Brad Spurgeon's Blog

As everyone knows, stated start times for concerts on Facebook invitations are always from 1 to 2 hours in advance of the real intended start time of the concert. This is done to ensure that people do not show up late…. Oops, so easy is it to become skeptical of this practice that it becomes much easier to show up late. Last night was a case in point. Nevermind that I had as late as Thursday night thought that my friends’ concert at the Point Ephemere was to take place on Saturday. One of them informed me that it was in fact on Friday. So off I went an hour or so late for the stated start time on Facebook of the concert….

But as I arrived at the concert I was pleased to see that one of the people I came to see was in the middle of his set. This was Miggles and his band. Miggles is another of the people I met at Earle’s open mic four years ago. He was at the center of the whole scene, in fact, as Earle had met Miggles with Pete Doherty at the time that Miggles was in his band called The Parisians, and searching for places to play. Earle ended up starting the open mic at the Shebeen in order to give a place for The Parisians to play. That was the beginning of a crazy mad open mic that went on from then in 2004 right up to 2009 or 2010, moving from one venue to another and spawning all sorts of “Baby Rocker” bands in Paris.

I have mostly seen Miggles playing solo with an acoustic guitar. But last night it was with his band, and it made a difference. Actually, Miggles is very cool solo with his guitar. But also with the band, it gives another dimension.

The next band I was waiting to see was Le Mépris, which has members of the band Neimo in it. But as I hung out at the Point Ephemere, and listened to the next act, Call Me Señor, whom I had heard about often but never seen or heard, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps I had made a mess of things. I had, in fact. It turned out that Le Mépris had already played, as the first band that night! Holy crap, I’d missed them. Miggles and band were the feature act of the evening, Le Mépris had opened for him, and Call Me Senor closed for him and them….

So I listened to one more song of Call Me Senor and then I got the hell out of the Point Ephemere. I had a choice of two open mics and desperately wanted to play. I sent a message to the organizer of the one at l’Arte Café only to learn that it was about to end. It was my preferred venue, but I thought, “Damn, I missed Le Mépris, now I will have missed the open mic too!” Crappo night. So as I walked along to go to the other open mic, a 20 minute walk from the Point Ephemere, I suddenly received a message from the organizer of L’Arte Café open mic asking me how far away I was, because things were changing, there could be time to play after all. As it turned out, I was about five minutes away in a cab. So I went.

Am I ever glad I did, and even more thankful she texted me. The Arte Café has never let me down. Something makes it so that no matter how quiet it starts out, it develops into a cool, warm, fun open mic. And last night was the same. I did my little set of three songs, but I was barely warmed up, and not much of what I did was very good. But then when the jam happened afterwards, I led in with three songs everyone could sing along and play along to – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “What’s Up!” – and the whole thing was a massive, huge celebration of togetherness. That may sound suspiciously hippie, but it was really great. And after me, many of the other musicians picked up and led the jam, several using my Gibson J-200. An amazing, wonderful, cool night.

Just caught Miggles, missed the Mépris, and then nearly lost the open mic at the Arte Café, but got it. Amazing – and with thanks to the organizer who took the chance to see if I was near and interested….