With influences including PJ Harvey and Radiohead, you may not have expected singer/songwriter Jess Brown from Paignton to have gone in for a competition looking for the next big thing, but she’s in the regional finals of the Open Mic UK auditions in October

“I haven’t been in many of these types of competition before but as I could possibly promote my own music I thought it was worth checking out,” she said

“I’ve been playing and writing songs for some time and although originally from Devon, lived in California for eight years where I played in various bands as well as a solo artist. I’ve been back in the UK for two years now and have really been able to focus on writing and performing in that time.”

The next step is an album and tour… at some point.

“I’m hoping this competition will at least give me some more exposure and help raise my profile both locally and farther afield,” said Jess.

• This is an extract of an interview with Jess Brown on the People’s Republic of South Devon.

This week:

People Cakes front-woman Laura Jenkins performed a solo ensemble of originals, accompanied with her smooth husky voice.

Junction regular Dan Reid stepped to, with some mellow acoustic & some energetic crowd pleasers.

Birthday girl Holly had an unconventional happy birthday song in the form of AL singing bill baileys beautiful ladies Acapella, Then got up on stage and gave us some vocals herself.

Liam & Simon entertained with a JT number & an array of crowd pleasing covers/crossovers.

Joe Stephenson & his dad Mark got up on stage, Joe on guitar and Mark on the Violin. A fantastically diverse set.

And Junction favourite (and Plymouth open mic regular) the T-Dawg aka Tony told us to turn off our telly’s before they kill us, and ended a great set with “Gatwick”.

To Finish off, Al got up to close the evening with a flight off the conchords version, business time, and was encored to sing the classic Cider Song!