Get Hip Recordings in Chateau fosters a community space for up-and-coming musicians and music lovers.

By Sophia Mastroianni

Kicking off her shoes to reveal red and white knitted socks, Eliza Edens, singer-songwriter from Massachusetts, closes her eyes and softly plucks the strings of her red electric guitar as she sings.

“I feel like my music is pretty quiet because I grew up in a very rural area where the baseline sound levels were pretty low,” Edens said. “I just feel like I was calibrated to be sensitive to noise.”

Edens, Izzy Heltai and Maura Mullen each performed a set of folk-style songs on Tuesday, October 16, on the stage of Chateau’s Get Hip Recordings, in front of a mesmerized audience in folding chairs.

Also traveling from Massachusetts, Heltai said he gets inspiration for his music from the folk revival movements in the 1960s as well as from traveling alone on the road and discovering new cities.

“It’s like a tourist intimacy,” he said. “I pop around to places and sing these songs and inhabit someone’s evening in a very intimate way and then I leave and do it all over again in another place on another night.”

Mullen, Get Hip employee and opener for the touring Massachusetts performers, strummed her acoustic guitar and melodically sang as if to warm up the audience from the chilly, outdoor Pittsburgh weather.

Mullen started performing on stage with her father and local Pittsburgh musician, Carl Mullen, when she was an adolescent and said her inspiration largely comes from him. She hopes to book more musicians at Get Hip and create a comfortable space for performers.

“We’re still trying to foster a community of musicians to be able to use this [space] as a resource for their own music. In Pittsburgh there’s a lack of smaller venues that aren’t a bar,” she said.

Get Hip Recordings provides performance space for eclectic musicians of genres ranging from garage and punk to folk and pop, according to owner Barbara Garcia-Bernardo.

“We’re a very laid back change of pace for Pittsburgh’s nightlife,” she said. “We focus more on the music and on the people.”

Get Hip Recordings is located at 1800 Columbus Ave. in Chateau. Don’t miss Baby Brains, “Surfy Girl Garage Punk” from York, PA, with Pittsburgh’s NOX BOYS and Fortune Teller, this Saturday, October 20, and the metal-rock band Icarus Witch Album Release Party on Saturday, October 27. All show attendees receive a 10 percent discount on everything in the store throughout each event. For more information, visit www.gethip.com.