An Urban Jug Band, Little Michael Jackson and a Japanese sanshin player walk into a subway…

Someone let the musicians out. Music Under New York takes to the streets. (Courtesy of the MTA)

We’ve had some serious weeks around here at Second Ave. Sagas. Resignations and track worker safety make for somber posts. But today, we’re all about music because it’s time, once again, for the Music Under New York Auditions.

All day today, from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall, musicians will take to the stage an in effort to win one of the coveted spots in the Music Under New York program. The MTA announced this morning that over 70 musicians and musical groups will take to the stage during the seven and a half hour gala with poet Bob Holman, the self-proclaimed Ringmaster of the Spoken Word, serving as emcee.

The Music Under New York program is either a great way for musicians to reach an audience or, if you’re trying to navigate through the passages of the Times Square labyrinth, a major annoyance. Either way, it’s a welcome addition to the subway tunnels, and 2007 marks the program’s official 20th birthday. (It began as a two-year pilot program in 1985.)

As part of Arts for Transit, the MTA’s award-winning arts program that is supposed to increase the attractiveness of the otherwise-drab subways, Music Under New York licenses over 100 musical artists of varying genres and styles. According to the program’s Website, MUNY holds open auditions once a year, and the five-minute time slots feature some highly competitive artists and a tough slate of judges.

“A panel of professionals,” the Website reads, “consisting of representatives from the music industry, cultural institutions, MTA station operations, fellow musicians and others, judge each of the five minute performances based on the criteria of quality, variety, and appropriateness for the mass transit environment.”

The lucky ones who pass the audition gain acceptance into the program. They receive one of those personalized banners with their name that sanctions the performance and permission to play in one of the designated Music Under New York locations.

If you’re around the Grand Central Terminal area today, duck in for a few minutes and catch some of these bands. You’re bound to see something off-the-wall, and while I’m sure some of the musicians are terrible, others are quite qualified. A glance through the list of last year’s crop of new artists accepted to MUNY reveal an urban jug band called Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues, a dance artist going by the name Little Michael Jackson and the Renaissance Street Singers, a group performing early sacred music.

So much like a ride on the subways, you never what sort of eclectic entertainment you’ll come across at these auditions. No matter; it’s gotta be better than a mindless 9 hours in the ol’ cubicle anyway.