Shannon Lee live on Local Music Somwhere with lessons from an open mic

Q & A with Shannon Lee

Welcome to Local Music Somewhere here on rBeatz.com. I am Terry Hudson, your host. I’m an author, speaker, and music industry coach and rBeatz host. Today in my studio, we have a very special guest. This guest is, I would say, a Renaissance woman. She is a singer, songwriter. She is an event curator known for, and I would say not only known, but just beloved for her Shannon’s Jam Open Mics. She’s also been a mentor for a lot of people. She’s a great collaborator with artists. She even unintentionally developed a TV star, which we’ll talk about later on in the program.

Welcome to our meets, Shannon Lee. 

Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

Oh, I finally got you here. 

I know, I’m excited. 

I’ve just known you for so long and people in the Charlotte region, especially just love you. I talked about you doing the opening mics, but you were an innovator at that COVID era. You were the first one, at least in this region, that actually took the open mic virtual. 

Yeah, we did it. I think everything shut down on like March 17th or something like that that year. And we did the first open mic on the 24th. And I thought we’d only do it like once a month. We did it three times a week for almost 18 months. And we did 195 of them.

Yeah, and you kept a lot of people’s hopes alive. I mean, really, it can’t be understated. That was a dismal time. 

It was. 

And, you know, musicians, they just felt lost and it’s like you brought a ray of hope in that situation.

It was really something, and it was good on a lot of levels. People started learning new instruments. People did a lot of writing. People learned how to use their technology. I can’t count how many people their first live stream was sideways. And then within a few months, they were using all the stuff with the words underneath, and they had sets and everything. And it even hopped overseas. We had quite a bunch of people over in Europe that they would come and do ours, and we would do theirs and all over the country and we could keep an eye on each other. You know, you see somebody on screen and they look a little rough. You can give them a call and say, hey, are you okay? You know, are you all right? And so we were able to keep an eye on each other. So it was good for me too ’cause I went from six days a week to nothing.

Oh, wow, and that’s a big part of your likeability factor is how you check on that community you’ve created. When I first met you, you were the lead singer of a band called Tantrum, which is many many years ago. The rock singer on stage and I think you either called or texted me one day and told me you were going solo and that was before singer songwriters were doing a lot. I’m thinking is this the right move for her and you didn’t just become a singer or songwriter solo artist, you changed that into a whole different thing, how did that evolve for you? 

Well, first off, I loved that band. A lot of my experience before I got to Charlotte was in rock bands, and so it was really fun. But I had the CD coming out, and I was doing a lot of acoustic shows already, and I just didn’t think it was fair for the band. We were booking more than the band was and I didn’t think it was fair for all the other guys in the band to be doing all that work and not playing. So I just, and I wanted to concentrate on the CD and all of that. So that’s how that came about. 

And your CD was Crystal Butterfly? 

Yes. 

So we want to give that plug here and where can they find this? 

You can find it on all the streaming services. I do have a beef with Spotify right now because they think that I’m Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, our music is all commingled right now. So I have to deal with that, but it is on there. If you look up Shannon Lee, Crystal Butterfly, it’s on there, and it’s 10 years old. So it’s time for me to probably start doing some new stuff.

Is your distributor helping you fight that a little bit?

Yeah, I’m sure they will. I’ve just been so busy that my manager, ME, has dropped the ball. But I do need to get that done. But it’s up there. 

We can talk a little more about that off the air. You were talking about this with the virtual open mics. You not even just proponent, you want to encourage people to learn an instrument. You know, it’s like, just start, which you know, something I talk about all the time. Your first thing’s not gonna be a masterpiece, but without your first thing, you will never have a masterpiece. So just get something started. And you were doing that, you know, with actually learning an instrument. And I saw a lot of people, because of that, start playing instruments. And you know, now it’s been what, a few years later, and people can actually play their instrument. 

Yes. 

So how did you get started?

Well, so my mom bought a piano when I was little and I just started taking piano lessons. That’s the instrument that was in the house. So I started piano lessons when I was about five and my parents bought me a record player when I was eight and I just started singing. It just kind of evolved through church and musical theater and choir and then on into college as a vocal performance major and just anywhere I could go.

Who were some of the people that you loved as far as performers? 

Well, Dolly Parton. I’m obsessed with Dolly. My dog’s name is Dolly. I was born on Dolly Barton’s birthday. So I love Dolly Parton. I like Carol King. Currently, I really like Patty Griffin. And I just saw Alanis Morissette and Joan Jet. 

Yeah, my daughter was at that show.

Yeah. And I was just so inspired to see these two women. Joan back in the 80s and Alanís, they were the ones that just broke through and said I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do and I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say and if you don’t like it, too bad. They opened doors for all the rest of us that came along. It’s really strong women like that. The moment I knew I wanted to be a musician was when my dad took me to a Hank Williams Junior concert. 

Oh, wow.

I was the kid in the crowd where he dismissed his band and it was just him up there with an acoustic guitar and I just remember looking at my dad and saying I want to do that.

Another person that’s spoken their mind and just crashed into the industry.

Yeah, so I was very fortunate my parents were really supportive and I got to do all the cool things. 

Well, so how did this thing evolve into you going from the band to in being a soloist and then coming up with how you were doing the open mic? 

Well, I stumbled into that. So in Gastonia at Freemans years ago, they had OSN original songwriter night. I started going to that and then I started helping with the sound on that. And I used to go to open mics in Detroit. In fact, that’s how I got in my band in Detroit is they saw me sing there and asked me, they needed a singer for a temporary. They’re like, “You ever been in a rock band?” And I lied, “Sure, I can do it.” I’m coming off of an opera career, you know, but so I think that open mics just provide opportunity. I was working at Divine Wine and and Terry Miller he needed a host and I thought well this is little money in my pocket every week. We’ll see how it goes how hard can it be? That was on Tuesday nights and that has evolved to we have our nine -year anniversary coming up. We went from Divine Wine to Mucci’s to online and now we’re at Z’s Tavern. So I just kind of got thrown into it that led to me learn how to run sound, led to me being a little better managing people, so it wasn’t anything that I planned it just evolved kind of on its own. 

And with that, you even have a title now. Shannon’s Jam, everybody knows that. Where are you holding them now?

Every other Tuesday at Z’s Tavern. So, we’ll be there in two weeks for the ninth anniversary party. And then we do every Wednesday at Great Wagon Road in Noda, which that open mic was going before I came along. They just needed a new host, but I love that open mic. It’s really special. 

Well, that’s a great area. 

It’s really special. They already had it established before I got there. Mostly original, a really great group of people. So that’s every Wednesday. 

Okay.

And then every other Thursday, we’re at the Great Wagon Road in Waxaw, which evolved from Dream Chasers. 

And your open mics are online as well, don’t you live stream them? 

I live stream them. 

Okay. 

Yes. 

And people can find that.

On Shannon Lee Music on Facebook. 

Okay, okay. 

Yep, I live stream on Facebook. 

Yeah, and that’s the thing about the internet. You know, we learned a lot more about it, obviously in COVID, but industry people had been working with. They’ve been doing movie soundtracks and projects and everything with collaborations over the web for so long, but, and just COVID, you know, when that came along, it really thrust it into the spotlight. Even QR codes, you know, I was putting QR codes on albums many years ago, and nobody will scanning those QR codes. Nobody knew what it was. 

Now everybody does it. 

Yeah, I thought it’d be a great thing they just scan the album, get the poster, you know, go to the website. 

It was just starting to take hold before COVID where we were all starting to put them on our business cards and all of that. But people learned how to pay for things online during COVID. So now as entertainers, we really took a hit with nobody carries So, you know, the tip jar was never very full, but now you just throw your QR code up there and everybody has learned how to use it. And so it’s been a good thing. 

Yeah, it has been. And artists, you know, they need to have that stand or that poster near their stage, something with that on it. I’m still surprised at how many I see that do not have that when they’re doing their concerts. But your open mics have started so many people. It’s not just that, you that established people come and play, ’cause they do. I mean, you’ve had some real area legends that come through in our main stage with what you do. Well, I guess we shout at one, we gotta shout at everybody. So, but you know who you are, ’cause you’re always there. 

There’s a lot of ’em. 

Yeah, and I’ve even seen a couple of those guys that went from just open mics to doing their own shows and finally getting their project out. They finally did recordings and put things out.

That’s one of the exciting things about doing it and again It’s another thing that I just you know, I never saw coming, but now that we’ve been doing it or I’ve been doing it for over ten years on my own, we’ve had young people. Holden Scott is a perfect example. 

I’m a fan of that band. 

He started coming out just him and we were like who’s this kid? You know, who’s this kid? I don’t even think he realized how good he was. Then he was bringing out, you know, a couple other people. And now we know Modern Alibi has taken off. 

And those guys are very business astute. I use them as an example all the time of somebody that does it the right way. They’re not overexposed. They can sell tickets. They do so well online. They do great with streaming. They know what they’re doing. 

And I think Holden’s parents are a really good example of how important it is to have parental support. They support everything that he’s done. And they let him, if I ever had to talk to anybody about him doing a spotlight or whatever, I talked directly to Holden. I didn’t talk to his parents. So they allow him to do his own thing, but they’re there to like you know bumpers at the bowling alley they’re there they’re there they’re there to guide yeah and I guide him and I just I think that that they’re a great example of of exactly how to support your kid. 

Yeah and I have I’ve seen those stage parents. I’ve been with them on auditions for TV shows and stuff and they basically corrupt the whole thing. It’s probably controversial to say but it’s like the artist can’t move the audition, it takes too long. The producers with the big shows that you see on TV, they’re looking at me like what is this? 

A parent that can’t let their kid do the thing and gets in the way. They’re gonna pick a different kid. They’re gonna not work with that kid if the parents are a pain in the neck. I see it a lot. I’ve never had to deal with pain in the neck parents, all the feelings that come out. 

That’s good to hear.

Braden Howell is another one that’s come, it’s up and coming. 

Okay, that name I don’t know. 

Yeah, keep an eye out for him. He does a lot of old country stuff and he’s been playing in Nashville. He’s picked up an original from my friend Jim Penae, which is really good. They were out last night. He’s got a duo partner now and they’re writing. So now he’s writing. So I’ve got another one that’s kind of like coming up. But that whole thing about like learning to play an instrument, we’ve had a lot of kids that come out and they sing to tracks when they first get there. And I’ll say, you know, you should pick up a ukulele or maybe learn to play the piano or something, be self -sufficient. I think that it’s very important to be self -contained and self -sufficient so that if you’re a singer, you don’t always have to hire a guitar player. You don’t always have to have somebody there. And it doesn’t take a lot to get started. You only have to be able to do enough so that you can showcase your voice and then you work on that skill as you go.

That’s such great advice. 

And I’ve seen several young people do that. It’s so exciting to watch them grow.

Well, you know open mics in general they it’s like a a life lesson, especially if you’re trying to be an artist because the first thing it gives you is experience. In order to get that experience, you have to know this is a thing that you want to do and It lets you know pretty quick if you really feel this in your soul or you just want to do this just so you can get girls or, you know, whatever the motivation is, money, whatever. And when you go there, you are in front of that audience. And part of, and I know you’re a big proponent of this, is finding your call, knowing what that is, listening to that voice and going. That’s where you discover that voice. 

I think everybody needs to find the thing that that sparks them and you don’t have to you don’t have to do it for money you don’t have to do it for a job we focus on that I think way more than we should in in America. Everything is how can you monetize this? How can you make money? It’s great if you can do something you really really really really really love and it’s your passion as a job. It’s great if you can do that, but it’s okay if you have a job that you dig and then you make enough money to fund the passionate thing. And ’cause sometimes having your passion be your job also turns it into a job. And then you– 

Oh, it definitely turns it into a job, yeah. 

It loses its shine. So I think everybody just kind of has to figure that out and they need to know that it’s okay if you’re not. I have tons of people that they just wanna come out and play for an audience once in a while, test out their songs, they don’t want the responsibility of the business, they don’t care if they make money, and that’s okay.

Yeah, because if you’re not that person, the industry is a trap for you. 

Yeah, it’ll eat you up, and it will kill your self -confidence, ’cause you get told no, and you get criticized so much. So I just think that we need to let people know it’s okay to figure out your own path. There is no set path for everybody. And sometimes artists and musicians can get so stuck in the way that they do things that they can’t see that. It’s a new era. You know, everybody gets to do what they want and there’s room for everybody.

It’s true. Absolutely, it also provides exposure. I know with musicians, exposure can be a bad word because they’ve been ripped off so many times for exposure.

This is a different kind of exposure. This is sharing your gift and is developing that gift in front of people. You know, these big comedians that you see have these Netflix specials. They don’t just come up with those jokes on the spot for that Netflix special. They’ll show up for open mics and little gigs and have a, like Chris Rock carries, you know, famously a legal pad and he’ll rattle off those jokes. When I was in wrestling, we had a thing called ring time where you would try out stuff in small towns and make sure it worked or how the audience would react. So when you get, you know, to do something bigger then you got that down before you get there. And that’s a big thing with open mics. You get to develop. 

It is, you develop new songs. You test things out. You get to talk to people. It’s great. It’s I just can’t think of anything bad about it. It’s just wonderful. 

That exposure also helps you when you’re in front of people see that it’s about the people. It’s not always know your your song, you got to get in your note. We learned that again and wrestling, I know it seems to be a crazy part of my life compared to things I do, but there were always these guys who were like “I didn’t get to do my move”. You know, their one move that they wanted to do, they didn’t get to do that in the matches. It’s not about your one move, the audience paid to get their money and what was the best show? You learn that similar thing here. It’s not just about your one song or that one great lick that you thought you were going to get in. It was going to make you shine one night. You know, it’s over time you’re building fans that love you and they, like Holden, you know, they followed him to the next thing and they kept following it, built the audience, but it started there. Him understanding, having an idea that, Hey, this is about the audience. Let’s make it about them. 

We had a guy out last night who, he tried a song and it was a great song for him to sing. He just got a little lost on the guitar and and then when he came off the stage I was like listen you got to stick with that song that song is a great song for you You just need to play it in front of people now that threw you off a little bit, you know And it was a great place for him to learn. Okay, I need to I need to work on this a little bit more It’s and if you’re at a paid gig and you do that Sometimes that can, you know, not be great. Sometimes you can make fun of yourself and it’s hilarious and it’s, you know, nobody dies, so it’s fine. 

You’ve got to be that person with that humor. Now with you, not only, we were talking about, you know, you get to try things out and you get that feedback, but he got to have that feedback from YOU. Somebody that has experienced it and there are other people on your, you know, your programs that are very experienced and they can say, “Hey, just work on this and work on that and I always have felt two things. This can be cliched sometimes, but it’s true. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. That’s one thing. The other thing is you will only your dream will only be as big as the circle you’re in. If you keep your circle small and don’t allow any outside feedback or networking or anything like that, your dreams remain small. But with an open mic, it’s such a community and you’re in there and you’re playing with experienced people. You’re playing with new people that are coming onto you also this is to me something I saw was very important. You can tell the people that will excel after the open mic because they’re the ones that cheer on the other players. They don’t have that scarcity mentality that you see sometimes. I mean, even open mics, you see that scarcity mentality. I want to come in I want I wanna show off my thing, I wanna make it about me, and then I pack up my gear and leave. 

And there are events where that attitude works great. At our events, those folks don’t tend to stick around. I’m thrilled that everybody’s there. So whether you’re new, whether you’ve been doing it a hundred years, everybody gets kind of like the same. We’re just glad that everybody’s there. There are people that will come in and they think that we’re just a little podunk operation and maybe we are, I don’t know, but we’re happy to have them. They’re lucky to have us there, too and if there are people that I’ve seen and their egos don’t get stroked or they don’t get put on early enough or whatever, they just they just weed themselves out. Then they just don’t come back. 

And they don’t make much beyond that because that attitude carries over. I see a better attitude lately in a lot of musicians.

I think that we are in a wonderful age of music. There’s different opinions on that, but I think it’s really exciting. I’m seeing a different attitude from younger younger people, they have a lust for life that doesn’t revolve around, “I got to have a better car than my parents did, I got to make more money than my parents did, I got to have a bigger house, I got to work, work, work, work, work, work, work.” They’re willing to work for what they want to do, but they value the experience in life. And so another generation sees that as them being lazy. I see them as figuring out young that it’s not all about putting in an 80 -hour work week and then not getting to spend any time in this beautiful house that you built. And I love the fact that these young people come out, they sit, they talk with each other, they’ve got their notebooks out, they’re writing. It’s exciting and they’re taking advantage of the technology that’s out there. Did you go to the Love and Life Festival? 

I did not. I wasn’t in town then, I was out of town. 

We went to All Three Days. 

It looked so great. 

It was fantastic. I mean, there was the classics there. There was Stevie Nicks and The Beach Boys. And those, they were fabulous. But all these young bands, all these local bands, and they were all great. They were putting on a good show. They were having a good time. They were so thankful and appreciative for the opportunity, the whole energy—-

And they once showed us some side stage of the local artists. They were like right there in front of all these people. 

They were right there, they were walking around. And then the crowd. I’ve been to a lot of festivals in my life. And this was the most well -behaved, polite, nice. It was just absolutely pleasant. And we were the older people there. And so I was looking around and I’m going, this is great. This generation is going to do wonderful things if they can maintain this idea of life. 

This is something I saw in church, that is another thing that works with open mics. I’ve been to churches where the older people don’t talk to the younger people. Younger people don’t talk to the older people and they consider they don’t know what they’re doing and the older people like those crazy people coming in, you know, it gets like that. And that was never the intention of church, period. The same thing with open mics. When you have some musicians that think “oh well these kids today, they don’t know what this kind of work is” and these younger guys are like that if they don’t understand that you don’t have to do this. This is the new way to do it. Instead you have things that you can learn from younger people just like the younger people can learn from older people. I’ve learned so much about music from my own children. You know, they’ve taught me the technology. Of course, I had to say it in a little bit different way. They were making fun of me at first telling me I was using my iPhone like it was 1980 and I had Pac -Man on my iPhone. So, you know, I guess I was, but one day I just said hey instead of making fun of me, which I think is funny too, can you just show me how to use it? They not only showed me how to use that, they were showing me different things that they would see in movies that I was missing and they were showing me different things in music. Kids that grew up today in that technology world, they have equal access with new music. They got Post Malone but they also have the Beatles or back with Louis Armstrong. There’s so many influences and things to pull from to create now and they grew up and there’s so much they can they teach us.

It’s fabulous, we have access to everything. We have access to every bit of old music, everything new, everything local, every independent artist. We have access to everything. And sometimes you gotta go looking for it because they’re not going to spoon feed it to us on the radio anymore. 

Which we didn’t need that in the first place. We’ve discovered even greater artists had that not happen with money. 

Yeah, so It’s exciting and if more people would do what you did and say hey can you show me how you did that? Then we could all remain relevant and you know not become old and cogity. 

Yeah. That’s what love takes, you know, with your family. It’s easier to love sometimes and it’s easier to be vulnerable enough to ask. 

There’s a lot to learn from.

Even in this outside world, there’ve been so many artists that you know, not just recording artists, but visual artists and poets and business people that I’ve just been able to say hey, I don’t know how that works. Can what can you tell me about that? And they’ve been you know, happy to show me and they’ll even point like somebody back in the day showed me Audible. I’ll listen to 50 books a year. I think it is on audible now listen to it, but somebody showed me that which showed, you know, other knowledge, I know I sound like I’m dating myself, but I know so much now I’ve learned the new music industry because of, you know, being able to have an access to those things. So anyway, we’re going to take a quick break in a moment, and we’re going to hear from our sponsors. But when we come back, we’ve got a couple things to talk about, including we’ll even touch on really quickly the TV star that you unintentionally developed that I said at the beginning of the show. 

I literally developed her in my body. 

Yes you did. We’ll talk about that as soon as we come back so we’ll stay tuned. 

*break*

Welcome back to rbeatz.com here on Local Music Somewhere. Again, in the studio today, our guest is Shannon Lee. And we’ve been talking about open mics, really kind of life lessons from open mics. I don’t even know if we’ve said it officially here on the show. Shannon is known as the queen of the open mics and she’s definitely a queen. She’s an innovator, she is royalty in the region, but so many people love her and respect her and can’t wait to collaborate with her. We talked at the beginning and I said she was the unintentional developer of a TV star, which is a recent thing. And I’m gonna let you lead off on that and just tell us what happened there.

Oh, well, during COVID, Kenzie started watching “Survivor” ’cause there was a lot of seasons and a lot of episodes. She started watching it. We had watched it some before that.

And Kenzie’s your daughter? 

Yeah, Kenzie’s my daughter. And she’s like, “I think I’m gonna make a video.” They ended up, they ended up going to some place, her husband’s friend had a place off grid in the jungle and so they went and made a video that looked like a survivor video for her audition tape. And before we knew it, she was going out for interviews and then she’s like, “Holy crap, I’m gonna be on the show.” 

Yeah, you know, when I saw her, she was on the show, I mean, it’s so much competition and the likelihood of going very far in that is you know the statistics on that. But I thought if she has her parent’s, especially her mother’s tenacity, maybe she might have a shot at this but every week I kept seeing she’s still on the show.

She’s still on the show. And of course I couldn’t watch because, a lot of people don’t know but I don’t even have a television in my home. I’m out at places so much that there’s not really room to watch TV. I’ll see it on my phone sometimes, you know, things like that. Well, I love TV. 

You can still stream it on your phone. Yeah. But yeah, so she was out there last summer actually. It was a full like 10 or 11 months before the show aired. 

And then she made it to the finale and they in town, they had a viewing party at Camp North Ann and you would think these people showed up for some music festival because it was packed. 

So many people there, there were so many people there. 

Was that crazy to see that support for your daughter? 

It was, I knew it would be. So here’s the thing about Ken’s is that she’s, she is also a community builder in a different way. She was known for that with the salon too. Yeah. She, if you see her with her friends in their friend group, it’s extraordinarily special. They support each other in everything. And so I wasn’t surprised to see how much community support that she was able to put together, ’cause everybody loves her. And the neat thing about the game she played on Survivor is she proved that you don’t have to be mean, you don’t have to be a jerk. She played a kind game. She was nice to people. She helped people when she didn’t have to. And I mean, she lied and did what you gotta do on Survivor to win. I mean, that’s Survivor, you have to do those things. But in the end, she just played a really fair and kind game and she was funny.

And so what happened with her playing that kind game? 

Well, she won! 

Like, it was over every news outlet that, no matter what you looked on, her picture was everywhere, internationally, it was so crazy. And then since that time, because, you know, they filmed that a while ago, before everybody saw it, and I know that had to be crazy. I’ve have been on reality shows, and I know the contracts, you keep your mouth closed. 

Oh yeah. We all just lied and and said we didn’t know what happened. No, we didn’t know what happened.

And then after that, there was another big announcement that the world loved just seeing that and that was a big announcement for you too. 

It is, yeah, well she got married in September about eight weeks after, she got back and she’s got her first baby due in September. 

Congratulations.

So yeah, our first grand baby. So yeah, she’s done all the big things in a year. 

Although he remains behind the scenes and now he’s about to be a grandfather, we just have to give at least a shout out to probably one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.

And that is your very supportive husband. 

Yes, G. Stephen. 

Yes. 

Yeah, and we all call him G. Stephen. His actual name is Gary after his dad. But we all call him G. Stephen. He’s wonderful. We will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary in September. So yeah, he’s great. 

Always such a cordial guy, always very supportive of you and everything that’s gone on. And you know, the open mic thing that you’ve done, I know you’re more than the open mic. You’re a singer, songwriter, have original music. You’re such a phenomenal musician, you know, player and singer, you just develop all the time and been so inspiring to others. But you’ve just taken the open mic thing to such a different level and that’s why I wanted you on the show for so long. There’s so many lessons in that. When you’re talking about Local Music Somewhere around the country, no matter what city, having somebody that really understands the blueprint of an open mic (it’s important) because an open mic is not a showcase. An open mic is inclusive of all. Showcase is, you know, you’re picking your people and you’re putting them out there. You have to have that somebody that understands the open mic, understands the structure, how the signups work, how to keep people in order on those signups, and still make everybody feel accepted. Get them involved with the fans. 

Running that list is the hardest part about it. And there are so many open mics in town. Any night of the week, you got your choice to go. And I’ve gone to a lot of them. And I learned a lot. I learned from Ken and Knight in Gastonia. I learned from Maurice Brines in Concord. I learned from the guys back in Detroit. And so I’ve always got my eyes open of what I like, what I don’t like. Smokey Joe’s is another one that has a great open mic. The Evening Muse,  He does his completely different. 

Yeah, he was on the show not too long ago. 

He does his completely different. And so, my format, some people don’t like it, you know? Most people do, but some people don’t, but some people like these other formats. And so, I encourage people to go out and check out all of them. 

Yeah, and perform.

Go and perform, go check it out, go see, go see, you know, what are you looking to Oh, you want to play jazz? Okay. Well, this one’s happening here and there. You’ve got Ian Cunningham is doing out on Monday night in Cornelius. 

Joseph Gallo actually was the starter of that and Joseph’s been on the show.

People will ask me “where do I go?” I’m like, well, I want you to come to mine, but I also understand you know You need variety in your life. Jade Moor. She’s got one going at the Rooster. 

I didn’t know Jade had one. 

Yeah, Jade’s got one going at the Rooster. I just heard from her last night, she’s like, “Help, it’s getting big. What do I do?” And I’m like, “I knew you were going to do one of these sometime.” So, because she’s got that same spirit. And so there’s, we all try to support each other and help each other, and we can ask each other questions. So even among the hosts, it’s kind of like a little separate community of support.

Well, you know, as rBeatz, being I sing, I want to come out to some of these open mics and be supportive here in the fall. I’ll be seeing you, so great having you on the show. You’re just one of the epitomies. I try to find the nice people, not just the industry people, but the people that have a likeability factor because I think that’s a big inspiring part to the artists that they need to know about. So thank you so much. And I think you’re coming back to perform for us. 

I think I’m going to do one. I’ll do the one that I wrote that was inspired by Kenzie. Okay.

Well, we’re going to end the Local Music Somewhere show right now. And thank you to everybody that tuned in. But Shannon will be back to here to play right here on rBeatz.com.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m gonna play one of my songs for you. I wrote this quite a long time ago. This was inspired back in Detroit when Kenzie was actually quite little. She was about seven. And I worked a lot. And she’s touched on this in the show, but I was not an available parent back then. I was doing other things. So I think this song kind of talks about I was having a rough day. Kids were giving me a hard time, and I was not the best mom that day, but this song came out of a moment that I had with her. It just touches on it in the second verse.

 

*song*