Open Mic Documentary Project This idea started as a documentary film project but has altered course a bit. Slim (the documentarian) will come shoot your open mic performance and give you the result on a DVD if you get in touch with him.

West Coast Songwriters. Formerly the Northern California Songwriters' Association. This is where it gets serious. These open mics can get you heard in front of industry types who have the resources to help you out with your original music.

Red Vic Sessions The Red Vic in the Haight hosts a weekly acoustic music showcase hosted by Ronnie Cato on Fridays and the occasional Thursday. If you'd like to play, Ronnie would love to hear from you through his mySpace site. Performers get a 40 minute set each.

Songsalive San Francisco Bay area songwriters Deborah Crooks and Steven Andrew Kacsmar run the Songsalive.org songwriter showcase every second Wednesday of the month from 7:30 - 9:30pm at Cafe Trieste. For more info, check the Songsalive San Francisco mySpace site.

NPR Open Mics As part of National Public Radio's All Songs Considered program, NPR Open Mic seeks to showcase unsigned, unknown artists. In November 2005 it started running 5 days a week and is released as a podcast on the net. They want to hear your home recordings!

US Copyright Office. The official site and easy to use. Many other nations suggest filing with the US Library of Congress is the best way in the world to register your original work. Also, the employees of the copyright office now can contact you via email! Isn't it great.

indiecentre. Everything you need as an independent musician from where to buy stickers to starting your own record label . . . in 2001. This site seems to have been left to rot, but there are still some great nuggets of info here.

CD Baby. A do-it-yourself online CD sales solution. CD Baby will handle website, artwork, mp3 samples, iTunes registry; everything. Free to set up, five CD minimum, $4 charge per CD sold (no matter what the CD price). There are other companies that do something similar, but CD Baby is often championed by musicians and industry types as the best.

garageband.com. In their words, Garageband.com seeks to "empower musicians and discover the best independent music." It's a site full of band profiles that seems to have a significant audience in the industry. Their basic service is free, so it can't hurt to sign up. (Apple pays them a fee to use the "Garageband" name for their software, in case you were wondering)

mySpace music The social mecca for the internet generation, myspace.com has brought several bands to international attention through its sheer popularity. Setting up a "band" profile allows you to host images, mp3s, show info and the like within your community of friends. While the site can be a tremendous waste of time, there's no denying its importance to hundreds of thousands of internet users.

Yes, the Bay Area Open Mic Calendar has a mySpace page. Click here. to check it out.

The Future of Music Coalition. A non-profit thinktank in Washington DC that lobbies for artists and songwriter rights. Great source of industry info you wouldn't find elsewhere. These guys fight the bad guys, check them out.

Rose Street House Non-profit Rose Street House hosts female musicians at private house concerts in Berkeley and has been doing this good work for years.

Pacific Rim Sharing Music Neal Margolis is a familiar face at open mics around the San Francisco bay area. The PRSM site profiles his favorite San Francisco (and 2 Hawaiian) open mics in photos, including photo features on the regular performers at each open mic venue.

Drew Pearce hosts private open mic events in bay area homes. He also writes for Acoustic Guitar Magazine and gets to interview rock stars. Way cool.

Open Mic Showcase An interesting public television project that sounded like a great idea - they broadcast two live open mic nights a couple of years ago and were hoping to secure funding to continue which, unfortunately, didn't happen. The dream still lives, should a sponsor arrive on the scene . . .

The Popular Noise Foundation PNF are/were a local grassroots organization dedicated to supporting live and original music in the bay area . . . or, they used to be. Seems this died in 2002 . . . too bad.