Playin' Out

It's tough out there trying to play your music and just when you think you're justified in giving up you stumble into some joint that's just right. It's been a crazy couple of weeks. On Oct 14 I was the feature at the open mike at Amazing Things. Attendance could have been better but you couldn't ask for a more attentive bunch, most of them fellow songwriters. What's tough is the inherent wrist-slitting pedestrian pace of most folky open mikes. My beef has always been this: If you set up a venue where All Are Welcome and everyone is encouraged to play then you invite (and encourage) the lamest among us. I have a problem with people who write songs with 14 verses and, by the way, they CAN'T F&^%ING SING or with performers who think giving it the full 40 percent is good enough. It makes me nuts. I can say stuff like this now. I'm a curmudgeon-in-training/elder who played his first coffeehouse gig in 1970.

Three days later I was at The Java Room. I've played there before but never for the brunch crowd. It's just the worst place to play. How many variants of disrespect are you expected to put up with? The patrons can't seem to take a break from their precious laptops or private conversations to give you a chance to get inside their heads. But the most galling thing is the attitude from the establishment. They don't pay you, provide a sound system, greet you when you walk in, introduce you to the crowd, offer to prop the door open during your nine round trips to the car, offer you a beverage unless you ask, or exhibit any kind of friendliness at all. Yet you are there to enhance their business at absolutely no cost to them. All they offer is 40 square feet and a piano. You have to "pass your own hat", as it were.

After that gig I think I was entitled to a bad attitude but I recovered after a couple of days. Tuesday night I felt to urge to play so I headed up to Main St. Market & Cafe in Concord. I've been meaning to check out this open mike run by Bruce Marshall, a first-rate guitar player and songwriter. This open mike is a keeper – it combines the rapt audience attention you usually find only in a coffeehouse with the social energy of a bar. There were all kinds of wack jobs stepping up to the microphone but everyone had something different to offer. Lots of fun.