Hey thank you to everyone who participated in the Social Distance Café in 2020. Between performers, live watchers, and viewers of our videos, you number several hundred people.
We had 29 open mics in 2020, featuring about 50 different performers from at least 4 countries and 3 continents (Europe, North America, and Australia). I estimate we performed about 500 – 600 songs plus a comedy routine and some poetry. We had featured concerts including Chromatic Static, Virginia Kathryn, and Jordan Copeland. After starting as private performances, we now stream live on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/socialdistancecafe) and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCttQZHu9M5yp7EWPhcxrx-w) where you can also find many of our performances archived.
A shout-out to my friend Jim Groom at Reclaim Hosting — I asked him “hey, I’m doing this thing, will you support it” and his immediate answer was “Hell yeah”. This web site is provided free by Reclaim and I highly recommend their services if you ever want to create a custom website with the full flexibility of your own domain and open-source software. Please check them out!
The other services that I use to put on each show are, of course, Zoom, as well as restream.io which lets me send the video stream live to Facebook and to YouTube at the same time, and Mailgun which forwards the newsletter, usually with no drama. Fortunately I can afford to pay for these subscriptions out of pocket and not have to ask for support. (Not to mention the several hundred dollars I’ve spent at Sweetwater and Amazon to upgrade my home studio… oh yeah and a new Mac to keep it all running without turning red hot like my first setup!)
When I started this last March, I thought like most people that “social distancing” was a temporary inconvenience and that perhaps by summer we’d have that pesky virus under control and things would be more or less normal. In any case, I’m glad I took the steps to get this going. I didn’t expect we’d be around at the end of 2020, let alone celebrating our anniversary in March 2021, but it’s been a fun ride and I’ve made new friends and built stronger bonds with old ones. And I’ve had the chance to perform about 100 songs live which has been a blast.
Thanks again to all, but especially to Walt and Marlene Ferguson, and Peter Rafle, who have been stalwart participants. I think Walt and Marlene win the attendance badge, missing maybe 2 or 3 of the 29 Open Mics. Pete is not far behind. You have become great friends and I treasure our time together via Zoom until I get to come visit you on the east coast.
Michael Berman
Founder, Social Distance Café
The Place to Go When You Can’t Go Anywhere
Thanks a lot for running these Mike – it’a been fun hearing your songs and doing music together again!
Yeah Mike – It is so great to have these opportunities to do songs I don’t get to do much anymore. Thanks for putting it together.