AcoustiCafe

Open stage night provides the opportunity to enjoy a variety of performers in one sitting. Admittedly, you take your chances regarding what you might hear. But often, you'll be impressed by musicians you otherwise wouldn't have known anything about.

An open stage called AcoustiCafe returns for 2008 on Monday nights at Club Cafe on Pittsburgh's South Side. FYI: "AcoustiCafe is a volunteer promotional organization founded in the late '90s by Pittsburgh songwriters Mark Willson, Jerry Baum and Cherylann Hawk. During its heyday, it sponsored as many as five ongoing open stages, numerous concerts and other special events, and served as a hub of information and support for local and touring musicians. For the last several years, AcoustiCafe has been on hiatus, but January's open stage marks the first phase of the organization's re-emergence." (Thanks to Maree Gallagher for the background info.)

Anyway, the '08 opener was hosted by Pittsburgh musicians Paul Tabachneck, Heather Kropf and Joel Lindsey. I arrived in time for Heather's performance and was glad I did. She is a talented singer-songwriter-keyboard player who came to Washington last summer to play at the Main Street Famers' Market, and I had the opportunity to attend the release party for her CD "What Else Is Love."

Unfortunately, footage of her performance was marred by bad audio; apparently, I had the levels of my sound mixer up too high. I eventually fixed the problem, more or less, and was able to document four performances sufficiently.

I had it fixed for Sean McClorey, whose repertoire includes his 'Song for Sudan,' a commentary on how some of the world’s hunger problems are created by the implementation of certain economic systems. An eye-opening piece, to be sure.

I'd met Peace last summer when she was playing the djembe in accompaniment of her sister, the invigorating Joy Ike. It turns out that Peace is quite the singer, too, as she demonstrated with her original composition 'Walk On By.' (Joy played a bit later in the evening, but I had put the video camera away by then.)


Before I ran out of tape, Joel performed with a bass player, Jim Kurasch, whose regular gig is with the Metropolitans. Joel, a native of Britain, displayed a fine songwriting style with tunes like the swingin' 'Could You Love Me.'

AcoustiCafe was such a hit the first time back out that it will run until 10:30 p.m. every Monday. The starting time is 7.