I dragged myself out of my fatigue and stupor of three weeks away from France to attend the open mic at El Tonel, a tapas bar à la Spain, in the middle of the classy neighborhood of Paris near the Louvre. And from the moment I stepped into the place, I was grabbed and loved every minute of the open mic.
There are places where I go in which the real atmosphere cannot be captured on video, and last night at the El Tonel open mic, it was a little like that. I just got a few recordings down on video, but the soirée went way beyond those.
I got to play three times, managing to play a few songs from my repertoire that I don’t do that much…. and had some neat people join in with me on singing and even harmonica, like the moment with Scott Bywater playing his great harmonica on my “Just Like a Woman.”
All in all, a great way to break myself into a week of open mics in Paris before I fly off to … Spain and the tapas bars and open mics and jams of Barcelona.
I did all I could to make it to the Wednesday night open jam session at the Kooperatif in Istanbul last Wednesday because I wanted to see it, but also because I thought it could be my only chance of playing music in Turkey in the four nights I was there. That, as it turned out, was to misjudge the Kooperatif and its genial man-behind-the-concept, Safak Velioglu.
As it turned out, I dropped by on the Thursday night with some new friends, and when the band stopped playing, I asked Safak if I could play a few songs for my new friends – just sitting at my table. “Of course,” he said enthusiastically, “I’ll turn off the music.” (He had turned on a recorded background music after the band.)
I also told Safak that I wanted to interview him for a podcast for this blog, as I have been doing in every country I visit this year. He agreed, but preferred if I return on the Friday night. So I accepted happily, because I love the vibe at the Kooperatif. I also had one or two other venues I wanted to check out in the area on Friday, so I brought my guitar.
Almost as soon as I entered the Kooperatif on Friday, despite there not being a live band hired for that night – there usually is – one of the musicians with whom I had played on the Wednesday asked if I wanted to play later on. Of course I agreed. But first, Safak and I jammed at the table where he sat near the bar, with him on a traditional Turkish stringed instrument – a kind of lute – and me on guitar. Then, I did my podcast with him all about the Kooperatif – which you can hear here.
Then, at around 11 PM, I went up on stage with that musician, and there began nearly three hours of us jamming, and most of it was to me leading the songs with my music, and the others joining in on guitar, drums and other percussion instruments. This was pure bliss. I could not believe I would end my short trip to Istanbul in such a wonderful and open jam and environment. I didn’t even get to check out the music in the other venues. No need!!!
I discovered the Kooperatif room in Istanbul last year, when I had a fabulous jam session with a few people sitting near the bar, including Şafak Velioğlu, the enthusiastic and cool owner and manager of this performance space/bar near Taksim Square in central Istanbul. But I had found the place a few days too late to take part in the official Wednesday night jam session. Last night, I not only got a taste of that jam, but thanks to Şafak’s encouragement, I got to take part despite being ready to leave without performing.
I had misgivings suddenly not because I did not like the jam or the vibe. On the contrary, I loved it so much and felt it was so different to the kind of music or role I could play in it that there was no place for me. I was telling this to Şafak after listening to at least an hour of the jam, when he insisted I take part.
The problem for me was that there were at some points six guitars or more, plus various wind instruments and brass, plus drumming, and vocals, and the feel was almost free form jazz at times, and some very oriental, mid-east kind of stuff at other times. And some sort of almost progressive instrumental rock. What place would there be for a song but not dance man like me? I just usually sing my songs and the other musicians fill them out – whatever.
“Just go and play, break apart the jam and they will follow you,” said Şafak.
I said, “Give me another beer,” and I returned to sit and think about how futile it would be.
Then suddenly on Şafak’s suggestion, certainly, one of the musicians got off the stage and approached me and beckoned me to go up and play.
“Okay,” I said immediately and without hesitation.
So I went up and plugged in and played my usual songs, and like Şafak said, the others joined in. I ended up with a drummer – two or three actually, who exchanged roles – and two lead guitar players and a bass player. I did four songs, including one of my own. I managed to record them. And I had the audience singing along with me, even on my own song, “Except Her Heart,” the lyrics of which they did not know. I received strong and enthusiastic applause and got off the stage walking on air and thanking Şafak for insisting and encouraging and telling me to break apart the jam with new stuff.
It was key to the mindset of this place and its owner. The Kooperatif is a young, cool vibe place designed for all different kinds of music and as a bar and meeting place. It has a beatnik feel to it, and it is open to new sounds and people. Oh, and what a small world, I ran into the sax player who had played with Leander Lyons and his band here at the Kooperatif, and in Paris at the Baroc a few months ago, as I mentioned on the blog.
World music you say????
I will try to do one of my podcasts with Şafak over the next day or two of my remaining time in Istanbul before I return to Paris. But for the moment, Istanbul, and especially the Kooperatif, once again did not let me down musically….
There is a small revolution, an uprising, a bloody protest movement going on in Bahrain at the moment. But that does not prevent people from getting together to make music, and there was no way I was going to stop myself from going out to do the same as I am on my worldwide tour of open mics and jam sessions in conjunction with the Formula One race season that will take me to 20 countries this year – to which I will add Turkey next week, and of course, France, where I live. So it was off to the Dublin Club at the Ramee Palace hotel for me last night to take part in the weekly Saturday night jam session.
Interview in England and French (after 4 minutes) with Josh Gend, bandleader of the Hot Beats, who host the open jam session at the Dublin Club in Bahrain every Saturday night, speaking here with Brad Spurgeon:
I had last been to the Dublin Club two years ago when Bahrain had not yet fallen under the Arab Spring situation it is currently in with Shiite protesters asking for more rights and even trying to overthrow the government. In preparing for the trip here, I was pleased to learn that the Dublin Club not only still exists, but that it still has its Saturday evening jam AND to top it all off, it happened to be a 10 minute walk from my hotel in Juffair.
There turned out to be yet another added attraction to the whole thing, and that was that the resident band running the open jam session at the moment happens to be from my fellow countrymen (and women) from Quebec. It was a seven person band called Hot Beats. They were indeed, HOT! They started off with a set of their own before they ran three sets – yes 3! count ’em! – for the jam session.
Despite the fact there is a revolution going on around here, the pub was quite full of both spectators and musicians. Of course, this is helped by the fact that the U.S. military base is nearby, and a lot of the men of the armed forces go to the pub. Still, if felt as if there were slightly fewer people.
The other thing that had changed is that two years ago each musician was allowed only one song. Last night, I got in four over three sets. It was a great pleasure, and the atmosphere in the pub made it almost entirely possible to forget the tension that had been felt outside this little island of music in a country where there had been violent protests daily since I arrived on Thursday morning from Shanghai.
In fact, in my podcast interview with Josh Gend, the bandleader, he spoke about the same phenomenon for him and the band working in these peculiar conditions. Oh, and for my French readers, check out this podcast in particular, as it starts in English, but we slip into French for the second half, starting about the 4 minute mark.
Tomorrow its back to Paris for me for a few hours before I head off to Istanbul for a sports conference, and the hope of playing a little music there too….
I traveled from China to Bahrain on Wednesday, arrived in Manama early Thursday morning, spent the next two days getting my bearings and reporting on the uprising/revolution in this country. Played some guitar in my hotel room, but did not spend a great deal of time looking for places to play as I had so much professional work to do. Last night, however, going out to speak to some regular, middle class Bahrainis about their country, I took my guitar – just in case. No, nothing happened. Except when I returned to the hotel and the two men at the reception desk asked if I could play some music for them. So I played “Wicked Game” in the lobby of the hotel. Stay tuned, because the plan is that tonight I will take part in a jam session in Manama. Will report on that tomorrow.
I returned to Bee Dee’s last night for my final night in Shanghai before I head off today to Bahrain. I only learned at the end of the evening that Bee Dee’s will cease to operate in a few months, when its lease runs out, and so I will never play in its wonderful jam night again, as I have no plans to return to China before this time next year. That’s crappy news, as Bee Dee’s is one of the great little open mic and jam venues of Shanghai. So go while you can! Oh, there is some good news, though.
The good news is that since Bee Dee’s opened up just a few years ago, Shanghai has sprouted up all sorts of live music joints for jamming and open mics. So maybe I will have no problem finding places to play next year if I do come. The other good news is that Jeff Davis, the Bee Dee’s owner and brains and jammer, tells me that he is working on a very interesting project, that if it comes to fruition, will be a worthy thing to have seen Bee Dee’s sacrficed for….
There was some fun jamming at Bee Dee’s last night, with a far bigger crowd and more musicians than last Thursday. I particularly enjoyed the dueling keyboard and guitar moment, and the woman drummer, Helena from Sweden. What I clearly do not particularly enjoy is once again being defeated by the Chinese Internet policy, which means that unfortunately, for a second day in a row I have had very poor access to getting videos up on YouTube for this blog. In fact, the first of the videos I wanted to put up is only 58 percent up at the moment after a couple of hours of uploading… and I have to run off to the airport. So the videos will have to wait until whenever Bahrain gives me a chance to put them up….
The Melting Pot jam sessions in Shanghai have been among my favorite the last two times I came to this city. I first managed to discover it in 2010 when I was spending an unscheduled extra night in the city thanks to the panic of the Icelandic volcano ash that prevented me from taking my flight out of the city. This year, I had a scheduled stay in the city, but the ash cloud of the unrest in Bahrain sits over me and my colleagues as we wait to travel to that country for our next race. I could not think of a better when than to attend the Melting Pot jam and plug in and play and sing with the new house band.
In fact, the house band seems to have changed each year I have gone. It was in the Melting Pot two years ago that I saw Joe Chou do the weirdest thing with my Seagull guitar, turning it into a sitar… when he was the guy running the show. Then last year it was someone else. This year, it was a very hot bass player from the U.S. named Dnotes. Dnotes played some wicked six-string bass AND sang some classics, more jazz than I found at the House of Jazz & Blues, in fact. And on keyboards last night was the breathtaking playing of Robert Turner.
It also turned out that JJ Davis, my friend Jeff of Bee Dee’s, showed up to play and sing throughout the night. I managed to take a few videos, and I tried desperately today to get them all up, but I managed only to get one of them onto YouTube. I really wanted to put up the video of the Chinese dancers, for instance. But I finally got goosed by Chinese Internet policies, and no matter how hard I tried or what tricks I used, I could only find the wherewithal to get the one short video up.
I also have some photos of me playing there that were taken by one of my F1 journalist colleagues, Simon Arron, whom I thank profusely. I’d have wanted to put more of those up too – but goosed again.
By the way, I was amused to hear Dnotes introduce the dancers as Chinese “Lockers.” He was refering to the trailblazing group of American dancers from the 1970s, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and appearing on the same TV show with in 1976…! (Bang, Bang, You’re Alive!)
I learned today that Dnotes and Robert Turner have some pretty impressive CVs, which explains why I and my F1 colleagues were so impressed – with Simon pointing out that Turner sounded a lot like Billy Preston.
Oh, almost forgot! My two songs – What’s Up! and Mad World – went OK, and I can thank my other colleague, Mark Hughes, for figuring out how to turn on my Roland R-26 and record me playing with the band as part of my year’s effort to record me playing with musicians in each country I visit this year.
I do not see myself as a music critic, I wouldn’t be qualified enough to do that, and this blog is meant only as a kind of web diary of my experiences wandering the earth and playing music or listening to it in unique and unusual places and situations. But if I only wrote glowing, fantastic stories about everywhere I went, that would be pretty lame and unreadable. So I might as well say that I was terribly disappointed by my visit to the House of Blues & Jazz in Shanghai last night.
I just stumbled across this venue next to my hotel and after my wonderful meal at the Shanghai Grand Ma restaurant in the Bund. With a name like House of Blues & Jazz and a facade worthy of the name, and a newspaper spread recounting the greatness of this legendary local venue, I knew that I had to go in and check it out, even though there would be no chance of playing there myself.
I had had two sensational evenings before that, as I reported on the blog, so I was content to finally make an early night of it and take in a scene at the local legendary blues and jazz club. The first disappointment was the 50 yuan cover charge, but that’s only around eight or so euros, so I thought it was not exactly going to break the bank.
I paid the cover, went into the place just as the band began its set, and saw a nice comfortable stage, high ceilings, photos of jazz musicians in black and white all over the place, tables high and low, a long bar, ornate wooden finishings, a cool and comfortable place. And it was so packed there was no place to sit. The fact that it was the cocktail drinking afterwork crowd with some suits and ties and a few other monied-class signature ornaments did not entirely put me off, even if it was a huge contrast say, to Bee Dee’s, where things felt much less posh and much more comfortable.
But when I found my old friend, Kilkenny beer on tap at the counter, I thought, “Great, I’ll take a pint of Kilkenny, as I do in Paris or all over the world.” When they then charged me 80 yuan for the beer, or just over 10 euros, I thought, wait a minute, what is this? I’m in Shanghai where a pint of regular beer should cost a fraction of that, where I did not have to pay a cover charge the previous night for a first class show of Chinese music, and where I got beer for an expensive half that price and absolutely superb and real music the night before that at Bee Dee’s, and here…
Suddenly I started comparing things in my mind already with Bee Dee’s, and inevitably, looking around at the crowd in this joint that pays 80 yuan for a Kilkenny… then I moved over to a pillar and stood there to listen to the band. It was the Greg Luttrell band from Boston, and I am very sorry, because Greg can play a mean electric guitar, and from what I read on his web site, he must have a mean singing voice too. But my perception was hugely colored by the fabulous guitar playing of local boy Joe Chou at Bee Dee’s, and I thought that personally, in terms of value for money, I’d take Joe Chou and Bee Dee’s any day, over this venue that in my opinion goes right against the grain of the jazz and blues tradition. It was also a real pain to wonder what Greg’s voice really sounds like, because from where I stood the mic on his voice, or the amp or PA it came out of, did not make it possible to pick up any understanding of the grain of that voice, or what it really sounds like.
I thought of staying around long enough to tell Greg that he would do well to see if someone could do a better job on the mic, but I got too bored, and returned back to my hotel and made an early night of it. Fortunately, my Zoom Q3 HD is a good filtering recorder and you can actually hear his voice much better in the videos than I could live. In the end, the other thing that perturbed me was that this was not even jazz or blues, really. Oh, I was amused and interested that he performed Pink Floyd’s “Time,” just a week after I learned that song myself! I hadn’t heard anyone doing it until then….
It’s one thing to feel you’re robbed by attending an expat’s Blues and Jazz room, but I realized it only made me appreciate even more stuff like Bee Dee’s and Dreams of old Shanghai. There is a true difference between a bona fide, music-loving, grass-roots joint and a successful business catering to the monied classes. I’ll go for the former any day.
There was a moment last night between my two sets at the Dreams of Old Shanghai restaurant that I had a flash and said, “Did I once have a dream about this sequence happening to me before?” It was one of those deja vu moments that don’t necessarily happen, but you wonder if they did…. Now if that sounds a little confusing, just imagine the situation last night in Shanghai when I ended up on stage in this chic restaurant night club where a large cast of singers and dancers had previously occupied the stage in a long and colorful program of 1930s nostalgia of old Shanghai.
The evening had started quiet enough. After having two nights of playing at open mics in China I opted to have a very quiet night eating noodles, reading in my hotel room and just going to bed early. But regular readers of this blog will know that I generally like musical adventures and I have learned while in far off and exotic countries that I must always be ready for them. I have occasionally gone out thinking there was no place to play and have not taken my guitar with me because of that defeatist way of thinking, only to discover that I find a place where I could have played if I had my guitar with me.
So despite my intention of simply going over to the De Xing Noodle House on Guangdong Lu, eating a big bowl of noodles and returning to my hotel to read, I said, “Hey, take the fucking guitar. You never know what you might run into.” So I took the guitar, found the noodle house, ate the sublime bowl of noodles and then said it was time to return to the hotel. But not quite. No. I needed dessert.
There was nothing on offer at the noodle house, which was closing anyway, since it was now 10 PM. So I set off to find a place selling something sweet. I decided, however, that my route for that would including taking in the street where there are a bunch of musical instrument stores, Jinling Donglu, to see if it was worth a visit next week after the race and before my trip to Bahrain.
So I go to Jinling Donglu, window shop, and continue my search for dessert. Lo and behold, at the end of the street, at No. 229 Jinling E. Road, and before I was about to return in the direction of my hotel, I saw a big sign on the front of a building: Dessert. So I crossed the street and entered the building. Once inside I saw the dessert joints were closed, but I heard what sounded like live music coming from up an escalator. And it sounded like traditional Chinese music, with a woman singer. I was intrigued.
So I took the escalator, went up and found a couple of restaurants, one of which was called, “Dreams of old Shanghai.” It was elaborate, ornate, classy, and I was immediately invited in by the people at the door. I said, “Live music?” Wanting to check it out, and they said I could look. I craned my neck around the entrance and saw this wonderful stage with full lighting, a curtain, and a cabaret revue of Chinese women dancers and a singer. Holy shit, a real Chinese stage revue here. Very cool! The restaurant appeared vaguely retro, posh, and very, very Chinese.
“Come in and eat,” said the guy at the door.
“I already had my meal,” I said.
“No problem, just come in and have a drink!”
Then he noticed my guitar bag and said, “Guitar?” I said yes. “Come in and play?” he asked me. I gestured to the stage. “There?” He said, “Yes, yes, come in and play.”
This I could not quite believe under the context, with this posh cabaret in old style, and here I was a kind of old hippie with a battered guitar…. (And short hair, granted.)
Then the manager showed up and door and did some more persuading and I asked if there was a cover charge, and was told there was not. So I asked if there were desserts. “Yes.”
So I thought, Okay, I’ll go in and watch the show, make videos, have a beer and eat that dessert I wanted. I did not really think the offer to go on stage would materialize.
I watched the show, ate a fabulous cheese cake, with ice cream and blueberry sauce and mango and kiwi chunks, and drank an Asahi beer. This was bloody bliss. And to top it off, I was sure that every one of those beautiful dancers and singers was staring directly at me. A magician dropped by and showed me a couple of tricks, and then after I finished my cake, someone came around and asked if I would now take to the stage and play.
It was a tremendous stage, wonderful lighting, I felt the room to be completely laid back in a way that I had not at first imagined. But the class singing and dancing acts were so Chinese and classy that I still wondered what I could possibly sing from my repertoire to not feel like the French proverbial “hair on the soup.”
No problem, I finally decided. This is too much fun, and as it turned out, I had noticed a table of several young European women sitting not far from mine, and I was sure that if the Chinese could not relate to my songs, they certainly would be able to.
So I went on stage and found my guitar dreadfully out of tune after I had forgotten that Joe Chou had done an open tuning the night before and I had not touched it since. But the musical director of the Dreams of old Shanghai immediately plugged in my guitar and got a mic stand for me – remember, they did not even know that I sang and played at the same time, let alone how good or bad I might be! – and I got the guitar tuned and lept right into “What’s Up!” I then did “Father and Son.”
I think I left it at the two songs, but it was clear that it went over wonderfully. The musical director played a percussion machine, the crowd clapped and sang along, and at the end, one or two of the beautiful Chinese singers who I liked to imagine had been looking at me came up on stage and offered me red roses.
So I go back to my seat and quickly, I get a signal from one of the European women. So I join them, and it turns out, of all things, to be a table full of French expats working in Shanghai. So we drink and talk and the Chinese stage show goes on. But then the Frenchwomen request of the management that I return to the stage and do more songs.
Management accepts, and I go up and do “Wicked Game,” then “Mad World,” and they request an encore, so I decide finally to do one of my own songs, and I do, “Borderline.” This time during the singing the management brings up some massive flower in a tall pot and vase contraption, and then I am joined by one of the singers who brings me a rose and dances beside me as I play. The a couple of the other show girls comes up and give me roses.
I don’t want to overstay my welcome, so I get off the stage, go back to the table, and the restaurant manager comes over and tells me he is offering me the food and drinks I had that night, and would I like a glass of red wine….
They then invited me back to play again tonight!
Now who would have thought, who ever would have thought that this posh, cool, and very traditional Chinese place would be so “arms open” to a complete stranger with a guitar to take time on its stage and perform. And then actually encourage more of it?!!? Absolutely wonderful. It was just the kind of experience I crave in the musical adventure, the kind that changes my ideas and preconceptions about a people, a city, a country. To say nothing of what I can do with my own music and where it can take me, and I must never give up hope about seeing fun opportunities arise.
This is clearly a very open and wonderful restaurant. Check out the videos for yourself, and try to imagine me on that stage. Could be difficult! It was so dreamlike and wild and unimaginable that I had that moment wondering if I had, in fact, once dreamed about alighting in an unknown world and being invited on stage and feted like a star. I do remember such a dream about suddenly finding myself playing like Jimi Hendrix, but I am certain that one will never come true….
I changed my program a little in Paris on Monday, visiting both the Coolin bar open mic and then the Galway Pub open mic, which I have not attended for a long time. Although I had fun things to do and sing in both places, please forgive me if that feels like 500 years ago and that I really want to talk more about Wednesday and Thursday night in Shanghai, China.
Fortunately my flight on Tuesday as in the afternoon, so I could do those two open mics in Paris, get home relatively early, sleep, and then spend the next more than 24 hours traveling to China by way of Dubai. I had about two hours sleep on the flight and immediately checked out upon arrival at my hotel in the Bund area of Shanghai whether or not the open mics I had done on the Wednesday night last year still existed. I figured that although I really wanted to go to bed, I would be far better off forcing myself to stay awake until late and especially, not missing the opportunity of an open mic in China.
I found out that one of them, Oscar’s Pub, no longer runs an open mic. But the other, the open mic at the Not Me bar, was advertised on the bar’s web site as happening that night. So I sped off to the Not Me, had a quick dinner of Shanghai braised porc at the Bao Luo restaurant and then went to Not Me. There was little waiting at the restaurant – a fabulous local icon of a place with huge high ceilings and voluminous dining room – and there was no waiting at the open mic either.
The Not Me is a superb bar that has not only a comfortable bar at the front, a lounge kind of room at the back, and an extensive club room in the back for DJs, parties, dance and other celebrations and inspired by the Cocoon club in Frankfurt.
The open mic has been going for just about a year, and I think I must have come to one of the first open mic evenings thee last year when I performed along with Sista Fay the Swede who I met in Paris and who was passing some time in Shanghai. This open mic is unusual in that the bar is owned and run by Chinese businessmen, and they have instigated the open mic even though they say it is not really part of Chinese culture. There is no MC, but anyone can come and play on a Wednesday night. I immediately played, in fact, I played two sets since it was not exactly overflowing with musicians.
Listen to the interview with one of the Not Me bar partners, Jacky, in my podcast interview, part of this year’s series of podcasts for the blog. Oh, and by the way, strange but when I introduce Jacky on the podcast I call the place the “Be There” bar, which is a Paris venue that I used to go to! You will actually hear me at the end give the place its correct name, “Not Me,” as well as asking Jacky for the meaning of the name….
Brad Spurgeon interviews Jacky, one of the organizers of the open mic at the Not-Me bar in Shanghai:
I was so pressed for time with all that travel and doing open mics that I had no time to write about Monday Wednesday nights’ open mics before I ran off to Bee Dee’s open mic/open jam last night. Bee Dee’s is run by an American, Jeffrey Davis, and is very much an American expat bar that might be located in the U.S. somewhere. But there is some Chinese clientele, and as a magnet for musicians, it also attracts some excellent Chinese musicians.
In fact, last night I almost immediately recognized the extraordinary Joe Chou even before he went up on stage for his set. I had met Joe Chou two years ago when I first started this blog, but I had met him at Oscar’s Pub and then played at his open jam session at the Melting Pot on the Monday. Joe had done some remarkable playing with my guitar, and he seemed to fall in love with it. Last night Joe tried it out again, as well as doing some of his very cool and deeply spaced-out stuff on a stratocaster. I wanted to play with Joe, and he had said we should, but we did not end up doing so.
Bee Dee’s just seemed to get better and better as the night progressed, and if I am still in Shanghai next Tuesday, which I am scheduled to be, then I will return again for more.
