It's been over a month since my last Open Mic report, that of November 27th.     Dokken's Under Lock and Key is cranked up on the cd boombox, so, with tunes for inspiration, here comes another Open Mic report...

Tuesday, November 28th, 2006:       Coffee Works Roastery & Cafe,   Voorhees, NJ         On Tuesday November 28th Kettle and I played the Open Mic at Voorhees' Coffee Works.     The Open Mic was hosted by our friends BackYard.     For my three-song set I played Carulli's "Allegretto," an instrumental; the Christmas tune "We Three Kings," with guitar and vocal; and my Pink Floyd medley "Vera"/"Is There Anybody Out There," with guitar and, for "Vera" at least, vocal.     I recall that the performance seemed to go over very well.

Tuesday, December 5th, 2006:       Coffee Works Roastery & Cafe,   Voorhees, NJ         On Tuesday December 5th Kettle and I once again played the Open Mic at Voorhees' Coffee Works, hosted this time by Mark Sengin.     My performance was rough, owing I think to two factors, one being my nervousness after being preceded by so many talented acts, and the other being the fact that my right arm had fallen asleep as I sat waiting to take the stage.     Nervous and numb, I stumbled through Carcassi's "Etude in A minor" -- playing the piece about half as fast as I would normally play it -- and, from memory for the first time, Carcassi's Exercise 1 / "Andantino Grazioso" -- forgetting my place in the middle of it, pausing it, and restarting it.     I closed my set with "We Three Kings," redeeming myself a bit perhaps, as "Kings" went more smoothly than the two numbers preceding it.     While my performance was a personal disappointment, I enjoyed hearing Mark Sengin, whose singing voice struck me as being very nice.

Tuesday, December 12th, 2006:       Bus Stop,   Pitman, NJ         On Tuesday December 12th Kettle and I played the Open Mic at Bus Stop in Pitman NJ, hosted by my friend Dom.     For my part I played two instrumentals -- Carulli's "Allegretto," and Pink Floyd's "Is There Anybody Out There" -- as well as a Pink Floyd song with vocal and guitar, "The Thin Ice."     This was my first public performance of "The Thin Ice," and it suffered from some performance flaws, including a failure to smoothly connect my vocal "ooh's," and a number of guitar fingering mistakes, especially towards the end of the piece.     Next time... Next time I'll do it better...