Benna Cohen has had her fair share of strange moments while aspiring to become a musician. She has played a variety of strange places, including New York City subways and the side of a highway in East Baltimore.

Now she is bringing her unique blend of alterna-pop music to the M-Shop, opening for The Nadas at tonight’s show.

“My music combines a lot of elements from my mind,” Cohen said. “It is very accessible because I care about my lyrics and melodies. I really love and care about what I do and people enjoy seeing that.

“They also appreciate the music because I try to write really good songs.”

Judging by the escalating popularity of her two previous releases, Cohen must be on to something. Tunnel Tunes was a cassette-only release that came out in 1994. The follow-up, Greetings From Port Authority, was released late last year.

“I played sub-acoustic music for a few years before releasing Tunnel Tunes,” Cohen said. “That recording came about as a demo tape because people kept asking for tapes at my shows. It grew from there. I might eventually release it on the compact disc format. I’m not really sure yet.”

Greetings From Port Authority offers a different side of Cohen. She joined forces with guitarist Greg Griffith, bassist Alice Cohen and drummer Garry Sullivan to put together a band.

Strangely enough, Sullivan was once the drummer with alterna-pop legend The B-52s.

Playing with a band was a different experience for Cohen. She plans to continue playing with the band in the future.

“I started out acting,” Cohen said, “but I was drawn to the music scene because the people were more interesting. I started hanging out with musicians and was completely drawn into the lifestyle. It’s been really gratifying that I jumped into this fire. I like playing music.

“I’ve been influenced by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Buddy Holly,” Cohen said. “I really learned a lot about songwriting from listening to The Roaches. I’m into new music but I like older music a lot, stuff like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.”

The future is wide open for Cohen and her band. She is planning on recording and touring around the country in the near future.

“There are so many directions that I can go in,” Cohen said. “So many things I want to do. I simply want to make good music and I hope that people want to hear it.”

Cohen is set to begin at 9 p.m. and tickets are $4.