Cosy January Open Mike.

Last night we had a great Open Mike night. It was that great mix of having practiced, having an audience and having enough friends there to make it good fun.

When we started the bar was actually empty. We’d hit the spot between after work stragglers and late night drinkers. We decided that we’d start rather than hang around. We started with Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet and by the grace of Marti Pellow the bar had an extra 20 people in it when we finished.

It was Burns Night and we had planned to give some Burns songs a go, but the preparation hadn’t amounted to any more than printing out the chords. We thought we might have got away with it when the bar was empty, but once we spied some strangers in the bar, we lost the bottle and plumped for a good crowd pleaser – Fat Bottomed girls.

We now felt we had sufficiently impressed to try the first of our new additions for the night – the boys are back in town. I think we did it justice. There were a few little stumbles in the vocals, but otherwise I think it was pretty good fun.

Onto the guests…. Andre was up first. He did some great original versions of While my guitar gently weeps, Moon river and one of his own about an island where it’s always raining.(The UK???)

After that we had Grandpa Death at our open mike for the first time. He must have been keen, cos he bought a new guitar for it. He added to the Scottishness or even the Ayrshireness of the event and gave us some amazing original bluesy tunes.

Gareth then showed us how it was done and knocked out some great cover choices – including Purple Rain and Take your Mama by the Scissor Sisters and Driftwood by Scottish band Travis. :

By this point it was clear that we had enough talent to sustain the night and there were lots of smiling faces and happy musicians, so my job was done. Fraser and I even managed to sit down for a pink of the black stuff:

The photo makes me look a little satanic, but I was really enjoying the night and even relaxing a bit.

Tamira, Lorenzo and Lisa had come along ahead of their Debut gig on Saturday at CC Muziek Café. The play some Tubthumping, some Natalie Imbruglia, and some Stealer’s Wheel(more Scottish music). Things are coming together and I think their gig should be pretty good if anyone needs anywhere to go this Saturday.

We then had a folk group, but I’m afraid I don’t know their names. They’ve been down before and they are a great bunch. Me and Fraser even got up for a jam for their last song:

We had now got to the stage where there had been enough drinkers to make the bar happy and enough musicians to remove our fear that we were going to run out of material. We could now sit back, relax and knock out a few tunes. The tunes included “Guess that’s why they call it the Blues”, Man in the mirror, the boys are back in town(again), and then I broke a string on Lola. So we finished with a 5 string medley of Pokerface, Kids and Zombie.

Here’s some of the songs that were played:

Sunday night practice

Fraser was round last night and we had a practice for Tuesday's open mike. It's been a while since I even played an acoustic guitar never mind practiced with Fraser.

After watching a documentary on the greatness that is Thin Lizzy, I gave Boys are back in Town a go. We had tried it many moons ago and it hadn't worked, but I surprised myself and it seems to come together. It's pretty fast so you really have to feel the rhythm if you're going to spit out the lyrics in time, but I think it should hold itself together and the crowd should enjoy it.

The other one I have been toying with is Two of Us by the Beatles. I think it’s an excellent duet, but it’s a bit high for one of us and I'm not convinced we'll get it pinned before Tuesday.

We’ve been wanting to do an Elton John song forever. My favourite(due to a love of the film Almost Famous) is Tiny Dancer – but it has a bridge that we just can’t get to sound right. We also tried Your Song….. but we couldn’t pull it off. We’re now giving 'I guess that's why they call it the blues' a go, but even that is proving quite difficult – Elton’s deceptively hard.

I’ve been listening to loads of Stone’s recently. I wanted to do Prodigal Son, but we’re not going to have time to get it prepared. Under My Thumb is a lot simpler, but it needs some orchestrating to make it interesting.

Anyway… we’ll work it all out tonight and anyone that fancies hearing them can pop into Mollys on Tuesday

Open Mike @ Mollys - August 2010

For the second month in a row, the Open Mike has been so busy that we’ve been turning people away from the stage. Everyone who has ever hosted the Open mike was there last night - Fraser, Sandra, Tamira and Javier. It’s just a shame that the night was such a success that we didn’t get to play more together cos I really enjoy jamming with all those guys. Fortunately we had some great talent on the stage and I got to listen for once.

 Fraser and I opened with yet more Queen(Fat Bottomed girls)

…then Tamira joined us for Boots are made for walking and Blue Suede Shoes. Craig Coe then played for his second month in a row(He must have enjoyed last month):

He did a good job of fitting in the with out vision of the Open Mike night, not only does he get extra points for continuing the Queen theme, but he managed to put together 2 impromptu pairings, firstly with Sandra on Nobodies wife by Anouk, and then with Fraser and I on Somebody to love. 

We than had some new comers: Andy and Mike from Cheshire who performed some very nice harmonies despite the ropey onstage sound:

After that Marco, Javier, Fraser and I jammed out a few songs with Mandolin, 2 guitars and Bass which was a lot of fun. For the remainder of the night; Lee Clark wowed everyone with his self penned numbers; Amsterdam “weel kent face” Cindy Peress classed up the place; Sandra showed us that a month on the road keeps your music skills at maximum potency and Fraser and Tamira fired out some gems that they had been sneakily practicing on the side.

To close the show, the extremely able Giovanni and James played us out with Fraser supporting on Bass and vocals. Thanks to everyone that came along, musicians, listeners, hecklers and drinkers alike. Does anyone have any ideas for next month? A theme? Suggested Covers?

Open Mike July with N.F.S.

We had a great Open Mike last night. I think we've now being doing them for a year, and it was Fraser, Sandra and I for the first time in while definitely the first time this year. As usual we were ably assisted by Javier and several other friends. So many people wanted a spot on the stage that we were turning people away. Andy from the Stun was there so there is a write up and photos here.

Tamira and Neil - Live @ Mollys

With Sandra off on an Iberian adventure, I needed some help for this Month's Open Mike. Tamira willingly obliged. Preferably we would have had more time to practice, but I got held back with finishing Sandra's album. It's interesting how the mood changes when you add something else to the mix. We were able to rely on stuff we had prepared from the jam Session’s a little, and they were tried and tested so we knew that we could knock them out no problem with Stephen and Javier as well:

We did an excellent version of These Boots were made for walking… we had monitor issues on Crazy train, and we had chord-forgetation problems on Paranoid by Black Sabbath.. then I sang a few of my regulars…

and then Kevin took the stage for a set:


He’s a human juke box with much more capacity to entertain a crowd than I have.
After that – we had a first for the Open Mike’s at Mollys – a guy got up to give some poetry readings:

In times gone past, I’d like to think that poetry sat side by side with music in Irish bars… but alas times have changed and he was faced with a tough audience… still he gave a good ten minutes of various poems that he had come across on his travels, before I got up again and sang Lola by the kinks cos Katy had requested it.
Tamira sang some of her own songs, then I did some… then Kevin finished us off.. It was one of the better open mikes - - a good packed bar and a happy crowd.





Audio from the show here and here

Sandra's last Open Mike for a while

NFS is no more... first fraser got too busy with Coco's Mine, and now Sandra has to give up the open mike nights for the summer to go travelling. We had a great last night with Sandra.

Open Mike - March

Great night last night, we had a very busy stage with lots of musicians coming and going. Including the largest combo to grace the stage at our open mikes yet: Uncle Meat and the Highway children

Liam Glen was also a new face. 

I reckon I sang about 6 songs which is a pretty good record for me.

Stephen attended his first open mike and along with Javier we brought a much more "jammy" feel to the proceedings. 

Practice, Mollys, Tricky Theatre...

Sandra came round for a run through of the Open Mike setlist.... she was in good spirits and brought a muso friend with her. Afterwards we took Leah to Mollys and then a quick trip over to Cindy´s session at the Tricky Theatre. 

Open Mike Prep with Stephen and Javier

Javier, Stephen and I had our first session outside of the mine at my place today. We prepped some stuff for the Open Mike and the Jam session. It was sounding pretty excellent. Almost felt like I was in a band again.

Open Mike Prep with Sandra

Today I had very productive 'prep' session for the open mike with Sandra. We have the setlist fixed and we'll go over it again once before Tuesday. 

Open Mike @ Mollys - 24th November 2009

Last night we had another Open Mike Night. It started a bit quiet, but got going eventually. Sandra was ill so she wasn’t there and neither were her entourage. Luckily we had a few of the “Shades” down to help us out. Fraser and I started out with a few comfortable classics(Ziggy, Behind Blue eyes, Fat Bottomed Girls) before Marcel came and joined us and belted out Beautiful(Aguilera) and I wanna know what love is(Foreigner). Marcel nailed it as always, which is surprising, because I still have no idea what the foreigner track sounds like outside of the chorus.

Marie came up to the stage next. Many thanks to Marie for showing up, she came straight from the airport and still had her suitcase with her. We took it down a notch and provided the (gradually filling) bar with Alanis Morisette’s rendition of My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas and then Karma Police by Radiohead.

After this I got a rest… Hugh(http://www.myspace.com/icosounds ) came up and as always provided us with his unique beautiful textures on an alternatively tuned guitar.

To inject a little bit of Funk back into the room, we brought Marcel back up to do I want you back, but in the style of KT Tunstall rather than the Jackson 5.

This was followed by Angela, who did Zombie, Sex on Fire and Hit the Road Jack with Fraser and I

After this we brought in the pros. Tom played a few songs with a new guy from Philadelphia called Mike and then they each played some songs on their own. After this another new guy called Allessandro gave us a Classical/Ska/Reggae/Folk set which included an extremely original version of Apache by the Shadows.

To close the show Fraser and I played Fire and Rain, tears in heaven, then brought it up a notch when Angela sang Nobody´s wife by Anouk and then we closed the show with Pokerface by Lady Gaga….

The next Open Mike night will be on the 29th of December. If you are about over the festive period then head on down. It should be a great night, as I will be on holiday and we should be able to prepare some aural delights. 

After this I got a rest… and James and his new flat mate Matthijs gave us a self written instrumental:

Marie came up to the stage next. Many thanks to Marie for showing up, she came straight from the airport and still had her suitcase with her. We took it down a notch and provided the (gradually filling) bar with Alanis Morisette’s rendition of My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas and then Karma Police by Radiohead.

Hugh came up next and as always provided us with his unique beautiful textures on an alternatively tuned guitar.

To inject a little bit of Funk back into the room, we brought Marcel back up to do I want you back, but in the style of KT Tunstall rather than the Jackson 5. This was followed by Angela, who did Zombie, Sex on Fire and Hit the Road Jack with Fraser and I.

After this we brought in the pros. Tom played a few songs with a new guy from Philadelphia called Mike and then they each played some songs on their own. After this another new guy called Allessandro gave us a Classical/Ska/Reggae/Folk set which included an extremely original version of Apache by the Shadows.

To close the show Fraser and I played Fire and Rain, tears in heaven, then brought it up a notch when Angela sang Nobody´s wife by Anouk and then we closed the show with Pokerface by Lady Gaga….

The next Open Mike night will be on the 29th of December. If you are about over the festive period then head on down. It should be a great night, as I will be on holiday and we should be able to prepare some aural delights.