Le Open Mic

Do not come in here with any of those soft, singer/songwriter, acoustic guitar, major/minor chord originals. No. If you even step foot in this door here, be a GD musician. Preferably one of the following types: 1. the guy that plays his acoustic with a slide in an open tuning and throats out the White Stripes’ “Death Letter” and then re-tunes to standard by ear; 2. the younger dreadlocked pot-smoker with rasp instead of voice that strums wildly through Bob Marley classics and/or the Sublime catalog week in and week out, 3.the guy that says he plays the “harp” and means harmonica and actually plays the shit out of it, especially when other artists are on stage and he is not but is instead sitting at the bar sucking and blowing away and generally playing along with everything regardless of what it is and says things like, “Oh, hope you don’t mind I play along. I noticed you were in A, so I was doodling in D” and actually helps himself to a spot on stage for the next song; or 4. the guy that whispers his way through Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” and basically astonishes everyone and drops jaws because, “wow, that felt like the first time I‘d ever heard that.”

The Thursday night Open Mic at the Tahitian Moon BBQ in southeastern Massachusetts is “sick.” Just ask Shirley, the hand-shaking, back-slapping den mother who runs the show every week. This Thursday she opens the night with introductions and a basically in-tune version of “Welcome to the Machine” by Pink Floyd during which the sound guy, her husband Ben, has to navigate his way between Shirley (singing and strumming), numerous mic stands, a speaker or two, and a warming beer on the <30 sq.ft. stage to get to the sound board and adjust some volume levels to even out her vocals and guitar. Shirley by the way is either perpetually stoned to the gills or ridden with clinical-level anxiety. The Moon, as the locals refer to it, is not a large room and has the acoustics of a Buick, such that the range of acceptable volume for any given instrument is extremely narrow, like within tenths of decibels, which necessitates Ben’s constant navigation of and excuse-me-just-a-second’s onto the Moon’s small stage for adjustment while the artists play and sing. Artists take turns playing 3 or 4 songs each throughout the night and very often will play together and/or have a second shot on stage. Shirley spends her time off stage clapping just before is generally considered acceptable at the end of every song and glad-handing the waiting artists on the list (a chalkboard at the entrance to the bar) that are anxious because either (i) it is their first time here and they are afraid of negative feedback from those watching, something that is actually unheard of in open mic land (the negative feedback) because it is basically understood as pretty horrendous etiquette to grant anything but effusive praise to every artist after every song (see Shirley’s pattern of timing her applause) or (ii) they came here to get their turn playing some music and they are sick of waiting.

Oh, and it’s open seating with just those long general seating cafeteria tables. So if this is your first time coming in be prepared to sit at the same table and likely right next to a family of BBQ piranha. The BBQ is a 5 out of 10 at best. But the wait staff is perfect. Our kind waiter David was the type of individual that absolutely needed to work at a place like this (much like Shirley when I think about it). David has enviable sideburns, salt and pepper hair that is almost comically thick and that hangs not so much down off the back of his head as out like a piece of awkwardly folded newspaper, and a generally weathered Grateful Dead fan look that makes you wonder how exactly he enjoyed the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The way his hair and the flat (i.e., as in of the structural integrity of a puddle of water) ball cap that he is constantly pushing down onto his head look you would almost think it was part of a sort of Halloween costume (the hair and hat). But it somehow works perfectly on him and there is really no other way to picture someone with his personality and mannerisms than exactly like this.

Musicians like the ones here tonight show up for these open mics almost religiously on these weekday nights in the suburban parts of all states because, “there is just something about jamming with good people” or “mmm, I don’t know, just for the music and killer atmosphere, you know?” or “just want to try a few new songs out.” And the folks that come to play at the Moon on Thursdays? They are not here for the BBQ or to hear Shirley screech through Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” in an octave until now unknown to man. They are here to play and to hear good music and to, if even for a brief moment once a week, massage those dreams that they have held onto from childhood.

“Play some of that 4 Non Blondes again, like last week, because that was sick,” says Shirley (whose sentences take 1.5 times the normal person’s to be spoken and appear to take maximum effort) to the next guy on the list, and I think she is actually at this point holding her cup at a 45 degree angle, spilling her beer all over herself but is either unaware or indifferent to the fact that she is dousing the crotch of her pants with stale Magic Hat. She then reaches out to touch my arm and I vomit wildly in a bucket of corn cobs.