Hi Kurt. I checked out the open mike website and holy cow you are absolutely right there are plenty of open mikes in my area. I think that I didn't know about them because they are poorly advertised. I was surprised to see that there is an open mike right in my own town of which I did not even know existed. I talked to a friend of mine who is in a band and he had not heard of the place either. Anyhow, I am going to check a few places out and hope that nobody throws any beer bottles at me. I do want to make it down to the Church sometime but for now will polish my skills on the locals. If you hear of a New Hampshire man who was run out of town after a performance you can probably figure that it was me.

If I was near there I'd play my autoharp, mountain dulcimer, canjo's & bowed psaltery at the open mike. I have played my autoharp, mountain dulcimer, canjo's & bowed psaltery plus the keyboards at some open mikes a Baptist church in Hopewell was having on Sat nites. They have gospel singing every Sat nite. Sadly they have to dicontinue it cuz they aren't able to afford the rent on the bldg but the preacher & his wife & a lady from the pentecostal church who sing together as a group are gonna go out & do shows at other churches whereever they can. The preacher has his own church in Petersburg he preaches at so the members will go over there on Sundays. We'll miss it but for the short time we knew about it we had fun there. I do get stage fright bad. I have even gotten seasick lol. I can't look at the audience & have to look at what I'm playing in order to survive. I think Cap Zap would be good at the open mikes...

Now that the big doings are over and Arlo has closed out the concert year at the Guthrie Center, the big question is: will we be in the big room or the small room tonight? The suspense! Imagine the surprise! Sure, same great coffee and teas, same great people, same great music. Come see for yourself. Sigup is at 7:00pm and the music and poetry and ??? starts around 8:00pm. kurt....

Have fun! We're in Princeton, WV on our way to that reunion in KY we always go to every yr. Free wi-fi in the motel. Whee.

This weekend in Richmond is the National Folk Fest. I wish they were havving it another weekend so we could go. Pete Seegers brother Mike, Doyle Lawson the bluegrass guy & Brian Bowers the autoharp guy are gonna be there. Maybe someone else can go in our place...

I'm very lucky..we've got a local Folk Club (The Folk Club of Reston-Herndon)that meets every Tuesday night in the third room of a local mexican restaurant. We were adopted by the owner 20 years ago as his little community service project; most of us regulars there consider him and the rest of the crowd as extended family. The room seats 70 people.
We've got an open mic three weeks out of the month; the other week we've got paid musicians except in June and July, We like to get nationally known people in there; we've had Tom Paxton, John McCutcheon, Bill Staines, Sarah Lee and Johnny, Michael Smith, Jack Williams, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer and a bunch of others. We've even had a few of these people show up at the open mic from time to time to try out new material. Yes, we'd love to have Arlo, but I'm pretty sure he's out of our league.
It's a great place to go to learn how to play in front of an audience; there's lights, mics, plug-ins for instruments, a soundboard and monitors. It's also a listening club, so there isn't anyone talking while you're performing. Most of the time, the open mic performers are just terrific, and at any one time, about 65% of the people in the audience are players themselves, so if someone is new to performing or has a bad night, well...we've been there ourselves. It's all okay, and they'll be encouraged to come back again.
I look forward to my Tuesday evenings at Folk Club, and usually, anything I bring to the open mic at the Guthrie Center has been tried out at our local open mic. It's a lot of fun to get together during the week and practice a set with friends to play at the next week's open mic.
If any of you are in the No. VA area on a Tuesday, come see us!

We got one too here in New Jersey! www.folkproject.org .

Nice bunch of folks, except that they was dumb enough to make me vice-president this year.

I'm also on the board of this one..it all works because we have meetings by e-mail..we discuss issues and vote on stuff by e-mail. There's a lot less emotion over e-mail.
I also do publicity, and I'm the person you get ahold of if you're calling for information.

Boy, that folk club sounds like fun. Wish they had something like that in my part of VA. More folkie stuff going on in Northern Va than Central VA...

It's all acoustic again! Same tables and chairs, just not as many. Let's see if we can run out of seats! Signup is at 7"00pm and the music and poetry starts around 8:00pm. kurt...

so I've been seeing your name on the birthday list for a little while and it hasn't showed up as the day yet. Just in case I miss it hope it's a happy one with everything you want, especially lots of people at the center when you're there!

Just wanted to extend a thank you to everyone for your encouragement and suggestions. I finally did my first open mike. I was very nervous and fumbled a lot but the audience seemed to be very understanding and my friends said that I did OK. I have a lot to learn but I will get there. Have a great day.
-Eric

I've done a few open mikes recently at a local Baptist church that was having some. I play piano, organ, guitar, mountain dulcimer, canjo (Can banjo that plays similar to a dulcimer) and bowed psaltery. I played keyboards mountain dulcimer, canjo and bowed psaltery. in the open mikes. I can't sing so I never sing when I play. I get stage fright easy. I tend to look at what I'm playing instead of the audience so I don't get stage fright as bad & am concentrating on what I am playing.. I don't play guitar as much as my other instruments as I don't play it as good as my other instruments even tho I've been playing it since the 70's. Glad the open mikes are going well for ya...

I got a call from Jaane Doe tht the Hoot is canceled for October 25th. I'll see if I can find out any more details. kurt...

EPR, I apologize. I was going to reply with a quote from your last post, and by accident I deleted it. please repost. I have senior moments you know. sorry!

The first time I played in public was way back in the "stoned age" (early '70s). A friend of mine was running a coffee house at the YMCA and asked me to fill in for a few because an act didn't show. I told him that I only knew three songs but he insisted that I play. One of the songs was Neil Young's "Heart of Gold". I got through the first verse okay but when I got to the second verse I went completely blank (see, Larry! It even happened back then!)! So, I just stopped playing and said, "Oops! I forgot the 2nd verse!" People laughed. I cringed!

Then I went through the lyrics, mumbling them, did okay and started the song again. Got to the 2nd verse and .... "Umm ... I forgot it again!" This guy, Ira, was rolling on the floor laughing! Everybody (except me) thought I was a comedy act. My friend was happy because it used up a lot of time. I was embarrassed. I still forget stuff. Good thing that these days most of the people I'm playing to have been drinking. They don't notice it much!