piano and sign at Austin Songwriters Group open mic
The group has seminars, songwriting workshops and other events. And Friday night is the open night where you can show up with your guitar and take part in the open mic and the song circle afterwards. The open mic has a format that I have never seen before, but which is apparently used in several other venues in Austin. What happens is that the musicians that take part sing two songs, but they go up on stage in groups of three or four, sitting down in front of three or four mics, and each musician sings a song before it passes on to the next musician, going through the line twice.
This is a very interesting method, as it means that for the spectators, you have a lively rotation of one singer after another doing just one song, so you don’t just sit through a set of one person at a time. In the two nights in a row here so far at open mics, I have been impressed with the level of the songwriting skills in Austin. I myself somehow managed to forget the lyrics of a song each night so far, and last night was the most embarrassing, since it was one of my own songs that I sing regularly, but have not sung for a long time – “Memories.”
After the open mic the group pulled together the chairs into a circle and I was told it was time for the song circle. What is that? Well, a little bit like a bluegrass circle, but in this case it is not bluegrass. Everyone gathered in a circle and one after the other people sang their songs, and the rest of the circle joined in playing lead or whatever, joining in a kind of jam. A fabulous, organized idea.
Unfortunately, I had not eaten a meal after going directly from the racetrack to the open mic, and so I decided to leave after they played a few songs. It was horribly difficult, as the circle might go on most of the night, I was told. But after all, I am in Austin to do another job.
In any case, it was a refreshing, cool, different slant on the open mic and jam. But what else would you expect from the Austin Songwriters Group?