After Action Report – Iota Club

This past week we played at Iota Club in Clarendon. And guuuuurl do it go well.

The Iota Club has an open mic on Wednesdays with two separate signup sessions: one at 7:30 with the other at 10:00. It is in part coordinated through a facebook page. (We loved how it’s advertised as BYOInstrument.) This club is fairly unique insofar as open mics go because there was an honest to God stage. There was also pretty good food, greatly surpassing the usual barfood selection including salmon and some advanced salads that used french words we didn’t understand. There were so many excellent musicians there and some hipsters hippin’ pretty hard with a 25 – 35 year old crowd. There were easily 50 people there so it’s well attended.

Alex The Red Robert Parez ran the event. To decide the pecking order of who plays when, Alex had a bunch of guitar picks with numbers on it and of course because we are the opposite of vociferous opponents of awesome – we drew first blood. We generally consider it a bad idea to be the first group to play at a venue we’d never been at before. Local customs can be quite trixy and it’s useful to watch others to learn. Because Alex ran the event, he kicked off the evening.

Alex hit us with a healthy dose of Americana that evening, which is something we’ve been getting into lately. He was a solid baritone (maybe bass?) who mixed covers and originals. A memorable performance was Alex’s cover of John Bustine’s song Miss Amputee West Culver County. It was a great way to start the evening! After he finished his set, our going first haunted us: he stated “Make sure you’re ready to go on stage when it’s your turn” and we received our glare and knew it had been a bad idea to break our tradition and go first. (He wasn’t rude at all we’re being dramatic for effect.) Alex said every band was allowed two songs and we went on stage.

We decided we’d play for both the 7:30 and 10:00 sessions. It was a decision that wasn’t made initially, but was slowly made with each alcoholic beverage consumed. In the first set we played our old staples Take Your Momma and Wagon Wheel. During our second set we played a favorite from our old band back in college titled Say It Ain’t So by Weezer. We also played a somewhat shaky version of Sam Smith’s Stay With Me. It actually ended up being one of our best performances to date. A lot of people approached us afterwords to say nice things and we felt like two slightly older albeit less Canadian Justin Biebers.

One of the other artists that played was named Jahnel Slowikowski. She played and stayed for both sessions which is fun for everybody. She sang a few originals, but our favorite was her apocalyptic love song and we hope she gets that recorded soon. Her music had a deep sincerity that helps you remember why you listen to music in the first place. She also runs a music consultation business so if you’re interested – hit her up. She seemed like she knew what Willis was talking ’bout.

One of the other artists who played was Angela Moore. She sang alone with a backing track, having a wonderful time onstage. She was basically the only person up their dancing all night and the pic below doesn’t do her justice because it must of been the only moment she was sitting still. We thought of challenging her to a dance-off but realized we can’t dance. So we just didn’t bring it up. Maybe next time? But we really enjoyed seeing her perform. She sang with some serious experience and my bet is she must’ve previously sung professionally.

Next up a gent named Sully played Pale Blue Eyes by Velvet Underground, which is a great song. For his second song, he offered up a choice to the crowd: either an original about breakups or an original about acid (of course the caustic substance if any narcs are reading.) The crowd of course chose acid and Sully played a decent aural reproduction of the experience.

Sully stayed for both sessions and he also was the last artist to play that evening. For his final song, he asked if there were any drummers in the house. ~~Kenny instantly raised his hand and was asked on onstage to play with Sully.~~ Josh immediately delivered Kenny up as a musical-human sacrifice hybrid by offering his percussive services without Kenny’s consent. Here’s a pic of Kenny bangin’ on a music stand and both of them havin’ a great time.

Later that night, a woman stopped by our table and enquired about open mics in the area. “Have you heard of any others I can go to?” Geez did she come to the right people. We happily directed her to our up to date listing of open mics feeling as if we’d done a good deed. It also felt like our page was accomplishing its stated purpose for the first time!

All in all – a wonderful night. Lots of people. Whordes of fun.