Webley
Webster presents the
Terry’s Serendipity Café
Web
Site!
Our 29th Year
The
In association with the Office of Arts and Cultural Development,
MRCA, Township of Montclair
Updated 12/20/2024 (etc)
https://www.instagram.com/serendipity.cafe/
https://www.twitch.tv/terrys_serendipity_live
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Come to our meetings - get involved, it’s easy. Staff
Meetings Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7 PM First
Lutheran Church Library See
Facebook Serendipity Staff & Alumni private groups for Zoom link |
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Serendipity needs new Staff and adult advisors.
Find us
on Facebook and Instagram |
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Admission is now: !!$5.00!! cash or Zelle Admission is free if we don’t have to pay for the
space e.g., the MHS Amphitheater |
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Poets, Film makers and Musicians: email serendipitycafe@hotmail.com
if you are ready to perform. Include a name and
phone number (so we can contact you). |
12/13/2024 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.
10/25/2024 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!
9/13/2024 Ed was away in Europe, the gear was stored at Kayley’s’ and apparently things
went ok for an Amphitheater show. I found about $25 in the contribution jar when we loaded up for Scarendipity, and included it in the October accounting.
8/9/2024 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.
7/26/2024 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.
6/15/2024 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.
5/31/2024 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.
4/26/2024 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
Collected $180.00 in admissions and the Snack Bar did well, too.
Super Jack @ Terry’s
3/22/2024 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.
3/13/2024 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!
2/23/2024 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.
1/13/2024 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.
12/1/2023 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.
10/27/2023 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!
9/22/2023 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.
8/18/2023 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.
7/14/2023 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.
6/21/2023 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.
5/26/2023 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.
5/13/2023 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!
4/28/2023 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!
3/17/2023 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
teaching staffers about band setup and mixing. Staff band did a great job celebrating opening day with Centerfield on the new Serendipity ION Strat..
2/18/2023 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.
1/20/2023 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.
12/2/2022 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.
10/21/202s 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.
9/2/2022 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.
7/22/2022 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.
6/18/2022 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.
5/21/2022 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.
4/1/2022 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.
02/25/2022 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.
11/27/2021 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!
10/29/2021 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:
9/24/2021 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!
8/23/2021 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!
7/23/2021 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.
6/19/2021 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.
5/22/21 Gay May Day in Watchung Plaza. Very good performances including Machinery of the Human Heart, Screenager, Matt Ellin, Hudson Pollack. Raised around $200 for Ali Forney Center. We sent $42.
5/1/2021 Rand Skate courts, Skate Essex awareness raiser with Screenager, John Cozz, Big Stink, Blatant Men. A lot of Mayors and that, with speechifying. Dancing, raffle.
4 hours on the generator, 1.5 liters of fuel used. Worked fine & quitely
4/24/2021 We started Wednesday ok, but by Saturday it was confusion. Anyhow Daryl stepped in as Werebears, Arabella debuted as a singer songwriter as seen on TV and Joe Caldwell stepped in and did some nice stuff. There was a jam, of sorts and some really fancy pedalboards. Thanks all!
3/20/2021 Terry’s Serendipity Café at Watchung Plaza. Spring was celebrated by an outdoor concert by Wizard Brain, Blatant Men, Bearing Obscurity and Charlie Ballinger.
New recruits, mostly as a result of the previous week’s Friday show for the 9th graders in the parking lot by the Innes building, introduced us to at least 3 new staff members, and that helped out a lot at the show. We also raised over $120 toward the generator fund. Only about $20 bucks more will do it!
12/20/2020 Make Music Day Winter 2020 in the snow! Not a bad show, good bands, not wet, coldest Terry’s Serendipity Café in history! And we ended with a jam and hootenanny, exactly at 4 PM.
11/28/2020 Late start, but Maria was there on time! The Hootnanny worked. And Claire and Sam were essential. Thanks to Wizard Brain for the harmonica! Gabi the artist was our show ender, good stuff from all. It’s nice to have alumni that come around and help!
10/24/2020 We managed a decent show, in spite of some internal miscommunications. Thanks to the staff for setting up all the scary decorations. I’ll post a picture of the set if someone will send me one. More soon.
9/25/2020 It was good to have Your Mystery Guest back, I forgot how much fun that duo is. And Hello to Luca Cece and his guitar, nice work! We tried out our new Fender Sidekick 25 amp, a donation, which worked well. We had quite a lineup of small fenders there, for a while. Thanks to the staff, alumnae, and others who made it a good show.
8/21/2020 Starting with a bang as a MiniCooper hit a truck on Watchung Ave, our August show was actually quite calm. The Staff reacted quite well to changes in the arrivals of the entertainers, and they were “all good”. Special shouts to Daryl Shelton and Sweeney for hanging out, performing some tunes, giving some younger folks electronic music gear, and playing with the Aeroprop!
7/17/2020 Serendipity in Watchung Plaza with Ziggy Grover, Lena Fine, Milerne, Gabi Gamberg, ROstafa, open mic. We love to do this.
6/20/2020 Festival Underground, with Avery Laverne as this year’s Staff Award winner. We had a long awaited live show at Watchung Plaza, and agreed to do it again. A smaller load of gear was unloaded by the staff deftly and quickly. Sammy Mellman, Katrina Weismman & Lena Fine, Blue Suede Andy, Werebears, Hudson Pollack.
2/8/2020 Great music at B’nai Keshet Saturday night. Good to have a bunch of bands, I always like it when the drum kit gets used. A little problem with the door code, but after that, all good. And we got Legacy Coffee beans for our Bunn-O-Matic.What we needed was a larger audience.
1/3/2020 The 25th Anniversary year got off to a good start with an almost all singer-songwriter show. My favorite part was Lena and Katrina singing together. The open mic was good.
The audience was a bit smaller than last time, but quite enthusiastic.
11/29/2019 Terry’s Serendipity Café, at the Lutherans, good staffing, smoothly run, good music, interesting mix of Alumni and new members. Also attendance was up!
10/25/2019 Scarendipity at the Lutherans. Good, but not great. We needed more audience, but there was a lot going on Friday night. The decorations worked out extremely well, though,
and the costume contest was the best in years.
9/27/2019 The small audience did not deter this group from putting on a fine show in spite of the adversity of circumstances. I need to speak to PRCA about help with flyer approval.
And some other things.
8/23/19 Great to see our old friends and Alumni, such as Maya B, Your Mystery Guest, Elana and Danielle Sclar, Rory MacLeod, and others. Good music, good weather.
We must now recruit a new staff.
8/2/2019 The Atrium Cafeteria turned out to be a fine place, with plenty of space, restrooms and electric power. We had great bands, a fine open mic and quite a few mosquitoes.
Television Skies ended up the show with a top notch performance. There were no complaints that I heard about. Also we bought our staff pizza from Ruthie’s this time.
6/22/2019 Festival Underground at Edgemont Park. Congratulations to Gold Carson, winner of the 2019 Serendipity Staff Scholarship Award!
We all appreciate what you have done to keep Terry’s Serendipity Café running smoothly in its 24th year.
The Weather was sunny at last, the music was fine, (I liked Beach Bod), The staff band was SPECTACULAR, and I don’t know how the lemon sugar cookies tasted.
5/18/2019 Gay May Day with GSA, good bands, lots of money raised for the Ali Forney Center. Nicely done, staff.
4/12/2019 Rapndipity at Lutherans. Things went quite well, with 100 paid attendees, a record for the year. The music was loud, and there were some issues with content, but we worked a lot of it out at the critique meeting.
3/22/2019 Serendipity at the Lutherans. Interesting performers, but alas, a small audience. But we managed to collect $60 for a Honduran family relocated to the USA. A lot of new staff members got a chance at tasks they had never before attempted. This is good experience for future events.
2/9/2019 Interesting new performers and the Free Store made this a creditable start to the new Year. Attendance was over sixty again, but I had hoped we could grow some more. Mike Berlin was back with his huge Grand Caravan, making the transportation easy once again. There were a few things we should talk about at the critique meeting, but all good!
12/28/18 Good Event at the Lutherans, attendance up again to over 60, fine music, alumni presence, solid staff participation, without Mike Berlin or Greg Pason. Special thanks to Ben and Madeline, who helped out greatly, even though Lola was not there!
11/23/18 Friday after Thanksgiving Serendipity Cafe at the Lutherans. Music was good, attendance was up. New staffers working on tasks! Good to see Alumni Staff and performers. Plenty of help right up to the end. That's what I call "Terry's Serendipity Cafe" !
10/19/18 Scarendipity at the Lutheran Church. Art, music and pumpkins spelling out "Scarendipity" combined to make this an enjoyable Halloween party. A little light on the snacks, perhaps but the artists reported some sales, and the Make the Road collection was substantial.
9/28/18 Another not rained out amphitheater show. This time the ants did not get the pizza, since we had tables to put them on. The chairs were quite popular, too. Good music with Sammy Trombone, Emil Noll & friends, Uncleater, and others also Alumnus Aidan Feliciano at open mic and a spirited version of "Big Time Woman". Benefit for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing committe for which we collected $53. The turnout was small but dedicated and respectful.
8/24/18 This amphitheater show was not rained out! But the lawn mowing left a bit to be desired. Things were open for us this time, and we ran our "extended open mic" outdoors in weather that was acceptable. Youngest performer in a long time, a 12 year old singer songwriter, would you believe.
7/27/18 A rain-in rather than a rain out! Even though the building was locked when we got there, Gabbi and I searched the building (clockwise) for a way in, which we found around on Midland Ave. We walked through the building and got the Auditorium doors open from the inside. So we moved all our gear onto the auditorium stage, got some fans and lights working, set up the PA and had a really good time. The bands seemed to get into the spirit of Serendipity, especially Gabi the Artist, and the music was solid.
7/4/18 Independence Day Parade with Elvis! Thanks Lucas, Avery and the irregulars.
6/16/18 Festival Underground 2018. Claire and Rory won our Annual Scholarship award. The Scholarship Award Committee were impressed with their contributions to Serendipity Cafe. The generator ran perfectly, thanks, PRCA! But next year we want to go back to the old picnic ground. This year's Staff Band performance of "Big Time Woman" was awe inspiring to say the least. A wonderful day all around.
5/26/18, GSA at Watchung. Gay May Day postponed a week due to rain, but good performances and a good amount of money raised for the Ali Forney Center.
4/13/18 Rap'n'Dipity at the Lutherans. Very small turnout, 30. Great performance by Your Mystery Guest, though. Too bad you missed it.
3/3/18 B’nai Keshet was our host and we had nearly double the attendance of January. Our new staff task assignment sheet was in effect along with new guidelines for staff behavior, all of which was noticeably working. We have a May 19 date for our fund raiser with the GSA, Gay May Day in Watchung Plaza. And we will have Festival Underground and Make Music Day in June.
1/26/18 We were at the First Lutheran Church. we're going to have to promote these events better, they are more fun with a larger audience. The entertainment was good, but, aside from Liv, not that exciting. We're currently working on getting locations for the next shows, there are scheduling problems.
12/28/2017 Terry’s Serendipity Café at B’nai Keshet: This event was well received, good music, good open mic, Mental Hazard was a big hit I think. Attendance was quite low and we paid too much rent, aside from that, it was ok. We needed more staff participation in group setup especially during open mic. Always good to see Your Mystery Guest.
11/24/2017 Alumni Serendipity at the Lutherans. Among the alumni present were Mackensie, Chelsea, and Aidan Feliciano, strangely Greg and I found an Open Mic paper plate with Aidan F. and Anna Berlin (Michael’s daughter) on the list. Probably from 2009 or thereabouts. Things went quite smoothly, timely setups, good music. The coffee I made was not good, I’ll have to work on that.
10/13/2017 Scarendipity 2017 at the Lutherans. Aidan and I had a great time with the dry ice, and there were quite a few costumes. We were able to transport all our gear including the Halloween stuff without my old 1999 Toyota minivan, which we have replaced with a Honda CR-V. Which held the lights and the drum kit, so not bad all together. Music was good, respect needs a little work, missing our missing seniors.
9/29/2017 The Amphitheater again. Fine but cool weather, low bug count. Good solid bunch of music, with Anna as Entertainment head. Nice opening shtick with Aiden and Jakey, good open mic, several 12 string guitars audible. Money raised for Mexico City relief.
8/25/2017 Terry’s Serendipity at the MHS Amphitheater. If it wasn’t for Chelsea, we wouldn’t have had Serendipity Café Friday night. She wins the brass figligee with bronze oak-leaf palm for being the only staff member at load-up. Fortunately a goodly collection of staffers was present for the rest of the show, gradually. Good music, including Birdwing, good to see Sam Skinner drop in and do an open mic song, and it was fun reciting “Jabberwocky” for the assemblage. Thanks to Mike and Greg for being there, handling the situation, watching the lights go on and off, etc. And Chelsea produced a new Zine issue as well.
7/28/17 Serendipity at the MHS Amphitheater. It worked, in spite of the forecast and the food poisoning. Music was good, staff was good, cookies were good. Any opinions about Veggie Straws or Capri Sun?
7/17/17 Festival Underground 2017. Rainy days are ok if you're really underground. We weren't. But Greg brought his 2 tents (we were too tense) and we gave Ben Wilson the Scholarship Award for outstanding Staff Service, and Lily and Maiya's bands played. And Shadowmakers chickened out. Thanks to PRCA for the cute and quiet generator.
7/4/17 Independence Day Parade! With Ben as Spiderman and Lucas as Olaf, and of course, Elvis as Elvis, we got to display our newly-minted and designed (Thanks, Greg) banner. Good day, lotta dancing.
6/21/17 Make Music Day Montclair. (This went on all day). Lotta work, lotta fun! I got to play with New Tricks, and in the Ukulele Parade! Watchung Mountain riders at Diamond were quite Greatful Dead-ish. Hoopers, even.
6/17/17 Festival Underground at Edgemont Park. Well, it was partly rained out, but Greg saved the day by carrying 2 tents over to the park on his bike! Maiya's band was greatvery jazzy, with trumpet, Jake sitting in on guitar, and fine vocalists. Then Lily V and the LV band were good and original. Open Mic was fun and congratualtions to Ben Wilson on winning the 2017 Terry's Serendipity Cafe Staff Scholarship Award!!
5/26/17 St. Luke's Church. Starting with Soular, who presented some fine vocals, we had great music and a smallish crowd. But the vibe was great and we did raise some money in the
benefit jar. There's more to say, but something is wrong with the hosting.
4/28/2017 Terry’s Serendipity Café at the Lutherans’. Good music, good audience and a large staff went a long way towards making this an excellent event. We felt good about working, learning setup and pack up tasks etc. And we collected over a hundred bucks for Meena. Hung out on Ed’s deck afterwards. Critique was quite favorable. Thanks!
3/25/17 Rap'n'Dipity at B'nai Keshet. It went quite smoothly, high attendance, but not as much respect, though. The open mic [hottest rhyme contest] worked well. Some things need to be worked on for rap setup. And we fried channel one of the main (QSC) amp. But we got along on one channel, and it has been replaced with a new one. The old one was bought used about 5 years ago.
2/24/17 With a record $280 raised for Planned Parenthood, this was a fine event. We had a good long open mic, fine bands, a good size staff. And we ate up all the pizza! Lots of people helped with setup & operations, so I thing we made progress in the learning dept. We ought to start thinking about how to get along without our seniors. Speaking of which Margot D. stopped in for a visit!
1/27/17 Our first Terry's Serendipity Cafe at St. Luke's was a success. Although we did not figure out how to deal with the many entrances, the room sounded good, the attendance was acceptable, and the music was good. We had a problem with one band using up too much setup time, but we'll work on that for next time. At the subsequent critiques, the location was given a very positive approval. And we raised $134 for the Sylvia Rivera Project.
12/29/16 And Decembers's show was a fitting finish to the year. Over 100 in attendance, great bands, fun open mic, no broken pots, in short, everything you could ask for in an event of Terry's Serendipity Cafe. A Happy New Year to the audences and staff, and a special thanks to Mike Berlin for retrieving the chalkboard and closing the front door. We might have gotten some points off for that. I glued the rubber back on the Pearl kickdrum pedal, and put all the parts of the hi-hat clutch back together. And the screw that fell off the cymbal stand. We need some focus on taking down the drum kit, I think. I'll look at the mic stands tomorrow.
12/2/2016 The November Terry's Serendipity Cafe was held in December at the Lutherans. Huge amounts of donations were made to help the people at Standing Rock resist the pipeline, over $180 in cash, plus food, clothing blankets, etc. And the music was good. Audience participation and respect were in top form. There are a few tech details we need to work out with the bluetooth receiver, and we did break some coffee pots, but it was my fault for not checking carefully enough. Attendance was just over 100.
10/22/2016 Scarendipity was held at the Lutheran Church on Park St, and was quite well attended. I think we had around 150 audience members, over 30 of whom got the costume discount (we’re big on cosplay). We raised some money for the Fair Workers organization, and we had interesting music, and a fun jam (C-blues) at open mic, with Matt, Nathan, Ed, and sorry but I don’t have the bass & drum names, they were right on, though. Good show, folks
9/30/2016 We intended to be in the Amphitheater, but rainy weather moved us indoors onto the auditorium stage, where music and trivia filled a somewhat small but successful evening. We had Cynthia from SOFIA who lead us in taking the pledge again, and good music as usual.
8/26/2016 Another bit of rain, and another enjoyable Amphitheater gig. That one guitar guy was too loud. but I liked the Engineers (Small? Little?) And we did Open Mic first, just to try it, and it didn't give the performers that much of an audience. My guess is we won't do that again. And we needed respect teaching and snack bar plugging. Next time.
7/29/2016 A bit of rain, but not enough to suppress the excellent turnout for Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater. We’re guessing there were over 80 in the audience, and a good size staff turnout as well. Music was great and varied. I love doing the event at the Amphitheater. They need to get that electric socket fixed by the auditorium door, though. Good to see Nelson again, the MHS custodian.
7/4/2016 The Independence day parade, with Elmo, Cat in the Hat, and Elvis was a fine sunny day. Lucas got a bit light headed in that cat costume, but every kid in town wanted a hug and a selfie. We met Sarah Copeland along the route, who pointed out that we should have Terry's name on our banner. And we will, right?
6/18/2016 Festival Underground 2016 was quite enjoyable. The weather was fine, we had two fine recipients of the Staff Scholarship Award, and we raised $131 for the Pulse victims in Orlando. We'll bring that up to $200 and send it this week.
5/26/2016 A good sized crowd and some fine music helped us to raise over $100 for Make Music Day, which we will match. Grace’s bake sale was a success, and we had some fun as well. Many thanks to the late shift of the staff, who hung out on my deck watching the city twinkle after the unloading was done.
5/21/2016 The Gay May Day event raised a record amount of money for the Ali Forney LGBTQ+ Homeless Shelter in NYC, for the second year in a row. We were proud of that. And Tula Vera played extremely well. We had music from noon until after 4 PM and no complaints! Doing this event at Watchung Plaza is much better than the Church St. sidewalk.
4/29/2016 The April Serendipity at last. Back at the Lutherans’ we had another light turnout, but fund raising for the Animal Shelter went well, and we presented them with a check for $150. Citrus, a band from South Orange, had a horn section. A couple of Alumni Showed up. The veggie pizza was not well received.
4/1/2016 Serendipity Cafe at First Lutheran Church. The Dollys had a light-up bass drum with their name, Tula Vera played, and Lucy started things off. It was a very smooth, not too big event, and we had presenters from SOFIA that were invited by the NOW club at MHS. We raised $73 for SOFIA which we will match and present them with a check for $146. Once again there was a complaint about aux inputs being noisy, even with the new cable. We agreed to bring stuff to a meeting and work on the problem.
2/26/2016 "Rapndipity" at First Lutheran Church. Attendance was up over 100 again, and we collected over $70 for Toni's Kitchen. Thanks to Margot for working the crowd. The Rap Battle which replaced open mic created the most controversy, but the audience seemed to really enjoy it. It prompted a lot of discussion at our Critique meeting this week (3/2/16). Couple of cable problems I'll Look into.
1/29/2016 Serendipity Cafe at First Lutheran Church. This was a small event also. I left the cookies in my garage, was the big mistake. So I ate them. But I put in the money for the whole box. Remind me to compute the prices for cookies using the fibonacci series, so we don't have to guess.
12/19/2015 Our December event was in December before we ran out of time. This was a small but respectfully presented Serendipity Cafe. Except for melting the tupperware a little, and a few mental lapses, such as leaving the blackboard behind, (retireived later), it went well.
12/5/2015 Our November event was in December, to keep from smashing into Thanksgiving plans. An error in scheduling caused a last minute (OK last 72 hour) change in venue, but it worked out well. We had over 100 paid audience members (101), some new bands, artists, new audience volunteer helpers, new bands and some fun as well. Thanks to all those who hung on until the last lap. And we got praised for our cleanup and chair placement. Thanks, everyone!
10/30/2015 Scarendipity at the Lutherans. With a dozen pumpkins and skeleton out of the closet, we had a scary large number of people, headless and headed. Music was great, good progress teaching the newbies how to RESPECT and a fair amount of fun & open mic to boot. So there you go.
9/25/2015 We did not use the Park House due to overcrowding of furniture, and other considerations, so we were back at the Amphitheater. Partially makes up for no Amphitheater last year. It was a good Serendipity Café, and well attended for an Amphi show. Got an email from PRCA, though, that the school had called that someone got into a classroom during our event. Apparently a door was left unlocked, anyhow no damage was done, so I don’t think we’re in trouble. But we should discuss this.
8/21/2015 Another lovely evening at the amphitheater. We raised about $80 for the victims of the fire on Claremont Ave, and the Montclair Student Café project will match that. So a check will be written as soon as Greg gets us contact information. The music was fine, quite hip-hoppish, and we liked how easy the loading and unloading at Ed’s new house turned out to be.
7/24/2015 Fine warm weather contributed to the excellent turnout for Serendipity Café at the Amphitheater last Friday. We’re guessing there were over 50 in the audience, and a good size staff turnout as well. Music was great, included Tula Vera and Your Mystery Guest. We also put Open Mic at the end, which we will discuss at length at the next meeting. And thanks to the helpers who moved gear to 325 Grove St. for the first time, and wanted to move in.
6/20/2015 A persistent drizzle attempted to stop us from doing the Festival but we were even more persistent. Great work by all the staff, bands, founders, audience members. Too wet for sidewalk chalk and bubble blowing, but we sang RESPECT, gave out our staff award [Congratulations, Alana!], and got our blackboard erased. And the following day was Make Music Day in which the staff were ever present and hard working. They all deserve many thanks. Especially Greg, with lost phones, bent tents, bicycles and minivans.
5/30/2015 – With six bands plus open mic, this event was quite lengthy. However the crew at the end was sufficiently numerous that we made light work of it, even with Michael’s bad back. We were sad but proud to host the final performance of “No Noise”, but we hope there may be others. Attendance was good but not staggering, so, we did not stagger and we did not fight. Like the Midnight Special.
4/17/2015 - This was the Big Rapendipity, with all rap music at the Lutheran Church on Park St.. We SOLD OUT before 9 pm. We felt that this was much more of a party audience than we had planned for, but I think we now know a lot more about setting up and running this kind of event. Mike was great (with several staff helpers) in getting the audience duly stamped and entered. The kids we turned away seemed to understand that the event was sold out and responded to requests not to hang out in the parking lot.
3/27/2015 Great attendance, great new music, a huge Open Mic, and serveral comments on the quality (good) of our sound expertise made this a successful Serendipity Event.
2/27/2015 “The Carendipity” fund raiser for SOFIA in cooperation with the NOW club was a great success, we all took pledges, donated money, wore wristbands and helped out a good cause.
1/31/2015 Another record attendance, great bands, fun open mic, and a whole bazaar of artists, photographers, Zine producers joined the usual band merch sellers. This caused some discussion at the critique meeting about the extra conversations generated by the artists as a second focus of attention, away from the musicians. However we did manage to put on the whole show, deal with most of the lost-and-found items, and reinforce the RESPECT culture.
12/26/2014 Last Serendipity Café of the year, at the Lutherans. A surprisingly large attendance (115) and staff-aided-by-alumni made this a fun Serendipity. “Big Time Woman” (open mic) with Beryl on drums and Matt Arons(sp) on lead guitar. We did extra verses. Finished on time (ish) with plenty of staff for the last mile. Thanks!
11/22/2014 “Rap’n’dipity was a complete success. 136 paid audience and we let people in free during the last band. Forgot 2 of the stands, but that was quickly remedied. Audience was respectful, staff filled in for Mike (who took his wife to dinner and then came back to help us clean up) . Have to warn the staffers who sched pickup too early, though. Great to have Greg P. with us. Always makes the show go better to have his experience and strength on the team.
11/2/2014 Scarendipity was held on 11/1, Saturday Night, at the Lutherans. The new staff is learning quickly how to set up, and Ben was entertainment head for the first time. Things went well, we made some money. I really liked Vinnie’s new version of Los Huevos, and Leadbeater hit the loudness record at 129.9 dB. Good open mic, including a poetry reading. Alexis was back helping out a lot with driving and screaming. Sunflower was musical, electric ukulele style, and Matt was there again at open mic with a leadbelly song.
9/26/2014 Edegmont Park Shelter House. Good turnout, and we heard some great music. The new staff was aided by Gillian and Alexis who managed to make it back home for yet another Serendipity Café. I forgot quite a few things this time, making it worthwhile to return for them. The kids from Stephen St were great, even without Ilah S. We hope they can join us again.
8/29/14 We had some very good music Friday night, a surprising 29 member audience, and decent snack bar sales. Peter Guiffra attended and said a few words, and Greg Pason was there helping and being a good friend. O Face, Use Big Words, Daisy Chainz and No Noise were all great, and we raised over $40 for gas money for O Face to get back to Bard, which I think was quite good. I can tell we will soon be missing our seniors, Gillian, Alexis, Jason, Chris, Bonnie, Beryl, and Hannah.
7/25/14 Serendipity at the Lutheran Church, extremely well attended for a July Serendipity, with interesting music. There was a vibraphone and a melodica, which are unusual, and an electric ukulele, (right, Marzipan?). The weather cooperated and the staff enjoyed Pinegrove, Addie Pray, Austin Tannenbaum, Sunflower, and others, I’ll fix this later.
7/4/14 The parade took place in spite of Hurricane Arthur, which sorta rained a bit on the after-parade party. The Montclair Arts Council rented the Serendipity PA for the Edgemont picnic, which was shorter than it would have been with rain getting worse towards the end. But it cleared up for the fireworks and so it turned out to be a great 4th. Gillian as Wonder Woman, Hanna, Chris as Spiderman and Beryl (as Little Red Riding Hood} wore costumes while Jason, Bonnie, and Max Moore marched with the banner. Alexis drove her Miata with the top down, and a wig and Hannah on the back as Ariel the Mermaid. Peter was Grand Marshal and had to lead the parade in a suit and tie, and then change to Elvis and get to the tail. What excitement. Ed ran sound at Edgemont park for the picnic and left the parade early to set up the system. As it turned out, I could have done a lot more parade, since they didn’t want the music to start until the parade ended. Oh well. Next time.
6/21/14 We keep the whole town supplied with music, by cooperating with the famous Make Music Day celebrations all around the world. Festival Underground was super. Gillian Morello won the scholarship award, and the staff gave Ed a BIG gift card to Fleet Feet and wrote the nicest things in a card. Julia and Anna took Mike’s place and drove the truck & carried stuff. The weather was perfect.
5/3/2014 So I screwed up the date for the 4/26 show which the Church thought was 4/25, and they were right. So we changed it to 5/2, last Friday. So even though the intended large group of cover bands didn’t make it, bands from the Meatlocker and a House show that were suddenly cancelled showed up at Serendipity so we had very interesting music, too band the audience was so small, ‘cause it was one of the best, musically. Staff was great, too. Good to see founder Ranira Morris who made a substantial donation, and Greg Pason was there so we could jabber about Make Music Day..
3/21/2014 Been a while since we did those stairs, but we had a large crew and it went quickly. Music was good, I liked the electronic stuff that was not a gameboy. Not too big a crowd, 50 people, and we broke a mic stand boom thing, and left the coffee pots behind. All will be corrected before the next event though, you can be sure of that.
2/22/2014 Although no couples took advantage of the tremendous $1.00 discount, we had a good time at Fletcher Hall, of the UUC on Church St. We blew no breakers, sound & lights ran smoothly and the coffee was good, considering. The music was good, Small Victories and Ana Bonesteels band were new to me, and they sounded great. I wish we could have heard her voice more clearly. And late word is in that the foot switch for the Blue Voodoo amp has been found. Well!
1/29/2014 Last Friday’s extra cool (< 10F) Serendipity Café at the Lutherans had good music. I should get the names of the band from Bard, I think, that was instrumental in making the sound good. The floor was hard to clean though. And it appears as though we made a profit of over $7! I’ll put up more after the critique.
12/21/2013 It was a smooth Serendipity on B’nai Keshet. As far as I can tell we remembered everything (I thought I had forgotten my clipboard, but it was in the car). 74 people paid to attend, The bands were good. We hosted Sunflower’s first Serendipity gig, which might have been their first gig ever, and the open mic was fun with Peter Guiffra and I doing “Blue Suede Shoes” and Alexis coming up for (what else) Big Time Woman. Sammy Mellman was there, Thatcher Snyder, and some other Alumni, not so rare.
11/23/2013 We haven’t been to First United Methodist in a while, but we had a good time there. Attendance was in the 70’s, it didn’t rain much, and we had a large staff at the end so things went quickly putting stuff away. We did blow a couple of light bulbs, but Ed replaced them and we’re set to go. Alexis found us a good set of bands. Sophie, LeadBeater, The Sun Hurts, The Space Monkeys, Manon, all top notch acts. And we got in some open mic with Gifts!
10/25/13 Although the Church people were late in opening up we got the project off the ground and going by 7:07, not too bad. The event had 100 audience members, 35 with costumes, there was good music, and decorations. The pumpkins out front were a nice touch. We forgot the arrow committee, however, and some newbies didn’t know where to go. Cleanup was fast and clean. What more do you want?
9/28/13 According to our critique and review of the 9/21 Serendipity at the Park House, it was smooth and entertaining. I would have preferred the electric power to be a little more usable and the garbage situation somewhat less smelly, but the music was good, we raised money for the Save Darfur Club, and we got to make a few speeches to the audience. “Big Time Woman” is always a high point in any program, and the cleanup was fast and efficient, in spite of the rain. Thanks to Ken and Mike, and the expert Serendipity Staff
8/31/13 The 8/23/31 Amphitheater show was a good summer event. Lotta hiphop, or possibly Rap. Mannon, open mic Michael dancing, hardly any mosquitos. Ended by jamming with Alexis & some other staff members. Once again, hardly any mosquitoes, and no raccoons this time.
8/1/2013 The Independence Day Parade was Elvis’ 20th and we went all out. We had 5 costumed paraders, (There are pix on facebook). It went really well, I think we slowed up the parade by an hour. Then on 7/26 we did an Amphitheater show, and the weather was perfect, the hip-hop was unusually good, the audience (Due mainly to Lyrical’s manager Jared) was huge and the raccoons were cuter than a dog. There was some good harmony by Marissa and Chris, Adult Mom was there, and some others that I’m too old to remember. Next month we will have another, I hope just as big.
6/22/2013 Festival Underground was highlighted by Jon Bell & his son’s band GNGR, and my Sons’ band On the Water. They were all so good, as was Mannon. The audience was small, as usual, and our Senior Staff Award winner, Ben Opatut decided to go, along with most of the staff, to Punk Island, but we had a very enjoyable day anyhow, talking with Jon, jammin’ with the bands, etc. Evan was there, from Pinegrove. The policeman who came to tell us there had been a “noise” complaint was one of the best I’ve interacted with in years! What a great guy. He got what he wanted, and we got to continue, and no one was angry!
5/31/2013 Good Serendipity Café at the Lutherans. Had over 65 people pay to attend, good bands, Werebears and Gifts made their Kickstarter goal and played. Hot weather, but well done. Drum kit needs work, tom support came loose again. Critique tonight (6/5/13)
5/18/2013 Shut down by the police during Gay May Day. We need to work on how to avoid this. Hard copy of permit is a necessity.
4/26/2013 Funds were raised for Gifts and Werebears during a good, well reviewed Serendipity Café at First United Methodist Church. The basement was good, we had over 70 in attendance and matched $20 of donations to the kickstarter mentioned above, and then added $60 more at the following meeting. We’re ready for the Gay May Day event, 6 hours long!
3/23/2013 Serendipity Café at First Lutheran Church. Decent crowd, good music, smooth operations. Nice open mic. Austin should get a bigger audience, don’t you think?
2/16/2013 Serendipity at B’na Keshet. Not too big a crowd, but interesting music. Sammy again, and the Holographic Jellyfish. Hannah is working on the Tumblr. Page for Serendipity.
1/18/13 Big crowd at St. James for the Save Darfur, or Anti Genocide Serendipity and Bake Sale. Good stuff, but too much setup with those Bears. And the stairs got Alex.
We did not have a December event. First Night was cancelled, and we almost did a show, but the Meatlocker beat us to the punch, got all the good bands. Yay Meatlocker!
11/24/12 A huge crowd, augmented by a great alumni showing made this Serendipity a record setter, with over 130 in the audience and great music beginning to end. Makes me thing Serendipity is going to last for a while.
10/31/12 Halloween cancelled? Not Scarendipity. Went well, good music, organized staff. Lotta costumes, The usual scheduling improvisations, dry ice. Then Hurricane Sandy couple days later left us without much power, heat, etc. But we managed our critique meeting, ‘cause there was power at the Park House.
9/24/2012 On Sept 22, we held the Alumni Serendipity which was warm and humid, but we hosted over a dozen alumni, Byron in a top hat and ran over only a little. Pinegrove and Werebears were great, Gifts were wonderful, the Space Monkeys lead off, and we promised “Based on the Novel..” something, because there wasn’t time to fit them in open mic. I had to give the old “respect” speech, since the audience was not paying attention to Ben Rosefeld and his acoustic guitar during open mic..
9/4/12 The 8/31 event was very good reprise of the 7/27 Amphitheater concert, except no fishing. We somehow managed to get along almost entirely without Ken P., with Trucker Mike doing all the heavy trucking. Couple of leftover items probably belong to Toasted Plastic, of Ridgewood, who think Serendipity is something every town should have, but not many towns do.
8/2/12 Did the critique of the 7/27 Amphitheater show which was by all accounts a success. Charlie doesn’t like outdoor shows, though, so we’re kicking him out of the club. Or maybe letting him graduate. Something. Anyhow the parade was great, thanks to our costume wearers, Gillian, Emily, Alexis, Price, Max, and of course the candy flingers, banner bearers, etc.
6/18/12 Wow! The Festival Underground 2012 was extra good. Weather: 10, Music: 10 Attendance, way more than usual. Thanks to Ross H. and our Senior Staff Scholarship award winners, Price and Harris. And our runner up: Snatcher.
5/17/12 After an exchange of emails and a bit of a cooling off period, we get to announce that we are not involved in this year’s Relay for Life. Maybe someday we will know why, but we’ve decide to look ahead and maybe rename the July event “Jonahdipity”.
4/28/12 First Lutheran Church. The turnout for the final unload was great, I think we set a world speed record. Entertainment was good & smoothly presented. Attendance was still on the small side, so we can still work on that. Wound up with a red electric guitar in the lost & found. We think it belongs to Jen.
4/7/12 at First United Methodist Church. For a lot of staffers, this was the first time at FUMC and the stairs were a surprise. But things went well until everyone went home before the final cleanup. The music was good, though, and even though Toasted Plastic from Ridgewood only had a small audience, they were full of praise for the Montclair audience’s respect and attention.
We have to work on publicity and support.
2/25/12 at B’nai Keshet: Much calmer than last month, mostly due to the audience being half the size. Space Monkeys again. Some thought it was the same show. But we sold some snacks, had
A good deal of open mic, and, about a week afterwards, found the coffee mill. OK!
1/28/12 Our first time at Central Presbyterian Church. Good size audience, lots of 8th graders due to the Space Monkeys band, plenty of things for the critique. A great way to start the year.
12/31/11 The audience was impressive, by being over 160 people, of whom 94 paid $3.00 to come in. The performers were grand, the sets a bit short, mostly, but the open mic was definitely best of the year.
Thanks to the staff, the audience, the performers and the advisors for a great year!
12/7/11 The Tree lighting on Friday, followed by the Café at Bnai Keshet went exactly as planned, including more than double the previous attendance. The music was good, The Skin Cells were well organized, so were the Toasted Plastic and all the locals. Nice work, everyone!
11/11/11 After doing sound for the Veteran’s Day ceremonies in Edgemont Memorial Park, we trucked over to St. James’ church and had a full Serendipity Café with a not full audience. Seems to me we need to work on getting the audience numbers up. Good music, though, and thanks to St. James for letting us use their Parish Hall on short notice after our Scarendipity Cancellation.
9/24/11 Another Warm Serendipity, this time in the Park House in Edgemont Park. The consensus seems to be that it was good, there was a good sized audience, the coffee was great, and the bands mostly got to play their whole sets. Josh Heaps was the entertainment head, and we were slightly overbooked. The Alumi theme was carried on by the Porchisas with founding members Alan and Adam. And then Pinegrove with Alumni Evan Hall, Zach Levine, Nick Levine. Aden Feliciano was there, as well as Catherine Weller-Demming, a founder and current Deputy Mayor. Alma Schneider of the Parents Who Rock presented us with a check for $1363.00 which the PWR raised at their annual backyard party, which we did the sound for, with Emily, Max, and a couple of other Staff members helped out at. There’s pix on Facebookm see link above.
7/22/11 The Warm Serendipity: at least a hundred in the shade. But we had Los Huevos, Sumi, Stolen Jars, a standup comic, Anna and Carmen, I even got to sit in with Vinnie & Los Huevos. We had S’mores, with a camp stove, lotsa water, and visits by alumi Ethan Cantor, Oliver Rew, Ross Hamilton. And Even Peter Guiffra was there. Many thanks to Ken and Mike for all the help.
6/18/11 Festival Underground 2011 was an awards fest, with Anna Berlin and Katherine Wolfgang receiving the annual Staff Scholarship Award, presented by Carlos Lejnieks, who, by coincidence, spoke at the MHS graduation ceremony this year. Carlos is a founding staff member, and gave us some history, as well. Ken Pasture received a special award for trucking, and dedication and Farrah Stephenson from the American Cancer Society, presented Serendipity with a plaque thanking us for our participation in Relay For Life for the last 2 years. The music was tops, although I wish we had Stolen Jars. The chalk art was immense, and widespread.
5/21 /11 The Relay for Life on was punctuated by a rainstorm, but the drying out worked and we got the system back on line & no damage but mud. There was all night DJ work by Max and Emily, under a point system of great complexity. A grand appearance by Alma and the New No Rehearsals, plenty of darkness, a 2 AM ukulele jam with guitar, good performances by Passing Notes, Stolen Jars, and others, but my notes are all blurry, I’ll probably not be able to read the list until Josh makes a copy for the entertainment notebook. In spite of all that, it appears that the ASC collected over $90,000.00! And it was much better after I went home and put on dry socks.
4/29/11 show was loud and echo-ey. Good performances all around especially the famous Pokey-Men, plenty of audience members. Staff was non-existent except for Emily and Anna at load-up time, though, and we are currently searching for our missing snare drum stand.
4/14/11 We taped an episode of “Arts Close Up” with Meg Beatty Patrick on Channel 34 for broadcast in early May. Anna, Julia, Josh, Harris, Emily, Thatcher, Charlie and Ed were there. We did some interview-like stuff, some Josh/Harris guitar, some Anna B tunes, and Thatcher & Charlie improvised a Serendipity “commercial”. It will be on the schedule, and in the On Demand menu, I hear. Thanks to Sharon Collucci, and Michael Reitman, the blues photographer. Use the following link, and select category “Arts Up Close” Montclair TV34
3/28/11 We collected some money for aid to
2/27/2011 Friday’s “Carendipity” went very well. Extra help at the start meant a quick Load-In, So we got right to the music, which was quite tuneful, in spite of the complete lack of live drums. The “eat your heart out” jell-o contest was quick, and not too messy. It’s good on the videos uploaded to tumblr. So, to sum up, no one threw up over this one. Notes: Serendipity Café in the Star Ledger at (2/10/11).
http://www.nj.com/news/index.
And then Pokey Men were in the
1/28/2011 Nearly everything went as planned on this first
event of the year, and first time at St. James. There was plenty of music,
12/31/2010 The old year was ended at Fletcher Hall of the UUC with a good variety of music, recruited by Josh and Harris. Anna Berlin’s Mocha Coffee, Shirley Temples, Julia as MC, Emily on the sound board. We wish great 2011 to everyone. I hope for more new ideas and enthusiasm for the Montclair Student Café Project in 2011.
11/22/2010 Serendipity Café at the First United Methodist Church. This one was solid. Hip-Hop with harmony! Anna Berlin, Lotsa acoustic guitar players of many different styles. No Actual contests, and slightly OK for a November event. Had a talk with Vidal of the Parish Council and we are welcome there.
10/29/2010 Scarendipity 2010 featured 10 Sleep, Things Keep Happening, Werebears, Mannyfesto, a bit of that gameboy stuff at open mic, Josh on guitar, etc. 67 paid customers, and more than a dozen staff members. Pumpkin pie eating contest. Nick Levine, the winner. Should have had prizes for not being sick afterwards.
9/18/2010 The Alumni Reunion worked out pretty well. We had some good music, some olde buddies, and some swirley cake. Not to mention ukuleles. Next year I want someone to be alumni invitor.
8/30/2010 The 8/6 event at the Library was smooth and cool,
despite the many changes in performers, & the competition with the Acres
reunion performance. We got out on time, which helps our chances for doing
Serendipity at the Library in the future. On 8/28 we had some difficulties at
the Nishuane
7/5/2010 The independence day was a great success. Elvis lead our group, which included Patrick from Sponge Bob (Jeremy), Winnie the Pooh (Julia Z and Josh), Cookie Monster (Nick Levine) and Cat in the Hat (Aidan Feliciano). The angels, Emily and Lidia (and sometimes Julia) and the Banner makers and bearers, Anna, Johnny Q, Ethan, Thatcher, and everyone I left out really made it a hot one. By which I mean like 101 F. In the shade. You could of fried an egg on this parade! Consider revising.
6/19/2010. There is nothing like Festival Underground, when it doesn’t rain! There was a decent crowd of our usual audience, including some open mic performers, regulars, and so on. The weather was perfect. Ken was as tough as a circus roustabout, and the staff were very helpful, happy, relaxed. We put on 7 or eight bands, Had a jam at the end with Adam, Jeff, and Vin doing some tunes. Cell phone pix below. The bands were: The Porchistas, Hazmats, Tasm, A vs B, March to the Sea, Ten Sleep, Los Huevos, Slim Deer, Tense Deer. An the Alumi Trio.
Alumni: Iris perrot, Adam, Jeff, Vin Demming, Kathryn Weller-Demming Charlee Swanson, Harry Wohl, Ethan Kantor, Max Kravitz, Max Mellman, Julia Berlin, Larry Pope did the recording, Ross Hamilton performed.
6/5/2010 The Relay for Life was definitely an all-nighter.
We set a record for playing outdoor live music in
4/30/2010 The best ever Hip-Hop Serendipity, the “Rap-Fest”. Good sized audience, interesting variety, a whole new bunch of people.
2/27/2010 The Valentine’s day “Carendipity”. Decent size crowd, good bands, excellent open mic. Almost made some money. Love that dry ice seltzer!
1/31/2010 We don’t know why the Pyramids disappeared, but the rest of us had fun. A tad too many acoustic guitar/singer types for my liking. Good thing Thatcher and his gang brought their electrics.
1/2/2010 I have to say First Night was one of the great ones. Large attendance, great job by the staff keeping things going, participation of newbies and alumni, having the Mayor in the audience, great help by parents. What a kick! Happy New Year!
11/28/09 We’re back to small. Perhaps the number of days out of school effect? But good to see Evan & Daryl do their acoustic sets. Moravec was fine. How about those classical guitarists at open mic?
10/31/09 Scarendipity had it’s points. Attendance over 70, for one. Face painting contest, good open mic, great bands. Los Huevos!
9/28/09 We’re up to 50, audience wise. Roger Rockmore, The blue kids, Avaiary, Moravec, etc all well done. Thanks to those who stuck out the rain and made the ending a happy one.
8/29/09 Small staff, small audience, last night. The rain was real. The jams & open mic were good fun. Larry & Nick were awesome, Aiden, Anna, the staff: Nick, Anna, Kat.
Thanks.
7/22/2009 As of today’s meeting the entertainment committee only had one band. So we decided not to put on an event that doesn’t meet our standards. We’re going to ask for the amphitheater.
7/18/2009 The parade was great, Elvis was in good form, as were big bird, Elmo, The cookie monster and Abbie Kadabra. We will not be in the Amphi, due to other concerts and work, but hopefully the Union Congregational space will be available.
6/20/2009 We had the Park House as a rain location, and lucky we did. It rained. I think a lot of people missed this great event, because they thought it was too rainy. Congratulations to Larry Pope, this year’s Staff Scholarship Award winner and many thanks to the runners up, Ethan Cantor and Ross Hamilton for their years of dedicated service.
5/30/09 Same size, same dedication. Animal Scandal turned out to be quite good. Too bad about the Awesome!! And the rain, we’ll try again in September. No Library this summer, I’m told, due to staffing problems. So we’ll try for the Amphitheater.
3/21/09 Another small but dedicated audience. We must advertise. Excitement for the Awesome!! Is building. The whole town is gonna be there.
2/21/09 Use of the
Union Congregational Church,
01/31/09 Great stuff! A live painting thing. Daryl! Good music. Good turnout for cleanup. Even made some money this time!
12/31/08 I missed Larry. A lot of things happened, the music was great, though.
11/22/08 Small but excellent, and I think there are other things to add. Evan!
10/18/08 The Lutheran Church seems to bring us good luck. The Passing Notes were great, I hope they come back. So were Crucial Party. Cranes Are Flying are getting better and better. Pumpkin pie, though, even as a watcher I was near to being “sick”.
9/26/08 It was cool to put all the tables on the stage. The lighting came out right and so did the sound. The bands were good. Not bad for a rainy day.
8/23/08 Well, we just love the library. And Byron came through with some interesting entertainment. Sakura Madams, you know.
8/7/2008 Although Manuel put in a lot of work setting up the Hip-Hop show, it just didn’t come together. Too many people out of town, not enough time. We’ll try this again in the fall.
07/04/2008 Marched in the Independence Day Parade. Early on we were joined by Sara Bynum-Copeland, who is Terry’s mother. She stayed with us for the whole parade, and helped carry the banner. She told us stories from the founding of Terry’s Serendipity Café. And it didn’t rain much.!
6/23/2008 Festival Underground without rain! Great weather, great bands, Award ceremonies, Iko-Iko, grape soda. Thanks & Congrats to the class of ‘08
5/31/2008 The watermelon eating was astounding. We must get the names of those contestants. Lima Research Society just goes to show what Science can do. And Evan! Thanks for the music.
4/29/2008 The 4/26 Café was interesting, to say the least. Confusing, I might say. More after the critique
4/7/2008 The 3/29 event was an “Unexpected Gem”. A slow start, but it built to a great finish.
3/11/2008 The masks and bellies were heavily decorated on Leap Day. Well attended, The Library is the best! Thanks, everyone!
2/21/2008 Incredible technological breakthrough! Paper masks are being built for the 2/29 Leap Day extravaganza. What an eclipse last night!
1/25/2008- What?? Still no guesses about Webley? We have a new drum hardware bag. Knive design has produced our new, nearly sold out batch of T-Shirts.
12/10/07- You can email us at SerendipityCafe@hotmail.com. If anyone knows who Webley Webster is, they might win a brass figligee with bronze oak leaf palm. No relation to Louise.
11/9/07 – Go to the Myspace (Serendipitycafe1) and look at the videos of the Jell-o contest from Scarendipity 2007! Well, really.
9/28/07 – Reputed to be “the greatest Serendipity ever!”, with Franciso, Point 5, Kodiak Bear Regiment and Welcome home. We broke a table leg, but you know what they say.
8/31/07 – Generator Powered! At least we had sound. Lights didn’t work. But we liked Lima Research Society, Crucial Pary, Funkus, and said goodbye to Byron Lupin III, and hello to Byron the Traveller. I hope that confetti really goes away.
7/20/07 – Good turnout, interesting music. The library is a great place for Serendipity. The movie was a beauty, and the Library’s DVD/Projector/Screen was very slick indeed.
6/16/07 – The Festival Underground was great! We presented the Serendipity Staff Scholarship to Evan AND Zack, listened to new bands, enjoyed the sunshine, and then!!!! Got rained and thundered on just before the Staff Band was to play. Talk about luck! Missed Lof, though. Next time. Come to the Parade, come to the library.
2/5/07 – We now have a stage snake, thanks to the Parents Who Rock, which we used in January, at the 1/27 café. It worked fine. Reviews were quite positive for the January event, we had interesting and solid music, thanks to Julia Berlin. Feb is shaping up well, with Gray Delmar in charge of entertaiment.
1/10/2007 – We had a great time on First Night. The
recordings are in the mixing/burning stage. All the performers were
professional and great. Some of them are completely famous. The reviews looked
good in the
12/10/2006 – Great lineup for first night: Jenny Owen Youngs, Rocket Surgery, The Early, Princeton Review, PointFive, Evan Hall.
8/22/2006 – We got rained out in July but the August amphitheater café was lovely. The weather was fine and we even had electric power. There’s a bit in the Montlcair times about volunteering, for adults. September is recruitment month!
5/24/2006 – There will be no library café’s this summer due to shortness of staff. However, we will try for July 21 and Aug 18 at the Amphitheater.
3/25/2006 – This café was the first one recorded with our new Yamaha AW1600 digital recording workstation. We’ll know in a few days how good it sounds.
Paid attendance was 70, Heroes and Villians didn’t show up, but we had Dogwater and Rocket Surgery to take up the slack.No Problem!
2/25/2006 - A great party. Attendance was 117, everyone approved highly. Tromboner was a big attraction. Got a tuner and a couple small cables in the lost and
Found.
12/4/2005 – The December 3 Serendipity was small but fun. We had a lot of competion from Showcase, Hockey and Football. The large group of helpers at the end, putting the equipment back at 277 Grove, was a really wonderful indication that Serendipity is doing fine. Annnnnd… Check the “myspace” page at
http://www.myspace.com/serendipitycafe1 this is the myspace email address: serendipitycafe_myspace@hotmail.com Thanks to Max and Julian!!!
11/2/2005 – The Scarendipty went well. Attendance was up, the entertainment recovered well from a last minute change of bands, and the critique meeting tonight was energetic and pointed.
9/28/2005 – The 9/23/05 Serendipity at the Amphitheater was rained into the Auditorium. The move was quick, and over $100 was raised for Katrina Hurrincane victims.
8/21/2005 – The Aug 12th café was very lucky. We got the entertainment booked at the last minute, we had a good turnout, lotta fun, and didn’t have to pay rent for the building, thanks to Phil Jones and Tom Flowers. It will be good to get everyone back to town & started up on the Scarenedipity and such.
7/7/2005 - The July 19th event has been cancelled due to lack of staff.
6/27/2005 – The Festvial was (in my humble opinion) excellent this year. The Acid Reign were the hit of the day, and we were lucky to have both the founders of Festival Underground at the event. Thanks to Ken Pasture for all the work, heavy lifting, and all day in the heat. Thanks to all the bands, all the parents, my mom and dad, and that kid over there.
5/30/2005 – the 5/28 Café had a really surprising number of
Alumni in Attendance. And seeing Sara Bynum-Copeland, Terry’s mother, and
5/1/2005 – the 4/30 café was small but intimate. The guitar piñata was pink, the cake was free and the music was in great variety. You should have been there.
3/21/2005 – The 3/19 café was fine! Special thanks to Pet Boy Sherman for filling in for the missing members of Cripple Fight. Solid performances by the Gray Escape (Dave), The Early, Princeton Review and Dogwater. Alex Gorlick was awesome. I liked them all.
2/28/2005 – Collected $142 for Tsunami Relief. How many want Saturday’s silly story on the web site? Raise your hands, one at a time, please.
1/26/2005 There just aren’t enough Saturdays. 2/29 not available 3/5 DT’s show, 3/12 Midsummer, 3/19 5 day weekend.
1/5/2005: The First Night at the Library café went smoothly, and was well received. We have a project under way to record the café performances to put on CD’s and here. New staff members come to the meeting today. Here comes the thnickaman!
11/27/04: The Library café was fine once we got in. There were some rough moments, waiting for the keymaster to let us in. After that, Kelsey was great on the café part, and Evan did OK at MC and ent. Head. The crowd seemed to be weighted toward the younger side and somewhat smaller than usual. But we decided to go with the Library for First Night.
8/22/04: Saturday’s café was mellow. Was that Manny Smith I saw? Sam Paterson? Too bad we didn’t get any pictures. Anyone who has pix of the 8/21 café, please email them to serendipitycafe@hotmail.com , but keep the size small. Use medium quality jpegs.
6/19/04: The festival Underground was a beautiful day, and a small group of the inner circle of Serendipity friends showed up for a really great day of music and sun and breezes and hackie-Frisbee.
6/9/04: The Mettenhiemer was awesome. Thanks to Dylan, Jackie, Marty, Gail, Ken, Bruno, all the Staff members, especially the waiters, The Montclair Women’s Club, our advertisers, the bands, performers, lotta work, lotta good results. Evelyn! Not out of character for a millisecond. Cinema! Cinema!
4/19/04 The Hip Hop Serendipity didn’t quite work. Some of the music was good, some of it was medium, but mainly, hardly anyone showed up.
2/23/04 The “Candle Light” Café included many bands never before seen at Serendipity. We were lucky to get Lucas’s camera working long enough to get the pictures off it. Holy Moley!
11/22/03: We all really like the Lutheran Church spot. We had an excellent café, with interesting music. The layout is comfy and we worked all the usual stuff in. The arrow committee truly excelled in navigational aids. David, you were marvelous More after the meeting.
I don’t know what caused it but we had the biggest, warmest crowd ever at the 10/25/03 Scarendipity. Over 175 people paid to come in and a bunch more were staff, performers, freeloaders of other kinds and adult supervisors. Many thanks to Gail Rainken, Cat Kanner, Pat Shrout, Jane Hanson, Ted Stilles, Ken Pasture, Peter Guiffra (Elvis), Bruno Suria and all the staff members who worked hard and long. There or other people who helped and we will have a lot to talk about when we meet on Wednesday.
The re-moved café worked out! We had more than a hundred in the audience and a great open mic hour. Can’t beat that Fire Dean. By the way, I fixed that buzzy stage monitor.
Nothing in recorded history can match the sophistication of the Sophisticate Serendipity! The ambience, music, poetry, food, drink and apparel were all in character from beginning to end. Historic performances by all, from Sousaphones to Jazz Quintet. And the first ever wedding at Serendipity. Many thanks to the Mettenheimer foundation for making it all possible.
The April 12 Café was very interesting. Waking James, Miasmiscs, Tim and Tonic and Gruve were all first time bands (I think) and all great. Open mic went fine. The staff was top notch, including the new sound crew. Thanks to all who helped clean up & move out.
Congratulations to Pet Boy Sherman on winning the SVPA battle of the bands. And great work by Redwood School District as last year’s Champions. The 1/18/03 café was a success by initial reports. The staff seem to think that the 1/18 café was the best of the year (so far). We need volunteers for the Feb and March committees.
The 2002 Fall season was unusually well received. In September we overcame a power failure and enjoyed a fine outdoor café in front of the Innes building. In October, the Spooky Serendipity was quite the event, with 2 Elvises and lots of costumes. (see photo gallery). In November, the Café at the church last Saturday was excellent, with great music. December included First Night Montclair, which wasn’t perfect, but once again we overcame adversity.
Terry’s Serendipity Café is a project begun by
Montclair High School students in the spring of 1995. It provides a place for
our town’s young people to listen to performances by a wide variety of artists,
poets and musicians here in town. Terry’s Serendipity Café is run by the
students themselves, with adult volunteer advice and supervision. The café
presents all types of performances and music from classical to rock, from jazz
to hip hop. We have “open mic” time set aside at each café for people to come
up on stage and perform. It is a great place for new artists to present their
material to a live audience.
The café is held at a variety of places depending on
availability, season and ideas. Wherever it is held, the café is drug, smoke
and alcohol free, and the emphasis is on respect for the performers and
audience alike. The café project is educational for the staff and entertaining
for the customers.
After three months of preparation, the first café was
held at the Edgemont Park Shelter House in Montclair in early June of 1995. For
about two years, the café was held about twice a month in the Park House. Other
locations include the Glenfield Park house, the MHS amphitheater, the Hillside
School cafeteria, 12 Miles West Theater, and the First United Methodist Church.
Entertainment has included famous jazz performers, student and adult age bands,
poets and comedians, actors and rappers. In 2001 we screened some avant-garde
videos.
In early 1998 a crisis occurred as the founding
members wanted to retire, but found the organization difficult to part with.
After a period of about eight months of no activity, the project found itself
in the hands of a new staff who wanted to re-start the project. In 1999 cafes
were held about every 6 weeks. In 2000 we began to step up the pace and in 2001
and 2002 we held an event every month.
Terry's Serendipity Café always NEEDS NEW
STAFF! We are always looking for new staff members. It's fun and you can get a
keen T-shirt. If you want to get involved in the Serendipity Café, then come to
meetings. . We need students and adults interested in theater, art,
finance, management, music, advertising, world wide web technology, and food. They are every Wednesday from
Email us at:
serendipitycafe@hotmail.com
.