I wrote my first song, 'Conversion', to this little hip-hop instrumental. I went to an open-mic, plugged my iPod into the P.A., and sang over the beat.
My priority doesn't lie with the whole website and Facebook and such; I'm still walking down the road in a pair of real shoes. You need to just play as much as you can. Get in front of people, as I've always said. It doesn't matter if it's ten people at an open mic or opening a show for someone. Play all the time.
At the age of 11 I did my first open mic show, and it was one of those lightning-bolt moments where I suddenly found what I wanted to do.
I did so many open mics. I would write jokes on Twitter constantly, and then slowly, over time, open mics turned into shows. If you can get a joke to work at an open mic, it's a good joke.
Open mics are a great way to rework your material to see what punchlines land best.
I started doing stand-up when I was 16, my junior year in high school. My two friends and I would sit at home watching stand-up. They kept saying I should try it, and so I did.
The days of an open mic night when I'd rock up in an old jumper are over.
I spent two years playing open mic nights in Brighton, and I heard more and more people saying, 'You should give it a go in London.'
Most open-mic experiences I had were okay.
I approached my career like a rapper. I would go to every open mic, every studio session, bringing my beats. I would almost do exactly what a rapper would do to get on.
There was an open mic night when I was about 11 years old and I went and I played the songs that I'd written in my bedroom and it was the first night where I felt like I was myself at school.
I remember doing stand-up at an open mic a long time ago, and the MC was like, 'Who's next?' I said, 'Marietta Sirleaf,' and he was like, 'What?' And I was like, 'Ugh, okay, just Retta.' It stuck with me ever since.
These people shred. That's what I was saying about Nashville-you can go to an open mic night at the Holiday Inn and probably see more talented musicians than the ones touring. When we first came down here I was like, "Wow I'm glad we didn't cut our teeth down here, there's so much competition." You're being challenged constantly because you're surrounded by these amazing musicians.
The microphone is open. There is no delay. If I see something and want to say it right now, I can.
Come on down to the speakin' tonight!
I had the humble beginnings. I was doing comedy in laundry mats in 1992, literally where I would bring a little gorilla amp and a lapel mike and just start performing.
I had some friends that tried it down there, and I went to a couple of open mics, and I just kind of got this... this sick urge to try it instead of just watching it.
My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it.
If you're a new artist, practice your art and share it. Set up shop somewhere, whether it's a street corner or a coffee shop. I got my start in a coffee shop that didn't even have live music. I wanted to play in coffee shops that did have live music, but I didn't have an audience.
I love bad comedy more than I love good comedy, so I love open mics. Or I used to. But the thing that delights me more than anything else in an open-mic performer is when the comic has one joke that requires some kind of prop. But only one. The prop is always produced very awkwardly, and it never, ever pays off. The resulting embarrassment is savory and delicious.
I advise wannabe singers to form a band, practise in your garage if you have to, but do as many charity or open mic shows as possible to get experience. I sang for seven years before getting a record deal, and I was already loving what I was doing. I just got lucky and got discovered.
I used to go to open mics in New York when I was starting out, and it was mostly just people who wanted an audience to look at them for eight minutes on a stage.
I used to sing as a kid, but it was quite squeaky. I think I was about 19 or 20, and we used to go to these jam sessions and open mics. I just got the courage to sing one day. I don't think anyone expected it to sound like that.
I grew up in the spoken-word community. Before everybody had a home studio, or before we could get booked for shows, open mics were the only way to be heard by other people. It really gave me a chance to develop as a performer. Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.
I was always just like, 'Standups are making it up.' A lot of people have that myth about standup. And so it wasn't until I was in college for theater school in Boston that I realized I can actually start going to open mics and figuring this out.
