The pride and vinyl of Holmfirth (Open Mic #6)

These are complicated nights with many and varied goings on.  You bring together a random collection of people from all walks of life and provide a space in which they express themselves - there are bound to be differences of opinion and massive contrasts, a light and beautifully sung ballad contrasts with an insightful account of growing up with drugs, a comedy piece about a man from Essex contrasts with dark repetitive electronica, or a piece of classical music played over an iPod backing track.  

Don’t expect to like or agree with everything you hear - this is not a gig, where you have paid for something you know you’re going to get.  And neither is this the sanitized  televised meanderings of Britain’s Got Talent, it is much more real than that.  On these nights you don’t know what to expect and you might be happily surprised or deeply upset, or even disappointed.

My aim is to create an event that none of us will forget in a hurry, that will come back to you in years from now and bite you in the bum and say ‘hey, remember that guy you saw playing harmonica and shaking his eggs he was brilliant’ or ‘what about that awful rendition of Ferry Cross the Mersey that went on for half an hour’ but you remember those things, you remember the contrasts.  And if you really, really don’t like something it doesn't matter, because it only lasts a fleeting moment, all of us get fifteen minutes of anti-fame.

Holmfirth is a competitive place and since starting this night two other open mics have been launched in the town.  This is good news for musicians and performers because it means there are more places to play and they are all very different nights.  I started my night because I wanted to create an anything goes kind of place, something different from the mainly folk and acoustic nights that had become the norm.  I wanted to create a space where all kinds of music and performance would be welcome from hip hop through to rock, from country through to beat boxing, from bands through to solo artists.  Half way through this experiment and I think I have largely succeeded in this aim but there is more work to be done.  There are gaping holes in the spectrum of music that has been provided and an over representation of other forms, and I'm coming to understand better the pride and prejudice of this town (that’s where the story really lies).

On my sixth open mic we had classical music, blues, comedy, spoken word, folk, electronica and pop music.  All of this was flavored with the blue remembered songs and the forgotten melodies of another random collection of vinyl.  We finished the open mic slots at quarter to twelve and even the late finish didn't mean everyone got to play.  So big thanks to the brilliant Scott Wainwright, Greg Paul, Heather, James Munroe, Terry, Linda and Andy, the poets Stuart Clark, Petra, Victoria and multi-talented Tim Taylor, Jamie Philokyprou and Iona. Also thanks to Ben Thomas (aka L'Étranger)  for assisting with the vinyl play, the lovely audience and all the staff at Cellar 88 for putting up with the mayhem.

The next Open Mic is 25 July at Cellar 88.