{"id":17309,"date":"2019-03-06T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=17309"},"modified":"2019-03-04T13:24:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T21:24:07","slug":"the-nexus-guide-to-victorias-open-mic-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/03\/06\/the-nexus-guide-to-victorias-open-mic-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nexus<\/em> guide to Victoria\u2019s open-mic scene"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I arrive at 4 pm for the Hootenanny at Logan\u2019s Pub (Sundays, 4 to 8 pm). It\u2019s packed with young people. The host arrives for a mic check and gets rolling at 4:45 with her warm-up of six tunes followed by three more for each band member. So the band hogs the first two hours, then opens it up to the remaining eight people placed at the bottom of their sign-up list. I\u2019m not impressed, plus I can\u2019t make out any lyrics of the performers, who seem to be a sideshow for each other and their friends at tables near the stage, while people in the main room and the adjoining room carry on as though nothing is happening. The performers are good, but I find the audience rude. Open mics can be an unpredictable uphill battle. Outside a heavy snow falls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bus over to the Kitchen Party Jam at Christie\u2019s Carriage House Pub (Sundays, 7 to 10 pm). From the lobby I hear a guitar and one high voice. I don\u2019t hear the room of attentive people around the corner. The host sees my pack: \u201cWhat\u2019s in there?\u201d \u201cTrumpet.\u201d \u201cWanna play?\u201d \u201cProb\u2019ly not. I\u2019m out of practice. No chops, but can I tell a story?\u201d \u201cSure.\u201d Two of the crowd here don\u2019t have grey hair. Like Logan\u2019s, there\u2019s also an adjoining room here, but it\u2019s no distraction from a cute country duo, then a folk singer and a \u201970s rock band who just rolled in from playing the open mic at The Loft Pub. My turn. I tell a story about busking in the London Underground, which goes over well, even though I blow the punchline. I\u2019ll do better next time. Open mic is about ironing out kinks. Or else I\u2019ll do what my hero, Leonard Cohen, did at open mics: only perform what is perfectly ready, then split, leaving them wanting more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
A scene from the open mic night at Christie\u2019s Carriage House Pub (photo by Johnny Frem\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Next I hear an Indigo Girls song, \u201cCloser to Fine.\u201d A guy on piano covers Elton John\u2019s \u201cRocket Man.\u201d Exquisite. Okay, maybe it\u2019s more than just acoustics. What was happening back at the Hootenanny? Perhaps rookies dealing with stage fright prefer not to be noticed and veterans are more comfortable. It\u2019s all relative. Forty years ago, if I stepped into a room of geezers playing schmaltzy tunes from the 1930s, I\u2019d do a 180 and head for a bar like Logan\u2019s, where I\u2019d hear people my age struggling to cover these songs I hear today at the Kitchen Party Jam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, I check out the Unplugged Open Mic at Gorge-ous Coffee (Tuesdays, 6:30 to 9:30pm). The place is a cafe with 10 tables and 25 seats, all taken, and simple rules: \u201cNo microphone, acoustic. Each performer gets three songs.\u201d That seems to be the standard stage time allotted at open mics. Nicole goes to UVic and plays original tunes. She\u2019s quiet, shy, and struggles to find the chords, but offers up a voice that rings clear, true, timid, fragile, and vulnerable. She almost cries. She sings too quiet, so on the second song a friend backs her up with harmonies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musicians need a place to play before an audience. These are not people pretending to be rock stars, professionals who\u2019ve chosen to make a career of music. They\u2019re truck drivers, students, a couple of professors on a break from the Kingston snow, people with day jobs who\u2019ve sometimes been playing music all their lives. Sometimes it\u2019s their first time on stage. Open mics are for people who want to share their passion\u2014music\u2014with someone other than a neighbour on the other side of a wall. Don\u2019t expect sounds from iTunes. This will be raw and human with glitches. \u201cOriginal, magical, beautiful,\u201d as the host at Gorge-ous Coffee says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days later I\u2019m at the Open Mic at the Spiral Cafe (Thursdays, 6 to 9 pm). It\u2019s a full house of 30 seats and a few people standing. \u201cOnly two songs here, and only one if it\u2019s long. 15 have signed up already, so the list is full and we might have to go late.\u201d Apparently, this open mic is one of the oldest in town. Even though it\u2019s way over in Vic West, it\u2019s worth the trip (the number 14 bus goes direct from Camosun to the Spiral Caf\u00e9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi. I\u2019m Max. I\u2019m seven years old. This is my Dad. He\u2019s 44. I like to do songs about interesting characters. This one is called \u2018Old Joe Clark.\u2019\u201d Max plays fiddle; his dad plays banjo. And they\u2019re great. Max doesn\u2019t miss a beat. Dad doesn\u2019t either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People come here to show off. All the acts are polished. Several pianists, drummers, and guitarists play back-up at all the open mics. If you want to do that, you better be good. Get some songs together. Plan some banter. Connect with the audience. If you want to make open mics your scene, play a good hour a day at home. If you\u2019re versatile, you can sit in with anyone. Get unwired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I arrive at 4 pm for the Hootenanny at Logan\u2019s Pub (Sundays, 4 to 8 pm). It\u2019s packed with young people. The host arrives for a mic check and gets rolling at 4:45 with her warm-up of six tunes followed by three more for each band member. So the band hogs the first two hours, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-6-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17313,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17309\/revisions\/17313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}