 For the past 10 years or so of my life, I’ve been mixing together and living in both the acoustic music world and the a cappella world. My goal has always been to take an a cappella group to high-end acoustic venues, and I’ve been able to do that. Acoustic audiences respond very well to a cappella, partially because of the novelty of simply not being another solo singer-songwriter, but also because they tend to be smart audiences who appreciate music that is done well. There are a few other acts that have tapped into the acoustic scene, like Da Vinci’s Notebook, who did very well at folk festivals and coffeehouses.
I went to an open mic this past Sunday here in my town, to be supportive of my friend’s boyfriend, who was the featured act. I’d never met said boyfriend before. And for a while, I've been contemplating how I want to talk about my recent open mic experiences, because it’s been bothering me. When I started out as 1/2 of an acoustic duo, in grad school and right out of college, my partner and I cut our teeth on a steady (almost nightly) diet of open mics. Truly, the trenches. We worked our way up from there. And the quality of the performers was astounding. And so was the competitiveness. In many circumstances, I think competitiveness is one ugly characteristic (although competitive people inevitably think themselves charming), but in this case it sure kept people on their toes. Songwriting was honed, everyone was looking for a gig, so they brought their best game out of necessity. Consequently, the people I started out performing with now read like a who's who of national touring songwriters:
Jonatha Brooke
Jennifer Kimball
Jim Infantino
Vance Gilbert
Ellis Paul
Dar Williams
Patty Griffin
Geoff Bartley
Peter Mulvey
The Nields
Barbara Kessler
Diane Zeigler
Martin Sexton
Guster
And that's just a short list.
But I've noticed that the whole culture of open mics has changed. I don't go to them very often anymore. I find them downright torturous. Now, by design, open mics exist so that anyone can perform and hone their skills, and I respect that. I took my group Deadline Poet to many an open mic, and All About Buford did our first public performance at an open mic. We did the only two songs we knew at the time. But there used to be a good mix of the downright awful and the truly talented. Now it's mostly downright awful. What happened? What changed? I think that it's the result of what I'm calling "Everyone Gets A Trophy". In our desperation to make sure that everyone feels loved and included, EVERYONE gets lauded. No matter what. Singers with little to no ability are vocal superstars. People who are just terrible get gig after gig at these low-level venues. They'll never progress beyond them, of course, but they just keep circulating in this little stifling bubble of mermaids and flowers. They crow, "I'm in The Circuit", and they have a community that will always embrace them. How can that be bad, right? Keep reading.
There used to be an open mic at the Old Vienna Kaffeehaus out in Westboro, MA. Any Thursday night you could see several of the above-listed type of performers slogging it out, working on new things, challenging each other. And the MC, Robert Haigh, always had a kind word for the performers. BUT - Robert would always be truthful. He found something good to say about everyone, but he never lied, and he knew his sh*t. Nowadays, I hear hosts call everyone "amazing" and they say how we'll be "blown away" by everyone who steps on their stage (which is simply not statistically possible). And, silly me, I always partially think "hey, I'm gonna get blown away!" because I assume they're telling the truth, and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, and more than that, I WANT to be blown away. And then the performers get up and are impressively...disappointing.
Why do they (the hosts/MCs) do this? Because in Earthy-Crunchy Mermaid Land, everyone's as good as everyone else. Everyone gets a trophy so that noone feels left out. It's the one little sector of the music industry where merely being able to clunk out 3 shaky chords on your acoustic is good enough, dammit! You're beautiful! You're wonderful! We sigh in joy!
Let me clarify that I think there's a difference between being supportive, which all musicians, or would-be musicians, or even downright hacks, deserve. That's great. But when the hosts call EVERYONE "amazing", noone is challenged to be better. Open mics generally have a featured performer, an act that will do a longer set in the middle of the night and get paid for their set. They've ostensibly worked hard and proven their ability in order to get that spot. We should KNOW that because they're the feature, they'll be a quality act. But no longer. Many bookers now book their pals, and/or whoever they think needs support. Or perhaps the bookers simply have no concept of "good" anymore because they're so embedded in Everyone Gets A Trophy mentality that they cannot differentiate. Mediocre performers are suddenly given spots that could easily have been filled by performers at much higher skill levels, and would have, in the past.
I did the booking for the Nameless Coffeehouse in Cambridge for 8 years. It's the oldest continuously running coffeehouse in the country. In that time, I booked one of the earliest incarnations of Ball In The House, and Five O’Clock Shadow, and college groups like The Tufts Amalgamates (who always killed). And noone gets paid, not even the performers. But because of its reputation and location, everyone wants to play there. I got boxes of submissions. And yet the quality of the performers I chose never wavered. I didn't book my pals or untalented folks because they'd been to the open mic enough times that I thought it was time to throw them a bone. That would have sacrificed the quality and reputation of the venue. And it wouldn't have been fair to the other people who actually deserved it because they were simply BETTER. And that's the crux of it, I think. In Earthy-Crunchy Mermaid Land, noone's better than anyone else. We won't recognize that. No. And whereas I'm all for a supportive artistic community and consider myself an artist advocate, what we have here is a current climate that we've sowed: very low in quality but very high in "love" and "support". I doubt that you'll ever see any national acts coming out of this particular acoustic music "circuit" now because it's not bred that way any longer. Noone is challenged to be better because all they hear are oohs and ahhs about how fabulous they are already. So they've essentially sealed themselves off from the world and created a closed circuit. Noone grows outside of it because they're not improving, but they just filter through the venues within it, because they know that they can always get a gig there (and higher-level performers rarely now get the features at these places because they're given to acts that don't deserve it). Try to get a gig at a higher-profile venue, though, and they'll have doors shut in their face. It's so much nicer to stay in the bubble where everyone is "amazing".
Related, I am now taking voice lessons. I made sure I found someone who I respect, who has training and technique, but is also a pop singer. She happens to be Jodi Jenkins from Vox One. She’s an incredible teacher. The lessons are hard, the practicing is harder, and much of the time I sound like absolute crap. She doesn't tell me how wonderful I am during our lessons. In fact, she doesn't compliment me at all, usually, except to say "good work" or "that's good" to a certain exercise. Her job is not to fluff me, for God's sake. She knows I'm a professional singer and that I'm there to fix my broken vocal cords (damaged from laryngopharyngeal reflux) and get my strength back. And she can do that. I don't need the flowers and the mermaids, because that's not why I'm there. And that's how I'll improve.
There's a woman in "the circuit", an older woman, who plays and sings. She plays a tiny little Casio keyboard - like the kind that people had in the 80s. But she only plays ONE NOTE at a time, and it's always the melody of the song she's singing. So she's singing, and simultaneously playing the same melody on her keyboard with one finger. She writes songs about "causes", like the poaching of elephant tusks, in a quavery old lady voice. She's quite possibly the worst performer I've ever heard in my life. She could easily be an SNL skit. She's good as a comedy act, but comedy is not her intention. Yet, she gets feature spots. If that's not a sign of the apocalypse, my friends, I don't know what is. Much like noone has apparently told Michael Jackson that he now looks like an alien freak, noone will ever tell this woman how bad she is. I’m not suggesting that anyone tell her to stop singing, for everyone who wants to should sing, but that bookers give her FEATURES is the real disservice. The whole music community suffers a bit (a lot) because of this. Supportiveness has backlashed. We all lose.
I used to have a lot of reservations about the competitions in the a cappella scene – the ICCA and the Sweeps and all the barbershop competitions. I used to think they could only breed resentment and an unhealthy atmosphere in the community, as colleagues were pitted against each other. But I think, in light of the weakening folk scene, that these competitions are spurring us on and forcing us to get better. Groups that might never otherwise hear each other do so in competition. They’re inspired, they’re revved, they’re scared. And scared is good. Scared makes us better. We realize that there are other groups doing things we’ve only dreamed of, and then we go can back with renewed focus on making better music, and delivering better performances. It is possible to create an artistic community that is both healthily competitive and supportive. And whereas I’ve seen some a cappella groups stay exactly the same for 10 years, I’ve also seen groups drive themselves to do things that are truly groundbreaking. So kudos to those who won’t settle for the trophy they haven’t earned.
Comments? Complaints? Discussion? Send them to me at editor@casa.org.
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