Brad Spurgeon's Blog

A world of music, auto racing, travel, literature, chess, wining, dining and other crazy thoughts….

Monthly Archives: September 2010

Saved by the Birreria chiar di luna – and marking my territory in Milan

September 11, 2010
bradspurgeon

This is Italy, so I had to eat a pizza last night for dinner. But it was so good that I felt after the meal that I should just return to my hotel. No point tramping the sidewalks in this musically dead city for an open mic or jam. I had so many problems last year I knew it was a futile task. Wrong!

Once again I said to myself, “Don’t quit. Go for your goal, keep moving straight toward the target, that is all that really counts.” Anyway, a colleague from a French news agency had said to me that he could not believe there was nothing here in Milan, particularly since jazz was so popular and … etc. I said, yes, but there’s certainly no music at this time of year in any case.

But as we talked, I recalled that the one mistake I made last year was to visit the area surrounding the famous Blue Note jazz club on the Sunday when most things were closed for the day. This is located on the Via Pietro Borsieri, and there are a number of cafes and restaurants around there, and even a music shop. So I thought, right, check out the iPhone gps map and see how far a walk that is from my hotel near the central station. Oh, only 1.5 kilometers. Well, that will be a great way to digest the pizza!

So with my guitar on my back and my pizza in my stomach, I set about the walk. It took only 20 minutes or so, and when I arrived, I found the Blue Note open, but some act hired for the evening, no way anyone else could get up and play. That’s like stopping off at the Village Vanguard and asking to play some folk, rock or pop between jazz sets by some great musicians.

I made a quick look around the neighborhood and immediately plunged into a sense of complete futility. Nothing. Dead. What a city. I had visions of Istanbul flash through my mind as I walked past bars and felt dirty looks on me for my guitar…where in Istanbul it seems whenever they saw me with the guitar on my back I was invited inside to play.

So I was about to return to the hotel and say I’d given it a try, when I noticed another end to the same street as the Blue Note that there appeared to be a bar or two. As I passed one of these I was stunned to hear for the first time on this trip some live music. This was a bar called Birreria chiar di luna, and I opened the door to find two women singing behind microphones and a man manning a console. The man gestured to me to indicate that I could come up and sing if I wanted. He obviously saw the guitar on my back, and I thought this an amazing sign.

But I realized very, very quickly that I had just stepped into a karaoke. Oh dear. I had found another karaoke in Milan last year too – wondering why karaokes are acceptable here but open mics are not – but at last year’s joint, there was no way I felt the least invitation to play.

So in the Birreria chiar di luna I signalled the guy that I was interested, then I went and ordered a beer at the bar.

The Birreria chiar di luna was full of young people and what looked like families of locals. A few people played pool on a pool table near the front of the bar, there was a higher level on which the karaoke took place, overlooking the whole, and there were guitars hanging from the walls. And that was a good sign – a great one, in fact. It was clearly a music friendly joint.

On the other hand, as I sat through song after song in Italian – every song since I arrived was sung in Italian – I wondered how welcome I would really be. Did the man really mean I could play and sing with my guitar? What would be his reaction when he discovered I was not Italian and could not sing in Italian?

I gave it about 45 minutes of listening to the others sing before I went to the man to ask if I could play and sing with my guitar. After all, while I had shied away from karaoke bars all last year on my world musical travels, this year in Cologne I had sung at one and it had been a great success and a pleasure for the listeners to have a break from the usual karaoke formula.

But when I asked the man at the Birreria chiar di luna in English, and found he did not speak English, it was clear that he began to panic a little. And that is understandable. A guy shows up with a guitar and wants to take over with songs in an environment where everyone else sings to a recorded soundtrack. Who does this guy think he is? Something special? And, in fact, can he sing as well as a lot of the great singers doing the karaoke? Or does he have some ill-conceived idea of his own talent and is he going to make a mess out of the evening?

I understand.

I told him that I could do a John Lennon song. He made signs to ask if I could plug in the guitar. I said yes.

He sent me off and said he’d call me. So two songs later, he called me up.

I went up, handed him the guitar cable, he plugged it in. Then he called me over to look at his karaoke board and he had the name of John Lennon. I thought, what’s that? He wants to put the lyrics up for people?

I told him it would be “Jealous Guy.” But he could not find the song, it was not, in fact, part of the catalog. So I quickly said, “Cat Stevens.” “Father and Son.”

He found it. He said to go to the mic and he started the music… He told me to play my guitar. So there I was in a karaoke with my guitar and the music started, and guess what? I sing the song with my capo on the second fret, because the way Cat Stevens sings it is too low for my voice. So the karaoke soundtrack was too low for my voice…and for my guitar. So I found myself… doing a karaoke, and not doing it very well as I strained my voice to reach the low notes. And I stood there with my guitar held dumbly around my body, as I did the karaoke…. It felt very ridiculous.

But it was clearly not quite as ridiculous as I thought, as I received some applause, even in the middle of the song. Clearly the audience and the MC understood the predicament, and once that song ended, the MC invited me to play “Jealous Guy” all by myself, with my guitar. So there we go, I had my chance, I played the song, played as if in an open mic, pissed on my territory and marked my spot in Milan. And this time I did not have to turn to the anarchists to do it – but it was a pretty anarchical karaoke, thanks in part to me….

Still, it was a fine feeling to find a musical friendly bar in Milan, finally….

And here is a little video of one of the singers, just to give a sense of the scene:

Milan Placeholder and an Ollie Story

September 10, 2010
bradspurgeon

I have almost nothing to report from my first night in Milan, Italy, except that things are looking as dismal here this year as they did last year in the way of live music. Last night I went to a famous rock club called Rolling Stone, which had existed for decades – since the 1960s – only to find that it no longer exists, as the building was bought by a developer and it will be turned into something like apartments, if I understood my interlocutor at a nearby bar.

This is a bad period for live music in Milan, as the summer extends through September. The first open mic I know of starts on 25 Sept., and most people want nothing to do with music unless it be opera….

But last year I managed to find a FABULOUS place to play, and I still hold out hope. I will perhaps go into more details later, but last year’s venue was a jam session at the headquarters of the longest running anarchist’s association in Italy. Yeah, I should give more details tomorrow. Gotta rush from the race trace in Monza now to see if I have more luck tonight.

In the meantime, I want to put up a video of my friend Ollie Fury, who is a musician in Paris who also runs the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar near the Pantheon. I recorded this video at the Galway on the same night I did the video of Les DeShane, and he recorded me. But I am now putting up Ollie because I found that it was really inventive and daring of him to sing the song he does, which is Oh My Darlin’ Clementine! And he does it really well. But that is Ollie for you. I learned the following night at his open mic that he will be playing in Singapore the same time that I am there for the Formula One race in two weeks, so we will see each other there and I will write about that – no doubt.

Now is that a case of a small world or what?!?!?!

Special Video Edition Of Brad and Les at the Galway – Thanks To DeShane

September 7, 2010
bradspurgeon

I think that since I started this blog last March or whenever it was, I have put up nearly 200 videos of other people at open mics around the world, but when I play, I can never get one of me. Thanks to my friend Les DeShane, a fabulous musician who is also a pro with a video camera, I finally have videos of me performing at an open mic. Unfortunately, Les also counted on me doing videos of him, and while his music is superb, there is no doubt I did flat and uninteresting videos of Les. But I’m putting up the best of each of us from the Galway Pub open mic in Paris last night. No more words on this page, I will leave the rest of the space for videos. Oh, no, must mention that I here screw up the lyrics on “Father and Son” for the first time in about a year!!!

I will write more about Les another time, as he is also on an interesting musical voyage like mine, that has taken him to most corners of the world as well….

Oh, almost forgot. At the end of the videos, I want to add a final video, that of Arturo from Colombia, who does a great version of an REM song….

In honor of Les, I start with the videos of him:

Boycott the Paris Pop In Bar’s Open Mic – a Story of “Ta Gueule,” the Bad Bartender

September 6, 2010
bradspurgeon

Two of my biggest criticisms of my own blog are that I am way, way too wordy – or rather, my accounts of playing in open mics around the world go on interminably sometimes, most of the time – and I am also way, way too nice. Today I will break with at least the latter fault as I attack the Pop In bar’s open mic, or at least the bartender who goes by the name of “Ta Gueule,” and who mistreated me last night.

The short message here is, if you are a self-respecting musician, amateur or professional, don’t go to the Pop In’s open mic on Sunday anymore. At least one of the people who seems to be running the place, clearly has no sympathy for musicians. So that’s a bad atmosphere.

Pop In bar in Paris

Pop In bar in Paris

Now to try to keep it shorter, less wordy: The story goes like this. I have always had practically only good words for all the open mics that I visit around the world – last year alone I went to open mics 3 to 5 times per week, in 17 countries, nearly 30 cities and on all continents except Africa and Antarctica – and I have almost invariably found the people who run the open mics to be warm, music – and musician – loving people. Occasionally they can be a little high on their horses, but in general they are warm people.

Not at the Pop In. Or not with ALL the people who work there. I’ve had no problem with the Pop In for the nearly two years that I have been going on average once per month to the open mic. The only criticism I have had started last year when the Pop In changed its method of getting your name on the list. You used to be able to call on the phone and sign up. Last year they said you had to show up to sign the list. This meant, unfortunately, that the list was full most of the time by around 7:15 PM. As I live in the suburb and it takes me 45 minutes to get to the Pop In, that meant that I could not really have a dinner with my children AND do the Pop In.

But the list method at the Pop In was also hypocritical because they allow friends to sign friends’ names, so someone can show up and sign up 5 or 6 people, and those people stay at home or eat out at a restaurant and show up at 10 PM to play.

Having once a few months ago arrived at around 7:30 after rushing through a meal with my kids and finding that the list was entirely full, I expressed my great let down and upset when I saw the list. “Damn! Oh, I don’t believe it! I’ve come all this way for nothing, and rushed through dinner! Oh man, this sucks. This is horrible!” And I left. Anyone in their right mind will have understood that I was really not happy to have wasted all that time only to find I could not get on the list and had nothing to do for the rest of the night in the way of playing music in public. No one in their right mind would think that I was being abusive to the man behind the bar who gave me the list.

No one, that is, except a man who has the unusual name of “Ta Gueule.” In French these words mean, basically, “Shut your mouth,” or “Shut your face up.” An insult, really. But this, I learned last night was the name of the man behind the bar at the Pop In. I once again pushed myself and my kids to eat early, prepare the meal early, rush out, take the metro and arrive 45 minutes later at the Pop In, but this time I was absolutely certain there would be no room on the list. I had called friends, but they had not answered. So I was on my own.

So it was that after wreaking havoc at home and rushing out to get there and arriving at 7:45 I entered a nearly completely empty bar of the Pop In and found only 4 names on the list of a potential 15!!! I was so relieved and happy that I looked at the list when the man handed it to me to put my name, and I said with a smile, delight, and relief: “Incroyable!!!”

The man, roughly 30 years old, thin of bone and thinner of hair, looked at me in anger and said, “I don’t like that kind of comment. In fact, I don’t like what you said and how you behaved last time you were here either.”

“What?” I looked at him in complete confusion. He saw that.

“It was, I don’t know, maybe in May. You came in and got angry that the list was full and you stomped out and ran into someone while doing it. I don’t like that kind of behavior.”

“Ah,” I said, and I slid the list back over to him and turned to leave. I was not going to accept being rapped on the knuckles or spanked and put in my place for my natural behavior, my natural upset at having been let down by the Pop In and its policy of allowing musicians to let other musicians sign up their friends and limiting the list to 15 no matter what happens.

As I turned to leave, therefore, without expressing any anger – I was simply disgusted that the conviviality of an open mic should be so destroyed – the man said, “Yeah, and never return again.”

Well, of course, I have no desire to do so. And as I left and walked down the street, I realized that I would at least have a good fun blog item to write about. So I decided it would be best to get the man’s name, as well, to write it here. I call up on my cell phone, therefore, and asked, “C’est quoi ton petit nom de connard, en fait, pour que je le mets sur mon blog?” (Rough translation: What’s your little asshole of a name, so I can put it on my blog?)

“Ta Gueule!” he said, hanging up the phone.

Gee, once again I’ve written an endless story about a little incident! Anyway, make my day – boycott the Pop In, or at least don’t go when “Ta Gueule” is working the bar….he’s a nasty piece of work who has no understanding of musicians and the open mic zeitgeist. I suspect that Ta Gueule was grouchy because there were only four clients in the bar, only four names on the list, and business was looking really bad at the end of his summer holidays and the debut of the new season. But he forgets that we musicians not only bring in friends, consume alcohol, but we provide free entertainment. Yes, we use the venue to sharpen our skills and pass a good evening, but the bar is making money out of us. Be nicer, Ta Gueule!

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