open mic Archives - CRAIG WESTWOOD

Playing Live Again

Craig — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 10:07:00 +0000

It’s so nice to be getting out again after so long. I can’t express how much my upper arm injury had limited my goals, and, although I could just switch emphasis and concentrate on other stuff, having to protect the arm really did put a dampener on my enthusiasm.

That said, it’s easy to fall into bad habits. Although the arm has been recovering for a while now, it was easy to tell myself to “protect the arm, protect the arm!” as an excuse to not go back to playing regularly too early.

Anyway – it was time… blow off the cobwebs, and get back out into the unsuspecting world.

My first plan was to aim to play at least once a week… somewhere.

Straight off the bat I have the offer of a gig from Scott Doonican of The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican at the Old School House in Barnsley. Good on yer, mate, and thank you. It’s now been pushed back till January due to a scheduling issue on our original date, but I’m looking forward to it.

Then I literally went onto the Open Mic Finder site (link) and made a list of all the nearby open mics, and made contact by email/facebook.

Next, I contacted a total unknown… A venue known simply as Small Seeds, in Huddersfield. I did wait a few days to get a response from the email, but they were very encouraging. They invite all musicians locally, as well as poets, to come on down and play/read their material at the aptly titled Acoustic Club every Tuesday evening after 9pm.

It’s a lovely spot, very rustic looking stage, and there’s no mics or amplification, so this REALLY IS acoustic only. The nice thing too is they provide an acoustic guitar for those who simply want to turn up and play; and there’s an upright piano there as well if you want to play that too.

Next up I contacted Pete Long, whom I’d met through Andrew when he ran the Acoustic Circus open mics at the Taproom in Batley. He’s moved on from the Taproom, and is now hosting Acoustic Circus open mics once monthly from the West End pub in Gomersal. He also runs another Acoustic Circus Session once a month in St Mary’s Church in Gomersall too.

Pete himself is a really good guitarist and songwriter by the way, just check out VanRay on Spotify or iTunes…

Anyway – as soon as I made contact, Pete offered me a half-hour guest slot at the West End. This kinda threw me in the deep end, but I was glad of it. It blew out the cobwebs and got me thinking about a set again, rather than just the usual two or three odd songs that you get to do at a ‘normal’ open mic.

One thing I have realised though: playing ‘Whispers of Home’ with its drop tuning is a difficult song to put in the set, wherever you put it. I’ve tried retuning the guitar mid-set, and, unless you’re a good raconteur whilst you’re re-tuning, you’re asking a lot of patience from the audience whilst you mess about. The only alternative is to swap guitars. Here’s where my poor old EKO E20 lets me down, as the old Barcus Berry piezo bridge pickup I fitted 25+ years ago really isn’t up to it any more. Feedback from the audience is that it just wasn’t as good sounding as my Taylor 214. So – at some point, to do this justice, I’m going to need to change the E20 for something better, or just get better at re-tuning the 214 mid-set.

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Open Mics

Craig — Wed, 07 Feb 2018 18:34:00 +0000

These have been such a great way of building confidence, that I would recommend open mics to anyone wanting to get into performing their own material. I’ve been very fortunate to have the support of Andrew organising a great many of these.

Just lately these have been once a week at least, having at least a half-hour slot (and sometimes a whole hour) at the Dandy Lion in Heckmondwike. It’s got a great atmosphere there, and the audience are pretty polite most of the time, and will listen, and not just talk or shout over you (not that playing over a loud chatty audience isn’t a good learning experience in itself!).

The news this week is that the Dandy Lion Acoustic Sessions are maybe coming to a close, and that would be a shame. I’ve been looking forward to Monday nights. That’s been quite a change from the pre-stage nerves I used to get, not so long ago.

There’s still a once-a-month session at the Cross Keys in Liversedge to look forward to. But it looks like I need to go and seek out a few more to attend…

I’ll keep you posted.

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Open Mic at ‘The Hop’

Craig — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 08:25:00 +0000

I’m so pleased to say that despite the initial nerves, my section went very well, I think. I fluffed my words a couple of times and my mic usage was a bit erratic, but I don’t think it mattered too much. The Hop was quite empty (I guess Monday night isn’t going to be as packed out as a Friday or Saturday), so really I was just singing to my guests, Claire, Ken and Pat, plus the other artists that 360 manage and their guests. So – it was a lovely informal evening, not too much pressure, and chance to build up my confidence and improve technique on a live rig.

It’s nice also to see how well the others are doing: Zoe, Carla and Harry were also singing last night, and they clearly seemed more confident than I was. I elected to go first as I thought that it would be better to do my little set, and not prolong the nerves any longer than necessary. It’s nice that we all perform in very different genres and therefore don’t have to be competitive in any way. We are all there to develop our skills, build stage confidence and build our repertoire.

With the first one behind me, I think I’ve finally laid the ghosts of past stage disasters to rest. I’m very grateful to Ken and Pat (and Claire of course) for coming to support me, and of course to Andrew for being my backing and lead guitarist. Ken has video-ed the set, (pics are taken from the video) which I may or may not put up at some point. I’m very highly critical watching stuff back like this, and there’s certainly room for improvement. To me, the sound at a live gig is never as good as when you were there – even for the pro performers, and you watch it back and you think: “Blimey, I didn’t realise he was singing flat there on the night…” But that’s the downside of recording with a phone, and not directly from the stage mixer. Perhaps next time we can do this, and see what we really sound like…

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Open Mic Night

Craig — Tue, 24 May 2016 18:58:00 +0000

This was held last night at Wakefield’s The Hop, a lovely little venue situated quite near to Westgate station and Wakefield’s Theatre and Opera House. Here I’ve got to meet quite a few of the Artists currently on the 360 Programme, or at least the more local ones, some at least coming from as far as Manchester and Nottingham.

Here a great many of the pieces about 360AD have come into place, I feel. It’s nice to have met the other artists and I see that group support that they have, and the support that Matthew and Andrew give them too. It was nice to see people who had been with 360AD for just a few months, and also see some who have been with them for a few years too, and see the level of confidence and professionalism even from those who have only been there a short time.

I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be involved in the live scene, and this really because I have severe hang-ups about my last stage performance: albeit some 30 years ago it was a club audition that went quite horrendously wrong. To cut a long story short – and it is still hard for me to talk about it (though a bit easier to write…), I ended up completely freezing on stage on my final song, without any memory for chords or words, and just had to end the show there. Needless to say that it happened in front of a load of local talent scouts, and it was the worst way to end a potential career as a club player. Past history.

Anyway – I was just there to spectate last night. I admit I was quite tempted to get up and do something, but I don’t feel personally prepared enough yet to perform, and I reckon this will ease the more I practice and the more the songs become “muscle-memory”.

My conclusion: wow – what a great bunch of performers! Such talent and such a diversity of styles and genres. I said to Andrew and Matthew at the end, how much I feel that I’m in awesome company, and feeling quite humbled and slightly unworthy right now. I hope I can escape the rabbit-in-the-headlights syndrome when it comes to my turn…

So…. practice, practice, practice…

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