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that was fun!
The baron of our local SCA group runs an occasional open-mic night at a local club, so he asked our choir to perform tonight. We said "renaissance choral music? really?" and he said yes, so we went and sang five short songs (two in English, three not). I couldn't actually see the audience very well (dark club), so I don't know how much of the enthusiastic response we got was due to local shills and how much due to the regular crowd liking this change of pace. But either way, that was fun.
There are some unwritten rules of these sorts of things. One is to support the other performers -- stick around, applaud, consider buying a CD (especially if they bought yours). When we walked in the act then on stage was not at all to my taste and I wondered how typical that would be, but it turned out there was a wide variety and many of the performers were very good. I've forgotten most of their names (I need to ask the baron for a list), but one of the surprises of the night for me was Double Shot. I don't even know the name of that genre and it's not something I would normally listen to, but the singing was good and their stage presence was excellent. Cool. There were also a few singers with guitar (one reminded me, stylistically, of Michael Spiro in his college-circuit days), a band with guitar, bass, and drums, an a-capella singer doing folk songs, and others. (We heard people call it "a-capella night", though as noted there were instruments.)
During the show I found myself thinking of songs I'd like to perform there and wondering about standing up a group (On the Mark or otherwise) for the occasional night like this, but it'll probably never happen. The performers there were mostly regular performers doing a circuit or with other gigs, while what I'm thinking of would be targetted -- get good musicians together on a Sunday, learn three songs or so, and perform them the next night; that sort of thing. I don't know if that could get traction with either other musicians or the people who run open-mic nights.
I also realized belatedly that attending this sort of thing has only become really feasible for me in the last several years, since Pittsburgh banned smoking in restaurants. On the Mark did a few coffeehouses/clubs/etc back in the day, and while the music was good the environment was sometimes toxic. I love music, but not enough to sit in a cloud of smoke for a night.
There are some unwritten rules of these sorts of things. One is to support the other performers -- stick around, applaud, consider buying a CD (especially if they bought yours). When we walked in the act then on stage was not at all to my taste and I wondered how typical that would be, but it turned out there was a wide variety and many of the performers were very good. I've forgotten most of their names (I need to ask the baron for a list), but one of the surprises of the night for me was Double Shot. I don't even know the name of that genre and it's not something I would normally listen to, but the singing was good and their stage presence was excellent. Cool. There were also a few singers with guitar (one reminded me, stylistically, of Michael Spiro in his college-circuit days), a band with guitar, bass, and drums, an a-capella singer doing folk songs, and others. (We heard people call it "a-capella night", though as noted there were instruments.)
During the show I found myself thinking of songs I'd like to perform there and wondering about standing up a group (On the Mark or otherwise) for the occasional night like this, but it'll probably never happen. The performers there were mostly regular performers doing a circuit or with other gigs, while what I'm thinking of would be targetted -- get good musicians together on a Sunday, learn three songs or so, and perform them the next night; that sort of thing. I don't know if that could get traction with either other musicians or the people who run open-mic nights.
I also realized belatedly that attending this sort of thing has only become really feasible for me in the last several years, since Pittsburgh banned smoking in restaurants. On the Mark did a few coffeehouses/clubs/etc back in the day, and while the music was good the environment was sometimes toxic. I love music, but not enough to sit in a cloud of smoke for a night.
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(Also, your voice kept me from crying yesterday.)
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