Sunday Antisocial Open Stage Sunday April 6th 2003</h3>

Review by Paul Emerson Leicht

In attendance:Conscious Collective, Joe Bendik, Brand New Beggars, Josh, Lach, Jon Berger, Myself, Hogan Long, Beau Johnson, Mark Dinkin, John S. Hall, Peter Dizozza and his lovely fiancé Diana, Rocky and her 5 kids, 6'7", Dibs, A fellow from Music on the Move, Clint the Waiter and a few people I didn't get introduced to.

The Antisocial is an experiment. It is an open stage that exists to present a forum for and "nurture political and topical songwriting." (This is a direct quote from Lach this evening.) As such it exists because there is a perceived need for this type of expression. It isn't that political songs don't get heard at all during other venues, but they are somewhat randomly interspersed with love songs, hate songs, songs about narcissism, narcissistic songs, and songs about social/sexual interaction. When we think of socially pertinent songs, songs that deal with topics of the times and things political in nature we often think of the 60s and 70s when great song writers were acknowledged and praised for their contributions to social change. As John Mellencamp recently said, (To paraphrase :) " A troubadour's job is to spread the news and to inform the uninformed." In my mind a bard's job is to give commentary on what's going on, to point out things that can be changed and perhaps should be changed. Therefore coming to the Antisocial and performing new and relevant songs about politics and other topics is good for us in general. It doesn't even have to be song. It can be a story or a rant if you have a rant, or a poem. As long as it is current topical and or political it is Antisocial material.

In the vein of experimentation the hosts of the Antisocial Danny Kelly and Lach have decided to make the stage truly open. From 9 to 9:45pm a feature act takes the stage and plays songs mostly pertaining to topics in the news or political songs. But from 7 to 9pm and from 10 pm until closing people can get up and perform. What I meant by truly open is that no names are written down. Signup is a euphemism for showing up at 7:00pm because that's when the thing starts. Every person goes up one at a time or in groups if they desire and performs purely by consensus. If two people decide to go up at one time they resolve it reasonably and with amicably. So far in the three weeks the Antisocial has been run this has been quite successful.

Sadly, Danny Kelly The host of this show, performed Saturday night and worked at Hogan's Birthday Bash and put his back out and needs some time off to recuperate. Hopefully he will be feeling better and be back next week. Lach opened the night with a few comments and an explanation of what the night is about for those who had never been there before. The first people to perform were a group calling themselves The Conscious Collective. They did a freestyle rap number (with guitar, bass, conga and vocals) about the coming March on Washington. It was a lively and interesting piece which while a bit predictable at times was interesting nonetheless.

Joe Bendikgot up next burning with the frustration and anger he has been building up since the start of this mess in Iraq. The first song he played dealt with how stupid the news coverage on US channels have been and how screwed up the war in general is. Joe is always an intense performer but his sincerity came through very strongly on this song. He also played a song about the smoking ban called Mall Town which talks about the "Disneyfying" of NYC and how messed up Mike Bloomberg has made it to live here.

Brand New Beggars is a group consisting of a girl and a guy and two guitars. They sang two songs that were beautiful but I have no idea what either was called. Lach evidently shared my sentiments because he booked them for a later show. Jessie the singer for The Conscious Collective got up and played conga on their second song.

Josh (last name I have no idea) is a guy in his early twenties who consistently plays songs I like. His first was about his friend in the military who objects to the protests back here in the States, and how things used to be different for that person. His next song was a clever little ditty called I Just pushed the Buttons (I didn't know) about a guy who blindly obeys and ends up killing people inadvertently because he never questions his employers. (presumably the US military.)

Interspersed throughout the evening Lach read to us some of the reports from the Optometrists who volunteered their services in Nicaragua this year and gave away used eyeglasses donated to them by people during shows promoted and run by Lach at the Sidewalk for that purpose. The reports were both anecdotal and heartwarming.

Jon Berger rose to the stage avoiding any serious mishap or injury to the stage both on arrival and leaving. His poems including stuff about Hitler's Artwork, Winning the War, Not winning , and Consensual sex with a dog (entitled Do Not Rape the Dog.) I laughed hysterically throughout most of it.

Beau Johnson stepped up to the stage next after being kind enough to lend me his tuner. (Hogan gave me a new set of strings and during most of the previous time I was busy restringing my guitar while taking copious notes.) Thank you Beau again. He only sang one song this time Bread and Circuses which was about affecting political change and not being bought off by the media distractions surrounding us.

Mark Dinkin got up and played two thought provoking songs Every Red Dot (about the news usage of red dots to symbolize military positions and how each red dot represents a death somewhere,) and The Gun Show (a song about terrorism, and our sometimes absurd responses to it. as if we could fix things by being better armed and going to war.)

I got up and sang the song I promised you last week I'd write about smoking in bars called That Is A Joke! and then performed Stand Up which is about standing up for what you believe in before you don't have anything left to believe in.

Lach came on stage after me and performed some old but still relevant pieces he wrote: Former President Bush which is a song about how cool it will be (past tense) when the Bushes and Quayles are no longer in office and he added a new verse about the current Bush in office. We all sang along with our wishful thinking. He then did Hillary which is a send up of Senator Hillary Clinton written when she was still running for that office.

After Lach at 9pm the Featured act John S Hall performed. John S Hall is hard to describe in some ways but I will try: He is average height, bald, wears glasses (no he's not Jon Berger strangely enough, he wears a jaunty hat,) self-deprecating, witty, sly and dramatic at times. He curses needlessly but in a way that conveys the exact frustration you feel when you are tempted to curse that way. He is iconoclastic but doesn't go out of his way to be that way it seems. His poems included: Its Saturday, The Indians, All My Prayers, Little Dicks, They, Take stuff from Work, The theme from Maud*, Another Political Poem Thank You Jennifer Love Hewitt, The President, America Kicks Ass, and Suggested Advice For The Coming Crises. I've seen John perform once before and was more impressed this time. Its not that his energy was particularly high but that he seemed to be really 'withit', perhaps even wise. I was impressed with how articulate he was. He was also very funny. His The President was intense and I was with him the whole way through it. His All My Prayers was very sarcastic. Thank You Jennifer Love Hewitt (for not making a political ass of herself) was just too damn funny. All in all I wasn't surprised that John kicked our asses. He is good and Jon Berger can attest to this as John told Jon to stop being a sycophant thus kicking everyone's ass in multiple ways at once.

After John sat down The Conscious Collective came back to the stage and performed another impromptu freestyle rap in combo with saxophone. Jessie the rapper went off on the war and afterwards Lach booked them too. A note: It is not unheard of for Lach to book people at his open mics. However you have to impress him a hell of a lot to get him to do that on the first night he hears you. This is just to illustrate as to how good some of these acts are who have showed up for the Antisocial.

Peter Dizozza graced the piano performing two songs: Gypsies from Egypt, and Peaceful Revelry. Both songs are from his Golf Wars play which is currently still running. Peter's songs have a funny yet serious twist in them. You think you are going to go one way but he then leads you to another. Inside his pleasant sounds is a running stream of commentary about a wide variety of social issues he feels (and rightly so in my opinion) are important.

After Peter, came Rocky with three of her young children who asked if they could perform with her. Her songs were called No Net, and Have a nice day. Peter Dizozza who was seated next to me commented "She is good!" having never heard her perform before. Because Rocky has her kids and she lives far away she often can not come to things in NYC but she managed to solve this problem at least for this evening by bringing them with her and I am glad she did as they were delightful. One of them the oldest girl sang with Rocky while Morgan and his sister Maddy played keys on piano. Occasionally they fidgeted as young children do. In between songs Lach got in on the cuteness by being the voice of GOD for Morgan who kept playing with the mic stand "DON'T PLAY WITH THE MIC STAND" Lach said in a very deep sonorous voice. Morgan just blithely ignored him and continued until Rocky said something. She received instant obedience. Most mothers would have been envious. We were amused.

Josh stepped up next and sang a Phil Ochs song Small Circle of Friends which inspired a sing along from some of us. He added his own verse at the end to make it contemporary and I had to tip my proverbial hat to his lyrical ability.

A fellow by the stage name of 6-7 (because he is literally 6'7" tall) rocked us with a tune about time called Pothole. It wasn't particularly political or topical in nature but was good all the same.

Dibs also performed one song which I didn't get the name. He sings witty songs with lyrics that you may miss if you blink. You can tell he misses playing with someone else having recently been of Sara & Dibs then Dibs on Joie.

Jon Berger came back at my request because Peter and Diana hadn't heard him perform the first time. He did a poem Gussy Got Fucked.

The last performance of the night was by Seamus Riley, Rocky's eldest son. He sang a very quick song about missing his brother.

My impressions of the night: Well we are expecting a snow storm as I write this and probably this led subconsciously to a laid back feeling for the evening. There were plenty of funny performances; it was all pretty light hearted. Having Rocky's family there and the two groups was great for the positive vibe in the room though it was low-key. I am hoping that activist minded songwriters, poets and people who enjoy listening to these types of things will catch on to this fabulous idea so that we can continually be inspired by such performances as I saw tonight. It's great when people come prepared to speak their mind and let everyone know how they feel. As I said last week and I will probably say again in the future all points of view are welcome in this room. It is an adult event in that we all behave like adults and civilized ones at that. No barbarians allowed. Unless they bathe and put on ties :P just kidding. No one has gone downstairs yet except maybe briefly to tune up. Everyone listens to everyone. Bottom Line: We enjoyed being able to be carefree and not worrying about lines or numbers or "when am I going on?" and "when am I going to get to go home?" and "what number is it now?" and "when is this over?" and basically not having to deal with selfishness etc. To me this is the mark of a successful event.

(* not his own work. he sang this.)