Wednesday, April 28, 2004

 

My schedule, these days, seems to be filled with band-related stuff. Which is good, really. Sunday, though, I missed the Robin's Nest to play at an open mic night. While I'm glad I went, I really wish everyone could've been there. Some things are just too weird to be missed. This open mic that we attended turned out to be in the basement of a church. Though called "The Coffee House," it was mostly a stage in a small room partitioned off from the larger church basement by a curtain. The coffee involved was $1 for all-you-can-drink church coffee. Not an auspicious beginning.

So, we all trucked down there together and arrived slightly late to sign up, so we're ninth of, like, eleven, and there's barely anyone there. Turns out, almost everyone who comes to this thing performs. First up were two little girls who, one at a time, went up to play their own compositions on their dad's keyboard. The second girl (and the younger sibling) played and sang songs she wrote, which were creepily sad and sung in a very melancholy little bell-like voice. Then their dad made them stay up while he got out his electric guitar and made them sing back-up with him on "What I Like About You" by The Romantics, to "lighten the mood" after his daughter's little downer performance. This was our intro to The Coffee House.

There were two guys who sang and played guitar that I thought were really great and everyone else made me want to leave. Or laugh. Anyway, the highlights (lowlights?) included a truly awful "band" of three that sang/played nondescript "Irish" music, badly. Does anyone know if Van (as in Van Morrison) is short for Vance? Because that's what they called him when they gave a shout-out. Vance. Anyway, my other favorite was a very earnest high school kid who sang two of his original compositions and then played a cover. Oh, man. His songs were very, um, earnest, to overuse a word. They were also just cliche-ridden and silly. He said something had apocalyptic overtones, but it seemed to mostly be about him charming animals. I could not keep a straight face, so I'm glad it was really dark. Then, for his cover, he attempted "Take Five," which is probably just difficult enough with a combo, when you have two separate people to play most of the parts. Anyway, he gave a little speech about Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck and how 'Time Out' is an album experimenting with time signatures. Then, he played "Take Five" in the wrong time signature. Maybe I'm just being a bitch, but if you love a piece and want to cover it, maybe you should take time to either represent it faithfully or know it well enough that you can take liberties. Don't take a piece famous for being in 5/8 time and play it in 6/8 because you can't shift fast enough to make the downbeats.

I don't know if that was even what bugged me. I think it was that he seemed like one of those kids who's very sure he knows his audience, and that his audience is so clueless that he can enlighten them by playing jazz at an open mic -- and get away with playing it badly.

Anyway, we rocked the hiz-ouse (though it was a very small hiz-ouse). This weekend, I'm leaving again. I'll see people on Friday but maybe not Sunday, depending on how recording goes. Yeah. We're recording. Soon, we might have an EP that everyone can own and love. Serendipitously, we're recording near our fearless leader's 10-year high school reunion, so we've been invited to play it. I cannot even wait.

Also, I forgot to bring a granola bar with me this morning, so I'm eating candy for breakfast. Really. Smarties and jawbreakers and a lollipop. And coffee. Yum.

posted by der kommissar 9:50 AM