Donnie Welch: The infamous DCWIII

The first time I met Donnie was at football practice when he was in 6^th grade and I was in 5th. He didn’t really say much, but he was the biggest guy out there, so it was kind of hard not to notice him. We kind of became friends through football, but it wasn’t until middle school when we started hanging out. He played bass and I play guitar, but we were both just starting our instruments, and we tried to play songs, but we couldn’t really ever play anything, so we decided to go out on his canoe and fish. We paddled around all over his cove, just having fun and casting a line when we remembered to. We stayed friends, but it we weren’t really close by any means until high school. Donnie and I played music together every once in a while and played a show or two at Three Goats, the local coffee shop, when we could get a show. It wasn’t until my sophomore year, or his junior year, that we really became close. Donnie lived right down the road from me, and since he was a Jr. he had his license and could drive to school, so he gave me a ride to and from school everyday. We began to really connect through music. Most notably, he introduced me to an indie band he had listened to growing up in Massachusetts, Dispatch. We must have listened to Dispatch 4 out of the 5 days in the school week. They became one of my favorite bands, and I still cover and listen to their songs. That year is when Kevin came into the picture and we started our string of bands and played anywhere we could. Those mornings and afternoons in the car were some of my most fond memories of high school, and I miss them to this day.

My junior year came around, and I started driving to school in my own car, so we no longer shared our car ride, but we still remained close friends, continuing our music, but he started this whole poetry thing. I didn’t really know what to think about it at first. I guess my first reaction was “why would you want to write poetry?” That’s stupid love stuff, but I didn’t really know what poetry was. I didn’t know what it had evolved into from that Robert Frost piece I read in 7^th grade. I didn’t know you could use poetry to express emotions like that. It was the first time poetry clicked with me. It was digestible, but still deep and full of raw teen angst.

You can feel the angst. 

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This planted the seed of writing in my mind, but I tried a couple of times in high school, but I didn’t really write anything I was happy with.

My senior year came around. Donnie had gone off to the far away and magical sounding land of Boston. He was going to some school called Emerson. Sounded fancy. I kept in contact with him, but our music came to a stand still, but luckily, I still had a friend to play with, The Tyler Bryant. He came back for the summer and we played some shows when we could and jammed when we could. He went back to school for his sophomore year, but that year, I decided this country boy needed to go see what Boston was all about. I was terrified. I had never been to a city bigger than Charlotte, so I had no idea what to expect, but I was greeted by KO and Donnie when I got off the plane and had a great week even though I didn’t get to see Donnie much because he was being a responsible student and RA and it was mid terms week, but it was great fun.

Donnie making a friend at the Boston Harbor

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What is more important was what happened that summer. Donnie and I decided we wanted to go to FloydFest. It is a three-day long festival in Floyd, Virginia out in the middle of the Blue Ridge Parkway. But there was a problem. He would be in western Mass. At his grandmothers house, and he didn’t have a way to get down to the festival… until he talked to CJ. I met CJ briefly in Boston, but never really talked to him, so I thought it could be weird, but what ever. So, CJ picked up Donnie and off they went from Mass. to Virginia. I don’t know how many times CJ had been in the south, but he seemed to enjoy it. I got to the festival at about 1 o’clock and headed up to the festival, just in time to miss one of my favorite bands at the festival, Langhorne Slim and the Law. I started wandering around, finding where everything was, until about 7 o’clock, I get a text from Donnie saying they were there. They ended up finding me at the main stage and we listened to music and had a blast. That weekend turned into one of the best weekends of my life. I found out CJ was a writer too, but a novelist. I was blown away. I didn’t know anyone really wanted to be a novelist anymore, but I read his book, and I could see that he was a fantastic writer. CJ became one of my best friends in a weekend. It was crazy. During that weekend, I began what became my first song, Hemingway Girl. It’s all kind of a blur from there. I called Donnie a couple days after the festival, and told him, “I think I wrote a song.” He came over and liked it, so I ran with it.

Donnie and I have remained great friends, and I still send him drafts of lyrics all the time, and I’m eternally grateful for the time he takes to dig into my songs. So the least I can do is shamelessly plug is projects.

Donnie is an incredible performance poet and has a number of poems on his SoundCloud.

Donnie also writes Children’s poetry in his PUBLISHED BOOK “Who Gave These Flamingos Those Tuxedos?”

Donnie also is a twittering mastermind poet with his project Social Literature (@SocialLit), which looks at twitter as a new form for poetry.

He has published many poems over the last couple of years. He graduated from Emerson in 3 ½ years AS A STUDENT ATHELETE, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Donnie and I being rock stars back in the day. 

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Without this man…I, more than likely, would have never started song writing. He has been the biggest inspiration to me as a writer. More importantly, he was the first person show me that you can create art with words. Of course, I knew there were songwriters out there, but before Donnie, I had never seen anyone, that I knew personally, write. And good lord I mean write. Donnie’s poetry is incredible. He’s got something special going on in his head, and I’ve been lucky enough to call him my “teacher” and catch a glimpse of what goes on up there. He’s someone that I can always count on to look my lyrics in depth without music or singing. This is the best part of working with Donnie, because he is looking at my songs so objectively that the words have to speak for themselves. My voice and guitar aren’t there to support it. He makes my lyrics stand on their on two feet, so to say. He calls me on my BS and my lines that I call “filler”. He makes me look at lines at all angles, and more importantly, isn’t afraid to tell me to scrap a song or a verse because it sucks.

I can never express my gratitude to him, but I can try.

So, thanks Donnie.

-DMP

Kevin Orlando: Man, Myth, & Alchemist?

Kevin and I doing what turned out to be Pre-production at Berklee College of Music Studios. Boston, MA (photo courtesy of Donnie Welch)

First and foremost, without Kevin Orlando, this EP would have never happened. Kevin is the mastermind behind it all. He has the incredible mix of looking at music from a scientific and emotional approach that a sound engineer needs. In the grand scheme of this EP, I’m pretty unimportant. I just write the songs.

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It was 7^th grade when I first picked up a guitar. I started hanging out at Brad Milliken’s band practice. I never really played with them because I was brand new at playing guitar. I just sat there and watched and would learn what ever they wanted to teach me. (Brad was another important person to me at the beginning of my musical career. He pushed me to keep playing and was kind enough to invite me to his band practices and would teach me what he could). But, they kept talking about this great guitarist Kevin Orlando. He was kind of a mystery to me back then. Actually, Kevin is still a mystery to me today.

I had started bringing my guitar with me most days because I was trying to practice all I could, and it was the cool thing to do right? But, I was hanging out with a couple friends before school started and my guitar was out, and someone kind of waved over to this kid and said, “Kevin! Come play BYOB (System of a Down)” So, I think we ended up going over to Kevin and handed him my guitar and he sat there and played it perfectly, as per usual Kevin Orland fashion. I was extremely impressed to say the least. He then continued to play just about any other song anyone asked him to play.

I survived my first encounter with KO.

The first time Kevin and I really played guitar together wouldn’t come until I was in 9^th or 10^th grade. Our mutual friend Donnie Welch (Poet and @SocialLit mastermind) (This EP or any of my songs really wouldn’t have been possible without Donnie either. He’ll get his own blog about his influence soon enough) had been trying to get us to play together for a while, and finally, Donnie brought him over to my house, and we jammed for the first time. This was the beginning of all the high school bands I was every apart of. We played shows at local coffee shops and any other weird shows we could talk our way into.

Kevin, Donnie, and I have stayed close friends through high school,college, and now through this EP making process, and I’m very glad to call them some of my best friends.

So enough reminiscing,  lets talk about what KO does on the EP:

Co-producer, audio engineer, guitarist, drummer, bassist, pianist, organ, keyboard, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, and I’m sure I’m missing other stuff, but you get the idea. He is vital to this EP. I’m pretty sure there were times this past summer when I saw Kevin more than his girlfriend, to which I’m grateful for her not killing me yet.

I have loved working on my songs with Kevin, and I plan to take advantage of his knowledge of music for as long as I can.  He made these chord charts with some lyrics into more than I could have ever imagined, especially for making an EP in his bedroom. But, more importantly, he is a great friend, and I look forward to see what he is going to do with this life.

Here is a sneak peek of how we have been working on this EP.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the support.

Love,

-DMP

A Study in Lilac: Flowers and their meanings

Not many people know it, but I’m a fan of flowers. Not so much receiving flowers, but the meaning behind flowers (not to mean I wouldn’t appreciate it if you brought me flowers). The language of flowers, or floriography, has seemed to slip through the cracks of time. According to Wikipedia, floriography started thousands of years ago in the traditional cultures of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Side note: I wonder if the natives of North and South America had their own flower symbology. I’ll look into it when I have more time.

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Some of my favorite flowers and their meanings are:

Pansies: Loving thoughts or thoughts

Forget-me-nots: Remember me forever

Apple Blossoms: Promise

Lilac: First Love

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Wikipedia sites examples of floriography as early as the Hebrew Bible. In case you aren’t caught up on your Hebrew Bible history, the earliest texts are believed to come from around the 11^th or 10^th centuries BCE. So floriography has been around for a hot minute.

The page also mentions one of the masters of flower symbology. William Shakespeare. The most well know example of Shakespeare employing these symbols is in “Hamlet”( Act 4, Scene 5). Try to remember back to 12^th grade English class. Remember, Hamlet, the Danish prince, whose father, the King of Denmark, is poisoned by his brother, then he becomes King and marries his sister in law (weird). Oh yeah, you have to remember those two dudes with the funny names, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. If you need a quick synopsis, click here.

Once you have a faint grasp on the plot, and those teenage memories you’ve stored away have been dusted off, I want you to remember the scene with Ophelia when she goes crazy and starts handing out flowers. Remember? Did you think Shakespeare would just pick random flowers to give everyone? Of course not. He even tells you what most of them mean in the play.

She gives Laertes, her brother, Rosemary and Pansies. Rosemary means remembrance and pansies mean thoughts. What I draw from that is, their father had just died and she was going crazy and she was reminding Laertes she loved him, and wouldn’t forget him, but mostly for the mourning of her father.

Next she gives King Claudius fennel and columbine. Fennel means marital infidelity. (It’s also used to cast out evil spirits. Shakespeare uses this meaning in “One Midsummer Night’s Dream” when they hang it in the doorways.) Columbine is a symbol of male adultery and faithlessness. These are pretty self-explanatory.

Next flower she gives is rue to Queen Gertrude. Rue itself is very bitter, so it makes sense that it’s a symbol for bitterness, but it also symbolizes adultery. Once again self-explanatory, but she also gave her self some. Ophelia says, “ ’Herb of grace’ o’Sundays.” I looked into this, and rue is also know as the Herb of Repentance. From my understanding you could wear some when you go to church as a symbol of repentance, so maybe she is repenting for her sins and telling the Queen to repent for hers.

Weird side note: It was thought that it could abort babies. Weird.

Next is the Daisy. This flower’s meaning is pretty well known, but it means innocence, which is why she didn’t give it to anyone (I actually presume that she didn’t give it to anyone, and it is commonly believed that she didn’t give it to anyone. Shakespeare wasn’t a big fan of stage directions). This was a strong message that there was no one that was innocent, which is pretty true.

And finally, violets, which means faithfulness. Ophelia says, “I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.” This is showing how when the King was murdered, faithfulness and innocence went out the window.

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The reason I bring this up is because I wrote a new song and flower was mentioned in it, and a couple of people asked me why I chose that particular flower instead of a rose. If songs mention a flower nowadays, 9 times out of 10 it will be a rose. (Roses by OutKast stands out in memory.) Red roses are the most well known because of it’s meaning: Passion, intimacy, and love. It is also used in Christianity as a symbol for the savior because of the blood he spilled to save everyone, but I feel like roses have been dumbed down. They have come to mean “I’m sorry” or “I messed up” or “Look I bought some flowers, now you have to forgive me.”

If this is the case, why do you give her a white chrysanthemum (truth) and tell her the truth about everything that you did wrong, then give her an Apple Blossom (promise) and promise her that you won’t do it again. Then give her hyacinths (sincerity), and then finish with a red tulip (declaration of love) and tell her that you love her.

I promise you, this will do much more than a red rose that you picked up at the grocery store on the way home from work.

The Women Behind “Selma”: My Grandmother & Helen of Troy

The Judgment of Paris, Peter Paul Rubens.

Driving down the monotonous roads of Eastern North Carolina lined by tobacco and cotton, I looked out the window from the backseat of my parent’s car and saw one of those green, distance-indicating signs that read “Selma 40”. I was going through a rough time in my life. My grandmother had just died, which was why we were in the car heading to Wilson, NC. This is where my grandparents raised my father and his sister, and was their home before retiring to Bath, NC (which has a very cool history that includes “curses” put on the town by evangelist George Whitefield to being a hide out for Blackbeard). The timing of her death was apposite, given that my Grandfather, or Granddaddy as I called him, died from Parkinson’s disease almost exactly a year before. My Grandparents were a glowing example of love. You could tell that they still loved each other with the same youthful passion they had when they met before he went off to WWII and were married soon after his return in 1948.

My Grandma and Granddaddy back in the day. 

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She was caring and compassionate, but she was also not afraid to whip you with a fly swatter when you stepped out of line. When my grandma sat and watched TV, she always had two things: a flyswatter, and tissues, and when I found out that my grandparents were coming into town for a visit, I would hide all the flyswatters, so she couldn’t find one to police my brother and myself with. She could whip a flyswatter with the precision and impact of a drone missile. (That could be a slight exaggeration, but when you’re little, it felt the same.) As much as I hate to admit my wrongdoings, I deserved all of those spankings.

While the flyswatters stand out in memory, my Grandma’s cooking stands out even more. I loved going to visit just for the company of my grandparents, but the food didn’t hurt. Everything from chicken salad, pimento cheese, pig tails (Yes, you read that correctly), fried corn bread, chicken and rice, and butterbeans. You could use all the same pans and ingredients as my grandma, but it couldn’t compete. Some of my favorite memories in their house were around the kitchen counter, when we were eating dinner.

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As the sign for Selma passed, I sang to myself, “Selma, tell me the things I can’t see”, and I quickly jotted it down in my notebook, which is something I do quite frequently, and usually, the words get lost in the depths of incomprehensible scribbles that is my notebook.

A couple of weeks later, I was working on some homework at my favorite coffee shop in Boone, N.C. when I stumbled onto the website Wikipedia. If you’re like me, this is not conducive to a productive homework session. I don’t remember the initial reason for going to Wikipedia, but homework was out the window as soon as I clicked on the link. What I do remember is where I ended up: The Greek Gods and Goddesses page. The “mac daddy”, that’s a technical term, of Wikipedia pages. Click after click of awesome stories of power plays, lust, and war. But, the story that stuck out to me most was called “The Judgment of Paris”, which is one of the events that led to the Trojan War. You know, the war from the movie with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom.

Here’s a quick synopsis of what happens. Zeus was throwing a wedding party for Achilles’ parents, Peleus and Thetis, and the Goddess of discord, Eris, wasn’t invited for some reason (can’t imagine why). Anyway, she was understandably not happy about being left off the guest list to the party that would even dwarf Jay Gatsby’s. So, the advent of wedding crashing was brought to fruition. As the Goddess of Discord, it would be rude to come empty handed, so she brought a golden apple, called the Apple of Discord, with the engraving, “To the fairest one”, and decided to throw the apple between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. As my good friend, Tyler Bryant, so gracefully put it, the Kardashians of Greek Goddesses. They start arguing between themselves, and they finally asked Zeus to decide who gets the apple. He, like any guy would be, was reluctant to tell a group of girls who was the most beautiful for fear of the punishment from the losing side. So, Zeus decided, since he is the top dog of Gods, to pawn this job to a human, the Trojan Prince, Paris. The three goddesses feel prey to a petty human emotion, jealousy. The three used everything and anything in their power to get Paris to pick them. Hera was the first up for judgment. She offered him the Kingship of Europe and Asia. Next was Athena who offered wisdom and skill in war. Last was Aphrodite. She offered him the most beautiful women in the world, Helan of Sparta, later known as Helen of Troy, which he accepted. Aphrodite was able to offer her because she controlled Eros, or as most people know him, Cupid. He simply shot Helan with an arrow and she fell in love with Paris. This would have been fine and dandy if she wouldn’t have been already married to the Greek King, Menelaus. Everyone knows the story from there. If not, read to Iliad, watch the movie “Troy”, or go to the Trojan War Wikipedia page.

Anyways, this story stuck out to me. It was funny, but also amazing. Paris gave up the wisdom and war skills of Athena that would have given him a god-like status on earth, and Kingship over the entirety of Europe and Asia from Hera, probably one of the largest, if not the largest kingdom in the world’s history, for a girl. It’s the epitome of romantic stories. He literally had three of the most powerful Goddesses begging at his feet, and they would have given him anything and everything they could, and he picks the girl. Most would say he is stupid, but the romantic in me internally yelled, “Atta boy!” as I read it. This inspired me, and I started pumping out these verses in the crowded coffee shop, and I could tell this was going to be a good one, at least to me. I had gotten two or three verses written, and I started to think about a chorus, and for some strange reason, “Selma, tell me the things I can’t see” popped into my head. At first I thought, “Nah, that has nothing to do with these verses.” I kept thinking and thinking, and that bore no fruit, but in the back of my mind, I was still singing “Selma, tell me the things I can’t see”, so I decided to look up the origin and meaning of the name Selma. According to Wikipedia, Selma “is of old Arabic origin” meaning peaceful and protected by gods. My first thought was it would have been a perfect name for my Grandma, and the second was that it tied in with this song about Greek gods somehow. It was amazing, and both of these stories I have told you became the foundation on which I built the song “Selma”.

I don’t want to go through the song and tell you the meaning behind every line of this song for several reasons, but mainly because it’s selfish. The song itself isn’t selfish, but telling you what each line means takes away what you can get from it, and it’s the reason why I don’t like to telling people what a line means to me. It’s one of the beautiful aspects of songwriting. It’s like if I gave you a wrapped gift and told you what was inside before you could tear the bow off and rip the wrapping paper from the box. It’s not as fun, and can prevent a song from becoming as powerful as it can be. You could say, “But, Dane, you just told us what the song means.” I would disagree. I think I told you the influences, but the story in this song has nothing to do with any of these stories. But, then again, they do. I want my songs to mean something unique to each person, and telling you how I did the trick takes away the magic.

This song is dedicated to my Grandmother, Irene Lewis Page.

Selma

You were  a dreamer’s dream

You were some God’s Scheme

You were hard to hold

Hit like a lightin’ bolt

your beauty was a sun

I haven’t felt in days

Over top of my mountains

She radiates.

So tell me the things that I can’t see.

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me

I ain’t no bird in your tree

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me.

I was just a farmer’s hand

Putting my back in the land.

Born in poor man’s clothes

Off the Carolina Coast

Their ain’t no apple in my hand

No roots where I stand.

I’m no king of the sky

Don’t even got much land.

So tell me the things that I can’t see

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me

I ain’t no bird in your tree

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me

Your curvy constellation’s

 pullin’ me in.

Her heavenly body

Goes round my sun again.

She said, “Reach for me,

I’ll never be far.

You don’t got to stand on the moon

Just to see the stars.”

So tell me the things that I can’t see

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me.

I ain’t no bird in your tree.

Oh, Selma why ya fallin’ for me.

Once again, I can’t thank y’all enough for the love and support.

Love

-DMP

An Explanation: Mistakes, Excuses, and Honesty.

As an artist that has been exposed to the recording process, you would think I would have taken the appropriate, by the book route to recording this EP. But, as a new songwriter, passion got the best of me. I got a hand full of songs and I thought I was ready to record. In a professional producers eye, I was, and am still, nowhere near ready to record an EP.

But I think this EP has taught me more about producing and writing songs than any other experience could have.

I am in no way, shape, or form saying that I’m a professional songwriter. I’m just a passionate one.

People (and by people, I mean 2 or 3 of my friends and my parents) have asked me why the hell this EP is taking as long as it has.

Time to fess up.

Honestly, I’ve told people every excuse in the book. I’ve been sick, I’m busy with school, and so on. While this is 100% true, these are not the reasons why this EP has taken forever.

But, I’m okay with that.

This EP is taking forever because… well an EP is an enormous amount of work. Especially when you are doing it by yourself (and when I say by myself, I’m meaning Me and Kevin) with all of our own equipment stuffed into Kevin’s room. We even took over a friend’s living room to record drums while they were gone on vacation. This EP hasn’t seen a bonafide studio, and likely won’t. This is how we have kept expenses down, and has caused it to be time consuming and difficult, but I wanted to be able to sell this EP for a reasonable price.

(Actually there is a secret little something, something that was done in a studio, but you’ll find out soon enough.)

I’ll write another blog explaining Kevin’s role later. He deserves a whole blog plus about $1,000,000.

We have worked since early July on this EP. (roughly 9 months ago, isn’t it time for it to be born?) I, nor Kevin (I feel confident in speaking for Kevin in this area) want to know how many hours, and it would probably be easier to put the time into days or even weeks, we have put into this EP.

This is probably because we did it all wrong.

According to the “book” anyways.

The first step in the book is preproduction.

We had preproduction.

All 5 hours of it. We were just getting antsy and wanted to get recording, so we skimmed over that part.

Big mistake.

We had basic chord charts, and rough ideas of the song’s direction, but that’s about it. That’s not the way I suggest going into recording, and I won’t take this approach again, but I digress.

So we’re “ready” to record. Let’s bust out the mics and get this thing going!

First, we recorded acoustic guitar. That was a good idea. I’m pretty sure we re-recorded every single one of those later, but it was a good place to start. Next, we probably did some scratch vocals, which we obviously re-recorded later. After that, we maybe did some bass…which we more than likely re-recorded. Do you get my point yet? It was an endless circle of recording and re-recording, but we progressed. That was the important thing to me. Were we progressing in how much of the song was recorded? No, but the songs were progressing as a whole. The songs were getting better with each re-record.

This is the major factor behind the recording process’ longevity. Is it the only factor? Of course not. I have been plagued with illness for a majority of the recording process. I am at school and Kevin is back home in Mooresville, and when I do come home for the weekend, I usually have gigs during the night, and Kevin teaches lessons in the mornings, so we are lucky to get more than 6 hours in a weekend of actual work. And in a recording environment, that’s just enough time to get something going, and then having to abruptly stop. This is the most frustrating aspect of the EP. We really could only get a solid 4 hours of time each week that we actually recorded and progressed songs. It’s almost infuriating, looking back on it.

I think these stories may be the only way that people can grasp how much effort, work, money, and, most importantly for this post, TIME has gone into this project. So, when I say we are working on the EP as hard and as fast as we can, I’m telling the truth. It’s hard to walk in their shoes if they won’t let you borrow them. So this was me… letting you borrow my shoes.

Thanks again for the love and support.

Love

-DMP

P.S.  Here’s a low-fi’ish version of my song “Back to Me”.

Open Mic

So, I’ve been a singer/songwriter (what ever that means anymore) for about a year and half and before that I played guitar and sang for 5 or 6 years. Needless to say, I’ve been to more open mics than I could ever remember. I’ve hosted open mics at local coffee shops, and more importantly, I’ve gotten many gigs from playing open mics. I’ve learned some things along the way, and people have asked me how I approach open mics, so I thought I would throw my tips out there for the ol’ Internet to do with it what it will. These are all mistakes that I have done myself, so maybe you can learn from them. 

For all of you bedroom Beyoncé’s and shy shower singers: There is no better place to start playing than at open mics. It is a training ground for performance. You’re gonna be scared just like you were when you were about to ask that cute girl from your 8am out for coffee, or when you wear a high risk, high reward outfit to class for the first time. But I promise you, while you’re sipping coffee with cute girl from class, or walking down the side walk and every guy can’t take his eyes off you, or when you finish your open mic set. There is no better feeling in the world.

 

First things first. Find out the rules.

     -Over the years, I have seen countless rules to open mics. No where is the exact same. Some have time limits (15 or 20 minutes usually) or a song limit(I’ve seen two, three, and four.)Most open mics now operate via Facebook, so you can go on there and ask about the rules, or you can ask other musicians that have gone there before.  It’s important to learn the rules for two reasons.

1.) You don’t want to be embarrassed in front of a bunch of people that you don’t know because you started another song and got cut off by the MC.

2.) You need to plan what songs you are going to play.

 That leads us to step two. Song selection.

     – For the sake of simplicity, we are going to assume the open mic we are going to has a three song limit (it’s the most common). Here is the biggest “rule” I’ve learned during open mics. You ready? It’s important. At least to me. It’s also might be the most obvious suggestion. Play a fast and attention-getting song first. Super simple, but over looked. People want to play the song that they are most comfortable with at the end, and most times that is the louder and faster song. They also pick the fast song last because that’s what bands that have hour and half long sets do. I thought this for the longest time, but I have learned it’s gotta go first. “Why Dane? Why should I play the loud and fast song first?!?” Well, overly aggressive fake person, you should play it first because it gets the crowd’s attention! It draws them in. This is the first step to getting people to listen. But, if you are like me with originals, most of mine are slow. I have a couple of fast ones now, but before I would play a cover here. Make it fun.    Some people say “You should always play an original first!” Maybe so, I don’t know. I’m just a man.

ALSO. Let’s talk about over played songs that everyone knows. They’re a cheap way to get claps. **cough cough** Wagon Wheel **cough cough** Wonderwall **cough cough** Don’t play the over played. Don’t do it. (*exception: someone requests it and drops a $20 in your tip bucket. Then you play that song like you love it. But we’re at an open mic, you aren’t getting paid, so just don’t do it.)

 

     – Now for the second song. This is really up to you, but you need to make sure it’s damn good (really all of these should be “damn good”). The second song should really depend on what your last song is. If it’s slow then make this a medium or fast pace song. When I pick a second song to play, I look at it as I’m picking the second track for my album. I want it to be good, but I’m saving the best music for track three or four. I suggest showing off your best asset. Be it your voice, your guitar-playing skills, melodica, sitar, or what ever you happen to be playing. (*side note: Another great way to get attention is playing a weird instrument, so you might want to dust off that old accordion in the attic.) You should wow the crowd with what ever you’re doing. Overall, the intention of this song is to carry the crowd’s attention to the last song.

For lack of a better place to put this, I’m putting it here. Memorize your damn lyrics. I know, I know, some of you reading this are saying, “Dane, are you trying to say you’ve never messed up lyrics??” Of course I have blanked on lyrics, but that is usually when I’m playing three-hour sets. You’re allowed to screw up a couple lines in a three-hour set, but open mics are four songs tops. Come on. You can do it, I promise. NEXT

     – Now for the third song. This is the big one. This is the one that everyone is going to remember you by. This is the song that is going make you a rock star. Maybe. You never know. But anyways, this should be your best song you got. Preferably an original, but if you don’t have an original that you kick ass at, do the best cover you got. This song should be the one that at the end of it, there is complete silence for about two seconds and then a huge eruption of clapping (that’s when you know you killed it). This song might take you a while to find, but open mics are the best place to find it. That way, when you get a show, you know the song you need to play at the peak of the show. This song could be slow, fast, medium paced, what ever your best song is. Do it. Own it.

 

Now our third and final “rule/step”. This is maybe the most obvious suggestion. BRING YOUR FRIENDS!!!!1!!11!

There are sooooo many reasons why you should bring your friends. Here’s a list of a few.

     -To support you and clap for you, even if you screwed up! It feels great to have someone supporting you no matter what you do.

     -To fill the room for all the other people playing the open mic. Playing to an empty room is not fun. For anyone.

     -To expose your friends to the local singer songwriters. To me this is the most important because it spreads local art, and who knows, maybe your friend will find someone that becomes his or her favorite artist.

 

There are so many more reasons why you should, but that touches the highlights.

 

 

 

That’s my take on open mics. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’ve been to my fair share of open mics, and I’ve realized there is an art to it, and like any art, there are many approaches, so maybe you will find another way that works for you. Let me know if you do, I’ll try it.

-DMP