1997-04-09 - USM Open Mic Night with special guest Slaid Cleaves

From September 1996 until December 1998, I hosted an open mic night at my alma mater, the University of Southern Maine. The series ran for five semesters, at an average of 15 shows per semester, for a total of around 75--not quite as many as Cats, but a still good run. Depending how many open mic performers showed up, I played anywhere from two to twenty songs each week, usually a 50/50 split of originals and covers.

Then, to make the evenings longer and busier, I also booked a different featured artist every week. These ran the gamut: jazz, blues, folk, rock, experimental, Celtic, Greek, and even (believe it or not) a traditional Cambodian dance act, a gospel choir, and a sitar player.

Because there were so many shows, they sort of blend together in my memory. Looking back at the flyers now, I see several guest performers whose names I don't even recognize. But fortunately for blogging purposes, I kept notes about my own sets from most of the shows.

As a random example, I played nine songs at the April 9, 1997 show, which featured guest star Slaid Cleaves. For those who don't know Slaid, he's one of those rare performers who, despite being from Maine, has actually been successful elsewhere. In the early 90's, he moved to Austin, Texas, and got a deal with Rounder Records, a big roots/Americana label. He's on his fourth (I think) Rounder album now, and he gets all sorts of good national press about his songwriting. (For more about Slaid, check out his personal web site. Aside from the usual music content, he has these great, random anecdotes about his life. For example: he used to work as a "medical research volunteer," and Slaid is actually his middle name.)

I don't remember which songs Slaid performed at this show, but he'd just released his first Rounder album, No Angel Knows, so I suspect that material was well represented.

What I do remember is a bit of his between-song banter. He was introducing a song written by someone else--a friend of his in the Austin scene, I think--and he noted how playing other people's songs is what makes music a community activity, as it was in the folkie days of Woodie Guthrie et al. I think sometimes songwriters are so absorbed with their own material that they're almost ashamed to play someone else's songs. Though I've written plenty of my own, I like playing songs by other people, too, so Slaid's comments have stuck with me over the years. If a writer with his level of renown can do it, well, I shouldn't feel too bad about it.

I've even slipped a few of his songs into my sets over the years, like this 2002 performance of "Don't Tell Me" from No Angel Knows, with my then eight-months pregnant wife on backing vocals:



But I digress. Returning to the 1997 open mic night, my set list went like this:

1. You Should've Been a Dancer. An ornery original that I opened with at each of the approximately 75 USM Open Mic Nights.
   
2. Wrapped Around Your Finger. Somewhere, I had the idea to play the entire Police album Synchronicity, one song at a time, over several shows. This was part of that plan, which I don't think I ever completed.
   
   [I took a break. Slaid and various open mic performers played.]
   
   
3. Flying Over Arizona. A rare autobiographical song that I wrote on the back of a napkin, while on a plane that actually was flying over Arizona.
   
4. Aphrodite's Cigarettes. This lyrically complicated original has a cast of five characters named from Greek mythology, all tied together in a series of intersecting love triangles. I ended up marrying Artemis.
   
5. The New York City Metaphor. One of my first "jazzy" tunes, it likens falling in love to the anxiety of a small-town kid visiting New York for the first time. Liked this song then, not so much now.
   
6. Where Are You Now, Tuli Kupferberg? This song's short but has a long story behind it. Tuli Kupferberg was a 60's poet who started an infamous cult band called the Fugs in New York City. I'd heard a rumor that he had become a lawyer and was living a normal, non-radical existence in my then home of Portland, Maine. It painted a funny picture, and it's one that turns out to be mostly false. Tuli still lives in Greenwich Village, at least he still did as of a mid-90's trip I took to New York. I found his address in the phone book and then verified that his name was actually on the doorbell. However, after telling this story at several shows, I learned from various audience members that another member of The Fugs did move to Portland and took a job as a lawyer at UNUM, so I guess the song still works.
   
7. Floating World. Really, I don't write many autobiographical songs, but it seems like I played every one of them at this show. I must have been trying to impress Slaid... Anyway, this song is based on experiences I had in Japan the previous summer. "Floating World" is a term used to describe the dissolute night life of pre-modern Tokyo, if that helps.
   
8. Oedipus Rex > Tempted. This was a fun medley. The first half is a humorous retelling of the Greek tragedy, as written by 1950's satirist Tom Lehrer. (Here are his lyrics, if you're curious.) Then I segued into the old Squeeze hit "Tempted", rewritten with Oedipus-themed lyrics:

   I went to Delphi, they told me,
   "You're gonna kill your dad."
   "But compared with your love life,
   that's really not that bad..."
   Tempted by the fruit of your mother...
   

9. Sounds of the 70's. And since I'd already drifted into less serious material, I closed with one the most laugh-inspiring--and most difficult--items I've ever performed. You know those late night TV ads for mail order compilation albums? There used to be one called "Sounds of the 70's," with songs like "Billy Don't Be a Hero," "The Night Chicago Died," and a lot more. I learned this entire commercial--every song snippet, transition, and even the voice-overs (during which I still had to strum the song that was playing in the background). It was a lot of work, and unfortunately, now that the commercial is long gone, there isn't much reason to play it live. But it was a great ride while it lasted.