10 acts perform during Café Django Short List

Café Django is a place where each wall is painted a different color.

On Monday, the Bloomington Short List performed at this small venue and added a hint of 10-minute cohesion to the somewhat-distracted place.

“Welcome to our stage, where everybody plays / Yeah, here’s our gift to you / We hope these songs, which aren’t too long / Might wash away your blues,” the U-Station Agents sang.

The U-Station Agents are a three-person acoustic band that headlines and founded the Bloomington Short List.

The Short List is a 10-act concert in which each act is 10 minutes long and consists of musicians, comedians and even a theatrical act titled “The Never-ending Story.”

Steven Thomas, a founder of the Bloomington Short List, said the 10-minute time limit was inspired by an effort to keep audience members from ever being bored.

The event started with a song for Presidents’ Day.

“Mr. President, this Bud’s for you,” the U-Station Agents sang.

Amelia Smith was the manager and bartender for the night at Café Django. The U-Station Agents are Smith’s favorite act, and with Bud Lights and various pale ales patterning the bar shelf above her, Smith said the songs help slow down hectic work nights and remind her of campfires in the summer.

“I like the earthy guitar music, and I like the picking,” Smith said. “Sometimes, I’ll be making drinks and running around, and I stop and just listen for a second and it helps calm me down.”

Smith provided the refreshments, but David Britton provided the comedy. Britton, the assistant director of Rhino’s All Ages Music Club, emceed the event, and his stories about haircuts and yellow bird calls provided transitions from act to act.

“This story’s going really well, so I’m just going to keep it going,” Britton said.

Britton’s set featured a story about drunk haircuts that ended with Britton and his hairdresser sleeping together. But the sex happened before Britton was able to pay his stylist, and he wasn’t sure how much to tip — would 20 percent be enough? 100 percent? Either way, the haircut was only $10.

“I asked for a haircut, not a whore cut,” Britton laughed.

The audience clapped between each act of the variety show. 

“It’s kind of like Saturday Night Live, it just keeps moving,” Thomas said.

While the performance featured comedic, jazz and theatrical acts, it began as just an intimate concert with Thomas’ U-Station Agents. And now, although nine other acts have joined the Monday night recital, Thomas said the performance has stayed just as intimate and that the beauty of the event has come with the variety of the show.

“The whole thing has always been better than the sum of its parts,” Thomas said.

“People go out and pour their hearts out there for free for 10 minutes, and that is the true spirit of art and the essence of creative expression.”