A Stranger With A Large Instrument Walks Into A Bar...

Last night I bid the people I am living with farewell for the evening, feeling like a teenager of the youngest teenage parents ever. I drive down the driveway, realize that this is the first time I have left the house at night, and head into town to the Summit City Lounge, Whitesburg's bar for open mic night.

I had no idea what to expect. I brought my bass thinking that maybe I would be able to con someone into letting me play with them. I pulled into the fairly empty community parking lot behind the bar and started to unload my bass. My "I am a female carrying a large instrument" senses kicked in and I thought about how I had managed to keep most of my faith in humanity over the course of 20 years, and how I didn't want to lose it all because I got mugged in a small-town parking lot. Then a tall figure approached me.

Okay, so I didn't get mugged. This guy came up to me and offered to carry my bass. People who know me well know that I hate it when men try to help me with my bass. But I have softened over the years, because I want to still be able to use my back when I am 60, and it makes other people feel helpful to help. Even so, allowing a complete stranger to carry my bass up the steps into a bar in a strange town where I didn't know anybody was a huge stretch for me.

The bar was pretty empty. I got there around 8, when the open mic was supposed to start, but there were only 3 or 4 other people there. I started talking to the guy who carried my bass, and another guy who the person that I live with told me to find. We mostly talked music, and I agreed to back him up on bass while he played some banjo songs.

It was so nice to just sit down and talk to and play music with someone else close to my age who actually understands what old time music is. While I love educating people at Oberlin about old time music, it gets tiring, especially when all they want to play is "Country Roads" and "Wagon Wheel." Not that those aren't great songs, but I just want to play fiddle and banjo music, not sentimental traveling songs that bring me back to summer camp and high school parties. Plus my old time music experience is pretty limited to WV tunes, and while KY tunes are similar, there are so many people and songs that I haven't heard of. I learned a new tune Morgan's March and a pretty cool story about it too, all in the course of 10 minutes.

The open mic aspect was really relaxed, mostly because there weren't that many musicians there, but also because this is participatory music. We played a few songs, then an older guitar player went on. I stayed for a while and talked to his wife, a school teacher in the school system. I made friends with the bartender, and met a whole bunch of people. Can I just say that I love small towns? A lot of people had heard that I was interning at Appalshop, a few people had heard that I was coming to the open mic, and from the moment I stepped out of my car, I felt like people were looking out for me. I was offered drinks (duh), cigarettes, blankets, shopping, and men advice. Other people might have found the attention I have been getting simply because I am new in town creepy, or intrusive, but it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside (and let me clarify that most of this has not been guy flirting at the bar kind of attention).

Going to a bar by yourself where you don't expect to know anyone to play music on a stage before you are 21 when you've grown up in an even smaller town is scary, as is parking in nearly empty parking lots, but I was safe because I was going to a bar by myself to play music on a stage in this town. And I think the experience helped me gain a little more faith in humanity.