On a Sunday last year, Patrick Ray and Laura Liem were walking near Alamo Square, carrying a guitar and fiddle, when Tom Tierney spotted them. Tom runs the open mic night at Madrone Art Bar every Sunday from 4-9pm, and he never misses an opportunity to invite someone with an instrument to play.
“It doesn’t matter if they’ve just started learning, or they’ve got a CD and a Grammy,” Tom told Hoodline. “Everyone’s welcome.”
Never having heard Patrick and Laura play a lick of music, Tom approached them and suggested they swing by and play at the art bar on Divisadero that night. The pair—who go by Patch and Rita when they're onstage—love any chance to play, so they decided to go.
“I love open mic nights,” Patrick said. “You get such an interesting crossroads of people at different stages of music-making.”
Patch & Rita play at Spike's Open Mic night on Sunday, August 30th. (Photo: Ellie McCutcheon/Hoodline)
A variety of musicians, both in skill and in genre, is exactly what Tom aims to draw at Madrone. He launched the weekly event about three years ago, when he was going through a tough time in life. Wanting to be surrounded by people who love playing music as much as he does, Tom approached Spike Krouse, the owner of Madrone, about creating a space for musicians to play on Sunday evenings.
Three years later, “Spike’s Mic” is still going strong. The open session officially runs from 4-9pm, but it usually gets going around 6pm, when people generally start showing up.
Tom is there every Sunday, friendly and full of smiles. He hops around the stage to set up for each performer, offering high fives and good vibes to each person signed up to play.
When it’s time to start, the stage is open to anyone who signs up: singer/songwriters, DJs who want to spin for a song or two, four- or five-piece bands, country music duos, piano dabblers, and more. Performers can play originals or covers.
Tom tried to include comedy acts for a while, but says it was too difficult to switch between the music and the stand-up comedy vibe. Spoken word still flies, under the condition that music accompanies the piece.
Lauren Tannenbaum performs (Photo: Ellie McCutcheon/Hoodline)
When it comes to set length, Spike’s Mic is flexible. Singer/songwriters can perform up to three songs, and full bands are allotted more. That’s not set in stone, though. If it’s not a jam-packed evening, Tom will encourage musicians to play longer. And if he expects it to be a slow night overall (during Burning Man, for example) he’ll book a few acts beforehand.
While the musicians who play range from neighbors to New Yorkers, everyone in the audience we spoke with lives a 5-15 minute walk away from the bar. “I like the randomness of the acts at the open mic night,” one regular, John, told Hoodline. “Plus, it takes guts to get up there.”
Another Madrone regular wasn’t as much of a fan. “Sometimes the singing is pretty bad,” he told Hoodline as he sipped his happy-hour drink. “But I enjoy this place and am friends with the bartender, so that’s why I’m here.”
But while quality may vary, some of the musicians can be superlative, including Patch and Rita, who have played at Spike’s Mic half a dozen times since last year. Tom and Spike liked their act so much that they offered the duo a regular, paying gig at Pop's, Madrone's sister bar in the Mission.
“Getting a gig out of this open mic night is pretty meaningful to us,” said Laura. “And it’s pretty amazing that it started with a guy we met on the street.”
