Doing some open mics…

Performing at Bristol Studios, Open Mic.

I call it “de-mystifying” ... performing at open mics as often as you can. Just so you are comfortable as you up there, communicating your words, music, singing someone else’s songs, whatever, in the most natural way. The more often you do it, the easier it is to feel comfortable and really enjoy yourself performing.

I did an open mic poetry reading at Grub Street in Seaport, Boston a couple of weeks ago. They have a nice format with a sign-up sheet at 6:30 PM ... usually filled by 7. After an hour and a half of what tends to be emotional personal stories and powerful poetry by sign-ups, a couple of more established authors with neighborhood connections read from recently published work. It’s all very friendly and supportive, with some exciting work shared. Really nice crowd. And having Harborwalk right outside the windows adds to the atmosphere.

I would share some of those poems here, but that’s considered publishing and most literary magazines will not publish anything that has been out there, even if it’s on your own website. So you’ll have to wait for the book. Or you can Google my published work, too. I’ve had quite a few published in small literary and university journals across the country. Maybe I’ll post some already published ones soon. In the meantime, there are always lyrics.

Speaking of which, also did an open mic at Bristol Studios in Boston, where I’ve been recording, mixing and remixing some of my songs. Some are unfinished tracks with my late husband, guitar player and our sometime producer Rick Comstock. A couple recently have been acoustic tracks with some really great finger picking ... he was a rocker, but I always thought his quieter playing was his real strength. At any rate, working with producer Chris BIllias at Bristol, we’ve been pulling some of these into at least a semblance of the other work sound wise and it’s exciting to see it all come together. Stay tuned for posting those soon.

In the meantime, the open mic I digressed from ... interesting tangents are what blogs are all about, right? ... I performed the recently posted songs “Allowed” and “Safe.” It was the first time either one had been performed live in their new incarnations, so it was pretty exciting to get them out there. There’s some video that studio owner Ric Poulin shot that night that we’ll post. I, as always, am hyper-critical about myself. But I’ll allow it haha. Other people performed, too, of course. Was, as always, a really good show. It actually was my birthday, too. (Noticed how I saved that for the end?) Couldn’t think of a better way to spend it then performing.