With Alan Paul on the line-up, Rock the Hill is both a consummately local event and a concert with international appeal. Paul, a musician and journalist, is a Maplewood native and a member of a band once described by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons as the “Best Chinese Band [he] ever heard.”

A former senior editor for Guitar World magazine with a rich background in reporting on classic rock and the blues, Paul co-formed his band Woodie Alan while he was living in Beijing, writing a column about life as an ex-pat for the Wall Street Journal Online and covering sports for other outlets.

The group, a blend of American and Chinese musicians, became a touring powerhouse in China, earning accolades such as being named Beijing Band of the Year by City Weekend magazine. The success came in spite of potentially crippling communication issues.

“The bass player and drummer don’t speak English at all,” Paul said, adding that they were still always able to understand each other, especially when on stage. “The musical thing was easy for us.”

The band members were all big blues fans—Paul said finding common ground musically was never a problem.

“[Guitar/dobro player] Woodie Wu has a huge tattoo of Stevie Ray Vaughan,” Paul said.

Now back in Maplewood and playing music with local cronies, Paul is still on the classic rock and blues beat—he had to schedule his Patch interview around an appointment with Lynyrd Skynyrd—and said he was looking forward to this homecoming gig tonight outside the Baird.

Paul is one of several acts on the bill. The concert is the fifth show organized by the local musicians' collective Rock the House, started earlier this year in response to the loss of local venues for live musicians.

“Music, business acumen and alcohol don’t mix,” Rock the House founder Alex Silberman said. “Go figure.”

Silberman, a business consultant as well as a musician, analyzed the problems facing people trying to mount local concerts. He decided that they didn’t need a brick-and-mortar space to play or have to be burdened with expectations of enormous profits. They partnered with the Baird, and thus far have attracted hundreds of people to their shows.

The ambitious concert series offers a rotating bullpen of musical groups that has partnered with the Baird. The group operates on egalitarian principals, with each group taking turns for when to play and splitting the proceeds from the shows evenly.

Tonight’s show is a milestone for Rock the House. It’s their first outdoor show and is happening in the middle of a summer in which they original planned to have a hiatus from concert-promotion. But the Baird asked Rock the House to put on a show to close out its outdoor summer concert series, and it was quickly apparent that they would be standing in a field of rock ‘n’ roll dreams.

“We built it,” Silberman said. “They came.”

Rock the Hill is tonight at 6 on Flood’s Hill outside the Baird Center in South Orange. Admission is free. Alan Paul opens the show, which also features The Caterpillar Book, Test Patterns, Felt and New Day Dawn. For previous Patch coverage of Rock the House, click here and here.