Evil Dick at Just Plain Folks at the Corner Tavern in New Brunswick, N.J.

It's a long story. It turns out that there is a fellow named Spook Handy who hosts an open mic on Tuesdays in the basement of the Corner Tavern in New Brunswick, NJ. Now, there's also a traveling open mic for songwriters, loosely called Just Plain Folks, that was looking to pass through NJ at about this time and needed a venue for its open mic. So Spook arranged to have the Just Plain Folks open mic be his open mic for the week. There were 37 acts signed up; each did one song only, acoustic only. Besides all of the guitarists, there was a mandolin, a couple of keyboard players, and I had the recorder. I didn't sign up to do an original tune myself because I didn't expect there to be keyboards there. But Evil Dick did Fallin in the acoustic trio format, to which that song is well-suited. I played the Kung tenor recorder (I use a Kung Classica of Pear). The venue was sticky and squashed and could not hold 25 people let alone 37, so once we had played we ended up being forced upstairs and missed most of the acts. But what acts we saw, whether skilled or unskilled, polished or not, had one thing in common: a need to make music. Here's hoping that next time Just Plain Folks comes around they'll be able to find a larger room. They have outgrown the Corner Tavern.

Redwoods in Chester and other stories

Went to Redwoods in Chester because I had heard there might be an open mic there on Weds. One guy with an acoustic guitar came in and set up a small PA with two tiny Bose speakers on stands and two mikes on booms. The area for musicians would be about 4' deep and 8' wide. I spoke with him about the open mic. He had been doing it at the Long Valley brewpub, also on Wed., but the management changed and he was fortunately able to save the open mic by moving it to Redwoods. He says that usually it's acoustic guitarists, sometimes as many as 6 or 7. My acoustic trio would fit right in, as would I on solo keyboard. Another local venue, Bernie's, has an open mic at the same time. I asked him about the juxtaposition with Bernie's. He pointed out that Bernie's is still the only place to go if you have a full band or need drums. But most of the acoustic guitarists tell him that the house band plays too long at Bernie's, and after that, with all the fiddling around that bands do to get set up and play, wait time is too long. I can see his point. When I go to Bernie's to play, I usually don't even start until after 11 PM, even if I am first up after the house band. That's why I rarely do it even though it's a good place to play. Pretty rough if you have to get up early in the morning. This same individual also hosts and open mic on Thursdays somewhere in Sparta which I had not heard of, and another one on Sundays at Muldoon's on Rt. 46 in Ledgewood. I assume the formats of those are similar. I did not stay to hear anyone play. When I left Redwoods at 8:45 or so I don't think anyone had shown up to play yet. The bar was full, though, of middle-aged couples, and the dining room was probably still full too, judging from the lack of parking spaces outside.

Wasted a night at the Ringside Pub in Caldwell

The band decided to check out the open mic at the Ringside Pub in Caldwell, NJ. I went despite the bad review someone had posted about it in openmics.org. The review, although over a year old, turned out to be exactly right: it was a waste of time. Although I liked the pub itself, and the stage and acoustics seemed good, the open mic is not happening. We were the only act that showed up to play, besides the house act. I took the DX-7 and Tenor recorder. Even though our drummer was there, we did four songs without drums. It's an "acoustic" open mic, which meant that there was no drum set. We would have been much better off going up to Hansil's so the drummer could play. Reaction from the crowd was nonexistent; they were having a great time playing pool but weren't paying attention to the music. They are probably conditioned not to pay attention because the house band, which opened up, is not worth listening to. I wondered why the format was "acoustic". Seems to me if no one is showing up you need to broaden the appeal a bit. But maybe in that location it attracts the wrong kind of people.