You may actually find THIS part funny. Have you ever seen the videos in music stores where the staging is such that the main actor picks up a guitar and starts playing the intro that Zep stole from Spirit and turned it into Stairway and all the employees come running to grab the neck and say "Uh uh. No Stairway."

One of the running gags at open mic nights (the kind that are for anybody, not just songwriters) is that for some reason everybody thinks they should play Turn The Page. There is NOTHING more horrendously empty that a single note plinking acoustic guitar solo with no rhythm behind it. So one night a few years ago I got a call from a friend named Anita who was going to a songwriter night that also held a few early slots open for what normal mic nights are like. She said "Bring that magic iPad of your with your TV tracks and do 3 songs." So I went and signed in for the 9:20 slot, right after her. The guy running the show was a well known host of such events so we all knew him. I asked him how many of the early slots he had open for the copy song people and he told me 3. So 8, 8:20 and 8:40 were copy people. Anita would play at 9, me at 9:20. I asked "Will you be enforcing the 'No Turn The Page' rule?" He just laughed. ALL THREE of the people in those first slots did that insipid song. It was fine when Seger did it in the 80s, but that was Seger, not Joe who works at the auto parts store and then goes from open mic to open mic all night every night with his Walmart guitar without a case AND has to borrow a cord. And just as an added bonus, usually none of them can sing. And when I went up, I said "Okay! Now 3 original songs. NO Turn The Page" and got a huge laugh and won the crowd before I played a note. I explained that they'd hear a whole band despite it being just me on stage and nobody cared.

And those people are why I think open mic night sucks, because there are 20 of those to every one where there is actually even one good player there. Songwriter nights I might go to, but not the open mic night medley of Turn The Page. As you all know from my many posts over the decade, songwriting is what impresses me, not playing. I'd rather hear an hour of mediocre original music than 3 sets of perfectly performed copy music.

And again, read the disclaimer from the previous post. This is just how I see it, not an attempt to make you agree with me. I have so many really BAD CDs here that I bought at a songwriter night because at least they tried to write. I have stood and heard the slow death of silence enough times to empathize. Funny thing is that I have 5 songs done as TV tracks (with no lead vocal) and when I went to those things fairly often I would pick 3 from those 5 for my set, ALWAYS including "The One That Got Away". And from place to place, the same 3 song set would get anything ranging from a polite "Well, at least you tried" golf clap to very enthusiastic "Oh yeah! That was really good." I would guess I sold less than 10 CDs over a year or so of going to those things so the songs must not be THAT good. Isn't it flattering though when based on hearing just 3 songs someone wants to buy the CD?