Made a stopover in Strasbourg on my return to Paris – actually, I’m still in Strasbourg as I write these words – and I had a wonderful meal with a beautiful Strasbourgeoise who suggested we eat a fish-based choucroute (normally it is with meat) and then we went and watched the light show on the cathedral next to the restaurant.
Cathédrale Strasbourg
And then we went and walked along the canal and I played several songs on a bench overlooking the canal, across from the international school. It was very charming and wonderful with families of ducks coming up to the shore to listen and join the few people still out in the streets at that time who gathered on the bridge above to listen as well, or on the opposite side of the canal or down the cobblestone walkway a little farther. Very idyllic – it is a fabulous city (that Disney could have used as a model for the horrors they made in imitation). And it was a great way to end a day that had begun by me having been shit upon by a pigeon sitting in a tree in the parking lot where I had bent down to make a phone call – and I received the offering on my bald spot.
Day three in Mannheim and I managed to sing and play for the third night in a row. That was pretty crazy for a town that on my first day I considered would be a dismal failure. The breakthrough last night came in the form of an Irish pub called Fitzgerald’s, where every Saturday night they have a fabulously busy karaoke. The bartenders are Germans who speak English like Irishmen and women, the stage area is large and the sound system excellent. The place was full of rowdy spectators from around the world, and I just loved the party atmosphere.
I never do karaokes as part of this musical adventure, but last year in Cologne I had been told that if I brought my guitar and asked to sing at the karaoke there, they would let me. I did not do it there. But thinking about that and wanting to play again last night, I decided to show up at Fitzgerald’s and ask if it was possible to sing a song or two with my guitar during the karaoke.
The waitress introduced me to the DJ, and he looked skeptical, but accepted. I showed up shortly after 10 PM and at around midnight, the DJ came over and said, “We haven’t forgotten about you. Why not fill out a couple of request papers and mark, ‘Acoustic version.'” So I did that.
At around 12:30 AM they called me up. The crowd was hot, bubbling, bubbly, big and ready for a break after two and a half hours of karaoke. So I plugged my guitar into the sound system, set up the mic and laid into Father and Son and everyone immediately sang along with me. The DJ asked if they wanted more of me and they all cheered. So I did my “Irish song” for the Irish pub, the Van Morrison “Crazy Love.” They enjoyed it too, but there was less singing along as it is less well known. The DJ asked if they wanted still more and they cheered again. So I slipped into “Just Like a Woman” and they sang along again, and even danced. In fact, one woman got up and sang along with me, partly behind me, and that was a pleasure.
There was a crowd of young women that came in with balloons and sparklers and I think it was the one who sang with me who sang a song as they all lit up the sparklers. Talk about a party. For me, one of the best of the karaoke singers was the guy who did the Chris Isaak song below…. Of course, it sounded better live than in my recording.
What really pleased me was being able to survive, and even thrive with my acoustic guitar alone in the party atmosphere of a karaoke. But as I said, I think the spectators needed a change of gears. After me it was back to the karaoke madness….
Just a very quick note to say only that I returned to play again at the Papaya bar mentioned in my previous post. It was a challenge this time, however, as there was a very lively Brazilian band with several drums, a ukelele and a good singer all providing the entertainment. It’s a classic situation: When you’re only doing guitar and vocals, it’s difficult to come in after a full band. So I only played three songs – the amp was not well adjusted for my guitar, nothing but feedback, and the vocal mic did not sound as good as on the previous night. But it just proves the truth of any live performance, sometimes it goes really well, others it does not.
I want to put in video here though to give an idea of the atmosphere of the Papaya. Sorry it is so dark, but you get a bit of the image when I move the camera around. You’d think you were in Brazil. Tonight I’ll check out an Irish pub in Mannheim….
Last year when the German Grand Prix was at the Nurburgring out in the middle of nowhere, I stayed in Cologne, one of the nearest big towns. And I happened upon the only open mic in the city on the Thursday I arrived – and never had another chance after that (since I don’t do Karaoke). This year the race is taking place in Hockenheim, which is also out in the middle of nowhere. So I decided to stay in Mannheim, which is a 25 minute drive away.
Papaya Brasil CLub Mannheim
Last night on my first night in Mannheim I found lots of bars, restaurants, monuments, pedestrian passages and shopping streets…but no live music. This looked from the point of view of live music, to say nothing of open mic or jam sessions, to be even worse than Cologne. A veritable nightmare, in fact.
So I finally dropped my arms after arriving anyway after 10 PM after along drive from Paris and then a day of work in the Formula One paddock. I went into a restaurant overlooking the Wasserturm place and ate some schnitzel, had a beer and a glass of Rioja (since they had no local wine). I decided to jump at the offering of the dessert of strudel as well, since, after all, this is Germany.
But after I stuffed all this down very quickly and got up to go back to my hotel to get some well-earned sleep after the long day, I suddenly felt heavy and began to think that I needed to do a little exercise as I usually do in Paris when I am at home. The advantage of driving to a race in my own car from Paris is that I can bring with me easily not only my guitar, but my unicycle. I ride the unicycle for cardiovascular exercise because it is the only form of exercise that I find any pleasure in doing. Oh, sure, it looks a bit weird to see this 52 year old guy riding around on a unicycle at 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning, but I never claimed to not be weird.
I really only wanted to go back to my hotel room and crash and just blank out in bed for a well earned sleep. I was tired, wrecked, wanting sleep, and knowing I’d go out like a light without effort. But I decided that I had to push myself as usual. If I wanted to be in as good physical condition as Michael Schumacher, I had to stick to my exercise whenever I could get it and get rid of the goddamn strudel and schnitzel calories.
I returned to the hotel and took my unicycle out of the car trunk and began a ride. Mannheim is a great cycling city with paths all over the place and no population to get in the way. So I was feeling really good riding along the moist streets when it occurred to me as I had gone about 300 meters away from my hotel that this might be a quick way to check out the neighborhood for further possibilities of musical venues. But I did not even finish processing that thought when I heard some music coming from an open bar door on my right.
I hopped off the unicycle, took a look inside and although the music came from a stereo, I saw to the left of the door a little stage area, a guitar plugged into an amplifier, a microphone, a serious sound system, a chair on which sat the guitar…. I entered and went to the bar where a bunch of foreign looking women stood around talking to the bartender and I immediately barged in and asked if there was some kind of musical thing happening.
To cut the story short: They said they had a guitar player singer last night and especially a band on Friday. I asked if they had an open mic thing going and the bartender – who was the manager – said no, but then he began to query me about what I was looking for and what I could do.
I told him I could play, would love to play, that I played guitar and sang. So he said if I wanted to, I could use the guitar that was there and I could play and sing right then and there. I could return the next day perhaps and do the same, depending….
So I ran up to the mic and began playing and singing. The sound system was sublime, the guitar was a classical one with nylon strings, and I’m not used to that, and there was no capo, so my repertoire was very limited. But the result was that all the people in the bar gathered around and listened to me and loved it and made requests – I managed to know one or two! – and it was a fabulous evening. I played twice, the first time for perhaps 45 minutes.
After the first set the other musician played, and he was a splendid guitar player and his vocals were not bad at all either. He played Brazilian music, especially bossa nova. And it turned out that this was a Brazilian bar called the Papaya Brasil, and that there were Brazilian flags circling it high up top the walls, there were other Brazilian artifacts, and to sum it up, my thought was, “Leave it to the Brazilians to bring a little live music to Germany….”
Indeed, the manager told me that he had been trying to push the live music and make a great nightspot out of the Papaya with live music but, he added, “the Germans don’t really care. I can’t get them interested.” Yes, just about everyone in the bar/club, last night was of Brazilian or Portuguese origin, both blacks and whites and mixed. And the main language was Portuguese as far as I could tell.
But the lesson I learned, ONCE AGAIN, was don’t give up. Don’t stop. Follow your heart, follow your discipline, take the extra step, roll on and you will hit the jack pot in life. Even, yes, at the most unexpected moments. If I had decided to quit and give in and crumple up in bed and say life’s shit and I’ll never find anything and should not even go out to exercise… then I’d never have had the time of my life amongst the Brazilians and Portuguese in Mannheim.
Oh, and I’ve been invited back to play again tonight. So I just may do that….
I mentioned last week that I recorded four of my songs live in the studio at the Point Ephemere last week with a couple of guitarists, a drummer, a bass player and me singing and playing my guitar. Here are the recordings. Remember, these are live: We are playing all together in the studio as if we are on a stage in front of you. First time I’ve done this. I hope you like it. I am happy with the experience, and what I found that was fabulous was the way the songs transformed from my living room experience of sitting in the corner playing by myself – same in an open mic alone – to this collaboration that changes the songs and helps them grow.
I have decided to put them up here in the order we recorded them. On drums was Hervé, on bass Virgile, me on vocals and guitar. For the first two songs Félix played lead guitar. For the second two songs, Laurent played lead guitar. If you get bored with one, go on to the other. Oh, oh, oh – let me not forget the beautiful touch of harmony by Virgile on “Since You Left Me.”
But taste them all, if you get a chance, because they are all quite different…:
Lighter, shrimpy, easy to download but less good quality file versions:
As I prepare to run off to the studio to pick up the tracks of the recordings I did at the studio last week – which I will post – I decided that it was finally time to put up a little excerpt from the non-fiction book I am working on, which is about my musical travels around the world. The book is tentatively titled: OPEN MIC : A MUSICAL JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD. I have been working on it since the end of 2008, in fact, and am now in the process of cutting and tidying it up before I begin sending it out to agents and/or publishers. I have decided to post the preface of the book.
I had been going step by step towards a musical epiphany since I returned to writing and performing music after a several decades long hiatus, and the next natural step was to get into a recording studio and record with a band. And I wanted to do it live. I did not want to piece together every morsel bit by bit, or I could do that almost by myself at home in my living room.
But the idea was not entirely mine. It was Earle Holmes who first suggested to me that I meet up with Hervé Bouétard, of the band Control Club, that Earle’s BPM company manages. Hervé had worked with another one of Earle’s musicians to do some good recordings in his studio at the Point Éphémère, and Earle thought there could be a good vibe for me to try working with Hervé too. Earle was right.
It was a dream come true my sessions on Wednesday and Thursday in the studio with four other musicians – three per day – and all of us recording live four of the songs I have written since my musical adventure really began in November 2008.
It took months for me to move on it, and it took another couple of months for Hervé to move on it – i.e., get the time – and then it took me a while to get together my dream group of musicians – including Hervé on drums – to record the four songs I decided to do. But it all came together on Wednesday and Thursday, and thanks entirely to Hervé and the generosity and professionalism and talent of the musicians that accepted to play with me.
Hervé was very cool in not only playing drums on all the songs, but also working the sound in the small studio in the back of the art/concert/cafe/restaurant space on the Quai de Valmy in Paris. Hervé used to be drummer for a very cool and successful French band called A.S. Dragon, that was formed as a back-up band for the iconoclastic French novelist, Michel Houellebecq. The band decided it wanted more than just to be that writer’s backup band when he went on tour with some songs, and they added a gorgeous woman singer and did very well after that….
I had a real conundrum to solve with the lead guitarist, though. I had two guys I knew I wanted, both for different reasons. So in the end I decided to do two days of recording and do two songs with each guitarist, if they accepted. Thank goodness they did. One was Félix Beguin, with whom I had played many times at Earle’s open mics since the beginning. Félix also plays in a band called The Wasters and another called The Burnin’ Jacks, and he is in his early twenties, and a bloody natural born genius guitar player. He is also studying sound engineering now and music will be his career, one way or the other. So Félix played with me on the first day, and we did “Memories” and “Except Her Heart.” The latter, remember, is the song that Félix so kindly arranged for me a few months ago with a midi system and added guitar lead, piano, bass, etc.
The second day my guitarist was the neighbor I’ve been working with for the last year and a half intermittently, who goes by the stage name of Zarby. He wrote the chords for “Let Me Know,” and asked me to do a melody and lyrics, and we were both happy with the result. So there was no question but to have him play on that, and I enjoy working with him anyway, so there was just no question of NOT doing it. We also did “Since You Left Me,” both of these songs on the second day, the Thursday. What was very cool too is that Zarby started his musical career as a jazz drummer, and so with “Let Me Know” he not only had an idea of what kind of drumming would sound good with it, but he was able to show on the drums to Hervé what he meant. The song, written about a Turkish woman I know, has a very Middle Eastern music sound to it, and indeed, Hervé’s drumming just gives this hypnotic, trance-like, mantra-like feel to it.
The big problem from the beginning was to find a bass player, and I had all sorts of ideas, but nothing was panning out. Until my son, Paul, said, “Why not the guy from Natas Loves You?” In fact, I had thought of him myself, but I had only ever heard this fabulous young band from Luxemburg live doing acoustic performances. Paul had heard them electric, however, and said the bass player was good. So I wrote Virgile on Facebook, and he immediately responded that he would do it. And am I glad he did. I had met the band during their first week in Paris almost a year ago when they performed at their first open mic here, at the Truskel, in Earle’s open mic. I immediately thought they were great and I spoke to them. Only 20 years old, Virgile is not only a very cool guy to work with, but his bass playing was really good for what I needed and wanted, and I got the added bit of icing on the cake when this master of harmony – all of Natas Loves You are great at singing and harmonies – accepted to add some harmonies on “Since You Left Me,” which gives it a sudden completely different life in spots, and even, dare I say it, a little addition of youthful something.
What can I say about these two days in the studio? I think ultimately the statement will be in the sound of the music that resulted from it. And I will make that available as soon as Hervé has finished tweaking it. But the idea behind it was to do four recordings of four musicians playing live in the studio. This was not an overdubbing exercise, and it was very important for me to recapture the essence of my musical and emotional journey of the last year and a half and more as I have travelled around the world and played in open mics and jam sessions. It was essential to capture these four songs – at least – that speak my heart at this period in my life (even if much has changed since I wrote some of them), and to do that best, I wanted a live performance.
It was NOT easy, but it was smooth, and in the end, I was happy with the result. I don’t know if I will say the same thing next week when I hear the recordings after a while away from the studio, and a while away from listening to them – with a new perspective – but whatever may be the summation, it is clear that I spent two excellent days in the studio. Even if it was exhausting and I did not even sleep the night between them!
I’ve put up a couple of short videos of some quiet moments of taking a break in the studio on the first day with Félix playing my acoustic guitar with a couple of soft melodies, and then Félix on bass and Virgile on my guitar and Hervé on drums, just jamming away, the three of them. I had gone off to take a leak, what with all the water I had to drink in the heat of the studio and to protect my voice from breaking. And when I returned, there they were jamming away this funky tune, as if they desperately wanted to get away from my sad songs!!!! But the key point is, even when we weren’t working, all these music lovers were playing music for fun and amusement, which was for me also one of the biggest points of the whole exercise. And in that, it was a success.
The two days in the studio last week were the musical epiphany I had been working toward. But I’m now fired up for having many more….
I have been away from the blog since Sunday in Oxford – probably my longest hiatus so far – but that is not because I’ve been away from music. On the contrary, I’ve had a phenomenal week I will never forget, and I wanted to get a few words and videos down before it was too late.
First, briefly, the last night in Oxford I did go and play at the Old Bookbinder’s pub. Played four songs in two sets. There were some interesting muscians there as well, including one I had met last year, and one I had heard at the Catweazle Club three nights earlier. ‘Nuff said.
Monday back to Paris and a quiet evening listening to a new stock of LPs that Vanessa bought – some cool 80s stuff and some 70s stuff too.
Tuesday was the beginning of the musical adventure of the week. It was announced as the last of Earle’s open mics, and it was being held at The Panic Room, on rue Amelot, near the Pop ‘In. It was meant to be a celebration of the end of Earle’s open mics, which had ceased to happen for the last couple of months or so. The list of potential guests on Facebook had grow to more than 170 people by the day of the event, and that was a lot more than ever signed up for the regular open mics. So I had great expectations.
I had never been to the Panic Room before and found it to be a fabulous venue. It had a spacious upper bar on two levels with clean painted walls and a nice shiny bar. The basement room was a cave with a vaulted ceiling – typical Paris thing – and a big fumoir. The stage was small by most standards but big for an open mic, and the sound was good for the listeners and for the musicians.
Upstairs, part of the evening was not just that it be an open mic, but it was also a photo exhibition of photos done by Olivier Rodriguez and Céline LiLi Faye, two friends who took photos at Earle’s open mic for years. They decided to organize this last open mic and do put up a photo exhibit of the ones in the previous years, and they did a great job both of the photos and the organization of this open mic. I’m putting in a video below that takes a brief tour of the photo display and includes a moment where we see Olivier looking at me with a face that said, “Camera shy.” Sure thing, Olivier! In the video there is a moment at which you will see the oldest of the musicians looking a little like Jacques Brel, c. 1966 at the Olympia, in a white shirt, face in a grimace behind glasses, and that’s me. Just below that you will see a photo of a young man with long hair and a similar face to mine – that’s my son Paul. Yep, Father and Son.
And it was in reference to those two photos that I sang Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” when I went up on stage. I was the second person up. First was my friend – and my son’s friend – Calvin, whom I have mentioned here before. I also played “Just Like A Woman” and “Since You Left Me” and “Except Her Heart.” I know that I did a good job for two reasons: One was that I felt good, in the groove, and really delighted to be up there and singing for the audience. The second reason was that a few of the women who listened told me afterwards that they had been brough almost to tears by my songs. Sheesh!
The evening progressed at a nice cool pace, and Earle was at his best, promoting the singers, singing along, enthusiastic as ever. In fact, he said to me that he thought he might like to continue doing open mics, but perhaps only once a month. He just loves it. Despite this being the so-called last one.
A few of the big names of the many years the open mic has existed showed up to play and honor Earle and the audience. They included François, who is the singer from The Agency, and Stevan, the singer from The Parisians, as well as Xavier, the guitar player from the Parisians who backed Earle on “Teenage Kicks,” and Syd from The Burnin’ Jacks was there, as were other members of that rising band in the Paris music scene.
Among the aforesaid was the brilliant lead guitarist from the Burnin’ Jacks, Félix Beguin. I have played with Félix on and off at Earle’s since November or December 2008, when I first started playing at his open mics. And we were supposed to play my set together, not only as a tribute to the Earle scene, but also as a warm up for the following two days in which we were going to live out the next step of my week’s adventure, my time recording four songs in the studio at the Point Ephemere. This post has become so long that I have decided to do a separate post for the studio days. Coming right up… up there, up above this one…. î
The Formula One race has ended, I’ve filed my race report and I’m about to pack my bags and leave the Silverstone track to return to Oxford for my final open mic of the trip. I’m looking forward to playing at the Old Bookbinder Pub’s open mic and if possible, heading over to the Half Moon Pub’s open mic afterward. And what I’m really looking forward is returning to Paris tomorrow for a very full week of music.
The two biggest events for me will be Tuesday night at the Panic Room where there is a huge open mic to mark the end of the Earle Holmes open mics a few months ago. The evening already has 160 guests confirmed on Facebook, with most of the old gang of musicians from the Paris music scene who attended Earle’s evenings in the past five years. As part of the evening there is also a photo exhibition of photos by Celine Lili Faye and Olivier Rodriguez. I’ve heard there is a photo of me, and one of my son, Paul, as well.
On Wednesday and Thursday I will be recording four of my songs in a studio in Paris, and that is obviously the other huge musical event of the week for me. I’ll talk more about that later, perhaps, (if I have the time!), but for the moment, I’m getting packing to leave the track and go sit in the traffic and warm up my voice in the car while listening to British radio….
The Formula One paddock has always been a great place to meet rock stars, and I’m always thrilled when I run into – or at least see – people like Nick Mason, Jay Kay, George Harrison (many years ago, of course), Ken Hensley and Eric Clapton. But occasionally, there are bands that I have never heard of and discover. Today I went to speak with a journalist friend of mine, Michelle Tomlin, at the Red Bull “motor home” and she was having drinks with a bunch of guys who she immediately introduced me to, since she knew of my musical adventures on the Formula One circuit.
“These guys are in a band,” she said, and presented me and told them my story of carrying my guitar around to all the races and playing all over the world wherever I found a stage.
She introduced me to the bass player, Kai, and he and I spoke for some time. I asked all about his band, what they played, where they were based, all the usual stuff. And he asked me the same. In fact, as usual, I think I did most of the talking – since I’m so enthusiastic about this musical adventure I’m living.
Three members of Hard Fi band at the British Grand Prix
But I could not stay long as I had to rush off and do some interviews and take part in some press scrums – at McLaren with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, at Mercedes with Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, at Williams with Rubens Barrichello. I decided to take a quick look at this band, however, and discovered it is a leading band in the British indie scene in the past six years, and that it is bloody great.
In fact, Hard Fi, as the band is called, seems to have won so many awards and been so well acclaimed and sat atop – or near the top – of the British charts so much that I felt pretty embarrassed about never hearing of them before. What an idiot I felt in retrospect in showing Kai this article I had just been reading, an interview with Paul Weller in the August issue of the French magazine Rock & Folk, only to find out that he and his band had jammed with Weller….
Okay, REALLY check them out – unless you already know everything about them and are snickering at my ignorance. In any case, the F1 gig pulls through again in introducing me to this interesting band, Hard Fi.
But one of the main points to remember here is the simplicity and down-to-earthness of the band – “Yeah, I’m in a band….” It reminds me of my friend Joe Saward‘s recounting of how he was interviewing Damon Hill when George Harrison came up and sat in and later Hill asked if Saward and Harrison had met before, and Joe said, no, and Joe introduced himself, and Harrison said, “Hi, I’m George.”
