By Sanjeev Selvarajah

Coming to a porch near you, the down-home atmosphere and eclectic stylings of PorchFest.

A map recently appeared on the Somerville Arts Council website. It’s not exactly a treasure map, but it does point to all the bands participating in PorchFest, a music festival which originated out of state that will begin in Somerville on Saturday May 21, noon time.

Bands and individuals will be singing and strumming away on their porches, a novelty once reserved for the days of yore and homes of the farmlands. The Somerville Arts Council will bring a little bit of the country to this city, thanks primarily to Nancy Goodman, who proposed the idea to the Council.

“I found the idea on a friend’s Facebook page. He lives in Ithaca where they have been doing PorchFest for four years” When asked if there were any similar settings to the two states which prompted a resemblance she said, “Well, we both have musicians and porches so that’s a start.” That’s simple enough. Nancy has been in charge of registering the musicians and communicating with them about logistics. Registration is a part of the process in order for people know who to look for and what they can listen to.

PorchFest follows the Somerville Arts Council agenda as it is historical in its aesthetics and exquisitely artistic as a performance event.  Goodman states, “We have more than 70 musicians registered so it’s hard to choose…I encourage people to take a look at the maps that will be posted at http://www.somervilleartscouncil.org/ starting on Monday and see who’s playing in your neighborhood or finding a few bands that sound fun and checking them out. I plan on starting at noon in Union Square and East Somerville and biking around to hear as much as I can.” Some of the music that will be pouring into the streets of Somerville are Balkan, Bollywood, American space rock, cosmic Americana, gospel, funk, killer blues, Morrocan and clawhammer banjo— just to name a few.