The Fox and Newt is situated on the outskirts of Leeds city centre on Burley Street, and the open mic here is hosted by friendly pub manager Becky. The pub has its own brewery and a selection of real ales created by Burley St Brewery. I choose a Monza Mild which I have to say is a lovely pint and only two quid.
I get talking to a guy called Rob who is wearing a retro country rock shirt. You know the kind with the u shaped pockets and embroidered finish, I want one. Turns out he’s a Gram Parsons fan and that’s good enough for me, because one of my all time favourite songs is Dark End of the Street, as sung by dear old Gram.
The stage area at the far end of the bar is decorated with throws and fairy lights. There are two stools that have also been covered in fine fabrics. It has that feminine touch which you don’t get at many open mic nights. And the practicalities of the sound system are being sorted out by Joel, who it turns out also does the sound up at the Students Union, and clearly knows what he's doing.
Rob kicks off the evenings entertainment with three of his own songs that have a country rock feel to match the shirt he's wearing. I want to say Americana, but I don't really know what that means, its in that kind of domain. The last song grabs me and I wish I’d asked him what it was called. It sounded familiar, even though it was an original, and I guess all of us song writers have experienced that particular dilemma. But its still damn fine tune.
Rob is followed by Sam and Tom who announce they have never played together before, not even practised. Listening in you wouln't have noticed, well only a bit, but this is what open mic nights are about, just having a go. And a good open mic night will take all comers. Its just about having a bit of fun with music.
The audience is a friendly bunch made up of students, locals and few executive types. Some of them listen and some of them don’t, some of them dip into a song and then dip outside for a ciggy. Its all good, people shouldn’t be forced to listen if their not interested. They haven’t come here to study music, or to massage the egos of us musician types, or to see the next big thing, they’ve just come for a few beers, a bit of a chat and to enjoy some live music.
After Sam and Tom I take some beat poetry to the stage. I’m interested in the work of the jazz poets of the 50s and 60s, writers like Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Charles Bukowski. I can’t emulate their greatness in writing, but I’m working on combining electronic loops and beats with verse. It’s not what people were expecting at an open mic but I think some of them enjoyed it, and you can’t ask for more than that.
To make the evenings entertainment additionally eclectic I was followed by Cosmic Charlie’s Jug Band. Ok, I know I’ve got that name wrong and apologies to the group for that, but it was too long for me to remember. The jug band features Becky on an assortment of old jugs and it works a treat, though I would have liked to have heard a jug solo, if such a thing is possible. There were no hecklers shouting 'get your jugs out!' or worse - which came as a surprise. They sang some sweet songs, including another of my all time favourites Shady Grove.
At around 10.15 my mate Leo Brazil arrived to shake things up. He’d been on a whistle stop tour of all the open mic nights in Leeds having gone to The Grove, which hosts a famous acoustic night, and another at the Dry Dock which I don't know much about but plan to check it out some time. Leo's got a flurry of gigs coming up to promote his new album and was out converting punters to his musical ways. Leo is a shit hot guitarist and also plays loads of other instruments. He recorded and mixed his album in his home studio with his band The Twitch and you should check them out. He plays a great song called 'Down in Mexico' which takes me back to Gram Parsons again for didn't old Gram travel down there once?
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