February 3rd, 2020. Teavolve's Open Mic w LKHD.

Monday night’s open mic was a Lovely thing. Great music, a great feature. A lot of people I hadn’t seen in a LONG time randomly coming in out of the blue. It made for a fun night. Bands that had formed at my open mic coming back to visit, old friends who we’ve toured with up and down the coast, an old member of OK Cafe from Takoma Park. It was a strange collection.

Chuck the Madd Ox and I kick things off.

I wasn’t particularly “on” at the beginning, even with the addition of Chuck the Madd Ox joining me – but by the end of the night my guitar was singing to me and I was ever-so-grateful to have a couple of minutes to play a song or two – and wowed some new people. Great music. Great feature. But one of my favourite moments had nothing to do with any of the performances.

Oh Michael Polanchak, I been missin you.

The solo bass player Mark James had a couple of friends with him and they were really enthusiastic right at the end, talking to me about the music, excited about MY music, generally being enthusiastic.

“Who are you guys? Performers?
“Naw, my name’s Jerome. I’m an MMA Fighter.”

I could believe it. He was compact and dangerous looking, sleek and muscular.

“Yeah, DJ Powerline.”
“Wait – whut? We’re using street names? I’m … I’m uh… WOLF!!!”

Too late. Jerome is Jerome. But man, the moment was kind of deliciously hilaaarious.

Featured artists are made possible through donations by our in-house audience and Focus Music – www.focusmusic.org.

Video at : https://youtu.be/F3AKoy58HVY

Gallery at : http://www.ilyaimy.com/wordpress/?p=16626

The Teavolve Café & Lounge open mic happens just about every Monday at Teavolve, signup at 6pm, performances from 7-10pm. 2 songs / 10 minutes whichever’s shorter, with a PG13 environment – and is hosted by rob Hinkal of the band ilyAIMY. Rob’s Open Mics were declared a National Open Mic by Shure Microphones, “Best of DC” from Dcmusicdownload.com and have received recognition from the Library of Congress. Search “rob’s open mics” for more info.

Tonight we were graced with: