Rant | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Great Night at JazzSi, in Barcelona; Crap on Train Return – Hard Drive Gone, with Videos

May 13, 2013
bradspurgeon

PARIS – I managed to play a couple of songs at the JazzSi last night in Barcelona, and to record some great videos of the other performers at this mainstay venue of jamming in Spain. Then when I took the train back from Barcelona to Paris and worked the whole time on my Formula One work, and also transferred the videos from my Zoom Q3 to my hard drive, and then erased them from the Zoom chip… well, bad idea. Lost all of my work, all of my videos of the last 6 weeks, all of the videos from last night, ALLLLLLL sorts of stuff. Because the hard drive was either stolen or dropped or left behind despite three turns of my head to make sure I had everything from my seat in the train. Such was the cost of trying to cost cut AND do work on the train…. So no videos of the JazzSi night in Barcelona.

Suffice it to say that I had a great time, heard great music, and played with a drummer, bass player and harmonica player, in front of the packed house of the JazzSi, where you have to go if you are in Barcelona – for listening or playing, it is one of the greatest places left in the Spanish coastal city. Check my thumbnail guide to Barcelona open mics etc. to find out where it is.

Also lost my recorded song ideas from China and Bahrain. But a lot remains in my mind… and I will try to call the lost and found tomorrow to see if it was…. (doubt it.)

Sorry for the crappy post. But it’s necessary to have crap in life occasionally too – just not too often.

PS, I tried using some file undelete software to recuperate the videos, but it failed to get anything useable. The good thing is that it DID recuperate all my interviews from my work in Barcelona!!!! (But not the transcriptions I did on the train.)

Brad’s Morning Exercise Music Rundown, 2d Installment: Bob Dylan, Calvin Harris, Nelle Thomas, but not Peace “In Love”

April 28, 2013
bradspurgeon

Sit Ups

My second “Morning Exercise Rundown,” – the first of which ran on 7 April – will be much shorter than the first. I simply have fewer CDs to talk about, and a vinyl album I cannot talk about. But while there may be few CDs – three of them – they are about as contrasting as is possible, so I will talk mostly about that.

Two of the CDs 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 Bahrain Grand Prix, in the 36-degree heat of the paddock, they set out for the taking a CD by Calvin Harris, the Scottish DJ, singer songwriter and record producer. Entitled “18 Months,” it is mix of dance music from beginning to end, and as such, its beats and rhythms and vacuous vocals make it perfect as morning exercise music. And nothing else for home consumption. In a club, yes, that’s the stuff. My only other “pertinent” observation is the strange and perhaps “telling” fact that in the 15 tracks almost every credit is attributed to someone with an “i” in their name, or an “i” vowel sound: “Kelis” “Rihanna” “Nicky Romero” “Ellie Goulding” “Tinie Tempah” “Dillon Francis” “Dizzee Rascal” “Ne-Yo” and “Ayah Marar” It turns out that almost every track title also goes through the “i”-sound ringer. Well, so much for my structuralist analysis of Calvin Harris’s dance music – wish I had more to say…but I was in the throes of sit-ups and side-bends and toes touching, so what do I know.

Bob Dylan’s album Tempest

The big, big bad CD, the one I was happiest to receive, and least happy to talk about, is “Tempest”, the latest Bob Dylan album. This is hardly a timely review, since the album came out last year and has been massively written about in the media, and massively listed as one of the top albums of the year in the music magazines around the world. And as a Bob Dylan fan for most of my life, I had, naturally, already listened to several of the album’s tracks over the Internet. Having said that, as proof that the CD, the album, the physical collection of a musical oeuvre still carries weight and counts for something, I was very happy to take this physical CD object and put it in my Marantz CD player and listen to it over my Bose speakers, and not just on my computer’s iTunes.

Until I did, actually. Then I was struck with the biggest existential problem I have yet faced with my morning exercise music talk. How can I write about Bob Dylan’s latest album when I love Bob Dylan, when almost all of the reviews have been great, when as I say, it has made it to the top, or near the top, of the lists of the year’s best albums? And I just don’t get it? Yes, yes, yes. This album has one, maybe two or three tracks that have something really great – and the only one that really, really stands out for me is the first one, “Duquesne Whistle.” Using this old time music, singing this folksy up-tempo song, I really feel as if Dylan has written some kind of a classic here. Not, I feel, a classic Dylan song, but some kind of American classic. It was very hard for me to accept his voice on this, until I decided to pretend that it was not Bob Dylan, but Satchmo himself. I never complained about Satchmo’s gutteral, destroyed voice – why should I complain about Dylan’s? No doubt because Dylan once had a few other voices, and I liked several of those better – the original one from the early 60s, the one from Lay Lady Lay in the Late Sixities, the one from Blood on the Tracks in the mid-70s, the one from Desire at the same time, the one from some of the songs in the 80s, even…. But this Satchmo voice has never worked for me. In fact, for much of the album, I thought I was not hearing Dylan, but Tom Waits….

Another song that cannot be thrown away is the last one, “Roll on John,” about John Lennon. Come on, with subject matter like that, and you know the two knew each other…!

If Bob Dylan can’t write songs like Bob Dylan anymore what chance do the rest of us have?

But the problem with this CD, and maybe with why the critics give it so high marks, is that this IS Dylan. And I kept trying to figure out how some of these songs would sound when sung by other musicians…but then I wondered how many actually WOULD be sung by them. I love the fact that Dylan keeps making music, keeps touring almost every day, keeps creating. But even he said, in his fabulous book, Chronicles, that he can no longer write the kinds of songs he did in the 60s. That was in the chapter about when Daniel Lanois produced an album of his and wanted him to write the old stuff again. And that made me think of a funny line that I just kind of made up and found plopping into my brain as a guy who writes some songs too – without the success of a Dylan: If Bob Dylan can’t write songs like Bob Dylan anymore what chance do the rest of us have?

Of course, I step back from that and say, it’s got nothing to do with anything like that – we all reach our own creative peak in our own way in our own time. And ultimately, as T.S. Eliot said: “For us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business.”

Well, let’s hope Dylan keeps on trying – but I can’t really see how this CD got to the top of so many “year’s best” lists. There is a repetitiveness to the rhymes and melodies in a lot of these songs – that have also appeared in many of the Dylan albums of the last 30 years – that was not there in his classic work. The new Bowie album, by contrast, I could see if if it gets there at the end of the year….

In Bahrain I also got given a CD from a fellow Canadian musician, Félix Fréchette, who was the guitarist at the Dublin Club jam session on the Saturday night where I played – along with him and his band. The CD is a 10-track album of songs written and sung by Nelle Thomas, who is also Canadian – she is English-speaking,from Montreal, whereas Fréchette is a French speaking Quebecer – the music of which was written mostly by Fréchette. He also plays his lead guitar on most of the tracks.

Nelle Thomas

The two, as I say, were part of the house band at the Dublin Club in the Ramee Palace hotel, but this CD – called Noise Rises – they made in Canada in 2012. It is a highly professional, eclectic mix of songs, starting off with a kind of soul music and heading into some soft rock and finishing off with a song on acoustic guitar that is almost – but not quite – folk.

While there were a number of songs that just sort of passed me by – although they were beautifully played and produced – there were three that really stood out for me. “Tell a Sad Story,” has a good catchy melody and lyrics, and really hits the spot. “Never Been Accused,” with its sort of 1970 rock sound, and its ripping lead guitar by Félix Fréchette is another – oh, and there is another nice guitar solo on “One Day at a Time.” And I really love the last song on the album, “Eleven Dollars,” with the great lyrics, vocals and acoustic guitar – reminds me very much of Tuck & Patti. Certainly the best song of the album – but maybe my liking of vocals, acoustic, folky stuff. Still, NO! I love Hendrix, King Crimson, Zappa, Talking Heads, Joy Division, so what the hell – I just think this one works.

It was interesting, once again, to compare an album by a completely unknown young couple to that of Dylan, and to say, well, yeah!!!

Peace In Love

I also got a vinyl album by the British indie band, Peace, – their first album, “In Love,” which has been getting great reviews (9 out of 10 at NME) – but I am very old fashioned, and have no turntable, so I could not listen to this. Wait. That seems odd. Old fashioned? I grew up with vinyl. I had a large collection, then got rid of my turntable because CDs were better…. Right, that’s where the old fashioned bit comes in…. I don’t know ANYTHING, vinyl is better…. well, not for morning exercises – too much work putting the cartridge arm and diamond down the vinyl – and, actually, according to my research, vinyl is NOT better than digital…. but let’s leave that one alone, lest I become even more unpopular than I will be after these morning exercise “reviews” turn me into an evil “critic.”

Burlesque, Post III – Conclusion (or Not), and a Brad Spurgeon Burlesque Curmudgeon FAQ

April 25, 2013
bradspurgeon

Burlesque

Last night as I prepared to go to the Vieux Léon open mic and then the Highlander open mic and then maybe the Cavern open vocal jam, I received an SMS from a friend inviting me to go see a burlesque show at the Manufacture Bar Rock in Paris near Pigalle. Starring the inimitable American, Paris expat, Louise de ville, who calls herself a feminist, and puts a sarcastic and humorous edge on her patter, it would actually be the third time that I join my friend to see a Louise de ville burlesque (and this time her crew of various other burlesque acts). And the third time I write about it here. I suspect it will be the last time.

That conclusion has nothing to do with the quality of the show, Louise’s talents (she’s very smart, works an audience well, and she’s provocative), or the friendliness of my friend. It has everything to do with my lack of understanding of what today’s Burlesque is all about. I withheld coming to any conclusions on the first two times I saw Louise’s show, and actually, I will not really conclude anything today, since I don’t feel I can conclude anything. Nor, in fact, does it call for or require or need any concluding. Either you appreciate it, get it, and like it – this burlesque thing – or you don’t. And I am in the latter category!

I think Louise could see that herself when during the break between the first part of the evening and the second part she came up to me in my corner nursing my beer while looking at all the women (the spectators) – including Louise – jumping around on the dance floor in a moment of relaxation, and she said: “You look like a dad!” “Huh?” She said it was the way a father would look with a kind of judgmental air over the actions of the young people partying…. Well, all I could say to her was that, yes, actually, “I AM a dad….” She left with no comment!

If that made me feel like I was over-the-hill, old and a stick-in-the-mud, I took no offense to the comment at all – I kind of liked it. But it did make me reflect on my own reactions to the rest of the evening’s show, my reactions to which DID make me uneasy over just how much of a “dad” I might be. I just do not “get” what this modern Burlesque movement is all about. It doesn’t do anything for me. I mean, here, in a nutshell, are my observations, the way this stick-in-the-mud dad sees the thing:

– Right, so if it is not about the woman’s body… but wait… one of the burlesque women last night wore panties that when she turned around, it was written: “Haze Me.” Louise pointed out to the audience – and whether this was tongue-in-cheek or whether it was real, I cannot fathom, that such a statement was actually a kind of reverse feminism, and that it was not the statement that it apparently said – IE, my body is yours, and I’m hot for you – but rather it was a way of putting men off the idea of hazing a woman in first year college. Listen, I do not buy this at all. Before she kindly explained that, the only thought going through my mind was, “Holy crap, this woman is asking for it???” It almost made the hazing seem desirable. (I have the same opinion of all these women who have been stripping down around the world to bare their breasts for women’s rights…. No, no. I don’t believe in that reverse psychology.)

– It seemed to me that this super naive approach to burlesque was of more fun, enjoyment and hip-coolness to the women in the crowd than to the men. Of course, there appeared to be quite a few lesbians, so perhaps that was normal. But like one of the other shows I saw, it seems designed almost more for the women than for the men.

– I really did feel like a dad when I found a large percentage of the audience clapping, cheering, shouting approval and making other manifestations of pleasure and encouragement at the same time – when I really didn’t know what all the fuss was about. I mean, again, in terms of the nudity, we ARE living in the age of YouPorn.

– So if this is NOT about the nudity, what IS it about? Sketches that did not wring my emotions dry in the way a good song at an open mic by a talented singer does. Again, naive stuff – or faux naive. Sarcastic, etc.

– Whereas I genuinely have a great time attending open mics and listening to musicians and playing music myself, and I genuinely understand and accept the good cheer and encouragement and praise – or looks of disbelief at something bad – of my fellow open mic spectators, I really felt as if much of the audience reaction in the burlesque show was disingenuous. What was all the fuss about!!!???

Conclusion in the form of a Brad Spurgeon and Burlesque FAQ:

Was it a fun night? Well, yes, I enjoyed myself. It was diverting. Distracting. Made me think.

Should there have been more to it than that? Well, yes. More emotion, and more understanding. More self-identification, perhaps – or rather, fantasizing.

So was it a success? I would say it was a great success, as the room was cramped tight with people, all apparently having a great time and buying beer.

Will I go again? No, I see no reason why I would go again. I probably would not write this post if I intended to go again, since I’ll have myself strung up and whipped with a leather horse whip no doubt, if I show up again.

What will I do instead? Continue doing what I love doing, which is going to open mics – even if I seem to have lived every kind of open mic on earth – but also keep on going out to try to discover other forms of entertainment and community get together…. (Any suggestions are welcome.)

Do I think burlesque is morally depraved? No way. I just DON’T get it!!!!

Do I understand how modern burlesque is supposed to empower women, whereas stripping is supposed to debase them? Not at all. Please help explain it to me.

Am I really a dad? Absolutely!

Am I really an old geezer who just doesn’t get it? Well, at least as regards burlesque, yes, I guess I am….

Am I politically incorrect? I hope so….

While all of this may sound like ultra-conservative curmudgeon stuff, do I consider myself a conservative? Absolutely not!

Do I apologize to my friend who invited me and to Louise? Absolutely.

Should readers go to see Louise de ville and her gang in their show on Wednesdays at the Manufacture in Paris? Darn right!

Do I want readers to enlighten me as to what it is that I miss in the point of today’s burlesque? Please do!!!!

PS: The women were beautiful, but the other problem with this thing for me is that since I like making videos so much for my blog…I was frustrated in that I did not feel like it was right for me to make videos of this show! 🙁

Crappy Time at Rocky’s in Bahrain – and the Thumbnail Guide to Open Mics and Jam Sessions in Bahrain

April 22, 2013
bradspurgeon

Well, I beat my record Saturday in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, by playing in two open mics/jam sessions, in this tiny country in the Gulf. I was all set to pulverize my record by playing in a third jam session on Sunday night. But then it all went wrong.

I had heard about the jam session at Rocky’s Café when I was at the Dublin Club in the Ramee Palace hotel and I asked about other jam sessions or open mics. I had been told it was a little like the same jam session that I wrote about last night, at the Dublin Club. But when I got to Rocky’s Café, which is near the Dublin Club and Bennigan’s, I found a completely different environment, and little by little it all fell into disarray, and I decided to leave without playing.

Here’s what went wrong:

– arrived to warm reception by security guards outside who saw my guitar and said, “Here for the jam session?” “Yes.” They let me in. No problem here…but…

– enter reception and a greeter sees my guitar and says: “Here for the jam session?” “Yes.” He watches me enter the bar… then comes and grabs me and says, “You can just check in your guitar and then come out and get it again when you play.” I don’t want to leave the guitar at the coat-check, as I want to tune it and keep it near me, and I complain a little that it is full of: Wallet, Zoom video recorder, telephone, reading material – Mojo, Uncut, etc. -, spare batteries for recorder, jacket and one or two other things. To no avail, I remove them and put on jacket and pile full the pockets of the paraphernalia and enter the bar again.

– look at menu and ask for lamb chops for around 5000 local whatevers. “You like lobster?” “Well, yes.” Waiter points to the lobster and it costs 24000 local whatevers. “No, lamb chops, please.”

– “To drink?” “A beer.” “Huh?” “A big one.” “Oh, ok.” So next thing I know, a waitress, instead of bringing me a “pint” of beer – my meaning of “big” – brings a jug containing about five pints, or five litres of Guinness, which ever amount is bigger. I nearly fall off my chair and send her away with the oil barrel of Guinness and tell her to bring a pint, but she’s not happy at all. Next comes the waiter returning to nearly threaten me and tell me I asked for a big beer. “Yeah, but not that massive thing!!!” He pretends he does not understand what a pint of beer is when I explain, until I start to go and show him one on another table. So he accepts….

– at the break I go to the band’s singer and ask about the jam, and she sends me to the guitarist. He asks what song I want to sing, and I say “Mad World.” “Don’t know it, any others?” “Wicked Game.” “Don’t know it.” I explain that I would like to play my guitar and sing, and he says I can use his, but that they don’t like playing songs they don’t know. I say I’d like him to play lead with me, and that the songs are really easy. He says, “I’ll speak to the band and see.”

– as I see them prepare to go back up on stage – I thought – I go back into the reception to take my guitar. Now the man behind the reception tells me I cannot bring my guitar into the pub. “But your colleague told me I could do it before I play!” “No!” “OK, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to leave. You win.”

– I return to tell the guitarist I am not going to play, I hate the place and the people running it, and I’m leaving. Turns out he’s from Quebec, we have a great little chat, he offers me his guitar to play. He’s a great guy, and I have no complaints about the band – as they seem very cool indeed.

But I still had a bad, bad impression of Rocky’s and although it did not happen during the time I was there, I was sure I would be accosted at some point by one of the 15 or so women hanging around the bar – as they had visibly been doing with the 80 or so men at the tables….

So, no, not my favorite evening, and I was glad to get out of Rocky’s. Still, I’m sure it all just got off on the wrong foot. But I do, I do very much hate open mics or open jams where you are not allowed to bring a musical instrument into the bar where they take place.

In the meantime, while you think about that tale, check out my Bahrain installment of my quickly developing World Wide Open Mic Guide: The Thumbnail Guide to Bahrain Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music.

Brad’s Morning Exercises Music Rundown – Bowie, Depeche Mode, Foo Fighters, Bernhauser, Dick & Devaser (Bonus: Savage)

April 7, 2013
bradspurgeon

Sit Ups

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 do exercises. That did not, however, alleviate the boredom. So it is that when not doing my nightly exercise of riding my unicycle around the neighborhood – which does NOT bore me – I do my exercises in the morning (sit ups, push ups, etc.) in the living room while listening to new and old CDs that I acquire from compilations of magazines like Rock & Folk, Mojo and Uncut. I also occasionally buy or get handed CDs of budding musicians at open mics. And while attending my first two races of the Formula One season a few weeks ago, I had a new source of CD acquisition in the Lotus Formula One team, which has this year signed a deal with Columbia Records, and they were handing out CDs to journalists in the F1 paddock.

So it was that I had a very fine collection of CDs from amateur and professional musicians when I returned from that trip, and I have been listening to new music for days during my morning exercises since then. I decided that I should occasionally share my morning exercise listening experiences with readers of this blog when I have no open mic news or videos to exploit.

Please keep in mind that I am ill-educated, and ill-equipped to be a music critic, with a terrible memory for who played what when, for an atrocious lack of care about who actually plays the songs I love and maybe even sing to myself in the shower – after the morning exercises – and that I have no music critic pretensions at all. In fact, I tend to agree with Hemingway that you cannot hunt with the hounds and run with the hares, or whatever it was he said about literary critics.

Still, I have music I like, love and hate. I have my personal impressions, and so like any listener in the world, I can say something about what I listen to, and share my point of view with other non-critics, many readers of this blog. And that is what I’ve decided to do occasionally when there are enough CDs to talk about. Keep in mind also that my impressions and opinions 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.

Bowie Album

Let me start with the three CDs handed out by the Lotus team: Foo Fighters’ Greatest Hits, Depeche Mode Delta Machine and Bowie’s latest album, The Next Day. This was a really interesting listening exercise (no pun intended), as it set off bands from three decades against each other: The 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Of course they all span all decades since then, but for me the clear, clear, clear winner was Bowie. In a word, the Foo Fighters album just sounded like background music to me. Sorry, but I really like original melodies and vocals, and … well, this was just the same rhythmic rumble from beginning to end. Nothing more to say on that one. I listened to it once, and may listen again in some faraway future. But I just don’t see the point.

Right, so between the Depeche Mode and the Bowie? I was really excited about the double CD of Depeche Mode, and when I started listening to it I could clearly hear sharp, strident, cutting beats and… then it all sounded like elevator music. There was nothing on this album that told me this band was still capable of making hits like some of the ones it did in the 1980s. Weirdly, very weirdly, it all sounded exactly like the Depeche Mode of the 1980s, but without anything that stands out. Horribly, in fact, I felt like the album could have been made in the 1980s. What was the point? How had they grown??? What had they done all those years? The vocals remain as fresh as 30 years ago. No loss of voice here. But this was cookie-cutter 1980s Depeche Mode without the originality. I listened once, then started listening a second time on another day, and said, “Nope.”

Jeez. I’m really being scathing here, and I’m wondering how intelligent this exercise really is. After all, I’m sounding as nasty as a critic! But since my words count for nothing, and as a musician I have a following of about 10, rather than 10 million, what the hell! Morning exercises criticism, right?

OK. So on to the Bowie. The first time I listened, I was pleased to hear it sounded like Bowie. I had actually read another critic saying in one of the aforementioned magazines, however, that Bowie had not developed anything new on this, and we were hearing something that might have been done in the late 1970s. In a way, I agreed. But the production of the album, and again, the quality of the vocals – Bowie’s voice is still there, mostly – were pleasing. So although I was not overly impressed, I was adequately impressed.

I also remembered that historically, whenever a new Bowie would come out, I’d usually write it off…. only to love it with time. So I decided to put it on again another day. Especially as a way of comparing to the Depeche Mode. I then started listening more closely to the lyrics, and also noticing the differentiation between the melodies and rhythms, and I said, “No, this is not ‘all the same’, and no, he could not have done these lyrics in the 1970s. This is now. This is new. This is Bowie.” I listened to it a third time, another day. And it brought more to me, and grew on me, and I have to say that the oldest musician amongst these three bands, the dinosaur amongst them, he’s the one who produced the most interesting album. And a really nice album. I will listen to it again. Oh, I’m not completely without my criticisms. What is it, I asked myself, about these geriatric giants that they are writing songs about, in Bowie’s case, Valentine’s Day, and in Paul Simon’s case on his album a couple of years ago, Christmas Day…? Both must be the worst tracks. But that Simon album was magnificent – for me, better than the Bowie. But in both cases, it warmed my morning exercise muscles, to say nothing of my soul, and made me feel as if there was hope in aging rockers….

A Formula One journalist friend of mine from Canada passed on a CD from a friend of his while I was in Malaysia. The musician is Peter Dick, and he is a pianist, and a fan of Formula One. His CD, based on some sessions he did in Hart House at the University of Toronto, is called “String Theory,” and it is a mixture of some kind of contemporary music and jazz, including one song by Bill Evans. I really love this kind of piano, which reminded me slightly of Keith Jarrett. One of the songs, bizarrely, or rather, fittingly, is called “Ayrton,” after Ayrton Senna, the deceased Formula One driver. I really liked the CD, but unfortunately, there are two tracks that I will have to program OUT of my playlist. These are the two tracks where Dick decides to “sing.” Sorry, but the singing style and lyrics just didn’t do it for me, and completely killed their respective tracks. The rest of Dick’s compositions were very cool, laid back, intricate listening.

When I did that fabulous open mic in Malaysia in the middle of the suburbs at a place I had a hard time getting a cab driver to find for me, there was a musician named Shaneil Devaser, who I quite liked during the evening. He had original compositions, a varied style, nice guitar playing and singing range. Clever lyrics, clever songs. So as I left the open mic, I gladly bought a copy of his CD EP, simply named after himself. It was fun to listen to it and hear how some of the songs sounded in a recording environment and sometimes with other instruments rather than just his vocals and guitar as he did live.

Anthony Bernhauser

Finally, upon my return to Paris while I attended the Tennessee Bar open mic the very day I had left Malaysia that morning, I had just arrived at the open mic and found a guy taking to the stage who came from Nashville. I was involved in conversations with friends who greeted me after my two week absence, but I had to stop talking and record the guy. His voice was very strong, and he had nice guitar work, and some catchy sounding country-like tunes. His name was Anthony Bernhauser, and afterwards he came up to me and introduced himself as someone who had read this blog and who had sent me an email asking me about places to play in Paris. I remembered him instantly, and he gave me his CD. Beautifully produced, you can really hear the strength and richness of his guitar, and it’s a real feel of Nashville, and current Americana singer songwriter stuff – I think, anyway….

Well, that’s it. Strange, I’ve been vicious with a couple of the most successful bands – although not with THE most successful. So maybe that means something. Personally, it was just the way I truly felt about this crop of CDs. But I never did like exercising….

Bonus track: While I’m at this, I might as well mention another CD that I received before my two week trip to Australia and Malaysia, even if it is out of synch time wise with these in terms of when I got it…. This is one from a guy I have seen play recently in Paris open mics, but who I first saw playing at Earle Holmes’s open mic at the Truskell when the guy was maybe 15 years old. This the EP of Josh Savage, called Mountains in Hurricanes. There are some very catchy lyrics here, and Josh could always sing. Nice move.

The 2013 Edition of the Worldwide Musical Adventure Begins – An Outline….

March 10, 2013
bradspurgeon

someone’s guitar on a plane

Here it is, my fifth year in a row of traveling the world to play in open mics and jam sessions. It starts tomorrow with my flight from Paris to Melbourne, then the following week I go to Kuala Lumpur. As regular readers of this blog will know, I have been documenting my musical adventures around the world on this blog for the last three years, and for the year before that I began writing a book about it. This year I will again visit 20 countries in the next nine months, and play in a massive number of open mics and open jam sessions, and I will write about what I find here….

To recap a little, the first year was the book. The second year was the blog. The third year was the blog and a documentary film. The fourth year was the blog and me recording myself playing music with musicians in the open mics around the world, as well as a series of podcasts of people running the open mics and playing in them.

So where does this whole trans-media epic stand at the moment? Another recap: I take these worldwide trips as a journalist reporting on Formula One auto racing for my newspaper, and in my free time I seek out places to play, in these cities and countries where I would not otherwise expect to find open mics – in many cases. And each time I like to have a new project to work on to document it, or do something “else” with it. This year will be no exception. I again have projects in the works. What are they?

First, I want to say that my goal this year is perhaps more ambitious than in all the other year combined. Because my No. 1 goal will be to COMPLETELY finish all of the projects that have accumulated but never ceased to spin out. In other words, I’m still working on the book – it’s written, but I’m now editing it – and I want that finished finally by the end of the year, but hopefully within the next couple of months. I want to work with all the recordings I did and make some kind of CD – ie, the podcasts and some of the stuff of me playing with other people. And I want to finish the film, finally. To that end, I have made a number of very important steps in recent weeks, and I’m very, very excited about them, and I will write about that in the coming weeks.

For this year, I will not simply sit back on my laurels and be satisfied with finishing the other projects, but I will start one or two new ones. In addition to simply continuing to play at open mics and jam sessions everywhere I go, and recording it here on the blog, the first new project is that I will be adding a new page to the blog at every location I go to, which will be a Thumbnail Guide to the open mics and jam sessions, etc., that I know of in those cities. Having now had four years, and this will be the fifth, of accumulated and growing knowledge about each city’s open mics, I finally feel like it is time to put it all up on the blog in a usable form. Of course, my Paris guide to open mics will always be the most up-to-date, since that’s where I live and play the most. But the other pages will, I hope, serve their purpose well, and give a whole knew heft to this site.

The other project I plan to do, but this one may or may not be feasible, is that I plan to write a new song in each country and city I visit, and the song will in some way be inspired by the place. I have no idea how big a task that will prove to be, but I really want to face the challenge and try it. If it produces one good song, then that’s cool enough – the rest will just be a great exercise and discipline…. I will decide whether or not to make the songs heard on the site, but I expect that I will only manage to lay down the melodic idea and write the full text, but not perfect the song at each place – since I’m often not present in the countries long enough to do that…especially given all the work I have to do for my day job.

So that is it in a nutshell: 20 countries in 9 months; a new web of evergreen material for a worldwide open mic thumbnail guide of where to perform; 20 new songs inspired by the places I visit; and finally, all of my previous years’ projects finished and finalized to tie together the entire multimedia, trans-media, worldwide musical adventure. Sound like I’m a dreamer? I hope so!!!!

PS, here is the schedule of places I will visit, and when (although the date usually but not always represents the last day I am in the country – and while there are only 19 countries here, the 20th is France, where I will play in between times):

Of Loyalty and Success at the Ptit Bonheur

February 13, 2013
bradspurgeon

I’m a great believer in the concept of loyalty in certain situations in life, maybe even in most situations. But when it comes to deciding where I am going to go to have fun playing my music in an open mic, I don’t care at all about loyalty. I’m going to go to the open mic(s) on any particular evening where I think I’m going to have the most fun, both behind the mic and at the bar talking to people, and within the confines of what my availability is within the sign-up rules of the open mic. But when it comes to the MCs of great open mics, I sometimes feel that maybe they should show a little loyalty. And last night, Ollie Joe, the MC of the great Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic decided to disappear from his post to go off and do a personal concert at the Espace B. I wanted to go and see him, but given the choice, I decided to go to his open mic, being hosted exceptionally by Sven. Wow! I was not the only one who remained loyal where Ollie did not! The place was jam packed with spectators and musicians, more than any other time practically that I have seen….

Having said that, Ollie Joe is a wonderful musician, and had I not had such a selfish motivation in doing music at open mics, I would have attended his concert – and he later returned to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance and told me the Espace B was also packed. So all ended well. But I can say that loyalty had nothing to do with the fun at the Ptit Bonheur last night. A vast list of performers, a full bar on the ground floor, standing room only in the concert room below, and some wonderful acts. NOT a night to miss – and woe to all those other bars in Paris that choose Tuesday as their open mic night….

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was actually taken enormously by surprise, got to the Ptit Bonheur so late that I was virtually the last one on the list to perform, and even then, I was no doubt on the “standby” list. As it happened, I had so much fun as an audience member and listening to others, that when it came my turn and Sven had reduced people’s slots to one song, I decided to give my second song to a crazy Australian and crazy Frenchman who had never performed at the Bonheur before. And even that was selfish, since I actually did not want to perform at that point, it was such a great night.

OK, I admit. I’m not telling the full truth. Another reason I didn’t want to perform by that time is I had a run-in with a very disagreeable spectator who treated me like cow manure for making a video of one of the better performers. That kind of thing happens very, very rarely; which is why I tend to take badly to it. (I’m actually completely cool with someone telling me that they hate being videoed and would rather I not do it – but the secret is in how it is done, IE, treat me like a normal human, my video camera is not a weapon, and lots of people love seeing the videos (of themselves or others). I needed a bit of time to cool off on the only low point of the night…. (There, I have adhered to my strict effort to speak my mind on this blog, no matter what happens….)

A Genuine Canadian Article, Eh

August 12, 2012
bradspurgeon

I am not proud to be a Canadian. I never was, in fact. Always hated the concept. I am just a Canadian. I was born in Toronto, and grew up there and in Ottawa. I have two passports, two citizenships, a British one and a Canadian one. I have spent most of my adult life living in France. But I will never tell anyone I am British. I am Canadian, that’s where I’m from, how I was raised, where my whole early essence of life comes from. Now, my life is all about the entire world, as readers of this blog will know, as I travel the world for my work and seek out music everywhere – the common language. All of this long introduction is just to say how “un-proud” I felt this morning as I picked up my copy of the May 2012 LRC, or Literary Review of Canada, and my eye was suddenly caught by a stamp, a logo of approval on the bottom right corner of the cover that read: Genuine Canadian Magazine.

bob and doug mckenzie

What?!? Suddenly now images of Bob & Doug McKenzie, the yokels from SCTV in the 1980s designed to fulfill Canadian-content rules come to mind. This morning what came to mind was the incredible Canadian inferiority complex, the extraordinary need for Canada to assert its cultural identity by announcing that it has one, by promoting culture for the very fact of its Canadian-ness rather than its quality. But coming on the cover of a literary review, I was struck almost like as if in the balls as I said to myself, “Man, if I saw Genuine Canadian Leather stamped on my Roots shoes or some Canadian souvenir, I would not blink. Just like I might expect to see the same thing on a Malaysian, Brazilian or any other product around the world.”

But having not read the Canadian Literary Review ever before in my life – it is more than 20 years old, but I have been in France longer than that – I suddenly felt as if a), my intelligence had been affronted in a place where I had gone to make use of it, and b), as if the quality of the magazine itself was most certainly going to be about as thick and impenetrable as Genuine Canadian Leather, or even worse, it would read like as if Bob & Doug McKenzie – sorry for the ancient reference from pop culture – had written it. How could any self-respecting literary review stamp itself as a “Genuine Canadian Magazine”? And why, above all, with a title such as “Literary Review of Canada,” would I in my wildest dreams have any doubts as to its origins or cultural background?

literary review of canada

The review, of course, looks and feels like a Canadian version of the London Review of Books, the LRB. It is about the same size, same paper, same layout – more or less. I have read such reviews for years, the LRB, The New York Review of Books, or NYRB, the Magazine Litteraire and Lire, in France, etc. Here I was now eager to break into the pages of the Canadian literary review and immediately being reminded of all I hated about my native country on the cultural level. I used to be well-liked at the University of Toronto in the early 1980s if ever I brought up any such topic of criticism of Canada’s effort to ghettoize its own literature by calling it “CanLit.” Give me the Lit, you keep the Can, I would say.

And in recent days as I have not been attending open mics all over the world or even in my adopted home of Paris – thanks to it being August and most of the open mics being closed – I have been doing a lot more reading, particularly of this absolutely superb biography of one of my favourite authors, who also happens to be Canadian, Mordecai Richler. Interestingly, as someone who hates the concept of CanLit, two of my favourite authors are Richler and his fellow Canadian, Robertson Davies. But in reading the Richler biography, written by Charles Foran – whom I also learned in the LRC, is the president of PEN Canada – I have learned that Richler also hated the whole concept of trying to prop up and boast about and support Canadian culture. His point of view was that it should survive on merit, not government support. Even more interesting, Richler was left-wing.

Well, back to the LRC, that Genuine Canadian Magazine. FYI, my dad was founder and editor of another genuine Canadian magazine in the 1960s and 1970s, that I know would not have survived without government support – it was called Science Forum – and so I could not, either, be against government support. The point is not “don’t help it survive with money,” the point is, “allow it to be trashed, criticized, discarded, publicly ostracized and allow it to die…if it is no good. Allow it to be praised, promoted and loved if it IS good – in fact, if it is so good, it WILL be loved and promoted.” Here, yes, we arrive back at the LRC.

mordecai richler

My first impressions were completely destroyed by this stamp of authenticity. I had been really pleased to pick up a literary review from my country – I am Canadian, remember – and thought that I would feel a little closer to it in my bones and roots than the ones I was used to reading… only to then be treated like a bumpkin or tourist picking up a pair of Genuine Canadian Moccasins in Niagara Falls. Okay, so then I read it. Cover to cover in one sitting. It is superb. It is Canadian, but not exclusively so. It had stories about books on the failed, disastrous Franklin expedition to the Arctic in 1845 and how it has become a political tool to define Canada and its territorial rights; another on a book about Michael Ignatieff and the death of the Liberal party, written by Peter C. Newman; about a biography of the great theater director, John Hirsch, who had emigrated as a war orphan from Hungary to Canada after WWII; about the Mauthausen trials after WWII; it even had a couple of novel reviews!

The point of this was that in reading the LRC, I felt a closeness to the English Canadian intellectual, creative and cultural world in a way that my life as an expat and my annual return trips only for my work as a Formula One journalist – which is how I bought the LRC in June – does not usually permit me to feel. Above all, the review seemed to me to be very much the equal to any of other such reviews I read or have read from any other country in the world.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was reading a Genuine Canadian Magazine! And that made that little idiot’s insignia on the front all the bigger an insult. By the time I got to the last page of the review I found a full-page advertisement telling me the source of the Genuine Canadian Magazine seal of approval: “Canadian magazine are unique,” read the ad, which had the face all fuzzy in the background – in a collage of magazine covers – of the ubiquitous and now iconic Margaret Atwood. “And so are you,” the ad continued. “That’s why we publish hundreds of titles, so you know there’s one just for you. All you have to do is head to the newsstands, look for the Genuine Canadian Magazine icon marking truly Canadian publications and start reading. It’s that easy.”

I was then told to visit magazinescanada.ca/ns to find my favourite magazine. I did so, and to my great shock, I found there just about every magazine that I ever knew existed in Canada. And I thought, holy crap, there’s no way I could even protest the culture police if I wanted to – without dropping all association with all Canadian magazines, including what appeared to be the major small literary reviews. At least it is not just the LRC that should be taken to task for this – although they would do well to be intelligent enough to at least drop the logo from the front page…if they are allowed to.

So the point of today’s rant? (Yesterday’s rant was about unicycling and cops and traffic laws in France.) The point is that Canada should really drop its efforts to show and impose its culture as being the equal to any on earth – especially that of its great neighbour to the south – because its best culture IS up to the level of that of anyone else’s…except when the culture police pop up their heads and insult our intelligence by insisting that we hear that. Again, and again, and again. Inferiority complexes are not attractive.

PS, in going to the LRC web site just now, I see there is currently a feature called, “How Others See Us.” Hmm… it’s catchy….

PPS, to add a point about not being proud to be Canadian, that phrase I used to open this rant. I speak in the same terms as one of the daughters of King Lear, when he asked his daughters how much each of them loved him. One of those daughters said she loved him – no more, no less. He failed to understand.

Playing the Unicycle Game According to the Vagaries of the Law

August 11, 2012
bradspurgeon

bike path indicator

It is a cliché and a banality to say it, but sometimes I feel like laws are just excuses for cops to bully people. This was driven in to me last night as I was riding my unicycle around my neighborhood at 3 AM, which is something I do for cardiovascular exercise as often as I don’t have something better to do at 3 AM….

I do not have much to complain about, since I have been doing this for nearly four years now and the police in my neighborhood stopped me only once. There is no real need for them to stop me EVER, but they remain suspicious of a man riding a unicycle around the neighborhood at 3 AM, I think – as the patrol cars sometimes do slow down to check me out. Maybe they are just being entertained. But not the night they stopped me. And that’s where I get to the meat of this post.

At that time I used to take a number of streets on the unicycle in the opposite sense of the car traffic. I did this because it was the safer way to ride down a narrow suburban street at 3 AM when there are very few cars around my neighborhood. When a car did come, I could see it clearly and quickly get off the road onto the sidewalk to avoid any difficulty or danger with the car passing me.

On this particular night, I saw headlights, I pulled off to the sidewalk and I continued toward the intersection. There, I saw that the car was that of a cop … in fact, there were four of them in the car. The guy in the driver’s seat called my attention and I rode over to him and got off the unicycle.

“Just because you are not in a car does not mean you can drive the wrong way down the street,” the man said in a threatening tone. “I could charge you for doing that. Just because it’s a contraption like that doesn’t mean you can go where you want.”

“Oh, okay,” I said with genuine surprise. I was surprised at what he was saying, why he might be saying it, and that he was saying it at all. I had not even thought about the legality of riding a unicycle the wrong way down a quiet suburban road.

But then the cop pointed to my helmet and said: “And don’t think that just because you’re wearing a helmet that you’re safe. If you fall down you will still hurt yourself.”

bike path traffic sign

This too was said in a threatening tone. I had only recently started wearing a helmet, by the way, after riding a unicycle since I was 15 years old. But now I will not ride without one, after I DID fall with the helmet once and hit my head – it was like a backwards belly flop (I had been riding backwards up the street in the direction of the car traffic and I got distracted) and I smashed the rear of my head and was very, very pleased I had the helmet, and did not hurt myself. But now the cop was invading my own private territory, and I realized that he was stepping over the line of what was right and just, and I responded just as sharply to him:

“I am 50 years old, I just lost my wife to cancer at the age of 43 and I have two teenage children to take care of,” I said, “and I need to keep my body in good physical shape and I hate exercise. This is my only way to exercise AND have fun, and no one is going to stop me from doing it.”

The man’s tone changed quickly, he said, “Yeah, well, don’t go the wrong way down a one-way street, you’ll get to your destination just as quickly taking it the right way.”

Obviously he had entirely missed the point of why I took it in the opposite sense…for safety, not to get back home quickly.

He quickly rolled up his window and drove off without another word, and I watched dumbfounded as he drove through the red light at the next intersection without stopping! IE, breaking the fucking law in a car just after telling me I was doing the same and shouldn’t!

So now, let’s fast-forward this post two years later to last night: In recent months my entire neighborhood has had bicycle lanes painted on the roads and I had been very pissed off because since the incident with the cops, I had found myself a great 4 to 5 kilometer circuit that I took, all of which ran in the correct sense of the traffic – as the cops wanted. Well, guess what? I had noticed that the new bicycle lanes all seemed to run in the contrary sense of my personal circuit, all heading into traffic…ie, going the same direction that the cops had accused me of breaking the law with.

I was very happy with my circuit and pissed off that these bike lanes seemed to give me no chance at another logical and cool around-the-neighborhood circuit until last night it suddenly occurred to me that all I had to do was to do exactly the same circuit I had been doing for years, but go in the opposite sense – i.e., face on into the traffic just as the bike lanes did – and I would have the same circuit but now I would not be doing something illegal.

So it was that I realized that, indeed, there had been a 360 degree about-face in what constitutes safe and legal, and here now the same police would no doubt come after me and fine me and accuse me of breaking the law for NOT driving down the lanes in the opposite direction of car traffic.

I laughed to myself and realized the irony of it all. Oh, and I still have to get off the street occasionally when I see a car coming my way because these bicycle lanes are pure fantasy on some of these streets that are just far too narrow to permit a car and a bike – or unicycle – from passing through at the same time.

Still, I’m also still a little confused as to whether I really should be allowed on a path for two wheels with just one…. Oh the trials of being slightly different in life!!!!