Open Mic Night at Tuesday's Coffee House

Welcome to the Tuesday Terrors Open Mic Night.  We hope to bring a wide variety acts to our stage for your entertainment.  As always, we take all comers so there is sure to be a wide range of talents, eras and genres to choose from.  Hopefully, something for everybody's taste.  If not, we can drop some cognac in your Cappuccino.

Our line up tonight includes

• DaveV brings some experimental post-pandemic music.
• MartinC will then cheer us all up with his Gothic/Mariachi cross-over band.
• Sylvain brings a Gnollish opera to the stage.  This might be a good time to take your comfort break.
• Martin then squeeze into his Lederhosen for some Bavarian beer hall songs.
• Sylvain returns for some 1940s jazz standards.
• Dallas brings us some Death metal operatic standoff between a soprano and a basso.
• We'll see who else comes to the mic as the day unfolds. 

I'm PeterD and I'll be your MC tonight.  My role is to introduce the acts and then step out of the way before the rotten fruit starts flying.  In reality, I am one of Curt's regular gaming group and I've been in the Challenge too times to remember.  I've also acted as minion in several previous Challenges.  

This year I am changing my minion style up a bit and going for this Open Mike night theme.  The impetus came from a renewed interest in guitar playing and the need to but a new guitar in the Fall of 2025.  There are probably more "sneaking new guitars past your wife" memes than there are "sneaking new wargames figures into the house memes".  But in this case, my 50 year old classical  developed some serious cracks and a new one was the only solution.  

Along with my bad puns, you'll need to put up with a weekly dose of my terrible taste in music. For the first week I am going with a guy who's played at a lot of impromptu open mikes over the years.   Draw a Venn diagram with circles for "British", "Socialist", "Punk" and "Folk Singer" and at the intersection you'll find Billy Bragg.  He also seems like he be a lot of fun to chat to over a pot of tea or a pint of ale.  I found this clip of him playing one of his better known songs at a bike shop  in 2013.  Typically, Billy updated the disillusioned with Thatcher lyrics to disillusioned with 2013 politics but happy to be playing in a bike shop lyrics.  In retrospect, the problems of 2013 don't sound so bad in 2026.