Open Mic Shite: Part 2

Completely irrelevant but amuses me nonetheless.

Let's get back to it then eh? So by now you know how much I hated The Compères, The African American Girl and The Poet. I have to admit it gave me great satisfaction to spew out that 4 page grumble. Writing it down was a nice way of unloading all the negativity I felt towards those people. In fact I've found writing this blog very helpful in that sense - you know, keeping me sane and not smearing other people's positivity with my incessant moaning whenever I see them face to face (some may care to disagree and say that I moan just as much face to face as well. That's fine). For me, it's comparable to that feeling of finally dislodging a bit of food from your teeth that you've been tonguing for 20 minutes. When it finally pops out, (allowing you to briefly relive that bacon-y goodness - it's usually bacon isn't it?) and you can give your tongue the rest it has been pleading for, there is tangible relief - a cessation of discomfort that could well have ruined your day! And so with that potential satisfaction only a few more taps of the keyboard away, I will finish the job of complaining about the AUP open mic night...

For me, the worst performance(s) of the night came from the house band - supposedly an accomplished group whose purpose was to keep the night moving along nicely. Chuck in a few slick numbers here and there when nobody else feels like playing to keep the crowd happy. Obviously that wasn't the case. Hopefully I will be able to articulate why I feel they deserved my scorn more than the other artists on show over the next few paragraphs - I think it'll be difficult to put it in to words, but I like a challenge. In fact, that's a lie - I'd actually rather be confronted with things that are easy and require minimal effort. A coaster. 

I feel I should start by excusing the drummer who was a competent musician and did nothing to really bother me - of course I could find something if I really wanted to, but now is not the time. And anyway he's only banging some skin isn't he? You'd be hard pressed to name a band that is utterly ruined by the drummer (but I'm sure some exist), but saying that you'd also be hard pressed to name a drummer that defines a band's sound and is the main reason for their success (although, again, I'm sure they do exist - suggestions are welcome). Usually, it's because they rarely have a significant enough role to play. After all, the div kid playing the part of a tree in the school nativity play is unlikely to ruin the whole performance (as a bit of trivia, at age 6, I played 'Tree 3' in my Infant school's nativity play. I was cut down and became Baby Jesus' manger. Oddly enough, I had a small speaking part. Talking snakes, talking mangers... what's the difference?). The same could have been said for the bassist as well actually. He was a simple, yet solid member who did what was asked of him and nothing more. The two of them weren't flamboyant but were dependable so probably don't deserve to be verbally crucified for their part in The House Band's atrocities. Some, however, do...

Oi oiiiiiii!!

The main culprit then, was The Nerd with the six string. It's hard to even begin to try to describe him physically, let alone sonically, but I'll try as I think it's worth having a picture of the little worm that contributed so greatly to my misery. One of the first things I noticed was his hideous pair of mangy old stone-washed Levis he'd decided to drag over his lower body. I'm not averse to the worn denim look with tears at the knees and the like, sure, but his looked like they'd seen nuclear warfare; sun bleached beyond recognition and with gaping seam-to-seam holes in the knees that were surrounded by tatty bits of material that flailed surrender as he moved. They looked so old, coarse and impossibly dry - I'm sure they would have made a crunching sound had someone decided to pull him off the stage by his short and curlies. Disturbingly, his legs were so thin they weren't even immediately visible through the denim, giving the jeans a hollow and sickly appearance. When his pasty patellae did poke through, they were deadly white and knobbly, like a Nik Nak that had been cleaned of all flavouring and had started sprouting the first signs of fur/mould. They were fascinating in a repulsive kind of way, like those inexplicably white, crusty dog shits you see every once in a while (what is going on there?). Needless to say his lower body was horrendous. 

The Nerd - kindly sent in by one reader!

Unfortunately for anyone with eyes, he had paired his jeans with one of those manky, shapeless fleeces you often see on fat middle aged women that work on market stalls, selling tat to the local dregs. [They're usually called something like Trace or Sharon - Shaz to her 'fella' and 'm8s', have grim dental hygiene, and greasy ponytails scraped back so tightly you can see little bits of skin that have been rejected by her scalp clinging to them]. Well our friend The Nerd, decrepit denims and all, had chosen to don a sad looking navy blue fleece that hung pathetically from his wiry frame (probably haggled with Shaz for it - down from "Fir'een quid" to "alwigh' lav, tenner it is"), and footwear that couldn't quite decide if it wanted to be a pair of trainers or hiking boots. Clumpy grey blocks with too many laces and weird elasticated toggles running over the top of them weighed down his skinny legs. To ensure they stayed on his emaciated feet, he'd tied them so tightly the uppers were all twisted and overlapping; reluctantly and painfully contorted in a way that must have taken great effort to achieve. His combination of clothes (as what he was wearing could never be described as 'an outfit') was clumsy and hopeless - the absolute antithesis of style and the epitomic picture of a loser. He looked like the remains of some spat out charity shop rejects that had then been strewn haphazardly over a cluster of wire hangers.

Cedric and Cyril Sneer of The Raccoons.

He wore a crooked nose that The Racoons (see left for some nostalgia) would be ashamed of, on the end of which a pair of glasses balanced precariously, in constant fear of falling off into oblivion. They magnified his eyeballs just a little too much conjuring up an amphibious, bug eyed effect. The nose was flanked by hollow cheeks that gave way to a thin lipless mouth, and below that, a vulnerable looking chin. Goofy teeth that had aged prematurely kept his gob propped open, making a permanent gimp like expression. The odd string of spittle could often be seen bridging the void between tooth and mouth. Up top he had a head of unkempt mucky-blonde hair that flopped around pointlessly like a poorly maintained wig. This was [of course] teamed with an abundance of fluffy, pube-like hair that covered his face; thick enough to be visible (and therefore crap), but far too thin to be credible or even masculine. It looked more like an infestation than a beard and, along with his gaunt looking face, gave the impression that he was slowly rotting from the outside-in. His posture was hunched in the same way that many overly skinny, but tall people suffer from, meaning his movements lacked any grace or even the hint that they were in fact deliberate. If there was a Disney movie in which a group of animals somehow managed to take human form, his character would be a dopey, diseased rodent named Feebs (not a malicious character of course, but sidekick to the main 'baddie' nonetheless). Alternatively, if you can imagine a weird caricatured version of the lovechild that might result from Ginger Baker having relations with a puddle of piss, you won't be far off picturing this guy. I'm sure his own mother struggles to love him. 

Ginger Baker: Pretty as they come.

Of course, I'm aware that music isn't, or at least shouldn't be, about what you look like. But it's no secret that rock n rollers are often synonymous with words like 'cool', 'swagger' and 'sexy' (Serge Pizzorno, Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen have probably been called these things more than once, but look nothing alike - that's one of the beauties of Rock 'n' Roll).  I'm certain The Nerd has ever even come close to hearing this words but I want to make it clear that his abhorrent appearance was absolutely not the reason I despised him* - if anything his looks made me feel a little sorry for him (and a bit sick). In fact, it was his actions that triggered my feelings of detest, one of which being the fact he had decided to try and modify the design of his guitar himself. It looked like it had been left in the hands of toddlers armed with paintbrushes for an afternoon; ugly primary colours splodged together with no real coherence or design. Why anyone thinks it's a good idea to do such a thing is beyond me - you wouldn't take a can of Dulux to your car would you? That said, the way he had abused the guitars looks was nothing compared to the things he forced it to say. 

Technically he was proficient, but melodically... well I'd say he sounded like the nascent attempts to try and write a computer program that composes music. Comparing his playing to that of an actual musician would be like comparing the likes of Jeff Buckley or Tracy Chapman to a pissed up Stephen Hawking singing karaoke. Notes came at a relatively fast but metronomic speed - like an exercise in warming up the hands rather than an art form. Letting a woodpecker loose on a glockenspiel would have produced more emotive sounds. I was subjected to the same relentless barrage of garbage again and again as he attacked the strings with skeletal hands. Each note chased the last in a bid to get as far away from the source of noise as possible, their fleeing, stuttered cries offending not only my ears, but irritating all my other senses as well. The malodorous discordance left a bitter taste in the mouth and the repetitive phrases scratched at the inside of my eyes.

It was bad enough that he acted like some kind of guitar God (with the face pulling and power stancing etc.), but the rest of the room echoed his opinion and had no problem showing it. And it was the sheer duration of the songs as well. The other members of the band would play these interminable 10 minute [attempts at] jazz or the blues and give free reign to The Nerd to play whatever he liked - and that he did, regardless of the beat or tempo of the back line. He regurgitated the same old shitty patterns in formulaic and obviously heavily rehearsed fashion; algebra with a voice. The people in the crowd would go nuts for it, clapping and whooping, shouting the standard, "Oh my God" and "You're awesome" etc. (including his hag of girlfriend who would easily provide enough ammo for me to write a whole encyclopaedia as to why I hate her), which sickened me to the very core. But what really got on my nerves was that they were a desperately poor band, and yet themselves and the other morons in the room were willing to allow each other to believe they were the next Zeppelin. The whole mutual adulation and back slapping, regardless of reality, really left me feeling uncomfortable. It was a group of people that wanted to live in their own little bubble and tell each other how great they were using a couple of hundred watts of power - and all this hiding behind the facade of an open mic night, masquerading as something it wasn't. The thought of them sitting around planning it is almost worse than the night itself. It pains me to imagine them privately licking each other's arses while brainstorming ideas as to the best vehicle for them to publicly lick each other's arses at high volumes. You know, just so they can hear every last slurp as tongue meets 'five-pence piece'. 

Honestly, if it had been a true open mic night where the same people played the same crap, but with a different attitude, I wouldn't have had a problem and wouldn't be writing this now. But these people weren't there to share some music they'd written or what they'd recently learned to play. They preferred to use playing some dismal song as an excuse to have their egos massaged by their peers for the evening.

Inexcusable

This was no more apparent than during the last song when The House Band, The Nerd, The African American Girl, a violinist, a keyboard player, a caveman on the bongos and a literally a disabled bloke with a harmonica all got together on stage. Rather than play some nicely rehearsed and harmonious tune end the night, they all fought for supremacy by trying to outdo each other both in the volume and flamboyancy stakes. Six different instruments soloing moaning and whining at the same time with no sense that they're even playing the same song was a disgrace and should be made illegal. The clash of mistimed notes and the different sounds being punched about by each other was an absolute sonic car crash - absolutely unbearable. But worse even than that, was seeing the desperation in all of their faces as they did everything in their power to be the only one in the spotlight and therefore the target of a group of braindeads' affections. They nudged the volume of their individual amps up to uncomfortable levels, jostled for position on the front of the stage, and moved as theatrically as possible to try and show that they were really 'feeling' the music. It was ugly and so obviously forced it bordered on the parodical. Shouldn't venues at least have a disclaimer that says, "WARNING! There may be cunts in this establishment and as such we cannot take responsibility for inducing the desire to kill yourself, or any other persons, upon entering"? Just an idea. I remember looking round incredulously at the scene unfolding miserably before me and thinking, 'Is this really happening? - one of the ugliest men I've ever seen going nuts on a guitar; some girl wailing like a mental case; bongos being thumped about and; a man in a wheelchair wearing a NFL shirt and beanie hat with flames on it, wheezing incessantly into a harmonica?' As I'm reliving this particular scene, I'm beginning to question whether this did actually happen. Maybe I'd eaten some pungent French cheese before bed and had a horrendous dream instead. Maybe I'll never know. Either way, it was crap, but yet still a fascinating glimpse in to how different social circles go about their business so I'm glad I went if only for that reason.

As a side note, anyone that fancies illustrating The Nerd is more than welcome to do so as I'd love to see how you see him based on the description I've given - I'll even post the picture online as an extra incentive. I'm sure it could be useful as well, maybe to scare away cancer or something like that.

That's enough from me for now. Good Day.

* some people are worthy of hatred based on looks alone - Phil neville and J Leno from the last blog entry to name but a few