End of Year Events Tonight and Tomorrow at the Yellow Sofa

All of us here at Yellow Sofa Open Mic blog. . . (Excuse me, my dog hears something, I'll be right back). . . want to wish you a very happy, prosperous, and most of all, especially for you Mayan prophecy scholars, a somewhat routine 2012 calendar year.

Though we may not be out of the woods of surrealistic novelty yet, things seem to be lining up felicitously, and at least the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza is now significantly less likely to be assuming the presidency and having "The Power of One" theme from movie Pokemon 2 performed at the inauguration by Yo-Yo Ma, so that's progress right there.

Reflecting on the year about to end, we recall some of the many moments of skill and talent and human realness in music and spoken word. And it can't be said enough how many of us feel ongoing gratitude to the Sofa's proprietor Gabriel Moushabeck for his commitment to offering a community space for emerging performers, to Hannah who oversees programming, to songwriter Scott Cadwallader who is the Cal Ripken/Lou Gehrig of Open Mic that keeps the flame and the mic stands deployed, and to everyone who brings their A-game and an open heart to their performances and to the way they listen and support everyone.

It would be great to see you there tonight, sign-ups are at 6:30.

Tomorrow night, Friday, New Year's Eve-Eve dont miss!:

6:30
Mr. Silverstone and the Velveteen Overpass
4 person rock combo

They will play in its entirety their new 15 song album of all original, surprisingly good songs.
For more information check this link:

www.michaelsilverstone.net


8:00 Sean Nolan
A very talented emerging singer songwriter offering a set to benefit the Food Bank.

Open Mic Tonight! Sign-ups at 6:30

It is with a sense of our gravest solmenity that the Yellow Sofa Open Mic announces the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.

He is rumored to have really liked Hennesey Cognac and at one time spent like $400,000 on it, if you can believe that. He also owned 20,000 DVDs and among his very favorite films were "Friday the 13th", "Rambo" and anything that Elizabeth Taylor ever starred in.

Along with the North Korean State media, the Yellow Sofa community marks this time of loss by looking to the the ascension of his worthy, foreign-educated designated heir, youngest son Kim Jong-un, who is being called the "Great Successor" and are reassured by the continuity of leadership as Kim Jong-Il's long deceased father, Kim Il-sung, remains technically still in charge of North Korea

Bonus quiz: Write a short essay explaining how in comparison to events on the North Korean penninsula, the affairs of state and government are far more stable and advanced here in the United States.

As the Mayans Foretold--Open Mic Tonight 7:00 @ Yellow Sofa

If you were to believe the late and brilliant and Terrence McKenna, (look up his name on the subject of Time Wave Zero and Transendental Object at the End of Time) the the talismans of multiple cultures suggest strongly the elves at the end of time should be at this moment in feverish preparation for for the mother of all Y 2 Ks on 12/31/12.

It could be paradise where everyone gets a pony. It could be something more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ



But in any event, we hope you'll be joining us tonight.

It's good to share that link with people when they least expect it, and the full magnificence can take them by surprise.

Best,

Yellow Sofa Open Mic

We Trust You'll Be at the Yellow Sofa Tonight at the Usual Time

Good Morning or should I say Good Afternoon?

The proprietors of the Yellow Sofa Cafe have asked me to remind you, sir, that this evening they will be presenting their usual Thursday night program of top shelf amateur musical entertainment by guest performers.

I would hardly call it amateur, James, though that may be technically true.

Sorry sir, poor choice of words. Your discernment in these matters is certainly right as usual, and superior to mine, if I may say.

Please, James, spare a little of that. What time does it begin?

The usual time, sir, 7 with sign-ups beginning at 6:30. I've also taken the liberty to post some photographs from last week. Here they are. . .

Did you ask the performers in advance if you could do this?

No, sir, but since they were performing in a public space, I merely assumed--

You assumed James?

I truly regret the error, sir. I intended only to represent the flavor of the evening and honor the excellence of these particular performers and composers. If you think I should remove them, sir, I most certainly will, and immediately.

No need, James. No need. Little point now. What's done is done.

As you think best, sir. I only hope you can forgive this well intentioned mistake. Should we prepare for you to be there tonight?

We'll have to see. Christmas shopping and all. Change the strings, though, just in case.

Bronze wound D'Addario mediums, sir?

Whatever's on the guitar now, James.

Excellent, sir. . .

And to you all, if I may, many of us hope to see large numbers of you tonight at the Yellow Sofa, in support of a worthy establishment, that serves the public good and offers good food, warm beverage and good company.

Also please bear in mind the big Eve of New Year's Eve (Friday, December 30 6:30) show by Mr. Silverstone and the Silvertone Horns in what will not doubt prove to be their very last performance of 2011, though something else may come up on the Saturday following. Many believe this local Northampton music combo features some of the best original songwriting this of side the halcyon days of 1970s FM radio. Should you want to hear what the fuss is about, you are more than welcome to try this link, I'm sure:

www.michaelsilverstone.net

Cheers,

James

Live Tonight at 7:00!: Yellow Sofa Open Mic Demands Reform of Glass-Stegal Financial Regulations

Tonight musicians, poets, singers, and songwriters will gather at the Yellow Sofa and take the stage for the purpose of dramatizing the importance of restoring a legislative and regulatory firewall between the ownership of financial institutions and speculative investment, as recent events roiling the European bond markets have so vividly illustrated this week.

With original songs, instrumental performance, poetry and stand up comedy, an array of dazzilingly talented and intelligent performers will do their utmost to make a compelling case for financial reform.

See you there!

--Board of Governors

Mark Your Calendars and Click on this link


www.michaelsilverstone.net

to see and hear more about the upcoming Mr. Silverstone and the Silvertone Horns Concert on the Big 2012 New Year's Eve Eve Mayan Calendar Closeout Show

Occupy the Yellow Sofa--a Rant and a Plea

For too long have the .000000001 percent corporate-sponsored musicians maintained a stranglehold on the megaphone of musical consciousness in this country.

What gigantic thumb on the scales of popular taste accounts for Foreigner's "Double Vision" being played on thousands of trips into Trader Joe's and in the airport news stands where $4.00 bottles of water are sold. I don't mean to single out "Double Vision"--which is a well recorded and composed song. To be honest, after I goofily pretended to boogie out on it, as a joke to my shopping partner, I then found myself a scant few minutes later without mental filter, actually humming it, no more reflectively than a parrot (or leg humping dog) might do. . .

"Ooh, when it gets through to me/
it's always new to me/
My double vision always seems to get the best of me,
the best of me". . .

It is time that we stopped regarding the infinitely echoing soundtrack of competently produced banality as music. It is actually as a kind of vaccination against anyone either caring about music, or trying to make it themselves. Why do Selena Gomez and Foghat get all the fun, while the souls of billions of people at a time of epochal change must die with the music locked within them? Just asking?

We are the 99.99999999 per cent. . .
We are the 99.99999999 per cent. . .

As Mario Savio might have said.

"There's a time when the operation of the mass-media dominated music becomes so odious that you've got to put your fingers on the power buttons, upon the faders, upon the sliders upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless music is free, the machine will be prevented from working at all." That time is tonight.

Come to the Sofa tonight. Listen to real humans like those pictured below, articulating sounds as only doomed, big- brained primates can.

Be one of the people bearing witness to the sublime and ingenious and touching sonic invention and expression that redeems the human experiment to the angels. Be one of these people. Support the Sofa, one of the rare public spaces where it can happen. Make your own music, and listen to music. The whole world is watching. . .(--television, and that's part of the problem). Occupy the space in you and in all of us that isn't!

--A message brought to you by Thursday's Open Mic host,
an unpaid person using the internets

Open Mic Tonight

Tomorrow is Armistice Day--the anniversary of the end of World War I--an event which led people to see criminality and barbarism of elective war as a dead end (and sparked the beginning of the American Public Relations Industry, in order to reverse such common sense in the mass media). If you study or work in a school or work in a government office, chances are you don't go in on Friday. Consider staying out late tonight to celebrate the progress of humanity towards a better world.

Could coming to a cafe for a gathering of live performers bring about world peace? Consider: When a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazon, so the theory goes, a hurricane forms somewhere eventually.

The Law of Unforseen Consequences isn't just a good idea--it's the Law.

Example: Unseasonably warm weather preserves foliage on trees late into October.
Then, an early, but heavy, snow in the Northeast
weights the leaves and branches,
which causes limbs and trees to sag and break and fall on powerlines,
which causes more than two million people to be without electric power
giving a lot of song writers extra time in unheated homes to write a bounteous crop of new
songs on acoustic instruments
many which get played at the November 3rd Open Mic:

Noah Schmitt (cello) and Rob Douglas (guitar) play Noah's song "Dish After Dish". An insanely catchy tune written from the perspective of a brilliant rock cellist/dishwasher. Rob later debuted two new songs himself, including "To Think That There is Always Hope," a highlight of the evening which he performed in a characteristically humbly-humorous way, (nearly, but not ultimately) obscuring its (and his) fabulousness.

Felix Harvey plays "Sorry, I Missed the Bus," a song of his so finely made, that once heard, it is that is hard to imagine that there was a time before it existed.

Electric (even during power outages) and talented Laura Titrud, who would headline at the Sofa the next night, unveils a newly-written song, last Thursday.

Your correspondent, and bassist Rob Douglas play a new song Thursday night.


Peace Out
--The Yellow Sofa Open Mic