Memoir | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

A Not-Book-Review*: “Recycling Reality,” by Nicky Almasy – an expat’s coming of age story, from NYC, Mexico, and London, to Shanghai, Thailand, HK, and Kuala Lumpur

July 2, 2026
bradspurgeon

Nicky Almasy

Until early March of this year, when I shook his hand and exchanged words with him for about two minutes, I had only ever met or communicated with Nicky Almasy once. It is easier for me to know the exact date of our first meeting – which was 19 October 2008 – than it is for me to remember the second one, earlier this year. That is because the first was the Sunday night after the Chinese Grand Prix of 2008, and in Shanghai, a first step that fall of an experience that would change my life. Having now made contact with Nicky again after nearly two decades, I have learned thanks to reading his memoir, “Recycling Reality“, (Earnshaw Books, Hong Kong, 2022), that not only was he also at that time shifting to a new reality in his life, but that we share far more experiences than I could ever have imagined for such a casual acquaintance whose path I had crossed only once until he handed me his book under the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur last March.

That last meeting was reduced to just a handshake as I had just spent more than an hour or two beyond our rendezvous time caught up in the offices of the Emirates airline trying to deal with a cancelled flight back to Paris – a gift of the man who trumped the world by starting a war in the Middle East. By the time I got to Nicky, he had to leave for another appointment. But it was long enough for us to say hello, and for Nicky to surprise me by handing me this published memoir that I ignored the existence of. I have now finished reading the book, and I wanted to talk about it here since without my earlier meeting with Nicky, this blog would not have been created 16 years ago.

In late 2008 I had been carrying around my guitar picks, capo, and songbook to all the Formula One races that I was attending as a reporter for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, as I had recently turned my life full-throttle into playing music when not writing articles about the world’s premier auto racing series. In my late teens and early twenties I had played in open mics as I sought to test the waters to see if I could possibly become the next Bob Dylan. Learning very quickly that I didn’t have a chance in hell, I decided eventually to focus on writing alone. But in 2008, after a tragic personal loss – the death of my wife, Nathalie – I felt the need to return to playing music. At the instigation of some musician friends, I then began to look around for open mics to perform at and see if I fared any better as a potential Bob Dylan than three decades earlier.

Recycling Reality by Nicky Almasy

So it was that after several races, finally, in Shanghai of all places, one night returning to my hotel from a meal in a restaurant, I saw a nearby bar-restaurant called the Blues Room. On the glass of the door or other front window, an image in a poster jumped out at me: An old-fashioned, 1950s microphone and the words: Open Mic! I took a closer looked to find that it said, in English, that every Sunday night you could bring your instruments and go on stage and play some songs. Exactly what I had been looking for in the last races in Europe without success – although I had not really applied myself all that much, being somewhat skeptical of my abilities or needs to perform in public.

After the race – won by Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren, ahead of Felipe Massa in a Ferrari, setting up what would be an historic final race duel in Brazil shortly thereafter – I got on the media shuttle bus as quickly as possible to get from the circuit in Jiading, far outside the city – and arrived in town with time to spare before the beginning of the open mic. I had brought my pick, capo and songbook with me to the circuit, so went directly to the Blues Room. It turned out to be a very, very quiet night, with only one other musician. But there was this Hungarian guy, Nicky Almasy, who ran the event, and I was very pleased to meet him, as the F1 race in Budapest was among my favorites, and I always enjoyed the company of the Hungarians I knew. (My son had been training for years under a top Hungarian chess trainer, as well, and I always found the people gentle and interesting.)

The other musician was an American teenager who lived with his parents, expats working in Shanghai, and he was there with his sister, just slightly older than him. As an open mic experience, my first after 30 years absence, it was highly inconclusive, but probably also the best way for a middle-aged, aging rock star (in his own mind), to return to “the stage.” In fact, we played and jammed for hours, and at one point, Nicky immortalized the session by taking a photograph of me while standing at a table in some deep, purple-faced, Dylanesque chant.

Brad Spurgeon jamming at the Blues Room in Shanghai in 2008. (Photo Credit: ©Nicky Almasi.)

I found no open mic in Sao Paulo, and anyway, with the championship being decided there and especially Hamilton taking his first title, I was far too busy writing and reporting to think about finding a place to play. It was only when I returned to Paris that I again began to think about finding an open mic. And it was only thanks to a small sense I had picked up at the Blues Room that I might find a deeply needed outlet that way, and then the persuasive words of my son, Paul, that I had to try again, that I ended up at Earle Holmes’s Monday night open mic at the Lizard Lounge, and my open mic, musical journey definitively began. (From that moment onwards I brought my guitar to every Formula One race and performed at open mics or jam sessions at each Grand Prix from 2009 to the end of the 2016 season, starting this blog to write about the adventure from 2010 onwards.)

What all of these preliminaries are leading to is, believe it or not, back again to “Recycling Reality,” Nicky’s book. As we were not in touch after that night in the fall of 2008, and as the event was a much, much more important moment for me than for Nicky, I don’t think he had any strong recollection of who I was at all when I learned he was now living in Malaysia and that we would be visiting there for TAC Teatro, and could we meet? So for me, the first thing I wanted to read about in the memoir that he handed me, was everything he had to say about the Blues Room in Shanghai, and how that happened, and what the stories were. I was not let down.

Nicky had begun to run the open mic evening and other live music events at the Blues Room – which was located at the corner of Nanjing Road and Tongren Road – a year or so earlier, and it closed down not long after I played there, in early 2009. But during that time, surprise surprise, Nicky had not only been hiring bands to play there on the other music nights, but he had begun to exercise his other passion, which was photography. Yes, he had been photographing the bands that played there, and soon he had developed a business in Shanghai as a photographer of bands.

Before I continue about the contents of the memoir, another side note: As someone who likes to write, and even made a living out it, and who is currently writing a memoir myself, I am always interested in seeing what “works” and what doesn’t. The first thing I did when Nicky handed me this book, a 265-page paperback, was to check out who the publisher was. Had Nicky done what so many people do today, had he self-published his memoir? Because, otherwise, I wondered, who would want to publish, let alone read, Nicky-Almasy-of-the-Blues-Room’s memoir!?

I saw “Earnshaw Books” and immediately looked it up: “Earnshaw Books was founded in Hong Kong in 2006 and publishes a wide range of books across a growing number of fiction and non-fiction genres. A hub for stories, memoirs and history from China, Asia and beyond, and a nurturing platform for new authors, Earnshaw Books offers a unique and enticing glimpse into the world through words.”

I realized that not only was it not self-published, but that Nicky had found the perfect publisher for his memoir. As he has now lived in Southeast Asia since 2005, moving from one country to another, one expat experience to another, he has a story to tell that will interest readers of that publisher’s niche. It could not be more perfect. I soon learned something more: My own interest was held at a much higher level for all those areas of his life to which I could also relate most closely by my own parallel experiences, and it waned a little – but not too much – on those I could not.

To summarize: I was absolutely hooked on his story of life in Shanghai, less so on his tales of traveling with malaria scientists in Thailand, and very much drawn in with his final chapters in Malaysia, especially his efforts to land a full-time job with Tony Fernandes’s AirAsia as a writer, photographer and videographer for its inflight magazine, Travel360. My interest there is not only due to Kuala Lumpur being one of my favorite places in the world as well, but because I too had crossed paths with AirAsia’s owner Tony Fernandes on several occasions when he was a Formula One team owner, and it was Fernandes who eventually gave the green light to hiring Almasy at the publication.

But to say that I could only identify with what I had myself experienced here would be doing a great disservice to this surprisingly well written life story that speaks for generations of people who seek something bigger, something greater, than the world they were brought up in. I say “surprisingly” because English is Almasy’s second language, and you wouldn’t know it by reading this. Almasy came from Debrecen, in Hungary, which is the country’s second largest city, but still only has around 330,000 total urban population. He grew up dreaming of the life he read about in imported music magazines like the New Musical Express – that “other” I mentioned above.

And if I say that it might require having shared the same experiences as a writer to get into their memoir, nothing could be further from that idea than the opening pages of Almasy’s story, when he writes about his wayward youth as an immigrant to New York City. There he set up a fabulously interesting life in a bar in Manhattan frequented by movie stars, before he returned to Hungary for a short visit and then found that he could not re-enter the US. So he decided, at barely 20 years old, to go for the classic route of flying to Mexico and attempting an illegal border crossing!

The story of how he paid a people-smuggler to get him across, but he ended up robbed, beaten, and dumped over the fence into the arms of the American cops aiming their weapons at him, reads like pages out of the darkest of low-life Jim Thompson kind of noir fiction. Along the way, in what I think must come from his basic life view of some kind of hope or faith, he seems to carry luck on his side through almost every step of his career – despite endless seemingly insurmountable such trials. He gives up on America, but resettles in London, where he ends up writing album reviews for “Record Collector” magazine, and hanging out in Camden Town at the height of Brit Pop, rubbing shoulders with all the up-and-coming talent, including musicians from the band Suede, that he will return to later in the story when they again cross paths, but on a different plane of life all together.

To cut the story short, and to summarize again: He finally settles in Shanghai in 2005, spends a decade there, and that gig photographing bands transforms into a completely different photography career launched by his own passion for documenting the then world’s second tallest building during its construction: The Shanghai Tower. That leads to a friendship with the embattled architect of the building, Marshall Strabala. Almasy becomes, one way or another, basically the official photographer of the construction of that building.

In turn he ends up working for the That’s Shanghai city magazine, doing countless cover photos, and bit by bit, he becomes a highly respected, full-time, and international award winning photographer. A theme that runs throughout the book is what I would call his “meetings with remarkable men” through whom he seems to, in some ways, live vicariously as a journalist and photographer. (That, of course, might be called the essence of journalism, as we are all writing about someone else – a “story.”).

Another of these people is the Hungarian musician, Miklos Both, who he connects with and ends up writing about, photographing, and filming in several collaborations, as well as becoming a close friend. Tony Fernandes, in some sense, becomes a somewhat more distant such connection, but one who ends up providing him with his longest period of “stable” employment, as he lands the job at Travel360 that will only end with the advent of Covid that shook up not just AirAsia, but the entire Asian and, indeed, world, tourism experience and lifestyle for expats.

But by then, Nicky was reaching his limits on what had turned from the lowest level of border hopping illegal immigrant working in a bar in the US into living at the very highest of journalistic luxury travel while reporting for the inflight magazine and traveling uninterrupted for weeks on end year in year out around Asia:

Once you reach your limit, you begin to lose yourself altogether: When you’re on the road, your temporary homes, the hotels, meaninglessly click and switch like projected images one after the other behind the shadow that is you. Marriott, Crown Metropol, Park Hyatt, QT, Novotel, Hilton, Wyndham, you name it, are all just repetitious, ever changing but never-changing artificial backdrops, mere empty stages to dress up your solitude as a traveller. I often find that the more luxurious the hotel, fine art hanging on the walls, their one-of-a-kind décor, the more it enhances a sense of loneliness. There is a lack of human connection. Besides, they isolate you from the essence of your chosen destination with their ostentatious comfort-bubble and cut you off from reality altogether…..

….But when these momentary shelters become your everyday reality, if this is in fact all you have to fall back on each evening, when you live in them for weeks on end, these very same magically self-cleaning units are nothing more than bitter, blank reminders of just what an ungrounded life you’re living.

Any hardcore business traveller would reassure you that beyond the dazzling luxury decor, the exaggerated reception smiles that only last strictly until checkout time, nothing awaits but a dark reflection of your inner emptiness. It hangs over you like a sinister pendulum, and it intensifies at night as you sigh into the empty room before falling asleep. A traveller’s loneliness knows no distance, sneaks under your door, finds you in your fancy bathtub, stares back at you from the bathroom mirror, and it’s already there under the nicely creased bedsheets with the carefully folded towel swan on top before you even climb under the clean, crisp blankets. Endless business travel is like jumping through different dimensions as city skylines revolve outside your window; Nagoya, Osaka, New Delhi, Seoul, Guangzhou, Beijing. As exciting as they are to be in, from the hotels, these cities are all shimmering mirages of a seemingly projected reality.

This is where Nicky Almasy’s memoir touches home the most for me: His ability to cut through the gloss, the surface view, the sludge, and to express what we all, inevitably, face in life no matter how much success or lack of it we may meet with in our lives and careers. I could also deeply relate to his sentiment and career decisions to seek change, as I myself did after covering Formula One for more than 20 years and finally choosing to step off the weekly travel conveyor belt. Ultimately, I found this memoir to be a wonderful vicarious rollercoaster ride through another contemporary’s challenges as he tries to find his way to a self-sustaining and meaningful life and career, and one with which I could compare my own life choices. I would never, ever have suspected such a story that night I entered the Blues Room in Shanghai and took that first step in my own subsequent life’s journey.

(*A note on the “Not Review:” Years ago I decided to create a new feature concept for this blog. Because I believe in Ernest Hemingway’s dictum about writers not criticizing other writers in print as reviewers – “You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,” he said – but because I love to read good books and talk about them, I decided to start this approach. The idea is that I do not place myself on a critical pedestal and dictate what is righteous or not about a book I read. I do not pretend to recommend it as a piece of literature or a consumer product. I do not play the role of the book reviewer. This blog is simply my space, Brad’s world. So what I do when I feel compelled, is to write about books I am reading or have read or feel a need to write about for any other reason. This “Not-Book-Review,” as I call the column, is only a reflection of how I felt about the book.)

My New Single, a Cover of “How’s the Family” – a Song by Elliott Murphy, and With Elliott Murphy

June 5, 2025
bradspurgeon

How’s the Family (cover) Photo Credit: ©David Douglas Duncan

PARIS – Readers of this blog might remember that just over a year ago I published a big feature article in The Village Voice about Elliott Murphy, a major singer-songwriter of the last half century, who gave up his life as a rocker in New York City for …life as a rocker in Paris. Murphy is a one of a kind who has had an atypical career that began with his first album, Aquashow, released in 1973, when he was hailed as the next Bob Dylan. Since 1989 he has lived in Paris and tours Europe year round serving his fans here, who have now supported him through not only the first four albums from major labels, but right up to his most recent, possibly his fiftieth or more, album, called Infinity. Now to get to the point of this impossibly long lede: (jump to the nut graf below):

Some months after my article about Elliott was published I decided – but not for the first time – to see if there were any of Elliott’s songs that I might myself be able to play on the guitar and sing. It was not an easy task – so deceptively simple can they be, as I discovered. Then, somehow, I managed to give a spin through one of the great songs of that first album, “How’s the Family.” I succeeded in finding adequate chords, and a key that suited my voice – that required a lot of trial and error. And the only thing that really stumped me was the vocals in the chorus.

That said, I was also conscious that my effort bore very little resemblance to the sublime original version Elliott did on Aquashow – and still does. But I had a feeling, a way to approach it, that made it feel to me a little more like some kind of crooner song and approach – with a bit of jazz and folk mixed in.

I recorded the song on my iPhone 13 Max in my living room – guitar and vocals. Then I had the crazy and somewhat presumptuous idea that I should send the recording to Elliott to see what he thought – and as a way to show my thanks for his creations. I excused myself over the vocals on the chorus, however.

To my enormous surprise, he wrote back and said that if I ever considered releasing the song, he would be happy to add some backing vocals on the chorus and a bit of harmonica! That was it. All the motivation I needed to do a proper recording in the studio and get this DONE! My first studio recording in a decade.

In short, I wasn’t going to let pass an offer like that. So I set about the recording: I went to Basement Studio in Paris, owned and operated by my old friend Nick Buxton, and he recorded me on my guitar and vocals. He did a rough mix of that, which I then decided to send to my childhood friend, Danny Colomby, in Canada. I have known Danny since I was at minimum eight years old. I have ALWAYS dreamed of doing a recording with Danny, but never felt up to it.

Danny is a musical wizard, and always was (in my eyes.) He is a magical bass player, who has played with legends. His first cousin was Rick Danko, bass player for The Band, while his father’s first cousin was Bobby Colomby, drummer for “Blood, Sweat, and Tears.” But beyond that, Bobby Colomby discovered Jaco Pastorius, the greatest ever electric bass player, and he produced Jaco’s first album. I especially love Jaco’s work with Joni Mitchell. So when Danny – who plays like Jaco – accepted to play along on this track, I was over the moon.

What I never expected was that Danny would put two different basses, including the fretless, in a beautiful backing melody, and some keyboards and percussion. And a great mix! Out of this world.

The ultimate moment was when I sent Danny’s mix finally to Elliott Murphy, and he not only returned it with his backing vocals and his harmonica, but also some Rhodes piano, percussion and guitar! What is so fabulous aside from Elliott’s musicianship here – that ethereal harmonica – is that he had the humility to contribute to a cover of his own song that is so different to the original, except for the obvious main melody and all the lyrics. (To start with, the tempo of my version is much faster than the original.). To accept that and to play his harmonica along with this different version is a testament to the depth of the man. Out of respect for him, in addition to my version, I am posting here below his own original from Aquashow.

How’s the Family by Elliott Murphy from Aquashow

I then sent it all back to Danny, who offered to do a final mix. Then, to seal the whole, I passed it all on to Ron Bousted at Revolution Mastering in the US, who had mastered my CD “Out of a Jam” a decade ago.

Finally and ultimately, after all this bla bla, give a listen to those extraordinary lyrics, written by a 24-year-old, more than 50 years ago, and that still ring true today.

My cover of “How’s the Family” is now posted and available for streaming or download at all the major music streaming services – Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, etc., and in Spotify, in the link above. My plan now is to create a music video for it. So keep posted!

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Eddie Jordan to Me Was, Above All, a Robber

March 21, 2025
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Eddie Jordan Photo Credit – PA MEDIA

Although I interviewed Eddie Jordan several times, it was only at a musical event outside the context of the racetrack that I really got to know better the Formula One team owner who has just died at the age of 76 of bladder and liver cancer. It was thanks to an evening at the Hard Rock Cafe in Kuala Lumpur at the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend of 2009 that I owe to Eddie one of my best memories in the musical journey that I carried out in parallel to my Formula One reporting during my last decade covering the series.

It was my first year taking my guitar around with me to every race in the hope of finding a place to play music at each event. My goal was to find an open mic or open jam session in each city a Grand Prix took place, or failing that, simply any kind of a place to play in public. That first year was the most difficult as I was transforming my usual life as an F1 journalist from a routine of “airport, circuit, restaurant, hotel, airport” into all of that plus trying to find a place to play music.

That year in Kuala Lumpur I eventually managed to get on stage at a big, cool, half-outdoor, half-indoor, venue called Urban Attic. But that was not enough for me, and when I learned that Eddie Jordan was putting on a show at the Hard Rock Cafe with his throw-together band that he called “Eddie Jordan & the Robbers,” I decided to be bold. His show was to take place on the Saturday night before the Sunday race. I searched around for Eddie in the paddock on the Friday and managed to catch him just as he was leaving the circuit at the end of the day, and I approached.

I told him about taking my guitar to every race and looking for a place to play, and would he let me up on stage to sing a song with him and his band?!?! We were only in the second race of the season, and had gone directly from Australia to Malaysia, as the races were a week apart. (Just as F1 has done between Melbourne and Shanghai last week and this weekend.) So my open mic adventure had just begun. I had succeeded in playing in two or three different places in Melbourne, and at that point, instead of my Seagull S6 acoustic guitar, I carried with me only a horrendous little baby Stratocaster that could not stay in tune for even a single song. Good-hearted Eddie immediately said I could sing a tune during his show, but maybe I should send him a sample of what I would play.

Eddie-and-The-Robbers

Having no good recordings online yet at that point, I decided to record the song on my dictaphone that I used to interview F1 drivers and team members. Partly since Eddie was Irish, and partly because I performed the song a lot at that time, I decided to record “Crazy Love,” by Van Morrison. But the quality of the recording as well as me accompanying myself with that horrendous Baby Strat meant that I asked Eddie to please understand that I would do the song much better during a performance with the band. I sent the song and the explanation to him by email, and he still assured me that I could go up on stage and sing the song. Personally, I knew that I had a great reception at the Urban Attic doing the song with someone else’s guitar, so I was nevertheless confident that I would do ok with Eddie & the Robbers.

When I went to the gig, I arrived as Eddie was adjusting his drums, about to play in a few minutes. We spoke briefly, and he acknowledged that I could play a song. He also introduced me to the Irish ambassador to Malaysia, Eugene Hutchinson, who was in the audience, because I think he probably thought that it probably made him look good to introduce a journalist from the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times to the worldly envoy. I spoke briefly with the ambassador, and then Eddie & the Robbers went up to perform.

They were astoundingly good. Way beyond my expectations. It was not until almost exactly a year later that I began this blog, and started filming my experiences at the open mics with various Zoom cameras and good sound recorders. I did, however, that evening, have that dictaphone that I used for the Van Morrison demo. So I recorded a lot of their songs, as I just couldn’t resist. Afterwards, I put together a tiny medley of four extracts of the songs to show what they could do, and I posted it on my F1 blog on the IHT/NYT web site along with a long account of the evening of Eddie & the Robbers at the Hard Rock Cafe itself.

Many of the links within that post have gone bad. Including the recording. So I put above in the media player the recording of that medley for you to listen to. And if you didn’t listen yet, do so. It is worth it. We hear Eddie introducing the songs, some of the musicians, and we hear also his drumming. And we hear his brilliant band and their fabulous vocals.

At one point in the show – I think it’s the one on the recording – Eddie announces a “special guest” and my adrenalin flashed through me. But it turned out not to be me. In fact, I would never get up on that stage to sing and play. I do not recall now whether Eddie apologized or said anything at all to me afterwards for saying I could do a song and then he never called me up. But I felt both let down and puzzled. Still, the night ended up going way beyond my wildest imaginings in other ways.

Felim Gormley

After they finished their sets, all the musicians and Eddie sat down together and had some drinks. The Hard Rock Cafe was still bursting at the seams with the spectators, but I knew no one else present. I cannot remember how I ended up joining the band, whether it was by invitation or sheer party-crashing gumption. But I did end up with them. And what a group of musicians Eddie had managed to gather for his Robbers this time around: The guest of honor was saxophone player Felim Gormley, one of the stars of the legendary film “The Commitments,” directed by Alan Parker, and based on a novel by Roddy Doyle. On lead guitar and vocals was Matt Exelby, who played with, among many other interesting bands, a Roger Taylor – of Queen – formation. On bass was Peter Noone — no relation to the guy in Herman’s Hermits — but who also played with the Roger Taylor band. And with the deep, yet melodious, astounding voice and playing keyboards, was Jonathan Perkins, who had also played with the others along with Roger Taylor, but who had his own legendary band called “Miss World,” for which they had also played. But Perkins’ CV went way beyond that, as he had worked variously with Little Richard, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, Timothy Leary, Roger McGuinn, Glen Matlock, Bob Geldoff, Dave Stewart and Daryl Hall and John Oates.

Eddie at this time was already doing television commentary, and I think he used the excuse of having to get up early for that job in the paddock, and was the first of us to leave for the evening, while we were all still in the middle of the second or third round. I got to know the musicians, and we share stories of playing here and there, and stories of Eddie, etc., and I ended up staying up half the night with Felim Gormley and Matt Exelby. (It was Felim’s 40th birthday!) By the time Perkins left us, it was noticed however, that when Eddie Jordan had said goodbye and quit the group, he had done so while leaving his entire evening’s drinks bill unpaid for, and therefore in the hands of the struggling musicians of his band! Millionaire Eddie.

Damon Hill, Jordan Mugen-Honda team principal Eddie Jordan and Heinz-Harald Frentzen at the 1999 launch in London. Photo: Grand Prix Photo

One of the muscians made some comment about how it was just like Eddie. And it drew to my mind my failed deal with Eddie to play a song with them that night. It was pure Eddie from all I knew: He had paid these musicians’ travel and put on a great show for the clients of the Hard Rock Cafe. He had done what I would end up doing for the next decade, playing on stage at any musical venue I could after the business at the racetrack. But whereas my adventure was a no-budget, one-man show in often very seedy bars and other strange venues, Eddie did things with style, and big: His own band, the Hard Rock Cafe, the ambassador of Ireland in attendance, etc. But at the same time, there was the reverse side of the coin: were those little things betrayals? Or were they just part of his seemingly sometimes scatter-brained approach to life. He was a brilliant negotiator, a man of endless ideas and schemes. And he ultimately succeeded beautifully in life in living his dream as a team owner, and becoming very wealthy.

But not everything always held together. Did any of us that night truly feel betrayed by him? No. We all laughed everything off, because Eddie was this fun, light-hearted original bringing stuff to the world in his wake wherever he went. His team itself was run like a rock band.

And, by the way, I had another insight into his Robbers and Eddie himself when two years after this event, in 2011 while continuing my open mic adventure, I met a very cool group of buskers in the streets of Nice during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. I stopped to listen to them, then played with them, then we met up later in the weekend at Shapko’s Bar open mic, and I got to know one of them better. He was a young street musician, maybe 23 years old, from Britain but bumming around Europe, and during our conversation I told him about my Eddie Jordan experience. He told me that Eddie had met him in the streets playing somewhere – I think Rome – and Eddie had invited him to join the Robbers and he did a few gigs as part of the band. So there was Eddie picking up talented young musicians from the street as he did top backing musicians for major artists.

Jonathan-Perkins-Wild-Mondo-Dave-Stewart-The-SPiritual-Cowboys

Oh, yes, back on that subject of bar bills, I have a suspicion that the first person Eddie met at the doors to the otherworld was Jonathan Perkins, who sadly also left us less than a year ago after his own battle with cancer, and unfortunately a decade younger than Eddie. No doubt Perkins is forgiving Eddie for that unpaid bill, and proposing they do another gig amongst the heavenly choirs.

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Astounding Allman Brothers Dickey Betts Tribute Concert Film, and Another Thanks to the Inspirational Mark Greenberg

March 17, 2025
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Dickey Betts 1978

PARIS – I had to stop everything I was doing tonight when I saw that my friend Mark Greenberg posted a link to the full concert video of the Dickey Betts Tribute live in Macon gig that he played in on 28 February, last month. I had seen Mark mentioning this upcoming gig on Facebook for a while, but I never expected this concert to be as astounding as it is. I am posting the link so you can immediately drop everything you are doing, tune in and listen to the whole three hours of it – or, if you don’t immediately have that amount of time to spare, skim through and find the Allman Brothers Band songs you love the most and listen to those, then go back again. Spoiler Alert: The concert ends with “Ramblin’ Man!”

Dickey Betts, if you don’t know, was one of the founding members and guitarists of the Allman Brothers Band. And you will recognize which one when you hear his son’s guitar playing and vocals, especially on that aforementioned song, which was written and sung by Betts. He died at the age of 80 last April, and this memorial concert brings together not just his own son, Duane Betts, but other big stars and Allman musicians and family such as Warren Haynes, Chuck Leavell, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Charlie Starr, Oteil Burbridge, Devon Allman.

Dickey Betts Tribute live in Macon

Just when I was feeling about as low as I ever could in my entire life about the United States, this film and concert has reminded me of one of the many things I love about the country. I won’t go into any detail anywhere about any of that, just take a look for yourself. This is a fabulous concert, especially if, like me, you love or grew up with the Allman Brothers Band’s music.

Mark Greenberg Drummer

Mark Greenberg, whom I mentioned posted the link and is playing drums, is another inspiring part of my life. In 2011 when I was doing a week’s worth of open mics in New York City and he was running the Bitter End Jam, which he has done for almost as along as the Allman Brothers exist (exaggeration), I was about to walk out the door feeling way too intimidated to get on stage. He was standing on the sidewalk outside during the break, and seeing me walking out with my guitar he asked what was going on? (I must have signed a list to go up before this.) I came up with some lame excuse that had nothing do to with telling him I was actually scared shitless to go up with musicians of that quality, when he talked me into going up anyway. We worked out what the songs would be, he said they could do them, and up I went. Best moment of my time in NYC.

The next day, Mark gave me more of his time being interviewed on my cameras in his practice studio in the legendary Music Building, for my worldwide open mic film, Out of a Jam. Mark was one of the most inspiring of those I interviewed, and he appears throughout the film as one of the regular “talking heads.” All of this made seeing this film an emotionally moving thing. But there was more moving to it than you can yet imagine.

Seeing Mark in this Dickey Betts tribute, you will find him as one of three drummers always on the stage, and you will recognize him easily because he is the one with the shortest hair. When I interviewed him his hair was down to his shoulders. My bet is it will grow back there soon, but at the moment, Mark Greenberg has been going through treatment for pancreatic cancer, a disease that took his father’s life some decades ago. To see his optimistic and defiant, and joyful posts regularly on Facebook, and above all, to see him back on stage behind the drums at a gig like this, is yet another in the long line of inspirational things I now connect his name to.

Thanks Mark, and hope we get to play together again some day soon too! Maybe not in Macon, Georgia, where you played this concert – but why not Macon, France?

Allman Brothers Band in 1969

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My Two Degrees of Separation from the Battle of Waterloo…or for that Matter, the French Revolution (And What About Yours?)

October 10, 2024
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Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748 – 1825), The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, oil on canvas, 203.9 x 125.1 cm (80 1/4 x 49 1/4 in.), National Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Photo by VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images)

You know that thing about us all being six degrees – or fewer – of separation in social connections from everyone else in the world? Well, the other day I had another thought along those lines. But one that shows us all how close we are in human history to each other. The dawning came to me as I thought about how close we are to repeating history these days, with fascist leaders all over the world gaining in power, and wars erupting in a manner that is dangerously close to setting off that World War III that many of us no doubt have feared all of our lives.

Yes, with the U.S. election around the corner, and with the possibility that an unbalanced leader not unlike the worst we have seen this century being voted in again, I began pondering how it was that we could repeat history so easily with so many unthinkable examples we seem to be following without thought to the consequences.

That got me thinking about how, in fact, we think that with so soon now 80 years since the closing of the last World War, it seemed a long time. A time long enough to allow us to forget. But it also felt like sufficient time to allow us to learn, develop, and change as the human race.

So that got me thinking about time, human time, and how far ago we really are from the Holocaust and the second World War, or even the first. Then bang. I suddenly began thinking about it, and then doing the research, and I realized that when I was born in 1957, there were still a handful of veterans alive from the American Civil War in the 1860s. And add to those veterans a whole lot of other people who lived during that time.

That is when I jumped to the next natural step, thinking about my father, born in 1925, and how many such veterans or people from other periods of history were alive when he was born. And then, before I even got to the end of that thought, I jumped to his father, my grandfather, Carey Bradford Spurgeon, who fought in World War I – among other places, in Vimy Ridge, and was born in 1892.

I got to researching that, and thinking about the days I sat on his knee in my childhood as he showed me his little red heart collection like those Russian dolls that fit inside one another, these little hearts containing other hearts. I think they were made of ivory, brought back from his many visits to the country where he was born, India, as the son of a missionary.

American Civil War

And I looked it up and I found that throughout his childhood, there were living veterans of the Napoleonic wars. People who fought under Napoleon – for whom this leader was not just an historical figure, but a person they served. Right up to the 20th century, they lived. In fact, there were actually people alive when my grandfather was born who had lived through the French Revolution! But the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, was the one that really struck me in terms of war.

Yes, my very own grandfather, who lived in our own family home, was born into a world where the values, the memory, the mindset that brought about all those historic moments going back more than two centuries now were very much imprinted and alive in their minds and spirits. I repeat, I knew a man who lived at a time when people lived that experienced the French Revolution!

So how, I ask, can you really expect that the human nature that created Fascism, Nazism, the Holocaust, has had enough time to become something radically different in just 80 years? If we could do that – and all the other horrors that the last two and a half centuries have created – all within the crystal clear collective memory of only me, my Dad and my grandfather and the people alive during his day, how the hell can anyone think that it cannot happen again? Or do something far worse, as humanity has managed to do as we move along through history?

The passage of time is an illusion when it comes to any thought of distancing ourselves from our past. With all the writing on the wall, please, study history, be aware: Understand, U.S. voters, the signs that are all around us. Do not vote for Donald Trump. Even if you hate the democrats.

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Of Timing, Count, Rhythm, Reverb and “Born to Run” – or Not!

July 6, 2024
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Born to Run album cover

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily: One of the things that fascinates me in playing music, is the question of the roles played and interchange of timing and emotion and melody. Sometimes I think there is a tradeoff between timing, the count, the rhythm, and emotion. Other times I think I just don’t know what I’m doing. The other day I stumbled upon a recording I did at home in 2015 of Bruce Springsteen’s song, “Born to Run.” As I now work on a new cover song recording that I hope to release in the coming months, this Springsteen one I did years ago made me think about that whole question again. The timing, the count, in this attempt at “Born to Run” is ALL OVER THE PLACE! It sounds like I didn’t know what a metronome is; although I know it was really because I didn’t care. It was an after dinner and wine effort to do a crude recording of “Born to Run” in a slowed down, folky version, rather than the original hard romping rock. While there is no constant rhythm or count, there is definitely meandering emotion.

[B. Spurgeon’s B. Springsteen lies here (I wonder if those initials ever hindered his career?!):]

Aquashow

With the song I am working on at the moment, by Springsteen’s friend Elliott Murphy – about whom I did a huge feature article in The Village Voice last February – I did use a metronome. This is his song “How’s the Family,” off Murphy’s first album, Aquashow, which was released in 1973. Although I had done an initial version of the song in the same way I did the Springsteen, and the emotional rambling worked for me, it was essential to use a metronome for the recording, as I am asking musician friends around the world to contribute their parts remotely – bass, drums, etc. But how strong will it be? Only the final recording will tell me.

When You’re Gone Away

Again, though, it reminded me today of my 2016 CD, “Out of a Jam,” where, although recorded in studios with the bands present, some of the songs were done with a “tick” – the metronome – and others we decided to do without the count. For instance, on the song Borderline, I used the metronome; but due to various reasons, on the song, “When You’re Gone Away,” we did not use a metronome. And the rhythm does actually change slightly over the song from the opening to the end, in a very slight crescendo. It felt appropriate for the song. And which is more effective? Not sure it’s possible to say – except I have noticed over the years that Borderline performed live tends to get a more enthusiastic response than did the Borderline of the CD.

Borderline

This morning, I saw an astounding video of Prince doing a monumental live version of “Play That Funky Music.” One of the keys to the whole performance was the astounding tight rhythm section and Prince’s more than impeccable melodic expressions on the guitar within that tight confine. Hits you over the head with that rhythm and tightness of timing! Filled me with an admiration I hadn’t felt since certain Jimi Hendrix moments.

Prince doing Play that Funky Music

But it did raise in my mind that question again of how much leeway a musician has within the confines of rhythm, count and beat, etc. Oh, yes, and regarding that Springsteen effort I did – another thing it brought to my mind, again in relation to the recording I’m doing at the moment, is when is reverb too much reverb? At the time I recorded it, I felt that I had put about 300 percent too much reverb on it. Now, I find it charming – this feeling of a big room, an otherworldly thing that goes along with the slowness of the version of the song.

Well, isn’t that what playing music is really all about? That there are no formulas? Just like writing, and most of the other arts. I hope to post that new Elliott Murphy cover sometime soon, once it is done!

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Google’s Bard AI Chat Program Massacres Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” – Doing a Little Spoken Word at the Spoken Word Night of the Cabaret Culture Rapide

September 23, 2023
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The Bard

PARIS – I had intended to play a song or two at the Paris Lit Up! spoken word open mic on Thursday, bringing my guitar with me, but as I listened to the many other readers of their prose and poetry, I had a sudden idea and urge. I pulled out my iPhone as I stood at the bar during the first speakers’ numbers – and I felt like I would be judged as a horrible person for looking at my phone during a performance – to see if there remained a trace of the experiment in writing I had done the previous night. Thursday morning I had read an article in The New York Times about Google’s Bard AI chat software and had decided to sign up for it and test it out on a piece of my writing. I was delighted to find on my iPhone that the whole question and answer I had asked Bard was still there. I could present it to the audience at Paris Lit Up!

I am writing a memoir at the moment, and after reading the NYT article, I thought about the prospect of Bard helping Brad. Not to write my memoir, no way. But perhaps it could help me copy edit it. Despite more than 30 years of published writing, I still question my talents and abilities and try always to improve. (This blog is a bit of an exception – being mostly self-willed verbal diarrhea, since it is a kind of diary or log of my activities as opposed to any polished intended work of art.) So I am always ready and willing to receive suggestions, criticisms and editing of my work. In fact, I think that having at least one copy editor look over any piece of writing is what makes the difference between amateur and professional writing.

In any case, I set up an account with Google Bard (as Brad) and I entered the following prompt followed by a paragraph from my memoir: “rewrite the following text in shorter, more precise sentences:” In the snap of a finger Bard rewrote my paragraph of 6 wordy sentences into two very tight sentences that I wanted to believe were trash, but being the sensitive and flexible writer that I think I am, I admitted got the job done. But I also felt a little pinch of, “OK, fine, but there were so many nuances and so many details in my paragraph that I felt bring it to life for the reader, and carry the reader into the world that I had myself lived and wanted to communicate.”

Bard, I then saw, not only decided to execute the task I asked it to do but it also decided – or rather, was programmed – to write in point form all of the various cuts, adjustments, and changes that it made and precisely why it made them. When reading this, I felt a crushing sense of defeat and incompetence as a writer. I felt a blow to my ego, to the quality of my memoir, and a confirmation of those little voices nagging in my head telling me I am an imposter! (Yes, writer imposter syndrome.)

Why did I feel this way? Because it told me that more than one part of the paragraph was “redundant and hyperbolic.” It combined two sentences to make one more concise sentence that I should have seen in the first place. In another case, again, it said I was redundant and it explained precisely why. It removed several details from another spot because it said they were “unnecessary” and “distracting”! Finally, it added a phrase “to add a bit of poetic flair to the sentence.” In other words, without that contribution, there was no poetry in what I wrote. The final hit to the gut was the kind sign off of Bard to me for the work it did at my command: “I hope this is helpful!”

Helpful? Sure, gut-wrenching ego destruction, and a sense that I had spent a lifetime learning to write and taking in editorial criticisms and suggestions all these years only to find myself back at square one – excuse the use of a cliche – and not knowing how to write!

Then, my survival instinct kicked in. I came up with an idea for an experiment. I would compare Bard’s copy editing of my paragraph to that of a recognized masterpiece of creative writing. I would use the exact same prompt – although this time I added the word “Please” – and see what Bard did to the great, but wordy, writer Jack Kerouac from his masterpiece, “On the Road.”

The result was more than reassuring. It taught me a lesson. Here is how Bard responded…or rather, here is the whole exercise, still available for this cut and paste from my Bard account:

Google’s Bard AI Chat Program Massacres Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” masterpiece

“Rewrite the following text in shorter, more precise sentences: I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.””

Shorter, more precise version:

Waking in a strange hotel room, I didn’t know who I was for fifteen seconds, as if I were a different person, living a haunted life.

I made the following changes:

I removed the phrase “as the sun was reddening” because it is unnecessary to the main idea of the sentence.

I combined the two sentences “I woke up and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was” into one sentence to make it more concise.

I removed the phrase “I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel” because it is redundant. The word “traveling” implies that the speaker is far from home and tired.

I combined the two sentences “I was in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds” into one sentence to make it more concise.

I removed the phrase “and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds” because it is redundant. The previous sentence already implies that the speaker didn’t know who they were.

I removed the phrase “I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger” because it is repetitive. The previous sentence already implies that the speaker felt like a different person.

I replaced the phrase “and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost” with the more concise phrase “living a haunted life.”

I hope this is helpful!”

Real life lessons learned about creative writing from Google’s Bard AI Chat program

Yes! Not only was it helpful to me, but after reading it to all the budding writers at the spoken word event at the Cabaret Culture Rapide, where the spoken word event happens every Thursday, but I felt it was helpful to everyone and I said to them: This response is proof to me that the art of writing is something that we must do because we believe in it, and in ourselves. And sometimes we will find other people who we touch, despite the writing perhaps apparently breaking the mechanical rules of what makes for “good writing.” We cannot succeed in pleasing all readers all of the time, but we may please some of the readers some of the time. The important thing is that, ultimately, there are no rules. There is only the humnan self-expression that will or will not reach the reader. Or will reach some, but not others. Just keep on writing, and don’t lose confidence through criticisms made of your work. Try to improve, but don’t take every editor’s opinion to heart. The masterpieces often break the rules and create something new.”

Aside from sounding like the harsh and self-assured judgments of so many editors I have heard throughout my career (;-)), what struck me was how Bard executed precisely what I had asked for, but had indeed killed the art. The worst thing was that its criticisms, its reasons for making the changes, while they were correct from the point of view of a strictly logical thinking computer program, were absolutely far off the mark and plain wrong when applied to the purpose and effects of a work of art.

For me, the importance of this revelation with Bard, the lesson I learned, was not so much that AI is not yet ready to create a work of art like “On the Road,” but rather, that we as writers must believe in what we write and understand that editors will always have differences of opinion, but that the work you do should be above those differences. Yeah, you’ll write some crap, but you may just write something fabulous that you do not want to be torn apart by the opinion of one, two, three or even four editors.

Anyway, I am very conscious of this blog post being very long and wordy. So I am now going to ask Bard to sum it up in one paragraph (I will not publish the why it did its changes):

“Bard is a powerful tool for editing writing, but it is important to remember that it is a machine and does not have the same understanding of art and creativity as a human writer. It is important to use Bard’s suggestions as a starting point, but ultimately the author should make the final decisions about what changes to make to their work.”

Hmm…I am not sure that’s precisely what I said, but it’ll do!

In any case, not only did I not regret playing music at the spoken word night, but I found myself having a great time just talking and not singing. So I can thank Bard for that inspiration too!

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Zayen and the Open Air, Open Mic in Aubervilliers – and a Child’s Gesture of a Centime for My Efforts

December 17, 2022
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Zayen

AUBERVILLIERS, France – Now that was a fabulous breath of fresh – and cold – air: I performed five songs in an outdoor open mic on Wednesday, during a neighborhood afternoon snack in Aubervilliers. The neighborhood was the Quartier Maladrerie, and it is located in the town of Aubervilliers, which touches on Paris. I have written a lot about this town in the last couple of years, since TAC Teatro has been putting on a lot of shows and doing a lot of work there. It was actually quite cool – I mean cold – to perform across the street from the Espace Renaudie, the place that hosted a couple of TAC events recently, which I have written about in previous posts. This open mic had nothing to do with that, but with a meeting and some open mics that I did 15 years ago!

A year and more before I started writing this blog, I had already begun my musical open mic adventures. Among the places I discovered in Paris and its environs, was a regular open mic in Aubervilliers, most often at a bar called “Le Chien Qui Fume,” or, “The Dog that Smokes.” I say most often at, because the open mic was run by an association called “Les Artistes des Couleurs et de la Diversité.” It was run by a musician named Zayen, of Kabyle origin. It started in a bar in Paris, called the Aveyronnais, where I first attended, and then moved on to Aubervilliers, which is a town with a large Kabyle population.

Kabyle musician Malik Kazeoui in Aubervilliers open mic

I attended open mics there weekly for around six months – sometimes even twice per week – and had all sorts of interesting experiences, including once when the mayors of the twinned cities of Iena in Germany and Aubervilliers attended one of the open mics. Zayen had a small success with a song called Baden-Baden, about a Kabyle refusing to fight in WWII, and then returning to his country and passing on his story there.

Kabyle singer Malik Kazeoui singing in French in Aubervilliers open air open mic

In recent months I made contact with Zayen again, finding that he was now an elected politician connected to the new mayor’s party in Aubervilliers, while he remains a professional musician with growing success. In fact, his small association has also grown since it was founded in 2008, and we recently met with it and another Berber association in Aubervilliers to share ideas.

Zayen’s song Baden Baden

On Wednesday, though, it felt like old times as Zayen invited me to play at the “open mic” in the street, organized to celebrate an afternoon snack, music and poetry, at this holiday period with everyone in the neighbourhood. I took along my Gibson J200 and sang five songs, and then gave my guitar to another musician, Malik Kazeoui, and he played some kabyle songs and something in French.

French singer singing song about Aubervilliers in Aubervilliers

It was freezing cold, but I took off my coat and played hard and kept warm. It turned out to be a wonderful moment too thanks to an excellent quality of sound system and soundman support, provided by the same technicians from the Espace Renaudie, with whom I worked to show my film of Eugenio Barba a few weeks ago. That was a complete surprise for us all, as they had only known me as the journalist who interviewed Barba on film, or the man connected with TAC Teatro in its performance of Ajamola.

For me the most touching moment was when a five-year-old boy approached the stage after I had sung one or two songs and he handed me 1 centime as payment for my singing – or perhaps it was a signal to get me off the stage? In any case, I thanked him and told him that it was more money than I had earned in five years off the streaming rights to my CD, “Out of a Jam.”

Check out the videos to get a taste of this neighborhood event in Aubervilliers!

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Playing with Layth Aldaene on his Oud in Abu Dhabi 10 years Ago

November 17, 2022
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Laythe Aldaene

PARIS – Today I stumbled on a recording I did in Abu Dhabi exactly 10 years ago and I wanted to post it again to mark the occasion. It was one of my musical adventures following the Formula One season as a journalist, and that year, 2012, I had set myself the goal of recording a song with a local musician in every one of the 20 or so countries that I visited. The idea was a real challenge, and I think I succeeded in my goal, but unfortunately the sound quality of the recordings was not of CD-level quality. But what a treasure to find this one of a star oud player and musician living in Abu Dhabi named Layth Aldaene, who is an Iraqi, and who is still playing around the area and farther afield, including recently with a symphony orchestra. I decided to post this today because this weekend is also that of the season-finale 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Formula One, so it seemed a great moment to post.

This recording took place in the House of Oud, which was a community center and workshop for building ouds, teaching the oud, spreading oud culture and everything else oud that you can imagine. I suggest you check out Layth Aldaene’s web site, as it has lots of his amazing music on it, and some cool videos.

I chose as a song to play my song “Let Me Know,” which I always felt had a middle eastern sound to it. In fact, I had written it purposefully with a middle eastern sound – although the guitar chord progression had itself been given to me by Laurent Guillaume, with whom I recorded the song on my CD.

Layth Aldaene in action

In any case, this recording was done in the workshop of the House of Oud and you can hear the luthier actually working on an oud while we play the song, and read more about it on the post I did at the time. This was a real jam of my song, as we had never rehearsed it.

Also, FYI, here is a link to the song as I recorded on my CD (with Laurent Guillaume doing the lead guitar):

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One Thing Again Leads to Another at the Chiringuito Jam in Scopello

August 26, 2022
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Babel Tower Logo

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – It seems not to matter how many times I live this lesson, I always come close to forgetting it – only to relive it and learn it again. A few weeks ago I wrote of my experience at the Chiringuito jam in Scopello, Sicily. I wrote about how one good thing leads to another good thing – and vice versa. I missed the last few jams on Wednesday nights at Chiriniguito for various reasons – a cold, a more important meeting, and, yes, inertia. I was almost going to let inertia steer me away from it again this time, but didn’t, and the reward was huge, and unexpected – as usual!

We had planned to have dinner in Scopello at the Nettuno restaurant with Ornella’s family Wednesday and then head off to the jam. But the dinner started late, many more family members arrived, and conversation and good cheer began to take over and extend the time at the table, and reduce the potential time at the jam. Then, as with the last outdoor restaurant meal with the family – last week – a sudden downpour of rain began. It never rains here in the summer. It’s not supposed to. Will not, does not. Unless we have a family gathering or a jam session to attend.

The conversation, family get-together and rain all persuaded me by midnight that I was going to miss the jam session again, and I was going to miss it for valid reasons. I had my guitar ready in the trunk of the car, I had made the “effort,” but it had failed. Once again. Then at about two minutes past midnight, Ornella said to me: “You are going to miss the jam! Go and play, Brad. Don’t worry about us.” In fact, I had been told that many of the members of the family had come to see me play, but I suppose inertia had settled in there too….

I decided not to let that get me down, and in any case, I fully expected to go to the jam – a few minutes’ walk away from the Nettuno – and find that it had been packed up, closed down, over with, all thanks to the downpour, which could have short-circuited all the guitar amps and everything else. There, I thought, I would have my excuse. Part of me had the jitters about playing the jam again also because it had gone so well the first time, and I had had so much fun, that I expected it would fall flat this second time.

I got my Gibson J-200 from the car trunk and went to the jam. It was bopping big time. The stage was curiously dark and wet, but there were musicians on it, playing to a vast crowd of manic spectators jumping up and down in delight at the front of the stage. Michelangelo, the jam organiser and MC, immediately saw me with my guitar on my back at the front right corner of the stage and he approached: “Brad, we had a problem tonight with the rain cutting out a lot of things, and we had to set up all over again, and try to make it work after that…. anyway, the point is, I had to change the format a little: You only get one song. And you are up next.”

Man! I could not say no to that. I had no more excuses! And anyway, I started feeling the pulse of excitement of the idea of going up and playing just one song and if it all failed, I had my excuse there too! I just finished a massive bacon and cheese burger, a massive chocolate Sunday, got wet in the rain, came over to the jam, had one song and got up with no warming up!

I got the Gibson out, waited, when the guy finished, I climbed up on the stage where someone said: “What chords?” I realised it was one of the other musicians – turned out to be the bass player – and he wanted to know what chords I would use for my one song. I didn’t even know what my song would be. I had, in advance, been planning three: “Crazy Love,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” and “Wicked Game.” I thought for a moment about the simplest of them, but also I decided to go for a contrast to the crowd pleasing, foot-stomping, fast-moving, singalong song of the guy onstage before me. I chose “Wicked Game,” by Chris Isaak. It is just three chords from beginning to end, and there can be plenty of room for the jamming of the harmonica and lead guitar between verses on those three chords.

I whipped through the song with huge pleasure – and a few rough spots – and then got off the stage fast. It seemed to go fairly smoothly, and the others had lots of room to jam. I blew my voice out a little, since I had a bit of a problem hearing myself and so I forced it too much, but in all, I was really happy to have done it, and I was happy to have been able to do it fast during what was clearly a difficult night for the organiser – with that rain storm!

Now here is where the real story starts: I got off the stage and began packing my guitar away in its case when a guy approaches and starts speaking English and congratulating me. He turned out to be another musician, a drummer, and he asked if I played professionally. I said no, and asked him if he did. He said he did, and that he was also studying jazz drumming at the conservatory. But he said his band was playing in Castellammare soon, and so I should come and listen. The band, he said, was called Babel Tower. It turned out that they had played recently at Picolit, where my musical adventure began last month.

Babel Tower in Castellammare del Golfo

We talked for some time about music, his life, and the band playing around Sicily. I was still a little breathless after performing, and I had to go and find Ornella’s family. So we parted without exchanging contacts.

Then Ornella and I later in the evening went to the Picolit Pub in Castellammare, and I tried to remember the name of the band that this drummer played in, so I could speak to one of the owners of Picolit about it. Since they have a lot of bands there, she had no idea! But then I looked at the names of the bands that have played there recently, and I recognized the name “Babel Tower.” I then found the Instagram page of the band, and looked at the photos and…there I saw the photo of the guy I spoke to at the jam session.

I returned to the owner, told her it was this band, and she said: “Oh yes!!! And by the way, the singer of the band is sitting at the table beside yours!” Unsure whether I should speak to the singer of Babel Tower and tell him I had just met one of the other band members, it was again Ornella who pushed for this. I decided that, yes, I’d love to know the name of the drummer I met and maybe send him a message on Facebook.

So we approached the singer of the band, and we explained the situation. He gave me the link to the Instagram page of the drummer of the band and I followed it. Then, we got involved in more conversation with the singer, pulled our chairs over to his table, and after some minutes of talk, it began to dawn on both Ornella and the singer that they knew each other! They had not seen each other for 15 years or so, but they realized that he had been one of Ornella’s sister’s best friends! And as it turned out, he had long been trying to make contact with her, but as she no longer lives here, he had not found out how to communicate.

Another bit of Babel Tower

This happy situation then led eventually to the singer inviting me to play with Babel Tower at their next gig, in a small town not too far from here on Saturday night! Now, let us remember and realize and think about all of these happy repercussions that came form a moment’s decision as to whether I should or should not make the effort to play at the jam! Had I done the easy thing and just sat back lazily, I would never have met these musicians, never had the fun of playing the jam, never been offered to play this weekend, and Ornella and her sister would never have met this old friend! Astounding what action, and music, can do!

Babel Tower, I learned, plays nearly 300 dates per year throughout Sicily, doing all manner of rock, pop and reggae. I suggest you look them up and give a listen! And maybe you will discover something that will change your life too!

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