The sign was up for years. In between Arts Etc and Park’s Hardware on Mill Street in Orono, the image of a sax player surrounded by smoky blue light advertised for the Blues Caf?. Promising the sort of ambience found in dark little jazz clubs in New York or Chicago, the sign probably excited anyone who might have noticed it. You don’t get that sort of thing very often in Maine.

Thing is – the place wasn’t open. Bill Giordano, singer and guitarist for local jam band Soul Lemon, would walk past the building regularly and get his hopes up.

“I would see it and say ‘Sweet, I want to go there!,'” Giordano recalled. “But then I looked inside and there wasn’t anything in there. And that’s the way it was for years.”

But then, as mysteriously as when the sign appeared, the Blues Caf? finally opened one night last July. With little fanfare, owner Frank Williams unveiled the restaurant and bar he’d been working on for the past five years, with a creative menu, sumptuous leather seats, tastefully hip d?cor, live music, and – with the low ceiling and mood lighting – an atmosphere that’s unrivaled in eastern Maine.

Three months later, Giordano saw an opportunity for his band, and for the Orono music and arts scene in general. After a successful show at the place, he and the rest of Soul Lemon asked if a weekly band-in-residence gig would be something Williams might be interested in.

“We wanted to try something a little different from the typical Orono bar scene,” said the 23-year-old Goddard College student, who’s been studying at the University of Maine for several years. “We wanted people to come out for the music, and not for the drink specials.”

After a few test runs, Soul Lemon has now settled into a weekly Tuesday night gig at the Blues Caf?, attracting both UMaine students and longtime Orono residents interested in a midweek change of tempo.

The band, which features Giordano on guitar and vocals, Dan Laverty on guitar, Mike Smith on bass and Justin Dean on drums, has been playing around in Orono for nearly three years. Giordano met Laverty, Smith and Dean at a party, where the three were playing in another band.

“I saw them that night and I thought: ‘He’s got a nice snare drum,'” said Giordano, referring to Dean. “Eventually we got together and learned some songs and decided to keep jamming. One day they didn’t start playing without me, and then I knew I was in the band.”

Taking primary influences such as the Grateful Dead and Phish, the band has refined its traditionally jammy sound into something much more distinctive, bringing in elements of jazz and straight-up rock – especially Giordano, who’s become much more comfortable as a singer and has pushed his vocals higher up into the mix. Soul Lemon brings to mind another contemporary jam band: Boston-based band the Slip, who have risen to the forefront of the jam scene by breaking down barriers between genres, all the while keeping an emotional core at the center of its music.

“We’ve definitely progressed,” said Laverty. “We’ve started to develop our own unique style. We’ve become a lot more emotionally in touch with the music, and I think that shows when we play live.”

For the Tuesday gigs, the band is hoping to expand the evening to include not only music, but also poetry and spoken-word performers. The Blues Caf?, with its ambience and intimacy, seems like a perfect place for it. But, one step at a time.

“I think Orono is ready for more options for music and arts,” said Giordano. “But right now we’re just happy to be playing music.”

Soul Lemon plays at 9 p.m. every Tuesday at the Blues Caf?, 19 Mill St. in Orono, which can be reached by calling 866-4061. For more information on Soul Lemon, visit www.myspace.com/soullemon. Emily Burnham can be reached at eburnham@bangordailynews.net.