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This is from Dana Hudepohl, a writer for MORE magazine:

Do you know a woman in her 40s or 50s who wants to reinvent herself into a singer/songwriter or comedian? To feature in a national women's magazine, I'm looking for women ages 40-59 who want to seriously pursue singing/songwriting or comedy for the first time in their lives. The ideal candidate will have only recently gotten her feet wet in her desired field (maybe she's tried out her talents at an open mic here or there), but should not have achieved too much success yet. She should have a compelling back story of why she wants to make this drastic life change-- more than just "I've always wanted to do it." If chosen to be in the article, we'll hook her up with a celebrity in her fantasy field to review her work and provide some guidance. Please note: We will not be able to consider women who are not in this age range, who are already making a full-time living in one of these fields or who have been pursuing singing/comedy for many years.

Interested candidates should contact Dana at magazinewriter@yahoo.com. Deadline: Monday Sept 28. Thank you!

The Day Job blog ("true stories of real performing artists changing the world, one day job at a time") had some awfully nice things to say about openmikes.org. Erin at Day Job takes a witty, interesting look at the world, from a perspective most of us should find familiar. Go, now, read, subscribe.

Ryan Michael Galloway's "Songwriters, Get Out Of Town" notes that he's doing the Open Mike tour thing, and using the openmikes.org "I'll Be There" feature to do it.

He seems to have left out the link to his profile / upcoming open mike list, so I'll point it out myself: openmikes.org/profile/ryan-michael-galloway.

Check out Jeff Miller's "Acts of Daring" in this week's LA Times Calendar section -- he spent a couple weeks visiting a bunch of area nights and writing up his impressions. Definitely a familiar ring to a lot of these nights, although this one caught my eye...

[At Suzy's in Hermosa Beach...] Regardless of whether he knows the performer, the host sings harmonies from his seat.

Just speaking for myself, but I'd probably want to beat the guy senseless. Just ask first, you know? It's OK if, for a few minutes, attention is not on you.

This is what I get for posting before I've had coffee. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy.

But still, ask.

Over at The Practice Room, there's an excellent piece on Open Mikes -- pretty much the "what, why and how?" article I should have written years ago, but wouldn't have written nearly as well. So it all works out.

Julie Pinsonneault's article in Making Music magazine, "The Other Side of the Mountain", is out now. She looks at open mikes from the point of view of conquering new territory, overcoming fears, etc. I'm quoted briefly at the end:

"I think an open mike is a more forgiving and friendly environment as opposed to paid gigs or contests," said Roub. "There's an understanding that you're not Dave Matthews."

I'm sure that's what I said, although probably in a less-coherent form before editing. Kinda funny example for me to pick, though, as (a) I'm not really a big fan of DMB and (b) is there a more-covered artist at open mikes?

Episode 90 of the MusiciansCast podcast has a nice mention of openmikes.org (although they link to us as openmics.org, which does work :-) Seems like a brief, useful, podcast - info of interest to aspiring indie musicians.

It's actually Dave Wemble of The Indie Bible who mentions the site, and his references to "provinces" reminds me that I really need to update the site to better reflect that we definitely handle Canadian listings, too.

Why are there so few Canadian open mikes listed? Because we don't get that many submissions. Why is that? Because I'm an idiot and haven't done a very good job of letting people know they can submit Canadian nights...