Evan Semon © The Rocky Jeff Leonetti fronts a band during the Wednesday Tantrums Jam at Cricket on the Hill.

Open for exploration

By Alex Neth, Rocky Mountain News
August 31, 2007

The thing about a concert is, that's what you get.

You get the practiced set that they played last night in Stillwater, Okla., and the night before that in Hot Springs, Ark.

You get what you know you're gonna get, nothing more. You go, spend a few bucks on stickers and a few more on beer and leave unsurprisingly unsurprised.

But at the open-mike night, you get it all.

You get the teenager painfully fingering an acoustic while his parents watch. You get the cab driver who thinks he's a comedian - and hey, he might actually be, if he weren't so hammered. You get the amazing voice that no one expected from the girl in the back. You get the confessional poetry, the professional hucksterism, the guy who says "test . . . test . . . test . . . " even though there's no one on the sound board.

It's unfamiliar.

It's disorganized. It's often revelatory.

It's what happens when you plug in and let the city speak for itself.

Tantrums Jam at Cricket on the Hill

• When and where: 9 p.m. Wednesdays at Cricket on the Hill, 1209 E. 13th Ave.

• The host: Tempa, of local blues act Tempa & The Tantrums, has hosted this free-form bluesy jam for a few years and in a few locations, but appears to have found a home at the well-worn Cricket.

• The venue: The Cricket is as much a fixture on 13th Avenue as Wax Trax. Area bands love it because of the place's longtime support for local music regardless of genre; barflies love it for being a comforting, lived-in establishment that offers a strong pour.

• What you'll see: The jam has become enough of an event in the blues-rock community that it's moved beyond that initial, group-of-guys-noodling stage to something resembling an actual concert. Tempa has local acts like Mojambus play as pre-jam openers, and the bands appreciate it. "Tempa finds a band she likes and gets them a little exposure, doing the early show," said Mojambus lead singer Jason Downing. "It's a good way for musicians to build a community, and relax, too." The result is a kind of swirly, unpredictable melding of blues genre tropes with some serious musicianship. A recent night found a note-spitting sharpie playing the tenor sax next to a precocious, 13-year-old guitarist while a harmonica player blew soul.

• Regulars to watch: Tempa herself. The smoke- voiced bluestress might show off the pipes a bit, but mostly circles the bar greeting newcomers, checking newbies onto the sign-up sheet and generally playing the part of considerate hostess/ringleader - assuming that part does the occasional shot. The jam is her baby, and she's not shy about enjoying this weekly musical community. "Part of it is selfish," she said. "I get to hear all these bands that I can't, normally, because I'm always playing on the weekends."

• Why go?: If you're a blues fan, you've probably already been. If you're a fan of the Cricket - and who among us isn't? - you've probably stumbled into a midweek session. This is an open- mike night for serious musicians that remains blissfully attitude-free. Oh, and they have cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon for an attractive $1.75 and sell Mickey's Big Mouth in the bottle. We recommend not trying to revisit your youth by ordering one, though, unless you've recently had your stomach replaced with a pig-iron bucket.

Open-mike poetry at The Mercury Cafe

• When and where: 10 p.m. Fridays at the Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St.

• The host: No one in particular; the rotating cast of local poets and members of Denver's literary community fits the venue's egalitarian spirit.

• The venue: A long way from the place's fabled days as a punk club, the modern Merc is a gorgeous (and huge) two-story establishment with a warm, welcoming atmosphere. The downstairs stage where the poets declaim is an expansive room with white holiday lights draped across the ceiling fan in a bright net and walls plastered with politically liberal stickers, artwork and slogans.

• What you'll see: The young, the old, the angst- ridden, the hopeful, the guy pitching his one-man show. Open-mike poetry night at the Mercury brings a relatively mysterious segment of Denver's cultural scene onto the stage with generally positive results. The quality of the work being read is surprisingly high, given as many of us imagine open-mike poetry as Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer - "Woman! Whoa, man." The subject matter ranges from the political to the intensely political - you get the feeling that a pro-war poet would endure a flurry of hurled Birkenstocks - with interesting exceptions: A recent evening found a young Lakota Indian who called himself "Shatterproof" (stage names being a common theme) reading an angry bit about being ditched at prom.

• Regulars to watch: The shaved-headed, enthusiastic Manea Von Griffyn, a kind of cheering section for newcomers whom we saw display the ability to write poetry on deadline, tapping one out on a laptop in minutes before reading it to applause.

• Why go?: Have you ever actually seen open-mike poetry before? Reason enough right there. It's refreshing to see adults enjoying culture without paying a premium ticket price. Besides, the Mercury is a Denver legend, with great vegetarian food and a rock-ribbed cast of stalwart regulars.

Sing-A-Long at Charlie Brown's

• When and where: 7:30-ish onwards nightly at Charlie Brown's, 980 Grant St.

• The host: No official host, since this isn't a traditional open-mike night - it's a piano bar that offers patrons the chance to sing along. The pianists are the "hosts," and they vary from evening to evening.

• The venue: Drenched in Denver history, the bar on the bottom floor of the Colburn Hotel has been mixing cocktails since Prohibition, and is perhaps commonly identified as a frequent watering hole for the beat axis of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady. Amazingly, the physical features of the place are as they were then - there's no beer on tap, because putting in lines would disturb the antique wooden bar. Rather than try and conform to trends, Charlie Brown's exists as a kind of timeless space, all dark wood, low light and memory.

• What you'll see: A generally more sedate crowd than you'll find at other open stages. Early on, folks gather around the piano and sing along with dusty classics like That Old Black Magic and Embraceable You before the key changes to Elton John and Billy Joel. "You can see the crowd get younger," according to bartender Leslie Winter, "and the songs go with them." The pianists, like Marianne Ballou, offer tips to singers, chat the small chat and enjoy their role in the creation of cultural community.

• Regulars to watch: The most regular of all, pianist Paul Lopez plays every Tuesday, continuing his incredible, 26-year streak of ivory-tickling at the establishment.

• Why go?: Even if you don't feel like singing, there isn't a spot in town to match the feeling of jazzy urbanity you'll get from a good seat at the bar with a brain-knocking chocolate martini (vanilla vodka, straight vodka, Frangelico and Crème de Cacao - for a mere $6) in your fist.

Carioca Blues Jam

• When and where: 9 p.m. Monday, Carioca Cafe, 2060 Champa St.

• The host: Joe Chadwick, drummer for the J.D. Kelly Revue, keeps this informal, low-key blues jam humming.

• The venue: Public houses don't come much more idiosyncratic than the Carioca Cafe - or, as the red neon "Bar" sign over the front door has led it to be unofficially renamed, the Bar Bar. The clientele varies wildly, from street folk to hep urbanites, who flock to the unfashionable east side of LoDo for $2 burritos and massive shots. The bathrooms need help and the place is weirdly overlighted, but all of that is just part and parcel of the joint's undeniable, defiant charm.

• What you'll see: Professional musicians happy to keep things on the low-low. Chadwick welcomes all blues players but isn't in any hurry to grow the jam into a sign-up frenzy. Still, he feels that informal sessions like this are an invaluable tool for local musicians. "It's a way for us to get our thing together onstage," he said. "It's good for keeping the quality high." And said quality is high indeed. The players take classic tunes, stretch them out raw and eschew the clichés associated with the genre.

• Regulars to watch: Rondo - "just Rondo, everyone in town knows me by that name" - is a skyscraper of a man who plays guitar for Ace Butler & the Aces, and that experience shows in his down-and-dirty style.

• Why go?: Because you just don't know what you'll get. It could be two guys playing to an empty room, or a packed house with street people jamming harmonica along with Rondo and Chadwick. In any case, you won't find a more relaxed atmosphere for drop-in players.

Open-mike comedy at Squire Lounge

• When and where: 10 p.m. Tuesdays at The Squire Lounge, 1800 Colfax Ave.

• The host: Lanky local comedian Greg Baumhauer, whose easy, foul-mouthed style sets the bar perhaps a tad high for the various amateur jokesters.

• The venue: The Squire is a legendary Denver dive for good reason. The ceilings of wildly varying height and design, the bathroom held together with tape, the tiles on the walls. It's as if four or five separate bars, each from a different era, were pasted together by a boozy architect.

• What you'll see: People from life's every walkway attempting to cadge laughs from a crowd of drunken strangers. The lineup offers a few solid regulars - in addition to host Baumhauer, frizzy-headed comic Ben Kronberg wrings the chuckles with a sotto voce delivery and material that is just hilariously wrong. For the most part, though, the participants are exactly what you'd expect: uncomfortable, stage-shy parvenus telling jokes that go splat more often than not.

• Regulars to watch: Kronberg, who also hosts Monday night bingo at Sputnik (7 S. Broadway) and was once a finalist for half of the TLC program What Not To Wear's "Worst Dressed Couple in America."

• Why go?: Some good chuckles, plus you have to admire the moxie of an amateur comedian. It takes spine to get on that stage and know that, more than likely, they're not laughing with you. Thirsty visitors will want to try the Bionic Beaver, billed as "54 ounces of tasty goodness." What, exactly, is in it? No idea. But whatever it is, you get a lot of it.

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.