THEY STILL GIVE A HOOT AT OLD TIME CAFE

Two of the Plankton Brothers were late, and Mark Holland, who was supposed to go on second, didn’t show up at all.

Other than that, the 338th Hoot Night at the Old Time Cafe--a musical free-for-all that has been a Tuesday night tradition since the cafe opened nearly seven years ago--was just like the other 337.

Nine different solo artists, duos and bands were given 15 minutes each to perform a potpourri of folk, blues and country standards and originals.

They sang songs that, in most cases, told stories. They strummed, picked and plucked melodies and rhythms on the guitar, the fiddle, the mandolin and the dulcimer. They tapped out the beat.

Professionals like Andy Gallaher, Kate O’Malley and the Plankton Brothers took time out from their regular engagements to try out new songs or simply have some fun.

Hoot Night regulars like Joyce Woodson and Jeff Twigg, treading that fine line between amateur and professional, wanted to play one more time in front of their friends and fellow musicians before they start looking for paying gigs.

And, as so often happens, a pair of blushing newcomers--the vocal duo of Adrienne McEachern and Dan Dubin--stole the hearts of the audience in their first-ever public appearance.

A few minutes before their set, they were nervous. Very nervous.

“We’ve never done this before,” McEachern whispered.

“We’ve been thinking of doing this for a while, and tonight we just sort of decided we were ready,” Dubin added.

The two met in the physics department of the UC San Diego, where McEachern, 28, is a student, and Dubin, 29, is a physicist.

They started singing and playing guitar together in February, and since then have never ventured out of each other’s living rooms to play--until that night.

When the big moment finally came, they were even more nervous. Midway through their opening number, Jerry Jeff Walker’s “L.A. Freeways,” McEachern stumbled over the lyrics and her face turned cherry red.

She quickly regained her composure, however, and the two managed to finish the song flawlessly--although the entire time Dubin’s eyes were turned toward the ceiling and McEachern’s were closed.

But when the crowd of about 50 people--a full house at the tiny Old Time Cafe--erupted into a raucous fit of clapping and foot-stomping, the two performers smiled with relief.

By the time they had finished their two remaining songs, Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans” and Stan Rogers’ “White Squaw,” they were gleaming with pride--although, as Dubin later confided, they were still as nervous as before they took they stage.

“Now that we’ve finally done it, we’re going to go up there again,” he said. “But more than anything else, I feel relieved.”

McEachern, the redness returning to her face, could only giggle and say: “I’m shell-shocked, I guess.”

Bill Goldsmith, co-owner of the Old Time Cafe with his wife, Pearl Wolfe, said that, while the term Hoot Night originated during the Greenwich Village folk scene of the late 1950s and early ‘60s, the actual idea is as old as music itself.

“People have always gotten together to play music in their living rooms,” Goldsmith said, “and this is just somewhat of a commercial extension of that.”

Goldsmith, 45, said he thinks his weekly Hoot Nights are an important factor in San Diego’s music scene--particularly as a launching pad for acoustic musicians outside the commercial Top 40 bar circuit.

“It’s like amateur night at the Comedy Store, or a farm club for a major-league baseball team,” he said. “Big performers have to come from somewhere, and Hoot Night gives them the chance to get some experience, playing in public, before they attempt something bigger.”

Each Tuesday at 5:30, Wolfe said, she writes down the names “of anyone who comes in and wants to play.” Musicians--generally an even mix of professionals and amateurs--are given 15 minutes each in the spotlight. As soon as 12 have signed up, the list is closed.

“Leucadia is not a late-night town, especially on a weeknight,” said Wolfe, 34. “So we try to start at 8 and finish by 10:30 p.m.; otherwise, we’d have no one here at the end and the last performer would be playing only for himself and us.”

Despite this regimentation, Wolfe added, each Hoot Night is unpredictable because few of the acts are screened.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” Wolfe said. “We’ve had one guy who told us he was going to play the Spanish bagpipes, and he turned out to be great.

“Then, another time, a guy came in and said he wanted to bring a dog with him on stage to sing a duet. We drew the line there--but for the most part, anything goes.

“The thing about a Hoot Night performance is that there’s no telling where it will lead--maybe nowhere, or maybe into someone becoming the next Joan Baez.”