The catalyst

The whole thing happened fast -- fast enough that now, four years later, the lines between the before and the after have been permanently blurred. In August 2002, Stacie Slotnick, who was then 30, had a career in media and a decent indie record collection. A month later, she was booking musical acts from all over the country for The Druid, in Inman Square, and was already immersed in a hobby that would eventually consume nearly every minute of her free time.

``I was sort of thrown into it, headfirst," says Slotnick, a Druid regular who was asked to take over the job after the previous booker departed for Ireland. ``It took a while before it was clear to me that [it] was going to be an involved hobby. Like other people had knitting, or fishing. I had this."

Today Slotnick is among the best-known names on the local indie circuit. She has twice been awarded ``Best DIY Promoter" by the Boston Phoenix, and has consistently helped book major indie acts at Cambridge and Somerville bars, often before they gained national prominence. The Arcade Fire, Xiu Xiu, and Devendra Banhart have all played locally on Slotnick's behest. In June, she brought underground sensation Beirut to Cambridge's Lily Pad, just as the band was beginning to attract critical acclaim.

This weekend, Slotnick will help preside over her latest offering, ``A Big Concert," a one-of-a-kind event at Katherine Cornell Theater on Martha's Vineyard. The concert, which Slotnick is curating with friend Chris Liberato, is being billed as a music festival devoted to indie artists: Included on the roster are Vineyard native Willy Mason, New Radiant Storm King, and Chris Brokaw. Slotnick hopes the show will set a bar for future indie festivals, for which money is always scarce.

``I've always been focused on bringing in music that I really cared about, the bands that were out there working really hard," Slotnick says. ``I think of myself mostly as a catalyst, as somewhere in the middle of the act and the audience."

Slotnick began branching out from The Druid in 2004, when she agreed to try promoting shows at spaces like the Zeitgeist Gallery. She named her promotion platform The Critique of Pure Reason as a joke -- the original name was something along the lines of Good Shows -- and set about matching bands to the venues she frequented.

She started slow. But the Critique quickly grew in scope and draw, and Slotnick was forced to hone what her friend Ryan Craven, of the California-based Kork Agency, calls ``the best attribute for any booker."

``Stacie," Craven says, ``has patience in spades."

Slotnick's patience extends from the arduous process of vetting the regional acts competing to play in Somerville and Cambridge's smaller clubs to the down-and-dirty micromanagement the job requires.

``Stacie is ultra do-it-yourself, compared to the shows, say, at a venue owned by a bank," says Angela Sawyer, the manager of Cambridge's Twisted Village record store, which occasionally sells tickets to Slotnick's shows. ``All the stuff she does -- she's really the one that does it. If the band's going to get food, she's going to cook it. If they're going to be driven around, she's going to do it."

On a recent evening, Slotnick was sitting at P.A.'s Lounge in Somerville, rubbing her wrists anxiously, trying to explain how, exactly, a typical night works, and ticking down a long-list of pre-gig preparations. In one 10-hour period (she won't get home until 2 a.m. at the earliest) she will get the headlining band to the bar, personally arrange their meal, oversee the equipment set up and sound check, attend to the opening acts, assemble the press list, and , later, help break down the equipment, and count and distribute the night's earnings.

For this, Slotnick says she usually receives between 10 and 20 percent of the door -- most of the money goes to the bands, the venue, and the sound team. Usually, her cut is less than $100. Occasionally, depending on the act and the venue, she doesn't break even.

On this night, Slotnick is particularly stressed. She has a reporter following her through the crowded bar, the opening act has not yet shown up, and Andy Cabic, the lead singer for the headlining band, Vetiver, is losing his voice.

Halfway through a discussion of how she promoted Vetiver's arrival -- in this case, as with most, the promotion involved a combination of mailing lists, posters, local press, and the Web -- the sound guy pokes his head through the door of the bar. Slotnick's needed in the other room. Right away. She stands up, and follows him out of the bar. ``DIY at its funnest , baby," she says.

Slotnick admits that the amount of time she spends shepherding bands around can sometimes make her feel like ``a PTA mom," doting on her kids from the sidelines. But most artists who have worked with Slotnick say the attention is welcome.

Banhart, who knew Slotnick long before he rose to fame as the figurehead for the freak-folk movement, says she knows how to make bands feel at home -- even onstage.

``Every show we played in Boston was so meticulously planned," Banhart said on the phone from Los Angeles, ``down to the vegan menu, down to the obscure drinks I like, down to the art that I like on the walls -- it was an incredible feeling."

For Slotnick, her attention to the smallest parts of a night's itinerary is her contribution to a Boston-area music scene that she sees as growing stronger by the year. By giving the bands she loves a stage to play on, she reasons she is making the city more attractive to up-and-coming acts.

``It's important for bands that aren't as well known to have someone out there booking shows at smaller places setting a high bar of quality," says Tony Confalone of P.A.'s Lounge. ``Those acts have to work their way in somehow, and there aren't a lot of people doing what Stacie's doing."

"A Big Concert" is tomorrow at Katherine Cornell Theater, Vineyard Haven, from 3 to 11 p.m. Tickets $12 for a half day and $20 for a full day. For more information, visit http://critiqueawol.blogspot.com.