A couple of weeks ago Mojavi said that this was going to happen. He said that we would be seeing a new face take first place and he was right. Ben Golden, who had been away in New Paltz for school finally made his way to the stage at NGS #9, but came up short and did not even make it to the second round. But, the tenth edition of the Nitty Gritty Slam, this past Tuesday, was different. There was something in the air at Valentines and not just the usual smell from the pizza place next door. We were in for a treat, because there was another big surprise with the second place winner.
Before that happened though, we had the open mic with Bless, D. Alexander Holiday with a crowd participation piece about “the bomb”, Daniel Nester talking about watching and trading porn with his friends growing up, Joe Krausman with a short poem, and Illiptical paying tribute to Macho Man Randy Savage.
Then Dain Brammage took over for the evening and the “8-4-2” began (after the rules, of course) with some new poets in the mix. Tasha and Jay both made their first appearances at the slam along with the returning Ben Golden, Rain Dan, and Miriam Axel-Lute. Going into the second round, the first surpirse of the night was unveiled as Dan Wilcox advanced along along with NGS #9 winner Elizag, PV, and Ben Golden. In the end, Ben squeezed in front of Dan with a great final round piece to take the top prize and fulfill Mojavi’s prophecy.
Here is how Dain summed up the evening:
Last night’s Nitty Gritty Slam was a humdinger! We had two performers who had never slammed and one of the judges, Doc Holiday, gave out the score of 10.9 twice! He just could not see his way clear to turn it all the way up to eleven! Doc’s score was recorded as a 10, which is the maximum allowed. The most noteworthy event of the evening though, was Dan Wilcox making it to the finals stage, congratulations Dan!
A great night of poetry and spoken word at Valentines for anyone who came through. We will be back in three weeks, on Tuesday, February 7.
Round One:
Elizag – 25.6
Ben Golden – 27.9
Poetic Visionz – 26.2
Tasha – 25.1
Jay – 22.9
Rain Dan – 24.3
Miriam Axel-Lute – 24.9
Dan Wilcox – 26.8
Round Two:
Dan Wilcox – 28.5 (Combined 55.3)
Poetic Visionz – 28.2 (Combined 54.4)
Ben Golden – 27.2 (Combined 55.1)
Elizag – 29.2 (Combined 54.8)
Round Three:
Dan Wilcox – 26.4
Ben Golden – 29
[pwaplusphp album=”NittyGrittySlam10January172012″]
Comments are closed.