Jim Novak Songwriter

Here’s the list of first dozen 30-minute programs currently on the youtube channel for “Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor” —

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9NEc1wuphx3tiaBQwvcoXA/about?view_as=subscriber

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1071. Performers in order of appearance: Andres Hernandez, “Love and Nature”; Jim Novak, “Orange Moon” plus a poem by Bertolt Brecht; Jim Eddy, “Homecoming”; Dan Bilich, “Mr Tree”; Tim Reahard, “Remembering the Rain”; and Jim Bouldin, “Pollination Song.”

Songwriters Open Mic 1072. Performers. Dan Meloni plays: “I Die a Little Inside,” “Time of My Life,” and “Save the Best for Last.” Jim Novak plays: “Song for the Civilian Conservation Corps –CCC”; “Center of the Universe” with a poem by Gerard Manly Hopkins, Wildness and Wet; and “Mackinac Nights.”

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1073. Performers in order of appearance: Mary Ann Kirt plays “All Day All Night” and “Long Way”; Jim Eddy plays “Better Job” and “Lick the Sunshine”; Tim Reahard plays “Between the Lines”; Ashley Schuliger, “Bridges and Fences”; and Paul Epstein, “Russian Lilting Gown.”

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1074. Performers, in order of appearance: Sal Schmittou (“Baby Let Me Know”); Jim Novak (“Michigan Central Station”); Jim Eddy (“Wall Street’s Gonna Screw You”); Dan Bilich (“Heather” — unfinished); Paul Epstein (“Ticonderoga”); and Mary Ann Kirt (“Why Do They Lie?”).

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1075. Performers in order of appearance: Jim Novak (“To Ireland” plus a poem by W.B. Yeats); Jim Eddy (“Narcotic Embrace,” plus a poem by S.T. Coleridge); Mary Ann Kirt (“Two People in One”); Dan Meloni (“See My Son Shine”); and Paul Epstein (“Bloodless War”).

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1076. Wolf B. Reuter and Rod Johnson play 3 songs apiece. Wolf: You’ve Been Kind to Me; Another Lonely Fool; and Flying Tonight. Rod: 1961; Last Hours of the Old World; and I Used To Be Blue.

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1077. Performers, in order: Paul Epstein (“Whirley Girl”); Ashley Schuliger (“Into the Gray”); Sal Schmittou (“Friends” and “Ten in the Morning”); Jim Novak “(Shine When Trouble Shakes You”); and Oliver de Peralta (“Improvisation”).

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1078.  Performers in order of appearance: Jim Novak (“Blue Star in the Window,” “Michigan Ave,” and “Dusty Sideroad”); Mary Ann Kirt (“One and Only,” and “A Lifetime Ago); Jim Eddy (“Shock of Recognition”)

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1079. Performers in order of appearance: Jim Eddy (“Visit to the Doctor”), Mary Ann Kirt (“Lies,” Hard Heart”), Dan Meloni (“Hold on to Your Dream,” “Half the Dad”), and Jim Novak (“Atlas”).

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor Number 1080. Performers in order of appearance: Tim Reahard (“Most of All”); Jim Novak (“Barmaids and Waitresses,” paired with the Carl Sandburg poem Love Is It a Cat with Claws); Rod Johnson (“Never Be Warm Again”); Paul Epstein (“Kingdom Come”); Tim Reahard (“Between the Lines”); and Jim Novak (“Center of the Universe,” paired with the G.M. Hopkins poem Spring and Fall To a Young Girl).

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1081. Performers in order of appearance: Jim Novak, “Time to Start Doing Nothing”; Rod Johnson, “When My Baby Comes Around” and “Sing Sweetly”; Sarah Robinson, “When You Feel”; Paul Epstein, “When Adam Sold the Day”; and Tim Reahard, “Un-Intelligent Design.”

Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor 1082. Performers in order of appearance: Tim Reahard, “I Am”; Jim Novak, “Moving Train” (with poem Limited Express by Carl Sandburg); Paul Epstein, “What’s the Matter with Julie?”; Rod Johnson, “35 and 5”, and “Brownian Motion”; and Tim Reahard’s version of Longfellow’s Christmas Bells.

Songwriters Open Mic AA 1055. Richard Daddy Love plays three songs: “Red Dirt in Her Blood,” “Writing This Song,” and “Drinking Just Enough.” Also, three songs from Bryan Elum, with Dan Boyd: “Sign of Life”; “No Idea”; and “Boy Who Cried Love.” (This video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHghDR6Q6xo&t=5s)

The youtube channel for Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor is:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9NEc1wuphx3tiaBQwvcoXA/videos?view_as=subscriber

or

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9NEc1wuphx3tiaBQwvcoXA/about?view_as=subscriber

Jim Novak

jimnovakmusic@gmail.com

YOU-TUBE CHANNEL debuts this week with 10 recent episodes. Each of these 30-minute episodes that “premiered” on Community Television Network during October and November of 2017 are available now on YouTube. The channel is called “Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor.” Shows are numbered and each show has a brief description listing the performers and songs (in order of appearance) for that 30-minute program.

Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnSNqa0v0G-7GJZT0BpvilA

     Two additional shows will be uploaded each week, usually on a Friday, typically with one new show and one from the archives. I’ll post the details in facebook, on the page also called “songwriters open mic ann arbor.”

This new YouTube Channel will be commercial-free and not monetized. Since 1996, my work on open-mic events and tv shows has been not-for-profit and based on particular interests of performing songwriters and music fans, such as: sharing music with friends; inviting feedback on songs, songwriting and performance; celebrating the community of songwriters; and representing the Ann Arbor/Michigan scene on public-access tv stations here and around the State.

The broadcasts on CTN in Ann Arbor (and GRTV in Grand Rapids) are continuing each week. The first broadcast on CTN was in 1996 and on GRTV in 1999. (We’ve been on and ultimately off the air in several other locations, and for a variety of reasons: Indian River and 18 communities south of the Mackinac Bridge; three counties in the Thumb of Michigan; Traverse City; and Manistee.) We’re closing in on 1100 weeks “on the air” in Ann Arbor, so there’s a lot of material.

Jim Novak, Songwriter; Producer / Editor / Host of Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor

Picture: Thumbnail for the Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor Channel, a shot from the back of the performing space at Oz’s Music Store

CTN wins award for its program ABOUT “Songwriters Open Mic” …Community Television Network in Ann Arbor interviewed me for its series on video producers and editors, called Experience CTN. I was asked about the history of the “Songwriters” show and my thoughts about public access tv.

The award is from our region of the Alliance for Community Media, which represents over 950 stations nationally, and the local organizations and individuals (like me) that use “access” tv facilities to reach out via cablecast and internet streaming. CTN received the award at The Philo Festival of Media Arts ceremonies in October. The interview is archived online and available to view anytime at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhPkZjl8ibo

The 20-minute interview was conducted by CTN’s Training and Facility Coordinator, Alysha Schlundt-Bodien. Here’s a photo taken at the tv studio last winter, when Alysha gave me an award from CTN, for twenty years of “Songwriters Open Mic.”

Picture:   Jim Novak and Alysha Schlundt-Bodien at the studios of Community Television Network in Ann Arbor, Michigan

# 1,001 …. #1,002 … In late May, the “Songwriters Open Mic” tv program reached a milestone: 1,000 weeks on the “air” at CTN, Community Television Network, the public access station in Ann Arbor. The first, weekly half-hour episode of the show was broadcast on October 11, 1996. Now, it’s nearly 20 years later, and our 1,0003rd week on CTN is the week of June 17, 2016. (And it’s still fun for me to do it.)

The show has offered the original songs of hundreds of songwriters from the local area, and occasionally from out-state Michigan and out-of-state as well. The monthly “live” open mic, where we videotape the performers, is still going strong on the first Tuesday evening of each month at Oz’s Music Store in Ann Arbor. Occasionally, I also record “on the road,” such as at the Lamb’s Retreat for Songwriters, up in Harbor Springs.

What makes it possible to put all this local music on local tv? It’s called Public Access Television. It’s part of our national law, and one important player in that law was Senator Barry Goldwater –he is partly a hero and partly a villain, so there is something in it for a person of any political persuasion.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-access_television

Suffice it to say that I have a legal right to make tv programs and put them on the local cable tv station. These public access channels are non-commercial and non-curated — although it’s reasonable to say that I do the curating for my shows. But the basic idea is that there’s no Sony and no ABC-Disney and no Viacom influence in what goes on CTN, or any of the hundreds of public access channels around the country. Some channels are hotbeds of political free speech and agit-prop; others routinely broadcast the meetings of their local city councils and commissions and school boards. There are one-off shows and long-running series featuring comedians, preachers, and artists and musicians of all stripes. Local historians, local talk shows and how-to programs. Local not-for-profits explaining who they are and what they want to accomplish. There is such programming all day long on three channels in Ann Arbor: Comcast 16, 17, and 18. (Cable companies pay cities a franchise fee, which enlightened towns like Ann Arbor use to fund the entire cost of CTN, including studios and equipment available to residents, as well as access to the cable “airwaves.”)

My first production for CTN was in the 1980s, a short concert featuring a modern dancer and a jazz saxophone player, both U of M graduates. More recently while doing the Songwriters show, I also made a set of three music videos using baseball footage from my son’s high-school teams. And a lecture on Detroit’s architecture and ongoing revitalization. And a couple short films about non-traditional college students. I’ll do more. As the Wikipedia article points out, the look and feel and “production values” of the shows on commercial TV and on PBS are superior to most of what is on public access, and certainly superior to my work as a non-professional; but I insist on good quality audio, and other than that, I feature the local angle on creative work and play.

Public access tv is readily extended these days from the local cable hook-up to the internet via live-streaming –which CTN currently provides for the Songwriters shows — and Youtube, Vimeo and innumerable other video possibilities on the web. My modern-dance program was shot on ¾ inch tape, and available only to local cable subscribers, way back when Senator Al Gore was just dreaming about the internet (and writing legislation and pushing for funding.) Lots of changes in the technology. You might not find too many occasions when Goldwater and Gore are linked as collaborators, but I see a deeply shared sympathy they had for the idea of “access” — via tv and/or the internet — to widen the active participation of citizens –that’s everybody — in educational, governmental, and cultural activities. In context, 1000-plus weeks of the Songwriters show is simply what Goldwater and Gore had in mind. Maybe Gore will take credit for inventing “Songwriters Open Mic”? I’m OK with that.

“It is time to reinvent the Internet for all of us to make it more robust and much more accessible and use it to reinvigorate our democracy.” (Al Gore, 2005)

Jim Novak
jimnovakmusic@gmail.com

“Songwriters Open Mic” is a live monthly event, on the first Tuesday of each month, at 7:30.  The location, pictured here, is Oz’s Music Store, at 1922 Packard Road in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Since 1996, this is an acoustic open mic where musicians perform their songs and talk about them as well.  Performances are videotaped and edited into half-hour tv programs seen on public-access stations in Ann Arbor, and in Grand Rapids; the Ann Arbor broadcast is also live-streamed on the internet, so you can watch the “broadcast” from any computer. The times, performers, and the URL for the live-stream etc are available at the Facebook page for Songwriters Open Mic Ann Arbor.

at the april 2009 open mic just completed, our audience included:

a high school-er who came with her dad and had to leave early because it was “a school night;”

speaking of school, a UM grad student (in engineering) who uses songwriting as her creative outlet and escape from the grinding commitments of the next few years;

speaking of engineering, a retired engineer, probably age 50-something, all of his 3 songs were in 3/4 time or 6/8 time—which of course he knew and the rest of us noticed;

a women who had changed her stage name from when she last came in, two months ago (only I knew about that)—great voice, unusual guitar style;

another 50-something fellow with 5 CDs for sale and a web site and all of that, and a fine guitar player, whose songs were all sort of jokey-country-ish, and later I overheard him in animated conversation with another guy, a terrific piano player who usually works with a band,  about the relative merits of the first and third albums of Led Zeppelin, which are a complete mystery to me;

…and more… but what stands out for me is the range of styles and ages and experience levels, and they come to this acoustic open mic for songwriters, in a small space in an Ann-Arbor music store after hours, and this has been happening for a dozen years and it’s wildly various but very interesting to watch this all go by, and contribute my 3-song set, and realize, once in a while, why I keep at it.

(Jim Novak)

If you’re into “folk music” and singer-songwriters, lots of fans of a certain age shared a tears-of-joy moment, watching the Pre-Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, when Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sang “This Land Is Your Land,” using the original 1944 lyrics, per Pete’s specifications. It was an outdoor sing-along for several hundred thousand. (HBO has apparently been trying to take down the Youtube videos of this; try http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/pete_seeger_bruce_springsteen_this_land_is_your_land/  At the Inauguration there was the quartet with Yo-Yo Ma, playing an interesting (although pre-recorded) composition that incorporated the tune “Tis the Gift To Be Simple.”  (I’m still upset at the CNN blabbermouths who felt they had to talk over the performance.)

It was great to see some talented Detroiters front and center at the festivities in DC, since the car executives didn’t exactly light things up when they had the stage down there twice in the past few months. Stevie Wonder sang at the Lincoln Memorial and at the Neighborhood Ball, and Aretha Franklin at the Inaugural.  The announcers said that The First Lady of Soul was the third First Lady on the platform:  Michelle, Laura, and Sister Ree.

MOTOWN – the record company – marks its 50th anniversary this month.  Berry Gordy tried to sign Aretha when she turned 18 and the company was one year old, but she went to Columbia, and then became really successful after moving to Atlantic and teaming with Jerry Wexler.  Stevie, on the other hand, signed with Motown at age 12 in 1962, broke away for a year or so when he turned 21, but when he came back he had the authority to produce his own records.  Then came the period of all those extraordinary albums, which were not unnoticed by a young Barack Obama.  The President once said “When I was just at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie Wonder had that run with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Innervisions, and then Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we’ve ever seen.”

Performing Songwriter magazine (www.performingsongwriter.com) profiles the Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland this issue, as its tribute to the anniversary.  Those three guys wrote dozens of hits for the Temptations and the Supremes and Four Tops and Marvin Gaye, among others.  (I remember looking for their names on the labels of 45’s in the stores and in the juke boxes.)  For H-D-H, despite a horrible split-up with Motown and a long legal battle with Barry Gordy, it seems like their memories of the golden days are good ones. Check out this list of their better-known songs
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland-Dozier-Holland).

The Motown building on West Grand Boulevard must have been the Detroit version of the Brill Building.  People talk about the use of bass and drums, and the voicings of chords, and the Funk Brothers, and the echo-y hallways and bathrooms where they recorded in that big old house — but I think Smokey Robinson had it right, when he said “Listen, the Motown sound to me is not an audible sound. It’s spiritual, and it comes from the people that make it happen.”

Growing up with that great music, I prefer to think I was moved, time and time again, and am still moved to this day by songs like Tears of a Clown, not by production techniques alone, but by something spiritual—a spirit within my hometown.  And the Motown I loved was embraced around the country and around the world. Self-identity through music? “This land was made for you and me,” indeed.

“Songwriters Open Mic” (SOM) is a monthly show held at Oz’s Music Environment in Ann Arbor (www.ozmusic.com ).  Half-hour videotapes of the live show are broadcast every week in Ann Arbor (www. a2ctn.org) and in Grand Rapids (www.grcmc.org/tv/)  I host the open mic and edit the tv show.  More about that some other time.

2008 was another wonderful, fun year for Songwriters Open Mic.  Here in no particular order – or perhaps in some subconscious order you can fathom – are Jim Novak’s Favorite Performances of 2008.  These are my favorites – not really “best of,” except in a subjective sense.  After all, when I edit these performances I get to watch and listen over and over and over again.  So, after what I guess you could call repeated exposure, here are my fav’s, limited to one per songwriter.  This is how I remember SOM2008.

Dan Cooper, The Real Thing
(Dan is a Broadway pro and is starring as Che in “Evita” at The Encore Theater in Dexter, Michigan, in February, 2009; (www.theencoretheatre.org/)

Laurel Federbush, Opportunity Knocks
(Laurel on harp and vocal, lyrics by Robert Ponte)

Paul Epstein, Ain’t No Love in This World No More
(Paul passionately pounding the piano)

The Hummingbirds, Washtenaw (www.thehummingbirds.com )
(S.G. and Rachel Lynn came in to talk up their songwriters’ workshop in the U.P.)

The Kronic Vibes, You Turn Me to Stone (www.myspace.com/thekronicvibes)
(Great bunch of guys—they booked Oz’s for a rehearsal during my open mic, but we worked it out)

Dave Morse, My Eyes Don’t Lie
(He took a phrase of his daughter’s and added great chords and rhythm)

Hunter Wade, Baseball Song (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=71734679 )
(A gay guy with a certain attraction to The Game)

Chad Williams, December
(A song just like Melville’s “damp drizzly November in my soul”)

David Alles, Alchemy
(David was in law school here, then moved back East)

Kurt Ringquist, Did We Go Where
(Kurt’s in the media biz, also has moved back East)

Taya Lee, Grasshopper
(Taya used to live down the street from me, in the big old house where they had drum parties on the Summer Solstice etc)

Cristian Cirosca, Sincere Stranger
(Recent immigrant to Ann Arbor, from Rumania)

“T”, Tattoo Psychosis
(Immigrant from Beatnik-land and Lord Buckley)

Gary Taylor, Good Trouble
(Also wrote a whole suite of broken-hearted country songs)

Ruth Salles, Big Poppa
(That voice and that song go so well together)

Jack Richards, Southern Country Traveling
(Jack got a new guitar this year!)

“Brooke”, Letters from 1881
(She did a couple funny songs, and then this one based on love letters written over 100 years ago)

That’s it—Jim Novak’s SOM Favorites of 2008.

Later this year, I’ll add some photo’s of these SOM performers to this site.

If you were at the shows, or watched the performances on TV, let me know if you like my favorites or if your favorites are different from mine.

Next Songwriters Open Mic live show:  the first Tuesday of every month at 7:30pm.  Songwriters can do 3 songs or 15 minutes.

Next tv show: every Tuesday at 8pm and Thursday at 4 pm, Channel 17, Ann Arbor (Comcast Cable).

As the 12th of January nears, I like to play a song by Michael Smith (http://www.artistsofnote.com/michael/) called “The Ballad of Dan Moody.”  Some know it as “Roving Cowboy.”  Three cowboys rob a train on the 12th of January, which is described as “such a cold and a bitter time.”  This is a song as dramatic, and cinematic, as any folk song I can think of.  Chuck Mitchell (www.mitchellsong.com) has done a riveting version of it in concert, calling it a song about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.  A rodeo chum of the three cowboys tries to keep them on the straight and narrow, but ultimately there is a terrible tragedy. Accompanying the sheet music for this song, in Michael’s book “Songs from Bird Avenue,” where Michael has the song in F, but I play it in G, there’s a photo of a little kid playing cowboy and shooting a couple of toy six-guns.  Been there!