Rant #5: Coffeehouse Blues (Patron-side)

[jetpack_monkey]

azurelunatic requested "coffeehouses," and so I oblige. Sort of.


Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Yes, man with the acoustic guitar who is currently murdering "Mr. Jones and Me." You do realize that your version makes Counting Crows sound like Van Morrison being strangled? "Shananana My Brown-Eyed Mr. Jones *croak*" Please step away from the microphone, put your guitar down on the floor and step out where we can heckle you.

Yes, I realize that the American independent coffeehouse is supposed to be a bastion of culture, a celebration of all things still crafted by the non-corporate hand of common 20something man/woman. I'm good with the used book selection and the pieces of art I'll never buy and the Librarian action figure. I don't need amateurs with no talent trying to prove themselves every Monday night.

I come to the coffeehouse to have overblown semi-intellectual conversation with fellow liberal semi-socialist post-modern post-punk writer-types. I sit in the non-smoking section for two reasons - one, I don't smoke and I don't particularly care for the habit, and two, it's about as far away from the open mic as I can get. And yet, I can still hear you, indie-acoustic-person. I can even make out the individual words when your remember that enunciation sometimes helps.

Oh, great. Mangle Neutral Milk Hotel. Take a band that's made mediocre "raw" singing and bizarre lyrics their thing and actually figure out a way to do them five steps worse. Jiminey, have you no respect for the living?

Uh-oh. It's the guy with the original music that he wrote himself, the ballad that comes from that one real life experience, so it's real and therefore good. Please kill me now. I don't want to hear about Sheila and how breaking your heart left you strung out on chai and mocha freezes. I don't care that your signed Screaming Trees album was smashed by your departing roommate and now you have coffeehouse rage. And no, I don't want to hear your supposedly clever song about how you were abducted by aliens and now your receive Christian rock through an implant in your elbow. Please, fuck off and torture cats for a living. It's more humane.

*blink* Now indie-original-music guy and indie-cover-guy want to duet on a song they both love so much, they want to ruin it for everybody else. One is going to be on guitar, and the other is going to play an instrument so obscure that it means instant indie credit for just being able to pronounce it. Well, I hope that's the case, because he sure hasn't figured out how to *play* it.

*headdesk* The world would be a happier place if open mic nights took place at private residences and were completly unplugged. And unattended. And, actually, not done at all. At least not in Arizona. In Iowa, we had kickass open mic nights, but then Iowans have to cultivate a lot of talents to make up for the fact that they have nothing else to do, unless nympho sex and soaking in booze is your thing.