I did all I could to make it to the Wednesday night open jam session at the Kooperatif in Istanbul last Wednesday because I wanted to see it, but also because I thought it could be my only chance of playing music in Turkey in the four nights I was there. That, as it turned out, was to misjudge the Kooperatif and its genial man-behind-the-concept, Safak Velioglu.
As it turned out, I dropped by on the Thursday night with some new friends, and when the band stopped playing, I asked Safak if I could play a few songs for my new friends – just sitting at my table. “Of course,” he said enthusiastically, “I’ll turn off the music.” (He had turned on a recorded background music after the band.)
I also told Safak that I wanted to interview him for a podcast for this blog, as I have been doing in every country I visit this year. He agreed, but preferred if I return on the Friday night. So I accepted happily, because I love the vibe at the Kooperatif. I also had one or two other venues I wanted to check out in the area on Friday, so I brought my guitar.
Almost as soon as I entered the Kooperatif on Friday, despite there not being a live band hired for that night – there usually is – one of the musicians with whom I had played on the Wednesday asked if I wanted to play later on. Of course I agreed. But first, Safak and I jammed at the table where he sat near the bar, with him on a traditional Turkish stringed instrument – a kind of lute – and me on guitar. Then, I did my podcast with him all about the Kooperatif – which you can hear here.
Then, at around 11 PM, I went up on stage with that musician, and there began nearly three hours of us jamming, and most of it was to me leading the songs with my music, and the others joining in on guitar, drums and other percussion instruments. This was pure bliss. I could not believe I would end my short trip to Istanbul in such a wonderful and open jam and environment. I didn’t even get to check out the music in the other venues. No need!!!
I changed my program a little in Paris on Monday, visiting both the Coolin bar open mic and then the Galway Pub open mic, which I have not attended for a long time. Although I had fun things to do and sing in both places, please forgive me if that feels like 500 years ago and that I really want to talk more about Wednesday and Thursday night in Shanghai, China.
Fortunately my flight on Tuesday as in the afternoon, so I could do those two open mics in Paris, get home relatively early, sleep, and then spend the next more than 24 hours traveling to China by way of Dubai. I had about two hours sleep on the flight and immediately checked out upon arrival at my hotel in the Bund area of Shanghai whether or not the open mics I had done on the Wednesday night last year still existed. I figured that although I really wanted to go to bed, I would be far better off forcing myself to stay awake until late and especially, not missing the opportunity of an open mic in China.
I found out that one of them, Oscar’s Pub, no longer runs an open mic. But the other, the open mic at the Not Me bar, was advertised on the bar’s web site as happening that night. So I sped off to the Not Me, had a quick dinner of Shanghai braised porc at the Bao Luo restaurant and then went to Not Me. There was little waiting at the restaurant – a fabulous local icon of a place with huge high ceilings and voluminous dining room – and there was no waiting at the open mic either.
The Not Me is a superb bar that has not only a comfortable bar at the front, a lounge kind of room at the back, and an extensive club room in the back for DJs, parties, dance and other celebrations and inspired by the Cocoon club in Frankfurt.
The open mic has been going for just about a year, and I think I must have come to one of the first open mic evenings thee last year when I performed along with Sista Fay the Swede who I met in Paris and who was passing some time in Shanghai. This open mic is unusual in that the bar is owned and run by Chinese businessmen, and they have instigated the open mic even though they say it is not really part of Chinese culture. There is no MC, but anyone can come and play on a Wednesday night. I immediately played, in fact, I played two sets since it was not exactly overflowing with musicians.
Listen to the interview with one of the Not Me bar partners, Jacky, in my podcast interview, part of this year’s series of podcasts for the blog. Oh, and by the way, strange but when I introduce Jacky on the podcast I call the place the “Be There” bar, which is a Paris venue that I used to go to! You will actually hear me at the end give the place its correct name, “Not Me,” as well as asking Jacky for the meaning of the name….
Brad Spurgeon interviews Jacky, one of the organizers of the open mic at the Not-Me bar in Shanghai:
I was so pressed for time with all that travel and doing open mics that I had no time to write about Monday Wednesday nights’ open mics before I ran off to Bee Dee’s open mic/open jam last night. Bee Dee’s is run by an American, Jeffrey Davis, and is very much an American expat bar that might be located in the U.S. somewhere. But there is some Chinese clientele, and as a magnet for musicians, it also attracts some excellent Chinese musicians.
In fact, last night I almost immediately recognized the extraordinary Joe Chou even before he went up on stage for his set. I had met Joe Chou two years ago when I first started this blog, but I had met him at Oscar’s Pub and then played at his open jam session at the Melting Pot on the Monday. Joe had done some remarkable playing with my guitar, and he seemed to fall in love with it. Last night Joe tried it out again, as well as doing some of his very cool and deeply spaced-out stuff on a stratocaster. I wanted to play with Joe, and he had said we should, but we did not end up doing so.
Bee Dee’s just seemed to get better and better as the night progressed, and if I am still in Shanghai next Tuesday, which I am scheduled to be, then I will return again for more.
As regular readers of this blog may have noticed, I try to update the blog every day, and rarely go more than two days without a post. Unfortunately, I have so much to write about and have so little time at the moment that I will have to put off writing until tomorrow. But the post will potentially cover the activities of my last two nights and whatever happens to night. I have had little time because I performed at two open mics on Monday night in Paris and then traveled to Shanghai via Dubai and last night performed at an open mic in Shanghai, and interviewed the organizer. So I will report on all that and what I do tonight in Shanghai, and I will make available my podcast with the Shanghai guy, as part of my year’s new project of podcasts at the open mics around the world. Stay tuned!
The third night in Kuala Lumpur became in several ways a reflection of the night before – and just as amazing. I started off with a gig at the Frontera Mexican restaurant in the suburb. I had learned the night before that this was only five minutes or so drive away from rockaFellas, where I had played the night before after wending my way there via the failed gig and then the Backyard pub. So what happens Friday?
Russell Curtis, the owner of, and musician at, rockaFellas bar in Kuala Lumpur talks with Brad Spurgeon:
Remember that on Thursday I was invited to do a gig and the person who invited me called up and said she could not make it? And there was no one present at the gig venue? And I played anyway? Well, bizarrely, on Friday night I found myself a few hours before the gig at the Frontera learning that the guy who booked me could not show up. His excuse was very serious and I thanked him and wished him the best, and prepared myself for the gig – also knowing that if it was a disaster like the night before, I could make my way over to rockaFellas.
So I showed up at the Frontera and found the place bubbling with energy, customers, a kind staff and a nice sound system. And soon I was joined by a few people who had come last year when I played in the open mic at Frontera – which no longer exists. So I played for nearly an hour and a half in two sets, and had a great time. The neat thing about Frontera is that it is located in a shopping mall called Jaya One and so the restaurant opens up into the mall and you can see when people at nearby stores step out in the hall to listen to you singing, or others stop by out front and listen, and you know the whole time you play that you are not ONLY playing for the clients in the restaurant you are also playing to reach people down the halls and in the stores and drag them in to Frontera – where you can just sit and drink beer or other alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks too, if you want.
So I finished the gig and spoke for a while with my friends from last year – some music students and their teacher – and then they offered to take me over to rockaFellas.
There, I found the place moving with the full band of Russell Curtis, the singer, guitar player I mentioned the night before and who had brought me there from the Backyard. Russell had invited me to come around on the Friday to see the full band, and I did not regret it. They were great: Bass, two guitar players sharing lead and rhythm, and the drum player.
Then much to my surprise and delight, after I ate an excellent meal of Cantonese noodles – copious – Russell invited me to play a couple of songs again. So after their next set, I went up and started playing “Mad World” again, at his request. Halfway through the song, the bass player and Russell took to the stage and joined me. This time Russell played drums.
So we just cruised through that one and I headed directly into “Wicked Game,” which I thought would be simple enough for us to make our way through it adequately. The audience – much bigger and more party-minded than the day before – was really responsive, but especially on the next song.
It was like magic, Russell asked me to play “Cat’s in the Cradle,” although I have no idea whether he knew if I knew how to play it. So I proceeded to play the most upbeat version of “Cat’s in the Cradle” I’ve ever played, as I have never done it with a drummer and bass player.
There was only one thing that burned me, and that was how the jam was the most delightful, fun and cool thing I’d done so far on the visit, and because I was not prepared for it, I did not record it on my Roland R-26 as part of my project to record myself playing with the local musicians in every country I visit this year. Fortunately I did get that on a song the night before, but this was a golden opportunity lost.
Still, the purpose of this journey above all is those moments of delight on stage, and so that was more than fulfilled. I would not be the only “other” person joining the stage to jam with Russell and the band, as they called up another drummer and another singer after that.
As you will hear in the podcast interview I did with Russell, he opens his stage into not an “open mic,” but a jam session for friends and like-minded musicians. It’s part of the spirit I love and seek out in this open mic, open jam adventure.
On this worldwide open mic adventure I prefer to write about each place I play and discover in a post dedicated to that place. But I have been so active and so busy travelling and working that I have had a bit of a backlog. So today I decided I will write about the last two nights where I played – and I realized that, actually, given that the one on Tuesday was in a classic venue in Melbourne and the one on Wednesday was in a classic venue in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that contrast in itself was significant enough to give the post its own character.
Interview with Anthony Young, musician at the Empress Hotel open mic in Melbourne:
It is pretty representative of how wild and crazy this adventure can get, in fact, so worth writing about both together. My flight from Australia to Malaysia was not set to take off until 3:40 AM Wednesday morning. So I realized that I actually had another evening in which I could do an open mic in Melbourne. And even better, it was the classic open mic at the Empress Hotel, one of the longest lasting and finest open mics in Melbourne.
So I went there, ate a kebab – the messiest but one of the tastiest I have ever had – and watched the evening unfold in this wonderfully atmospheric pub, which I think has nothing to do with a hotel. I had discovered it two years ago, and wrote about it on the blog, but last year I was not in Melbourne on the Tuesday during the Grand Prix weekend, so I could not take part. I missed it.
The Empress is one of the most popular in the city, and it is very well organized – with an early sign-up in which you get to choose your playing slot – and an excellent sound system. You can play three songs, and the pub is laid out in such a way that you can sit at the small round tables and listen to the music, or you can duck out into the outdoor garden terrace and drink and talk a little while keeping an eye and ear on the music. There is also another room off to the side where you can go to talk, and still hear the music.
I recognized one of the acts from two years ago, but most of the people seemed entirely new. One of the very best of the performers came on near the end of the evening, and that was Anthony Young with his bright blue guitar. He played a kind of blues based first song in which the guitar playing and vocals really stacked up to a marvelous marriage of original sound and feeling. His second song was equally as good, both were his compositions.
In seeing him I was inspired suddenly to interview him for my podcast series. I decided that my original idea of interviewing the people who run the open mics should expand into interviewing everyone surrounding the open mic – musicians, spectators, beautiful bartender women…. Why limit it to the same thing all the time? That could get repetitious for the internaut. So I interviewed Anthony, and I’m glad I did – he had some interesting things to say about his music and the Melbourne music scene.
So eager was I to interview him that I ran out into the terrace area in the back and then ran after him at the bar and basically ran all over the place like a man out of control, with the result that when I found myself at the airport straightening out my guitar case for travel, I realized that I had left both my 60 euro guitar tuner and my 32 euro Steve Jobs biography – the great one by Walter Isaacson – in the Empress Hotel on the table where I had sat most of the night.
The biggest pain in that was that I was hugely taken by the Jobs book and only a third the way through. It would all turn out okay in the end, though, as the Jobs tome would have tipped the weight of my cabin luggage over the allowed 7 kilograms and I’d be in trouble. As it was I had to put some of the stuff into my suitcase to get through. THEN I found they were selling the Jobs book on the other side of customs, so I bought a new copy before boarding the flight. And I picked up where I left off.
This post has grown far, far too long, especially for the good of the next venue, which is the Backyard Pub in Kuala Lumpur. The Backyard is one of the top music venues in the city, perhaps THE most interesting of them all. I first played there last year, and so I immediately contacted the man in charge of booking acts there, Edmund Anthony, upon my arrival in Kuala Lumpur.
I had had a lousy night’s sleep on the flight, but nothing would stop me from visiting the Backyard. Edmund had seen me last year at an open mic in KL, and he invited me to do a set at the Backyard. This was a huge honor, given that the Backyard does NOT have an open mic, and that it features some of the best musicians and groups in Malaysia.
So yesterday, Edmund offered me a set and I took him up on it instantly. I managed to have a nap in the afternoon, woke up fully recharged, and I charged off to the Backyard. One of the interesting things about this place I s that it is quite far outside of the central downtown part of the city where most of the music venues exist. And yet people make the pilgrimage to this neighborhood pub to hear the great music and soak up the festive feeling.
Interview with Edmund Anthony, the artistic director of the Backyard Pub in Kuala Lumpur:
There was a good crowd there last night, and I started by having a wonderful noodle meal before performing my set on the splendid stage between about 8:55 and 9:55. After my performance there was a very cool three-piece cover band, called Bongga Bongga, that manages to produce some wonderful versions of all the songs we know, with two equally interesting vocalists, one on bass and the other on lead guitar.
Interview with Albert Sirimal, Malaysian musician, at the Backyard Pub in Kuala Lumpur:
The evening provided me with far too great an opportunity to miss in terms of my podcast project, so I interviewed Edmund and then I interviewed Albert Sirimal, a guitar player and vocalist for the five piece band that plays on Thursday nights. I wanted more of a feel for the Backyard within KL and for the music scene in Malaysia in general, and Albert gave me that.
In all, it was a fabulous night I will not forget, and I look forward to returning at the very latest next year – if the adventure continues – and maybe even this weekend. On the other hand, I seem to have two more gigs line up in the next two nights in KL so….
PS: For some reason of brain drain, in both of my interviews at the Backyard Pub I unrelentingly called the place the Backyard Cafe…. I cannot figure out why!
My intention today had been to report on both the Monday and Tuesday night open mics that I did in Melbourne. But time has caught up with me, I am now sitting in my hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and while I have a great Internet connection again FINALLY – after a week of crappy connections in Australia – I also now have a gig to perform tonight at the Backyard Pub in Kuala Lumpur. So time presses and I will only be able to report on my Monday open mic at Bertha Brown in Melbourne – but it’s worth it!
Interview with Shane Walters, MC of Bertha Brown open mic in Melbourne:
Had it not been for the slow Internet connection in my Best Western hotel in Melbourne I’d have had this up long ago…. But anyway…. I learned about the Bertha Brown open mic when I was performing at the Felix Bar open mic. That is the way these things go. You do one, you meet people, they tell you about other ones. One of the fabulous things about the Bertha Brown open mic is that they are VERY musician-friendly: They offer the performers a glass of beer and a wonderful pizza that makes a full meal.
The stage is wonderful, fairly large and high and well-lit; the bar/restaurant is huge, with two different wings; and the sound system is great. The open mic is run by a different person every month, but all the people who run it – the guest MCs – belong to a kind of musicians’ cooperative called Songwriters in the Round.
I did an interview with the MC, Shane Walters, as part of my series of interviews with the people involved in open mics around the world. But it was only after the interview that we made a connection. Shane had been practicing his French with me several times through the evening, even when presenting me on stage. And later I told him that one of my good friends in Paris was an Australian from Melbourne who ran an open mic, a guy named Stephen Prescott. (I added that Stephen had since moved to another European city.)
“Was that in an Irish pub?” said Shane.
I said it was, it was in the Galway. Shane then said that he not only played in the open mic at the Galway a couple of years ago when he went to Paris, but he stayed while in Paris at the home of a friend of Stephen’s. Man, talk about a small world!
And there were a lot of interesting acts, including an original guy who I had to equate in my mind as a “punk Bob Dylan.” That was Jack Gramski, and his songs for the most part were incredibly influenced by Bob Dylan, but with a cool angry punk delivery. (Just realized that the video I put up is not the most representative of that, though!)
