STEVE2.NET

This past week the OMNL team attended three Open Mic events that we had not previously visited:


DECENT PIZZA TUESDAY NIGHT OPEN MIC
The first event was a Tuesday night with Charlie Mosbrook at the Decent Pizza on the corner of Mayfield and Coventry roads next to the laundry mat. Given that this is an Open Mic hosted at a pizza joint, the first question to come to your mind ought to be something like “How’s the pizza?” and OMNL found the pizza better than decent, yep we liked it allot - it’s really good! We started the evening off with a sizable slice of plain cheese (in the style of thin crust New York pizza pie). Nibbling from the ‘Wide End’ first, we were impressed right off the bat with the nice, fresh, moist and tender chewy crust. Yum! With a lightly sweet, aromatic and savory tomato sauce, this first slice of Decent cheese pizza made an excellent impression on the entire OMNL staff! Thankfully, Decent Pizza also maintains a respectable selection of bottled beer, so the OMNL team imbibed several cold ones throughout the evening. In addition to ‘regular’ size bottled beers, Decent pizza also offers cutesy little ‘tiny’ bottled beers; we got our small cute beers for one dollar a piece.
The evening’s entertainment began with the Decent Pizza Open Mic host, Charlie Mosbrook, plugging his guitar into the PA and getting the room warmed up. Charlie is a well known and widely respected local singer songwriter possessing a strong, accurate finger picking technique, a smooth vocal talent, great original songs, and a sensitive ear. In addition to Charlie, we heard from the inimitable Aaron Bonk http://www.aaronbonk.com/home.htm). And although you might know Aaron primarily as a fantastic local juggling talent, it turns out that Aaron has a good singing voice and performs a respectable repertoire of songs both original and cover. OMNL also had its ears perked by the original songs of Scott Franklin and Nate Maloney, both of these singer songwriters played short sets of original tunes. OMNL has taken particular note of Scott Franklins plaintive, edgy singing voice, however, there is simply not a whole lot we can say after only one listen other than that we enjoyed the sounds we heard and we hope to have the company of these two performers again in the near future.

BARKING SPIDER OPEN MIC NIGHT WITH GUEST HOST RYANN ANDERSON
Finishing off a second slice of mushroom pizza (a great follow up slice with fresh mushrooms – a little small though) the OMNL team piled into the car and headed off to the Barking Spider for the Open Mic. Although most Clevelanders are familiar with The Barking Spider as a happening music venue, we would like to take this opportunity to remind (any of you who need to be reminded) that the Spider is a wonderfully warm venue with woodsy décor and low ceilings. It is intimate and cozy and with a nice warm fire burning in the ‘stove’ it is the perfect place to sit with a beer or two and enjoy the company of your best buddies. There are games in the Carriage Room and on summer nights the large Carriage Room doors are flung wide to the sweet summer night air. This nights Open Mic featured guest host Ryann “Guitar” Anderson http://www.ryannguitaranderson.com/. If you have never heard Ryann perform, hit his website for the event schedule and pick from among the dozen or so dates that Ryann is playing in November. Ryann has a few MP3 files posted to his site as well, so you can get a taste of what kind of music he plays. Truthfully, the OMNL staff had a 10PM date with a friend at the University Circle Arabica, so we made it over to the Spider a little late; and only heard a few performers. We heard Tim Fry kicking down a set of his songs, and we also heard Jim Unsub play a set of original tunes before taking the stage ourselves and playing several songs. Tim currently is working on his CD, and Jim has had his CD out for several months now, and the OMNL has posted reviews of both of these performers in previous issues, some of that material is available online at the brand spanking new OMNL web log, just drop by www.steve2.net and click the web log link. By the time we had finished our set, the Spider had pretty much emptied out and Ryann picked up his guitar for the last set of the evening. Ryann’s recorded material is available on his website, the CD’s “Hodgepodge” and “Patchwork” sold separately or together as a set for only 15 dollars.

FLYING MONKEY OPEN MIC NIGHT WITH XELA
More recently, the entire OMNL team managed to get itself over to the Flying Monkey in Tremont for last Sunday nights Open Mic event with XELA. Those of you familiar with the Flying Monkey need no introduction, however, this was the first time the OMNL team had been there and we were tickled to find the place really spiffy and bright with a super clean, woodsy, cozy look to it and a fabulous wrap around bar. The Monkey is tastefully decorated with a few choice custom HILL guitars framed and hanging on the walls! How super cool to see custom Jon Hill guitars hanging on the walls of the bar! The HILL guitar shop is right there in Tremont, if you want to know more about HILL guitars take a peek at the website: http://www.hillinstruments.com. Predictably, a number of cold and tasty Buckeye Brewing Micro Beers were consumed, and a good time was had with XELA running a high energy Open Mic night full of musical high jinx and shenanigans.


The OMNL team is currently composed of only one wistful dude who has dreams of writing this column for The Scene or The Free Times. The editor in chief and primary artistic director is Steve2 so please direct all inquiries, complaints, and praise to one of our two primary email addresses: music@steve2.net or smw@speedyweb.org


Here are the approximate addresses for the various Open Mic Events:

Decent Pizza is at 2768 Mayfield on the SW corner of Coventry and Mayfield roads in Cleveland Heights. The music starts at 8PM sign up for 20 minute time slots at 7:30PM

The Flying Monkey Pub is on the south-east corner of Jefferson and Professor in Tremont with live music on Sundays, and happy hour during the weekdays.

The Barking Spider Tavern is at 11310 Juniper Rd. Cleveland, OH 44106