Finally!

Ok so I've been threatening myself with the blog! For a few months now, I've been making notes at open mic nights about performers and have now decided that I'm gonna start afresh and not bother typing up reviews from October onwards. (What a waste, I know!)

So after a long delay, below is my review of 'Come Strut your Stuff' at the Egg cafe Jan 09, before tomorrow evening's installment.

'Come Strut your Stuff' @ Egg.

First Monday of Every Month 8pm start. Performers need to arrive early (prior to 8pm) to get a slot.

Key: M = Musician P = Poet

5th Jan 09

Hosted by Graham.

Musical accompaniment – Stan the Harper

1st set:

Jake De Casy – M. Crazy guitar guy. He ad-lib’s his songs and doesn’t set the bar too high. Phew! However, Jake is indispensable because of his randomness. He also heckles. Hmmmm, he has a use.
1. ‘Break things’ was about…breaking things. Sung in a very childish manner reminiscent of ‘Ecnegludni Fles Sseldnim by ‘MSI’.
2. Jake’s second piece required a word/theme/etc etc from the audience. I shouted the word ‘antelope’ and Jake himself admitted he could only run so far with it, before it was hunted down and maimed by the befuddled audience.

Kevin Critchley – M. An enthusiastic guitar player, with a powerful, varied voice. At times it’s hard to make out exactly what Kevin is singing and this may be due to the lack of microphone at this event. But the general gist of his songs revolve around lust/desire and just ‘getting together/getting it on/in/up/down/around wherever he can stick it in you’.

Tom George – P. Introduced his performance talking about artistic people doing their shitty jobs but keeping hold of their dreams. Now, we don’t need to be told the obvious, do we? Please no more salt in our wounds. In fact, at least we've got shitty jobs and not homeless. Ah...that makes me feel better...
1. ‘August’ was an almost perfect accapella.
2. ‘UV angel’ centered on drug culture and outward projection of self within society. Of course you consider these things more when spangled.
3. ‘Somebody told me’ was a powerful crescendo to his set, may I quote “scared of silence when the exact opposite is violence”. Depeche Mode comes to mind.

Malley(?) – M This chap performed two songs. Malley has a hoarse characteristic voice which is refreshing to hear instead of quasi-yank accents. Again lack of microphone and the proxemics of the café itself can at times make it difficult to hear lyrics against guitar, but I quote his second song “don’t tell me about last night, I can’t take it” hmmmm....it was shit shag then?

Catherine – A poet with a posse. This lady is popular and with good reason. Catherine’s poetry is syntactically sound – literally.
1. Key to her first poem (Hell I can’t remember the title…) was combining staccato and syntactic parallelism (repetitive lines) in “Ophelia not beaut-i-full” (apologies if this quote is incorrect).
2. ‘Suicide girls’ all though a good poem, it has not encouraged me to google the website (fem porn, youtube, other random skank sites, who knows) that Catherine used for inspiration.

Graham - M. This guy was AMAZING! I was almost crying with laughter. He spat his lyrics out, as though his words were stale semen. Yes that’s right, he just didn’t give a toss if you were eating your broccoli quiche or butter beans.
1. This song was about an ex-lover’s penis in his hand and about having “dick breath” hmmmm nice!
2. The second song was….wait for it…about… “sucking cock” and “posing and pilling and feeling and feeling and feeling…” like you’re going to throw up your quiche? Graham engaged my attention from the beginning to the end of his performance and I was only sad that he hadn’t mentioned death or defecation to break most of today’s taboos at the Egg table. Graham, have you got a song about dogging?

2nd Set

Ben Foyle – P. Ben performed a short piece as he is “the laziest poet ever!” before going onto host the second set. Again a microphone would be better so as to hear Ben. Ben has some very witty things to share but at times these are lost due to the clattering of plates etc in the cafe.

Gaz Flynt – M. Gaz played two songs for the crowd. The aforementioned lack of microphone made it difficult to appreciate Gaz’s performance. Although I heard an American drawl, is he local?

Bombshell – P. Great a girl with a pseudonym! Stage name! etc etc. This lady’s a performer 24/7, she lives her alter-ego, so kudos to Liverpool’s Blonde Poet Sylph - Bombshell.
1. Echoes
2. Private City – a dream and nightmare simultaneously?
3. Rant – Finally, someone kicking up a fuss for the skinny crowd! To be honest we’ve all become bored of larger ladies moaning about how life is difficult for them in a size zero world. Well can you believe it?!? It is actually difficult for some ladies to put ON weight. So Bomshell’s “Fray Bentoe’s diet- no really I have” retort was music to my ears. Hopefully with Bombshell’s back atchya! rant the door on the now boring “Body conscious” poetry will be closed.

Amanda De Angeles – P. I found at times that Amanda’s delivery of her poems never seemed complete and left the audience hanging, hence a delayed applause.
1. While you were gone. This poem used the word ‘pubes.’ damn! some of these poems are just pure filth! ooooooo yeah!!!
2. Time
3. Waiting for her to be ready
4. Lost in hints


Tony Kehoe – M.
1. ?? Can’t remember the title or the words, however Tony’s a great guitar player.
2. ‘Blind leading the blind’ – song talking about religion? Well, I like it, nuff said.

Lilly & Tony Kehoe – M. Father and daughter duet. It’s likely to have been discussed by pretty much everyone at the venue, but I’ll say it one more time “How good is Lilly Kehoe!?!? Can you imagine how good she’ll be when she’s our age? (which could range from 17-50+) She’ll put us to shame for sure!”

Adele – P. ‘For Alec’.

Dave – 1st time performer.

Wez – P. With his distinguished Liverpudlian accent and side burns both Wez and his poems are easily recognizable. A fond user of syntactic parallelism, Wez uses words like hands on a bongo.
1. The Lonely drum
2. Run me over bulldozer
3. Nightmares dreams great
4. Brainwashers don’t live in a washing machine.


3rd Set

“Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave as soon as you’ve done your shitty little poem or song you self righteous prick” Scroobius Pip

If only people heeded to those words, there would have been a decent crowd left for the third set. Top marks for all of those who stayed.

Dave Harley – Recession themed poems with a hint of Alexi Sayle.
1. The Crunch “Oh my god, the FTSE’s down...” – could be a number one hit in the right hands.
2. January sales
3. While shepherds watch their flocks by night.

Darren – poem about the constellations and breaking up. Where have all these emotional men come from!?!?!

Dan Sloane – Singer/Guitar player with a Jack Johnson kinda vibe. Covered a Bruce Springstein song.

Damian – M. Great singer but didn’t catch the song titles, sorry.

Reserves:

Me – What the hell was I thinking!?!?! Wasn’t expecting to be called up as it was quite late by the time the 3rd set had finished. Oh well, I sure scared a few people.

Graham – Announced that as host, he would perform at every evening from then on. He sang a song from a frog’s perspective in a blues bar.
1. Greens – featured the words: frogs, Lilly pad, formaldehyde and green suede shoes.

Fin.