AllanC, you've hit the nail on the head with your comment about starting folk gatherings. I would like to add a few points.

If you want to start something you have to be willing to work at it through a lot of times when it just doesn't seem like it's gonna go. In the early years of the second coming of the Side Door coffeehouse there were nights when we only had half a dozen people in the audience, all of whom were there to perform the open mike and most of whom went home before the featured performer could go on. In those days we, the staff, would go to the coffehouse ready to perform a whole set in case there were not enough people there to fill up the open mike time.

In the last two years that I worked there things had turned around. We opened the door at 7:00 and the sign up sheet was full by 7:05. We were, and they still are, pulling in 35 to 75 people depending on weather and the featured performer.

And our featured performers used to be anyone who could get close to carrying a tune. Not to put them down or anything for we got some really good songs out of them, but this month's featured performer at the Side Door is Gordon Bok.

The Side Door has been featured in a couple of local newspaper articles which pointed out that it is, or was at the time, the only live music venue in town. Since then there have been imitators, including my own Mocha Cafe, popping up all over the place.

You just got to take the bull by the horns!