SAO PAULO, Brazil – Yes, here I am sitting in my hotel room in Sao Paulo, overlooking the bright lights of the big city. But thinking still about my last night bar-hopping in Austin, and seeing two French-like bands, both of which have members that have been in Austin for 25 to 30 years. So there was a very cool, and unselfconscious mix of English pop and French pop.
Un autre monde at the Firehouse:
The first was taking us full-circle from the first night in Austin, where I saw one of Olivier Giraud’s groups playing with him on guitar and synth, to now, Olivier with his original big huge successful 8 1/2 Souvenirs band playing all sorts of traditional lounge kind of stuff, including some very French stuff, as you’ll see in the videos. This was at the relatively new, and relatively cool C-Boy’s Heart & Soul bar, with its neat stage with red ribbon kind of backing to it. 8 1/2 recently reformed at popular demand; it was a well-known Austin swing jazz band from the 1990s that released two albums with RCA, and something else with an independent label in Austin.
From there, I went on to the very nifty Firehouse lounge, with its more basic and brutal stage and sound of the band of the crew from Justine’s restaurant, a fabulous French restaurant where I ate a few days earlier. The owner and some of the staff put this band together with other friends, several of whom have known each other since they were teenagers, and guess what? have lived in Austin for, like 30 years!
Check out especially, “Un Autre Monde,” of the French band Téléphone.
Oh, and by the way, the Firehouse is accessible from the front hostel entrance by pulling to one side the bookshelf, which disguises a door. And please note that on Wednesday nights, the Firehouse becomes an open mic….
AUSTIN, Texas – On this trip to Austin, I’ve been discovering musical joints both with live bands in concert, and open mics for me to play. In the past I would always try to find ONLY places for me to play. But this time, I decided to relax a little and find out what else exists. That has led me from a dive bar to a record store to a cool open mic I did not know in the center of the city….
The dive bar is the Longbranch Inn on 11th street, and the music was about as raunchy as the bar. I was pleased that I brought my earplugs from the racetrack, since the music was so loud I could not really hear it. So I managed to record some of the set and take the recording back to the place I’m staying in, and there I heard the band for the first time. Liked the guitar, and the harmonica – and great rhythm too. But you’ll hear the singer’s voice was too low through the amp and we can’t make out much.
That was Saturday night, by the way. Sunday night I spent the whole evening writing my race report of the U.S. Grand Prix. So last night, I attended two different events, in fact. The first was at a record store that is reputedly one of the best two in Austin. And I can confirm that “End of an Ear” is a great shop. Not only full of CDs, but mountains of vinyl. I went to the record store because there was a photo vernissage by a friend of the friend I’m staying with, as well as a band.
We got there too late for the band, but I enjoyed looking at the photos by Renate Winter, the photographer. It was photos of bands, young people, musicians, from around the U.S., some from Austin, some in Atlanta and elsewhere. In some ways it reminded me of a world I know in Paris…. Check out my short video of the photos….
And Then Off to the Ten Oak Open Mic in Downtown Austin
It was my host who told me about the open mic at the Ten Oak bar on Colorado near Fifth Street, and boy was I happy to discover this relatively new open mic, which began nearly two years ago. Run by Ronnie Hall, who has a fabulous duet called Thomas and Hall, it’s worth going to just to hear them play!
But ultimately, the real pleasure is playing through the nice sound system on the terrace of this bar in downtown Austin where other musicians and music lovers can hear what you’re doing, as does the appreciative audience within the bar. Singing in the live music capital of the world, you feel a different vibe to many other places, like being part of a secret club run by musicians and music lovers.
The level of the musicians was so high at one point that I was begging in my head for someone crap to go up just before me, but that never happened!!!
Gotta run now to another couple of musical events….
AUSTIN, Texas – The last thing I expected to find within two hours of arriving in Austin, Texas last night was a band with some French musicians playing some pretty cool, and unusual music with old time feel, old time synthesizer, a 1948 Epiphone electric guitar, some vintage speakers – 1938 – and a unique venue called the Aviary, on South Lamar in Austin. And then, wow, actually getting to sit down and play the Epiphone myself….
Where do I start??? It was my friend from France with whom I’m staying in a an Austin suburb who led me to the Aviary for a quick late dinner after the 21-hour total trip from Paris. And there was his friend, Olivier Giraud, who runs a hotrod car business in addition to being a fabulous guitarist and synthesizer player, and leader of the band Continental Graffiti.
Giraud has lived in Austin for nearly three decades, and he has established himself in both of those areas, and last night I was honored to discover his music, and play his guitar. And in what a place! The Aviary is a unique, unusual, venue that calls itself, Austin’s only home decor store and wine bar. In fact, it is also a gallery. It has old films showing on a giant screen… it reminded me of a miniature version of one of those kerts in Budapest, like the Szimpla….
I recorded some of the music, and afterwards spoke to Giraud, and he let me play the Epiphone. I could not believe how good the action was, and how cool it sounded through the 1938 amp, which had a coil and tubes rather than a magnet like what you find in amps today….
I doubt I’ll have the time, but if I do, I’ll drop by his business, the “House of Hotrods,” and see if that guitar is hanging around amongst the grease, oil and chrome for a bit more of a play.
PARIS – I blame my convoluted headline on the horrendously long time I have not written a post on this blog, and on the jet-lag, the two open mics and one big party at the Ritz Carlton, and on the red wine I had for dinner – a Cotes de Bourg that won a prize at the Macon wine fair in 2013…. Now, if that sounds weird, listen to this cool thing:
So Sunday night in Singapore after my day at the racetrack covering the Formula One race, I had to make a decision about what I’d do that night as I waited for my flight back to Paris early the next morning: I had at least two main choices, one being to attend an open mic that I had never attended before, at a pub called Molly Molone’s, and the other being to attend a post-race party where a friend was performing.
It would sound like a no-brainer for me – i.e., the open mic, since my work life is involved in attending all the F1 races anyway – but as it turned out, I was worried the open mic might not last that long after the night race, and more than that, I had actually been invited to the post-race party by a guy named Luke Buirski, who is a friend, a fabulous lead guitar player, and who I had met a few years ago at the Actors’ jamming bar open mic in Singapore. So because I had missed Luke last year, and because he was playing at this party, I thought there was no way I could miss it, and so my choice was easy: The Ritz Carlton ballroom, a short walking distance from the racetrack.
So I get there, and guess what? I find myself surrounded by people I know from the media, from F1, former Formula One drivers, current racers and, well, a large number of people from the F1 world I inhabit. It was, however, a very high-class nightclub thing that apparently costs a fortune to get into – unless you’re invited – and so here I was amongst the people I work with all the time, but…I had been invited to the party by one of the performers of the night!
So it was that I felt completely at home, but much more indebted to the man with the guitar than to the people I usually work with. For this was a really, really high-class nightclub thing with performances going on all the time, DJs, local stars, and Luke…. catch a bit of his performance on the videos I put up here….
And From Singapore it Was on To Paris and two of the open mics of Tuesday night, the Oz and the Baroc
So once back in Paris on Monday night, I got just enough sleep to manage to get the energy to go out on Tuesday night and take part in the Café Oz open mic, which I have attended something like four times in the last five weeks. And as has been my wont in these recent weeks on several occasions, I decided that in addition to the Oz, I would move on from there to another open mic.
This time, however, it was not that of the Pigalle Country Club, but that of Le Baroc, which is one of the mainstays of the the Paris open mic scene. While it started a little slowly, it turned into a pretty epic evening, with some final jamming and some really cool stuff between a guitarist – Guillaume – and a fabulous woman pianist at the end of the evening.
Amazing stuff! So have I landed yet? Back from Singapore? Well, tomorrow I have a gig in the streets of Paris at the Menilmontant metro station at 13:30. So I’ll tell you after that!
PARIS – I don’t usually write about something that happened a week ago, but the concerts by Alison Young and Horse Raddish at the Limonaire bar/restaurant in Paris have stayed in my mind for a week, and in fact, I always intended to mention it on the blog. So no matter that I’ve written other things in between. Today, I just wanted to talk about these three subjects, because there ARE three: The singer, the band and the venue.
I’ve never been to the Limonaire before, but this bar-restaurant with a small stage and two wings of tables of to either side is a place I will definitely return to: The vibe is just too cool and laid back, and the stage too fabulous, the music too good not to! My only regret is having eaten a meal before I showed up, worrying partly that it would not be good food, or it would just feel weird or something, to eat during the show.
As it turned out, the show ended after most people had basically finished eating. That’s when the lights went out, and Alison Young, an American from New Orleans, took to the darkened stage under the spotlight and began singing with only the tiniest bits of ukelele thrown in here and there. I was immediately struck by the interesting melodies, lyrics and a feeling that little by little I would associated with all sorts of different kinds of sources, with, oddly, a big dose of British folk-rock from the late ’60s and early ’70s. In fact, afterwards, I spoke to Alison, and told her a lot of her stuff reminded me of Fairport Convention, whose music she said she loved.
But it was her song-writing, her melodies, her very clearly defined musical world that really signals out Alison Young – oh, and another thing….
Introducing Horse Raddish, Alison Young’s Backing Band, and a Tour de Force on Its Own Too
One of the overriding – or should I be saying “under-riding” – things that made her set so interesting, and the music so different, was that her back-up band consisted of the guitarist, drummer and accordion player from the band called Horse Raddish, that was later to play their own set. (There was also a pianist, but I didn’t see if he was from Horse Raddish also.) This backup band gave often some eastern Europe kind of sounds to the music, even klezmer.
horse raddish
That, as it turned out, was no surprise, because the second set of the evening was the fabulous rocking, electric klezmer music of Horse Raddish, adding a clarinet and/or soprano saxes, violin and other unrecognisable – to me – wind instruments. This was romping, exciting, sassy mad klezmer stuff, and its musicians were so adept and having apparently so much fun going crazy, that it was more than infectious. It was superb.
And in the environment of the Limonaire, sitting at a table in the dark and sipping a wine – the manager was happy for clients who came ONLY for the music, dinner was not necessary – it was a real serious challenger to my own usual desire to pass any musical night out on the stage myself rather than listening to others play. I’ll be back for more….
LONDON, England – It was not a dream come true, really, as I never expected to end up on the fabulous covered outdoor stage of the F1 FanZone in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London playing my songs and some covers to a crowd of F1 fans and with part of the London skyline as backdrop. But that’s precisely what I did late Saturday afternoon, along with Joe Cady on lead guitar and violin.
I had seen the F1 FanZone at previous races, and there had been some talk of me taking to the stage to sing a song or two. But it never happened, until a week or two ago I was invited to take part in the first time the FanZone has set up its bigtop in London, in conjunction with the British Grand Prix, which I came to report on this weekend at Silverstone, an hour’s drive away.
Brad Spurgeon on stage at F1 FanZone in London
The FanZone is a fabulous concept, a kind of gaming zone where spectators can test their pit stop skills, their reaction times, their driving acumen and other things all in a portable theme park that travels along with the Formula One series. It is usually set up quite close to the venue – as in Monaco or Abu Dhabi – but this time, it was set up in London in order to allow spectators who could not attend the race to see all the action live on the the giant screens beside the stage.
For that’s one of the main draws of the F1 FanZone: It has the rights to show the live broadcast of the racing action over the weekend. For me the other attraction is clearly that big, beautiful stage where the FanZone also puts on acts throughout the weekend. This weekend, for instance, it had the band of Eddie Jordan, the former Formula One team owner (who pulled out at the last minute and sent a replacement drummer!); like a huge British beatbox band called “Duke,” like a famous cheerleading group of dancers and a band from Leeds called Skinny Living. Oh, and me.
I only got to see a part of the the Skinny Living set, as I had to rush off to collect Joe Cady at just that moment at the Stratford International station, where he had just arrived from his trip over from Paris on the Eurostar. So I managed to get a few bits of video of Skinny Living, but not much more. (Also, it was very windy, and that had some weird effect on the camera – or on me, or on both – so it’s very jerky.)
Joe and I took to the stage for a half-hour set at 4:30, advanced at the last minute to make way to vacate the stage immediately afterwards for the autograph signing of the Formula One reserve driver, Charles Pic.
Unfortunately, the only rain of the day began to fall just as Joe and I took to the stage, so some of the audience ran for cover under the various events tents, but our music was piped in and broadcast throughout the FanZone, and it was a pure fantastic pleasure to play on such a cool stage. The soundmen had come straight from working with a few supergroups at the Glastonbury Festival, and their fabulously professional work made me feel totally at ease, and in my element as I sang my songs and some covers.
Brad Spurgeon after performance at F1 FanZone in London
The set list as I recall it (it was written in advance and then improvised as befit the feeling of the moment) was: “Mad World,” “Crazy Lady,” “Borderline,” “Wicked Game,” “What’s Up!” and “Not Much in the Mood.” So that was three covers and three originals, and I had at least three more originals planned, but the Formula One driver arrived in a helicopter and the fans were waiting for their autograph signing, so we cleared the stage and handed it over to the real star of the day.
I was then kindly offered a helicopter ride back to Silverstone by the organizer, but I had an appointment in a nearby record store to buy a bunch of CDs, and then a table waiting at an Indian restaurant. I opted for the latter, and had a leisurely evening in London, no doubt my best visit to the British Grand Prix so far…. (Oh, yes, and the race turned out to be extraordinary too!)
OXFORD – Arriving in Oxford yesterday for my coverage of the British Grand Prix in nearby Silverstone, I had written down on my mental agenda that there was no way in the world I would miss attending one of the coolest open mics in the world: Catweazle. Little did I know that it would be a classic edition, and that it would finish with a bang as the musicians of a traveling circus now in a stopover in Oxford decided to take to the stage to close off the night – and they drove everyone mad… mad enough for several to drop into a nearby pub afterwards, where the circus musicians could not resist another moment of music on the pub piano….
Catweazle has existed for well over 20 years, and it even spawned a few branch offices in places like London, New York and I think somewhere in Canada. I don’t know how many of those still exist, but the original one, here in Oxford, and run and MC’d by Matt Sage, is the one and only as far as I’m concerned.
What makes it so special? Like any successful open mic, it has to do with the MC and the location and the idea/approach/zeitgeist. Catweazle is run by the smooth talking, funny and worldly Matt – worldly, but very Oxford anchored…. The format is that anything goes, but that it is always done in a purely acoustic set up: no mics for the voice and no amps for the instruments. It’s also poetry, acting, comedy, whatever you want. The singers get one or two songs, the poets one or two poems. I’ve seen bands close off with more numbers when they are exceptional, and that turned out to be the case last night when there was a surprise visit by the musicians of Giffords Circus.
Giffords Circus is a classic European-style one-ring circus with a cross-section of typical acts, including clown, juggling, unicycling and animals. And the band is supercool. These three guys come from similar musical backgrounds, each with his own specialty. But the formation last night was acoustic guitar, percussion and piano and a little singing. Check out the videos – I could have been better placed, but you get a great idea of their wacky-coolness.
And Off to the F1 FanZone in London Where I’ll Perform a Set Tomorrow
F1 Fanzone stage in London
The F1 FanZone is a racing game, activity and live feed on large screens area that follows Formula One around the world at certain races – I’ve seen them in Abu Dhabi and Monaco and one or two other places – and this weekend they have set up the area at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, where the Olympics took place. I’ve been invited to perform a set tomorrow, Saturday, at 4:55 p.m., and I’m very hyped up about it. The stage looks fabulous, as you can see in the photo on this page. There will be other very interesting acts, too, like Eddie Jordan’s band tonight, and the Duke beatbox band and another interesting electro-acoustic band from England called Skinny Living. (Jordan, by the way, is a former Formula One team owner who plays the drums and who has played around the world with the series as I have, but generally in much better circumstances than the bars I hang out in!)
NICE, France – My feeling is that it is better to be late and short than to completely ignore my experience playing my songs, and listening to those of Marjorie Martinez, at Shapko Bar in Nice on Wednesday night. I mean, here I am on the Riviera, having suddenly disappeared from this blog and got sucked up by the sudden appearance of sunlight and sea air – or something like that.
But the more important reason for writing a post here on my evening playing music at Shapko Bar in Nice on Wednesday night is for the record of this blog: I’ve written about the amazing Shapko Bar on rue Rossetti in the old town of Nice since 2011. It became the highlight for me of coming to play in Nice.
So it was at first a shock to arrive for the Wednesday night jam session at Shapko and to find that rather than a band occupying the neat little stage on the lower part of the room it was now several tables full of patrons sitting there drinking, talking, and listening to the music of a woman playing at the mic on the new stage area in front of the bar at the front of the venue.
I learned immediately that Dimitri Shapko, the wonderful Russian saxophone player who founded the bar had just recently sold it to a new owner. I then approached the woman behind the mic – with her Gibson acoustic – after she finished her set, and I asked her if there was some kind of open jam, as there always had been. She said, “No,” but then immediately, in the spirit of Shapko, said that if I wanted to play some songs I could.
So I took the stage after her next set and I sang three or four songs, mostly mine, and “Wicked Game.” I then later spoke to the new owner of the bar, and he said he planned to continue the same spirit of the old Shapko bar – and he has maintained the same name – including having any concerts that start the evening finish as a jam. But there is also an official jam session night on Thursdays, and any kind of music goes.
A Change of Ownership at Shapko Bar
So the good news is that we have not entirely lost Shapko Bar. But let’s see how it develops….
In the meantime, Marjorie Martinez impressed the hell out of me: She had a very cool way of playing that guitar, ranging from folk rock, soft rock and blues into some very adept and fabulous sounding jazz stuff. That came in handy when she opened the stage for the jam, and a saxophone player went up and jammed with her. I mention Marjorie’s range and guitar playing first, but it is her singing voice that is the real center of her show: She sounds like a cross between Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt.
She is French, but her English accent is almost impeccable. In fact, in the gig it was impeccable. It was just in hearing her on her albums – that I bought and later listened to, that I noticed the slightest hint of a French accent. She writes most of her own music, but does not shy away from cover songs either, especially the jazz stuff. In fact, a lot of her own songs have a jazz feel to them in parts, and her backing musicians are clearly jazz-oriented. A very, very interesting discovery, this Marjorie Martinez of the French Riviera – because she is a local….
PARIS – Thursday night was the May 1st public holiday, the Fête du Travail, in France. So it was a great day to think of nothing but maybe going to attend a little gig by some friends and acquaintances that I have met at open mics in Paris, and who have now decided to perform as often as possible in gigs as opposed to open mics.
Well, not all of them. But in any case, I’ve mentioned or filmed each of these performers on my blog in the past, and seen a couple of them several times, and one just once. They all impressed me and showed me another side of their talent at this entirely entertaining 2 and a half-hour gig they put on at very neat bar venue called L’Angora, just off the place de la Bastille in Paris.
I’m talking about the French guitar player singer who calls himself Ventru; about the American singer songwriter from Seattle, Shelita Burke; and about the visiting American from San Diego, Aaron Bowen. Together, they put on a highly entertaining evening that allowed the fairly large crowd or spectators to see different sides to their talent than what their open mic appearances allow for, due partly to the often raucous spectators at open mics, and the often bad sound systems, and the often too low quota of songs.
Ventru started the show, and played his distinctive rhythmic guitar style and vocals in French; he was followed by Aaron Bowen, who deftly managed to pull of a different style of song in just about every single piece he played, from quiet, ethereal singing melodies to hard hitting rhythms and jazzy leads and chords….all of which was tied together by his own unmistakable style. And then the evening was closed by Shelita, with her hard hitting rhythmic guitar playing and vocals that for me seem to be a cross between Tori Amos and Bjork….
The Warm and Funky Venue of L’Angora, in Paris
I just was not bored throughout the evening. And the Angora is a great discovery: Located at No. 3 Boulevard Richard Lenoir, it has a real 19th Century feel to it both on the ground floor with its fabulous long, oak bar, its old fashioned ceiling mouldings and on the first floor where the music takes place, in a low-ceilinged private room with a piano, carpet and great acoustics. There is a blue jam on Sundays, but on the ground floor, since they do not have the right to use drums on the first floor. Definitely worth the visit.
PARIS – As I prepare to fly out tomorrow to Shanghai for the next step of my worldwide musical open mic adventure – well, all right, mostly for covering the Formula One race in my job as a journalist – I decided I had better do a very short post just to announce on Bradspurgeon.com that I have a new web site now that I have just launched. It is Bradspurgeonmusic.com and it will in no way replace this current web site, which is a blog and general repository of all sorts of wild and crazy Brad Spurgeon ideas and articles. The new site will be strictly devoted to my own musical recordings, videos, CDs and other musical news and creations concerning my upcoming gigs and other personal music news. I have created the site because this blog, while wonderful as a medium in many ways, is not the idea place to group together all of my own music. So often at open mics or gigs or elsewhere, I have people asking where they can hear my music online – and I kind of have to send them all over the place, or to this blog, and it just isn’t adequate. So now there is: Brad Spurgeon Music. Check it out!
