Bar East Ale House
1733 1st Avenue,
New York, NY 10128.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The guys at the bar, and the bartender were nice, but it didn’t really feel like an open mic night. It’s not that I’m looking for the pretentious sycophancy of a “coffee shop” environment, just a little engagement from the audience. Not sure I’ll go back to this one.

Comments

• Called to check sign-up time: 7pm, starts at 8pm.
• About a mile from the subway.
• Arrived at 7:15pm to sign up and the place was dead aside from a few friendly locals.
• Sound guy arrived at 8:30pm and had trouble getting the mics working.
• Other performers started to arrive around 8:45pm.
• 9pm I helped the sound guy fix the mic problems – bad mic and channel on the desk.
• Four songs, went first, started playing at 9:15pm.
• Noisy and seemingly disinterested room.

• Mix Cafe – Monday, July 5, 2010
• Shillelagh Tavern – Tuesday, July 6, 2010
• Waltz Astoria – Wednesday, July 7, 2010
• Hell Gate Social – Thursday, July 8, 2010
• Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar – Saturday, July 10, 2010
• Common Ground – Sunday, July 11, 2010
• Cronin and Phelan’s – Monday, July 12, 2010
• Shillelagh Tavern – Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Quick Reviews

• Mix Cafe: It’s really a piano-oke type venue, which I didn’t realise until I arrived. There were some really great singers there singing show tunes, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey type stuff. It definitely didn’t have the vibe of an “open mic” for other instruments but they were extremely accommodating, very nice, and let me play three songs. Attentive and complimentary audience.
• Shillelagh Tavern: Although promoted as “Terrible Tuesday – The Worst Open Mic in Astoria,” my first experience at Shillelagh was really good. They were celebrating Justin Finley’s birthday, a guy who started an organisation called Astoria Music & Arts. Lots of people present, very friendly, got to play six songs. Very diverse open mic, with lots of interesting acts ranging from acoustic guitarists to drumming poets to seven-string heavy metal guitarists. The host Darien let me use his guitar because mine doesn’t plug in. Lots of good compliments.
• Waltz Astoria: According to their website, Waltz has quite the open mic reputation. It is pretty much a coffee shop, and they do have a Steinway, but the sound system is awful! There are pretty strict rules, only two songs for musicians, yet ten minutes for poets and comedians. There is also a $10 drink/food minimum, which is actually $15 if using a credit card. The people, including the host, are nice, and there were a fair amount of them there. Good compliments. It just seemed a little strict. Fixing the sound and relaxing the rules would improve this significantly.
• Hell Gate Social: I really enjoyed playing here. It’s a very cool bar, with a modern feel. The staff were really nice, and the sound system was great. Very attentive, very well received. Cheap drinks, and a free drink for playing. Looking forward to going back here.
• Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar: This was the first open mic I played in the city. A pretty authentic feeling Irish bar, but with a pretty terrible pint of Guinness. There were two or three musicians there when I arrived, and although sign up hadn’t begun, they had already worked out spots with the host, who was a little irritating at times. He played the warm-up slot and then when the next act got up, he found a tambourine and started playing along out of time. I played a five song set and he, and the rest of the room was very attentive and complimentary. He told me to promote my upcoming gigs. They offer feature spots at open mics, so I may go back and look into doing one of these. Saturday is original material only, and the guy after me played a bunch of Jack Johnson. Odd.
• Common Ground: This was a lot of fun. After listening to Scott the host, who was a nice guy but falls into the category of “overly rambunctious host,” play some rather dreary and depressing material, I played about twenty minutes of stuff that went down really well, and was asked to keep playing more. The venue is cool, and the room was well suited to an open mic. I’ll check this one out again.
• Cronin and Phelan’s: I had no idea what to expect from this one. The website advertises the open mic as comedy, magic, music, and poetry, hosted by Dave the comedic magician. I arrived early to sign up first, but there was no real sign up sheet, more an order that Dave the host decided. As it turns out, there was a featured band, Vessio, playing earlier. Vessio are a boy of around 10 and a girl of around 12, both play the drums and guitar and switch out instruments. Really talented kids, but the set was way too long for an open mic with other performers waiting. I played after them. The sound system is pretty terrible, and feedback was a bit of a problem but to give credit to Dave though, he didn’t stop trying to remedy it. I played a twenty minute set, which went down really, really well. Probably the best reception yet, judging by the Guinness and Whiskey bought for me afterwards. Many compliments from the audience and other performers, and officially invited back for the next open mic in August. Very friendly bar.
• Shillelagh Tavern: Second visit to Shillelagh was a little quieter. I got there early and signed up first for the 9pm start as I had the week before, but nobody was there. It turns out that a band usually opens up this open mic, and then Darien plays a couple of songs as a member of The Tibetan Punks. The Shrimps, an acoustic duo who seem to have quite a local following, opened up and played for about an hour, which was a little tedious because you couldn’t hear anything they were singing. They did give out some CDs, and their stuff is pretty decent however. My six songs were cut to five due to time constraints, but it was still an enjoyable place to play. Not so many people there, but lots of decent compliments again.

A person, often a student, who has not developed any unique intellectualisms but will bombastically offer plagiarised arguments and opinions, or repeat verbatim any number of literary quotes or philosophies without any real understanding of them.

Much like the actual iPod media device, which plays back music or video that has been stored on it, but does not create new media by itself, an iPod in the human sense, stores information, but does not have the propensity for the creation of unique intellectual opinion. Could also be described as a Faux-losopher.

The scene from Good Will Hunting between Will and Clark in the Harvard bar is a great example of Clark being an iPod.

Will: Of course that’s your contention. You’re a first-year grad student; you just got finished reading some Marxian historian, Pete Garrison probably. You’re gonna be convinced of that ’till next month when you get to James Lemon. Then you’re going to be talking about how the economies of Virginia and Pennsylvania were entrepreneurial and capitalist way back in 1740. That’s gonna last until next year; you’re gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood, talkin’ about, you know, the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilization…

Clark: Well, as a matter of fact, I won’t, because Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social…

Will: See, the sad thing about a guy like you is… [that] you dropped 150 grand on a f***in’ education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!

Here’s the recipe:

Makes 6 – 8 Servings

• 1½lbs Beef Stew Meat cut in 1” cubes
• 2 tblsp Flour
• 1tsp Salt
• 2 tblsp Oil
• 1½ cups Strong Coffee
• 2 tblsp Molasses
• 1 clove Minced Garlic (I used chopped fresh)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1tsp Worcester Sauce
• ½tsp dried Oregano crushed
• 1/8th tsp Cayenne Pepper (I used an entire dried red chili)
• 1½ cups water
• 4 carrots cut in 1/2” slices
• 4 small onions quartered
• 3 medium potatoes peeled and cut up (I used two potatoes and a parsnip)
• ¼ cup cold water
• 3 tblsp Flour
• I added a couple of bay leaves too.

Coat the beef cubes with a mixture of 2tblsp flour & 1 tsp salt. In a dutch oven brown meat on all sides in hot oil. Stir in coffee, molasses, garlic, Oregano. Cayenne,1 tsp salt, worcestershire sauce. Cover & simmer over a low heat until the meat is tender, about 30mins. Blend ¼ cup cold water in to 3tblsp flour,add to the stew mixture. Cook and stir until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Serve in bowls. Great served with hot cornbread muffins.