He leans forward into the microphone, pointed up. "One-two, one-two." He waits for a nod from his friend who stands across the room, against the windows that look into Pollock Commons from the Espress'ery Coffee House.
"My name's Jason Thomas. This one's by The Verve. It's called 'On Your Own'."
With that introduction, Thomas (senior-public relations) begins to play, while on the television that hangs in the corner near the entrance — along the same turquoise blue and grey speckled wall he stands against — Alicia Keys accepts her Grammy for Best New Artist.
"I apologize for playing in place of the Grammys," Thomas says after finishing the song, and before expressing his hopes that U2 — one of his favorite bands and biggest influences — brings home an award.
"So here's a little U2 from The Joshua Tree. It's called 'Running to Stand Still.'"
He begins to play as a blonde-haired girl seated at one of the circular tables nudges her friend and points to the TV.
'NSYNC is taking the stage.
— — —
While it's the first time he's ever had to compete with the Grammys, Thomas is no stranger to the struggle of capturing an audience's attention. The singer-songwriter, who began playing at the Espress'ery in the fall of 2000, has collected all his performance experience at coffee shops.
It's not the most ideal setting, he'll tell you. People are constantly walking in and out, getting their late-night caffeine fix and leaving.
For those who do stick around, the entertainment usually takes second billing, behind board games or homework or conversation.
"It's difficult. I try to bring as many friends as I can," said Thomas, whose friends occupy one of the tables directly in front of him tonight — three male, three female. It's also his friends who help him set up and take down his equipment, and who help repair a mid-set broken string — a common casualty of what he calls an aggressive guitar-playing style.
"I think the thing about performing, that any performer will tell you, is that it's instant gratification," he said. "You know right away if people are into you or not. It's hard to tell that here."
But, when he does detect some positive feedback, it's rewarding.
"It's like hitting a baseball. If three out of 10 people like what you do, that's good," Thomas said.
"There's so much music out there. It's hard to grab people."
And on this night, a bitter Wednesday right before spring break, it's especially difficult. Tired students file in and out of the Espress'ery with two things on their minds — warming up and staying up. As the audience sips coffee and runs their highlighters through textbooks, Thomas runs through covers — Counting Crows, Foo Fighters, Third Eye Blind. In between he throws in his own material — the result of an unpredictable and constantly improving writing process.
"He works at it a lot. If we're sitting at his apartment, he'll play a little bit, then go back to it, and then play a little more," said Jerrod White, a long-time friend of Thomas' from his hometown of Lewistown. "He doesn't overdo it. The creativity just comes along. He just goes with the flow."
And going with the flow is something Thomas does well. He breezes through his roughly two hour set, halting only for the short, soft-spoken introductions that precede each song. As he stops strumming long enough to get out song titles, other noises threaten to drown him out — casual conversation, the timer from a game of Scattergories and the buzz of the cappuccino machine.
But Thomas doesn't notice. Or, at the least, he doesn't seem to care as he sets up "Black," his next selection.
"Pearl Jam was one of the first bands that got me into music — that really made me want to play guitar."
— — —
So it was Pearl Jam — and the presence of a guitar around the house that no one knew how to use — that led Thomas to start emulating musicians he saw on TV at age 15. It backfired, however, as he mirrored them too closely and started playing with the wrong hand.
Thomas then took six months of guitar lessons to correct the problem and get the basics down, and his first performance came at the age of 16 in a high school show. Then, in 1997, he began opening for acoustic artist Rhyne McCormick once or twice a month at Lexie's Café in Lewistown. It was there, he said, that he grew as a performer, watching and learning from McCormick and picking up some much needed confidence.
Then, after two years at Penn State Altoona, Thomas came to University Park and set up a show at the Espress'ery on a friend's advice. He has played there at least every other month since, giving him a solid foundation that he feels has prepared him to take the next step: the downtown bars. Thomas said there's a little more money involved, and the setting commands more attention from the audience.
"It's something that's hard to break into," Thomas said of the downtown scene. "But I'm starting to get confidence, starting to talk to people now."
And bars are just part of his plan for the future, as his first CD is slowly but surely coming along. He hopes to have it ready to go by this time next year because —with graduation about two months away— the time to pursue music is now. Thomas said he doesn't want to look back in 10 or 15 years, wishing he gave his dream a shot.
But, even if music ends up being a hobby and not a career, it will always have a place in his life.
"I'm going to continue to play shows, whether they're at a bar with 300 people or a place like this with 10 people," Thomas says, looking around the Espress'ery.
"It's because I love to do it."
PHOTO: C. Davis Herter
