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

Open Mic Shite: Part 1

I'm aware that my last entry was a bit of a moan and maybe a little hyperbolic at times. If you didn't like it, you won't like what I've written below either as it is more of the same. Yes, it looks like the feeble gates holding back my whinging and cavilling have opened and a flood of negativity has started to flow...

Mambo No. 5!!!

It's no secret that I am a big fan of music, and so when the opportunity arose to pop down to an open mic night a few weeks ago, I took it gladly. It was held at the American University of Paris (AUP) and promised to be a night where people could get up and perform music, poetry or anything else they fancied, without fear of judgement/heckling of any sort; it was to be a very pleasant and friendly evening which sounded lovely. Well… almost. I obviously had a few reservations, the principal one being that if the main selling point and therefore reason to come was to enjoy the welcoming, non-threatening atmosphere, then the music was probably going to leave a little to be desired. I don't actually think heckling is necessarily a bad thing - if dished out fairly and with proper justification of course. I reckon a bit of abuse from the crowd early on in your career can serve as an effective way of letting you know you have two choices: either you better damn well improve if you wish to continue performing for people and doing it for a living someday; or they call it quits, throw in their musical towel and get a real job. It would save the dignity of those poor souls that open themselves to abuse from an audience of millions by humiliating themselves on one of the many ‘talent’ shows the world can’t seem to get enough of.

Now I don't know if it is possible to convey the fact that I thought the music would be shite with a simple look or change of expression, but funnily enough, as I was pondering the prospect of a night's worth of interminable music, I was hurriedly assured that there would be a house band present to keep the show moving should nobody feel like getting up and sharing their inner artist with a half empty room of boozing Americans, a few Frenchies and one miserable English git. If, by any chance you would prefer a night of interminable music, simply go to one of the high street clubs of any town in any city in any country. My copious 'clubbing' experience dictates that these types of establishment are sure to play the latest 'hits' interspersed with the kind of 'cheese' and 'classics' that make me want to boil my own scrotum and douse it in vinegar before hacking it off with the sharp side of some velcro and stuffing it in my mouth in order to choke to death on it (Refer to the first line of this blog entry now). As it was, I anticipated an evening consisting primarily of a slick, professional music outfit with the odd sprinkling of melodic mediocrity. How wrong I was...

I bet a good ol' whizzpopper would have him in tears!

But before I give Ross-'the whingey arse'-bif the floor, I should point out that it wasn't all terrible. Firstly, the company I keep is exceptional and they can make even the direst situations bearable, so turning up with them was a good start! And there was actually one performer that, for some reason or another, charmed me a little. After 40 minutes or so, a timid looking American girl took to the stage with an acoustic guitar and a battered sliver of paper of lyrics. She sat herself down as though she was still mastering the skill and nervously slung the guitar over a shoulder with an awkwardness that suggested she hadn’t done it too many times before. She positioned the sheet of paper precariously on her lap and without much of an introduction, cleared her throat and started to play. Now I'm not going to beat around the bush; but the performance was bad - not awful mind, just plain old bad. She struggled to coordinate her singing (which was more like talking to a beat, or a one-note instrument) and strumming, stuttered a little between verses and missed a few of the [unimaginative arpeggio] chord changes here and there. She looked ill at ease and the only thing clumsier than her actual playing was her lyrics. She mumbled some flimsy metaphor about feeling small and insignificant on such a huge planet and spoke about having the ability to make giants cry with even the tiniest bits of dust (actually I think what I’ve written there is better than what she came out with – and I don’t think much to that either). Nonetheless, she deserved to be cut a hefty piece of slack as she admittedly was/is no professional. Aside from that, her delivery was sincere, honest and without pretence; she genuinely just wanted to share something she had created in an environment that would allow her to do so. It’s like a child that draws a picture of a blob for a head, with 4 sticks coming out of it that are supposed to represent limbs. They add balloons for fingers and some asymmetrical scribbles inside the blob to represent the eyes, the nose and the mouth and then they write ‘Daddy’ next to it. You’d be hard pushed to convince the elephant man to be happy with that kind of portrait, let alone a regular looking human. I don’t think I’ out of turn by saying that even the parents know it’s an awful attempt at drawing what we know as Man, but they still proudly display it on the fridge amongst the other tat said sprog has also conjured up. You can't criticise it, you can only appreciate what is there. Indeed, you have to equally appreciate what isn't there - that lack of quality and crudeness is what gives it well over half its charm. It was the same for the American girl performing her ditty about giants and the like. And besides, it's all good practise for her and will hopefully make her better for the next time, the time after that and so on. I sincerely wish her all the best for the future (although I’m not sure music will/should be a part of it).

Why is he still alive?

No with the niceties out the way, from now on I’ll be complaining. First up: The Compéres.  They were a male-female double act that behaved as though they were on prime time Friday night television – Friday night American television that is. I feel the distinction is important as the comperes were inexplicably arrogant, obscenely loud, painfully witless, unoriginal, boring and utterly clueless as to how to actually entertain an audience – in keeping with the likes of Letterman, Leno and Kimmel. Loud noise has never been so dull. And, like Leno, Letterman and Kimmel, they were oblivious to their own character flaws both as people and entertainers and carried on with a smug self assurance as though they were a gift from 'God' himself. The phrases, "Oh my god, that was so awesome", "Duuuude, I can’t believe that performance right now" and "we've got a real treat for you next" were uttered all too often serving to highlight further their obvious lack of sincerity or dynamism. They might as well have played a tape with a selection of generic/inane sentences recorded in a horrible North American whine. The final nail was hammered into the coffin of their dying performance when the female tried to gee up the crowd with, "Like, honestly, who can say that whilst being at AUP they have went [sic] a whole 24hours without drinking alcohol – ‘cause I know I can’t. Like seriously?". No more need be said about the failings of this double act.

"Drugs 'r' baaad... mmm'kay"

Unsurprisingly, there were no "awesome" performances on the night - in fact it would be generous to describe any of them as less than average. But a few people really irritated me (which admittedly isn’t that difficult these days). There was The African American Girl who wailed sentences such as "We are the children" and “We must fight” whilst clutching the sides of her head with both hands and feigning a look of despair and grieving. She was positioned in such a way that she seemed to be throwing the words at her own kneecaps - over and over again, with only the incessant hammering of bongos and a discordant/retarded electric guitar for accompaniment – none of which were harmonious. I was also careful to note her choice of the pronoun ‘We’ in her lyrics (if you can call them that). Bearing in mind she is an American girl living in Paris, attending a university that costs around $35,000 to attend and has probably never had to worry about much beyond the realms of what colour t-shirt will best hide the stains from the shit spewing from her mouth, her message of suffering in both a social and financial context experienced by African Americans in today's society is a little hard to swallow. I have no issue with the message, but the preacher lacked credibility - it would be like having a drugs awareness campaign fronted by Pete Docherty and Amy Winehorse. I'm not sure their respective histories qualify them to speak on the subject with any real authority. Additionally The African American Girl had an awful voice, littered with abysmal attempts at artificial falsetto and other vocal gymnastics. I don't think there are many things more embarrassing than watching a mediocre singer perform as though they’re a professional and put every ounce of themself into it. You are not Beyoncé. You are not one of “the children”. Sit down, shut up and kindly remove yourself from my line of sight and my range of hearing.

The 'Poet'

Next up? The Poet. A 20 something girl that thinks her forté is writing and reading poetry. It isn't. She was a very long girl in the most literal of senses - long hair, long body, long legs, long nails and perhaps most annoyingly, a long face. Like so many artists, she didn't conform to the norm with regards to her choice of clothing. And for the record, wearing a pair of Joe 90 glasses and buying your clothes exclusively from vintage shops and sacrificing any aesthetic quality for simply the age or uniqueness of the garment does not make you an artist. It makes you a knob. But in what I guess was a bid to look interesting and alternative, The Poet wore nothing but black - not too dissimilar to Morticia Adams, except she had a bit more colour to her skin. She definitely looked eccentric (NB Eccentric does not equal Artisitic) but one couldn't help but notice that she was head to toe in designer wear. For me this detracted somewhat from her intended artistic aura and the level of authenticity I felt she was trying to achieve by dressing so differently to everyone else (That's not to say that true artists shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the luxury of the Gucci's and Prada's of this world mind – I just can’t see them being as interested or motivated by material goods as your average man/woman on the street). To be honest, she looked a little bit… how best to put it.... I'll go with like a slapper. Or maybe tart? No - definitely slapper! She looked like a Grade A slapper. Her poem was absolutely appalling as well - the premise was something along the lines of: if you want to have your TV thrown out of a window, fuck a rock star; if you want to eat good food all your life, fuck a chef; and so on through a list of different occupations/vocations and the respective behaviours associated with them. None of the observations were original, witty or even articulated in an interesting way, so no points there honey. Even the poem was purely meant to shock, again she failed; expletives tend to lose their impact if you flinch and become visibly uncomfortable as you utter them - the vulgarity was often needless and add nothing as well. Not to mention the fact she repeatedly forgot the words and had to keep referring to a shitty bit of paper held in her quivering hand. So no points for delivery either. The poem ended with what I think was supposed to be a list of filthy bedroom antics one might crave ("if you want to hear beautifully articulated moans while your girl's in the saddle" was a highlight), in order to inspire a crescendo of lust and desire, and to slowly build some sexual energy/tension. At the point of climax, just when the audience could take no more (because it was quite frankly, crap), at the height of our desperation to the hear the end and how we can fulfil our dirtiest urges, the words "fuck a poet" fell out of her [potty] mouth. What’s my review of the whole debacle? Well put it this way, I certainly don’t think anyone will be fucking her anytime soon. Poet my arse! As much contempt as I hold for The Poet flaws, she wasn't even the worst thing there. Not by a long shot…

To find out who, in this collection of talentless dullards, irritated me the most tune in next week… or whenever I bother posting the next bit. I think this is already a bit long for one blog entry and I want to [at least try to] keep my audience interested - all 9 of you. A cheeky cliff-hanger (although it’s probably a bit generous to call this one) never hurt anyone. Apart from maybe Sly Stallone.

So, A la prochaine…