Shemspeed Open Mic The Third, Review
Shemspeed Open Mic The Third…..What can I say? It was indeed crazyness. The night was set off with a guy named Yonah from Crown Heights. He plugged in his distortion pedal a sampler and his guitar. He wasted no time before wailing away on it over a simple drum loop. The sounds and riffs were taken straight from the 80’s and a vibe rushed over the place which was unlike anything I had ever felt. It was either the best or worst thing I have ever seen. I’m still undecided, but it was really fun either way. Erez and Ahron jumped on with him after the first song. The other highlights of the 3rd included an audience member who mentioned how he had saw a post on Jewlicious about the event and came out. He told us that he ran a humor site called The Knish which was based on The Union….sorta. Anyway, we somehow convinced him to go on stage and make jokes….we later found out was actually his first time doing stand up of any sort. Another big highlight was this kid David from Canada. He did an act which he calls Looping Madness. The act consists of him on stage with a microphone and a loop pedal. He slowly improvises some beat boxing with his mouth and as he loops and plays back layers and layers of his live beat boxing, he begins to looops sounds and singing. His singing had a gospel feel to it and the entire crowd cheered him on throughout not letting him leave the stage. It was pure genius! (check back here for videos – we will post them in a few days) The night ended when a bunch of musicians from Long Island ran in to perform their hard core punk originals. I heard from Nina that even though she had told them not to bring drums because the Knitting Factory provides them. they insisted on bringing their own from home. I found this odd for 2 reasons. ok, 1 main reason. why on earth would anyone ever want to shlepp drums from their house to a club, especially when there were already drums there. anyway, it was a good thing because he was banging pretty hard.
below are some pics to prove it!
– Yonah, wailing away!
– The Highway Gimps, banging away!
click below to see the rest of dem Photos!
