Restaurants | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

In Sao Paulo Another Extraordinary Connection, Followed by Letdown

November 5, 2010
bradspurgeon

In my post yesterday I wrote about mixed feelings, fortunes and stars in my flight to Sao Paulo and in my first evening here. Last night, the series continued.

Let me first note that I ended up making another run through the Pinheiros neighborhood to find the elusive Lua Nova bar and again I found nothing! No trace. Gone like the strange beast on the wing of the airplane in that Twilight Zone story starring William Shatner before his Star Trek fame….

But what happened before that little trip was extraordinary and then a great let down. I made my way directly after dinner to Finnegan’s Pub on the same street as my imaginary Lua Nova bar. I had played at Finnegan’s last year on the Friday night with a full band. It was not an open mic or jam session, but I got to talking with the Brazilian singer and band leader and I had my guitar and he invited me to play. So I did.

Finnegan’s, by the way, was the first of a string of Irish pubs in Sao Paulo. I usually like to avoid the Irish pub in my musical adventures in order to find a more bona fide local experience. But if there’s nothing else, I’ll take it! Finnegan’s, in fact, is almost unique on my adventures in being an Irish pub where none of the people who works there speaks a word of English (in my experience so far). So that turns out to be a fairly local kind of venue, in fact.

Last night as I passed by the pub I heard live music inside and glanced in to see three musicians with acoustic guitars, even an acoustic bass (not an upright, however). So my blood got flowing really fast and I went in and ordered a beer. I was not sure how much time I should give it before continuing on my tramp around the neighborhood to find a place to play. But the band stopped after about two songs and the singer, who had no Brazilian accent, went to talk to a man beside me at the bar.

I heard that he spoke in what sounded like an American voice. So I introduced myself. It turned out he was from the United States and had lived in Sao Paulo for five years. Prior to that, it turned out, he had lived in Paris for five years – from around 2000 to 2005. Here in Sao Paulo he married a Brazilian and he teaches English and plays his music often on Thursdays at Finnegan’s.

I won’t mention his name, but when I learned that he had lived in Paris I asked where he had played music when there.

“Oh, pretty much exclusively in Irish pubs,” he said.

It was a stretch, but I could see a possibility opening up here and I said, “Did you ever play at a place called the Shebeen?”

“Yes!” he said.

“So you know Earle!”

“Earle, yes! A South African guy!”

That was it, I said, indeed. We rejoiced and laughed and talked about this incredible coincidence and how small the world was, for Earle Holmes is the guy who has encouraged my playing over the last couple of years and who has recently got me the gig of hosting the Mecano bar Sunday brunches.

So here we were with another incredible synchronicity. And then this guy plays a Doors song in his next set – after my Doors film and reading material on the airplane coming to Sao Paulo.

So I ask the guy if he knows a place I could play in a jam or an open mic in Sao Paulo and I tell him all about how I travel the world and play in venues everywhere there is a Grand Prix race, etc. He sees my guitar and he says, “You can play here tonight, if you want!”

I agree and feel a great flame of joy and excitement.

“You might find yourself playing all alone, though, if my musicians don’t know your stuff, but they’re really great, and can play to just about anything.”

His musicians were Brazilian.

I said it didn’t matter and I was looking forward to it.

So he goes back and plays his second set and plays for close to an hour. Shortly after midnight he breaks a string and ends his set and comes directly up to me and says, “Sorry Brad, I completely forgot that you wanted to play….” I had my guitar, so there was no problem with the string. He then added, “They have very strict rules about when we have to stop.” Interesting, since down the street last year at the Lua Nova they played until 5 AM….

Am I over sensitive, paranoid or generally have bad ideas about musicians in Sao Paulo? Yesterday’s post writes of how the band at the All Black pub gave me a dirty look and quick negative response when I indicated I was looking for a place to play. Last year I’d had other such encounters. In general here in Sao Paulo, although there is LOTS of live music – in fact I left Finnegan’s and found another bar with musicians with acoustic instruments but I was too tired to stay – but the jam session or open mic mentality is not very common here.

In fact, I get the feeling that musicians guard their gigs very closely for themselves. I may be wrong about this, but I have traveled the world, played on every continent except Antarctica, and this is the only place so far where I really get that feeling.

Anyway, I will continue to tramp the streets of Sao Paulo tonight and see what I find. I am praying that the Lua Nova re-materializes.

By the way, this band last night was very, very good. I took a few videos and will put in two or three below. Fortunately, the lighting was SOOOOO bad that you will see nothing of their faces – and that keeps them anonymous too, after I have potentially bad-mouthed what might have been a very honest bit of forgetfulness…. Having said that, it is also the first time I have been told I can play, and then I am not allowed to. (With the exception of a silly waiter at a bar in Istanbul once who only wanted to get my business…oh, no, I had the same situation with Eddie Jordan and his band in Malaysia this year…. So, hey, it happens!)

A Last Great Night in Seoul, at Tony’s Aussie Bar

October 26, 2010
bradspurgeon

When I first looked in through the dark and gloomy window of the closed Tony’s Aussie Bar in the Itaewon district of Seoul last night my heart dropped down a few beats. It looked really small and dark, and it was at the top of a dreary hill in a great neighborhood – which lay just a minute’s walk down the hill, and not up here at this location. Add to that the sudden freezing weather, and I thought, “Oh man, I’ve got friends who said they would be coming tonight to hear me play at Tony’s and what the hell am I getting them into?”

Brad playing with Tony on drums at Tony's Aussie Bar (Photo: Simon Arron)

The only thing that gave me hope was the sight of a drum set in the corner, with a microphone stand perched high above the drums. Yes, Monday was advertised as being open mic night at Tony’s Aussie Bar, and clearly there was a mic – and there a drum set that indicated music was really part of the deal.

But I still had visions of having my friends show up – a couple of F1 journalists, and from another part of Seoul, Suki and her friend, as well as possibly a journalist from the Korea Times – and say, “Gee, thanks for dragging us all out here…for nothing, Brad.”

Another thing I started worrying about was, “Where do I eat?” I had looked at the menu for Tony’s on the Internet and thought it looked passable. But seeing the place from the outside, I thought, no. It seems to seat no more than 20 people, I thought, and the menu looks…less than acceptable. Worse, the whole Itaewon area was full of Italian restaurants, a French restaurant, bakeries, pubs, Korean and other restaurants, a real delight for the palate. And I’d eat at Tony’s?

Itaewon, was, on the other hand, a real contrast to the area Suki took me to on my first day in Seoul last week. There in that university area I saw barely a single foreign face. Here, I seemed to see barely a single Korean face. (Suki would later tell me her friend was a little worried about coming to Itaewon since it was reputed to have so many foreigners!)

In the end, I opted to eat at Tony’s. I had so many people potentially showing up, that I thought it would not be good form to show up last after gorging myself on some Italian meal and wine down the road. Thank goodness I made this decision! Thank goodness I chose Tony’s! The world changed when the lights went on and the bar opened, and above all, Tony and his gang showed up for the open mic.

When I arrived there was only one person present, an American expat woman who acts as an editor and writer in a local expat magazine about life in Seoul. I thought the place would be empty to the end. Wrong.

I ordered my meal. Mostly hamburgers, fish, and other publike fare, I went for the so called lamb steak with French fries. It said it was pure Australian lamb, so I thought that maybe with a name like Aussie bar, it might be true. It was. And when Tony arrived, he told me that he prepared all the food in the place, and that it was all authentic stuff. The lamb turned out to be fabulous, and was in fact part of the shoulder of lamb.

“We have a corral out back and I supervise the chopping up of the meat,” Tony said, joking. Tony, by the way, is from Sydney, and he has run his bar for about 4 and a half years, and lived in Korea for nine years.

He had a pea soup with a kind of pie or dumpling in it that the woman ordered. And with my meat I was served mint sauce in a bottle, which Tony said he made as well.

I finished with an apple pie and ice cream. The presentation of this was a complete, circular, apple pie, but miniature – a single portion. Good ice cream too.

And one of my favourite parts of the meal was the best bottle of wine I had since arriving in Korea nearly a week before. A Hardy’s Shiraz of 2008, bought for 33,000 won.

In short, I was in culinary bliss… ok, not quite – the meat was a little too cooked – but I did not regret this choice at all! I thought of how horrible it would have been to miss it, in fact.

It was nearing 9:30 when I pulled out my guitar to tune it, and the bar began to fill up with musicians and spectators, including my F1 journalist friends, and before them Suki and her friend.

The open mic evening at Tony’s Aussie Bar turned out to be a cross between an open mic and a jam session. Tony manned the drums throughout, and a friend of his, Freddie, played a very cool six-string bass. That was a nice instrument to have since it provided a replacement for lead guitar occasionally too.

Tony wears a baseball cap, has long hair in a ponytail, and a beard. He likes to make quips throughout the evening, and as the open mic began the atmosphere had developed from a slightly cold thing when I first entered the black interior with the painting of the ocean as backdrop to the playing area, into a warm room of music and joy.

First up was a guy of 50 years old – he told us his age at one point through some kind of a story he wanted us to hear in introduction to a song – who looked like he was some kind of business executive who played music on the side. (Hmm, I’m thinking of that song in the French musical, Starmania, “Le Blues du Businessman” – “j’aurais voulu etre un artiste……”

This man played Tony’s cream-colored Stratocaster that Tony said he dug up somewhere in two or three pieces and had repaired. All four of this man’s songs sounded to me as if they had been minted in the style and influence of the Talking Heads.

It was a nice warm up, and got everyone into the swing of things. Tony offered that I go up next. So I started out by playing my usual “Crazy Love,” in order to warm up my voice, my guitar playing, and the group effort. Then I did my new song, “Borderline,” the first time I have ever played it in a group situation like that – aside from playing with the kids out in the street in Mokpo, but that was just another rhythm guitar, not a bass and drums. In any case, it went well. I felt Tony’s drums really adding a dimension, and the song is very rhythmic and pretty fast.

Next I did, “Since You Left Me,” another of my songs, and also pretty strong rhythmically. Here at the beginning because I could barely hear my guitar or voice, I also made a little mess of the chords and rhythm at first. But I eventually got it all together.

Since the first guy had played four songs, I thought I should just do four. So I finished with Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son.” I messed up the transition after each chorus, since there’s a bit of a rhythmic change with that fingerpicking stuff, and I even made a huge stop all together, but in the end, it worked out fine too.

Soon Tony was joined on a bongo drum by Josh, who was born in Dallas, but lived in Korea most of his life, from what I could figure. He looked like the lead singer for REM and had a wicked and warped sense of humor.

The next singer, guitar player was a Canadian musician named Yvon Malenfant. That name may sound French, but Yvon comes from Moncton, New Brunswick. His guitar was custom built for him, and he said the design was a cross between two Martins. I tried it out after the show and it was very nice, indeed.

I most enjoyed his song called “Cry.” His voice sounded very Neil Young on that, and his guitar playing was very agreeable. Again, these guys had their act together. Yvon is another regular at Tony’s Aussie Bar, so they had played together frequently. Yvon teaches English and a couple of other things – including counselling – at a university in Seoul, and he is married to a Korean jazz pianist.

That was the end of it. They played several songs, and with “Cry,” Tony said he wanted to dedicate that song to a friend, a woman, who had just committed suicide the week before. It was a woman who frequently showed up at the bar. It was a touching tribute, but I kept thinking to myself, evenings like that are examples, or reasons, why it is important to hold on, go the distance, and not back down.

P.S. On my last night in Mokpo I again met with my friends in the street of the Roses and we busked for a couple of hours, earned a lot of money this time as we had grown used to playing together and had a few songs down pat and we had a fabulous last night.

P.P.S. At the airport I saw more evidence this was a music-loving country with a space set aside for Korean culture and music. I made a little video of the beautiful and great musician playing her harp-like instrument, below.

Extraordinary Atmosphere and Music at the Mecano Brunch #3

October 18, 2010
bradspurgeon

I just had to write this down, as I prepare to fly off to Korea tomorrow for the Formula One race (if the Paris strikes do not prevent me from going). Yesterday was the third week in a row that I hosted my own brunch afternoon on Earle’s invitation at Le Mecano bar and restaurant in the Oberkampf area of Paris. And it was another wild and fun time. In fact, this time the music got really exotic and crazy, and the whole thing went on until after 7 PM, after starting at 3PM.

In addition to my sets – using my SE Electronics microphone, so really getting nice, pure sound on the vocals – we had Les DeShane doing a short set, and then my invited guest, David Broad, whom I introduced on this blog a couple of weeks ago after discovering him at The Highlander. This British guy from Leeds, England, out-does many an American singer/guitar player, on their own songs.

And what a great delight it then turned out to be when long after David had finished his set and I had finished my last set, suddenly Joe Cady showed up. I mentioned Joe on an earlier blog item too, as he plays frequently at the Bizart jam session on Tuesdays. So I didn’t give Joe a chance to even sit down before I asked if he brought his violin with him.

“Yeah, I did,” he said. “It’s out in the car.”

I told him to go get it, and I immediately asked David if he had some songs that would go well with a violin, and he said he thought he might. Indeed. We ended up being treated to another hour of fabulous music by David, Joe and a friend of David’s who came in and provided harmonies on a number of the songs as well.

It was pure bliss for an hour, and promises great things for the future. In the middle of my second second set we also had a nice moment with me doing “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Ring of Fire” with my friend Rym, and a solo number with our friend Elise, who played guitar and sang in what she said was her first ever appearance behind a mic. It will not be her last, I’m sure of that.

Two Nights, Three Venues in Paris – amen birdmen, Yann Destal and some other stuff at 24 cour des petites écuries

October 9, 2010
bradspurgeon

Just a bit of catching up to do here. I went two nights ago to the La Forge avg art space at 24 cour des petites écuries in Paris in order to see a few live performances of music and other things, and the end of some kind of video exhibit. But actually, I “some kind” because me real desire was to go and take part in what was advertised as an open mic at the end of the evening.

So, yes, that’s what I did – went and listened to the performers, several of whom play at the Swan Bar in Montparnasse regularly, and then I played three songs myself. Given that the evening was mostly about operatic singing by Vania, bluesy singing by Tiffany Assouline and camp performining of Liza Minelli songs and that kind of thing by someone else, my songs kind of stood out like a hair on the soup – as the French say. But I was happy to sing them, and later, a fabulous reggae musician who was there borrowed my guitar cable and sang some of his songs, both covers and an original. This was Simi Ol of the band Arrr Force. It was a very interesting venue, this La Forge avg, an art space with many rooms, a bar, televisions, videos, a courtyard or two, tables for drinking and chatting, all manner of exhibit.

The next day I did not do any open mic performances but set out to listen to friends and acquaintances play. Yann Destal played at Le China, and it seemed to be mostly his own stuff – as opposed to the cover songs he does at the restaurant on the Bus Palladium on Tuesdays, and the room was full. It’s an interesting place, a very large and classy Chinese food restaurant with a cellar with a stage area for the live music. Very hip, in fact. Destal’s music was very interesting, intense, and the sound was perfect.

But I did not stay to the end of that concert as I wanted to pick up a little of Amen Birdmen at the Bus Palladium, in the main concert area. That is the band of Cyril Bodin, who is also the artistic director of this venerable rock n roll establishment (yes, that is now no longer a contradiction in terms). Much to my delight, I heard Bodin announce that for the last song he was inviting up the members of the band Natas Loves You, to join in singing with him. Virgile, the bassist of Natas Loves You, played on the four songs I recorded at the Point Ephemere this summer. So it was a delight to hear them, and I went around afterwards to say hello to them and Bodin. I enjoyed the set immensely, and Amen Birdmen had the crowd rockning hard.

Brunchtime Music at the Mecano Bar in Paris

October 4, 2010
bradspurgeon

mecano bar paris

Earle Holmes invited me to do the first of a new series of Sunday afternoon musical brunches that he thinks he would like to do at the Mecano Bar in Paris where he used to hold his open mic. So I went yesterday early afternoon, ate a fabulous brunch of scrambled eggs, sausage, French toast, cheese covered walnut bread, potatoes, salad and probably something else, and then I got up and played a couple of sets.

I started playing at 3 PM, and did a first set of probably 45 minutes, and then I did another set at around 5, I think. My friend Rafa Ellan came to listen to me, but I wanted other people to hear him too, because he has a very cool voice and writes some nice songs. He looks and sounds like the young Bob Dylan.

It was a fabulous atmosphere on a nice Sunday in Paris, with the front window doors of the bar open to the street, and passersby dropping in to listen to the music. I brought along my SE Electronics tube mic so I felt the set up looked little vintage, but above all the sound was great. I ran through less than half my songs, my own and cover songs, and was delighted to have a lot left over for next week, when Earle has invited me (and Rafa), to repeat the experience.

A New Paris Art Space, Norman Spinrad’s Birthday Party, and a Ferocious Hangover

September 18, 2010
bradspurgeon

Thanks to Norman Spinrad’s generosity, I have the most enormous hangover I’ve had for years. I never usually drink enough to get a hangover, but last night at a Creole restaurant in Paris near Montparnasse where Norman Spinrad, one of the world’s greatest science fiction writers had invited me to join in to celebrate his 70th birthday, I started out on Rhum and Vanilla and soon hit the harder stuff…. I had so much fun that it was not until I got into the cab at 2 AM that I noticed my head was just spinning, and Paris was turning over on itself.

But to jump back a step before I return to Spinrad’s 70th.

I had so much to do yesterday that I did not get a chance to mention the opening of the new art space in Paris that I visited the previous night. And I will, in fact, tie together these two evenings with a musical theme, in keeping with most of what’s on this blog. My musical adventure goes not only around the world with the Formula One circus and the open mics and jams I find at each race. It also extends into my daily life in Paris. And on Thursday I could not find an open mic so I decided to attend the opening of this new art space, which I had been invited to via Facebook.

The space of the Collectif OXIII on the rue d’Enghien actually opened up at the end of July, but Thursday it held its official opening. Now, before I left I said to myself, “All right, do I bring my guitar with me?” I always like to be ready with the guitar just in case I pass a bar or other place with music where it might appear I could play.

I decided for the worst of reasons not to bring the guitar. I did not want to look pretentious, or have something encumbering me at the OXIII. I never usually care how pretentious or idiotic I look. But this time for some reason, that’s how I felt and I left without the guitar. Getting the art space, I found a fabulous building of several floors with gallery space, performance space, a room they call the world’s smallest concert hall since it fits only four audience members, and in the basement there was a music rehearsal space with a couple of guitar players playing, oh, and upstairs, more musicians played and some sat around on the floor with guitars and jammed. And I did not have my guitar!!

I would have been able to play had I brought the guitar, and I would have been in heaven. So I failed, made a bad decision. That’s life. Had a great time anyway, meeting up with some friends, members of a band called the Burnin’ Jacks, the lead guitar player of which – Félix – plays on two of the tracks on my songs on my Ephemere Recordings from July.

So how do I tie this in with Spinrad’s 70th birthday party the next night? Well, first, who cares about tying it in? The important thing was that one of the great science fiction writers turned 70 and celebrated it in Paris in a Creole restaurant. I first met Spinrad in 1997 when I wrote a story about him for the International Herald Tribune, when I was writing a lot of stuff about technology, and the American author had put up for sale on the Internet for $1 the rights to his novel, “He Walked Among Us” to the American publisher who would do the best job of publishing it.

Spinrad, to quote my own article, was “part of the “new wave” of the late 1960s when he wrote “Bug Jack Barron,” a novel that anticipated the days when presidential elections would be decided entirely by television.” We kept in touch and saw each other again and he invited me to his 60th birthday party in Paris in 2000 when he lived in the 5th Arrondissement. A very cool man, I recall that at his 60th birthday party he had invited people like his local wine story seller and probably even his butcher – although I cannot remember precisely that fact – along with publishers, writers, artists, etc.

So it was with great anticipation that I returned to his 70th birthday last night, and was not let down. This time it was in the cellar room of a Creole restaurant, and the atmosphere was wonderful. Among those who showed up were the science fiction writer Michael Moorcock and his wife Linda Moorcock, Spinrad’s editor at his French publishing house, Fayard (which, by the way, is publishing “He Walked Among Us”!), and I found out only after everyone had left that the woman sitting across the table from me at one point who looked like the French actress Josiane Balasko, was in fact, the French actress, scenarist and film director, Josiane Balasko. And of course, there were some of his friends of “the common people” as well, which included an RATP (Paris métro) repairman….

Norman Spinrad Celebrating his 70th birthday in Paris

So how do I tie all this together to a musical theme? Well, I had again debated whether I should bring my guitar with me, and again I had decided against it. As I stepped off the metro and surfaced on Montparnasse, I realized I was right next to the Swan Bar, where I go on Friday nights sometimes to play music. And, as it turned out, the Spinrad party erupted into a musical celebration when the cake arrived, and someone in the party who knew I played music, asked me if I had brought my guitar.

Well, I decided that having drunk so much at that point, that I would ask the DJ if he would put on a track – Since You Left Me – from my Ephemere Recordings on the sound system. I wanted to see how well my music blended in with Bob Marley and the other pop songs that were being played. I wanted to do it without anyone knowing that it was my music, just to see how it blended in – you know, would people stop short, raise their eyebrows and go, “What the hell is this?”

In fact, the DJ decided he wanted to announce to everyone that I was the guy making the music that was piping in through the sound system, so I had to take a little bow, and then behave naturally somehow. But the great news was that people continued dancing to my music as they had to ther music, and they appeared to enjoy it immensely. But then again, I suspect that I was not the only one who had by then drunk so much that anything that was piped in would have sounded wonderful….

By the way, this is not the first time I have mentioned Spinrad on this blog, as I mentioned him just a few weeks ago when I wrote about meeting a French punk musician named Eric Debris, and it turned out that Spinrad had made a record with another writer I know and who is a friend of Debris, Maurice Dantec. And as with the Debris evening, this evening at Spinrad’s birthday was one of those where I felt several of my worlds coming together, and that provides such a feeling of satisfaction and the fullness of life, which has outweighed the pain of the hangover. Next time, of course, however, I will have to take my guitar even when in doubt – even if I did get to put my song on the sound system and have my music heard….

Night III in Milan: Serenading in the Streets

September 12, 2010
bradspurgeon

Just a quick exercise in writing few words – something I generally fail at. Last night I had a wonderful meal with a Formula One racing reporter named Kate Walker, who reports for a web site called girlracer. I mentioned Kate in my Italian Grand Prix race preview story this weekend, which was about women in Formula One.

But I had my guitar with me during the meal, and Kate is as much a music lover as I am, and I got really itchy to play. So after the meal, knowing that I was not going to go out and tramp the streets to find a place to play – this one time – I decided I would stop a little way down the street from the restaurant to play a couple of my songs for, and to, Kate. So I stood in the street near the central train station, in front of a large, well-lit, wooden door on a building, and sang my new song I wrote for an ex-girlfriend, a song called, “Borderline,” and then I sang “Since You Left Me,” and I finished off with “Father and Son.” I was particularly pleased with Kate’s reaction to the song “Borderline,” which she said she found – despite it being about a personal relationship of mine – was universal. It is about being badly treated by the woman (as well as having great, very high times), and Kate pointed out that we’ve all been on both the receiving and giving end of those situations in relationships….

It was really thrilling and fun, but unfortunately, no one threw me any coins. Still, it achieved its purpose of allowing me to sing for a second night in a row in Milan, and also to sing to a woman, and also to feel a certain sense of danger as I recalled being told last year that in this city that seems not to love live pop music, you may be fined 500 euros for playing music in the streets…. And since I did not get a chance to sing with the anarchists this year as I did last year – they did not have a jam this year – I thought a little anarchy would be a good thing.

That’s a lot of words. Failed to keep it short again.

A Small Taste of the Papaya

July 24, 2010
bradspurgeon

Just a very quick note to say only that I returned to play again at the Papaya bar mentioned in my previous post. It was a challenge this time, however, as there was a very lively Brazilian band with several drums, a ukelele and a good singer all providing the entertainment. It’s a classic situation: When you’re only doing guitar and vocals, it’s difficult to come in after a full band. So I only played three songs – the amp was not well adjusted for my guitar, nothing but feedback, and the vocal mic did not sound as good as on the previous night. But it just proves the truth of any live performance, sometimes it goes really well, others it does not.

I want to put in video here though to give an idea of the atmosphere of the Papaya. Sorry it is so dark, but you get a bit of the image when I move the camera around. You’d think you were in Brazil. Tonight I’ll check out an Irish pub in Mannheim….

Istanbul Prison Concert – or a Visit to Galata House

May 28, 2010
bradspurgeon

A musician usually has to have the stature of a Johnny Cash or a criminal in order to be able to play guitar and sing in a prison. Thanks to Vanessa and her guidebooks, I found myself with the opportunity to confront our Western preconceptions about Istanbul face on while performing some of my favorite songs in a prison in the country of Midnight Express.

While I was out at the race track working yesterday, Vanessa made her way around town with the help of a couple of guide books and the advice of the many people she met on the way. One of these people was a salesperson who recommended to her a restaurant in the Galatasary Tower area.

The restaurant, Vanessa was told, was not to be missed. Run by a Georgian couple, it was called Galata House, and it specialized in Georgian food. The couple consisted of Mete Goktug, an architect, and his wife Nadire, who we would discover not long after entering the restaurant, was a musician who played piano and sang. Throughout the first part of the meal we had as background music, her CD of popular and traditional music, with her on piano and singing. She often plays the piano live at the restaurant, but has been suffering a little tennis elbow of late and so did not play live last night.

We were warmly greeted at the front door of the building, and directed in to find an unusual series of rooms, the details of which I will get to in a moment. First, I would like to jump ahead to the food to say that it was indeed a fabulous experience, as we ordered the unique meal of Georgian and Tatar dishes. For the appetizer we took a mixed dish consisting of samples of several of the appetizers – chicken in yoghurt sauce, beans in another sauce, beets in another sauce, rice wrapped in leaves and marinated, and a slightly spicey walnut spread.

Vanessa took a veal stew with stewed potatoes and rice, while I was tempted for the first time in a while to not go with an entirely meat dish, and I ordered a pasta dish – although there was meat in the pasta. The woman said that it was her mother’s recipe, and that it was Tatar. Vanessa tasted one of my pieces of ravioli pasta – which looked like tortellini – and remarked accurately that it did not taste like Italian past.

“For once a pasta that does not taste like Italian pasta,” she said.

I agreed and said it tasted more like dumplings. It had some kind of light cream sauce in the middle of it that I chose not to mix up with the pasta but to dip the pieces into the cream.

We ate the whole with a Georgian wine that was not bad at all, and was the first time I have had Georgian wine.

For desert I had the biggest discovery of all: A chocolate cake with a meringue top to it. In fact, three quarters of the top of the cake was made of this fluffy white meringue with a little chocolate sauce on top of it. The chocolate part of the cake was also light and fluffy. All my life I have eaten Lemon meringue tarts primarily in order to have the meringue. But I love chocolate more than any other sweet, and this combination of fluffy white meringue with the light and rich chocolate cake was absolutely stupendous!

At the beginning of the meal, even before we began eating, Mete had asked us about our music. He was intrigued by Vanessa’s Portuguese roots and invited us to sing if we wanted to. We were both feeling a little shy about that, since there were not many people in the restaurant and it was not an open mic or jam situation, so it would mean that playing and singing would assume a certain amount of pretension to quality.

But throughout the meal as I listened to the music of Nadire, and later some classical music, I was bubbling and boiling and hot to sing in this restaurant. And that takes us back to the interesting physical aspect of the building that I mentioned. We had entered the front door and glanced to the left and thought at first that the restaurant was in the room to the left, which looked like someone’s living room, and indeed, I think it was the owners’ living room.

That we found boring, but we had looked beyond and down the hall to an exterior courtyard with a table, and we had wanted to eat there. But Nadire had told us we could eat outside on the terrace on the first floor. So we went up the stairs to find two more interior rooms, one in the front of the building overlooking the street, and the other in the back and with a piano, the stereo and photos of Nadire as a child and young woman sitting at the piano. The whole thing was very homey, but classy and restaurant-like as well.

Then we looked out in the back to see the horse-shoe shaped terrace that overlooked the courtyard. It had four or five tables on a narrow walkway around the courtyard, and the whole was surrounded by either dark brown brick walls or the wall of the building itself.

The windows everywhere on the building, I noticed, were covered with iron bars. I soon learned from Vanessa and the menu that the building, in fact, was built as a British prison, and served as such from 1904 to 1919. The Goktugs had bought it in 1999, at which time they made the restaurant out of it.

So it was that we ate our meal overlooking the building and the courtyard, where I could see and imagine the prisoners out for their daily exercise. The whole thing was frightfully small when you think about the amount of time prisoners must have had to spend living there, and there were some very strong feelings of the ghosts of the past.

Overlooking the courtyard I imagined myself playing my guitar and singing, either on the terrace into the courtyard and to the other table of guests, or down in the courtyard itself.

We finished the meal and began to leave, paying the bill and talking a little at the end to Nadire and Mete. Nadire said, “Maybe next time you come you can play your music.”

That was it, my queue. I could not let drop an opportunity to do a concert in a prison in Istanbul. I was shy, all right, and Vanessa said she did not want to join me singing. But the opportunity was just too great for me to miss. So I swallowed my fear, and said, “I could do a song right now. Would that be okay?”

“Please do!”

So we went into the courtyard – where I saw that the cook was in a kitchen in a back room – and I pulled my guitar out of its bag and tuned it by ear, not wanting to waste time with the tuner. Mete offered me a chair, but I said I could stand. My feeling was that I would be most comfortable singing “Crazy Love,” and singing it to Vanessa with her in mind.

So I started with that. I received some compliments from Mete, and I began to put the guitar down. But I still had one regret, and that was that I had not recorded me singing the song in the prison. So as we spoke, and Mete told me they had had concerts in the restaurant and had done a lot to create festivals in Istanbul to help make it more culturally popular and vibrant – which worked, as I pointed out that Bob Dylan was playing the day I left, that Eric Clapton was playing the following month, that John McLaughlin had played in Nardi’s jazz club around the corner from the prison a few weeks earlier – and all the while I thought about how I should perhaps force another song on them and get Vanessa to record it. So this, eventually, is what I did.

We had spoken about “Just Like A Woman” over dinner, as we both agreed that some people might associate the women with the prison. So that is what I decided to do. Part of the song I sang in front of the barred windows of the main building, another part in front of what looked like a prison cell door. Occasionally you can hear Vanessa singing, as she held the camera and filmed, and occasionally you can also hear the classical music playing in the background. A true Istanbul mélange. And a great Istanbul experience in both food, environment and music – like none I’ve had before.