George Payne Pub | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

The Protest Music of the Placa Catalunya

May 22, 2011
bradspurgeon

No playing of music for me last night. I am expecting a busy next two days on that front, as most of the jams in Barcelona happen on Sunday and Monday night. So last night I interviewed Unax Noga, also known as Max, who organizes the open mic at the George Payne pub.

I interviewed Unax on camera for that open mic documentary I am working on, and learned he is from the Basque region – thus the name – and that he recently came to Barcelona to do a masters in sound engineering. He is also a musician and as you can hear from the video I made of him singing at the open mic the other day, he has a great voice.

But the point of all this is that his girlfriend, Lore, was also there yesterday and we spoke a little, and she asked me if I had been to the Placa Catalunya on this trip and seen all the demonstrators. I said I had not. It was just down the street from the George Payne, though, and I decided to check it out after dinner. What I found blew me away. This was, as planned, kind of like the demonstrations in Bahrain and other countries on the other side of the same Mediterranean whose shores are only a few hundred meters away at the port of Barcelona.

These people, said Lore, were protesting the current political and economic situation in Spain in a peaceful protest. I sympathized with her and said, “Yes, with 20 percent unemployment….” She quickly pointed out to me however that for the young people in Spain up to about age 24 – Unax’s age – unemployment was more like 40 percent. [Since I first posted this I have learned that in fact the unemployment rate in Spain was 21 percent, with the under 25 rate being more than 44 percent! That is almost half of young people under 25 have no job.

Crap. No wonder the Placa Catalunya was so full of young people. The protest was indeed peaceful, and the feeling was one of controlled tension. There was music all over the Place too, and the banging of casseroles that I have heard since I arrived in this city, which I did not at first understand the meaning of. Now I do. Protest song.

Playing at the George Payne open mic in Barcelona

May 20, 2011
bradspurgeon

Sometimes on my worldwide musical adventure I get the feeling that an open mic here or there has been thrown together just for me. When I played in Cologne two years ago I found what was certainly the only open mic in the city, and it happened to be on the first day I arrived, the Thursday, I stumble across it immediately while searching the bars desperately for an open mic, and it had only existed for three months. Although Barcelona is full of open jam sessions, the strict open mic mic format is more rare. Two years ago I discovered an open mic on the Monday night at an Irish pub called the George Payne, on the Place Urquinaona. But it did not last long. Yesterday after an internet search, I found it was happening again, and it was on Thursdays.

I arrived last night to find that it has only existed since last week, but in only one week it has become a great success. There were all sorts of accomplished musicians and bands there to play last night in this vast “Irish Pub,” which looks more like a Texas whorehouse, if you ask me – although I’ve never set foot in a pub in Ireland OR a Texas whorehouse…. but anyway….

This time around it was more Spanish, too, as the MC, Max, is Spanish, and there were more Spanish-speaking performers, despite the Irish pub aspect to it. There were the usual expats too, and some very good ones. In fact, most of the performers were a multicultural mix – from Joe-Psalmist of Nigerian origin to Jesse Masterson and Paul Henry of Argentine, Spanish, U.S. and British mix to me, a Canadian living in Paris….

Most of us did around three songs, although the guys dressed up like the Blues Brothers – Masterson and Henry – did a lot more, by popular demand.

Oh, forgot to mention, the Internet also led me astray as I first went to a very hip musical venue called KGB, that was supposed to have an open mic according to the net, but which had some kind of pin-up girl thing going on instead. Reminded me of the venue in Paris called the Machine du Moulin Rouge.

Now onwards to the many blues, rock and jazz jams in the coming days….

Famous All Over Town and Other Old Bits of News

May 7, 2010
bradspurgeon

Arriving in Barcelona yesterday for the Spanish Grand Prix, I discovered a few weeks after the fact that the French sports daily, L’Equipe, had published a story about me after the Malaysian Grand Prix. The journalist at the Equipe had been talking about doing a story on my musical adventures since last summer, but she never found quite the right occasion. In Malaysia, however, she learned about my experience with Eddie Jordan and the Hard Rock Cafe appearance that never happened, and she had her pretext.

The story is very short, but very well written, and she manages to get in my run-in with Eddie and a little description of my musical adventure that runs parallel with the Formula One season. Very cool! Check out Brad in L’Equipe for Eddie Jordan musical tale.

That’s one piece of old news. The other bit of old news was that I did get back to Earle’s open mic last Monday, but because of preparations for the Spanish Grand Prix, I did not have time to put up any of the video footage I took. Now I do not have an Internet connection quick enough to put up the footage, and the parts with me in it were just too long and need cutting. But the report is that I played and sang several songs with Vanessa, including our “Mad World,” and a new one we are working on, “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” which is based on the Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave version. This was chosen by Vanessa, and it is very cool. We also played “Jealous Guy” and “Just Like a Woman,” and Vanessa provided very nice background vocals and wonderful interjections – like on how I am a jealous guy.

It was a busy and good night at Earle’s, with a return of Felix Beguin and Syd Alexander of the Burnin’ Jacks, and they were hot as ever. Also, I was pleased to play “Except Her Heart,” with Felix, that song of mine that he arranged and that I have put up on the site. It was the first time we played it together since he learned it, and it went very well.

Vanessa jumped up on stage at one point during a Burnin’ Jacks song and shared the mic with Syd, but they are not at all the same height, so that required some handy mic manipulation on Vanessa’s part. I will put up whatever videos I can as soon as I can.

Now on to Barcelona. Last night I went to the George Payne pub which is near my hotel in Barcelona and which has an open mic on the first Thursday and last Thursday on the month. (I played there last year.) And I discovered that this was the first Thursday that they decided to drop the open mic from the first Thursday and turn it into every second week. So no luck. It’s not the first time I have showed up at an open mic only to find it has just ceased to occur on the night I show up.

I spent the rest of the evening exploring one of the most bar-filled areas of Barcelona, only to see that there was not a single live music venue among them. Dozens of bars with no music – thanks, no doubt, to the noise laws that are killing this city as they are Paris.

For the moment I only have the Jazz-Si club lined up for Sunday, but I will continue to try to find other venues, and will keep posting about the adventure.