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Author Archives: bradspurgeon

About bradspurgeon

Brad Spurgeon is a writer, journalist, musician and a few other things too. He specializes in writing about every subject under the sun - but developed an expertise in Formula One auto racing and in open mics and jam sessions around the world. Figure that one out! He has written songs, books, short stories, thousands of articles and all other manner of thing. He was born in Canada but has lived most of his adult life in France.

Playing in the Jazz Jam at the Shapko Bar in Nice, and Running Out of Batteries, but not Steam

23 May

shapko jam

shapko jam

NICE, France – I mentioned in my post yesterday that one of the places I stopped off at looking for a jam was the Shapko Bar in old nice. So last night, I stopped off there again, and who should be standing in the doorway with his sax around his neck and greeting me but Mr. Dimitri Shapko himself.

“Come in! You’ve come to the right place!” he said, when I told him I was looking for music. “It’s a jam session – we’re just taking a break.”

“With that sax around your neck, I can see it’s a real break,” I said, or something like that.

Shapko is the coolest Russian sax player I know – OK, the only one too – and he lives in Nice – which if you go back a century had a lot of other Russians – and he owns and operates this extremely cool and laid back music bar. Wednesdays, it turned out, was the vocal jam night, open to anyone, but with some very fine musicians on the nice round stage to back up any singer brave enough – or with a big enough misplaced ego – to join them.

It Was an Open Jam at Shapko and Not Just Jazz

I say misplaced ego, because although it was clearly a jazz jam, I decided after at first rejecting the offer from the guitar player, to take to the stage to sing a song. And after all, Dimitri, in his career has played with people like Wynton Marsalis, Al Grey, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Ali Jackson, Jeniffer Vincent, Steve Kirby, Doug Sides and Debora Carter. But in fact, I had reasoned that some of the songs – like “Route 66,” and like “Summertime” – did not necessarily have to be interpreted as jazz. So I reached into the deep well of my easily-played popular song bag, and I came up with the entirely non-jazz song of “Wicked Game.” I just knew that if I played those three chords throughout, then Dimitri, the lead guitarist, the pianist, the woman drummer, and the upright acoustic base player would be able to work magic behind my three chords, and I’d get to sing in Shapko’s with these insanely great musicians.

SO that’s what I did, and I loved it. So much fun, and so beautiful to be able to play with such talent, especially when it is NOT a pop/rock night.

And the Batteries Died on My Recording Devices for the Jam Session

AND especially when the evening had actually begun in a very inauspicious and stupid way. My batteries on my Zoom recorder ran out after I had recorded only two songs. And when I reached into my guitar bag to get the extra batteries I always carry with me, I found them gone. AND then I decided to record some stuff with my iPhone, and before I could even get to the camera on it, the iPhone ran out of battery power.

So I was left with just the two videos of a night full of fabulous performers and vocalists. But it was a great, great evening anyway. This venue is one of THE venues to visit in Nice if you happen to visit – either to play or simply to listen. There is no cover charge, and for music of this quality in most major cities, there WOULD be a cover charge.

Thanks Dimitri and the gang at Shapko, I’ll no doubt drop by again before the weekend is over, even if not to consider playing….

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2013 in Jam Session, Jazz, Memoir, open mic, Travel

 

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Mini Great and Nice and Cool Time at De Klomp Bar in Nice

22 May

de klomp

de klomp

NICE, France – Nice is a kind of mini city with a little bit of everything, and last night, on my first night of six in this Mediterranean wonderland, I had a mini experience of the kind I love and speak about so often on this blog. It was the kind that started bad and ended great – but there was something mini about it anyway.

I had begun with the doubtful prospect of finding an open mic at the King’s Pub. I say doubtful because I had not yet managed to find an open mic at the King’s Pub on my Tuesday nights in Nice in the past, so I doubted the Internet site that said there would be one.

It All Started With a Le Cenac Dinner

Still, I went out for a great dinner at a favorite restaurant, Le Cenac, eating fruits de mer and a good red wine of Provence. Then I walked toward old Nice, the old town, where I knew that my first stop would be at the King’s Pub, and if, as I expected, there was no open mic, then I would head off and visit the several other bars and pubs and venues where I have played in the past, hoping to stumble upon music in at least one of them.

At King’s Pub, I was told by the man who organizes the music, that, No, there was no open mic last night. On the other hand, he told me there was one on Sunday night, and that it starts pretty late – so I knew I had some good times ahead on the weekend.

I left the pub and decided to visit each of the other places that came to mind and in the most logical order: Paddy’s Pub, the Snug pub, Shapko Bar and then Jonathan’s…oh, and it started with a place the name I know not. At each successive bar I found that there was either no music, or no open mic. Mostly no music. That will come later in the week – Shapko is only open Wednesday to Sunday, but it does not exactly have an open mic, from what I can see.

I was feeling really crappy, and my entire sense of optimism faded. In fact, before I visited the last bar, Jonathan’s, I began feeling as if my entire good sense and feeling for the city of Nice was suddenly changing. Had the place gone down hill? I thought of all the fun musical evenings I have had in the past, and I felt I was facing the lowest ebb of musical nullity yet.

I then had the option of breaking out of the old town by turning right and heading the shortest route back to my hotel near the Nice train station, or turning left and taking a longer, more scenic route through the old town where I would perhaps run into a few more bars that, who knew, might have live music?

And Then There Was De Klomp

No sooner had I opted for the optimistic, left turn down a narrow street – like most in the old town – than I heard music coming from a bar on the left, saw hip looking people standing outside smoking, and began to examine the front of the pub, and saw the name of the place: De Klomp. Then, at the same moment I noticed the word “Jam,” chalked up on a sign, and I heard a man from behind asking me if I played music – he saw my guitar on my back – and if I did and I wanted, I could go in and play in the jam.

Wow! So I entered, feeling much lighter and immediately better about Nice and its music scene. It turned out to be a cool, young crowd of listeners, and a nice, low-ceilinged pub with plenty of choices of draught beer. And the man behind the mic playing a Godin guitar – same company as my Seagull S6 – had a great voice and played well. He was young contemporary, the whole place and vibe was just that.

Enter Harry, the Musical Host of the Open Jam at De Klomp


So I approached him after he sang a couple of songs and I ordered a beer, and he said before I had a chance: “I saw you have a guitar. Do you want to play? It’s not actually a jam session tonight, but you are welcome to play.”

This is the attitude I love! It’s the real music attitude, and at once common and not also rarer than it should be, around the world. So I accepted. His name, by the way, was Harry, and he not only plays that night, but also said that he runs a jam session at the bar on Sunday nights, and that I should come. Hmm, that makes for two on Sunday!

After I played my first song, “Wicked Game,” Harry returned and asked if he could play lead with me. So began at least 45 minutes of playing together, and the audience built in size, came closer to the stage, listened, sang along, and applauded warmly. I took a break after sweating out my insides to the point of no return, and Harry took over again completely.

Oh, and another audience member eventually joined Harry for one song, so it did become a kind of open mic, open jam, after all. Still, it was a kind of mini one…. But boy was it gratifying! First night in Nice, very, very nice….

 
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Posted by on May 22, 2013 in Concerts, Jam Session, open mic, Travel

 

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A Bit of Crime Writing….

19 May

813

813

PARIS – Wait, it’s Sunday night and I have not been to an open mic in Paris or elsewhere since the final open mic of the P’tit Bonheur la Chance – mentioned below -? Either that one really took the wind out of me, or something else happened. Up to you to decide. Well, in any case, this blog MUST live on, even if my open mic-ing takes a break. And I realized yesterday – but had not time to attend to it – that there was an area of the blog that had been neglected for some time. I’m talking about the Blog articles as opposed to posts section, where I planned to put a number of my already-published articles, and write some new ones. Last night, I suddenly realized that there was a complete entire aspect of my life and writing that had been neglected on this blog: My crime writing.

At the same time as I was beginning my career as a writer about car racing, Formula One being the main emphasis, I was also establishing a career as a writer about the French crime novel. Because I myself had written several published crime stories and several unpublished, but agented, crime novels, I grew tired of this not-well-paid area of meta-writing that, while it was vastly interesting, was also vastly frustrating. I was a published crime fiction writer, and I had begun to establish myself as crime fiction writing journalist…but who was not considered by the writers themselves as a writer.

The auto racing writing was more attractive in that I could never, ever claim to be a car racer, but I had a subject to write about that involved amazing human endeavor, and therefore, made for interesting material. So it was that I stopped writing about crime fiction. But by the time I stopped, I had amassed a fair sized trove of journalism, especially about the French crime novel.

This story that I am posting today in Blog Articles as Opposed to Posts, was the highest point of the whole period, probably, and covered a massive swathe of French crime writing of final quarter of the 20th Century. Many of the people are still around or still read. The story, one of the best surveys of the French crime novel written in English, appeared in print in The Armchair Detective, in 1997. Check it out.

 
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Posted by on May 19, 2013 in Fiction

 

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The Film: P’tit Bonheur la Chance Closing

15 May

p'tit bonheur la chance

p’tit bonheur la chance

PARIS – Readers of this blog may well have grown sick and tired of the myriad posts I have written over the last two to three years about one Paris open mic in particular. That is the P’tit Bonheur la Chance open mic, run on Tuesday nights, first by Ollie, then when Ollie went to Berlin, by Ollie. Yes, yes, somehow the one Ollie left, and the other Ollie took over. Also known as Yaco, the second Ollie defied all expectations that a great open mic must be entirely about the person who runs it – and he made as big a success of it as the first Ollie did. So that is when it became clear – I think – that an open mic is about the MC, the bar shape and layout, the proprietor and/or manager, the style, the musicians who come, the neighborhood… okay, you get the idea. Well, last night was the bar’s last open mic, and I decided to make a short film of the evening. Pierre, who owns Au P’tit Bonheur la Chance, is moving on to bigger and better things – if I understood correctly. So this is not totally one of those sad stories of complaints from the neighbors – although there were some of those.

In any case, I think I want to shut up now and let the film take over and tell the story. Last night was the last night of the open mic, and I was eager to do something different and special in terms of this blog. So last night I did an interview with Yaco/Ollie – or is it Ollie/Yaco – and I caught some of the great moments of the evening on my Zoom Q3HD recording device, and decided to not do what I usually do, which is to inundate this page with videos, but rather to spend the day editing bits and pieces all together to make a little documentary of the last evening. All bits from this shaky little roughshod documentary come from last night – all the performances, interview(s), etc., all represent the last night at the P’tit Bonheur la Chance open mic. I forgot to bring my wind protector from the camera, so there are some brutal wind sounds, brutal cuts, it is full of flaws, but I HAD to get this one down. I wish I could have got and fit everyone on this film – in fact, from all the P’tit Bonheur open mics…but it was not possible.

A Great Open Mic Gone


Paris is losing one of its best open mics – but I am sure there will be more to come. Oh, and by the way, as you will see in the little – actually waaaaay too long film (for Internet purposes) – there was some kind of prize-giving last night to the people who had come to the open mic the most and contributed the most, etc. I got that, and so did Wayne, John and Sven. I hope I have not forgotten anyone – I made frequent trips from the music to the bar to the street, playing, talking, having a great time – as usual. There must have been close to 30 musicians, but I only managed to grab a few of them for this.

Oh, and I have to mention that 1) a massive thanks to Brislee Adams for using my Zoom to film me – and somehow I was elsewhere when he played his great open mic song – and 2), the bit in the film towards the end where my interview cuts off brutally with Yaco/Ollie happened because there was no more space on the 8 gigabyte SD card!!!! But as he had just talked about the mic cutting out abruptly and brutally one recent night, it seemed like a great way to end the interview!

Hope you like it, and please bear in mind that in the interest of getting this out on the site tonight before midnight, it is a bit roughshod – but it is intended as being as off-the-cuff as the average open mic night at the P’tit Bonheur la Chance…..

PS, the bar will not close until Saturday night, so there is still time to go and imbibe – and in principle, there is supposed to be quite a celebration on Saturday night….

 
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Posted by on May 15, 2013 in Films, Memoir, open mic, Paris open mics

 

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Great Night at JazzSi, in Barcelona; Crap on Train Return – Hard Drive Gone, with Videos

13 May

PARIS – I managed to play a couple of songs at the JazzSi last night in Barcelona, and to record some great videos of the other performers at this mainstay venue of jamming in Spain. Then when I took the train back from Barcelona to Paris and worked the whole time on my Formula One work, and also transferred the videos from my Zoom Q3 to my hard drive, and then erased them from the Zoom chip… well, bad idea. Lost all of my work, all of my videos of the last 6 weeks, all of the videos from last night, ALLLLLLL sorts of stuff. Because the hard drive was either stolen or dropped or left behind despite three turns of my head to make sure I had everything from my seat in the train. Such was the cost of trying to cost cut AND do work on the train…. So no videos of the JazzSi night in Barcelona.

Suffice it to say that I had a great time, heard great music, and played with a drummer, bass player and harmonica player, in front of the packed house of the JazzSi, where you have to go if you are in Barcelona – for listening or playing, it is one of the greatest places left in the Spanish coastal city. Check my thumbnail guide to Barcelona open mics etc. to find out where it is.

Also lost my recorded song ideas from China and Bahrain. But a lot remains in my mind… and I will try to call the lost and found tomorrow to see if it was…. (doubt it.)

Sorry for the crappy post. But it’s necessary to have crap in life occasionally too – just not too often.

PS, I tried using some file undelete software to recuperate the videos, but it failed to get anything useable. The good thing is that it DID recuperate all my interviews from my work in Barcelona!!!! (But not the transcriptions I did on the train.)

 
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Posted by on May 13, 2013 in Jam Session, open mic, Rant

 

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Nick Mason’s Worldwide Racing Adventures on Pink Floyd Tours

12 May

nick mason maserati 250F

nick mason maserati 250F

This is not to put myself on the same level as Nick Mason, the drummer for Pink Floyd, whom I interviewed for a story about car racing that ran in the International Herald Tribune and on The New York Times web site. But I thought that because the interview was on a music theme – and racing – it had its place being pointed out and linked to from this page, specifically from one aspect related to my worldwide open mic musical adventure and that I did not have space for in the published story, but which is completely relevant to this site.

During my interview with Mason, who is an amateur racing driver and who owns many classic racing cars, I told him about my open mic musical adventure around the world in conjunction with the Formula One races. I told him that although I loved doing my job as a Formula One journalist, travelling the world and reporting on car racing, I also liked to use that travel to discover all the unusual, interesting, musical venues around the world where I could go and play my own music.

Bringing up that story led to an interesting answer from Mason, which I put here and which was not in the original interview:

“Well, that’s interesting, because it is the reverse for me,” he said. “Which is when we’re touring, I’ll find some kind of a car connection, someone will go, “Oh you must go and see Bobs Harrison, he’s in Philadelphia, and he’ll spend a day and show you his cars and so on.” So it’s exactly the reverse.”

That thought was quite cool, that he would live his passion of music, where he earns his living, but he would take advantage of that travel to live out the racing car passion too. Yes, exactly the opposite of my situation, where I earn my living as a professional journalist covering racing, and use that to live the other passion as an amateur musician. He is an amateur racer, and uses his professional musician job as a way to further live the racing passion.

Since the beginning of this blog more than three years ago, one of the themes I have always written about and emphasize, is precisely that: Living life to the full and finding ways to live your passions and your obligations together at the same time…. Lots of people manage, but probably not as many do try who should try. It’s nice to see other examples….

PS, as to that “Bobs Harrison” in his quote, I’m not entirely sure that’s the name or words he used there. We were surrounded by Formula One racing cars in action while I interviewed him, and it was loud!

 
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Posted by on May 12, 2013 in Formula One, Memoir, Music, open mic, Travel

 

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Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide: Barcelona Edition

11 May

BARCELONA – For my sixth city installment of my worldwide open mic guide today I am loading my Barcelona page. As a reminder, it all started with my now very popular Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, and due to that guide’s popularity I decided this year to do a similar guide for each of the cities I travel to during my worldwide open mic tour.

Worldwide Open Mic Guide Philosophy

The only guide I am really in a good position to update regularly is that of Paris, since I live there. But I decided to do guides to all the other 20 and more cities on my worldwide open mic tour in order to give the knowledge I have personally of each city’s open mics. The guide has links to sites I know of local guides that may be more up-to-date, but I have chosen to list the open mics or jam sessions that I have played in myself. There may be others that I know of, but if I have not played there, I will not include it on the list. That way, the user learns a little of my own impressions. But I cannot be as certain that the guide is up-to-date – so check before you go.

More Experience Than Existing Open Mics

Unfortunately, given the ephemeral nature of open mics – and bars themselves – in virtually all of the cities in the guide my own personal experience of playing open mics in the city in question usually goes way beyond the number of venues listed, since they things arise and close very frequently.

Mostly Jam Sessions in Barcelona

There are far more jam sessions in Barcelona than open mics as such – but the jams act as open mics too, and this is a guide to venues of both philosophies.

So here, now, in any case is the Thumbnail Guide to Barcelona Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music. Please do help me whenever you have information to give me on the venues – i.e., especially if they close down!

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2013 in Blues, Jam Session, open mic

 

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Praying – sorry, Playing – in Sala Monasterio in Barcelona

10 May

blues society of barcelona

blues society of barcelona

BARCELONA – One thing leads to another, and had it not been for striking up a friendship with an interesting and unique bass player and singer songwriter name Sergi Carós Massegur at the Big Bang Bar in Barcelona last year, I’d never have ended up playing in the monastery last night.

Well, what I mean is that this venue, called Sala Monasterio, is in the basement monastery room of what was obviously formerly a monastery – and if you pray to the sounds of music, then it still is a monastery, if last night’s jam was a good example of what it is all about.

Coming to Barcelona I contacted Sergi, and learned that the Big Bang Bar is now closed, its jam gone. (Something to do with fire escape problems and loud music isolation problems, if I understood correctly.) Sergi told me that he and his band were running a blues jam session last night at the Sala Monasterio, and why not come along.

Freaky, it turned out that the hotel I chose this year – a piece of crap – was located around three minutes walk from the monastery, so I could go an pray to the powers that I might sleep the night in the crap hotel.

Sergi’s band, in fact, was just a guest band for the venue, as there is a different band running the jam each week – if I understood correctly. The jam happens each Thursday, though, and it has its regular performers and spectators, and the level can be very high.

Sala Monasterio: A Venue With Character

The Sala Monasterio as a venu is fabulous! It is in the basement, made up of several rooms, two of which are quite large, but not so big that they cannot be intimate too. The ceiling is curved, low, and the stage is neither too small nor too large – and it has great lighting, a good sound system – with a sound man on the board at all times. The jam is part of the Barcelona Blues Society, or something like that, if I understand correctly.

You may have realized by now that I don’t speak Spanish. In fact, Sergi’s English is excellent, and he has written some wonderful songs and had some good national television air time, too, lately. In fact, his band, Ed Tulipa, has played internationally, the most exciting gig of the last year being at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

The Sergi Carós Massegur Story

That was cool for Sergi, because his music sounds very much like The Beatles, and he’s a fan of George Harrison. Unfortunately, one of the reasons he has had this big surge of creativity in recent years is that three years ago he had a very dangerous scare and battle with skin cancer, and he came out a new man – and musician. The Ed Tulipa album came from that period, and contrary to the darkness you might expect, its positive, bright and hopeful – full of life.

Last night, it was not the Ed Tulipa band, but the Neirak Blues Trio, made up of musicians from the Ed Tulipa band, but playing blues, since it was a blues jam. After I listened to a few acts, I realized that it was not 100 percent blues all the time, and I figured I could fit in my “Wicked Game” and my “Mad World,” and after doing that with the Neirak Blues trio – with Sergi on bass – they asked me to do a third song, so I did “Crazy Love.”

Something about playing in that great room with those cool musicians and that great, packed house of an audience meant it all went down very well, and I was in heaven…so to speak….

 
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Posted by on May 10, 2013 in Blues, Jam Session, open mic

 

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Oh Non, the End of the Ptit Bonheur la Chance Bar….

07 May

I’ve been writing about it for around two years or so, one of my favorite open mics in Paris. The bar is closing down. Clearly, clearly, far too, too successful.

When I get more information in the coming week and a half or so before its closing, I will write about it.

Stay tuned. :-( (( (And/or, check the stories I have done over the years via the tag.)

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2013 in open mic, Paris open mics

 

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Velvet Veins and Tactics at the Bus Palladium Karaocké

06 May

In France we are in the middle of the first set of weeks in which public holidays divide the week in half. The 1 May and 8 May are public holidays – a kind of labor day on the 1st and the Victory of WWII on the 8th – and in France that means that a large percentage of the population will created what they call a “bridge,” or a “pony,” of days off between the weekend and the middle of the week. The and what THAT means is that for these two weeks there are hardly any people in Paris. And what THAT means is that the Kararocké organizers may well have been worried that there would not be many people there on Saturday for the once-a-month giant karaoke with the live band. So was that the reason that Nicolas Ullmann, the MC, decided to announce that Pete Doherty would sing a song or two before the kararocké?

Many of the regular clients of the Bus Palladium will by now know that the artistic director of the venue is acting as manager for Peter Doherty, the British rock star of the former Libertines and Babyshambles, who lives in Paris. So maybe, just maybe, Ullmann thought that would attract people during a potential down period. On the other hand, as many of the clients to his great Kararocké know, Ullmann is the master of disguise, and he dress up as a different character for each show. This time, guess what? The character, it seems, was Pete Doherty!

And it was Ullmann doing the impersonation…. Doherty has recently played at the Bus Palladium, and even in small cafés in the neighborhood, so it would not have been unreasonable to expect him to show. But the game was Ullmann’s this time, and I don’t have any idea at all if it actually worked, but what I can say is that the crowd was its usual size and enthusiasm on Saturday night, and Ullmann put on another great show.

I was surprised at how many people were there. But I also know that a lot of the people who showed up came to see the basically unknown band that opened for the Kararocké, the band called, Velvet Veins. I went specifically to see them – although my interest was piqued by the idea of a Doherty intervention – as the Velvet Veins is the new band of my sometime lead guitarist Félix Beguin, with whom I have played many times, and recorded a couple songs too. He met his new band in the studio where he works, just outside Paris. The Velvet Veins, for their part, did NOT let down.

 
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Posted by on May 6, 2013 in Concerts, Karaoke

 

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