Since the beginning of this year, I've been going to open-mic events at places around town. My intention has been to see what's "really" going on, musically, around these parts. Almost all of the songwriters I've heard are neophytes, whom I would put in one of two categories: those whose songwriting isn't "there" yet (if it ever will be) but they're aware of the struggle to improve, and those who don't seem to realize that their songwriting isn't anywhere near "there" but have all the streaming and social platforms going to present themselves as legit. Then there are the people whose songwriting and playing are wonderful, and should be doing paid gigs for an audience that doesn't consist of other songsters scrolling on their phones until it's their turn to get up and perform. Some of the people are performing with backing tracks that they've made to sing over, which is cool, except when the songs aren't "there."
I had thought that this adventure upon which I'd embarked in the underground would reveal to me talent and vision untainted by being part of the above-ground music scene, in which context artists' music becomes more about crowd-pleasing or career-building rather than self-expression and artistry. Although it has, it's also resulted in my looking in the rear-view mirror, in regard to my own trajectory with my musical endeavors. I myself had started at open-mic events, shooting my mouth off as though I were single-handedly inventing "slam poetry," or blasting my primitive songs in people's faces. For me to get up and sing my songs with backing tracks might be regressive of me, although my songs would certainly show-up those of a lot of the implicit competition present – but on the other hand, I've always disliked performing, so I was never good at it.
My revisiting the open-mic scene, and assessing its differences from how it had been long ago, has come from a desire to assess my "place" in the musical landscape, both artistically and culturally. Something that it has taught me is that getting up before people and trying or aspiring to engage their attention and gain their approbation is anathema to my relationship to my own music-making. I make recordings, for people to experience independent of my personage, free from the baggage of their experience or interpretation of me as a person. It's why I don't associate images of myself with my music in publicity. Once I've done the song, it's someone else's problem; I've moved on.
It doesn't escape me that I'm twice or thrice the age of almost all of the open-mic participants. However, witnessing their stages of grappling with how to make songs and how to modulate their over- or under-confidence makes me not envy their youth nor miss being young. I may not know my status or stature among songwriters, but I know too well what I've been through in life to be able to do whatever it is that I do. I wouldn't trade my experience for being excusably young and cute. In my 20s and 30s, I'd always had a sense of not being "there" yet – but now I find myself situated in it.