Terry's Serendipity Cafe

Festival Underground. Thanks to Screenag
2021-06-19 00:00 (America/New_York)
Festival Underground. Thanks to Screenager and ElMora, we had some entertainment. That’s about all I can say about that. We did help out at the Freshman and Junior socials, and Gay May day was very good.

Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. A
2021-07-23 00:00
Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. A great bunch of bands and a serious hard working staff made this the best show of the year so far. The bands and audience both expressed delight at the location and wonderfulness of the event. Thanks for all your help, staffers! The bands were Dirty Circuit, Wallace Petruziello, Gert, Chris Nitti, and – Gabi Gamberg. All great. We did have a visit from the Montclair Police about complaints but I think that was because we ran an hour over our ending time. But it was all good. I had a great time at open mic, and fixing the left speaker with Maddy while it was running, was a great kick. And Maria seemed pleased to be our Award winner! Special thanks to Avery, Nicholas, Greg, Mark D. and others who helped the staff set up and take down. Great work, Nico, Emma, and everyone else.

It seemed the rain would never stop. But
2021-08-23 00:00
It seemed the rain would never stop. But it did, in time for Charlie Bollinger, Then Ultra 54 and Radxbent and Mauger. With a bit of open mic. The audience was great, we collected some donations, and the generator ran fine. For what more could you ask? Thanks to Nico for drum transportation and our new staffers for sticking with it!

Excellent everything lead to a great eve
2021-09-24 00:00
Excellent everything lead to a great event at the amphi. Shallow Green, Erotica, Veronica, Aiden, all musically interesting, and staff enthusiasm was high, We collected a lot of donations, and made a profit for the first time this year.The permit arrived a day late. Scarendipity next!

Regrettably we did not have enough trans
2021-10-29 00:00
Regrettably we did not have enough transportation for drums, pumpkins and Halloween decorations, or enough staff to run the show. AND heavy rain at 7:00 PM (our showtime) made it impossible. We’ll try again next time! However, our 10/27/2021 Pumpkin Carving and Meeting event went extremely well:

Loon Lord, DJ Dior (with JEMC), The Live
2021-11-27 00:00
Loon Lord, DJ Dior (with JEMC), The Livers, and Endless Midnight were our bands for Today’s Terry’s Serendipity Café at Watchung Plaza. Great bands! Good music, lots of people stopping by to give a listen, and colder than a dog!

I lost count of the tries it took to get
2022-02-25 00:00
I lost count of the tries it took to get this event to occur. Weather was a leading problem. However, thanks to Sammy Mellman, Tyler, Emma, Charles, Akiva, and Yuna we finally got the first live streaming Serendipity Café streaming, in cooperation with Deborah T. and Rev. Scott of the Unitarian Universalists. And we have the recording in an mp4 file to prove it.

Live outdoor show at the MHS Amphitheate
2022-04-01 00:00
Live outdoor show at the MHS Amphitheater: A bit of rain just after setting up caused us to bag all the speakers and gear. And then the sun came out, we saw the rainbow, and the show went on! Cool but cool, you know! Good music, no hitches except the previously unmentioned loss of some chairs due to a mad game of Musical Chairs by parties unknown. We will not leave chairs in the Amphitheater anymore.

Gay May Day fund raiser at Crane Park. A
2022-05-21 00:00
Gay May Day fund raiser at Crane Park. A lot of staff help, Alumni Avery, Maria, Meredith and Akiva helped out and joined in. We raised some money for the Ali Forney Center for LGBTQ homeless youth in NYC.

Festival Underground 2022! We gave the S
2022-06-18 00:00
Festival Underground 2022! We gave the Staff Award to Tyler, had Alumni speakers, Trever Pason, Avery, Mizzy, Nicholas, Akiva, and Sam. And some good bands. The open mic was fun with several surprise guests and the Staff Band doing Centerfield and Tide is High.

Akiva was right, 100% chance of rain and
2022-07-22 00:00
Akiva was right, 100% chance of rain and it did! Only 9 drops though, but we got out the bags & protected everything from the “storm”. The bands were Dreaming of Clarity, Ophelia’s Lover, Wince and Loon Lord. The last group had a very interesting electric violin, amped by one of our guitar amps. It was a marvelous night. Nice and warm. Dude from NJ Monthly made us pose for pictures.

MHS Amphitheater. 2 bands and a big open
2022-09-02 00:00
MHS Amphitheater. 2 bands and a big open mic! Our buddies, Ophelia’s Lover and Heathmongers. And a poet with a backing track, very effective. The critique indicated a favorable impression was made on the clientele and staff.

First Lutheran Church, 153 Park St, Mont
2022-10-21 00:00
First Lutheran Church, 153 Park St, Montclair. Suburban Couch, Gold Carson, Elmora, The Spins, and Screenager added to a great long open mic session that was well performed and well received. We had enough attendees to pay the rent and a lot of staffers learned how we do an indoor show. We made coffee, sold snacks, ran the mixer & lights and collected admission. We may need to set up a Venmo account for those who live in the cashless society.

at the Unitarian Universalists, Fletcher
2022-12-02 00:00
at the Unitarian Universalists, Fletcher Hall. Good bands! Good work on getting the gear transported and set up. We need to work on our coverage of the Snack Bar, but the music was great, and we had a decent sized audience.

at the Lutherans. We had attendance clos
2023-01-20 00:00
at the Lutherans. We had attendance close to 50, 3 great bands and a split open mic. I’m waiting until after the critique, but I was impressed at the increase in organization with our now quite large staff. The Holy Rodeo drummer left his pedal but has it now. We had a phone with a USB C connector that we had no adapter for.

at B’nai Keshet. Great show! Attendance
2023-02-18 00:00
at B’nai Keshet. Great show! Attendance over 80, great music, open mic was fine, and we squeezed in the Staff Band with “Poppa-Oom-Mau-Mau”. I tried out the donated Ion Strat copy and it seemed to have stayed in tune, good results from the snack bar, as well. I have a lot of questions about the details, but the big stuff was great. I have these keys, I posted a pic on slack. Wysteria is a great band name and a fun band. Real enthusiasm there, great to see. They want to play at Serendipity again, and I don’t blame them. The audience won the Brass Figligee (with bronze oak leaf palm) for respect and enthusiasm.

at Lutherans. Staff participation very g
2023-03-17 00:00
at Lutherans. Staff participation very good, music right in there, but loud. A lot of information was absorbed by new staffers, very few mistakes were made. The drum kit survived an incredible bashing (especially the cymbals). And we got Everything put away before midnight. Thanks to all the staffers working the show. Alumni Tyler and Oz helped out and supported the effort. And Akiva was

Serendipity at Lutherans. This was one o
2023-04-28 00:00
Serendipity at Lutherans. This was one of the best Serendipities ever. The staff knew their jobs, we got set up and ready before 7 PM, the bands were great! Open mic was very popular, If it wasn’t for the missing jacket and keys it would have been perfect. The rain didn’t keep the audience home, it just kept them from making noise in the parking lot. Great job, Staff!

Gay May Day at Watchung Plaza, I would h
2023-05-13 00:00
Gay May Day at Watchung Plaza, I would have liked to hear more from the GSA about Ali Forney Center, but the bands were good, and the open mic surprise performers were unusually famous and great singers. And we raised $323 for the cause!

Terry’s Serendipity Café at Unitarian Un
2023-05-26 00:00
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.
