Terry's Serendipity Cafe

Terry’s Serendipity Café at Unitarian Un
2023-05-26 00:00 (America/New_York)
Terry’s Serendipity Café at Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Church St. Fletcher Hall. We had good but not great attendance, and a good collection of bands at this event. It was fun and we worked well together. There was the odd complaint and the drum kit took a beating, as always. But I ended up feeling good about it.

and 6/23/2023 MSCP staff helped out at t
2023-06-21 00:00
and 6/23/2023 MSCP staff helped out at the Wellmont Plaza Make Music Day location with 4 groups until about 5 PM. Then Ed woke up Friday with a muscle spasm in his shoulder which made testing the “Student Run Organization” claim. It seems to be true. Other than the smallish audience, everything worked quite well. The staff probably should be congratulated for that, but they already took care of that. Quite soon we will do the 28th Birthday Party of Serendipity.

Terry’s Serendipity Café Birthday Party
2023-07-14 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café Birthday Party #28 at Amphitheater. The weather looked iffy, but it seemed like it was going to miss us. Kaelen, Guthrie and John Grilp went fine, as did the Serendipity birthday open mic, with staff songs. Then Wysteria took off and they sounded very good. Screw Ball was just getting started when the rain began, and they gave up as it became hard rain very quickly. We were already in the process of bagging all the speakers and amps and we had the canopy over the mixer and light control panels. But the cakes took a good watering. Too bad, they were delicious! The staff hung in there until we got everything packed and returned. Special thanks to Daryl for helping load in the rain, and Kaylee and Matteo for driving the muddy wet gear to Clifton.

Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Amphithe
2023-08-18 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. Jack Powers lent us his drums and we had 2 earlier bands and a long open mic session. There was an improvised sort of sleep walkie feeling at this Serendipity, and yet we ran out of time. But Nelson was amenable to an extra 10 minutes. I still don’t have a handle on the t-shirts and other merch sales, but there was some of that, and NO RAIN. Which was the biggest change.

Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Amphithe
2023-09-22 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. Ended up quite well, but the start had some problems. Parallax View had some problems setting up, but instead of letting them use up other bands’ time, we shut them off after one song. After that things went well. Vode and Azures were fine. Things were a bit more organized than last month in terms of keeping records of food and merch sales. We had more trouble with drum kit hardware getting lost. Need some lessons there.

An extremely scary event. But odd things
2023-10-27 00:00
An extremely scary event. But odd things happened. Two bands showed up with drum kits, for example. But they sounded good, we had nearly enough (72/75) audience to pay the rent, and we stayed out of trouble once again. 3 bands, open mic, snack bar, etc. A lot of work for the staff, but they are getting used to it!

Reports indicate that this was a very en
2023-12-01 00:00
Reports indicate that this was a very enjoyable event, especially for the staff. The mood was very upbeat and so was the music. A fair amount of moshing was noted, even during Open Mic. A last-minute cancellation by a band left us with no choice but to form our own out of staff members and friends and it worked. Attendance was down, I think due to “competition with other places” to quote Mark Knopfler.

Terry’s Serendipity Café at B’nai Keshet
2024-01-13 00:00
Terry’s Serendipity Café at B’nai Keshet. It took us longer than I thought it would to remove and stack all the chairs from the middle of the floor, and document their locations so we could return them. But we were up and running on time, with minor setup difficulties like a floppy mic stand. The bands were good, they all showed up, played quite loud (hit over 90 on my Sper Scientific sound level meter). I was disappointed in the size of the audience, but those that showed seemed to have fun dancing and listening. There was a noticeable reduction in size during the last band, but we tried out our Kazoo horn section on “Tide is High” anyway.

Departed, Raccoon, Cheesecake, Melanchol
2024-02-23 00:00
Departed, Raccoon, Cheesecake, Melancholy Party were booked but one of them could not make it. We did fine, anyway. No improvement in attendance, but a very industrious staff did a great job keeping things running. Miles needs to teach an MC class. The Staff Band was hot, thanks to Jake and Charles (and Grace). Somewhat loud, but not in the danger of harm zone.

Staff meeting: We had a visit from Macke
2024-03-13 00:00
Staff meeting: We had a visit from Mackenzie Thomas who is writing a book and we voted to charge $5.00 at the April show, the first price change ever!

Serendipity at UU’s with Meat Goats, Rad
2024-03-22 00:00
Serendipity at UU’s with Meat Goats, Radar Satellite, and Window Phase (plus open mic). The Open Mic setup delay was a popular topic at the critique meeting, as was the small attendance count. We have some good possible solutions, my favorite being “act like Tyler G. did”, which means we need more staff to get more audience.

Serendipity at Lutherans. This was our f
2024-04-26 00:00
Serendipity at Lutherans. This was our first price increase since admission was set at $2.00 in 1997, up from free! Now it’s $5 and we’ve voted to continue it at five until we see fit to change it. In critique, the show was well received except for audience retention, we will consider that at the next meeting. Super Jack, The Livers and Operants were the bands, Super Jack was the favorite. We

Serendipity at B’nai Keshet. Kept it at
2024-05-31 00:00
Serendipity at B’nai Keshet. Kept it at $5 good show. We had a lack of help putting the chairs back in order, but aside from that, it was fine.

Festival Underground inside at FLC, star
2024-06-15 00:00
Festival Underground inside at FLC, starting an hour early. The staff were hard-working and helped out right to the end. Quality music with an example by Polaroid Fade of how to use dynamics to make the music more interesting. Took us a while find the dustpan.

Serendipity at the Amphitheater. Got sta
2024-07-26 00:00
Serendipity at the Amphitheater. Got started late due to not having the building unlocked in time, but we got in, and soon the Bird Dance Band was playing and the birds were dancing. Good work all around, everyone was apparently having fun, and there was a respectable audience.

show was cancelled due to tornado warnin
2024-08-09 00:00
show was cancelled due to tornado warnings, severe thunderstorm warnings and a bit of actual rain, with raindrops and other fiercely dangerous things. No music, no fun.

Ed was away in Europe, the gear was stor
2024-09-13 00:00
Ed was away in Europe, the gear was stored at Kayley’s’ and apparently things

Scarendipity at the FLC. Except for only
2024-10-25 00:00
Scarendipity at the FLC. Except for only charging #2, things went ok! We had pumpkin carving on the 23rd, costumes and a contest, open mic and 3 bands including Alien, with staff members and alumni. It was fun. Also we found out we have to watch those electronic transactions quite closely!

Shirthole, Deerly Departed and Konnor Hu
2025-01-17 00:00
Shirthole, Deerly Departed and Konnor Hunter contributed to a quite good and well attended show for the first one of 2025. We had over 60 people in the audience and with staff and performers, we might have hit a hundred. The staff’s enthusiasm for this show is partly responsible for the good turnout. We solved a few technical glitches with our new sound system, using a 16 channel mixer and a borrowed subwoofer!

This was a good show, and the riot grrl
2025-01-17 00:00
This was a good show, and the riot grrl bands were well received by the staff and audience. Hell on Sunday, T@B GRRL, and Pathetica will probably be invited to play again. Some thought the volume was a bit soft but others were happy with it. We improvised an extension of Open Mic at the end to fill the available time.

Alumni Serendipity
2025-04-25 19:00 - 22:00 | First Lutheran Church Fellowship room (basement) 153 Park St., Montclair NJ, 153 Park St. Montclair NJ, Montclair, NJ, 07042, United States

Evan Bakos, Shirthole, cu next tuesday
2025-12-05 18:30 - 22:00

Tiger Would! Red-eye, and No Left Turn at The FLC 1/23/26
2026-01-23 18:30 - 22:00 | First Lutheran Church Fellowship room (basement) 153 Park St., Montclair NJ, 153 Park St. Montclair NJ, Montclair, NJ, 07042, United States
