POP MUSIC : Monday Nights at the Bluebird: Sad Note Cafe

With a million dollar spirit

And an old flat-top guitar

They drive to town with all they own

In a $100 car.

--From “16th Avenue”

There are so many songwriters wanting a spot on the Bluebird Cafe’s Sunday night talent show, the city’s key showcase, that the waiting list already reaches into June.

But it’s first come, first served on Monday nights at the Bluebird’s “open mike” show, and the room is crowded most weeks by 7 p.m. Each singer gets to do two songs, but there’s no guarantee anyone is listening.

You’d think the writers would be sensitive enough to be quiet during each other’s turn on stage, but it’s not the case. Explained one Bluebird regular, “A lot of these people spend all week alone, trying to write songs, so when they get here they want to talk to someone.”

Bluebird owner Amy Kurland, 32, estimates between 1,500 and 2,000 songwriters a year come through the club. “There’s a lot of heartbreak and a lot of joy up in that room,” she said, sitting behind the cluttered desk in her downstairs office. “You’ll see a lot of people for a couple of weeks and then they just kinda give up and go back home.

“The saddest ones, though, are the ones who come in week after week and do the same song. I remember one woman who did that and one night she said to me, ‘Well, if this one doesn’t make it, I guess I’ll have to write another one.’ That was sad because she’s never going to make it that way. You’ve got to keep writing, writing, writing.”

Bluebird bartender Mark Erwin, 28, has not only seen a lot of the heartbreak and joy, he has lived it. Erwin, who wears a beard and short-cropped hair, tried peddling his songs around New York City, but there wasn’t much interest in country music up north. So, he headed here with a $1,200 nest-egg and what he thought was a solid batch of tunes.

Everything looked great at first. He found a place to stay the second day in town and got a job a few days later tending bar at the Bluebird. Soon he was on stage, getting warm applause for one of his songs.

That was 2 1/2 years ago--and Erwin still hasn’t gotten anyone to record one of his songs, though a couple of singers have tunes now on “hold.”

“I go through periods where I get real worried about my future, but then someone will come up and say they really like my songs and that helps,” Erwin said, during a break from behind the bar. “I am at an age now where I have been thinking about my future a lot.”

As another singer took a turn behind the microphone, Erwin added, “Every time someone steps on stage, it is like seeing myself. People hear about all the so-called ‘overnight successes’ and they come here expecting to take the town by storm. But that’s not the way it works. You measure progress in inches here. No matter how good you think your songs are when you get to town, you’ve got to be prepared to run into people 10 times better than you. It’s up to you, then. Either you try to improve or you give up.”