Yes, it is called something like the little happiness bar, the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, but last night it was real big happiness at the little happiness bar. All you have to do is check out the videos I caught of the jam sessions upstairs that followed the open mic to see that this was real, bona fide, big time happiness jam shit.
I mean, this night at one of the best open mics in the city just went on from start to finish in the same happy nice way. And then when the bar closed at 2 AM, it was off to another bar in the area where we ran into numerous Bonheur people and people from other bars, including, hey, the Highlander and the Coolin – two other open mic bars I write about frequently.
It was such a great night last night at the open mic, speaking to people, playing music, listening to other people’s music, etc., that I was more satiated than usual, and have decided to keep this blog item to a minimum, pack my bags and get off to Milan tomorrow. Hoping to find music other than opera….
I was standing at the bar drinking and talking with a new acquaintance after the open mic a the Ptit Bonheur la Chance had finished last night, and after I had begun the evening by having a date fall through (not quite stood-up, but almost), and telling her – my new acquaintance, not the date – that I just loved going to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic because it seemed that every time I did go, something good happened. Something happens to make me not regret my choice of going there. Be it with the music, or with a meeting at the bar or a jam afterwards – there was always something. She, I said, was “it” last night, that nice thing. I could have added another thing.
The other thing was a return to the past and a look at the future as I saw a familiar face in the audience in the latter part of the evening when I returned with a refill of beer after performing my set. Could this really be Ben Ellis? I had not seen Ben at an open mic for years, and never at the Ptit Bonheur. But yes, it was Ben. This took me back almost exactly four years – still two months from the anniversary – when I dared to try an open mic in Paris for the first time, and only my second open mic in decades, at Earle Holme’s Lizard Lounge open mic, in November 2008.
Earle introduced me to Ben, and I was immediately mesmerized by his music and singing, and that of a whole host of other young rockers who had grown up around Earle and his open mic. In fact, Ben’s band, Brooklyn, was breaking out in a big way, and soon seen on French television, and traveling around the world. I had particularly liked Brooklyn’s song “Clandestine,” which was about … Earle’s open mics.
So last night I saw Ben again – whom I had, nevertheless, seen a few times in the last couple of years, although he had moved to New York City for a while. And more importantly, I heard one of Ben’s latest songs, as he is working on a new album, finally! Brooklyn no longer exists, but by the sound of this new song, I get a feeling something just as big, or bigger, will come of it.
He was about to stop after only one song and I begged him to play “Clandestine.” He had not done it for a long, long time, he said to me afterwards, but he did it and did it happily, introducing the Ptit Bonheur la Chance to this song that should be legendary in the Paris open mic world.
The evening had a few other interesting moments, like the strange apparition of the man with the harmonica, which seemed to float through the ether from all corners of the room without warning. I invited him up to join me when I heard him playing during my song, “Except Her Heart,” but unfortunately, somehow I lost the mic to the harmonica well before the song was finished, and never did get to the end. I then invited him to join me on “Crazy Love,” and we got through it okay.
Thanks to a suggestion by Wayne Standley, we finished the evening with Yaco the MC and I doing Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” as a duet. That was fun! It was also, maybe, an interesting response to Ben Ellis’s line in Clandestine, where he sings, “We don’t know where we are goin’…” But then again, no, I get the idea now that Ben knows….
However great, omniscient, informative and even invasive Facebook may be, it is NOT the place for an acquaintance to make an announcement on behalf of an event the person usually has nothing to do with in organizing it. So it was that I had told a couple of inquirers that the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar was indeed happening last night after a single session break last Tuesday. And so it was I rushed down my dinner, rushed on some clean clothes that I ironed, rushed out the door and hurried up to the bar to find that it was closed.
Fortunately, I knew that although my night of giving entertainment had a fall-back in receiving entertainment just up the road at the WOS bar, where the host of the Highlander open mic, Thomas Brun, was giving one of his weekly concerts. There I met a friend who attends a few of the same open mics I attend, but she as a spectator only, and it was from her that I learned one of our mutual Facebook friends had announced the sudden and unexpected closing of the Ptit Bonheur la Chance.
It was not, I discovered, the person most likely to make that announcement – the MC – but this musician who plays there most weeks, and who IS a friend on Facebook. But unfortunately, Facebook just is not reliable enough to make that sort of announcement, so I and I guess a few of the other people who thought it was open – including those whom I told – will have showed up and found they wasted an evening. (I hope it was not something really serious that kept it closed.) The month of August in Paris continues its reputation as a dead month. Forget April, T.S., August is the cruelest month!
Well, no, it was not a wasted evening, in the end, as I did go and listen to Thomas Brun. And there I heard the one-man band playing practically nothing but songs that I never hear him play as the Highlander MC. I am continually amazed at this man’s repertoire. When I commented on it afterwards, Thomas told me that he had a whole lot of songs he did not usually sing to open the open mic at the Highlander because he did not want to get the crowd too excited, foot stompingly mad right at the beginning of the evening, with much thought of whoever might take to the mic right after him. IE, who might be a lot, lot more down tempo and romping. As I then said to Thomas, following him is a difficult task for any musician no matter what he may decide to play.
Even the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic in Paris will take a summer break in August … of a single day. Next Tuesday there will be no open mic at this great venue; Yaco, the MC, was apologetic: “I’ll be here! I will be in Paris!!!” But all workers need occasional breaks. Musicians may not, but proprietors and barmen and women do. Anyway….
It was already the least well attended of the recent open mics at this place on the Rue Laplace, near the Pantheon, in several weeks. But that did not prevent it from being a fun and cool night with some new musicians – including Phil Donnan from California, who is filming to do a thing about music in Paris – and who also, by the way, has an interesting idea of having a “mobile studio” with him and he is looking to record people at their homes in Paris – and then there was also the man with the very cool resonator classical guitar, that he got built himself.
Resonators are those old fashioned guitars from the 1930s mostly used for the blues, with a steel or tin resonating plate on the front to help with volume in the days before amplification. I am not sure if the classical resonator ever existed, but now it does….
Personally, I decided to force myself into singing a couple of songs I have not yet memorized, having to read the lyrics. But I wanted to change what I do at this local open mic, since I’m always singing the same songs. I did a Rolling Stones…> “Take me to the station…” and a Bob Dylan, which had too many lyrics for what I did… “When you’re lost in Juarez, and its Eastertime too….”
All in all, a good night that enabled me to get home relatively early in order to spend more time on MY film today….
I’ve used plays on words like that before about the open mic on Tuesday nights in Paris at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar, but frankly, it just keeps doing the same thing again and again: Bringing bonheur and luck. Last night there were a number of new and interesting musicians, and all sorts of interesting meetings with interesting people.
I arrived a little late, but still had a chance to get up to play two songs. Amongst the standout acts were Baptiste W. Hamon, formerly known as Texas in Paris, who continues to do amazing stuff with his new entity singing and writing in his native French language; and then the newcomer, Allonymous, from Chicago originally, but a longtime expat in France and the UK. He did this very cool sort of recitation/singing from texts he has written and committed to memory. He started as a painter, but has done lots of spoken word stuff, both in the U.S., U.K. and here.
After the open mic we all went up to the bar on the ground floor and had another fun jam session, sometimes with two corners with musicians playing almost at once. What more can I say about this place that I have not said already? Unfortunately, I don’t feel inspired to say much more – it was all such a great trip on its own that it leaves me without words. Check out the videos….
Oh, yes, and P.S., there was a fantastic meeting with a fellow journalist who happened to show up at the open mic and who is involved in writing a Formula One related article. She had no idea that I was covering that series in my day job, but learned it through someone else. So we chatted for a half hour or so all about Formula One in order to help her with her story. Amazing how our worlds can run in to each other….
Gotta go through this real fast since I have an meeting to meet in 45 mNs. But as I listen to Michael Hedges do All Along the Watchtower and before that a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and before that a Bruce Cockburn… oh, yes, that brings me full circle. It all started with Timothee playing a Dylan with his own personal and unique interpretation… and after that, Dan doing his Bruce Cockburn interpretation, which led me to Cockburn and then to the great and dynamic Michael Hedges.
So the accent last night at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic was for me INTERPRETATION. When I heard Timothee’s version of the Dylan song I had to ask him where he got it from … it was his. Bravo!
Then Dan did his Cockburn and as he is Canadian, Dan, when I heard that, it brought me back home.
But I started thinking about Interpretation again, and how we not only sing other people’s songs, we should do them OUR way, and interpret them, and try to make it as true to ourselves as possible – and hopefully it will be different from the original. That, in a nutshell, is what interpretation is. But as I said to Da, for me, what one might call my interpretation of other people’s songs I simply call my own inability to sing them the way THEY do. Some kind of accident, as it were, and incompetence as an impregnator.
My post yesterday covered three days and more than a thousand words – I think – and was certainly at the level of the verbal runs. So today, given lack of time and a sense of compassion for my faithful readers, I have decided only to post the videos from my evening at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic in Paris last night. And to say that it was a fabulous night with some amazing performers. There were some amazing guitars, too, and interestingly, one guitar reminded me of Pierre Bensusan – since it was a Lowden – and a song from someone up after that was a traditional Irish song done in the interpretation of Pierre Bensusan. That’s the evening in a nutshell, micro-post, as opposed to mini-post.
PS: When I sang “Just Like a Woman,” and I sang the words, “she breaks just like a little girl” there was a huge crash of around 10 to 15 beer glasses breaking on the stairs behind me. It felt like I commanded her break….
It was a night as relatively quiet at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic in Paris last night as it was the previous night at the Galway. We ARE in Paris in July. Of course, there may be fewer and fewer French people as the summer progresses, but there should be more and more visitors – guitar carrying and others. Last night, one of the visitors was the astounding Desmond Myers, an American singer songwriter from North Carolina but who lives in Germany and is currently touring France, Spain and Italy in a walkabout open mic, busking and concert tour.
Desmond is a very rare musician in that his guitar playing, vocals, lyrics and melodies are all quite original and extremely well executed. I was impressed, to say the least. I was trying to figure out what made his guitar playing different, but it is hard to pinpoint, and I got too much into the music and stopped analyzing. He mixes elements of hip hop, folk, pop and country ballads to come out with something quite his own. Oh, there are sounds I can find in here whether he means it or not – like there is definitely a Jack Johnson sound to his voice … except he varies his delivery a LOT more than Johnson does, has a wider range. Thank goodness.
I listened to a CD sample of his called The Yellow Rose – IE, an EP – and he has a full CD coming out in the fall, apparently. What was interesting in these well produced songs on the CD was that, actually, the brilliant guitar playing does NOT come out. But a lot of other elements do. And you realize listening to the six songs together that he has another advantage in being a rare musician whose songs do not all sound alike!
Oh, it was a cool thing for me too that as I went to ask him for his name he said, “Are you Brad Spurgeon?” Yeah! This blog does it again. Turns out he found the Ptit Bonheur la Chance and the Pop In through this blog. Also turns out he’s doing European tour kind of similar to my worldwide tour of open mics. So all together a very satisfying evening on that front.
But he was not the only one at the Ptit Bonheur who gave me food for musical thought and musings. I had seen these two women there in past weeks but never heard them play. Last night I listened to this duo calling themselves Skins of the Count. Their French accent made me do a real double take when I heard them pronounce the name through the mic, and I had completely misinterpreted the last word. But afterwards they confirmed the REAL name of the band.
What’s interesting with them is daring, unusual lyrics, and original delivery. The execution really has to be worked on, but there is gold in the making here.
I played my songs, others played theirs, it was a quiet, but full and interesting night in the beginning of the hot summer in Paris.
I did not have the time to put up a blog item last night because I had a devastating night the night before followed by an offer to meet an old friend to pick up a lent book that was so important to me that it took precedence over the blog posting – THEN I had to go on to my next open mic adventure. But that means stories of three venues here on this page today, as I made a brief transitional stopover on Tuesday at a bar where the host of the Wednesday night open mic was playing. Things get simpler:
So, the devastating night on Tuesday? Well, I think I just now suddenly realized that it all fits into a general movement and theme right here now: On Monday night at the Coolin bar I had started feeling problems of loyalty and correct, good treatment of people to other people. Right? Okay, so on Tuesday I go to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic, and my faith in the goodness and correctness and rightness of human nature is reinforced as the MC and organizer, sometimes known as Ollie Joe, fought off a somewhat aggressive effort by another musician to hold the stage while calling up his friend to sing a duo with him after his own slot, but with me standing in the wings holding my guitar as I had been told I would play next.
So Ollie Joe holds his ground and say, “Yes, fine. After Brad.” “No,” he repeats. “Not now, Brad is on next.” More insistence…, and Ollie Joe again says: “She can go up after Brad. It’s his turn.”
Oh boy did that feel good and right!!! So I had a good time at the Ptit Bonheur, sang some quieter songs, and put my head out on a limb dying to get one right that I have so rarely got right, and I did: “Only Our Rivers Run Free.” So then I leave with my friend Brislee Adams to go to make a brief stop on the way home to take in a few songs by the transition man, the MC of the following night’s open mic, Thomas Brun, who was playing not far from the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, in the Wos Bar on blvd St. Jacques, and he was playing in duet with Philippe Germaine. They were really good.
That was a transition to the Highlander open mic last night…. or not really. The transition was that I get back on Tuesday night and discover by Facebook that the woman who last Tuesday and Wednesday made out with me in a bar, sang with me on stage, invited me back to her place and told me I was the man of her life, she had realized how important I was to her, and loved me and wanted to run off to Spain with me for the weekend to see if we could really live together – as we had broken up and got back together – we make love on Wednesday in her apartment and then…suddenly after the first step of becoming “in a relationship” on Facebook with another guy on Saturday she has the guy MOVE INTO HER APARTMENT TO LIVE WITH HER, as of Tuesday, which I discover on Facebook as I arrive back home. Just a week after I was the man of her life she’ with another guy and I did nothing to provoke it!!!!
Okay, so that was the REAL transition. So I go off to meet this other woman from a previous relationship, pick up the book and find the woman has not changed one iota – which I had not expected anyway – and then I go off to the Highlander. I see Thomas Brun immediately, he signs me up, for once I’m pretty early on the list, and allows me to go out and eat my dinner – a loyal, honest and direct signer upper at open mics. So I got out for a falafel, come back, hear some good music, and get inspired by one of the performers who is a good storyteller. He tells tales before his songs. So I decide at the last minute to do the same thing.
I tell the tale of this woman who tells me she loves me and I’m the man of her life, we make love, she wants my child, etc., then of how she is “in a relationship” with another guy a few days later, and living with the guy as of the very night before! I say something like this to wrap up the story: “Now if that is not a ‘Wicked Game,’ I do not know what is. So then I sing Wicked Game, by Chris Issak. Then I decide to continue on the same theme, and I sing my song “Borderline,” about a treacherous love affair with an unstable woman. Then I finish off with the most logical song for the series: “What’s Up!” with its appropriate chorus: “What’s Goin’ On!!!”
PS., anyone who knows me well will know that it was all my fault from the beginning and I never should have seen the treacherous woman!!!! But still, I thought I had seen every possible scenario! In fact, no. There was still this other one to come. NO MORE!!!
PPS., not sure I should write such personal items on this blog, but what the hell – one from the heart…. One reason I am putting it up here is that I am capable of laughing at myself and what a fool I can be. No problem showing that publicly. Plus it’s the sort of story that if it was NOT true, no one would believe!
I never intended my evening to split between the generations, styles and locales. But last night it all just came together that way, and I ended up attending and performing at the Acoustic Bazar open mic and then the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic, two venues divided by the generations and styles and all of Paris….
I have only been two or three times to the Acoustic Bazar open mic at the Satellit Café near the Oberkampf metro, and the last time feels as if it may have been almost two years ago. One problem for me is that it happens only once a month, on a Tuesday, and you can be the first to arrive and the last to perform, and you have to be there right at sign-up time, which is 8:45. But the quality of the performances, the locale, the sound system, and the history of this open mic all make it a fabulously interesting evening whenever I go.
This year the Acoustic Bazar celebrates the 20th year of its existence. It started out being dedicated to acoustic guitar music alone, but eventually decided to allow singer songwriters on the guitar too. You can play cover songs or your own compositions. It is very open, and there is a sound man behind the board throughout the evening, and a quiet and usually large audience. It usually runs on the first Tuesday of each month, but with two national public holidays this month on the first two Tuesdays, it did not run until yesterday.
One of the main differences between this open mic and others is that there is always a very, very high class act in the middle of the night doing a 30 minute set. I have seen some good ones, and last night’s was no exception. Or rather, perhaps I should say, was exceptional. It was the French guitar player Michel Haumont, who specializes in finger picking. He was brilliant, and he invited several brilliant guitar-playing guests, and one singer who knew who happened to be in the audience.
There were several other extraordinary guitar players in the line up during the open mic, and some excellent singers too. For the second night in a row I heard a woman play “Jimmy” by the French/American band Moriarty. There was also Gaelle Buswel, whom I met a couple of years ago at the Cavern vocal jam, here trying out some of her new songs.
Then it was my turn, and after hearing some of these extraordinary musicians I felt very small, and my guitar playing felt worse than small. On top of it, I had not sound on my voice on the monitor – which has never happened at this place for me – so after my slot I decided I needed a change of air despite the coolness of this open mic. In fact, one thing I really noticed here for the first time was that while the quality of the Acoustic Bazar music was very high, mature and accomplished, the audience tended to be in the upper area of middle age. This was normal for an open mic that has been going that long, no doubt. But it also meant a kind of orderliness and professionalism and calmness to the evening that I felt I needed a break from after my average effort on stage.
Looking at the time, I realized I had enough time to get to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar on rue Laplace, which is another reason I went so rarely to Acoustic Bazar, because the Ptit Bonheur has been so much fun. I thought I would be too late to get behind the mic, but I ended up lucky and got a slot not long after I arrived. Still, the Ptit Bonheur was full of spectators, musicians, including one of the Frangins, whom I had told about it the night before at Coolin. And most of all, I saw immediately the difference in the vibe. We were not talking about accomplished musicians of the level of Michel Haumont. But we were talking about a crowd of magnificent young people of an average age closer to 22 than 62. Oh, or even the oldest of them, Wayne Standley, who may be closer to 62 than 22, but who has a young spirit and shows up week after week.
There was me, of course, closer to 62 than 22. But I felt immediately at home in the musical vibe of Ptit Bonheur, and after playing my slot and then lending my Gibson J200 to two or three performers – including Wayne – the open mic ended and we went up to the bar. I was still hungry for playing, and I pulled out the Gibson to show it to Baptiste W. Hamon, and then I started playing some songs, and I was soon joined by another guitarist – from the band LA//KVLKD, and soon we were jamming like madmen, and had everyone singing and clapping along.
I then gave the Gibson to one person after another and the jam continued until 2 AM. It was about great music, youth, hope, fun, laid back musical revelry and a general sense of anything goes. It was so revitalizing that I didn’t want it to end. And it also made me think of the extraordinary contrast between the two open mics, defined mostly by the age and accomplishments of the participants. But both have their place. Looking forward to doing it all again sometime.
