Open Mic Night

[Rockhouse]

I went to an open mic night last night to help out a few friends who are trying to get it going. I haven't been to one in years.

 

Aside from the obligatory "blues in E" for 20 minutes, I was surprised at the song choices. Typically, i remember many 3-chord songs from the old days of open mics. Last night, the guest players were calling some fairly complex tunes that the house band just happened to know.

 

ELO, Styx, Boston, Heart, Yes, to name a few.

 

The songs weren't stellar, polished, versions by any means, but the quality was pretty good for being unrehearsed.

 

I guess open mics have come a long way. Or, maybe i just lucked out~

 

Anyone here ever do open jams?

[Ken Beaumont]

We don't have an open mic. But we have an acoustic jam at our volunteer fire dept once a month. Guitars, dulcimers, banjos, mandolins, violins, strings and horns anything is welcome. The only thing plugged in are the keyboard doing acoustic piano patches and the mics. Its a lot of fun, they have played everything from Bill Monroe Bluegrass to Frank Zappa. It started out really amateurish but its been going on for the last 6 years and has become quite polished. I sometimes come and play piano and mandolin.

[PinkFloydDudi]

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

I frequented a lot of open mics in my area and was somewhat a guest member of the "house band" for one of them. We had a WHOLE lot of the "blues in E" type of folks who really shouldn't have left their basement, than we did people calling out ELO or Styx!

 

Around here, a lot of the open mics are starting to fill up with original music, rather than just guys jamming on covers. This, as you can imagine, has its ups and downs. lol

[tarkus]

I stopped doing open mic years ago.

"Just play blues"

"I can play other styles"

"What do you like to play?"

"Everything Else"

"well, just play blues tonight"

"Your catalogue is pretty diverse - I see some Beatles, Steely Dan, The Band Etc... I can do that stuff, why only blues?"

"Because thats all these people want to play"

 

After the 30th Harmonica solo and each "harp player" asking "what key am I in?" the tequila stopped working.

 

'take a solo!"

 

And then the drunk guy: "Piano Man! Piiiiiaannooooo Maan!"

 

One event featured a classical guitarist. The guy was very good, but the House guitar player decided that he would 'noodle' while this guy was playing his song. So rude. You'd hear Jimmy page fumble riffs over-top of Julian Bream... It's noodlers that ruined guitar for everyone else.

 

In college we had a very Prog Open Mic night - also featured poetry night. Good players would show up. We'd have the house Korg D-50 or Yamaha DX whatever. One guy would show up and play ELP stuff - he'd play the Peter Gunn theme note for note. Impressive. Then we'd get a trio of guys that were Fripp Guitar Craft guys - that was cool.

My buddy would show up and play obscure 60's stuff like "Love".

 

Poetry was bad as usual. Underground poets that never studied poetry just spouting their gall bladder on stage can only go so far. We had one guy that would encourage us to accompany his "poetry" with music. That was fun - very Zappaesque.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SpaceNorman]

I haven't found many "open mics" that are all that keyboard friendly - either because of the material (blues in E or A all night long) and/or the mindset of the players attending (Q: How many guitar players can solo at the same time? A: ALL of 'em!)

 

The couple of local jams that were different - seemed extremely clique-ish. The house band cherry picked the list for folks they knew .. and played 3/4's of the night. For all intents and purposes - they throw together 5-6 unknowns off the sign-up list to play a couple tunes during their breaks.

 

Then there's always the issue of gear. If keys are there as "backline" - it's usually some pretty rough gear. The sort of stuff you typically don't enjoy playing. ...and schlepping your own is more work than it's worth in order to play 2-3 tunes.

 

I suppose if I had my heart set on doing "open mics" - I'd have to find one I thought could work ... and then put in the time and energy to get to know folks, volunteer to bring gear .. etc. That's just too much work on a weeknight - especially when there's no cash involved and a workday coming early the next morning.

[Ken Beaumont]

The reason ours didn't devolve into 20 minute blues in E is the no electric rule. Plus, not everyone gets a solo and the average age of the players is 45-50. It started out rough but there are several blue grass players and the College of William & Mary has an excellent music program nearby. We have on Harmonica player that comes irregularly he plays chromatic harp not cross harp and plays the sax solo from Bakersfield perfectly.

[Tonysounds]

I went to an open mic night last night to help out a few friends who are trying to get it going. Last night, the guest players were calling some fairly complex tunes that the house band just happened to know: ELO, Styx, Boston, Heart, Yes, to name a few.

 

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

That's debatable.

[PinkFloydDudi]

I went to an open mic night last night to help out a few friends who are trying to get it going. Last night, the guest players were calling some fairly complex tunes that the house band just happened to know: ELO, Styx, Boston, Heart, Yes, to name a few.

 

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

That's debatable.

 

There are of course those out there who enjoy repeated 30-minute Mustang Sally jams I suppose. For those people, hearing those other bands would indeed be unlucky, so point taken.

 

=)

[tucktronix]

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

I frequented a lot of open mics in my area and was somewhat a guest member of the "house band" for one of them. We had a WHOLE lot of the "blues in E" type of folks who really shouldn't have left their basement, than we did people calling out ELO or Styx!

 

Around here, a lot of the open mics are starting to fill up with original music, rather than just guys jamming on covers. This, as you can imagine, has its ups and downs. lol

 

Yeah,

 

There is a "pro-jam" in the Roc area that I have been frequently attending. The music is mostly original, improvised funk/jazz/reggae and even a bit of hip-hop... very little in the way of blues. A lot of great young musicians attend and these jams are always very inspiring.

[PinkFloydDudi]

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

I frequented a lot of open mics in my area and was somewhat a guest member of the "house band" for one of them. We had a WHOLE lot of the "blues in E" type of folks who really shouldn't have left their basement, than we did people calling out ELO or Styx!

 

Around here, a lot of the open mics are starting to fill up with original music, rather than just guys jamming on covers. This, as you can imagine, has its ups and downs. lol

 

Yeah,

 

There is a "pro-jam" in the Roc area that I have been frequently attending. The music is mostly original, improvised funk/jazz/reggae and even a bit of hip-hop... very little in the way of blues. A lot of great young musicians attend and these jams are always very inspiring.

 

Yeah I have been meaning to head out to that one. Keep getting asked by Joe and Chris Hollywood from Audio Influx to check it out, but our band typically practices tuesday nights.

 

Definitely a great mix of some really good original musicians there. Think I am going to try to go to it next tuesday.

 

That definitely isn't really an open-mic, more of a "semi-organized jam session". lol.

 

[Josh Paxton]

I was persuaded to go to one recently, on the grounds that it had a reputation for being better than these things usually are -- well-organized, full of competent players, etc. I was skeptical, but went along with it.

 

When I got there I was pleasantly surprised. They were playing an actual tune, and playing it well, with a limited number of soloists taking perfectly decent solos that didn't last all night. Okay, cool. So when I was asked to come up and play on the next tune, I said sure... and that was when it instantly devolved into a series of bad open mic night clichés. The bass and guitar situation took a turn for the worse; every non-playin' hack with a horn and an ego crowded onstage at once; and instead of an endless blues, we launched into an endless one-chord hip-hop vamp for the guest rapper to "freestyle" over. It was so bad I walked off mid-song mid-jam.

 

My buddy who dragged me to it (with promises that it would not be the very thing it turned into) was on drums at the time, so at least I got to take some pleasure from the fact that he was stuck up there for the duration, giving me pained and apologetic looks. But my schadenfreude was tempered by the fact that he was my ride home, so I couldn't just leave him there and bail entirely like I so desperately wanted to. In retrospect, I absolutely should have just jumped in a cab, because it would have been worth the cost.

 

Mama always said, open mic night is like a box of chocolates...

[Rockhouse]

I went to an open mic night last night to help out a few friends who are trying to get it going. Last night, the guest players were calling some fairly complex tunes that the house band just happened to know: ELO, Styx, Boston, Heart, Yes, to name a few.

 

lol, I think you got lucky!

 

That's debatable.

 

There are of course those out there who enjoy repeated 30-minute Mustang Sally jams I suppose. For those people, hearing those other bands would indeed be unlucky, so point taken.

 

=)

 

You're cool. We'll be friends.