The Musician
April 25th, 2006 at 19:34
I had an unusual evening last night- having just completed Pass Plus, I got a text from JD, and long and tedious story short, we ended up going to an open-mic night at a “musical pub” called The Musician. Spoiler: I wasn’t the one using the “open mic”. I didn’t do any singing or playing of instruments due to a complete and utter lack of talent. I did contemplate trying a spoken-word version of Killing in the Name, but gave up when I realised that I didn’t know the lyrics. And that it involved standing up and perhaps even a gentle walk.
Speaking of a complete and utter lack of talent, the woman on the stage when we got there had no band behind her, and it was just her “singing” some songs she had written. The trouble was that her songs required some instrumental parts, so that she had to sing the “la la la” bits herself. The lyrics wern’t great either- she used obvious rhymes and and the lines were either a few syllables too long, or too short. The songs were so long and rambling, she had to read them from a piece of paper, and the “flow” of the song was incredibly choppy because she kept stopping to read the line, then sing it, then consult the paper again. It’s hard to get across just how awful she was, but it was like watching one of the “audition” programmes on Pop Idol (erm, based on what, erm, I read in the erm, Guardian or something. Cough). I think she was doing parody songs, because one of the songs included the phrase “I made my anus wider”. I hope it was a parody song.
But at least she was having a go and trying, much like Complex Trout, or Richard Littlejohn. ‘Trout and “Captain Bigot” wern’t there, of course, I’m just using them in an analogy.
I think it was at this point I felt slightly out of my depth- surrounded by musicians and people who appreciate “classier” music than HORSE the Band. And it turned out that a glass of Coke costs £2.20. No, really.
Whilst staring at the stage and the large logo painted behind it I realised what an excellent name “Music Ian” would be for a one-man-band named “Ian”. Getting the domain would be tricky, though.
The “MC” explaining how he wanted the audience to be quiet as people “sing from the soul” was the point where it got a little too pretentious, I think.
It was alright though. There was a bloke on a guitar and a bloke on a saxophone who played what would make ace background music.
Most of the other acts were “guitar and singing and emotions and that” – essentially emo but without the drums and self-harm. I was after something a bit more heavyweight myself- perhaps say, a song about American police involvement with the KKK, or about the prison system, the prison system of the United States.
The trouble with watching live music is that I never know what to “do” whilst the musician is playing- I’ve got too much dignity to do something like nod my head, tap my feet, or hand jive. In the end I settled with sitting perfectly still, not daring to move in case it could be interpretted as participating, with an expressionless face. The whole room was in darkness aside from the stage and the area at the back where I was sitting- no doubt I inspired the people on stage to play on loudly and with 200% effort.
Overall it was a good evening- fingers crossed I’m going to see some more live music later in the week, hopefully of the more shouty punk variety.
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