Last night, some friends and I ventured into the Starry Plough, a bar in Berkeley known for its Tuesday night open mic. We were going to support Miranda, who besides being awesome is also a singer/songwriter. Here were some of the highlights:
--"George," a snarly, radical feminist (and I suspect a lifelong chain smoker, judging by her voice) singing covers of bad 70's rock songs. George's voice has this. . . . scratchy, tone deaf quality that literally drives people from the room when she sings. When George gets on stage, everyone knows it's time for a bathroom/smoke/any other reason to leave the room that you could possibly come up with break.
--Andre the closet Russian. I had a whole conversation with this man. He seemed nice and friendly. Not even the slightest hint of an accent. And then he gets on stage, and suddenly he's dark and moody and oozing Dostoyevskian angst out of every word he utters (which suddenly is coated with this Russian accent) and then he's swaying and singing in Russian. I've heard of people adopting stage personas before, but this was kind of ridiculous.
--But the best moment of the night? Jerry. The only person over the age of 30 who performed in the open mic all night. It was the shadiest, creepiest, yuckiest and yet damn funniest performance I've seen in a long time. His best song was all about seducing old women in nursing homes. The chorus? "Oh yeah! Oh yeah! I'm gonna get your grandma!" I won't go into too much detail about the lyrics--you can check out Miranda and Carrie's blogs for more--but let's just say it was disturbing enough that when the MC got up after Jerry was done to announce the next performer, her first comment was "I never thought I'd say this, but now I'm kind of glad my grandma's dead."
Oh, and one more important thing. Don't forget that Father's Day is the day when Americans eat the most steak. It just might win you a free beer!
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