Open Mic
Ortlieb’s
847 N 3rd St.
Philadelphia
May 29, 2024
There I was, pigging out on hot dogs, listening to the Viagra Boys, and watching the Phillies move up to bat — when an ethereal, feminine voice emanating from the back barroom lured me away from the television screen.
I had chosen to spend my Wednesday night at Ortlieb’s, sampling the local bar and music venue’s $5 and under “grilled glizzy” menu and giving another go at distracting myself from reality by rooting for random sports teams and consuming red meat.
But the next-room-over open mic is what ultimately caught my attention, disrupting my performance of cold-arteried masculinity and transforming my cold-hearted critiques of the overpriced weenies into cheerful support for homegrown and local creatives honing their craft.
As the far-away music echoed into the bar, I hazily abandoned the table where we’d just started chowing down on dogs — which my friend was describing as “definitively boiled” and “cartoonishly unappetizing” — and opened the door to the backroom band stage.
There was Dylan Penna-Powell, the host of the weekly Wednesday night sessions, playing an acoustic version of his song, “Untitled #1.”
The prattling of my pals over which alternative meat was most likely to make up the vegan hot dog — “it’s gotta be seitan” — was drowned out once I entered the dimmed concert space.
“What do you think? Should I pursue the great? Well, as I’m spoken, I’ve no better way,” Penna-Powell sang.
His voice was hushed but resonant, straddling a whining emotionality that bordered on breakage without ever losing control, turning out a boldly ambivalent and genreless sound.
The audience was silently observant until erupting with generous applause. When I saw Penna-Powell head back to the control room, I braced myself for a bunch of tone-deaf amateurs to start swinging.
Instead, over the course of the evening, I saw talent after talent take the stage. Even those who struggled with holding pitch or remembering lyrics showed up with a sort of studious professionalism — and with a personality intent to impress.
One regular tried out a loop station for the first time during his set. After deciding a few times in a row that he’d “fucked up,” he kept the audience entertained by singing impressions of the guitar rounds he had meant to live record. That was twice as entertaining as a perfect performance would’ve been. But he still got a chance to get it right, when he finally figured out the loop pedal while covering David Bryne’s “This Must Be The Place.”
There were full-blown bands, scrawny indie singer songwriters, and one poet who jumped up between musical performers to read their work, such as “Ants in My Pants,” to prevent the audience from becoming otherwise bored while tuning took place.
The quality of musicianship was shockingly high for an open mic. The encouraging crowd and pristine sound system were also something special.
“Usually some guy brings like a home PA system, and everything sounds like shit and nobody’s paying attention,” Penna-Powell later said of your usual amateur night. But at Ortlieb’s, he compared, “We have a room that’s created by actual sound engineers, that’s separate from the bar. The sound is special — and people love to hear themselves in a proper venue.”
Penna-Powell, who lives in New Jersey, said he launched the open mic series about a year ago as a means of “getting better at music.”
“And it’s worked,” he said. Penna-Powell plays with a band, Hafsol, but said that performing solo regularly to a room of “a bunch of people that you like” is probably “the best practice.”
Whereas at other open mics “no one’s too appreciative of what’s going on, everyone’s waiting their turn, and there’s a lot of chatter,” he said he has worked to develop a space where “you get a lot of quiet, and everyone’s in the room to hear the music, but people don’t take themselves too serious. Everyone’s a little goofy.”
Beyond providing a powerful opportunity to practice live performance, the respectfully relaxed and team-like environment has proved productive in other ways. Penna-Powell, for example, recalled the time he used the open mic to record the music of a talented regular.
Anthony West performs pretty much every week at the open mic. “He’s gotta be my favorite songwriter in the world,” Penna-Powell said of West. But his songs are not easily available: “I don’t know how to put my music on the internet,” Penna-Powell remembered West telling him when they first met.
Penna-Powell previously structured the open mics around features, selecting songwriters to perform extended sets each Wednesday. “When it was his week, I brought my laptop and hooked it up to Ortlieb’s sound board. He played so beautifully and we recorded it without him knowing.”
“It’s the only recorded music he’s got out there in the world now,” Penna-Powell said with pride.
Ortlieb’s is one of the most beloved small venues for local and traveling bands — and, thanks to Penna-Powell’s open mics, it also showcases some of the best hobbyist and amateur artists around.
Plus, working regularly at Ortlieb’s means Penna-Powell has the inside scoop on the glizzies: The kitchen uses good old Dietz & Watson dogs. But you’ll have to ask what goes into the vegan pups — “probably seitan,” Penna-Powell speculated.
He jokingly plugged the open mic from the control room while singers slowly tuned their guitars: “You never thought you’d see an open mic flyer that says ‘glizzy’ on it.”
NEXT:
Ortlieb’s hosts open mics every Wednesday, with sign-ups starting at 7 p.m. and music beginning at 8. Find out more here.
