Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Sometimes everything works out. Well, almost. I managed to show up in time to sign up for the Coolin open mic last night and be the sixth person on the list. That gave me just the time to leave the Coolin to go to the Tennessee Bar to see if I could play there, and as I had not played there for months – or at least many weeks – I got to play there too. Then I returned to the Coolin, and found that an hour or more after signing up, only the first two or three musicians had played. So I had my second beer, listened to some music, tuned my guitar, and then played my songs. That then meant that I had enough time to go off to the Galway and see if I could play there – and I got up twice, for six or seven songs….

It is January in Paris and there are fewer people at the open mics, especially as the evening started with snow last night. A discouraging thing for some musicians and some bar clients. Having said that, at the Galway I met a couple that said they had specifically gone out BECAUSE there was snow in Paris…. Unfortunately, it turned to rain – and went on all night.

Now, despite everything going absolutely perfectly, as a victim of the collective flu/cold that no one in France will escape this month, and because I had therefore spent almost the entire previous week closed up in my apartment and bed, I left my home last night for the open mics WITHOUT my Zoom Q3HD recorder. And then, at only the second venue – the Coolin – I found that I had completely filled up my entire available space on my iPhone 4’s memory card. So I have no videos of the great time at the Galway.

The evening at the Galway, by the way, was hosted, exceptionally, by Thomas Brun, the host of the Highlander open mic of Wednesday nights in Paris.

Anyway….