What Would Woody Do? Where Songwriting Meets Social Conscience

Three hours is definitely the outer limit for time. Keeping that will require some self-discipline by all involved. Part of it is arranging the order of play and the groups; the March event showed some evidence of thought by Jim H about that, I thought. The show should keep its audience to the end and leave them wanting more. And nobody should have to play to an empty house. The MC might help by keeping the show moving, but mainly i see that as a promotional value, at least if get DJs with some goodwill.

I think Matt is right about the three by three plus a groupgrope format. It worked well last time, at least. I think we might try to stick to covers for the group effort, both because it involves the audience more, particularly newcomers, and because it avoids some potential jealousies among performers. When a set is given to a band, like checkered past, they just get their set time. For this to work we need to get notice to the performers earlier, so they can work together. My group did this by email with a brief rehearsal on site; I imagine that is how most of us will do this, given the demands on our time.

My main observation is that we all need to be more professional; i am including myself. [i guess these posts are showing me as twohands; for those who do not recognize my voice, this is jim abel spouting here.] We need to be ready to play on time. We need to know our material, even if we do need the music with us. We need to think about our introductions before we make them, and we need to make them short and to the point. We need to think about whether our jamming along is really helping or not and we need to not steal attention from the performer. We need to have respect for each other and for the audiences. I am a big fan of Joe Carr, and I am personally not offended by what he does, but he did a very funny song last time which i am certain some people would find offensive, particularly if there were kids present. All of this is just good stage etiquette and applies to anywhere any of us play.

I think the present format works great in a coffee house atmosphere with solo singer songwriters, but some limits need to be placed on time to keep from going too long.

I dig the idea of collaborating with each other. I think it makes for a richer experience. We are enhanced by one another. We might want to rehearse more in advance so we don't come across sloppily.

When at different venues, other than cofeehouses, we should adapt to the venue.

We should try out as many different venues and incorporate as much diversity as we possibly can.

We should give the audience more of a show experience that flows for an entire evening. Otherwise we're sort of performing for ourselves. It's fun, but does it hold the attention of an audience and does it reach outside of our circle?

Maybe we need some stage coordination. Media presentations and people who want to make announcements could be better coordinated. It gets a little chaotic with people walking about and talking over someone who is trying to deliver a message or an announcement while the next group is setting up. To smooth transition between sets and limit distractions maybe we need an MC, someone who isn't trying to also hook up everybody's gear and test mics at the same time.

Those of us who have played the last set know the feeling of looking out on a dwindling audience. Right now the event just sort of fizzles out at the end. I don't know what the solution is, but we need to work it out. Maybe shortening the entire evening is the answer.

This format isn't suited for featuring one particular act. Maybe we could hold some WWWD feature showcases with one or two acts at a time throughout the month, sort of sattelite performances that let our participants spread their wings a little more.