters to a chic after-work crowd with a menu of gourmet martinis — try the ginger pear, it’s fab — and DJs that spin trance and house beats. But on Mondays, a different scene takes over: Dressed in denim and hoodies, they occupy every leather stool, loveseat, and pillow-strewn couch in the room to listen intently to acoustic music. The room’s dark-red walls and wooden beams start to look more like a country inn than an urban lounge, and the crowd’s so still that you can almost hear the musicians think.

Ever since the Hush, Hush Sweet Harlot series came back to life at the beginning of January, every Monday night has been like this, part coffeehouse singer-songwriter night, part indie-rock concert, and part hootenanny. The cover’s just a $5 donation in the tip bucket, and the Red Door’s manager, Cresta Smith, has sweetened the deal by pricing PBRs at $2 and martinis at $5. And so far, every night has pulled a crowd. Last week, Lazarus’s organ-seared Americana warmed up the room for Tigersaw, who performed un-amped, in a semi-circle that cradled the front seats; the Castanets, who had come all the way from San Diego, followed with their own deathly spare country, before Boston’s Ponies in the Surf — who fought a blizzard to drive here from Belfast, Maine — wrapped up the show, and no one minded that Camille McGregor’s voice was frayed. All told, you got four bands in three hours and you were home by midnight — not bad for a Monday.

The Hush, Hush series started last year in the hands of Sid Alexis, of the Hotel Alexis, and after a few months’ hiatus it relaunched in January with a new booker, Laurel Brauns. Brauns was a regular performer at the original Hush, Hush; the Gilford, New Hampshire, native has traveled widely in the English-speaking world, from busking in Ireland to living in a tent in Alaska to save money for her recording, but Hush, Hush helped pull her back to New Hampshire.

"I never wanted to move back to New Hampshire, because I was like, ‘All it is is jam bands,’ " says Brauns. "But then when I met Sid and Jarid [del Deo, of Unbunny] and all those guys, I was like, ‘Oh, there is something going on!’

"I know tons and tons of bands, and people on tour, and I was thinking, it’s a really cool way to do favors for people," says Brauns. "It was handed to me in my lap, it already had been established, and there’s a great room for it — so many people, especially in the indie acoustic world, have been so psyched about the space itself. And there’s definitely an audience for it once it gets rolling."

Upbeat, a self-described workaholic — she still gigs around New England while she manages the series — and well-connected in the indie scene, Brauns has been on the phone with national bands who are touring the East Coast. She hopes to land at least one touring act every month or so, along with regular acts from Boston to Portland. And she doesn’t mind passing the tip jar more than once to make it worth the band’s while. "I want people to be able to depend on it being worth their while to leave their house on a Monday night," says Brauns. "I’m all for people experimenting, having fun, especially if they’re local. By all means, get your little experimental duo up there and go to town, that’s fine. [But] I don’t want it to become some glorified open-mic or anything."

The series is a boon for the Red Door, turning around the deadest night of the week with good crowds and one sell-out (the Unbunny/Jason Anderson concert, which had a line out the door in sub-zero weather). And for the foreseeable future, it’ll stay on Mondays. "It started out on Wednesdays," recalls Brauns, "[but] the bar itself had built up enough of a following with the after-work, have-a-few-martinis folks that wanted to just go out and have a conversation, that the music series just really clashed with it — those people all just wanted to talk."

Hosting it in a martini lounge is no more bizarre than the other venues where local music has landed since the death of Portsmouth’s only rock club, the Elvis Room. From the experimental and underground rock nights that take place in the basement of the Muddy River barbeque restaurant, to the terrific Jumbo Circus Peanuts bashes at the VFW Hall, Portsmouth has learned to cram its local talent into any place that will have it.

But indie rock has had few homes as consistent as Hush, Hush, and if the series keeps its momentum, it’ll be the cornerstone of an underappreciated scene. Get Brauns talking and she’ll reveal some big ambitions, even nodding hopefully to the city of frozen steaks and Bright Eyes: Omaha, Nebraska. "I don’t want to say that [Portsmouth’s] a no-name town, but a lot of bands feel self-conscious saying, ‘I’m from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.’ And to me, I feel like especially after the whole Omaha thing happened, there can be some pride in being from a town that’s kind of random. Especially if there’s something really, really awesome happening there."

Chris Dahlen can be reached at chris@savetherobot.com

The March line-up includes Choo Choo La Rouge and Subject Bias (Monday, March 7); Jason Myles Goss, Rebecca Pronsky, and Liz Parmalee (March 14); Phantom Buffalo and Rachael Cantu (March 21); and Boris McCutcheon and the Coming Grass (March 28). The Red Door Lounge is located above Dos Amigos at 107 State Street, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Check www.reddoorportsmouth.com or call (603) 373.6827 for information.