Rap | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

PARIS – I’ll start by saying that my little crawl through the open mics of the Latin Quarter last night began with putting my name on the list of the Galway Pub open mic. It then went from there to dropping by at the Tennessee Bar open mic; and finished cool at the Coolin. And which was the best, hands down???

The Tennessee, I must say, was the worst. This place has recently died. The Tennessee, for years run by James Iansiti, was one of the best open mics in Paris. And one of the things that made it that was the amazing location of the bar, and the fabulous basement layout, its amazing stage, the possibility to go to the ground level or outside to talk and smoke. Then James left the place (now at the Café Oz, Denfert), and the Tennessee went through some kind of transition period using several different MCs, and this has now led to its current state of disaster and death. So if you want a really hideous night at an open mic in Paris on Mondays, drop by the Tennessee. Really, this fabulous bar and musical venue – potentially – must do something to save its current descent into hell.

If it looks like I was drinking some good whiskey while writing the above paragraph, then that’s right. But maybe I had better say something more concrete: First, there is no longer any ambience, the MC seems nice enough, but that’s not enough. There were five musicians present, it was a jam session not an open mic (which can be great, but there was no sense of cohesion here), and it seems that all those kinds of people who used to flock to this place to have a sense of home and fun, have abandoned ship. The stage is there, climb aboard and do what you want. Each musician for his or herself.

Next: So I spent only a few minutes there, grabbed a bit of video footage of some people playing – before THEY abandoned ship and turned up at the Galway – and I went to the Galway. The regular MC, All the Roads, Romain, was not there last night, and was being replaced. That meant an immediate downer, since Romain is so much a part of the vibe at the Galway now. The replacement was just fine, and is alway a regular musician at the Galway. But at least for as long as I stayed, I did not find the atmosphere I was looking for exactly, and I DID get to play early and therefore have the time to move on to the Coolin as I wanted.

In the meantime, I learned a response to the question I had posed to myself the last time I visited the Galway: The two tickets that every musician who plays now receives (that I mentioned last time) are worth Happy Hour prices for the drinks. This is a fabulous innovation at the Coolin, and really shows how much the pub respects and encourages musicians. My Kilkenny cost me five euros instead of something like seven euros fifty or so.

And Then Off to the Grand Finale of the Evening at the Coolin Pub in Paris

But I wanted to check out the Coolin in this last period of the pub’s existence. How horrible, the Coolin, after some 20 years, will be closing March after the market building in which it is based was bought out and kicking out all the businesses.

It was a relatively quiet night at the Coolin in terms of the numbers of musicians present – as it had been at the two previous joints (thanks no doubt to the cold weather) so despite arriving late, I got my name on the list.

I managed to play, got an encore, played again, then played another song at the end of an evening that ended at 1:30 AM or later! How can I describe the riotous musical fun at the Coolin last night? There were all sorts of talented, manic and crazy musicians, a great team running the show as usual between Ellen and Etienne, and a bar staff that is bounteous in its generosity. Oh dear, and each musician actually receives a ticket for an entirely free drink. (This is an old tradition at the Coolin, and possibly something the Galway heard about.)

Just check out the videos to get an idea of the fabulous atmosphere at the Coolin last night. And go every Monday until 16 March, the last night for the open mic – before the closing day of the bar with the final musical day of madness on the 21 March.

Coolin wins hands down last night in the Latin Quarter.

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brutopia

It was another insanely fun night at Brutopia, a mainstay open mic of Montreal. I say “insanely” fun because two or three of the acts were quite insane, in fact. A reflection of Montreal?

It was my fourth or fifth time at Brutopia, and again I found it the kind of evening that by the time I left I was thoroughly satiated by the investment of time – and beer money in their microbrewery products. The one thing that it also had in common with previous nights was a bit of a slow beginning with louder sounds coming from the spectators than from the stage.

But that did not last long before the stage activity began to take precedence over the crowd. And in the end, there were enough cool and insane acts to make the whole evening worth it.

Plus I got to hear my friend from Paris, Raphaëlle, doing her amazing songs that I am used to hearing in Paris, and blowing away the crowd completely. I was also joined by a few Formula One journalist colleagues, and while they came during a bit of a down moment in the evening and made me worry I had got them to come to an off-night at Brutopia, things suddenly picked up.

The insane ones? Well, there was MC Puzzle, to start with. This is a white Montreal rap artist of exceptional something – but I’m not sure what! Just check him out…. It was his birthday – apparently – and at the end of his act the MC of the evening – Scott – told the public they ought to by MC Puzzle some beers. A member of the public shouted out: “He oughta be buying us beers!” It was all in fun….

The maddest hatter of them all was the bass player from the band Street Meat, which I had seen last year or the year before. He wore a top hat and played solo bass and sang along. He specializes in a Jerry Lee Lewis lunacy. It was very, very cool.