Joel Robuchon
Rejection: The Best Meal in the World (chez Robuchon)
December 31, 2011
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Rejection: Rue Mouffetard Travel Story
December 30, 2011
I did not go out to play music anywhere last night, so I am putting up another in my new series of Brad’s rejected stories. This time it is a story about the Rue Mouffetard market street in Paris that I wrote in 1993.
Comfortable Christmas Highlander Open Mic – No To Cavern Comeback
December 29, 2011
I went a little late to the Highlander open mic last night and worried I’d never have a place on the usually packed list. But it turned out that because it fell between Christmas and New Year’s, the usually full, even outrageous, evening and list at the Highlander was just a nice comfortable situation. I got to play almost as soon as I arrived, the audience was warm and receptive and spoke less than usual during the performances, and there were some new musicians and old ones sounding great.
I even had a request from an audience member to sing my “Borderline” song, which is always nice to have requests of one’s own music.
I then went over to the Cavern to see if I could face down the failure of the previous week, and see if I could get the band to play the song with the capo on the sixth fret of the guitarist. But once I got there and listened to a few songs I backed down; it was a different guitarist this time, and I just decided that I could try it another time. So I watched a few of the acts and then went home. A very quiet night in Paris during the winter festive week…. It was very much the same kind of atmosphere as the night before at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, and I await the re-awakening of Paris with excitement nevertheless….
Nice Atmosphere at Ptit Bonheur la Chance
December 28, 2011
It was one of the calmest evenings at the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance in a long time. But it was a very cool one, with a wonderful mix of new and old people – and people who had been there before but when I was not there.
I felt like crap for some reason, but it was mostly because my repertoire is not growing quickly enough and I hate singing the same songs at the same places all the time! But staying at home to learn new songs, takes time and cuts into the fun of performing…. Still, I wrote a song on the metro on the way there, and I will see if it works. So when it was my turn I decided I would NOT sing all the same songs I have always sung, and I realized that if I only know 40 songs by heart, I know just about as many as that of Bob Dylan in partial form – a few verses here and there. So I decided to do an impromptu medley. Complete failure. It seemed the first song I began with would have been the best if I knew all the lyrics – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.” So it proved to me once again that impromptu does NOT work!!! Keep away from it.
But I particularly enjoyed last night the new song by Kuku, which he had never played in public before. I also particularly enjoyed all three of the songs by Victorine, which were highly animated with her moving all around the room with the mic as Kim and Ollie Joe the MC played music for her. She put everything into it, and it was not so easy to film on the video as she moved around so much – but that made it fun too.
And then there was Kim playing his own stuff and a Neil Young song. His new album, Radio Lee Doo, just came out, and that looks interesting too. This Kim is one of the MCs of the Pop ‘In open mic, but a professional musician all his life, it seems.
Now to top everything off, my fiber optic connection to the internet has decided to be slow as hell so there will not be a full number of videos here for the moment, and I will update later when return from tonight’s open mic….
Old Time Stuff at the Galway
December 27, 2011
One of the things I like about Stephen Danger Prescott’s MCing at the Galway Pub open mic in Paris is that this young punk not only sings down and dirty dark punky mean songs with a deadly look in his eye, but he also does some classic Celtic trad songs. And he does them with real belief, not just a show for the Irish pub atmosphere. Last night, for instance, he did “The Wild Rover,” a classic. Of course, even the punky Pogues did that one, so I suppose there is a link between the down and dirty punk and the classic Irish thing….
Unfortunately, for the second week in a row I walked out of my home with my guitar, but without my Zoom Q3 HD recording device. So all I had to capture the video was the iPhone 4, and it may do a decent image, but the sound does not compare to the Zoom. So I have only a small amount to show of that song mentioned above. There were other acts, and I played around six or seven songs, but all I managed to get down was the “Wild Rover”…. Oh, yes, I must add, it is important to get to the Galway as often as possible in the coming weeks, as I heard a rumor that Stephen will be leaving the country to live elsewhere very soon….
Brad’s Rejected Stories
December 26, 2011
I have decided to create a new section on this blog, one for an archive of my rejected stories. That may sound like a really weird idea, and not the sort of thing one should really show off. But in the end, I feel able to do this because I don’t feel insecure about my writing, yet I also feel as if a lot of the suffering I had to go through with rejections was pointless! Of course, in many cases I may not have tried hard enough to sell a story – ie, I had to submit my biggest break-through article to at least 11 publications before it got accepted over the transome as the front page essay on the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review in 1991!
I am also doing this in order to use the rejection stories area to fill up the blog with a nice little juvenalia archive, and also because I feel in most of the cases the stories will have some kind of cool historical value to read – like take today’s story, for instance, which is a review that I wrote of Paul McCartney’s show at the Bercy Stadium in 1989 and which was part of his world tour. It was pretty historic as a world tour, and when we look back now at a time when this concert was further away than the actual Beatles breakup and he is STILL performing!! Very cool.
Ullmann’s Christmas Kararocké at the Bus Palladium
December 24, 2011
It was another vintage Kararocké at the Bus Palladium on Thursday night as Nicolas Ullmann and his band of mad rockers put on a special show to end the year with presents galore and a very, very open stage favoring people who had never sung at the live karaoke before. I personally was still a little shell-shocked from my previous night at the Cavern, so I was happy to watch and film and not even put in my bid to make an appearance on stage. But it was very entertaining to live it like that, and as usual the evening had surprises, including a star – Adanowsky, the actor and musician, who did a couple of duets with Crazy Horse girls, including Zula, who is apparently the dancer (and singer) who has had the longest run of years at the Crazy Horse….
So there was a little bit of everything, and this time everyone who performed received a present and there was a draw as well – including one woman with size 39 shoes winning some nice size 39 running shoes…
If this all sounds a little paltry and sort of not very hip as a critique of one of my favorite monthly open music nights in Paris, that is probably because it is the night before Christmas for me too, and I have yet to wrap a load of presents, and take care of various other Christmas and personal matters – like going for a spin on the unicycle – and so I am just winding up about three days worth of Christmas preparations by this very quick look at the Bus Palladium kararocké, which now prefer to leave to the videos to give the true idea of what it was all about….
Oh, check out the young rocker guy dressed in silver – not sure about his voice, but he sure had the attitude… and boy did he ever remind me of Nazi Dog in the Viletones from the concert I saw of them in 1977!!! (Minus the razor blades, and when this one gave a beer bottle to someone in the audience it was gently and with a thank you gesture, rather than breaking it and throwing the pieces at the audience and then cutting himself up – how times have changed….)
Nightmare in the Cavern, Revenge at the Highlander
December 23, 2011
I went to the Highander open mic last night too late, finding I was last on the list, which meant playing near 1 AM. So I went after a while up the street to the Cavern, thinking I could take part in the vocal jam, which is like a live karaoke, ie, with a live band. I’ve gone there many times but only had the courage to sing about twice before. Last night, I gave up, lost courage, went to the metro and was about the catch the metro home…when I said, “You’re depressed as hell! No playing at the Highlander, no playing at the Cavern.” Go back, go back and sing with the band.
So I returned to the Cavern and asked to sing “What’s Up,” which is one of only two songs I feel I can do with that band. The band is very, tight, very cool, very nice, very professional. But I still feel very threatened by getting up in public and doing a karaoke, be it with a live band or a recording. When I sing a cover song, I do it to a great degree my own way, not the way it was recorded by the original band. So I got on stage at the Cavern all delighted with myself about having the courage to return and sing with the band. The bass player asks what key, “just like the original?” I say yes, of course, why not. I had, after all, done it there to moderate success once before, and done it at the Bus Palladium, to much more success. I had also done it in a karaoke in Mokpo, South Korea, and worked very well. So of course I thought I could do it in the original key – despite that I knew that when I did it on my guitar I put the capo on the sixth fret and that was what I needed to suit my voice.
The result? I was totally, completely and irreparably LOST. I sang in this low, low voice as the guitar player did the song with no capo, in G I imagine, but I’m not sure. My timing was off, I had no energy in my voice, it looked like it was the effort and result of a complete amateur who apparently did not even have any singing talent whatsoever. I sounded like complete crap, singing in this low voice with no power and energy, no conception of what the song was supposed to be. While I sang I made faces at the musicians of – “I’m so sorry, I’m lost, what a fuck up!” – and then I began to ask the audience for help with expressions of the same lost worthlessness. Some tried to help, but basically, I was the worst performer of the evening, and it was a complete and total mess. And if anyone saw me that night and only that night, they would laugh and say, “How could this guy get up there and do that when he obviously has not a shred of singing talent?”
I actually apologized to the audience afterwards and told them when I played it myself, I put the capo on the sixth fret – to which the bass player said, correctly, that I should have told him this myself…. Yes, but I didn’t. I was feeling out of control the moment I went on the stage, but also certain that things would take care of themselves…. Makes me feel like never returning to do such a thing again.
But what I did do was to go back to the Highlander and ask Thomas Brun if I could please have my slot back again and play just one song: “What’s Up.” And I told him why and how badly I had done at the Cavern. So Thomas, bless his soul, made room for me, I went up and I did the song, and I put the capo on the sixth fret and I had the whole room clapping, singing along and wanting more! “Why only one song, Brad!?!”
Is it not amazing how the same person, depending on the circumstance, can be considered a complete non-talent wipe out, or a star of the evening? My lesson? Probably nothing more than making sure I get the key right before doing a karaoke, and stopping the band if I haven’t got it right. Still, it would have been soooooo much better if I had been allowed to play the guitar at the Cavern; not just for me, but for the spectators, who would have had a real musical moment and not that embarrassing farce. My fault, however, not the band’s fault.
PS, aside from that, on Tuesday night I attended the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic as usual and heard some very cool and unusual musicians as usual, for which I will just put up a few videos and not go into detail, as I am about to run out to another open mic tonight.
Not Worth Reading Post
December 20, 2011
Dammit, forgot my Zoom Q3 HD recorder as I attended two open mics last night and had a GREAT time and saw some supercool people. Then tried recording with my iPhone 4, only to have a message pop up at me telling me I didn’t have enough room on the phone to do any videos. So now I’m downloading all the photos and videos and will delete everything from my iPhone and start a new life….
Told you it was not worth reading…. will try to return with something more meaty tomorrow, as I run off to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance…. On the other hand, there is always space on a blog for stuff that is absolutely unreadable and uninteresting. In fact, an idea I have been playing with in the last few days after putting up my unpublished Shakespeare and Company article that was rejected and never used, is to put up a space on this blog for all the genius pieces of journalism and fiction that I wrote and were rejected and never made publication. Is THAT not what a blog is for?!?!
Jamiversaire – Plucking Away at the 49 Bar in Pigalle
December 18, 2011
Just a very brief note to mention that it was a nice and calm and quiet Saturday night celebrating Calvin McEnron’s birthday at the 49 Bar in Pigalle. A nice cool, small bar with tasteful photos, including one of the famous Edward Hopper painting of a diner. I played two sets of maybe four songs each, including by popular demand my “A Change is Gonna Come,” which I am working at more these days to try to get right.
Calvin, whom I met at Earle’s open mic at the Truskel bar in Paris nearly three years ago, played some of his songs, and there was a short jam with one of the members of the Likely Lads of Paris and a jam of the band The Last Waltz, also of Paris, in which my son plays guitar and does back up vocals and writes songs.
Check it all out! Just a party, really! But Calvin McEnron is more than worth the celebration….
Oh yes, almost forgot that I saw this cool violinist on the metro the previous day as I went to the Abbey Bookshop to celebration a Christmas party.