The Listening Booth in Lewes, Delaware: Music, Community, and Combating Loneliness

 The Listening Booth, located in Lewes, Delaware, is far more than just a music venue; it's the physical home for the We're Listening 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with a core mission to combat loneliness through original music, songwriting, and storytelling. Founded by Marissa Levy, who transitioned from a computer programmer in New York to a dedicated music entrepreneur, the venue was born out of a realization that there was a severe lack of spaces for original artists to perform in the area. The organization's commitment to community is furthered through songwriting classes, a "Song Circle," and mentorship to help new artists grow from open mic nights to headlining shows. 

 From its beginnings as a pop-up concert series in a backyard and temporary spaces in the Tanger Outlets, the venue has grown into a thriving 100-seat space featuring a full calendar of folk, rock, jazz, and blues acts. This community-focused model emphasizes artistic development and connection, serving as a hub where both musicians and audiences feel they truly belong. 

 The Listening Booth hosts unique events like the upcoming Key Change Award, a fundraiser dedicated to honoring people who make a difference in the community. Whether you're a performing artist or a music lover looking for a genuine, curated experience, The Listening Booth offers a special place to hear original music and make connections at the Delaware beaches. 

 Thanks for tuning in to learn about life on the Delaware coast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss our next episode! 

Transcript

The Listening Booth: Music, Community, and Combating Loneliness

Christine McCoy: Hello, everyone! This is Christine McCoy with the Real McCoy Group of Coldwell Banker, and I am here with my son, Ryan McCoy. Welcome back to our podcast called Delaware. We are trying to introduce people to the fabulous things that happen here in Sussex County, Delaware, and do we have a creative force with us today! I had the pleasure of meeting Marissa when, um, they opened. It was right after you opened The Listening Booth, and The Listening Booth is located up in Lewis. And it is a fabulous way to inspire young artists and give them a voice here in our community. And Marissa, I'd love to learn more about how it got started, how you got into music. Tell us a little bit about your history.

Marissa Levy: Well, hi! It's so nice to be here. I'm happy to to be on the podcast. It's exciting. So, The Listening Booth, we are a, uh, live music venue in Lewis, that's our primary objective. But we also teach, uh, private music lessons, and we have a recording studio. We rent out the space for parties. We do all kinds of fun things to kind of keep ourselves a constant center and hub for community in Lewis and surrounding areas, of course.

Christine McCoy: I guess the question was, how did we get started? How did you get to Lewis? I mean, you, you have a background. You said you were from Bethesda, and then you lived in New York City for a while. So tell us a little bit about how that all transitioned and what your background is.

Marissa Levy: Sure. So, yes, I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, um, and then I went to NYU for college and grad school and stayed. I remember, you know, visiting NYU with my dad before, like my senior year of, of high school, and he said, "Well, I'm just worried you're going to move to New York and then not want to leave". And I said, "That'll never happen." And then 20 years later, I finally left New York. So I, I lived in New York for 20 years. Uh, when I was there, I was a computer programmer for most of my adulthood. But did the singer-songwriter thing a little bit, toured around a little bit, until I had kids, and then I kind of stopped doing that. But I still made records, I was still writing music, which was cool, but not touring. Um, and then when the pandemic hit, and I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with...

Ryan McCoy: Everybody's dream.

Marissa Levy: Going crazy with my twins and a dog and, uh, my husband, we decided that it was time to leave. Um, I was sitting in my car doing a conference call, like parked right in front of our apartment so I could get the Wi-Fi, and it just was like, this is totally unsustainable. Being from Bethesda, Lewis, Rehoboth is a very common vacation destination for people in the DC area, and my parents had built a home in Cape Shores near the ferry in Lewis a couple of years before then. And so I called them and I said, "Are you going to the house during this pandemic thing?" And they were like, "Nah, we're just going to stay in Bethesda." You know, they had a big house in Bethesda. It was fine. So I was like, "Can we go to the house?".

Christine McCoy: We need some space.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, so we, uh, you know, packed for like two weeks worth of stuff and moved to the house in, in Cape Shores. And then 18 months later, we sold our apartment in Brooklyn, and, you know, we bought a house in, in Lewis as well. So, that's how we ended up in Lewis.

Christine McCoy: That's amazing! A lot of people came down during the pandemic. We were a very busy in real estate down here as people were escaping the cities.

Marissa Levy: I'm sure you were. Yeah, we bought our house at the end of 2020, like right at the end of 2020. I remember like wearing masks to go look at houses and, and things like that. So, uh, The Listening Booth came about because I'd always sort of felt like I was doing this computer programmer thing. It was sort of a weird move. I'm a very creative person, I like to make things. And so like programming was a great way to make things, but also make money while I was making things. So like it's very crafty, if you've ever like done any coding, it's very crafty. But, uh, I had been laid off from my job that I was in the longest before the pandemic. And then I was hopping from startup to startup to startup. I had four different jobs during the pandemic.

Christine McCoy: Oh, jeez.

Marissa Levy: And the last one, I had been hired, and then about, I think it was 11 days later, broke my ankle, and then the next day, along with a third of the rest of the staff, was laid off.

Ryan McCoy: Oh my goodness.

Christine McCoy: Guess that's poor planning on their part if they had just hired you to figure that out.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, yeah, I think something happened with one of the founders. It's a little unclear. But that was a music-related—like I was still doing my work as a computer programmer, but it was music-related. So I was like, "At least I'm closer to being in the music industry". And, uh, I just sort of went like, "Okay." Like there's something in the air. There's some...

Christine McCoy: Pushing you in a direction.

Marissa Levy: Yeah. And then also just like, I thought, "Well, it's a little less expensive to live here than New York" and...

Christine McCoy: A little.

Marissa Levy: I'm saying it's not much more... to be totally honest...

Christine McCoy: The taxes alone in New York would kill me.

Marissa Levy: That's true. The taxes are a big thing, but like the cost of living, just the day-to-day stuff, actually, it's sort of, yeah. But, um, but yeah, so I thought like, "Oh, well, maybe I could like get back into music a little bit, like maybe tour a little or like at least play locally". And I started reaching out to venues around to like play, and they were like, "Sure, we'll have you play. Can you play three hours of covers?". And I'm like, "No, I can play 45 minutes of my own music. Would that be okay?" And they said, "No".

Christine McCoy: Not even a shot. Wow.

Marissa Levy: So I started kind of going, there was an open mic night at Arena's in Downtown Rehoboth, and I started going there and meeting people and talking to people. And, you know, I was usually the only one playing original music, but every once in a while, there would be someone else playing original music. And then we'd have conversations about like, "Where do you play original music around here?" And they said, "Nowhere". And at the same time—the timeline's a little fuzzy, but at the same time—I had applied to and got accepted to the Launcher Program, which is this sort of entrepreneur training program. I, I'm not exactly sure if it's like run by the state of Delaware or funded by the state of Delaware, but it's definitely got some kind of like, you know, a Delaware affiliation. And it's normally, only the people who are accepted are people who want to open businesses in low-income, up-and-coming areas.

Christine McCoy: Gotcha. Which Lewis does not qualify. No.

Marissa Levy: However, because I had sort of was talking about maybe a music venue, and I was a woman opening a business in a very male-dominated field, I got accepted.

Christine McCoy: Oh, fantastic.

Marissa Levy: And was kind of entered that very cautiously, you know, thinking, "Entrepreneurship." It's sort of something I've always done, like I, you know, done freelance work and I've been a singer-songwriter and those are all entrepreneurial endeavors. But it was never like, "That's it."

Christine McCoy: It's like being a fully commissioned real estate agent.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, yeah, and my parents are both lawyers, you know, and like my mom worked for the same place for like 30 years, you know, like it's just not, it's not like in the zeitgeist of my family, this entrepreneurship thing. So I did the program, and it was a really good program. They taught you how to, uh, write a business plan, they taught you how to, uh, look for real estate, they taught you, you know, about various funding opportunities, things like that. And at the end of it, uh, there was an elevator pitch competition.

Christine McCoy: Oh, jeez.

Marissa Levy: And I went all out, like I made merch and I...

Christine McCoy: Wow.

Marissa Levy: Wore The Listening—I got, I got, like I got hired someone to do a logo for me.

Christine McCoy: So you actually invented The Listening Booth in this, in this class?

Marissa Levy: In this class. Oh, that's really neat. And I did not win the elevator pitch contest. I got second place.

Christine McCoy: Oh.

Marissa Levy: But the interesting news is that the two businesses that won first and second place are the two kind of thriving businesses that came out of this.

Christine McCoy: That's cool.

Marissa Levy: Are you allowed to tell us who the other business was? Uh, yeah, it's um, uh, Hand Over Your Rover, and it's a dog sitting place in Dover, Delaware. Yeah, she's awesome.

Christine McCoy: That's really cute.

Marissa Levy: And I send my dogs there. Um, so she won. And she had a terrific pitch, like she was great.

Christine McCoy: If you're going to lose to somebody, lose to somebody really great. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marissa Levy: So, anyway, uh, I come home from that elevator pitch and I was like, "I sort of feel like I have to do this thing now". You know, 'cause I got validated by it. So back to the Arena's open mic, I had met two people at the open mic, Victoria Riu and Nate McCormack. Both were like, "We kind of want to do this with you". And they are still with me today, which is really cool. Um, actually, Nate was showing me a text like we met four years ago, like two days ago.

Christine McCoy: Oh, wow. Happy anniversary. Yeah, thanks.

Marissa Levy: So, we just kind of started, you know, ideating on this thing, and I was like, "Well, why don't we just like start as like a pop-up concert series"? And let's just do it in my backyard. I have a lot of contacts from being a musician in New York for so long and just, you know, I have a lot of connections. So I reached out to a couple of musicians. There's one woman, her name's Christine Lavin. She's sort of like a pretty uh, famous folk singer. Okay. You know, um, funny. She does a lot of like kind of kitschy, funny stuff. And I reached out to her and I was like, "Would you want to like do this? Like the first one?" And she's like, "I'd love to." And then her agent hooked me up with two other artists that could open for her.

Christine McCoy: Oh, like a real concert.

Marissa Levy: A real genuine concert. So we were going to run it as a house concert. I like rented a tent and chairs and porta-potties and all the stuff in my backyard. I contact my HOA. They were like, "Sure, go for it!"

Christine McCoy: Great.

Marissa Levy: And then about—and then we sold tickets. We sold out like instantly. Because people love Christine Lavin around here.

Christine McCoy: It's the right age bracket.

Marissa Levy: And, um, so, um, and then about two weeks before the concert, my HOA said, "Nah, just kidding".

Christine McCoy: Oh, no. That sounds more like it.

Marissa Levy: So, um, fortunately, uh, my, uh, husband, now ex-husband, works at the Cinema Art Theater. And he was like, "I wonder if the theater would let you use, use the space." So we did.

Christine McCoy: Oh, thank goodness.

Marissa Levy: And it was great. So we actually ended up doing our first like five shows there, which was a really great partnership. But two days before the concert, I get a call from Christine, who is in the hospital.

Christine McCoy: Oh, jeez.

Marissa Levy: So, I had a lot of lessons very early on about sort of learning to pivot. So she couldn't come, and, uh, the two openers, Chris Matthews and Heather May, which are, they are both incredible singer-songwriters in their own right. They were like, "We'll do the headlining set. No big deal". And my friend, who was going to be in the audience anyway, who is an awesome singer-songwriter, said that she would do the opening.

Christine McCoy: Oh, well.

Marissa Levy: So we had a really great show. And, you know, most people were disappointed not to see Christine. She did send a video.

Christine McCoy: Oh, that's great.

Marissa Levy: So we showed the video for her, um, which was cool. And then she has since come to The Listening Booth again. Anyway, uh, so that was our first show, and it was a big success. We, you know, still had close to a hundred people in the audience.

Christine McCoy: And that's about the size of your venue now, isn't it?

Marissa Levy: It is, yeah. We're a 100-seat venue now. But like, you know, a movie theater, the way it's set up, it's like everyone's very tightly packed in, and you can't, once you're sitting down, you can't get up to go to the bathroom. I don't think that they allowed us to bring drinks in, maybe they did, I don't remember. But, yeah, it was, you know, not conducive to the kind of environment that we wanted to create. But it was great for the moment.

Christine McCoy: Great to get started.

Marissa Levy: Yeah. And then, you know, we did a few more shows at at the Cinema Art Theater. And then also, in the process of all of this, somehow I decided it would be a really good idea to purchase another business.

Christine McCoy: Of course, why not?

Marissa Levy: Yeah, I don't know. So, I, uh, my friend Rachel, we bought Hammer & Stain.

Christine McCoy: Oh, yeah.

Marissa Levy: Um, which is this art studio in Lewis, which is now actually in the same plaza that Listening Booth is in now. And part of the reason I did it, I was like, "Well, it's a space that Listening Booth can use," 'cause like Hammer & Stain stuff is mostly during the day, and then at night we could do a few concerts there. So, yeah, we ended up doing about five or six shows at Hammer & Stain too. Boy, that was a pain, just like taking all of our equipment. We had to remove all the tables from the art studio. We put up curtains so it kind of looked more like a theater than a, I mean it was...

Christine McCoy: Set change.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, in again, a lesson in, uh, in learning to pivot. And then we happened to get this really great deal with Tanger Outlets. Um, they do these short-term rentals, mostly for small businesses, which is really cool. A lot of people don't know about it.

Christine McCoy: Yeah, I didn't know, I didn't know that's how you got into the Tanger Outlets.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, I mean, basically, you know, it's, it's good for them because if they have these like sort of short-term openings for stores, they want to fill them. So we had a month-to-month lease with them, and we had a weird space. We were in the old um, Guest Services area.

Christine McCoy: I remember walking back there when I first met you and I was like, "This is interesting how they fit that in," but you did. I mean, it worked.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, we did. They removed all the furniture, they had some big bulky desks and stuff. They removed all the furniture for us. And we knew we weren't going to stay there forever, so we just did a basic like paint job and kind of, you know, made it enough of our own. And we were there for 10 months. And that place seated about 60 people. And it was real, it was tight. It was real like, we're a bunch of kids putting on a play there, you know.

Christine McCoy: It was really intimate, though, and the, and the, I mean the music was great when we saw it.

Marissa Levy: It sounded awesome in there. Very low ceiling, so easy to control the sound, there wasn't a lot of like bouncing or anything like that. But, yeah, it was, you know, we outgrew it pretty quick. Um, and I had sent a note to my landlord at Hammer & Stain to say, "Hey, if that big space on the end ever opens up, let me know". And they kind of told me, "It's never going to open up." And then lo and behold, like around November, December, they were like, "Guess what?".

Christine McCoy: Guess what?

Marissa Levy: "Guess what? And you gotta sign the lease right now".

Christine McCoy: When the universe speaks, sometimes it speaks very loudly.

Marissa Levy: Yeah. So a lot of this has been like, you know, these big signs from the universe being like, "This is your next move".

Christine McCoy: There you go.

Marissa Levy: So we weren't exactly ready, but we did it anyway. Um, and we renovated the space for about two and a half months. We had to like tear down some walls and build up some other ones. We still have big plans for the space, you know, we have a, we have a five-year lease, hoping to extend for another five years, so we figure we can make it really our home. But we did a lot of work in that space.

Christine McCoy: So it was really cool to hear all the different events you do there. What, do you have a specific, uh, genre of music that is drawn to The Listening Booth, or is it kind of all over the place?

Marissa Levy: So, it's a bit all over the place. More so now. Originally we started with a lot of like folk, singer-songwriters because that's who I know. That's who I was booking. We have since brought in another booker, who does maybe 40, 50% of the booking. Shauna Fitzky, and she brings in more of these like bands and blues musicians and jazz musicians and rock bands. People that I don't meet in my day-to-day life, but she's on tour a lot. Her boys are The Fitzky Brothers, if you've ever heard them. And, um, she's on tour with them a lot, and so she goes to festivals, she meets all sorts of musicians. So she's been booking a lot of these bigger kind of, you know, five-piece band acts, whereas I get to bring on my friends, who are singer-songwriters. And so it's worked out really well. And then the only overarching theme of The Listening Booth is that it has to be original music.

Christine McCoy: Oh, that's great.

Marissa Levy: So we do not do any cover bands, any tribute bands. And, you know, it's a, it's a hill I'm going to die on, but...

Christine McCoy: Yeah.

Marissa Levy: You know, I've been to a bunch of other venues, and I said, "How do you guys make money?" And they were like, "We book tribute acts". But, you know, so far, I think that's really, that's, you know, that's our, our stance, our principal.

Christine McCoy: Well, that's your unique value, which will serve you well, I'm sure. It's not one in a million. It's, I mean, it is one in a million, it's not the norm.

Marissa Levy: Well, that's what he said. You know, when you were looking to book something, you couldn't find anywhere that was doing original music other than when there was an open mic night.

Ryan McCoy: Right.

Marissa Levy: So now there is somewhere for people to go.

Christine McCoy: Yeah. And you have songwriting classes too. When when I was there, I remember hearing about, like, you have mentors kind of for the younger people, because some of the young folks that we saw were local, people just trying to make it in the music and, and try to figure out their way, which I thought was really neat. Talk to us a little bit about that mentorship and...

Marissa Levy: Sure. Yeah, so one of the things we really like to do is when we have these national touring acts come in, we always try to pair them with a local opener. So somebody who has been slogging it out at the bars playing their three hours of covers, but they've also written like an album's worth of songs or something, and they just don't have an audience for it. So we like to give them that audience. So that's part of it. And then the other part is we do offer, we have a Song Circle, which is a, uh, bi-weekly gathering of songwriters to kind of, sort of like an art class, you know, you bring in your work, and you get it critiqued by everybody and kind of workshop it together.

Christine McCoy: Oh, neat.

Marissa Levy: And then I also teach private songwriting classes for anybody who wants it. We're trying to expand those offerings a little bit more. We feel like one part of the vision that seems to be missing is that kind of middle step. So we have open mic night, we do a very successful open mic night. And then there's, there's like a step missing between open mic and being an opener. So like somewhere where you could just play 20 minutes, you know, not worry so much about who you're bringing in or, you know, whether you've sold tickets or that, you know, like, but just a place to perform. Like in New York, when I was doing the singer-songwriter thing, I could book a show a night. And these venues didn't care whether, I mean, I'm sure they cared, but they, like they didn't seem to notice if I only brought five people or 10 people or 30 people, you know, because they were also open as bars and people would just come in and drink. Like we don't have that. We're not open as a bar normally. So we're trying to figure out what that looks like to have, you know, just any songwriter in the area who wants to book a gig be able to do it while keeping our costs, you know, relatively low.

Christine McCoy: Yeah. And you do serve uh, food and drink there?

Marissa Levy: Mhm. Yeah, we have a full bar and a kitchen.

Christine McCoy: Oh, very nice. I don't think I remember the kitchen part. I guess oh no, yeah we did eat.

Marissa Levy: At the new space. We didn't have the old space. Yeah, we had, I think you guys were at one of our like special events, and we had a caterer. But yeah, we now have a kitchen. Um, we serve sort of cafe-style food, you know, flatbreads, paninis, wraps, that kind of stuff.

Christine McCoy: Oh, yum. I've got to go back to the new space.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, it's a really, it's a great space.

Ryan McCoy: What are some of the, um, events that you have coming up?

Marissa Levy: Well, the biggest thing right now that we're charging towards is that we're actually starting an annual award show. It's called the Key Change Award, which we thought was very quippy. Um, and it's basically we're giving it to people in our community who are making a difference in some way. In addition to The Listening Booth, we have a nonprofit called We're Listening. And We're Listening actually runs all the operations. The Listening Booth, The Listening Booth is just kind of the marketing shell, you know, doing the booking and things like that. So our mission from the nonprofit is to combat loneliness, the the sort of post-pandemic loneliness epidemic, through music. And particularly through original music, right? The songwriting, the storytelling, the sharing of each other's, you know, personal details kind of in a way that makes people feel like they're in community. So, you know, we've been, we were sort of toying with this idea of an award show and who we could give it to, people who are like bringing people together in community in some way. So our first recipient of the award is going to be our Congresswoman Sarah McBride. So we're very excited about that. She's very excited about it too. And we're going to do kind of like a cocktail hour, you know, at the beginning, meet and greet cocktail hour. And then we'll do the actual award show. We'll have a couple of musicians playing, including Spencer LeJoy, who is a musician we've had at The Listening Booth. They are incredible. They, they do like the looping thing, which is a little pedal board where they can record and then sing over themselves.

Christine McCoy: Okay.

Marissa Levy: And we'll have people give speeches, and then we'll, we'll present the award to Sarah. So that's going to be on December 8th.

Christine McCoy: And is that right at The Listening Booth?

Marissa Levy: That'll be at The Listening Booth. Wow. Yeah, so we're really excited about that. And Megan Key is going to be catering for us, which is really cool. And we've had a local artist, um, Tim Barton, he has designed the award. And it's beautiful. He showed it to me today, and I'm so excited about it. So that's the thing that...

Christine McCoy: So you're selling tickets to that?

Marissa Levy: We are selling tickets. Yes, tickets and sponsorships for that are on sale now. And it's like, it's on our website. We're not selling it in the traditional ticket way that we normally sell on our website because it's a fundraiser, so. It's a little bit different, but, but yes, you can get to it on our, on our website, which is really cool.

Christine McCoy: I'm sure you have a lot posted on your website too.

Marissa Levy: We do. Everything is, everything is pretty much posted on our website. But let's see some highlights. We have Lucy Wainwright Roche is coming up in December. She is Rufus Wainwright's half-sister. Um, she's an incredible singer-songwriter, very excited. And we're having Callum open. Cal Toner, who is from Berlin, Maryland, I believe. And she actually played like, I think our third Listening Booth show. So she's someone, and she's only like 18 years old.

Christine McCoy: The name sounds familiar.

Marissa Levy: I'm sure you've seen her play before. We also have a great band, Parker Barrow, coming up. And then we have a Hip Hop Night.

Christine McCoy: Oh, wow.

Marissa Levy: So like it's all a little over the place, which is really cool. We have, um...

Christine McCoy: Well, you're going to attract a whole bunch of different, you know, people to come see what you do. And maybe, maybe open their eyes to some new types of music.

Marissa Levy: That's kind of the, that's kind of the goal. Like I had a customer tell me once, um, they were like, "We don't, we don't even like listen. When you post a new event, we don't even research who it is. We just show up because we know that you've curated it". And like that's the best thing a venue owner could ever hear.

Christine McCoy: Absolutely. It's like the best form of flattery. Yeah.

Marissa Levy: Do you have any like really funny stories that you want to share, like something that happened maybe to you or to something on stage or during an event?

Christine McCoy: Hmm, funny stories. Let's see. So The Fitzky Brothers, they play a lot with Melody Trucks, who is Derek Trucks' niece from The Allman Brothers. Oh, okay. And apparently in The Allman Brothers, if you, there's a tradition that if you play a show on your birthday, you get a whipped cream pie in the face at the end of your show. And one of The Fitzky Brothers, I cannot remember which one, I think it was Drew, it was his birthday, and they were playing at The Listening Booth. And at the end of the show, Melody smack right in the face to...

Ryan McCoy: Did Drew have any idea?

Marissa Levy: I, well, yes, 'cause he knows like, he, you know, he knows the sort of Allman Brothers lore. But, well, what I think was particularly funny about it was Melody was like, "It's okay, Marissa, I'll clean it up". And like after the show, she was like on her hands and knees like scrubbing out all the whipped cream and stuff like that.

Christine McCoy: That was good. Did they do it in front of the audience?

Marissa Levy: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think he might have played the last song with like pie on his face.

Christine McCoy: Even better.

Marissa Levy: Our very first show at our new space, Ellis Paul played, and I opened for him, 'cause we were sort of debating like, "Who's the right person to open for Ellis?" And he was going to sell out the show anyway, so we didn't have to like worry. And so we decided, yeah, I'll play. So he had never heard me play before, and I, I opened the show, and I have a song that's kind of a sing-along song that I always do last. So I did the song. And then it's intermission, and I'm schmoozing with everybody, doing my thing. And I'm out in the lobby. I, I introduced Ellis, and then I went out into the lobby to talk to someone else. And I'm out in the lobby, and all of a sudden, I hear my song. Ellis is on stage playing my song, and getting the audience to sing with him to my song. That was an interesting moment. And I missed most of it.

Christine McCoy: And you didn't even get to sing.

Marissa Levy: No.

Christine McCoy: Now, you said you have a background in opera.

Marissa Levy: Kind of.

Christine McCoy: But when you go out on, but when you go out on tour, I mean, I'm assuming you're not, you're not singing opera. What are you, what are you singing? Are you more the folk singer?

Marissa Levy: Yeah, so I, a lot of people compare me to Lisa Loeb, which I take that compliment quite well. And she's actually become a friend of mine over the years, which is really cool. I like to say, I choose my celebrities a little bit more, you know, inside baseball. So I like to say that if Jill Sobule and Adam Schlesinger—so Jill Sobule wrote "I Kissed a Girl", the original "I Kissed a Girl". And she played Listening Booth actually twice. She unfortunately passed away last year. And Adam Schlesinger was the bass player and wrote most of the songs for Fountains of Wayne. So he wrote "Stacy's Mom". So I like to say if the two of them had produced a child, I would be that child. So it's sort of, you know, kind of quirky pop music.

Christine McCoy: That's great.

Marissa Levy: Yeah, when I was an opera major, I was an education major at NYU with a concentration in opera, which sounds really fancy. And quickly realized that I hated singing opera, and somebody put a guitar in my hand in college, and I learned to play.

Christine McCoy: So you didn't learn to play guitar until college?

Marissa Levy: No. And actually, one of the guys who, we were in string practicums. When you're an education major, you have to learn to play every instrument in a in a band and orchestra. Wow. So I'm in string practicum, and the first thing they do is guitar. So I'm sitting there in guitar, and the guy sitting next to me is a jazz guitar major. Oh, jeez. He's like, "I don't even know why I'm here." He's like, "I'm bored, I'm going to teach you how to play guitar". So that guy went on to be the guitar player for the Saturday Night Live band for like over a decade.

Christine McCoy: You know some serious people.

Marissa Levy: That's New York, you know, like when you're in New York, you meet a lot of people that go on to do big things, which is cool.

Christine McCoy: Well, this Listening Booth is something that everybody needs to check out. And what is, is your your website The Listening Booth?

Marissa Levy: So no "the," it's just listeningbooth.com.

Christine McCoy: Great. Yeah. And you can get tickets there, and you can find out when open mic nights are.

Marissa Levy: Absolutely. We have our full calendar on the website. And also, we're really, really active on Facebook. So if you're, if you're a Facebook head, um, we're always keeping people updated.

Christine McCoy: Lou keeps trying to make me a Facebook head, but...

Marissa Levy: No, no, no, that's not what I was saying. I'm just saying I feel like a Facebook may be on the decline. So like getting in now feels a little bit weird. Also, like don't get into the addiction, it's better.

Christine McCoy: It's better. Better to stop scrolling. Don't start the scroll. Well, thank you so much, Marissa, for coming on and being with us. Is there anything else you want to tell us about The Listening Booth?

Marissa Levy: I mean, just that it is so much more than a business or a music venue. It's really this home for community. Last night at open mic night, you know, it's just like people show up and they're, they feel like people I've known for hundreds of years. Right? Like it's just these are my, this is my community, these are my people, and I think people feel like they belong there when they're there. I think our mission of combating loneliness is working. And, and music is truly like a special thing that just brings people together.

Christine McCoy: Absolutely. Well, I remember going there and listening to music that I probably wouldn't have chosen, but it was, I mean it was amazing. It's not because I wouldn't have chosen, because I hadn't, I just didn't know about it. And, uh, what an incredible place. So thank you for bringing that to Lewis, Delaware. And everybody should stop by, take the risk, just sign up for a show, get a ticket, and go. Don't even have to do any research.

Marissa Levy: I promise that they're all going to be good.

Christine McCoy: Yeah. Yeah. Everybody we saw was fantastic. So thank you so much, and thank you everybody who's listening to this podcast. We look forward to talking to you soon.

Marissa Levy: Bye.

Narrator (Lou D'Adamo): You've been listening to Delaware, the podcast that dives into the people, places, and enterprises that make this area so unique. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. 

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