Open mics around town lend ears to starting artists

At an open mic, all you have is your love and your music. And you sure as hell don't want to lose your love tonight.

You might come on after a song about bear hugs, you might come on after a joke about 9/11. The audience might be a pack of wolves waiting to devour your every wrong note, or it might be a gregarious group of fellow artists with honest critiques and praises. Either way, if you're a starting songwriter, the glorious bottom is where you have to start, no excuses, and Lincoln can accommodate.

Monday night, you should find yourself at the Bourbon Theatre. The Acoustic Open Stage, as it's called, offers to make the local musician's biggest dream come true: to get to play the best venue in the city with your own monitors, your own attentive crowd and, oh yeah, there's free beer and sandwiches.

Austin Howard has been increasingly more involved with the Bourbon, as well as Rad Kadillac Productions, over the past few months, and the open mic is his baby, a flexible one at that. You'll find as you discover the eclectic environments in which to debut your music that each open mic has its own format, though there are just a few tried-and-true general ways to do it.

Howard has encouraged folks to email bourbonopenstage@gmail.com to reserve a spot, but if you're like me and wait until Monday afternoon, it's better to just show up and ask when you can go on. Austin's an approachable fellow, either behind the mixing board, at the bar listening or playing a set to fill space on stage.

I've seen some sick shredding with well-timed leg gyrations, I've tried not to hear abysmal covers but, you know, good job anyway, and I've heard sexually charged beat poetry, and even once, I accompanied it with some equally sensual guitar. The Open Stage, which starts at 8 p.m. and is for the 18 and over crowd, might not walk and talk yet, but for the drink ticket, the sandwiches, the atmosphere and the lack of a strict three-song limit, it is quickly becoming a contender among the weekly list at which we regulars make the rounds.

The newest of the bunch, though, just a month and a half old, takes Tuesday night at Indigo Bridge Books and does, well, whatever you want to do with it. An everything-goes format that starts at 7 p.m. just inside in the Haymarket's Creamery Building at 7th and P streets can lend itself well to fiction, dancing, music and puppet shows if that's your thing. Right now, it's a three-host enterprise, but with one leaving for Japan and another just taking some time off, it will soon be under the helm of one Amy Keller.

When I met Amy, who by day cleans apartments and by nights plays open mics, she made it clear this is her scene as it has been for about 4 1/2 years. I mean, for crying out loud, she met her husband at an open mic and wrote a novel about them, too.

"I believe in folk music and music being by the people," Keller said over coffee and the strumming of Peace, Love and Strychnine. "Not everyone has to be perfect or classically trained or have a perfect voice. I like to hear people, even if everything they do isn't perfect or even if they're nervous."

She said Indigo's offering to this little-music-city-that-could caters to the more contemplative artworks, which is sort of redundant, but here's what she means: While other open mics encourage you to play your songs, take what response you can get from the audience and then get going, pal, Indigo hopes you have something to say about the song you just played because Keller just might ask.

And again, being a bookstore, Indigo invites Lincoln's literati, as well as its musicians and other artists. Keller said every so often, someone typing away on their computer will look up, become involved in the performances and try their hand on stage, just for kicks.

"Our open mic night's interesting because there'll be people who come and sit in the back, and we'll say, ‘Hey, do you want to play something,'" Keller said. "And then they'll pick up my guitar and be virtuosos."

I haven't had the chance to play since Indigo kicked this one off just as I was striving to graduate, so I can't give a firsthand review, but from the sounds of it, this open mic is here to stay. And you know, along with that tree sculpture in the bookstore being something else, Indigo's ginger lemonade is simply to die for, quite literally for my fellow ginger brethren and sistren.

Just after I spoke with Keller, she let me borrow her guitar for a set at Meadowlark Coffee and Espresso at 16th and South streets. Of the three I've frequented, Meadowlark unfortunately falls to the lowest rank. No one wrangles us rowdy musicians into playing in order despite the signup sheet that finds its way to the counter about 7:30 p.m., and you have no idea if you're being heard by the usually non-responsive crowd.

During the school year, Meadowlark gives you a good idea of what works with your music simply because a few heads will pop up from studying to listen to the catchy parts then plunge back down when it gets boring. But during the summer, loud conversations and the clinking of glasses can only remind you that it's mostly your friends and family telling you to keep writing those great songs, and who knows if they're just being nice because they're friends and family.

I will commit treason, though, and say if you're willing to make the jaunt, Meadowlark is one darling of a coffee shop and an occasionally welcome respite from the sheer baristian brilliance of the Coffee House. Your arts editor Noah might have spent a few grand — yes, I mean a few thousand dollars — on Silky Jazz and every-so-often baked goods at the CoHo, but come on, the rest of the city deserves some attention, too.