Travel | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

“Where the Wild Flowers Grow”: A Friend and Bandmate Creates a Warm Tribute to Jonathan Perkins, in Completing His Song

September 11, 2025
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Jonathan-Perkins-Wild-Mondo-Dave-Stewart-The-SPiritual-Cowboys

Last March, in my tribute to Eddie Jordan, the former Formula One team owner, I told the story of my meeting with him and his band, The Robbers, at the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix during their gig at the Hard Rock Cafe in Kuala Lumpur. I mentioned at the end of the piece the sad news of the death of one of the band members, Jonathan Perkins, who was a brilliant musician who had played with Roger Taylor of Queen, but who had his own legendary band called “Miss World,” for which the other Robbers had also played. Perkins had also worked variously with Little Richard, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, Timothy Leary, Roger McGuinn, Glen Matlock, Bob Geldoff, Dave Stewart and Daryl Hall and John Oates. In recent months I have been in touch with Matt Exelby, the singer, guitarist and keyboard player, who was another musician in Eddie Jordan’s band, and a good friend and colleague of Perkins. Last night I discovered that Matt has put up on YouTube a song that Perkins wrote and had created an initial, and simple, demo recording of, that Matt has now completed after several months of work on it. It is brilliant.

“Where the Wild Flowers Grow,” By Jonathan Perkins

The original demo was recorded at Sunrise Sound studios in Hampshire by Marc Burford, another talented singer songwriter and producer, in 2022. Matt has now added all sorts of instruments, sounds, and backing vocals to the demo that features Perkins singing. Matt then made a video for the song, and has now put it up on YouTube. It is a work of great beauty, and brings us Perkins’s deep, melodious voice and extraordinary lyrics, along with the full-bodied sound that Matt has now given it, to show us a stunning example of Jonathan Perkins’s work. I only met Perkins that one time in Malaysia, but we almost instantly found a deep connection, having both suffered familial tragedies within a year or two of each other at the time – he the death of a daughter, I of a wife – and with his depth of character as well as talent it is no surprise to me that he both played with the best of them, and also influenced generations of musicians as a music teacher.

This labour of love that Matt has done to complete the song they would have finished together, is a great example also, of the love and respect that Perkins drew from his friends and acquaintances. I have been listening to “Where the Wild Flowers Grow” over and over again, and I hope you will be touched as much by it as I am, too.

Groovin’ the Jam at La Grooverie Jam in Lyon, France

September 8, 2025
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LYON – On the last night of our three-day oversea and overland trip back from Sicily to Paris we stopped over in Lyon, as we usually do. But this time, Ornella insisted that we find an open mic for me to play some music in, just for a change, and since I have been going too long without jamming in public. (Having played only once or twice during our two months in Sicily.) But when I stepped into La Grooverie at 9 rue du Jardin des Plantes in central Lyon, I immediately turned to Ornella and said: “This place is not for me!”

It’s not that I found this one of several weekly jam sessions in this terrific bar venue to look bad. I found it to look far too GOOD for me. We entered a full, bustling, bar to see the stage at the far end full of young musicians preparing to play. It was between songs, so while I knew that the theme was supposed to be funk, groove, etc., I did not even have to hear the music to know what I was up against: A stage full of brass – trumpets, saxes, and others – flutes, bass guitar, lead guitar, full drum set, keyboards, two vocal mics… in short, a whole orchestra of what could only be something special.

First at La Grooverie Jam in Lyon

“Come on, Brad, try!” said Ornella. “I’ll go and find out how it works.”

“I can see how it works,” I said. “There’s no room for me. There’s no way I can get up there just with my guitar and do a Bob Dylan!”

“Let’s just see,” she insisted.

“But I can only let them down. These are clearly seasoned musicians, and they will not be doing my kind of stuff. This is going to be great music!”

Second at La Grooverie Jam in Lyon

Ornella Lays the Pressure On

She insisted again, and anyway, it was raining outside and we had been driving from Genova most of the day and were exhausted and hungry and needed a beer. So we ordered a couple of pints of IPA, and waited for the music to start. Or rather, I stayed at the bar and moped, while Ornella went out to the terrace for a smoke.

While I listened to the first song, a guy approached me as he saw I had my guitar case. He introduced himself as Matt, and said he was the organizer of the jam. Did I want to play? I thought of Ornella, and said, “Sure. But how does it work.” I told him my limitations, but he said to go sign the list and they would call me up.

The music was exactly what I thought, and the jam was what I expected. What I did not consider, was just how great the attitude was of seemingly all the musicians – and public – who attended. When Ornella returned she told me that she had struck up a conversation with some musicians on the terrace and they told her how it worked and that I should try. She told me that I had to go see the organizer. I said I had signed up.

And Then Brad Got Up on Stage – and it was a Mad, Mad World

Then she gave told me the other thing that she had discovered, which is a key to this whole open jam – and the others under different themes that take place on two other nights per week: Most of the musicians who play in the jam are from local music schools in Lyon. They are young, enthusiastic, excellent musicians with a clear love of just getting up on stage and playing. Doesn’t matter who with.

Brad at La Grooverie Jam in Lyon

And so when it was my turn to get up on stage, I immediately felt comfortable with the other musicians who had been assigned to play with me. I assume that since Matt knew I was mostly guitar and vocals with a more rock than groove song, he assigned only a drummer, bass player and a keyboard player – to make it easier for me. He had told me that they only did cover songs, so I combed through all my possibilities, and dug deep and … came up with the one I do the most: “Mad World.”

In the end, a trumpet player and a saxophonist both timidly tried to fit into the piece, but I guess they couldn’t find the groove! I wish I had the time to have done another song, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. It was a great moment for me, anyway, and Ornella made a video of it – warts and all!

Third at La Grooverie Jam in Lyon

The ambience was so great that we stayed on until practically the end of the jam at 11pm before we ran off to eat a late dinner of Ramen soup in the main square not far from our hotel. And I gave a huge thanks to Ornella for pushing me on, when all the nerves in my body told me there was no place for me this in La Grooverie jam. How wrong I was!

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A Not-Restaurant-Review: The Nescy Family Affair of Astounding Creativity in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily

July 12, 2024
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Pasta allo scoglio at Nescy. Photo ©Brad Spurgeon

PLEASE NOTE THE UPDATED ADDRESS as of summer 2025. Since I wrote this post last summer the restaurant, unfortunately for all visitors and residents of Castellammare del Golfo, has moved to the neighboring town of Alcamo. So it is now the people and vistors of Alcamo only who can be treated by this amazingly original restaurant. Or you can drive to Alcamo from Castellammare, but don’t drink wine with your meal if you plan to drive back! V.le delle Fornaci Romane, 796, Alcamo, Italy. +39 366 196 5949 info@nescy.it nescy.it :

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – To my recollection I have written very few things about restaurants and dining on this blog. I do know that one of my most popular posts is an effort at writing a restaurant review that I did in 1991, at Joel Robuchon’s Jamin in Paris. And I also put up another unpublished restaurant review, that of Alain Passard’s Arpège, that I also wrote around that time. So if I am about to create a new category of blog post on great eating, please understand that it is because I find the following restaurant absolutely exceptional!

And since I have evolved a little bit since the 1990s, I have decided while writing these words that I will follow in my blog column rubric of “Not Reviews” to write about the amazing Nescy in this idyllic seafront town in northern Sicily. I have written Not Book reviews, Not Theater reviews and Not Film Reviews. This is my first Not Restaurant Review. The idea behind the Not Review, I remind you, is that I do not want to get on a writer’s high horse and pontificate on a subject in the way a traditional review does. Instead, this is just me writing about my impressions and feelings about a book, play, other, or in this case, restaurant.

Castellammare del Golfo is full of fabulous places to eat and drink. For a small town on the Sicilian coast, in fact, it seems exceptional the number of excellent restaurants. And they are located in various areas, like down the main Corso Garibaldi, or in the marina amongst the fishing boats, or up in the other main street by the park, municipal building and theater. That is partly why it took us years before we found and decided to try out a little unobtrusive place on the steep staircase beside the park leading up from the port (the Arab name for the town during its conquest – that was one of many, and started in 827 – was Al Madarig, which means, “The Steps”). This restaurant, Nescy, is not mentioned in the Michelin app, which only has a restaurant called Mirko’s, which we have been to twice. We have now been to Nescy, seven times – twice last year, and five times this year. And we will continue to go.

Coppu Russu Volante. Photo: ©Brad Spurgeon

Why? Because Nescy is simply the most inventive, original restaurant in Castellammare del Golfo. It uses normal, but high quality ingredients, with often well known dishes, but the food is of a finished quality that is exceptional. It fills you with joy, in fact, a sense of “bien être,” or well being, and it is not deadly hard on the pocket book. Twice, for instance, three of us got out of there with three course meals and a bottle of wine for 105 euros.

To put the originality into a nutshell – excuse the food metaphor – this is a restaurant that serves dishes that range from classic Sicilian to street food taken to a higher level. The Nescy web site puts the emphasis on the street food side to their fare; but for me that does not do justice to the kind and level of what Nescy has to offer. Now that we have been so many times and with several members of the family, I have seen and tasted many of the dishes, and have a fairly complete view of both the food and the service. It is almost impossible to speak of favorite dishes, but there are ones I keep wanting to take again but do not do so as I want to try new things all the time.

On the street food side, the Coppu Russu Volante of battered and fried calamari and Mazara red shrimp and potatoes, all with Trapani sea salt, is astounding, especially with its extraordinary homemade ginger mayonnaise.

La Buatta starter. Photo: ©Brad Spurgeon

Another fabulous dish that is light enough to be served as a starter, is the smoked swordfish with watermelon, with its mandorla mayonnaise!

The starter called La Buatta, is fabulously original and very copious – as are virtually all the dishes. This is a jar of fresh little pieces, or cubs, of ham from “a little black pig,” as they told me – and sorry for the image if you are an animal lover – that is marinating in olive oil with laurel, nuts, garlic and oregano. Delicious and filling.

Among the simplest of the most original dishes was the mixed salad I took served in a bowl made of a kind of tortilla cracker that you could eat along with the salad! (The seafood salad, by the way, is also supberb.)

Nescy salad with a bowl you can eat. Photo ©Brad Spurgeon

On the pasta side of things, the classic “Norma” has the freshest taste of pure tomato sauce I think I have ever had; while the “pasta allo scoglio” is the best mixture of spaghetti with mussels, squid, Sciacca pink prawns and scampi that I have had in Sicily. The seafood is big, thick and juicy.

Probably the most surprising pasta was the “Cala la pasta,” which is fresh pasta with ragù and colonnata lard of Nebrodi’s black pig – the same as the above mentioned starter – grains of Bronte’s pistachio, cosacavaddu ragusano cheese and stracciatella cheese. That cheese is making me hungry again as I write down these words! In short, it was rich and unctuous.

I could keep on listing the dishes but suffice it to say that each feels more original than the next as you make your way through numerous visits to this fabulous restaurant owned and run by a family from the neighboring city, Alcamo. And before I say anything more about them, I do want to save among the best of the food to the end, where it belongs:

Cala la pasta. Photo: ©Brad Spurgeon

The desserts are at the moment among the highest expression of the chef’s delightful imagination and approach to her work. (Anna Maria is all I know of her name, I apologize!) One night we were there, she invented a new dessert on the spur of the moment, that was not even on the menu. Literally, she decided to do something different and made an artwork out of panelle, which is not usually used in a sweet dish. She added ricotta mixed with bianco mangare, and blackfruit coulis.

A mainstay is the the “fried ice cream,” which is ice cream in a dough ball tossed into the hot oil, almost like a donut with ice cream inside.

Tortino Florio. ©Brad Spurgeon

But my favorite of all is the Tortino Florio, which is a kind of a hot spongecake with marmalade accompanied by the most creamy, beautiful ice cream with rosemary! You have to taste it to believe it.

The wine list, by the way, is short but solid, with several of the mainstay wines from the region – like Maria Costanza white, Terre della Baronia white, and a few grillo, an Inzolia, and our favorite for the moment, the Balhara, which is made from the local catarratto grape. All of them are more the reasonably priced by comparison to elsewhere, and our favorite is only 20 euros for the bottle.

As equally interesting as the food and ambience of this delightful restaurant is the story behind, and cohesion of, the family that founded and runs it. It was born of hardship in 2014: the patriarch of the family lost a very good job at the same time as one of the daughters encounter a health setback. They decided all together, with an idea from the son, to start their own business and not have to depend on working for other people. So they founded this restaurant and use some of the recipes and approaches to cooking of various family members. The result is a great success, even if it is probably more popular with non-Castallammarese clients than the locals.

A bit more street food from Nescy. Photo: ©Brad Spurgeon

Last night we went to a restaurant about 200 meters distant from Nescy and almost everything that can go wrong did go wrong, and it made me realize all the more just what a great evening of dining this family affair consists of. The service is impeccable, warm, and timely – you can press a little gadget on the table to get service whenever you want to; and the same gadget to call for the bill. In fact, the name of the restaurant has several related meanings: N-Nature E-Ethic S-Sicily C-Coppu Y-You…. But in Sicilian, Nesci means going out!

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Theatrical and Musical Adventures from Aubervilliers and Asnières to Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily

July 27, 2023
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Academy of the Unfulfilled in Palermo Flash Mob

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – I have been wrapped up in a whirlwind of theatrical and musical adventures over the past month that have been so many and varied that I have had not a single moment to write about them here, despite itching to do so every day. Now I am sitting high in the hills above Castellammare as I start these words, taking a break from setting down harmonies for the next song in a musical show that we will be performing at this Azienda Agricola Acquaviva this coming Sunday, 30 July, and I finally found a moment to get a few words down in the blog about these incredible experiences.

Brad Spurgeon as Einstein in TAC production

The first was my cameo role as Albert Einstein in TAC Teatro‘s next play, the work-in-progress tentatively titled “La Première Fois.” The show is in its early stages of creation, but TAC Teatro put on a show of the work-in-progress at its theater space in Aubervilliers at 164 rue Henri Barbusse. I loved creating this role with Ornella Bonventre directing, because I cannot imagine that many other wonderful true-life personalities to play than Einstein. And, surprise surprise, I discovered through the necessity of growing my hair and my moustache, that I am capable of growing a moustache that is a pretty damn convincing version of the mathematical genius’s moustache! (Now if only I discovered I could also emulate his mathematical genius.) In any case, the show went off very well, with the TAC Teatro actors demonstrating more than ever their diversity of talents, as the show is full of music, magic and illusion, along with some beautiful songs. My role is minor, opens the show at the moment, and will probably appear again later on.

TAC Teatro school performers take a bow at yearend show at Studio Théâtre of Asnières-sur-Seine

The sad story there was that this was the last show that TAC Teatro performed in the space where it has been housed for the last two and a half years, since the middle of the Covid epidemic. The owners of the former warehouse decided they want to try to sell the lot on which it sits, and so they took it back from us, and the same day we handed over the keys, they had the space demolished so that no one got the idea of squatting it. In a sad, sad irony, while the rich owners wanted to demolish our space to keep squatters out, that same night during the riots that tore France apart after the police killed a 17-year-old for no reason, TAC Teatro’s new space for the coming season, in Asnières-sur-Seine was demolished, looted, burned down, by the rioters. So the coming season poses some challenges.

In the meantime, TAC Teatro also celebrated its yearend of performances of the students of the classes in Asnières, which took place in the 200-seat, magnificent Studio Théâtre. There, I was called in to do the job of MC, and I was given the opportunity to do this by playing a song between each performance of the classes. I matched the nature of each song with the play performance. The plays of the children were Peter Pan, the Addams Family and the Petits Chaperons Rouges; the adult class’s play was “The Bear,” by Chekhov. It was a fabulous festive evening of shows with a full house spectators and a great capping to a season of drama classes for TAC Teatro and its students.

Brad Spurgeon MCing the TAC Teatro yearend show

No sooner did we finish that event than we packed the car to go to our annual summer address in Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily, not far from Palermo. Here, this year, I started my first week participating in the great Chiringuito Jam session in Scopello, that I had discovered only last year, and which we learned was run by Ornella’s cousin, Michelangello Bologna. I again did a couple of songs with a complete band, and with Michelangello, who is a Michelangello of the harmonica in addition to the MC of the evening.Then, suddenly irresistibly, surprisingly, and synchronistically, after we had discovered that Castellammare del Golfo had been chosen as the location for a big crazy theater workshop by the illustrious Mario Biagini and his group called Accademia dell’Incompiuto – Academy of the Unfulfilled, we decided to take part. This workshop, or residency, lasts for the entire second two weeks of July, and in addition to consisting of working with Biagini’s troupe to create a final show – called “The Thirsty Ones” – for the 30th July, we also had two other performances of some of the work.

Teaser for the show of Accademia dell’Incompiuto – Academy of the Unfulfilled

Extraordinarily, one of those performances had been planned – without any input or prior knowledge from us – as taking place during the Wednesday night jam at Chiringuito! So for the second time in the month of July I ended up performing on the stage outside in Scopello, but now, I did first a performance of a couple of songs in the usual way with me on the guitar with other performers at the jam; then, second, I worked with the dozen or so actors and singers of the theater workshop performing the songs we had been working on, with their fabulous harmonies and many languages. I played guitar and filled in here and there with vocals.

I want to jump back a little and say why this serendipitous meeting of the Biagini group and Ornella and me was so surprising: We had met Biagini for the first time last year when we went to the Teatro Ridotto outside of Bologna, Italy in order to interview him for a project that Ornella and I are working on about some of the theater greats of the last 60 years. Biagini is known for having worked closely with the legendary intellectual figure of 20th century avant garde theater, Jerzy Grotowski. In fact, Grotowski, who died in 1999, had left Biagini and another man, Thomas Richards, in charge of the Grotowski Center in Pontedera, Italy – Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards – where Mario Biagini had worked since 1986.

Biagini and Richards ran the center until 2021, when they decided to go their own ways. Grotowski was one of the seminal figures of modern theater, and Biagini is a torchbearer of his world, along with Richards. Now this links into the next meeting, which happened a couple of months ago in Paris, when Ornella and I went to the Grotowski event at the Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris where Biagini was present to launch the latest edition that he edited of a translation of Grotowski’s theoretical – and other – writings that has just been published in French. It is a fabulous collection of the theorist’s work, including the writings that would eventually make up his famous and influential “Towards a Poor Theater” book that was first published by the Odin Teatret publisher and founder, Eugenio Barba. (Whom I have written about a few times here.

We also made a connection at one remove with Biagini at the beginning of April this year, when a group that he has directed that came out of Teatro Ridotto, also took part in the annual international residency called Finestres – see my previous post! – that Teatro Ridotto has put on for decades in Italy and that TAC hosted this year in Aubervilliers at the beginning of April. I am speaking about the fantastic Collettivo Hospites, who, incidentally, just put up a video of their memories of that week of activities.

FINESTRE sur le jeune théâtre from Collettivo Hospites

So it was quite amazing to discover that Biagini was holding this workshop in Ornella’s home town in Sicily during our stay here. And we joined in. The performance at Chiringuito was then followed by a flash mob performance a few days later in the streets of downtown Palermo. Here again we sang our songs, and I played guitar along with the musical anchor of the work, Viviana Marino on her classical guitar. There was a film production company on hand in Palermo, so you can see the work of this company, Ponte di Archimede Produzioni, in the teaser for Sunday’s show that I posted above. The teaser was also filmed partly on location at the base in the hills above Castellammare, where we are preparing and will put on the show, and where I am sitting writing these words. You only catch a tiny glimpse of me playing in Palermo, and a bit of Ornella and her daughter, Morgana, are also visible momentarily!

Segesta temple burning July 2023

I hope to have more videos and photos to follow, but this is what I have at the moment. Until then, if you can make it to the show on Sunday, I understand the airport in Palermo is open again…. Oh, yes, that’s another bit of news to follow up with: After the burning down of TAC’s new space in Asnières and the demolition of the old space in Aubervilliers, the 2,000 year old theater in Segesta, next to Castellammare del Golfo, and the neighboring 2,000 year old temple were both engulfed in flames in recent days during the catastrophic fires that we have been experiencing during the massive heatwave that lifted temperatures to well above 40 degrees celsius. A couple of years ago, TAC had been in negotiations to put on a performance on that ancient stage. The flames are following us from town to town, country to country!

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Zayen and the Open Air, Open Mic in Aubervilliers – and a Child’s Gesture of a Centime for My Efforts

December 17, 2022
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Zayen

AUBERVILLIERS, France – Now that was a fabulous breath of fresh – and cold – air: I performed five songs in an outdoor open mic on Wednesday, during a neighborhood afternoon snack in Aubervilliers. The neighborhood was the Quartier Maladrerie, and it is located in the town of Aubervilliers, which touches on Paris. I have written a lot about this town in the last couple of years, since TAC Teatro has been putting on a lot of shows and doing a lot of work there. It was actually quite cool – I mean cold – to perform across the street from the Espace Renaudie, the place that hosted a couple of TAC events recently, which I have written about in previous posts. This open mic had nothing to do with that, but with a meeting and some open mics that I did 15 years ago!

A year and more before I started writing this blog, I had already begun my musical open mic adventures. Among the places I discovered in Paris and its environs, was a regular open mic in Aubervilliers, most often at a bar called “Le Chien Qui Fume,” or, “The Dog that Smokes.” I say most often at, because the open mic was run by an association called “Les Artistes des Couleurs et de la Diversité.” It was run by a musician named Zayen, of Kabyle origin. It started in a bar in Paris, called the Aveyronnais, where I first attended, and then moved on to Aubervilliers, which is a town with a large Kabyle population.

Kabyle musician Malik Kazeoui in Aubervilliers open mic

I attended open mics there weekly for around six months – sometimes even twice per week – and had all sorts of interesting experiences, including once when the mayors of the twinned cities of Iena in Germany and Aubervilliers attended one of the open mics. Zayen had a small success with a song called Baden-Baden, about a Kabyle refusing to fight in WWII, and then returning to his country and passing on his story there.

Kabyle singer Malik Kazeoui singing in French in Aubervilliers open air open mic

In recent months I made contact with Zayen again, finding that he was now an elected politician connected to the new mayor’s party in Aubervilliers, while he remains a professional musician with growing success. In fact, his small association has also grown since it was founded in 2008, and we recently met with it and another Berber association in Aubervilliers to share ideas.

Zayen’s song Baden Baden

On Wednesday, though, it felt like old times as Zayen invited me to play at the “open mic” in the street, organized to celebrate an afternoon snack, music and poetry, at this holiday period with everyone in the neighbourhood. I took along my Gibson J200 and sang five songs, and then gave my guitar to another musician, Malik Kazeoui, and he played some kabyle songs and something in French.

French singer singing song about Aubervilliers in Aubervilliers

It was freezing cold, but I took off my coat and played hard and kept warm. It turned out to be a wonderful moment too thanks to an excellent quality of sound system and soundman support, provided by the same technicians from the Espace Renaudie, with whom I worked to show my film of Eugenio Barba a few weeks ago. That was a complete surprise for us all, as they had only known me as the journalist who interviewed Barba on film, or the man connected with TAC Teatro in its performance of Ajamola.

For me the most touching moment was when a five-year-old boy approached the stage after I had sung one or two songs and he handed me 1 centime as payment for my singing – or perhaps it was a signal to get me off the stage? In any case, I thanked him and told him that it was more money than I had earned in five years off the streaming rights to my CD, “Out of a Jam.”

Check out the videos to get a taste of this neighborhood event in Aubervilliers!

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Playing with Layth Aldaene on his Oud in Abu Dhabi 10 years Ago

November 17, 2022
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Laythe Aldaene

PARIS – Today I stumbled on a recording I did in Abu Dhabi exactly 10 years ago and I wanted to post it again to mark the occasion. It was one of my musical adventures following the Formula One season as a journalist, and that year, 2012, I had set myself the goal of recording a song with a local musician in every one of the 20 or so countries that I visited. The idea was a real challenge, and I think I succeeded in my goal, but unfortunately the sound quality of the recordings was not of CD-level quality. But what a treasure to find this one of a star oud player and musician living in Abu Dhabi named Layth Aldaene, who is an Iraqi, and who is still playing around the area and farther afield, including recently with a symphony orchestra. I decided to post this today because this weekend is also that of the season-finale 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in Formula One, so it seemed a great moment to post.

This recording took place in the House of Oud, which was a community center and workshop for building ouds, teaching the oud, spreading oud culture and everything else oud that you can imagine. I suggest you check out Layth Aldaene’s web site, as it has lots of his amazing music on it, and some cool videos.

I chose as a song to play my song “Let Me Know,” which I always felt had a middle eastern sound to it. In fact, I had written it purposefully with a middle eastern sound – although the guitar chord progression had itself been given to me by Laurent Guillaume, with whom I recorded the song on my CD.

Layth Aldaene in action

In any case, this recording was done in the workshop of the House of Oud and you can hear the luthier actually working on an oud while we play the song, and read more about it on the post I did at the time. This was a real jam of my song, as we had never rehearsed it.

Also, FYI, here is a link to the song as I recorded on my CD (with Laurent Guillaume doing the lead guitar):

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Big Day Soon in Paris and Aubervilliers: Conference with Julia Varley of Odin Teatret and Premiere of TAC’s Documentary with Legendary Director Eugenio Barba

October 12, 2022
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Poster for the Barba film event.

PARIS – I’m already bubbling over with excitement about the premiere of my short, 30-minute, documentary/interview film with one of the giants of world theater of the last 60 years. I am talking about the work I did with Ornella Bonventre and her TAC Teatro – of which I am a company member since 2017 – and our interview with Eugenio Barba, founding director of the Odin Teatret of Denmark. The film will be screened next month, on 7 November, in the Espace Renaudie, a municipal theater in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris. It is part of a double-bill of activities with members of the Odin Teatret and TAC, beginning in the morning at the iconic Théâtre du Soleil of Paris.

That’s a lot of stuff to pack into your brain in the first paragraph, so let me backtrack now a little: Eugenio Barba is an Italian-born director and writer who after working with the Polish theater master Jerzy Grotowski in the early 1960s, went on to create Odin Teatret – based in Holstebro, Denmark – and to become one of the great theater theorists of our times, as well as the founder of the International School of Theatre Anthropology. Odin has always been at the forefront of avant garde theater in the world, innovating in the area of what is often called “physical theater,” as it speaks as much, or more, through the movements of the body as it does through text. And even the spoken word itself – or the music – is considered a kind of physical action in the performance.

The company was founded in 1964, and some of the actors that still make up the company have been with it since the 1970s, others for several decades. They are coming to Paris next month to put on their latest show, “Thèbes au Temps de la Fièvre Jaune,” at the Théâtre du Soleil. (The latter is another of the world’s great avant-garde theatrical institutions, also founded in 1964 and still directed by Ariane Mnouchkine.)

The morning event with Julia Varley.

The Odin show will run there from 8 to 19 November, and TAC Teatro, in collaboration with ARTA, Association de Recherche de Tradition de l’Acteur, and the Aubervilliers mayor’s office organized two events that will take place the day before the show opens, ie, on the Monday 7th November at 10AM in the Théâtre du Soleil, and the film premiere at the Espace Renaudie starting at 18PM, with, following the film, a roundtable discussion. The event starts by featuring especially the intervention of Julia Varley, one of the Odin Teatret actors, who will give a conference about the process of training and creation for the actor in the morning part of the program at the Théâtre du Soleil. Ornella will take part in that too, along with Raluca Mocan, a theater expert and member of the Husserl Archives of the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

There will also be a hommage to Odin Teatret in the form of live performance extracts from TAC Teatro’s latest show, AJAMOLA by the actors of the company.

I am very pleased to be able to show this documentary interview film that I did with Eugenio Barba the last time Odin Teatret visited Paris, with their previous show, called, “L’Arbre.” The interview was conducted outside at the Cartoucherie, and Ornella filmed it – and organized it – and also intervened with some of the most interesting questions – when I think I took over the camera briefly! It was a wide-ranging interview with Barba covering his life story, his theories of theater, the history of theater and of Odin, and even comments about the state of Paris’s theater landscape in general. It also contains a lot of footage and photos of Odin’s work through the decades.

Brad Spurgeon interviewing Eugenio Barba.

Taking place at the Espace Renaudie in Aubervilliers starting at 18PM, the screening is free of charge, and there are about 200 seats in the theater. So if you want to come, best to reserve in advance at tac.teatro@gmail.com or by telephone at: 06 14 06 92 23

By the way, this is the same location where the full production of AJAMOLA will be performed several times this year and next – so if you like what you see in the performance extracts at the event at the Théâtre du Soleil…don’t hesitate to book for the show too!

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One Thing Again Leads to Another at the Chiringuito Jam in Scopello

August 26, 2022
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Babel Tower Logo

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – It seems not to matter how many times I live this lesson, I always come close to forgetting it – only to relive it and learn it again. A few weeks ago I wrote of my experience at the Chiringuito jam in Scopello, Sicily. I wrote about how one good thing leads to another good thing – and vice versa. I missed the last few jams on Wednesday nights at Chiriniguito for various reasons – a cold, a more important meeting, and, yes, inertia. I was almost going to let inertia steer me away from it again this time, but didn’t, and the reward was huge, and unexpected – as usual!

We had planned to have dinner in Scopello at the Nettuno restaurant with Ornella’s family Wednesday and then head off to the jam. But the dinner started late, many more family members arrived, and conversation and good cheer began to take over and extend the time at the table, and reduce the potential time at the jam. Then, as with the last outdoor restaurant meal with the family – last week – a sudden downpour of rain began. It never rains here in the summer. It’s not supposed to. Will not, does not. Unless we have a family gathering or a jam session to attend.

The conversation, family get-together and rain all persuaded me by midnight that I was going to miss the jam session again, and I was going to miss it for valid reasons. I had my guitar ready in the trunk of the car, I had made the “effort,” but it had failed. Once again. Then at about two minutes past midnight, Ornella said to me: “You are going to miss the jam! Go and play, Brad. Don’t worry about us.” In fact, I had been told that many of the members of the family had come to see me play, but I suppose inertia had settled in there too….

I decided not to let that get me down, and in any case, I fully expected to go to the jam – a few minutes’ walk away from the Nettuno – and find that it had been packed up, closed down, over with, all thanks to the downpour, which could have short-circuited all the guitar amps and everything else. There, I thought, I would have my excuse. Part of me had the jitters about playing the jam again also because it had gone so well the first time, and I had had so much fun, that I expected it would fall flat this second time.

I got my Gibson J-200 from the car trunk and went to the jam. It was bopping big time. The stage was curiously dark and wet, but there were musicians on it, playing to a vast crowd of manic spectators jumping up and down in delight at the front of the stage. Michelangelo, the jam organiser and MC, immediately saw me with my guitar on my back at the front right corner of the stage and he approached: “Brad, we had a problem tonight with the rain cutting out a lot of things, and we had to set up all over again, and try to make it work after that…. anyway, the point is, I had to change the format a little: You only get one song. And you are up next.”

Man! I could not say no to that. I had no more excuses! And anyway, I started feeling the pulse of excitement of the idea of going up and playing just one song and if it all failed, I had my excuse there too! I just finished a massive bacon and cheese burger, a massive chocolate Sunday, got wet in the rain, came over to the jam, had one song and got up with no warming up!

I got the Gibson out, waited, when the guy finished, I climbed up on the stage where someone said: “What chords?” I realised it was one of the other musicians – turned out to be the bass player – and he wanted to know what chords I would use for my one song. I didn’t even know what my song would be. I had, in advance, been planning three: “Crazy Love,” “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” and “Wicked Game.” I thought for a moment about the simplest of them, but also I decided to go for a contrast to the crowd pleasing, foot-stomping, fast-moving, singalong song of the guy onstage before me. I chose “Wicked Game,” by Chris Isaak. It is just three chords from beginning to end, and there can be plenty of room for the jamming of the harmonica and lead guitar between verses on those three chords.

I whipped through the song with huge pleasure – and a few rough spots – and then got off the stage fast. It seemed to go fairly smoothly, and the others had lots of room to jam. I blew my voice out a little, since I had a bit of a problem hearing myself and so I forced it too much, but in all, I was really happy to have done it, and I was happy to have been able to do it fast during what was clearly a difficult night for the organiser – with that rain storm!

Now here is where the real story starts: I got off the stage and began packing my guitar away in its case when a guy approaches and starts speaking English and congratulating me. He turned out to be another musician, a drummer, and he asked if I played professionally. I said no, and asked him if he did. He said he did, and that he was also studying jazz drumming at the conservatory. But he said his band was playing in Castellammare soon, and so I should come and listen. The band, he said, was called Babel Tower. It turned out that they had played recently at Picolit, where my musical adventure began last month.

Babel Tower in Castellammare del Golfo

We talked for some time about music, his life, and the band playing around Sicily. I was still a little breathless after performing, and I had to go and find Ornella’s family. So we parted without exchanging contacts.

Then Ornella and I later in the evening went to the Picolit Pub in Castellammare, and I tried to remember the name of the band that this drummer played in, so I could speak to one of the owners of Picolit about it. Since they have a lot of bands there, she had no idea! But then I looked at the names of the bands that have played there recently, and I recognized the name “Babel Tower.” I then found the Instagram page of the band, and looked at the photos and…there I saw the photo of the guy I spoke to at the jam session.

I returned to the owner, told her it was this band, and she said: “Oh yes!!! And by the way, the singer of the band is sitting at the table beside yours!” Unsure whether I should speak to the singer of Babel Tower and tell him I had just met one of the other band members, it was again Ornella who pushed for this. I decided that, yes, I’d love to know the name of the drummer I met and maybe send him a message on Facebook.

So we approached the singer of the band, and we explained the situation. He gave me the link to the Instagram page of the drummer of the band and I followed it. Then, we got involved in more conversation with the singer, pulled our chairs over to his table, and after some minutes of talk, it began to dawn on both Ornella and the singer that they knew each other! They had not seen each other for 15 years or so, but they realized that he had been one of Ornella’s sister’s best friends! And as it turned out, he had long been trying to make contact with her, but as she no longer lives here, he had not found out how to communicate.

Another bit of Babel Tower

This happy situation then led eventually to the singer inviting me to play with Babel Tower at their next gig, in a small town not too far from here on Saturday night! Now, let us remember and realize and think about all of these happy repercussions that came form a moment’s decision as to whether I should or should not make the effort to play at the jam! Had I done the easy thing and just sat back lazily, I would never have met these musicians, never had the fun of playing the jam, never been offered to play this weekend, and Ornella and her sister would never have met this old friend! Astounding what action, and music, can do!

Babel Tower, I learned, plays nearly 300 dates per year throughout Sicily, doing all manner of rock, pop and reggae. I suggest you look them up and give a listen! And maybe you will discover something that will change your life too!

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Sundance on a Bunker in Sicily with Compagnia Ordinesparso – or Physical Theater at 4:40 AM

August 15, 2022
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Ornella and Brad on the Bunker in Sicily. Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba / https://claudiocolomba6.webnode.it/

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – There are few things I dislike more in life than getting out of bed for the day at 4:40 AM. Especially after going to bed at 1:40 AM (due to the birthday party of a 1-year-old). But the offer to join up with an Italian theater company to put on a ritual performance along with the rising of the sun above the Mediterranean Sea on the top of a World War II bunker overlooking some craggy cliffs at the Fossa Dello Stinco near Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily was just too great to resist. It was the same for Ornella Bonventre, and so it was that we joined Giovanni Berretta and his Compagnia Ordinesparso at sunrise and integrated his troupe for a 40-minute or so piece of physical theater, with a live soundtrack of drums and baritone saxophone. And while I may still be “jet-lagged” from the experience a day later as I write these words, I feel blessed to have been able to take part.

Opening movements of the show from two of the stars of Compagnia Ordinesparso. Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba

The whole thing did not happen just overnight, of course. (No pun intended.) Rather, Ornella, as the director of TAC Teatro, and a native of Castellammare del Golfo, had learned from her friend, a local filmmaker and photographer, Claudio Colomba, that Berretta was in town and doing a theater lab and a few performances. Ornella had also crossed paths with Berretta and his Compagnia Ordinesparso a few times in the past, so last week we went to watch one of their street performances, in one of the main boulevards of Castellammare. That took place during the heat of the night, with a couple of actors on a balcony above the boulevard, and the others in the street below, and it was quite impressive to see and hear.

Preparing at the Apollo theater in Castellammare del Golfo with Giovanni Berretta

We spoke to Berretta afterwards, and he invited us to take part in this performance on the morning of the day leading to the midnight celebration of Ferragosto, the Assumption of Mary religious holiday. If we accepted, we would have to go to one day of the workshop, the day before, the write a score to integrate the performance. This we did with great pleasure on Saturday evening, and it was my first time on the small, but fabulous stage of the main local theater, the Apollo, which is located in the center of Castellammare.

Ferragosto Bunker Show Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba / https://claudiocolomba6.webnode.it/

There, much to my great fear of failure due to a horrendous tendonitis in my left arm, Giovanni simply ignored my plea that I was entirely incapable of any kind of physical stuff and would be better off just playing my guitar and singing. But with the help of my hugely gifted partner, Ornella Bonventre, taking the heavier load of responsibility for the movements – despite doctor’s orders against straining her recuperating knee injury – we managed, through Giovanni’s gentle and precise direction, to come up with a score and integrate the group.

The group was made up of actors part of Compagnia Ordinesparso, as well as a few local amateurs who joined in as a theater activity, upon invitation by the event, which has some support from the local mayor’s office. Giovanni provided both the direction, as well as being the anchor of the performance, reciting texts to the sound of the musicians’ soundtrack. It was very impressive hearing the baritone sax, played by Tommaso Miranda, and drums, played by Domenico Sabella, at dawn; and the sound reminded me of a cross between the mix of Duke Ellington and John Coltrane as a duo, and some of the later work of Tom Waits!

another of Ornella and Brad atop the bunker Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba https://claudiocolomba6.webnode.it/

There was a third major partner here that I have not mentioned yet, but they came in during the final stage, which was the performance itself at just after 6 AM. This was the group of about 50 hikers who were led by the local exploring association called, CAI Castellammare del Golfo. (The letters stand for: Club Alpino Italiano. They explore local mountains, caves, seashore, forests etc.) Ornella and I and TAC Teatro had put on a performance last year with and for this same hiking organization, but then it was to celebrate the setting sun! (Which is much more naturally to my taste, as a late riser.)

So it was that arising at 4:40 AM, we prepared ourselves and met the other actors and musicians at 5:15 close to the staging point, before heading on in several cars through the scrub vegetation at the seaside, and arrived at about 5:45 at the World War II bunker at the Fossa Dello Stinco. There the musicians set up the drums, took out the sax, warmed up; and so did the actors and Giovanni. We found our points of reference, spent some time figuring out how to mount the bunker – no easy thing, and in the end Giovanni himself lifted most of us up there – and we all warmed up too.

Ornella Bonventre on stage at the Apollo theater preparing for the show in Castellammare

We took our positions and waited until close to 6:15 or so – the sunrise was set for 6:20, according to my phone – the spectators began to arrive and placed themselves on the stones, rocks and vegetation around the performance area. And then began Giovanni’s recitations, the other actors’ movements, dance and contortions, and finally Ornella and I mounted the top of the bunker and did our part.

Giovanni Berretta

musicians and Giovanni at the sunrise show Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba / https://claudiocolomba6.webnode.it/

The patient and talented director Giovanni had instructed me that my movements were to be a kind of action that reacted to Ornella’s movements, and her movements were that of the wind. Standing atop the bunker with the real wind gently blowing all around me, with a camera equipped drone hovering above, and with Claudio moving about in his various positions filming and photographing, with the saxophone and drums beating, and the sun rising mostly over my left shoulder as I looked at the rising hills and cliffs around me, the whole thing was a little bit like a natural religious experience and I had entirely forgotten the tendonitis in my left arm and shoulder!

Only once it was finished did I realise that I knew several people in the audience both from last year’s event with TAC Teatro and from the organizers of the hike. It was a gentle and warm descent. (Although suddenly feared my shoulder pain as Giovanni had to lift me down the bunker back to hard earth!)

the sea and sun perspective of the show Photo Credit: ©Claudio Colomba / https://claudiocolomba6.webnode.it/

My only regret during the experience was my inability to really be seeing all the details of how Ornella’s spectacular dance, as well as that of the other actors, must have appeared to the audience. I was part of the show, but with Ornella as my solid underpinning guide, it was a shoe-in there too…. Oh, and I am hoping that I will be able to see what Claudio eventually does with the film of the event, and I hope I will be able to put up a link to that on the blog soon!

Happy Ferragosto!

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Panoramic of the performance area upon arrival

Unloading the drums upon arrival to the bunker area

Winding down moments after the sunrise performance ended

The Power of Good and Evil – Playing at the Chiringuito Scopello Pub in Sicily

July 28, 2022
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Brad and band at Chiringuito Scopello

CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO, Sicily – Just over 20 years ago I wrote a lighthearted Op-Ed column in the International Herald Tribune newspaper using a personal experience I had to show how a single bad action by someone can have many, many bad repercussions going on for days, weeks or more. This morning when I awoke and thought about the jam session I took part in last night at the Chiringuito pub in Scopello, I suddenly realized that precisely the same ripple effect happens when someone does something good, leading to all sorts of other good things.

I am talking, of course, about the results of the effect that began in my previous blog item, where the generosity of a musician – Francesco Riotta – in giving me the microphone and his guitar during his own gig at a bar in Castellammare del Golfo led to meeting another musician after the performance, who in turn told me that there was a jam session in a nearby village every Wednesday and I should go. After coming here for five or six years, once per year, I had never found an open mic or jam session, and it seemed the only thing missing in our summer paradise. All it took was the generosity of Riotta for the good things to start happening.

Brad playing I won’t back down in Scopello

I took the first opportunity to go to check out the jam session at the Chiringuito Scopello pub, which was last night, Wednesday. This is also proof of how important it is to “get yourself out there” if you want any kind of satisfaction in life: Ornella’s uncle and aunt own a restaurant in Scopello, and we have also been going there for years without ever knowing that the Chiringuito hosted a jam session every Wednesday through the summer for the last three years!

Scopello is part of the commune of Castellammare del Golfo, where we are staying, but it is a kind of separate village suburb, about a 15 minute drive away. It is a beautiful tourist attraction area, with lots of restaurants, and beautiful views, beautiful nearby beaches, and a gathering place for some of the people in Castellammare who want a night out that is slightly different from the usual one of wandering around the streets of the main town.

Brad playing Chiringuito with budding Joe (Josephine) Cocker girl onstage

The setting for the Chiringuito is absolutely fabulous! It is an outdoor pub and restaurant, and the stage is quite big, with a decent sound system, good lighting, and a fabulous location that means that you can be seen and heard when you perform by people in the bar area, the lounge area, the restaurant area, and the tables in front of the stage itself. But standing up there and playing and seeing also the surrounding mountains and the sea in the distance – although it is not really clearly visible in that darkness – is a heavenly sensation.

Brad and band playing Mad World in Scopello

The open jam is run according to the usual method, with a sign up list, and it starts around 10pm. But the list order is not strictly followed, especially because much of the jam involves several musicians onstage at once. IE, it is not just an open mic with a single performer or band. It’s a bit of a free-for-all, and once everyone has had a chance to perform once, then the stage is opened to even more mixing, if there is enough time.

First act in Scopello

It is wonderfully hosted by Michelangelo Bologna, who plays harmonica on the videos where I am playing (and elsewhere), and he speaks good English. And as with just about everything here, it turned out that Michelangelo was Ornella’s cousin! (It seems everyone we meet here is Ornella’s cousin, so for me that was not really a surprise.) And Ornella and I both thought he was an exceptional harmonica player. Turns out he studied harmonica at a jazz conservatory!

Michelangelo Bologna demonstrating (English subtitles) his harmonica studies.

Michelangelo told me that last week there were 30 musicians! Given that it lasts only until around 12:30 or 1am, it’s best to get there on time – although I was too early, arriving at 9pm.

There was a large cross-section of performers last night, with lots of blues, a bit of rock, and some acoustic stuff too. In general it was an everything goes kind of jam.

Brad and band at Chiringuito 3

What a pleasure this was to play again in front of such a big crowd, to have some wonderful musicians play along with me, mistakes and all, and an incredibly enthusiastic audience, many of them right in front of the stage. For me, it represented the real moment of passing from my Covid hibernation to a break out back to pre-Covid days – ie, I’ve barely played in public at all since the beginning of the pandemic. And for all I know, this place was bursting with the latest, extremely contagious variant…but I couldn’t not do this! And underpinning it all was that generosity of handing over the stage two days before. Incredible how good things come from good things, and bad things from bad. In case you missed it, check out the link – which I add again here – to that story I did in the IHT Meanwhile column for that story I did way back when. And now think about how those repercussions of badness can be the opposite when the initial act is a good one…!

Brad and band Plauing What’s Up!? In Scopello two vid points of view.

PS, I thank Ornella Bonventre’s daughter, Morgana, for all the videos and photos she took of my performances. I also thank Ornella’s aunt, Daniele, for the video she took of my What’s Up!, while standing in a different position to that of Morgana – I combined both of them toward the end of the What’s Up video to have a different perspective.

Acoustic act in Scopello jam

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