Firehouse, Austin
First Day in Austin, No Open Mic, and WordPress Ate my Words
October 22, 2015
A Sublime Rickie Lee Jones at the Bouffes du Nord – When You Could Hear Her
October 20, 2015
PARIS – I waited 36 years to see Rickie Lee Jones in concert, having bought her first album in 1979, when it was released, and having been hooked ever since. Last night I saw her in Paris, but I think I will still have to wait another 36 years before I get to hear her singing live. Attending a concert with virtually no sound on the vocals? Can this really happen? I don’t know. I do know that most open mics I attend every week in dive bars have better sound than what I “heard” at the Bouffes du Nord theater in Paris last night….
As soon as I noticed last week that she was playing at this old theater, a 7-minute walk down the street from my place in Paris, I bought the most expensive tickets in the house, two of them, one for me, one for my girlfriend. We’re both fans. I was a little too late to get seats on the floor, but as the seats in the “corbeille” were the same price as those on the floor – i.e., 51 euros each, or 102 in total – I decided that was probably just as good as the tickets for floor seats. I think I was wrong.
It was the first time I have gone to a show at the Bouffes du Nord, and I can say that this is one impressive theater in middle of Paris’s rough neighborhood of La Chapelle. You enter a nondescript building and find yourself facing what looks like a lost, inner theater that might have been built at the time of the Roman Coliseum. You then enter the theater itself and find what seems was built as much as an indoor circus as a theater to stage drama. It is all bricks, wood, has a fabulous open proscenium arch with a full view of the empty stage behind, a massive floor area extension of the stage (i.e., which is floor-level), and several balconies of seating in the round.
We sat on the first level of seating above the floor – to me it is a kind of balcony, but the theater calls it a corbeille, or basket. As we sat down, we were absolutely delighted to be above the stage, slightly stage-left. The view of the band, and of the central microphone where Rickie would sing was just perfect. I was sure we were better off there than on the floor….
Bouffes du Nord
Yes, readers of this blog will know that I have a mountain of worldwide experience playing in and even occasionally organizing, open mics in rowdy, lowd, crappy dive bars all over the world. Readers will also know that I rarely make complaints about the sound systems in said bars. In fact, I rarely have complaints to make, since most of the time a friendly and responsible organizer of an open mic will do his or her best to make sure that we can hear the vocals and instruments.
Last night, the Bouffes du Nord pretty much never got the sound right, with the exception of when Rickie went to the piano and sang and played from there. Suddenly, some eight or so songs into the show, she seemed to be able get right into the music, and so could we. In fact, the best thing I take away from the concert is the knowledge of just how professional she is, how fabulous her voice remains at 60 years old, and how cool her personality is on stage.
Having to deal with a venue that cannot get the sound right on one of the finest pop music vocalists of the last 36 years and letting down a near capacity crowd of 500 people paying 51 euros or 41 euros, is just the most extraordinary an unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen!
I should have done a bit of research on the theater beforehand, though, and I’d have realized that bizarre things are part of its history from the beginning, if this entry from wikipedia is to be trusted: “Founded in 1876, it had an erratic existence and seemed that it would never get off the ground. In its first decade it had no fewer than fifteen artistic directors, the most notorious being Olga Léaud who fled the theater after her production had failed, taking the contents of the theater safe with her.”
It seems it went on to have a fabulous and important period as the home of Peter Brook’s avant garde company, from 1974 until 2008. It is still partly a theater for drama production, and perhaps that is why the soundman was having so much trouble. I am used to not hearing guitars or vocals on loud, blaring rock bands, but not with the quiet, mostly laid back music of the band from Montreal that accompanied Rickie: There were five musicians (drummer, violin (and various strings and percussion), lead guitar, keyboards and bass) and it was all excellent accompaniment.
Rickie ran through more than an hour and a half set of songs from her oldest to the latest album (“The Other Side of Desire“), just out, and she did a magisterial job, but never, ever did the sound get done right. On “Chuck E.’s In Love,” not only did we barely hear the vocals from where I was sitting, but her amazing intro on her acoustic guitar was all but lost. On “Last Chance Texaco,” the mic was just totally out of sight, so there was no sense of being able to experience the extraordinary kind of performance that we find on a few youtube recordings of this performance.
Through it all, Rickie did the perfect “grin and bear it” act with smiles and non-stop efforts to get the soundman to please do his job. She did this through feedback from monitor, through the lead guitar player’s guitar coming through her monitor, through no voice through the monitor, through too much voice through the monitor. For me, at some points, from my vantage point, I felt I was ONLY hearing her voice through HER monitor … at those moments when it was stronger there.
When I left the show, outside the theater I spoke to a woman who had been in the front row on the floor, just wanting to hear her reaction. She immediately expressed sympathy for Rickie, saying it was really too bad she was having problems with her monitor, but she said that from her vantage point in the front row, she could hear the vocals and all the rest throughout the performance. She was, in fact, in pretty much the same line of sight and level as the sound engineer, who stood a little behind her, so there is a possibility that the sound engineer was in fact doing the best job with the audience vocals sound – not the monitor – that he could.
That would mean that the theater itself is to blame for the bad acoustics, and/or the lack of effort made at putting speakers high enough for the corbeille and balcony spectators to hear properly. I heard, but I have not been able to confirm, that in fact, the Bouffes du Nord has only recently decided to turn into a concert venue as well as a theater. If that is the case, then clearly it needs to make some investments in creating an adequate sound system for concerts, either that or cease to charge ticket prices of a top venue rather than making it free like a local bar with its open mic.
I do know that I was not the only one who felt bad for Rickie and her band. But I could nevertheless see enough through all of it, that in my wait of 36 years to see her live, I was not let down by her performance and the continuing strength of her voice – which part of the time was so strong I could hear enough of it without the mic to know it was still entirely there.
To Russia, With No Guitar – I Won’t Back Down
October 7, 2015
Sochi
I love Turkey, I love Istanbul, and I’ve had nothing but good experiences with Turkish Airlines. That’s why I decided to take Turkish Airlines to Sochi, since, as it turns out, it is also the cheapest way there from Paris: Paris – Istanbul, Istanbul – Sochi. In fact, the flight last night after midnight from Istanbul to Sochi was about 98 percent booked by Formula One paddock people, drivers, team staff and media. So I’m not the only one who has discovered the Turkish Airlines way to Russia (with love).
But as it has been many years since I flew on Turkish Airlines, and I have my paces all set out for most of the other countries I fly to, and as I’m aware that of all of the world’s airports, Charles-de-Gaulle, in Paris is one of the most difficult ones for a musician with a guitar to pass through, I decided to check out the Turkish Airlines site for its baggage policy before I left.
I was also spurred on to doing this because I noticed that in my international flight on my electronic ticket, it said I could take 30 kilograms of baggage – which is wonderful, since I’d be well under 30 kilos even with the guitar in a hard case. But I then noticed that there was a special policy for lepers. Sorry, I mean musicians. It said that if you really wanted to take your guitar onboard – i.e., if the instrument exceeded cabin baggage size – you had to buy a seat.
This all seemed pretty absurd. So I decided to call up Turkish Airlines at the airport in Paris and query. They took my name, checked my ticket, and told me to wait, that they would look into it. Actually, no, they did answer one of my questions, which was, if I have 30 kilos of baggage, can I divide that into two pieces. They said I could divide it into as many pieces as I wanted, but that, oh, if one of those pieces happens to be a guitar, then I might have to pay an excess luggage fee.
Off the woman went, and when she returned, she confirmed that I would have to pay about 15 euros per kilo of that excess luggage. In fact, it was NOT excess luggage, it was just a guitar. I explained that with my main bag and the guitar – which would weigh 7 kilos, hard case included – I would have a total of 24 kilos in the flight, which is well under the 30 kilos allowed.
The woman told me that it made no difference, since one of the pieces of luggage was a guitar, I had to pay out of my nose for the privilege of taking it with me to Russia on Turkish Airlines, i.e., a minimum of 105 euros extra…and I’m not actually sure if I had to pay the 105 both ways, or if that covered the entire return trip. And I no longer cared, because 105 euros to take my guitar which is NOT excess luggage, for me was not just torture of a musician, it was also a sum I cannot afford.
One of my journalist colleagues, upon hearing this story last night at the airport upon arrival, reminded me that he had seen me singing and playing my guitar in Sochi last year, at a pub, and that I had sung Tom Petty’s, “I Won’t Back Down.” I was impressed with his memory, but I was suddenly less impressed with myself, as I said to him that this year, I had just backed down. I had backed down from Turkish Airline’s extortionate practices against guitar carrying musicians. But on the other hand in a way, I did not back down. I was not going to let the airline make me pay a vast sum of money that they did NOT deserve.
But so here I am on a rainy day in Sochi, and missing my guitar like hell. Maybe I’ll find an open mic, though, and play someone else’s guitar….
PS, Last year I did the same trip with Aeroflot via Moscow. It was more expensive, and Moscow Airport was a little too crowded for my liking. But both the Aeroflot people and the people at the Moscow Airport were super cool about my guitar, allowing me to take it into the cabin, and even, at the airport, asking me if I wanted to go up and play some music on the stage that was being constructed behind me in the airport for some upcoming concert.
PPS, I keep on having these urges, where I am sitting at my computer, and I want to turn around and grab my guitar for a few chords and songs…. Have to keep stopping myself….
How Not to Run an Open Mic – a Visit to Belushi’s in Paris
August 10, 2015
Belushi’s Crimée Paris
I was keenly looking forward to attending Belushi’s last night, having taken the first opportunity available to go since I learned last week that the open mic still existed for sure. I had put it on, and then taken it off and then put it back on my Thumbnail Guide of Paris open mics and jam sessions over the years, ever since my first attendance four or five years ago, as it came and went. But I was not 100 percent sure it was still happening until last week.
So last night I took the 15-minute walk from my place to the open mic and got there at 21:45. The first thing I saw was that it had moved from the basement room to the main ground floor, and that this was its true natural place: The open mic was just going mad. With two or three musicians running the open mic, a bass player and guitarist there to accompany singers in live karaoke style, or the sound system given over to guitar player singers like me, it was just a riotous affair, with the massive crowd of youth hostel people in attendance, as well as musicians and spectators from all over.
I recognized several musicians whom I have seen at various other open mics around the city, and I realized immediately that Belushi’s had become a big magnet for an open mic over the years. This was not doubt largely due to the crew running it, what looks to me like an “outsourced” trio of musicians who apparently operate both Belushi’s Crimée and Belushi’s Gare du Nord.
Anyway, I sought out the presenters of the open mic, and told them I’d like to play if I could. They said, “Absolutely, you have to sign up on the list.” I was immediately taken for a foreigner – with my English accent – and spoken to in English and asked where I came from, and what I’d do – i.e., guitar and singing.
So I gave my name, and went and bought a pint of beer for 6 euros and waited. Another musician I know told me I’d probably get to play around midnight, as there was apparently a long long list. Later, though, around 22:30, while speaking to another musician I know, he had come at around 21:30 and signed up then, and had played there several times in the past, he told me that I’d probably play within the next 15 or 20 minutes.
I watched the crazy night unfold, and I must say, this is a place where you should not go and expect to be listened to. It is mostly about people talking at full volume, carousing, laughing, dancing, and singing along only when there is a raucous well known pop song crowd pleaser – or some sort of visually cool or weird performer.
But the musicians who ran the show clearly worked like hell to do everything they could for the performers, and to keep the show moving. They also continued announcing throughout the evening that it was an open mic and that anyone who wanted to sing should come and speak to them to sign up on the list.
Or rather, they did that spiel until 23:30, at which time they suddenly announced that because the open mic had to be finished at precisely midnight – this was the first time that fact was announced, and it is not written on the posters I saw – each singer would now only be able to do one song, and not two as usual. Still, I kept seeing certain singers – doing backing and accompanying – who had gone up several times each, and I also thought that if they are reducing it to one song, they know what they are doing, and although there was only half an hour left, I’d still get up to sing a single song.
I was a bit pissed off at that, but I accepted it as a fairly common thing to happen at open mics. Still, I had had a big debate with myself before going out on the Sunday night, because I’ve got a huge amount of work to do starting now for my day job – despite being on vacation – and I knew that if I stayed at home I’d get a lot done. The guy I know who came in at 21:30 told me that he had to get up early the next morning to go to his job, and he really hoped that he had not wasted his whole night.
But as the time creeped up on us, that midnight bell, it became more and more clear that there would be no room for me or the several others who had been fished into signing our names on the list, fished into buying beers – I bought two pints (12 euros) plus left at 1 euro tip on one of them = 13 euros – all on the promise of playing. I had long since given up the idea that I would drink the free beer they would give me for playing.
So when at nearly the strike of midnight – perhaps 23:57 – the two musician presenters of the show announced that no one else would go up to sing a song, that the show had come to an end, and perhaps we’d have better luck the next time we came, and – here’s a clincher – they would themselves just sing one more song to close the show, well, you can imagine that I went through the ceiling.
I was upset at having been used, misled, and cheated. But I was also actually very upset for all the other musicians who had signed up and could not play. Imagine? The guy I knew was there for 2 and a half hours and during all that time they kept asking people to sign up on the list!?!? I had been there for 2 hours and 15 minutes, and waiting, and drinking.
In all of my travels around the world attending open mics for six years, I have never ever ever encountered this kind of manipulation or simply bad organization. My feeling is that it was complete manipulation, and that it was intended to keep as big a crowd in the pub as possible for as long as possible. It does not take any higher level of humanity to understand that the way musicians SHOULD be treated is the way I find it in open mics all over the world: If you arrive too late to have a realistic chance of performing, the organizers tell you immediately “I’m not sure you can get on tonight, the list is too long.” Or: “I’ll put you on the list, but I really think there is no chance, but I’ll keep you informed as soon as I can as to whether there is a chance.” Or: “Sorry, but there are too many people on the list, please come earlier next time.” Or they start giving each person just one song instead of two early enough that everyone can play. Or they limit the list to a number they know can play.
I was so outraged, as I said, that I took the microphone just when there was a break in their presentation of their final song, and I said to the public that I had never seen such bad treatment of musicians in any open mic anywhere in the world, and that I travel the world attending open mics. There were some angry shouts from the audience, and one of the organisers said to me, in defence of the poor MC musicians: “They’re only doing their job!” Well, no, I responded, they are NOT doing their job.
Or if their job consists of manipulating their fellow struggling musicians into staying in the pub and making up numbers even when they know they will never get behind the mic, then they deserve the middle-finger treatment I gave to them before I left.
I was certainly taken for a lunatic by many in the room – especially the majority who did not speak the French I used – and certainly many would say, “Hey, are you that desperate to play? It’s just an open mic!” But my response is, this blog is “just” about open mics too, and I “just” have to be true to what I hear and see when writing about them. I hardly ever say anything at all negative about open mics on this site, because in general I don’t find any reason to do so. But I want my readers to know that I don’t feel one thing and write another; so I had to write this rant.
I’ll not return to Belushi’s as long as that unfair, incompetent and manipulative system remains in place. But if you do get to go early enough to get on stage, I can assure you, there appears to be much fun going on behind the mic! And much of that is thanks to the hard working, but misguided, musicians running the show….
PS, although I spent part of the evening taking videos of the performances as I always do, I have no desire to put them up on the blog this time, both to not promote the open mic, as well as to not show who the organizers are.
A Not-Film-Review: Asif Kapadia’s Documentary: “Amy”
July 9, 2015
Amy
I had been looking forward enormously to seeing Asif Kapadia’s documentary film about Amy Winehouse for many for strong reasons. One was because I had become a fan of Kapadia’s work through his film about Ayrton Senna, from 2010, which I had been drawn to and wrote about in my professional capacity as a journalist of Formula One racing, but not as a critic, and I was very keen to see what Kapadia would do as a follow up to that. My interest there was that having interviewed the filmmaker at the time of the Senna film, I remembered strongly him describing how one of the biggest challenges and pleasures of making the Senna film was that he was forced to use footage that was all taken by someone else, as Senna had long since died.
So here was a filmmaker who also said that one of his biggest concerns in making a film was an overall “look” to the film, using television footage, family footage, and just whatever footage he could get – press conferences, etc. – to string together a dramatic narrative and to somehow make sure that the whole held together as if emanating from the same central source. With Amy, I realized as soon as I heard about it, Kapadia would have the same challenge, except with a completely different subject matter, and at a much later time in history, when there would likely be a lot more better quality footage than there was of Senna, given the spread of handheld personal cameras, cell phone cameras, as well as the amazing TV and concert footage that would have existed surrounding one of the most popular pop stars of the last decade.
But obviously, I had another thing that interested me here, and that was that this was a musician as subject matter, and one whose music and voice I love, and whose life and death touched me, as I knew it through the media, and videos, etc. In fact, I recalled the day I learned of her death, when I had just arrived in Cologne, Germany, for the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, in July 2011, in that same year that I was carrying around several cameras and recording devices with me to record my year on the worldwide tour of open mics and jam sessions, and creating the footage I am still editing today, for my own documentary!! (That day I put up on this blog the only post ever in which I said absolutely nothing, giving it the title: “A Blog Post of Silence for Amy Winehouse.” Today I’m making up for the silence with far, far too many words.)
I was also, therefore, very keen to see how Kapadia would make a music documentary, as well, using music footage – and crappy quality videos by friends and family – and blending the whole thing together into a comprehensive narrative.
Amy publicity photo
So how did it all pan out, then, in terms of fulfilling my expectations, or giving me things I did not expect, etc.? The first thing I want to say, is that like the Senna film, I will definitely go back to watch Amy again, and maybe even more than once. Unlike with the Senna film, I will be doing that with Amy simply because I enjoyed the film and really want to experience it all again to further my understanding of her, of the film, and simply to live it all over again. Quite simply because I know I loved the film. With the Senna film, as someone who knew the subject matter as a professional Formula One journalist, knew the subject matter like the back of my hand, and who already had copious opinions of my own about Senna, and the Senna-Alain Prost battle, and someone who had seen much of the actual footage over the years before it was shaped into a dramatic film, it took me several viewings of the film to decide that I did really indeed like the film. It had been highly rated everywhere, and when I first saw it, I admit to a little bit of a let down, in terms of, “Why has there been so much fuss about this??” I believe the reason was because for me Senna was not news, but for the general public, he was a sudden discovery.
With Amy, on the other hand, there are probably a lot of people who were close to her who have criticisms of the film, and surprises, and things that they expected to see that are not there, etc. But I could not have those ideas, not knowing anything about her. Well, except for a few general gut-reactions, such as, for instance, is it really possible that a diva like Amy could be such a “nice” character? She is only really nasty once in the film, when she has been let down by her father who appears on holidays with a camera crew, and all she wanted was to see him; so when he asks her to sign an autograph of a couple of tourists, she does so, but makes a nasty, cutting comment to the couple. I just find it a little hard to believe that such a complicated and emotional character as Amy did not also have some very nasty, angry, cutting sides to her in her personal life – and we don’t see them. On the other hand, I’m ready to accept that she was just a doll, a victim, a sad person manipulated by everyone around her, who finally succumbed to her helplessness.
That’s possible; and her hopping from guy to guy even while married is certainly not a sign of a pleasant character, but it remains unexplored in the film.
Kapadia weaves together an incredible narrative in Amy with “found footage”
Having said that, those were really my only expectations that were let down, and the beauty of this film is that Kapadia has gathered together in an even more masterful manner than with Senna the film footage and woven together a story that makes us feel really like we are living intimately with Amy Winehouse in her world. There are many moments in this film where we feel as if the scenes were shot by a director for the purpose of the story. It is exceptional for a film made of “found footage.” I’m talking, for instance, about intimate moments of film footage in cars with friends, just playing around; or when she is with her husband Blake, and talking in front of the camera as they walk down the hall of some building about the great moment to come of escaping to a toilet to make love. (The language is more raw than that, by the way.) It really feels like you’re with her, in the life of Amy.
The way he used the various qualities of footage was also a revelation for me, or no, not a revelation, but a reassurance: As someone said to me a few years ago when I was depressed about the lousy quality of some of my documentary’s footage, it’s the story’s subject matter that counts the most in a documentary, and the audience is ready to forgive a lot of bad quality if the subject is interesting enough. That person said something to the effect of what was the most electrifying, most watched and crappiest film footage that ever existed?: Neil Armstrong taking a first step on the moon in July 1969.
And that is what really shines through this documentary for me from beginning to end; the story is riveting. It is a tragedy, it is a success story, it is a beautiful woman with a giant talent, and unrealized potential. Dying young, at 27 (yes, like Joplin, Morrison, Hendrix, and others), like Senna at 34.
And the music in all of this? The moments of Amy singing just shine through in a way that feels as if there is a kind of light from somewhere else in the universe that suddenly materializes and carries us away through her enormous vocal and emotional talent, shining in and cutting through the chaos and horror and sadness that was her daily life. A victim of a bad upbringing, a crappy boyfriend, manipulative father, well-meaning managers who just didn’t have a clue, through it all came this electrifying, pure and monumental voice and music.
General feelings at the end of the Amy Winehouse film by Kapadia
Which is made all more exceptional when we see her incapable of being able to sing on a stage in a concert she did not want to do after a period of good health and during a moment when she no longer wanted to sing the same songs from “Back to Black,” but wanted to advance and move forward. And the extraordinary footage with Tony Bennett when they are recording and the first thing she sings comes out sounding like some of the great female vocals of all time, and she stomps off, saying something like, “Oh, I can’t do this, I’m sorry, it’s terrible…” He rassures her, and she says, “I have to get it right….” It reminded me once again about how little good great talent ever did to the possessor of it….
The end feeling for me was, “if only.” Yes, I ended up feeling after the film the same way I did in July 2011, “If only” some little thing had happened that led her to an insight into how to live a liveable life, but still to produce great music. It makes you wonder if that is possible, but the answer is that she wrote Back to Black in a period of lucidity, not in a time of drugs to the point of overdose, and partying in Camden Town amongst the destructive “friends” who were incapable of doing anything to help her find her way.
OK, this blog post is really, really rambling now. The best thing to do is to go and see this film. Maybe you will agree with my thought that another thing this film has over the Senna film is that Amy Winehouse’s soundtrack is certainly more accessible to a larger public than the music of a Formula One engine from the 1990s….
Not So Grumpy About Grumpy’s Open Mic Anymore….
June 3, 2015
grumpys montreal
Well, last night at Grumpy’s open mic, which mixes comedy and music, I decided to set myself up for the ordeal again. Grumpy’s bar is one of the rare places I’ve taken part in a comedy and music open mic, by the way, and last night it got far, far worse than usual, as 95 percent of the acts were comedy, with just a small handful of musicians, most of whom were tagged on at the end. But something I did not expect happened last night.
I’m really sorry to be so nasty in saying this, but my feeling – and maybe it was warped, since I was sitting in a back room, freezing from the winter breeze wafting in all night – last night was that there is a situation in which the comedy night can turn in the favour of the sensitive, suffering musician. That situation is when the comedians have failed to send the audience off the deep end of laughter and delight.
Was it just my imagination, or was there a lot of off-colour, not-so-funny comedy at Grumpy’s last night? Am I just being Grumpy? I’m really sad to say no one sent me to the floor dying of laughter. OK, that’s what an open mic is for; I recall many an act at the original Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto in the mid-70s being not so funny – and others, killing us, of course – and look how many great acts came out of that movement? (Howie Mandel, Mike MacDonald, Jim Carrey, Rick Moranis, to name just a few.) But last night, was I really just too Grumpy about the cold and being a minority as a musician, that I was not rolling on the floor with laughter a single time?
So that, much to my delight AND surprise, by the time it was my turn behind the mic, I found myself facing not an aggressive, angry audience, but not either an audience that had washed out its emotions of all pent up whatever, but an audience that was ready to break out and release some emotions. Still, I felt that it was not the moment for calm sensitive stuff, and I tried to crack a few jokes myself, like repeating that one from Monty Pythons (or wherever) about the folk musician who goes up on stage and says: “I suffered for my music, now it’s your turn.” (No one got it.) And then I laid into my song Borderline, as a warm up. The joke on that was that if all humour is at someone’s expense, and that song was at my expense, then it must be humorous….
OK, so after that, I said to myself, this audience wants to break out: So I sang “What’s Up!” and then “Mad World” and to my great, great delight, the whole place sang along and several couples danced along in front of the stage. They were ready for ANYTHING that moved by that point!
And as it turned out, there were some very cool musical acts to follow, primarily an acapella group of women from Sweden – who did not want me to put up my videos of them, but said I could put up their promo videos, which I flatly refused (does the New York Times print press releases instead of doing real reporting????) and then a very funny and entertaining song and dance man from Japan.
In the end, I found that what had started as a catastrophic night, primarily because I wasn’t ready to laugh, ended up a fabulous, warm experience, and great for the ego too…. In fact, I left feeling not grumpy at all. And I can thank the comics for that….
Crappy Time at the Jam Bar, Great Time at Le Volume – First Night in Nice
May 20, 2015
Le Volume
I had, as I said, played at the Jam in the past, and I had loved the feeling, the whole thin, and I believe I had been treated OK – although I do remember a long wait even in the past. But last night? It was one of those situations where you arrive and shake hands with someone at the edge of the stage who seems to be in charge, but he says he is not in charge and sends you to “the guy with the hat” behind the bar. The guy with the hat, moment he hears your English accent in otherwise excellent French, starts speaking to you in English – and puts you in the category: English tourist.
Once in that category, I was doomed. It’s funny because in Paris I blend in with the cosmopolitain population; but here in Nice I never fail to feel like every local I speak to is fed up with meeting another “English tourist” and even when I carry out several exchanges in near perfect – but accented French – they still don’t believe I’ve lived most of my adult life in Paris and I am NOT a tourist in this country!
Anyway, so the guy with the hat feeds me a line when I ask about how I can take part in the jam: “Well, sure, yeah, just buy a drink and go and sit down and wait. The guy who does my sound set up isn’t here at the moment and he’ll have to take care of you and your guitar.”
So I buy the drink, and I go and sit at the front of the stage. And over the half hour I’m sitting there, I’m seeing one new musician after another enter the Jam bar and take to the stage – with guitars, with keyboards, for vocals, you name it. Saxophone, trumpet. Cajon. Just climbing up on the stage. And I’d already spoken before dinner to the drummer and bass player, and they saw me sitting at the table at the front of the stage with my guitar. So everyone knew that I was there to take part in the jam, but guess what? I was not a regular. The others were all known to each other.
And so it was that I discovered “Le Volume” – a fabulous musical association in Nice
Is that the idea of a free and open jam and open mic – as advertised on the Jam bar’s site? Not for me! So I got fed up and didn’t even finish the costly beer. I did a search on my iPhone and discovered to my amazement, that there was a jam session at a place I’d never heard about, going on right then, called, “Le Volume.” So that was it. I said, “Go to Le Volume. It can’t be worse than this!”
And boy was I right! I crossed town using my iPhone GPS and found Le Volume in a part of town where I never played before – facing the old town, but in the city center, on the opposite side of the tracks – and I found this stupendous place devoted to live music. My first thought was that it reminded me of the place I did the open mic in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago, because like Freedonia in Barcelona, Le Volume is an association. You have to buy a membership and leave your name and address. But don’t worry, the membership costs 2 euros and lasts a year!
I entered the building to find, like at Freedonia, two different venues in one. But unlike Freedonia, where one stage was for comedy and the other for music, here at Le Volume, it’s all music. The rooms are on one side for an acoustic jam session, and on the other side for an electric jam session, complete with drums, electric bass, etc. The acoustic jam was in full swing when I arrived.
Watch out, this is like a real underground sort of musical space where you don’t really have an audience and musicians separated by a stage and seating area. This is like two open-space performance areas divided by the central room where, like at Freedonia, there is a bar with cheap beer selling for 2 euros. (Or was it 2.50?? Can’t remember!)
As you’ll see from my videos, it was pretty free-form, but people were doing songs nevertheless, and anyone could join in, both the acoustic and electric areas. I felt complete acceptance by everyone – unlike at the Jam bar – and I joined in and did a few songs in the acoustic jam, on which I had people playing the cajon and bongos, and violin, and another guitar, and helping out on vocals too.
It felt very much like the kind of scene I have found in places like in Budapest with its Szimpla Kert jam sessions; or even a real sort of hippie feel too it.
The Volume also puts on concerts and the music faculty in the local university here is doing some demonstration soon of the fruits of its students’ work this year. So Le Volume is a really multi-purpose musical association, an just a great place to go and jam. OK, it’s not the night club feel of the Jam bar, but for me the important thing was feeling welcome! I’ll return!
P.S. The jam session usually takes place on Wednesdays, but due to a concert overlap thing, they ran the jam session on Tuesday night this week. There is also a rap open mic on Friday….
Bits of News from Shanghai – Breaking Through the Great Firewall & Les Yeux Ouverts
April 11, 2015
Shanghai, China
I just simply wanted to say that I have been in China since Wednesday, and I have not posted partly out of discouragement from the necessary pains trying to do so, and partly because I have not actually attended any open mics so far on this visit. I intend to attend open mics in the next two days, though, hopefully two open mics. And I will duly report on those. Both will be new experiences for me, as I have attended neither of them in the past.
I have been playing LOTS of music in my hotel room, though, as my last couple of weeks or whatever it was in Paris, I did little playing thanks to a new neighbor who hates music, and thanks to my own other occupations. So I have been going absolutely crazy playing in my hotel room with Shanghai lit up 18 floors beneath me.
My only other reason for posting is to mention on this blog a very worthwhile project that needs crowdfunding: My daughter, Emily, is working on an end-of-the-year short film project at her film school, the Ecole de la Cité, and she needs to raise a budget. The budget, it turns out, is a very real need. I spoke with her about where it goes, and if she is learning a lot at the film school, I’m learning a lot through her about what it takes to become a filmmaker – including where the budget goes!!! So go to her crowd fund-raising page and support her film: Yes Yeux Ouverts or what she is calling, Opening the Eyes in English. She has reached nearly 50 percent of her budget so far, and needs to get 100 percent, as you probably know in the principles of crowd fundraising.
Brad’s Morning Exercise Music Rundown, 9th Installment: Thomas Arlo, Paolo Alderighi (and Stephanie Trick), Juliette Jules, 3rdegree and Forebear
February 9, 2015
Sit Ups
The Morning Exercise Music Philosophy
As a reminder to readers, therefore, the idea behind this regular column is that for most of my life I avoided classic daily physical exercise because I felt I was able to avoid it and it bored me to death. In recent years, I had a kind of flash of aged inspiration and realized that I might bore myself to death if I DON’T exercise. (No time in life for exercise? No! No time in life to NOT exercise!) That did not, however, alleviate the boredom of doing them. So it is that when not doing my nighttime exercise of riding my unicycle around the neighborhood – which does NOT bore me – or jogging – which does bore me to a degree – I do my exercises in the morning (sit ups, push ups, etc.) while listening to new (and old) CDs that I acquire from compilations of magazines, that I also occasionally buy or receive from budding musicians at open mics, or any other source.
I do not pretend to be a music critic, but simply to talk about and describe, and give my impressions of the music I listen to during my morning exercises. Keep in mind that my impressions and opinions, therefore, will have been formed while straining to reach a record number of push ups, sit ups, couch ups, stretch downs and simply catching my breath. So maybe my opinion will be warped.
The Haunting Rock ‘n’ Croon of Thomas Arlo
Room EP by Thomas Arlo
Paolo Alderighi and the Italian Stride Piano
Paolo Alderighi & Stephanie Trick
Introducing Juliette Jules – a French Teenager Gone Global
Juliette Jules
A Progressive 3rdegree Takes Me Back in Time
3rdDegree
And Finally, a New Beautiful Indie Band, Called Forebear
Forebear
Well, that rounds that up. Another, rather large, morning exercise crop of CDs, my ninth edition since I started doing this in April of 2013….
Worldwide Open Mic Journey 2014: The Multimedia Consolidation – Paris
December 26, 2014
Paris Skyline
This year, 2014, I have decided to finish all of the projects and tie them together into a consolidation of multimedia. As part of my personal impetus to gather it all together for myself, but also put it into perspective on this blog, I have decided to create a page for each city I have visited on the journey, tying together samples of the whole multimedia adventure linked to that city.