[ Update: see the followup post after you read this ]
A good open mic is one of the most productive ways to play out. No booking agent hassles, no super-late nights - just get in, play a few songs, and get out. Awesome.
Plus, there's a HUGE benefit to playing out a little all the time, rather than over-rehearsing for The Super Important Big Show (at which you'll no doubt be stressed and freaked out by the new environment). It's great to 'fail often' - find a new thing to improve every time you do that 2-4 song mini set. I know for a fact that my live performance (and my equipment) has improved massively from weekly testing. I'm lucky to have the excellent open mic @ Mongo's available to me (thanks, Kurt & Brad) - find your own local open mic here.
There is, however, a downside. Open mics can also suck. Suck. SUCK...
Chief Open Mic Suckyness Enhancers:
- Winey emo f*&A@heads that can't play - but do it with great intensity, and for too long.
- The Blues. That is, anything but GOOD blues played honestly, not lame-ass 'I can't play so I'll play blues" blues. I know it's a safe comfortable way for strangers to play together and not sound too horrible, but God Damn, the Blues can turn into a choke-hold of creative death for your average open mic. Blues guys can also play forever... 'just one more song' becomes hellish time-stopping nightmare straight out of Abu Graib. [ There are actually a couple of good blues players at my usual open Mic - so guys, the above doesn't mean you. ]
- Uninvited Guests. Guys that think it's cool to play, uninvited, over your original songs that they've never heard before in their life. I had this drunk bass player hop up on stage one time and confidently play a big loud E over a song in F. For the non-players out there...that's bad. I should have hired a Ninja to kill this guy.
- Jamming. The only way this works is if everyone is a musical killing machine with great ears. Or a very average player that knows when to SHUT UP AND NOT PLAY (that's me!). If not, jamming turns into a lowest-common-denominator sludge-fest, which is to say, usually, bad Blues.
- Jamming Part 2: Weird Instruments. The guy / gal with the weird instrument that thinks it would be 'so cool' to add zither/djembe/moroccan frog mallets or whatever to your song (that they don't know, can't play, are tuned a half-step down from). Please kill me now. NO, it would not be great if you played that thing on my song, thanks for asking!
- Most Covers. Doing a cover song is SO much less scary than playing something you wrote. Getting up in front of a bunch of buzzed listeners and playing 'Brown Eyed Girl' is always going to get a few drunk 'Fuck Yeah!'s from the crowd, which makes you feel good, so you play another cover, and so the creative death-spiral begins - why do anything new? Truth: unless you are really reworking a song to make it new (like, maybe Jeff Buckley doing Cohen ) take a chance. Play something new - or something obscure and cool. Or at least play your well-known covers WELL.
- The Unprepared Guy/Gal: 5 minutes to tune AFTER your set started? Forgot your pick? Guitar has only three strings? YOU ARE KILLING US! GET OFF THE STAGE!!!
- Smug Folkies. To the story-telling, falsely modest, fake humble, wanna-be Indigo-girl-or-guy Folkie... SHUT UP!!! We don't want to hear your POMPOUS SMUG INTRO STORY BEFORE EVERY ONE OF YOUR BORING, be-CAPO'd SONGS! ("I was looking at my hands the other day, and I had this vision about how we all have hands, and how our hands together could save the world, and...")
- Smug Folkies Part 2. Another pointer for the Smug Folkie: STOP SMILING SLYLY AT YOUR OWN CLEVERNESS during the songs. God I hate that. Effing poseurs. Very common at the coffee-house Open Mic (i.e. Santa Cruz, Northampton, Cambridge, etc). Makes me want to drop an irate Danzig or Nugent on stage with them.
- Bad Hosts. Hosts that don't keep the time-hogs under control, hosts that don't keep an eye on the PA system, hosts that turn the Open Mic into a private party for their pals only...
But enough bitching. Open Mics are great. If you can find one with a cool vibe, with some original players, a supportive host... buy a few drinks and support the night. It's special.[ Update: see the followup post after you read this ]
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4 comments:
You hit on several of my pet peeves in passing:
Capos being used on the first fret. Just sing up a half-step. We'd rather hear you strain the tiniest bit that watch you assemble a science fair project on stage. Actually, I think all capo usage is a declaration of fealty to mamby-pamby nation, but I'll leave my complaint to the single most ridiculous case.
A different tuning for each song. Choose songs that share the same tuning, and arrive onstage tuned to that. It's a little weird but perfectly acceptable to step into the restroom for a quick test strum.
Harmonicas on those little holders. Unless your harp playing is going to introduce a new musical theme into the song, leave it at home. There is no sense to singing a verse and then mimicking its melody with a harp, and then singing another verse. Feel free to hum, as this will deny me the clear signal that this next song is the ideal moment to visit the restroom or refill a beer.
While less loathsome than a full story intro, don't precede each song with a macro-encoded intro in the form, "This next one is called SONG_TITLE_HERE, and it goes like this..." Of COURSE it goes like this. It probably goes exactly like this.
Don't sound exactly like some recently anointed singer/songwriter god/dess unless they ripped off YOUR sound.
I just stumbled upon this site and though I'm no musician, I had to comment dd700's gripe about preceding the song with Title, etc. AMEN! It's so much more lovely to hear music just PLAYED instead of explained.
The unprepared guy/gal tuning for five minutes has to be my biggest pet peeve. I hosted one open mike and ran sound for another encountering this problem repeatedly at both. The worst is the person who says "I'm ready" then spends five minutes tuning. YOU ARE NOT READY AND YOU'RE WASTING OUR PRECIOUS TIME!!! Come prepared to play. That means be tuned up and know what song you're going to play. DO NOT ASK FOR REQUESTS FROM THE AUDIENCE! I will request you get off the mike!
Please, don't hoot. You know, when someone in the audience goes, "Woo-hooooo!" after some lame (but sincere, of course) excuse for a song that's a bad imitation of Cat Stevens, Bowling For Soup, or Dido.
It's disrespectful to performers with real talent, and it encourages stagnation in the bad ones: "Cool, they love me! I don't hafta practice!"
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