I’ve done a few parties and tour-bus performances, but this is my very first
solo show. It’s quite a nerve-racking experience. I’m probably going to be
rubbish.” Adam Ficek, the drummer with Babyshambles, is standing in an empty
car park in Whitechapel, before his first performance at one of London’s
more anarchic open mike nights, A Spoonful of Poison. Playing the
guitar for a change, he’s nervous, and understandably so. It’s a baptism of
fire, standing up in front of an audience, armed only with the songs you’ve
lovingly handcrafted in your bedroom. I’ve been doing it for years and I
still get terrible nerves. But unlike me, Ficek doesn’t want a beer. Playing
in a band with Pete Doherty, he says, has put him off all that.
Open mikes are simple – all you need is a stage, a sound system and a compere.
The artists – musicians, comedians, poets – just turn up, put their names
down on a list and perform. In any night you’ll hear a shaky first-timer, an
ardent hobbyist, someone truly terrible and someone so special you could
swear they’re going to be the next big thing. A Spoonful of Poison
even boasts a naked ranting poet among its many regulars.
Across the country, open mikes are run by enthusiastic music lovers and
promoters who use them to discover new talent to promote to bigger gigs or
festivals. The craft of performance and the possibility of discovery is what
drives the artist to the stage – between the promoter and performer is an
intimate, mutually beneficial relationship. “I’m a very passionate believer
in everything open mike stands for,” says Jake Morley, a guitar-slapping
24-year-old from Barnet who seems on the verge of making it. “It’s just
about having a creative outlet for anyone, regardless of merit . . . All you
need is just to rock up and plug in and go. And the idea that that outlet
exists is just a wonderful thing, really, just inspiring.”
But no matter how inspiring and wonderful open mikes undoubtedly are,
performing – particularly for the first time – is also downright scary. When
I stepped foot inside my first singers’ night, about five years ago, I slunk
into the very back row of seats, stashed my guitar as unobtrusively as
possible and just watched. It took me three weeks to pluck up the courage to
play, and then my hands shook so much that I stumbled through the whole
thing. The relief afterwards, though, was amazing, and as total strangers
came up to congratulate me for what I’d imagined to be a completely
embarrassing experience for everyone, a wave of gratitude and belonging
swept over me. I was completely hooked.
The roots of open mike are in pub singaround sessions and the folk clubs that
sprang up around the country in the Fifties and Sixties, which offered brief
floorspots to aspiring musicians. That is how my dad first saw a
then-unknown Paul Simon in 1964, at the Jug of Punch in Birmingham: “This
little chap takes the stage and started with a song, which I have never
heard again but can still sing, called A Church is Burning. Within
three seconds, you could have heard a pin drop.”
But the craze for dance music and superstar DJs in the 1990s resulted in the
number of folk clubs dwindling to almost nothing. Then, as the rise of Oasis
sent the sales of guitars soaring, the need for a space to play reasserted
itself. In New York, the punky, satirical Antifolk movement created intimate
clubs for performers with attitude, while a similar thing was happening in
London.
There is now an open mike in pretty much every town in the country (see www.thevac.co.uk
to find one near you), and even mainstream outlets are getting in on the
act. The O2 arena recently roped in the Charlatans to launch its Buskers
Stage, as part of its O2 Undiscovered project, and the Hard Rock Café on
Park Lane now has an acoustic showcase on the last Tuesday of the month,
when unsigned acts play to the appreciative bustle of the basement
restaurant.
Phil Taylor, who provides the acts for the Hard Rock Café nights from his open
mike, Up All Night, at the Bunch of Grapes pub near London Bridge,
was one of the pioneers: “At the time I started mine [about ten years ago]
there weren’t many places you could play where you weren’t expected to bring
at least 40 people. So I set up the open mike because I wanted a place where
people didn’t feel under any pressure to bring anyone.”
Going it alone is a common trait among open mike performers – the last thing
you need is friends trying to critique your rubbish performance or (worse)
whooping. And you need to be free to network – the promoter running the
night might want to book you, while the other performers act as inspiration
and form a creative network, sharing tips. “You might think you write
amazing songs,” says Bobby Long, a talented Up All Night regular,
“But until you play them live, you don’t really know.”
The networking aspect has been taken up a gear by the advent of MySpace –
players swap MySpace addresses and post recorded material on their pages in
the hope of being spotted by promoters who, like Taylor, are trawling the
site: “You find a band that you know are really cool, and you look at their
MySpace friends and you say – well, they live in London, we could book them
a gig.” But the major labels have their MySpace watchers too. “Kate Nash
came along quite a few times,” recalls Vis the Spoon, the compere of A
Spoonful of Poison, “and just as I’d decided she’d be a good act to book
for a featured set, Lily Allen put her in her Top 8 [on MySpace] and I never
got a look in after that.”
And just as performers leave open mikes behind, so some pop back for visits.
Seth Lakeman surprised the regulars at Acoustic Night Bristol with an
impromptu performance in December; Brian Robertson, of Thin Lizzy and
Motörhead fame, regularly opens a night in Brentwood, Essex; and Pete Conway
– Robbie Williams’s dad, no less – is often seen at the mike in
Newcastle-under-Lyme. And what of Adam Ficek? Well, after a shaky start, he
wowed the crowd, then – ever the modern musician – scurried home to update
his MySpace page.
www.MySpace.com/roseskingscastles
(Adam Ficek)
www.o2blueroom.co.uk/music/Undiscovered
(O2 Undiscovered)
OPEN-MIKE NIGHTS
Oldest: Probably the Glasgow
Songwriters Club, which was established in 1989. Every second Tuesday,
Blackfriars pub, Bell Street, Glasgow
Most anarchic: A
Spoonful of Poison. Regulars include a naked poet. Every Monday, Rhythm
Factory, E1
Most intimate: Catweazle
Club. Run by Matt Sage, there’s no mike – the performer sings and the
audience leans in to listen. Every Thursday, East Oxford Community Centre,
Cowley Road, Oxford
Rural but webtastic: CRAMP
(Crediton Rural Arts and Music Project) Performers come from all over the
southwest, and the organisers film the sessions and post videos on YouTube.
Last Friday of the month, The Lamb Inn, Crediton, Devon
