Firstly, let me tell you a bit about the history of this open mic. I've been running open mics on and off now for about 5 years and I kind of see this as a descendant of the very first one I ran.
I first started at a place called the Home Street Bar in Tollcross, Edinburgh. A friend, Dave Andrews asked me to help him run an open mic as he didn't have much experience of them.
The Home Street Bar open mic was good fun. It was a tiny little bar, and the sound equipment was bodged together at best. Despite this, it was where I first met some very good friends and excellent musicians who would faithfully follow me to my next open mic at the Maltings. Toby Cooke, Aaron Wright, Alan Ross, Paul Gladwell and Al Shields to name a few.
Unfortunately in the summer of 2006, the Home Street bar got locked up by some bailiffs and that was the end of the open mic. I managed to liberate my sound equipment and was invited to bring my open mic to the Maltings by Mr Steven Blewitt and Mr Peter Brooke, two of the nicest land lords you'll ever meet.
I started the open mic at the Maltings around July 2006 and it went strong until October 2009. Again, through the Maltings, I many more fantastic musicians, too many to name. But it was great to see a few musicians that came through the open mic such as Marcus Mumford (of Mumford & Sons) and Aaron Wight (of Aaron Wright and the Aprils) that are now signed and doing extremely well. I also met the members of my band, Matt Norris and the Moon.
Unfortunately, Steven and Peter left the Maltings in 2008 and the pub began to go downhill from there. And eventually, in October 2009, I called the open mic off.
And that brings us to now. After a couple of months break, I was yearning to be back on the open mic wagon and was approached by the McEwan Ale House.
