Open (mic) Up
One evening, my Mum told me I just had to see a friend of hers sing. I was curious. Back then, before we used Google for everything, we relied on word of mouth and older generations experiences to get our information. I had never heard of an open mic night and had no idea what to expect. I went along and immediately knew, possibly for the first time in my life, that I wasn't an oddity and there were more regular people in the world who wrote music! People who looked like me. People who weren't glossed over, inaccessible celebrities with major record labels and production deals behind them. Naive? Extremely. It's probably hard to fathom nowadays with all the information we have readily online, but back then, you only knew what was right in front of you.
I watched the acts going up with their instruments or accompanying musicians. There were cover songs that I recognized but what interested me more was people singing their own creations. Wow! We can do that?! I need to do this!! I talked to my Mum's friend after the show and nervously told her I wrote songs. She was so helpful and explained what I needed to do to start performing them and even introduced me to a pianist/guitarist who could help me get my ideas off paper and on to the stage. I am so grateful to this day for that chance encounter and I hope she knows just how great of an influence she was for me. A 17 year old with a huge voice, amazing songs and the confidence to put herself out there. Thanks Cat, I owe you my life. Xx
I began meeting with my new musician friend, Chris and I sang him an acapella version of the song I wanted to present. He worked out the chord sequence straight away on the guitar and we agreed a date to perform it live. The song was Mundane Reality. I'd written it on a bus commute to work one dreary Monday morning. I write as it comes to me with the melody and lyrics already firmly in my mind. Apparently this is the "wrong" way to write according to other musicians I've worked with over the years but I've never been good at following rules.
I remember standing in the corner of the back room at The Red Lion in Hockley in front of some friends, family and locals and trying to will my voice not to shake. There was no stage, no spotlight, just a tiny, crowded room. I got through it. My one song and felt a mix of relief, excitement and an unrest knowing that I just had to do it again, I needed to do it. More.
I played a few more times with Chris the guitarist at the pub in the gig room upstairs. After that, I worked with a few other musicians and dis other open mic nights around the city. Now I knew what I was looking for, opportunities were easier to recognize. I posted musicians wanted ads in local music stores and recording studios. I went to jam sessions and auditioned for vocalist gigs in bands. Some went well, others hated me. It was all a learning curve and I loved every second of it. I was still a nervous wreck anytime I had to sing in front of people but I got better at hiding it.
In 2004, I worked with a guitarist, Chris Brain (a different Chris) and booked some studio time to record my first demo CD at Fatback Studios in Digbeth. You needed a demo to book gigs and distribute to local bars. My brother had set up a MySpace page for me and posted a recording off his phone (remember the green screens and white noise on everything?) It was a grainy video with poor audio that he'd magically managed to extract and turn into an mp3. I had no idea what an mp3 was! My brother's generation being 4 years younger grasped technology much quicker than we did, but I soon learnt how to upload and download , use html editors and the likes and I proudly got my demo onto MySpace. It didn't blow up and I honestly never expected it to anyway. It was just there if anyone technically minded wanted to listen to it.
Around the same time, I bought myself my first acoustic guitar. A Yamaha. I started to learn a few chords from a book and began practicing whenever I could. It had been so hard trying to explain my ideas to musicians and just singing the notes, at the very least, I could teach myself the chords and try and work out the sequence before handing it off to a pro. It was hard. My fingers hurt and blistered but I knew I had to do this. A friend gave me a vintage Zenta electric guitar with an amp for Christmas shortly after and it made me more determined to learn.
One day, a friend of my Mum's came by with the news that my demo had been heard by someone he knew at the BBC and they were passing it on to Parlophone Records. I was shocked. Things like that don't happen to people like me! I was to write a biography and put together a portfolio of my work to take along to a sit down meeting with an executive. I truly panicked.
"But I don't have a musician to accompany me? I can't play well enough. I'm too fat, they're going to take one look at me and send me home. I'm moving to Brazil in a few months. What if I get signed and I have to stay here? I haven't done anything worth writing a biography about. I don't know who my influences are!"
These are a few of the internal struggles and arguments I had with myself. Of course I was thrilled to know someone was willing to give me a shot. But I knew I wasn't ready. Not mentally, emotionally or musically. I never went to that meeting out of fear and insecurities. Looking back now, I know it was the right decision but I hated on myself for many years afterwards for being such a coward.
Link to my old MySpace page (if it still works!)
Liz James's profile including the latest music, albums, songs, music videos and more updates.
