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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…

Steve Forbert Revisited – From Gerde’s in Greenwich Village to Swindon, England

June 29, 2013
bradspurgeon

Steve Forbert today
photograph by Alan MESSER [alanmesser.com]

OXFORD – It was September or October of 1976, and I was attending an open mic at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, about to take to the stage to sing something – I’m not sure what – when the MC woman announced the next number. A scruffy, thin, threadbare guy two or three years older than me took to the stage and greeted us in a raspy voice. He started strumming his guitar – I think it was a worn out Martin – and broke into a howling, haunting, high-pitched, emotional rendition of the Hank Williams classic, “I’m So Lonesome I could Cry.”

The room filled with his presence, and I felt a bolt of something overcome my senses and turn what was until then your average dreary open mic night – even if it was at the legendary open mic where Bob Dylan and all the other 60s icons got their start – into an electrifying experience that left me, for one, not just entertained but also mystified. What’s going? Who is this guy? What’s he doing to the room? Where did he get this voice? Can I find one of those somewhere? How does he do this? And why? What does it represent?

Those were the thoughts going through my teenage mind at this period in my life when although I would have loved to have “been a singer songwriter” I felt far, far from any such ambition. (I would later that night at Gerde’s give a terrible, shaky, non-rhythmic version of Raggle Taggle Gypsies or some other traditional Celtic song, and I don’t know what else – maybe a Bob Dylan, maybe one of my own songs.) So I had all these questions going through my head about who this guy was and what I was feeling in the room. He was clearly known to the MC, so he had been there a few times before – and perhaps even a lot.

I would see the guy, whose full name I learned was Steve Forbert, two or three more times, and on one of those occasions I found myself standing just ahead or just behind him in the line up outside Gerde’s where the musicians waited to sign the list before the open mic. It was cold, and I recall clearly the inner lining and stuffing of his jacket was bursting out at the seams.

I decided it was time to try to find some answers to those questions and I asked him how old he was and how long he had been playing in bars and open mics. He said he was 21 and had been doing it for a couple of years.

Of course, he was not from New York City. He was from Meridian, Mississippi, and his strong southern accent is apparent not only in his speech but in his singing. But I did not learn all that much more about him, and I left New York City myself with many questions about just what it was I had witnessed.

I would go through many travels and trials and spend a four-month period down and out in London busking in Marble Arch (where I would discover the beginnings of a voice), then rent a room with a well known American DJ in London, and spend a period in Iran during the revolution and then finally on my way back from the revolution in Iran, while taking a black cab from the airport to the home of my American DJ friend, I suddenly heard the voice in a song on the radio. It was now 1978 and I recognized the voice instantly and just waited for the DJ on that station to announce the guy’s name: Steve Forbert.

Forbert’s Alive on Arrival cover

He had just released his album “Alive on Arrival,” and this was a song from the album – although I cannot remember which one. Suddenly, however, I now had the answer to my questions of that night two years earlier: What I had witnessed in Gerde’s Folk City was quite simply a future giant of American pop music, who was about to go on a roll of about three years of success.

He was, in fact, greeted with the doubtful and unfortunate acclaim of being “the next Bob Dylan.” Like so many others. His song, “Romeo’s Tune,” hit No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1980.

Sometime in the early 1980s when I was living in Toronto, Forbert came to do a concert and I may or may not have attended the concert – no clear memories – but I do recall being thoroughly surprised to discover that the liner notes of his latest album were written by that DJ friend of mine – Paul Gambaccini – from London, who, it turned out, was a huge fan of Forbert’s. How strange the way people’s paths cross, I thought.

Over the years I have thought back many times to that period in New York City at the open mics, and my meeting with Forbert. I moved to France and for many years ceased to perform in public until I started again nearly five years ago, once again at the open mics, but now feeling much better about my reception as a performer. One of the songs I would try to perform would be that Hank Williams song as I tried to reach the same emotional and melodic heights not of Hank, but of Steve Forbert. Another song I would occasionally try was “Romeo’s Tune.”

In neither case would I ever feel satisfied to have achieved that level of what I recalled from Forbert’s performance, or his recordings on his records, which I later bought.

Living in France I never had a chance to see Forbert again, but I always vowed to go to one of his concerts in England, should I be here when he did a concert. So it was that this weekend I noticed that Forbert was doing a small tour of England that involved not only the famous Glastonbury Festival today, but yesterday, an appearance in Swindon.

Swindon is a 50 minute drive from Oxford, where I am staying during my reporting of the British Grand Prix in Siverstone. So I bought a ticket online for his show at the Swindon Arts Centre, and after my day of work yesterday, I drove off to encounter Forbert again – after 37 years!

It turned out to be a small theater, and as I entered the room to take my seat 10 minutes before the performance was to start, there was Steve already on the stage, tuning up and preparing his equipment. He was up there for the full 10 minutes, just waiting for the spectators to enter and preparing. Now 58 years old, wearing jeans, T-shirt and another open-collar shirt over that, in full possession of all his hair, I felt instantly as if no time had passed whatsoever. Later, during the show, he mentioned there were CDs for sale and asked people to kindly not hold the cover up to his face – in reference to the fact that his youthful face on the CDs would be a contrast to the one he has now. In fact, he looks in great condition, physically trim and fit, and as I said, I had the feeling from my seat in Row F, that I was seeing exactly the same “Little Stevie Orbit” as I saw at Gerde’s Folk City.

The concert was, again, for me in particular a very emotional one, and one in which I was constantly trying to figure out what had changed in his voice, his delivery, his persona, his music. Had anything changed? If not, why was Forbert a big star 30 years ago and today known mostly to aficionados and grey-haired people walking down memory lane?

My conclusion, after two 45-minute (or more) sets of Steve playing his guitar solo and with no electronic effects and entertaining us purely with his magic, rhythmic playing, his harmonic and his raspy voice, was that not much had changed at all, in fact. Unfortunately, before the concert, his assistant announced that Steve preferred that no one make a video or take photographs. So I had to set my Zoom Q3 HD aside and not grace my readers with material to make up their own minds about his performance today.

But what I did come away with was the thought that Steve had not changed that much, but that I now had a new and different interpretation of his voice and of my own encounter with him playing 37 years ago before he became a success. What I realized was that his extremely distinctive raspy and emotional voice is one that may sound different according to the circumstances – be it live or recorded, with a band or solo, in a large room or a small bar – but that behind it all is the same “center” of Steve Forbert’s poetic, musical world.

And that world is all about, guess what? Our passage through life. I bought his re-released first album last night to hear its 11 bonus tracks – and they are fabulous, some outtakes and some live stuff from the time, as well as demo stuff – and on one of the songs I noticed the lyric about time passing and him now being “23 year’s old,” as if he was much older and wiser now…. And there was a lot of talk of this kind of thing last night, too, and I realized that he had not changed – Steve Forbert the observer of life is still there, and still Alive well past Arrival. If he had not changed, then perhaps popular tastes change; but that means they’ll perhaps come around again….

Forbert’s patter with the audience was a blessing, a brilliant way to connect, and I admired how he warmed up both us and himself through the patter, the songs, and as he did, his voice warmed up, got stronger, warmer. He had a constant, excellent, drole rapport with the audience, asked for requests – I asked for the Hank Willams song, but did not get it – and he played many of the old hits, as well as more recent stuff, including stuff from his recent album from last year.

It was admirable to see how he carried these two sets without a band and without electronic looping or other cheating gadgets: Just his own musical world and the songs his fans love.

After the show he came out to sign CDs and speak to the spectators. This gave me the chance to present myself and tell him about meeting him at Gerde’s 37 years before.

“Those were great days, weren’t they?” he said.

They were, I said. And he said something upon my departure about how maybe he’d go through another 35 years and we’d meet again. During the show he had mentioned visiting his dad who was 90 years old. So I told him that his dad was 90, and my dad was 88, and so we’d both get there, wouldn’t we?

During the show, by the way, he said if you don’t have the recent re-editions of his albums then you don’t have the albums, because he has added so many bonus tracks. I can confirm that the Alive on Arrival is definitely worth buying. I’ve been listening to it in my rental car driving around England and I realized that while we were fed the slick, well-produced 10 tracks of the original, there was a treasure trove of more raw but perhaps more pure gold in the outtakes and live stuff….

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.

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.”

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):

World Travel 2012 Pithy Wrap Up Part I: Brazil

December 1, 2012
bradspurgeon

I left everyone hanging at just the worst moment, and I’m really sorry that you all lost sleep over it! I had just arrived in Sao Paulo for the last leg of my 20 country and every continent – except Africa and Antarctica – tour of 2012 and I wrote more details of my magical musical adventure in Austin, Texas. And then, suddenly, the man vanishes. As if eaten by the criminals of Sao Paulo. Where is the musical adventure of the Brazilian city of the samba and bossa nova and all that jazz?

Well, time just became too much with me. First, the reason this report is so late is that I had a two-day travel back from Sao Paulo via New York’s JFK airport, where I spent 11 hours working on my stories for my final work-related event of the year. That also consisted of two night flights. So I was really out of commission as far as this blog and music go, for days. Then upon my return, I had to sleep away Wednesday day in order to have the energy to play a gig on Wednesday night that suddenly materialized when I received a phone call as I arrived in the bus at the Sao Paul airport. That will be the subject of tomorrow’s blog item, that gig.

So I will return the final leg of my world open mic, open jam musical adventure. In fact, Sao Paulo ended on a down note on the final night. In the four years of this adventure readers of this blog will have noticed that I found only one true open jam session in Sao Paulo, and it takes place on the Sunday night and goes all night long. It has been one of the best open jam experiences I have ever had, and it is largely bossa nova and other Brazilian forms of music, played by professional and amateur musicians sitting all together around a table in a bar all night long. People join the jam as they please, drop out when they want, then return again.

This year, after I contacted one of my friends who takes part in the jam to find out if it was still taking place at the same location, I learned that in fact, no, it wasn’t. I had missed the jam two years ago after it had moved to a new location and I had not known how to find the new one. This time, I was told the jam had moved again and that on Sunday night, it would take place at around 8 PM in two different places, starting in one place and then moving to the other at around 22:00. Well, I had a load of work to do for the racing job I do, since the title was decided and it required a lot more writing than usual.

So I could only make it to the second location of the jam. I went out to dinner with my friend, the musician Bruno Santos, and after the meal he drove me over to the second location of the jam. We got there after midnight. We could see from the car that there were only two people in the place – one man with a guitar, and someone else. It was a bar in Vila Madalena, but it was clearly, clearly not a huge success, this jam. I asked Bruno to please just drive me back to my hotel, which was near his apartment. My thought was that if the jam DID get going, it would clearly take a couple of hours, and I did not want to risk staying up all night for what might not be so great.

Open mics and open jams are not a big part of the culture in Sao Paulo. I heard back from my friend that she had gone to the first place and stayed longer and it had been quite a success. She then went on to the second place, and I have to tell her still why I did not show up.

Okay. Now. I do not want my faithful – or even unfaithful – readers of this blog to think that my worldwide open mic and open jam adventure ended on a failure. In fact, I there is a complete other part to this year’s adventure, which I have mentioned several times on this blog, and in that area, the visit to Sao Paulo was a huge success. My goal this year, one of my projects, was to record myself on my little Roland R26 recorder playing music in every country I visited, playing with a local musician. This I succeeded at: 20 countries, including France (although I have to get back to that part in tomorrow’s post), and Brazil was no exception.

The first day I was there, on the Thursday, I went to the aforesaid Bruno’s apartment and we played music for hours. It represented the only break from work I have had for 3 weeks – aside from the open mics in Austin – and together we played my songs, with me on vocals and guitar, and Bruno accompanying on guitar, keyboards and drums. He also sang some of his songs. The part we recorded on the Roland was with me playing my song and singing and playing my guitar, and Bruno playing drums.

Unlike in any of the other countries where I recorded, however, this little experiment turned out to be massively productive, as we chose to play a song that I wrote recently, but for which there was still a question mark hanging over it as to whether I had truly found the right structure. Bruno listened to me play it a couple of times, then he played along. Then he said immediately that he thought he detected a problem. We discussed it, and while my first reaction was that I did not want to write more lyrics to it, my second reaction was that I suddenly realized I did NOT have to write more lyrics, but just change the order of the lyrics and parts of the song. So we did it again, with me changing the structural order but using exactly the same lyrics, verses, chorus and bridge. It worked better than ever.

Now, this was all possible because Bruno Santos – who was born in Brazil but grew up on just about every continent except the really cold one – is one kick-ass musician. I wrote extensively about him and his album last year, and he continues to develop his music and musicianship – the keyboards being a recent addition – and I predict a brilliant career for this guy. In fact, I know that his self-made album – where he plays all instruments and produced the thing himself – is selling steadily and has had huge media attention in Brazil.

So the long and short of this long and involved, if late, report, is that the Brazil weekend went beautifully in terms of me playing music in Brazil, and I COULD have played in that last Sunday night jam. But I decided for once that I had achieved enough, and needed sleep more than anything else in an effort at preparing for the coming two nights of sleep on the flights and days in the airports. I left Brazil walking on the clouds – literally – especially after that telephone call offering me the gig in Paris as soon as I arrived. More on my delight over that one, in tomorrow’s post.

Recording Music in the Paradeplatz in Mannheim

July 23, 2012
bradspurgeon

paradeplatz mannheim

Thanks to an initiative by Tonio, the classical violin student I met on Thursday in Mannheim, I ended up having a great time in Mannheim on my last night there, and doing a mountain of recording of my songs and covers with him playing and beat boxing along. I had decided that I had done enough in Mannheim, musically, and I’d just have a quiet last night. But Tonio sent me an SMS suggesting we play. So we met in the central Paradeplatz at 8 PM – also his suggestion – and there we played for probably an hour or more, in public, sitting on a bench by the fountain, entertaining the public – and receiving a little money in appreciation.

As regular readers of the blog will know, my personal challenge this year is to record myself playing with local musicians in every country I go to for the Formula One season and my holidays. So far I have succeeded in the 10 or more countries I have visited, and I had recorded one song with Tonio on Thursday. I was foolishly satisfied with that. In fact, we went over so many of my songs – Lara, Lara; Borderline; Crazy Lady; Memories; Except Her Heart and maybe one or two others, plus cover songs like What’s Up and Mad World, plus some jamming based on chords Tonio suggested I play – that it was an enormously fun and learning experience.

Here is one of the recordings of the many we did, this one being a cover song:

And I recorded it all on my portable studio, my Roland R-26, complete with the sound of the water fountain and occasional applause. A huge, high moment, followed by a meal at the cool student pub we went to on Thursday. Really, I never expected such an amazing musical adventure in Mannheim when I set out, but it all happened because I saw Tonio with his violin – they are apparently inseparable, and that since the age of 4 or so – and asked him if he knew of a place to play.

Recording Music in a McDonald’s in Mannheim

July 20, 2012
bradspurgeon

Man oh man oh Mannheim, I never thought I’d find myself playing music in a McDonald’s in Mannheim, recording “Crazy Love,” with a German violin player with the Italian name of Tonio. But that is exactly what happened last night just before midnight, and just before we got kicked out….

Thing is, Mannheim is a crap place for open mics and jam sessions. I stayed here a couple of years ago while attending the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim, and I did managed to find one odd bar to play in and then a down moment in a karaoke to do my guitar and singing number. But arriving here yesterday, I felt quite demoralized, and after a nice dinner of schnitzel or some other pork-based delight, I walked out of the restaurant to find a young man looking at the menu and with a violin on his back.

My “opportunity” lights flashed brightly and I asked – with my guitar on my back – if he knew of anywhere to play in an open mic or jam. Tonio – as I would find was his name – spoke perfect English, and he said, “Heidelberg.” Yes, Heidelberg is next door to Mannheim, but there were no hotels available when I looked. So then he said he would ask some friends in a pub across the street, and each one he asked answered: Heidelberg.

Mannheim ain’t manly in the way of live music. So anyway, Tonio also told me that did like me, when he traveled, he looked for people to play music with. He had just returned from Amsterdam, where he had joined some buskers playing in the street.

Feeling somewhat defeated, I thanked him and left. But as I made my way toward the bar where I had played last year, I suddenly realized I had let slip the most important chance of my whole four-day trip to Mannheim. My project this year on the never-ending worldwide open mic and jam musical adventure is not simply to find and play in an open mic or open jam. It is to play with a local musician in every country I visit, and to record the playing. So far I have succeeded in every one of the 10 or so countries I have visited since March.

I suddenly realized that there was an interested and willing, classically trained violin player who liked pop and jazz as well as classical music, and that I had actually walked away let down. Without even asking him to play. So I ran back to my hotel, picked up my recording device – which I had forgotten there – and returned to the pub across the street from the restaurant where I had eaten. There I found Tonio again, about to eat his meal, with his sister and friends.

I arrived and told him my goal for the trip, and he said he would love to play some songs with me. So he ate, I socialized with him and his friends, had a beer, soaked up the atmosphere in this fabulous, popular, student pub, and then said: “So where should we play?”

We decided to head for the main public square, but by now it was so late it was likely to be considered a public disruption if we played there. Tonio suggested we try the McDonald’s restaurant just off the square. We arrived a bout 20 minutes before closing time, we were the only people in the McDonald’s – Tonio and two of his friends – and we ordered coffees and sat at a table. I turned on my recording device and we played “Crazy Love,” me on guitar and vocals, Tonio on violin and doing great mouth drumming sounds and then ad lib lyrics. Got through all but the final verse, and were then kicked out by the manager.

But I GOT my recording of me playing with a local!!!!! Couldn’t believe it! And in a McDonald’s of all places…. Thanks Tonio.

Launching My New World Tour of Open Mics in Melbourne, and Introducing the Open MIc Podcasts

March 15, 2012
bradspurgeon

Last night I played at the old and venerable open mic at the Great Britain Hotel in Melbourne (Richmond), and launched the first of my latest tour of the world’s open mics. This is the fourth year that I travel the world with my guitar as I report on the Formula One races for my newspaper, but moonlight in the bars and other shady places of the world where open mics take place. Every year I have launched a new project in conjunction with the trip, and this year I have a couple in mind, although I will mention only the one you will see on this blog.

Podcast interview of James Fitzpatrick, MC of open mic at Great Britain Hotel in Melbourne, by Brad Spurgeon:

That is my decision to do podcasts with the MCs – and sometimes musicians and spectators – of all the open mics around the world that I visit. I will try to keep the podcasts as close to 3 minutes long as possible, in order to not try your ears, patience and download bandwidth. Last night I failed at that, having my inaugural interview podcast with James Fitzpatrick, the MC of the Great Britain open mic for the last 10 years, go on for seven minutes. Still, it was fun and he had some interesting things to say.

The first year of my adventure I began writing a book about the journey – which is almost finished – and the second year I began the blog. Last year I worked on doing a film, which I am now editing. This year, I have an idea I do not yet want to mention as I’m unsure it is reasonable (!) and I will introduce the podcasts.

I will also continue to put up videos of the open mic performances, as I travel the world – this year I will do open mics in 22 countries – including my home of France – and all the continents except Africa and Antarctica, in what will be a record year of travel for me.

The Great Britain was a very cool, English pub type of place, with a back room with a lovely stage. And James is by profession a sound engineer, so he was hard at work on the vast sound controls at the back of the room, and the result was very good, clear, excellent sound for the spectators. It was very laid back, and at the same time, well-run, with a variety of musicians. I will definitely return – if I get to continue this quest and adventure for a fifth year!

Jamming With Bruno Santos in Sao Paulo

November 27, 2011
bradspurgeon

Bruno Santos

One of the most rewarding aspects of my musical adventures around the world is the building up of a musical web of friends and fellow musicians – particularly the latter – especially those of the peripatetic kind like me. That is to say, meeting a musician at an open mic in Paris who I subsequently run into in Singapore or Tokyo or Shanghai or, as with this weekend, in Sao Paulo.

I’ve recounted on this blog such meetings as all of those mentioned above – most recently One Bourbon One Beer at the open mic in Tokyo – and a new twist was added to that sort of tale this weekend when I met up with Bruno Santos over the last couple of nights here in Sao Paulo. As we spent time together talking about our various projects and jamming (and I also interviewed Bruno for my open mic film) we learned that we had more connections than we thought, aside from those in Paris where we met at Earle’s open mic at the Lizard Lounge in 2008.

Bruno is a Brazilian now based in Sao Paulo, and with two Brazilian parents. But he grew up around the world, and has lived on every continent except Antarctica and in such notable places as Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, England and Los Angeles – where he studied music – and a stint travelling around Europe playing music in open mics, which was when we met. As we spoke, we discovered we had both played in some of the same places in Singapore as well, notably the Crazy Elephant, where we had met some of the same people, like its jam organizer, John Chee.

As it turns out, Bruno, who is 25, has just begun to break out in a big way musically and in the media in Brazil. We had communicated periodically over Facebook since we met three years ago, but this was the first time we met again, and I happened to step back into his world at a very exciting moment: All of the major Brazilian newspapers, popular magazines and trade magazines – such as Billboard in Brazil – are writing big feature stories about Bruno and his self-produced album. He has also made appearances on national television.

Why all the attention? Well, it’s a very interesting story, and the music is damned good too. Basically, Bruno decided to return to live in Sao Paulo – and study at a prestigious business shool, by the way – to rebuild his roots in the native country in which he spent so little time of his life. But he also had this project going for a while for the solo album, entitled, “Time To Tell,” which he recorded in Rio, and partly in London and Sao Paulo.

The album is recorded entirely in English, as Bruno’s English is impeccable, since he grew around the world with his diplomat father and violinist mother, attending international schools. But the real catch, the real story behind the album, which has been exciting the media, is that Bruno did absolutely everything all by himself: He recorded the album with his own recording equipment, he wrote the lyrics and music to the 12 songs, and above all he plays all the instruments – beautifully – from the acoustic and electric guitars to the electric and fretless bass guitars, the drums, whistles, harmonica and other percussion, and even the back-up vocals to his fresh and melodious lead vocals.

But the personal side does not stop there: He had the CDs manufactured so professionally that there is virtually no difference in aspect to a CD from any of the majors. Of course, he credits an art director and designer and a photographer too, and although he did the engineering – he studied sounding engineering in London – and the digital editing and the mixing, he also credits someone helping him with that as well. Bruno found distributors for the physical product of the CD, and it is available around the world, and of course, in the top shops in Brazil.

His apartment near the famous Paulista avenue is rich in instruments, microphones, two drum sets, and a very clever studio in the room that is supposed to be the bedroom – you can see where his priorities lie.

So after a meal with Bruno and his friend Pati – pronounced Patchy in Portuguese – the first night, last night after my day at the racetrack, we got down to doing a little jamming together, both with cover songs and our own compositions. And Bruno gave me a lesson on using looping machines, which made me start to itch for that gadget for the first time.

All in all, it was a fantastic and unique sort of experience for me in Sao Paulo, as I had heretofore been condemned only to walking the streets looking for a jam – and now here I was with a bona fide Brazilian musician at his home, jamming. Well, let me take that back for a minute, Bruno is above all a bona fide international musician with Brazilian roots. And that is exactly what you take away from the music, some South American rhythms and feel to it, some jazz sound, some classic singer-songwriter feel and sound, interesting lyrics and great guitar and sense of time. Oh, and his voice is great on the falsettos too.

You can hear some of his music on his web site and also on Bruno’s SoundCloud space.

Anyway we might join up for a jam tonight in Pinheiros at the Sunday night jam I intend to go to, with other bona fide Brazilian musicians…. Let you know tomorrow or the next day when I return to Paris.