Rant | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Weird Stuff in Austin, Followed by Stompin Open Mic at the Stompin Grounds

November 20, 2013
bradspurgeon

stompin grounds austin

AUSTIN, Texas – I wrote quite extensively during my visit to Austin last year about how this amazing city really does live up to its “weird” name sometimes. So last night’s open mic adventure added another little chapter to that impression….

I set out for an open mic at a place called the Waterloo Ice House, which is a bar in a mall in south Austin, an open mic that has existed for around five years and is hosted by a woman named Julie. So first of all, par for the course, the car’s GPS decided that it did not want us to get to the correct address and did all it could to prevent us from getting there, as it seemed to have done last Friday when I wrote on this blog about getting lost in Austin and never finding the open mic we set out to find.

So the lesson having been learned, my friend who was driving decided to turn off the car’s GPS and use his own knowledge and his telephone’s google map. Bingo! We found the Waterloo Ice House. My immediate impression when I entered, though, was that there was no one there in the way of either musicians or spectators. But my friend told me the open mic was taking place in the garden in the back. So we went to the garden in the back and there found that the open mic was indeed going to take place there, as all the equipment was set up: A couple of speakers, mic stand, the usual stuff. Looked really professional.

Still, there was a table of about three people, and that was it. And there was music from speakers from the bar and music coming from the inner park of this mall structure, too. Julie approached immediately, and I was relieved to see her hospitable attitude and she said immediately that her feature band had not shown up, so if I wanted to play, I could.

I agreed, sat down, took out the guitar and waited for Julie to return, since she said she’d gone off to turn off the above mentioned music. She was gone for around 10 minutes, and when she returned she bore bad news: “Sorry, but we can’t turn off the music, so I’m afraid the open mic has been cancelled.”

I told her I’d come all the way from Paris, France for this open mic, and so she offered me a beer and an apology. It turned out, she said, that the owner or manager or something of the mall had changed and they suddenly realized they did not have access to the room wherein they could turn off the music in the park outside, and so they could not very well hold the open mic with background music on top of the performer’s music. As I was the only performer, and my friend by then the only audience, it didn’t ultimately matter that much.

I accepted the beer, and spoke a while with Julie. It turned out that not only has she been hosting this open mic for around five years, but she also hosts another on Tuesdays in Austin at another location. And as with many other open mic hosts, she knew about the other open mics in town. In fact, she told me that there were something like 5 to 10 open mics every night of the week, although they were not always easy to find….

She then asked if I wanted to go to another that very night, and when we found out there was another one about 10 minutes drive away, we jumped on it. Julie then actually sent an SMS to the host of this other open mic to ask if it was going strong and if I could still take part. The answer – from Raul – was positive, so we set off to the other open mic, at a bar called Stompin Grounds.

So I left the Waterloo Ice House feeling ever more like Austin really is weird… but I was enjoying it!

So when I arrived at this very cool and warm bar called the Stompin Grounds and I introduced myself to Raoul, he was ready for me. I got to go on within a half an hour and listen to several other acts. The only downer there was that the Stompin Grounds, last night, anyway, was one of those places where the audience listens to its friends, and then when the friend is not on stage, the audience goes outside on the terrace so not to hear the other musicians, and so to smoke cigarettes and consult laptops etc.

So it was that even at the Waterloo Ice House I ended up playing for an audience of two: My friend and a woman who stayed for one song, and when she left there was this other musician who had played before me…. Now I will refrain from saying that is weird, because it happens all over the world from time to time. I was simply happy to get behind a nice mic and sing my heart out in weird Austin again, finally!

In a conversation in the car as we returned home, my friend and I discussed about how Austin is chock full of open mics, but because it is also chock full of professional musicians doing gigs all over town in a city with more music per square mile than probably anywhere else on the North American continent, the open mics are not necessarily the biggest winners in all that. There is just no real huge need to seek out the open mic to play or hear live music….

That said, I hope I get another chance here next year….

An “Imperfectionist” Inspired Rant on Paper Manuscript Submissions in the Electronic World

November 1, 2013
bradspurgeon

Paper vs. Electronic Submissions

ABU DHABI – A change in subject away from music for the moment: I’ve been reading the novel “The Imperfectionists” over the last few days, my first eBook on my first iPad (mini). I’m behind the times on both the iPad and the eBook. I’ll admit it. I’m not behind the times on computers in general, since my first computer was an Osborne portable, bought in 1982, and everything I have written, thought or imagined since 1982 is contained on a hard disk or two – in addition to the original floppies, other disks, CDs, DVDs and memory sticks since then invented.

But as I read this electronic book by a former colleague of mine at the former International Herald Tribune, I began thinking of discussions he and I had before he sold his book about seeking literary agents, and that led me to thinking again about my task this winter, where I’ll be sending out two of my manuscripts, for consideration by agents and publishers (or three manuscripts if you count the French translation of the novel I’ll be sending – (the other book is my open mic memoir)).

I’ve already started doing some research on agents and publishers, and as I read – joyously – this delightful fiction by Tom Rachman, and thought about how it mattered not one iota whether I read it in an electronic book format or in a hardback or paperback, I began thinking all the various thoughts of paper vs. electronic media. And then I settled on this particular aspect of the “debate”:

How is it, that “traditional” book publishers can charge us 8.99 euros or more for an electronic book that costs them absolutely nothing to produce and distribute in billions of copies, when they charge the same amount – in some instances – for the same book in its paper version, which costs them something in paper, printing and distribution, and yet – here’s the real bit that I’m aiming at – a majority of the best publishers and many of the best literary agents STILL require that authors send their manuscripts to them by snail mail post in printed format?!?! (If they accept submissions at all.)

How Can Publishers and Literary Agents Still Ask for Paper “Manuscript” Submissions?

In other words, while they charge 8.99 euros for an electronic copy that costs them nothing to produce (and I don’t want to hear about the editing staff, etc.), and they expect a reader to be just as happy with reading it in electronic format or printed format, they themselves insist that a poor author pay for printer ink – a fortune – paper to print the manuscript – not a fortune, but it still costs something – and then postage – a fortune?!?

my first computer: 1982

All of which means, the author is probably spending as much or more than 8.99 each time he or she sends out his or her manuscript to a publisher or agent, who will not look at it otherwise, but who, if they like it, will then charge readers the same amount to read it, and take the lion’s share of the profits. I don’t get it. The newspaper industry long, long ago modernized to the point where an electronic story submission is the only kind they really want. (There is a passage in “The Imperfectionists” about an old freelance journalist who is stuck in his ways, and poor, (because he gets no more work) who still faxes his stories to the newspaper, causing a huge headache to the staff each time they have to re-type it into the system.) And yet so much of the publishing industry, that battles to keep its corner of the electronic market and rights, still refuses the electronic submission of what will eventually come out as an electronic product.

The Wonderful, Deceptive Simplicity of ‘The Imperfectionists’ by Tom Rachman

I really would like to have an explanation on this strange, dinosaur leftover from another era. Part of me thinks that because the industry is more bombarded than ever before with manuscripts from potential authors, and because it is easier than ever for authors to make submissions of unpolished or hair-brained books, the editors and agents seek a kind of natural selection process on the basis that the more serious writers will take the time to print out and mail a manuscript, rather than shoot one off on a whim via email.

If that is the case, I don't buy it. A great manuscript will rise to the surface of the slush pile eventually, whether it be electronic or printed out, and the crappy electronic submission is a lot easier and less time consuming and polluting to deal with than the crappy printed manuscript. And the excuse that an editor or agent would really like to sit down in a chair and read a paper version of the novel rather than read an electronic version is really no longer valid, is it? When they are selling us "air" for 8.99 euros or much more….

By the way, it was taking me forever to get around to going to a bookstore to buy a paper copy of Rachman’s novel (or any other English book in Paris), which I had been hearing about for so long from friends and strangers. And I had no real excuse (except Paris), especially since I felt it practically an obligation for me to read a former colleague’s novel, especially one all about the newspaper world, the expat newspaper world that we both worked in. So it was with my new iPad mini in hand that I decided to rectify that situation, and I’m just loving the book!

The Imperfectionists

Rachman has a real way with language, and the characters and situations are extremely memorable. The stories really flow. It is written with a simplicity that is hard to achieve. (As I think Pete Seeger once said, perhaps comparing Dylan and Hank Williams: “Anyone can be complicated, it takes a genius to be simple.” (Although Dylan is a complicated genius in my opinion, and in the opinion of most.)) Of course, I’m not finished the book yet, so perhaps I’ll lose interest…but I doubt it. And if I do, well, it only cost 8.99 after all, and I won’t have to put it on my shelf to collect dust. Of course, I might have to eliminate it from many more places, as it has been migrating from my iPad to my iPhone and maybe soon to my MacBook Pro, if they let me….

Enough rambling rant! If anyone has an answer to my question about how publishers and agents can be committed to electronic books but not electronic submissions, please let me know!

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Brad’s Morning Exercise Music Rundown, 5th Installment: MGMT, Kings of Leon, Pierre Bensusan – and a Genesis, Stivell Parable

October 26, 2013
bradspurgeon

Sit Ups

My fifth “Morning Exercise Rundown,” – the fourth of which ran on Aug. 28 – will be shorter than the others…I think. I have only three CDs to talk about this time. Or rather, five CDs, if you count that there are three CDs in one of the boxes.

Two of the CDs came from my regular source: As mentioned in my first post, the Lotus Formula One team is giving out CDs quite often now to journalists and any other takers and interested people in the paddock, as they have some kind of a sponsorship deal with Columbia Records. So at two of the last three races – Singapore and Japan – I picked up the new crop.

When you think of it, though, the third CD – or rather, the box of three – which comes as an advance review copy before its release – tomorrow – from Pierre Bensusan, also ultimately came to me by way of my worldwide open mic musical adventure that I run along with my job attending the races. I say that because it was thanks to carrying my guitar around with me to the races that three or four years ago I ran into this other guy a couple of times carrying a guitar in the Milan airport (after the Italian Grand Prix), and we had nodded at each other, and then I struck up a conversation with him, since he had this neat old guitar he was playing at the airport gate while we waited for the same flight. The guitar was a Lowden, and the guitar player, I learned, was Bensusan. I had not recognized him, but once we exchanged emails, I immediately recognized his name – in fact, I’d just read a column of his in Acoustic Magazine a week or two before! Since then, I corresponded with him a few times, bought his entire career’s box set of albums, and attended a concert of his in Paris, becoming a fervent fan of this virtuoso guitarist.

The Astounding Pierre Bensusan and his 40-Year Career

Pierre Bensusan’s “Encore”

It turned out that aside from being a couple of guys who frequent airports frequently carrying guitars around the world, we had another thing in common: Our respective ages – we were born less than six weeks apart – and the fact that we were both heavily influenced by the same traditional Celtic music during the Celtic revival of the early 1970s. There the comparisons between Pierre Bensusan and me stop, however, as this man is more than a seriously talented virtuoso guitarist: He is a near genius guitarist and composer of fabulous pieces that now range the entire gamut from Celtic to jazz to Arabic to klezmer to even a slightly rock and/or jazz fusion feel to certain of his rhythms. Throw in a bit of country too. All of that would be why he would be thrown into the World Music category – where he was named best guitarist by Guitar Player magazine a few years ago, I think 2008. He is a master of the open tuning known as DAGDAD, and while he plays on a steel string folk guitar, it might as well be a nylon classical for all the range he gets out of it. Having bought that complete works box set – minus his latest album “Vividly” – from the Bensusan web site store I thought I had heard all the Bensusan sounds that I needed to. Until I received this review copy of “Encore,” which has been released to mark 40 years of live performance by Pierre, I thought I had all the CDs by him that I needed. Wrong. In this package I learned from listening to the earliest recordings that although I have been playing guitar since the age of eight, Pierre certainly played the way I do now only only the second day he picked up his guitar. His talent goes way, way back, and as the title of the CD indicates – Encore, or “More” and/or “Again,” – there is sure to be much more….

The CD has a fabulous booklet with photos of Pierre throughout his life, and a nice little autobiography from him, outlining that life. Originally from the Jewish community of Algeria, he moved to France as a boy and grew up in Suresnes – down the Seine river from my home in Asnières – and decided to change his first name at age 12 to Pierre, because of the song, “Chauffe Marcel!” of Jacques Brel!!! Chauffe, chauffe!!! He describes his ancestry as “sephardic-hispanic-algerian-maroccan-anglo-persian-alsacien”… well you get the idea. Just like his music, right? He grew up listening in his family to “jazz, English rock, R&B, swing, chanson, flamenco, arab-andalouse music, classical music, opera, gypsy, musette and tango…” Yes, again, the influences come out in his own music, and the traces of it all are there from the beginning. In fact, I was astounded to hear him play bluegrass mandolin on the first tracks of the second CD, in recordings from 1975.

After quitting school at age 16, he set out on his worldwide travels playing the music of the world, and rubbing shoulders, playing with and meeting some of the great musicians of the period. In fact, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez had so much respect for him that they helped him get a green card to work in the United States. And it is only really in live that the full thrust of Bensusan’s guitar-playing genius can be appreciated to the full – that’s why this 3-CD collection of live recordings throughout his 40-year career is worth having. It may not be the same thing as seeing him play what sometimes sounds like three guitars at once, but it is a close substitute. And it’s also worth it just for the story he writes within.

Kings of Leon’s Latest Album “Mechanical Bull”

kings of leon

From the virtuoso guitarist Pierre Bensusan, I move directly to the sixth studio album of the American band, Kings of Leon. The Followill brothers’ sound is here, the voices are here, the lyrics are here. This is a competent album and not a disappointment – but I don’t hear any hits like the absolutely sensation songs “Sex on Fire” or “Use Somebody” of their previous efforts. Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I was just listening too much to Pierre Bensusan. Still, the rock rhythms were good for exercising to.

MGMT – Latest Self-Named Album

Finally, I came into possession of my only MGMT album. This psychedelic rock band, sorry, just doesn’t do much for me. Of the three CDs I’ve spoken about here, I think I did my most lethargic morning exercises to this one, which was released in September, like the Kings of Leon. It is very highly competent, and has some interesting ideas – unusual vocals opening the album on “Alien Days,” slick and catchy rhythms and freaky melodies.

A Morning Exercise Music Inspired Parable Involving Genesis and Alan Stivell

There’s an interesting thing here with the contrast between the Bensusan album and the other two. It’s highly personal, but I must say, it brings me back to a personal anecdote from 1974 when I was living in Ottawa, in Canada (in case you mistake it for Ottawa, Illinois), and my friend Shane and I had to choose between attending a concert by Alan Stivell, the Celtique harp player from Brittany, and Genesis, the progressive rock band at the Civic Centre hockey arena.

Alan Stivell

I loved both Stivell’s music and Genesis. I had albums by both, and had listened to them already for a couple of years or so. In the end, we chose Stivell, perhaps thinking that we might more easily have another chance at Genesis than Stivell. The concert turned out to be absolutely fabulous, with Stivell jumping down into the audience at the end, while playing a bodhran or crumhorn or some such thing, and the hundreds of spectators of the staid civic centre, home of the opera, standing up, dancing and celebrating the liveliness of the music, and especially, the performer.

Genesis

As we took the bus home, and Shane and I were still in this ecstatic state of celebration and joy from the Stivell concert, the bus stopped at the Civic Centre and picked up the concert goers who were just streaming out the doors of the arena from the Genesis concert. They were all half-asleep and stoned and down and out and basically the opposite of the joyous condition that Shane and I were in due only to the nature of Stivell’s performance. Shane and I looked at each other and thought the same thing at the same moment: We had made the right decision. The contrast between two kinds of music we loved could not be greater. I love rock and pop, but Bensusan’s virtuosity takes the day. May there be another 40 years of live performance.

Well, that rounds that up. A small morning exercise crop of CDs, my fifth of the year since I started doing this in April, or whenever it was…. I’ve done a lot of exercising since then, and hope I can continue to feed the musical habit that keeps the exercising alive…

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Breath-holder Blog Post

September 18, 2013
bradspurgeon

DUBAI – I have sometimes used the newspaper term of “space holder” – which means a weaker story that holds a space on a page before a stronger story is set to arrive – when a day or so has gone by and I have had nothing to post. Today, I am making up terms and calling this short post from Dubai a “breath-holder,” since I have been away from this blog for so long and I hope that some regular readers are missing my posts!!! BUT…

I wanted to explain that this nearly 10-day period is definitely the longest period of time I have ever been absent from posting on the blog, but it is not an indication of the future. It is a result of having a HUGE amount of work to do on my day job after returning from Milan, and then promptly and immediately falling ill with a nasty – if unimportant – cold and losing my singing voice entirely – to say nothing of my energy – and so making me unable to take part in any open mics, and wanting to do little else aside from recuperate.

Oh, of course, I spent time with loved ones, read, listened to music, and finally got back to my morning exercises. And now I sit in the Dubai airport on a 7-hour stopover as I prepare to catch a flight to Singapore and continue the worldwide open mic musical adventure.

So thanks to all my faithful readers for sticking around, and keep up the faith! Hold your breath, and I’ll be back with more news of the open mics and open jams of the world – next stop Singapore….

Brad’s Morning Exercise Music Rundown, 4th Installment: Johnny Cash, Billy Joel, John Mayer, AC/DC, David O’Neal and Odds ‘N Ends

August 28, 2013
bradspurgeon

Sit Ups

My fourth “Morning Exercise Rundown,” – the third of which ran on 18 June – will be longer than the first or the second…I think. I have more CDs to talk about – eight this time, but until I get exercising my writing, I’m not sure how much I’ll have to say about them!

Half of the CDs came from my regular source: As mentioned in my first post, the Lotus Formula One team is giving out CDs quite often now to journalists and any other takers and interested people in the paddock, as they have some kind of a sponsorship deal with Columbia Records. So at the last couple of races – Hungary and Spa – I picked up the new crop.

But what is really interesting here, is that there is a little pattern developing: The CDs that really stand out from Columbia so far for me tend to be the classics that they put out in the 60s and 70s, or those done by the same musicians from that period who are still making albums today. But this time, I decided to include on my morning exercise list the compilation CDs that I am in the habit of listening to that I get from the music magazines that I buy. I have not wanted to do that in the past because they ARE compilations. But I think they have a place here because I do my exercises to them, AND because they are often compilations of the latest best new music, and that makes for an interesting comparison to the record company’s stuff from the past.

I’ll get to that a little later, but first I want to make a little rundown of the Columbia stuff.

The Astounding Johnny Cash at San Quentin

johnny cash

I was never a Johnny Cash fan as a kid, and it really took me until only a few years ago and thanks to that bio-pic about him for me to really hook into Johnny Cash. That and the fact that French people like to sing his classics so often at open mics – well, and other people around the world, for that matter. So I had a second look at Cash in recent years. Now, having received “Johnny Cash at San Quentin,” I was blown away listening to this classic CD not only for Cash’s classic songs, but also and especially, for his patter with the prisoners during the concert, all of which is part of the CD between the songs. His voice, in fact, also grew on me in recent years thanks to the CDs of cover songs he did in his seventies, or whenever it was…. So I may look ignorant, but I love Cash’s stuff now, and this San Quentin album is just deadly. A great listen for any performer, too, for picking up what truly great communication with the audience can be made of…. It was the first time he sang that weird hit called “A Boy Named Sue,” which I remember hearing on the radio at the time, and finding to be a kind of comic song. Which, of course it is….

Billy Joel’s “The Stranger” as a Greatest Hits Compilation

The Stranger 1977

Even more of a discovery and a shock for me was listening to Billy Joel’s album “The Stranger,” which came out in September 1977. Again, I knew Billy Joel’s songs as background to my life, hearing his songs on the radio growing up, and knowing the tunes and some of the lyrics by heart. But I knew nothing about his career and discography, and as I did my morning exercises I was shocked to recognize just about every song on this album and to learn that it was NOT a greatest hits album. It was not a compilation. It was his fifth studio album, and it became his most successful. It is full of hit songs and others that were recognizable to anyone from the late 70s. From “Movin’ Out,” to “The Stranger” to “Just the Way You Are,” to “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” to “Only the Good Die Young” and “She’s Always a Woman,” this thing is bursting at the seams with great songs and performances. It was produced by Phil Ramone, who died in March, and when I hear this album now with more mature ears, and the ears of someone who has attended countless open mics, I realize the power and energy of Joel’s songs, delivery, melodies, structure…. It may seem totally absurd to write about this today, given that this is old “news,” of 36 years ago…. But I was just given the CD, and it’s part of my morning exercise routine, and that’s what this occasional blog item is about. For the newer stuff, hold on a bit….

From the Country Sound of John Mayer to the Grating Trash of AC/DC

I was really looking forward to listening to the new John Mayer CD, called Paradise Valley. Here, though, my only familiarity with John Mayer came from looking up some of the astoundingly cool cover songs he does that we can find on YouTube, like some Hendrix stuff. So it was that when I listened to this CD of HIS music, I was incredibly let down. He has a nice voice, interesting intricate lyrics, but the melodies are really nothing special – almost cliché – and they don’t vary much. I was struck horrendously by the contrast to the fabulously inventive and powerful songs of Billy Joel.

Having said that, Mayer was a huge relief to the grating trash sound of AC/DC and its 2008 album that I received called “Black Ice.” It honestly sounds as if the band tries to imitate itself and its successful “Highway to Hell” on every single song, or close to it. I’m sorry metal lovers, I was an early fan of bands like Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie and Deep Purple. But AC/DC has never appealed to me. I don’t find it authentic. The singer? That voice is the most grating and inauthentic excuse for a howl that I’ve ever heard. If it WAS a howl, maybe it would have some soul. I hear nothing in it, but it sure is fun to imitate! And you don’t even strain your vocal chords. Try imitating Robert Plant and you can’t sing for a week.

Compilations from the Mags: Uncut, Rock&Folk and Mojo

Thank goodness after those last couple of assaults on the senses I had three compilation disks from summer issues of the magazines Uncut, Mojo and the French one, Rock&Folk. I love these compilations that come out with every issue, as they are a great way to hear – in contrast to Columbia’s rereleases – what the music of our time sounds like. A lot of it does nothing for me, but there are always some standout tracks from performers I’ve either never heard of, or have heard of but never hear….

Daughn Gibson

Such, for instance was the interesting deep guttural apocalyptic groan of “The Sound Of Law” from Daughn Gibson on the Uncut compilation called “This Wheel’s On Fire.” Or the very cool and melodic, “Shine, Shine, Shine,” from Grant Hart. I was blown away by how the Black Books steal the “Wicked Game” chords and melody for their “The Big Idea” – although ultimately they make a different song out of it. One song that both the Uncut CD and the Rock&Folk CD both use is “You Can’t Be Told,” by Valerie June, who I have been hearing about all over the place, including on the front page of Le Monde, I think it was!!! But was I ever let down by that one when I heard it and knew instantaneously by the sound of the song that it had to be produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. It’s like, oh crap, here we go again! The same brutal thing, cookie-cutter production of the same sound….

On the Rock&Folk CD I also enjoyed listening to the latest April March (with Aquaserge), who is one of those Americans who is better known and appreciated in France than at her home. (She used to go out with a friend of mine, and once ate at my living room table, although she cannot remember it!!!) It was also fun to hear The Strypes, the young band of teenagers from from Ireland.

Finally, the Mojo CD was a revelation as it was a collection of Beatles covers called, “We’re With the Beatles,” which is the Beatles’ second album all done in covers by bands I do not know. And what I do know, and learned by listening to it, is that despite the great songwriting of the Beatles, a great deal of the genius of the Beatles was also in their own sound and production of their records. Their voices, their instruments, their arrangements. These songs don’t stand up that well out of their hands – although they are also many of the older, less classic Beatles stuff. I didn’t hear much originality here, either, by the way. But I think the one I liked the best for its originality is, “Don’t Bother Me,” done by Eva Petersen, in an electro way that could never have been done in the 60s. Very interesting, if black as hell – but that’s what makes it interesting….

Finally, as I always have done so far, I’ve got a CD to mention that I got from a musician I heard at an open mic in Paris a few weeks ago. It’s called “Big Deal,” and it is by David O’Neal, whom I heard at the Galway Pub in Paris. There are some clever lyrics, and it’s pretty well-produced. Mostly about trouble with women, it seems…! But then, isn’t that the history of the pop song? David, who lives in New York, was on a short visit to Paris, and told me that he no longer does open mics much, but mostly does concerts.

Well, that rounds that up. A very big morning exercise crop of CDs, may fourth of the year since I started doing this in April, or whenever it was…. I’ve done a lot of exercising since then, and hope I can continue to feed the musical habit that keeps the exercising alive…

The Code de la Route: A Semiotician’s Delight on French Highways

July 31, 2013
bradspurgeon

PARIS – Did you ever think that drivers in France answered to their own logic of the road like none other anywhere else in the world? Did you ever read the French Code de la Route and decide that the French will apply the exact opposite to a rule as laid out in the code once they have passed their license and take to the road? Did you ever wonder why things were thus? Here is a story that explains it all, from my archive, that I wrote and published in 1992 in the Ottawa Citizen after taking my French driver’s license and spending lots of money on the lessons that revealed the method behind the madness. It all comes back down to the great literary connection of the country’s flair for semiotics, the science of signs. So take a read through if you want those questions answered, and especially if you have to take the code and learn to drive in France yourself – or for that matter, if you’re just on holidays and need to take to the road amongst this nation of skilled semioticians, and drivers’ seeking revenge for being subjected to such a mind-numbing, wallet emptying process in the first place…

Today’s story from the archives is about the Code de la Route as semiotic exercise….

Micro-post from Budapest: Remembering and Feeling a Beethoven Expression

July 25, 2013
bradspurgeon

chain bridge budapest

BUDAPEST – Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have not been writing as much lately, and I have not been playing as much music in open mics lately. In fact, I have not even been playing as much music at home as I usually do – although I have managed at least one song a day, with the exception of one day where I did none – and while part of me has felt dejected, destroyed, messed up and worried about losing the movement of these passionate fun things I do, TODAY, having arrived in Budapest, a city of much classical music, I was suddenly reminded of an old aphorism once said by Beethoven to a student:

“Habit may depreciate the most brilliant talents,” he said in 1812 to his pupil, Archduke Rudolph, who he warns against too zealous a devotion to music. I’m quoting from an Internet source on Beethoven on that, but I had written the same quote in one of my “Nothing Book” diaries when I was 17 or 18, and I recall my translation as having been: “Habit may depreciate even the finest of talents.”

In any case, I do not consider myself either one of the finest or most brilliant talents musically, but I have always remembered that quote since I thought it could apply to any form of artistic endeavour, or even any profession or job anyone does. And today, after travelling to Budapest and doing my day job and finally finishing everything that needed doing, I finally picked up my guitar in my hotel room and I played for half an hour. And I felt so refreshed, so happy, so powerful playing my songs and cover songs, and strumming the guitar and being liberated once again in a hotel room at the beginning of another of my open mic adventure’s faraway locations, at the beginning of a weekend of musical and other fun.

And I thought, there’s no panic on the blog, no panic in the music, shake it up. Shake it all up. Do what you love doing, and make it fresh and fun. Don’t fall into habit for habit’s sake.

Many regular readers of this blog may also have noticed that in recent weeks I have been filling out other parts of the blog, while not doing as many open mics as usual. That’s part of the same effort to break the habit…at least momentarily. There are plenty of open mics and gigs and musical adventures to come – starting, I hope, with the coming days in this beautiful city….

Perfect Melody at Perfect Fête de la Musique in Levallois

June 22, 2013
bradspurgeon

There is a kind of fad amongst many musicians in France to say that they hate the Fête de la Musique, that night on the 21 June where music is allowed in the streets, bars and everywhere and anywhere else and goes on all night long, celebrating music (and the first day of summer, usually). It started in France in 1982, and it has spread to other countries, but I think there is probably no other country and city, especially, than Paris that celebrates this musical festival with as much fervor. But a lot of musicians like to say they are not going to play or celebrate the music, and they hate the festival. I can understand that in some ways, but my own attitude now is that I play music every day of the year – or if I don’t, I don’t feel good – and so why would I be so contrarian as to say the only day I’m not going to play is during the day that music has its official celebration?

Still, in recent years I have been much less enthusiastic about going out on the Fête de la Musique in Paris quite simply because it can be an absolute mad house in the streets of Paris, and even violent and loud and disagreeable. And if the metros run all night and are free, well, they’re also full of rowdy people pissed out of their minds and carrying a guitar on your back – as I always do – makes you stand out even more, oddly enough, than you usually do.

Anyway, all of this build up is in order to say that I ended up finding the most wonderful alternative to the madhouse of Paris during the Fête de la Musique after I was invited by the young and up-and-coming French singer songwriter Melody Says – with whom I had shared the bill last fall on a boat on the Seine – to play in the first part of her show at a bar in her native Levallois, just outside Paris. In fact, she had invited me without telling me where it was, and I immediately accepted, and then found out afterwards that it was a 23-minute walk from my home. That, of course, meant that I would perform during the Fête de la Musique without having to fight through the hell and noise of the Paris streets.

It also meant that the gig itself would take place in a nice, calm, cool neighborhood pub, where, as it turned out, there were lots of locals and lots of guests and fans of Melody Says. And no wonder: Melody’s music is fresh with nice melodies, lively with moving rhythms and captivating with her lovely vocals. There is one wonderful song, “I Wish I Was Born in 1952,” that I particularly like, and I think it’s one of her most popular ones. But I kept wanting to interrupt her act and say, “Melody, listen, I’m sorry to have to break the news, but if you had been born in 1952 you would be hitting 61 years old about now, and I’m not so sure your future would be looking quite the same….” But then, who am I to say? Maybe it will – if she keeps up the melodies.

She had some interesting musicians with her too, by the way, with on bass a former bassist for Le Spark, and on guitar her producer Kenny Paterson, who it turns out – although I did not realize it last night – was a legendary engineer and producer from Scotland who has worked with bands like Texas, and INXS and John Martyn, and who today recorded Melody’s EP (in London), and worked recently as Pete Doherty’s sound engineer on his gigs. (Melody Says has, by the way, also toured a little with Doherty recently.)

I myself had a completely new experience as a musician working on the Fête de la Musique. When Melody Says asked me to play, as I said, I immediately agreed to do so. The idea was I’d play with my band. But here’s what happened: It being the Fête de la Musique, and me not really having any kind of permanent band (I play with several other musicians occasionally), I discovered that every one of the five or six or more musicians that I have played with were already performing in gigs around Paris in their own regular bands! I almost got one in the end, but he had a very non-understanding employer who would not let him finish work early for his music passion, even on this international music festival day.

So it was that I had to perform solo and act as the warm-up man before the real treat of the evening – Melody Says. Fortunately there was a kind of neighborhood feel to the pub, which, by the way, is called, The Last Drop, and so I found that starting the evening’s music with just my guitar was actually a great way to do things. I did shift from my original desire to play mostly only my owns songs into a decision to play some of the crowd pleasers too, some of the songs, like “Father and Son,” that everyone knows or can sing along with. And as it turned out, both Melody and her bass player joined me for several songs by playing on the drum set behind me. So I chose some very moving, thrusting rhythm songs for those ones and that got the audience warmed up a bit, and it was great fun to play with them.

So all in all it was actually a fabulous evening, and we finished it off by going to Melody Says’ place and doing a little rooftop jamming within sight of the Eiffel Tower and with my Gibson J-200 facing of with Melody’s Epiphone EJ-200, which is the Gibson clone and a fabulous guitar of its own…. Could it have been a better celebration of music in Paris – or rather, Levallois – than that?

Brad’s Morning Exercise Music Rundown, 3d Installment: MS MR, Daft Punk, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen, and John Redford

June 18, 2013
bradspurgeon

Sit Ups

My third “Morning Exercise Rundown,” – the second of which ran on 28 April – will be much shorter than the first or the second…I think. I have more CDs to talk about – five this time – but while there may be more CDs than for the second installment, I feel as I begin that I have less to say about them. The main reason for that is that I can be pretty conclusive pretty quickly on all of them! Well, all except one….

All but one of the CDs – not the aforementioned came from my new source: As mentioned in my first post, the Lotus Formula One team is giving out CDs quite often now to journalists and any other takers and interested people in the paddock, as they have some kind of a sponsorship deal with Columbia Records. So at the last three races – Spain, Monaco and Canada I picked up the new crop. At the glitzy, glamorous Monaco Grand Prix the big deal was that Daft Punk had shown up for the race, and it was their new CD – surprise, surprise – that was being handed out. I’m talking about Random Access Memories, which has been busting the charts all over the place and selling like as if they were the latest whatever.

In fact, one of the things that I found interesting about this CD is how incredibly it sounds at once like something from the 1990s AND something from today. I’ve never been a Daft Punk fan, but I’ve never been against them either. But listening to this CD while doing my morning exercises was a good experience from the point of view of how it lends itself perfectly to the exercise needs and experience: There was no real need to listen to the warped vocals and the rhythm and the beat inspired me on to ever more rapid sit-ups. 😉 At the same time, I had heard some of the songs on the car radio already – as who hasn’t – such as “Get Lucky,” or “Lose Yourself to Dance.”

The CD, as everyone knows, has an amazing line up of contributing musicians as well, like Pharrell Williams, Paul Williams and Nile Rodgers – to say nothing of Julian Casablancas, Chilly Gonzales and Giorgio Moroder. Of course, this is a French band that I think must have invented that electronic voice manipulation thing not to sound really cool but to hide their French accented English. Whatever…. there are clearly some catchy, classic melodies and lyrics on this album, and there is little I can say about it except that Daft Punk is far from a spent force, and far from Daft….

If Bob Dylan can’t write songs like Bob Dylan anymore Bruce Springsteen certainly can still write like Bruce Springsteen….

In my last morning exercise music talk post I said this thing about how if Bob Dylan can’t write songs like Bob Dylan anymore then what chance do the rest of us have? Well, interestingly enough, inspiringly enough, this latest crop of morning exercise music consisted of the latest Springsteen album that was handed out at the Spanish Grand Prix, as well as the No. 1 classis Springsteen album, the best of them all, “Born to Run,” which came out in 1975 and that was handed out for reasons beyond my understanding at the Canadian Grand Prix. But I sought not to understand. I simply wanted to listen to the album again, so wonderful is it. But the experience of listening to Born to Run again and then listening to the latest effort of the 63-year-old-going-on-40, is monumental. I’m talking about “Wrecking Ball,” of course.

From the first song with its amazing, interesting rhythms to the title song and beyond, this album shows how Springsteen continues to find strong, original songs and music and has lost hardly anything of his vocal powers. I mean, the new album is just really vital and really Springsteen – of course, he has been inspired by dark times, and he seems to need and love that.

But the real clincher for me as to the strength and power of this rock classic – some of whose songs are on a level with Dylan, and most of which are entertaining – came to me when I listened to the final Columbia offering from Canada: MS MR’s first full album, “Secondhand Rapture.” The first time I listened to this American Indie band’s album I said, “Huh? Wait, is this on the same record label as the Springsteen and Dylan????” (Of course, there are only around three record companies that remain, so what the hell….) My first listening made me feel as if this new Indie band that barely existed three years ago and that has had a very rapid rise to public awareness was doing nothing but create elevator music.

Compare the melodies and vocal powers to those of Springsteen and I felt that some people can write great songs that we all end up having as the soundtracks to our lives – a cliché, yes – and other people write Musak. Maybe, in fact, that’s why one of their songs was used in a promotional video for Game of Thrones…. Not too much character to upstage the product…. But then… but then… since although I have no intention of being a music critic and these occasional posts are really just about my impressions of my morning exercise music, but since obviously I CANNOT AVOID being critical if I don’t like or understand something, I decided that I HAD to be fair to whatever I listen to. That meant not jumping to quick conclusions.

MSMR and All That Shit You Put Me Through

So THAT meant listening to MS MR again. In fact, I had not entirely made up my mind about the album anyway. I was immediately struck with how, like Daft Punk, even like Springsteen, this band MSMR did not entirely sound like today to me. It sounded like the 1980s/90s electro music. They have been compared to Florence and the Machine and Lana Del Rey. But for me the latter, at least, had catchier melodies. UNTIL… suddenly, on my second listen to the album one song in particular – as I searched for a potential hit to stick out of the wallpaper – jumped out at me for both its melody and its lyrics.

I stopped my exercises, began reading the lyrics, and later, after exercising, when it was time to eat breakfast, I listened again to that song. Today, tonight, I have listen yet again. I love the song, I think it is really catchy, it is different, it is now. I don’t know if it can ever be a big hit on the radio everywhere because the language is the kind that we use every day but that cannot be used in the mainstream media. Here are the wonderful lyrics of the chorus that we can all identify with:

I still think of you
And all the shit you put me through
And I know you were wrong
I still think of you
And all the shit you put me through
And I know now
I know you were wrong

A wonderful song, really moves, bounces, has great catchy melody and memorable, simple lyrics – called “Think of You.” I began to realize also that this apparently soft-voiced and subtle singer actually has a strong voice that she seems almost to be holding back with, but it is very effective. I’m talking about the MS of the duo, Lizzy Plapinger, the MR being the producer Max Hershenow.

So ANYWAY… MS MR is really quite interesting, even if the whole album does not stand out like a Springsteen – but such, I realized, is the price of something new, sometimes. It sometimes takes time to absorb its newness – having said that, I loved Born to Run the first time I heard it in the 70s.

Paris Expat John Redford’s First Effort

Last week when I hosted that open mic one of the singers who signed up was a guy I have seen play for a couple of years now regularly at the Paris open mics, mostly at the now defunct Ptit Bonheur la Chance. This was John Redford, who is from England and works in Paris as some kind of engineer. He plays music in his spare time, and just came out with his first CD of his own songs. So I bought a copy of it last week at the open mic, and decided that despite having heard him playing week after week for so long, that I would listen to him as part of my morning exercise routine. It was well worth it to hear how musician can sound different with a full-fledged – or even “partially fledged” – band, after you’ve heard them only with a guitar and vocals for so long. In total he used about five other musicians with drums, keyboards, bass, backing vocals and guitars. It also shows what you can do by recording in your own apartment – as he points out on the liner notes.

Musical Grub Street, or the Life of a Struggling Musician in Paris

June 13, 2013
bradspurgeon

PARIS – The first thing I want to make clear is that I am not a struggling musician. I play music and have countless music-related projects going on simultaneously simply because I love to play music and find this to be a super cool lifestyle, and I love all my musical side projects. I earn my as a journalist covering Formula One racing for a major world newspaper. So music for me, while I take it very seriously, is just an amateur passion. Who knows, maybe some day it will be more for me than that. But at the moment, that’s it. And this post is just meant to talk about what it can be like for someone who IS a struggling musician.

It is also not going to be a very in-depth post, since I have to rush out in a few minutes for meeting involving another musical project – my documentary on open mics – so I don’t have the time for depth. Instead, I want to write very quickly about the little experience I had last night when I was asked to run an open mic in Paris for one exceptional appearance as MC, host, organizer, whatever. This is the sort of work a budding and struggling and journeyman musician can often be asked to do.

Coming from the newspaper business where I work in an institution that, while far, far, far from perfect, actually does produce a newspaper every day, it is sometimes surprising to see that the same professional qualities required to do that are not applied elsewhere, like in the bar life, musical lowlife, world of the struggling musician. So here is what I found last night and would never have to depend on for my livelihood:

I was invited weeks ago to host this open mic, and last night, an hour before I went, I asked if I should show up at 8:15:

– an hour beforehand I was told I should show up at 8:15 for an open mic that started at 8:30, upon arrival I found some musicians waiting, as they had signed on my facebook invite, but the barman told me the open mic usually starts at 9:00 or after. At least one of my musicians present had another appointment for playing at just after 9, so that was a problem right there, but no big, big deal.
– an hour beforehand I was told that I would get a meal and two drinks as payment for the gig, so I rushed out of my home without eating dinner, pleased I’d eat there. The man behind the bar told me that in fact I would not be given a meal. So I ordered a meat and cheese plate, since there was nothing else, and I paid 9.50 euros, and 2 euros tip. 11.50
– I drank the two beers, and through the evening, I ordered two more, so my total donation to the bar for the work I did for them was 23.50 euros, including tip. I took a cab home and that cost 22 euros, so the total evening’s cost was 45.50.
– From 15 to 17 people I invited on facebook showed up, so if count what I donated to the bar and what they bought in drinks, we’re at a minimum of a couple of hundred euros coming into the bar for my work.
– I waited for the guy who hired me to do the hosting to show up, but he did not come and it was after 9. He had been there in the past with other replacement hosts, and he had not told me he was not coming. And I did not have his phone number and neither did the guy behind the bar, and I did not know where the mic and other equipment was, as I had not been told and expected the guy to show up.
– So finally I got the help of the guy behind the bar to find the mic and set up. It turned out there was no mic clip to hold the mic to the mic stand. So I scrounged about the bar and found bits of half-dead tape here and there and I managed to tape the mic to the stand.
– We set everything up and then within 15 seconds of me starting to play my opening songs to start the night, the sound system died. It cut out.
– Thanks to the help of a couple of the performers, who knew something about sound systems, we got the sound working again…for another 15 seconds.
– For the first hour, at least, we played with the sound system, which cut out every 15 seconds. The first three performers, therefore, including me, played with no mic or amplified acoustic guitar, and this was in a loud bar with the front terrace open to the street. IE, no good.
– Finally the owner of the bar showed up and HE had the number of the guy who hired me. That guy soon showed up, but by then the owner of the bar had played with the sound system and got it to work – he said he had known that the sound system had a problem, and he knew how to make it work….

Well, after that, the whole evening just took off, the performers were great, I got the job done, and all was well. But there were people whom I had invited from my facebook who found me in charge of a chaotic evening of ridiculousness for an hour, and looking like I did not know what to do. One of them actually said when he left, “I’m never coming back to this place again.” None of it would have happened had the evening been handled professionally from all sides, and I will know in future to ask anyone who hires me every single detail about the setup and when they are going to arrive, etc. But can you imagine depending on this sort of thing for a living as a struggling musician? While I worked, sweated things out and felt like a fool, the bar made a profit off my earnings as a journalist and my contacts that I invited.

Hmmm, I think I should write a modern novel about this world, and maybe call it something like Musical Grub Street….

Anyway, my thanks to all the musicians and spectators who came, and especially to those who helped me with the sound. The night, in the end, as I said, turned out to be a very fun one – after the crap. Sure, it cost me 45 euros, but it was kind of interesting, yes!!!

PS, I forgot to mention that after an evening like that I had to go to another bar to decompress, to come down, and there I spent another 4 euros on a half pint of beer, bringing the total cost of the evening up to like 50 euros. Oh, that second bar, by the way, was the Highlander, where there is a very, very professional run and well organized open mic, with Thomas Brun as the MC….