As everyone knows, stated start times for concerts on Facebook invitations are always from 1 to 2 hours in advance of the real intended start time of the concert. This is done to ensure that people do not show up late…. Oops, so easy is it to become skeptical of this practice that it becomes much easier to show up late. Last night was a case in point. Nevermind that I had as late as Thursday night thought that my friends’ concert at the Point Ephemere was to take place on Saturday. One of them informed me that it was in fact on Friday. So off I went an hour or so late for the stated start time on Facebook of the concert….
But as I arrived at the concert I was pleased to see that one of the people I came to see was in the middle of his set. This was Miggles and his band. Miggles is another of the people I met at Earle’s open mic four years ago. He was at the center of the whole scene, in fact, as Earle had met Miggles with Pete Doherty at the time that Miggles was in his band called The Parisians, and searching for places to play. Earle ended up starting the open mic at the Shebeen in order to give a place for The Parisians to play. That was the beginning of a crazy mad open mic that went on from then in 2004 right up to 2009 or 2010, moving from one venue to another and spawning all sorts of “Baby Rocker” bands in Paris.
I have mostly seen Miggles playing solo with an acoustic guitar. But last night it was with his band, and it made a difference. Actually, Miggles is very cool solo with his guitar. But also with the band, it gives another dimension.
The next band I was waiting to see was Le Mépris, which has members of the band Neimo in it. But as I hung out at the Point Ephemere, and listened to the next act, Call Me Señor, whom I had heard about often but never seen or heard, it suddenly dawned on me that perhaps I had made a mess of things. I had, in fact. It turned out that Le Mépris had already played, as the first band that night! Holy crap, I’d missed them. Miggles and band were the feature act of the evening, Le Mépris had opened for him, and Call Me Senor closed for him and them….
So I listened to one more song of Call Me Senor and then I got the hell out of the Point Ephemere. I had a choice of two open mics and desperately wanted to play. I sent a message to the organizer of the one at l’Arte Café only to learn that it was about to end. It was my preferred venue, but I thought, “Damn, I missed Le Mépris, now I will have missed the open mic too!” Crappo night. So as I walked along to go to the other open mic, a 20 minute walk from the Point Ephemere, I suddenly received a message from the organizer of L’Arte Café open mic asking me how far away I was, because things were changing, there could be time to play after all. As it turned out, I was about five minutes away in a cab. So I went.
Am I ever glad I did, and even more thankful she texted me. The Arte Café has never let me down. Something makes it so that no matter how quiet it starts out, it develops into a cool, warm, fun open mic. And last night was the same. I did my little set of three songs, but I was barely warmed up, and not much of what I did was very good. But then when the jam happened afterwards, I led in with three songs everyone could sing along and play along to – “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “What’s Up!” – and the whole thing was a massive, huge celebration of togetherness. That may sound suspiciously hippie, but it was really great. And after me, many of the other musicians picked up and led the jam, several using my Gibson J-200. An amazing, wonderful, cool night.
Just caught Miggles, missed the Mépris, and then nearly lost the open mic at the Arte Café, but got it. Amazing – and with thanks to the organizer who took the chance to see if I was near and interested….
Back at home base in Paris after the disastrous China travel experience, it was time to get out and play again – in a few senses of the word. After breaking up with my girlfriend yesterday – who was not actually my girlfriend, since she seemed to have several men, so at best I was certainly categorized on her side to all the others as simply a friend (as we all were) – I decided I would go and forget my sorrows by going out to three different places in the same night. I lined up a concert, an open mic and an aftershow wind down from the first concert. In the end, I could have made all three – plus a fourth – but part way to the Tigre bar on the rue Molière, I decided to back out and grab a cab while there was still a cab available, since it was already almost 2 AM.
But I was also curious to hear one of the other guys at the Espace B, and that was Alan Wass. I glanced at his Myspace and somewhere else and listened to a few bars of the music and said, “This is good, wanna hear it.” It turned out also that he was some kind of friend of Pete Doherty’s. So it seemed it could be interesting.
Not for the first time, I arrived at the concert an hour and a half too early since the Facebook invitation got the hour all wrong. So that gave me the idea of taking a cab to go and see Earle, who was at the Mecano. I’d already taken a swig of my beer, but I just put it on the counter and left for the Mecano, not telling the Espace B barman that I was returning. I was simply down and out and anything goes – didn’t want much human contact.
Took a cab to Earle’s place, unfortunately passing right in front of the restaurant where I ate with my grilfriend two days before. I then spent half an hour with Earle and returned to the Espace B. First thing that happened when I arrived was the bartender told me he had saved my beer for me, behind the counter, not sure I would return or not. First good thing that happened all day – and it was even great, that gest.
My favorite Miggle’s tune was one that he has played time and again acoustically at Earle’s open mic, and I will post it below, and it also had a great line for my state of mind last night: “Why did you let me down, why did you let me down???” But actually, I think this is the song that refers to that very evening in the hotel where he met Earle with Pete, and is more about drugs than love. But I may be wrong:
But for me the revelation of the evening – since I already knew Miggles’ great stuff – was really to hear Alan Wass play his guitar and sing. Who the hell is this guy? I was asking myself. He had this cool sort of American sound to his voice, but with a clear mix of a touch of the Pete Doherty side, and clearly some Dylan and Donovan undertones, or maybe overtones. I found myself recording three of the four or five songs he played. And then I found myself thinking that the best song he did was one where I decided to stop recording for a moment, and I became entirely involved in the song – although not enough to heed to what I was saying to myself: “Why am I not recording this one? Am I perverse?”
After he played, I went to talk to him to tell him I really enjoyed the music, especially the one I did NOT record and also the first and last one. He was a very agreeable guy, from England, and the English accent when he spoke was such a contrast to the accent when he played, that it was kind of cool. But the music was authentic. And when I said I really liked the last one, “Hired Gun,” he said he had just played it with Pete Doherty. So I found out that in fact, he had backed Doherty for years, writes for Doherty, and that this song is a big success with Doherty – but it’s actually written by Wass. Looking it up on the Internet, that’s not an easy fact to find. Once it gets the stamp of a big name on it, it loses its origin and becomes a Doherty song. Here’s my video of Wass singing it (or part of it) last night at the Espace B:
But when I look and listen again to these videos, I think I prefer the way he sings his first song, of which I also took a video of at least part of it. So I cannot imagine how good the one I did not record was! Here’s the first song he played, pardon the camera movements at the beginning (and I have just returned to add a note that I suddenly realized that this sounds a heck of a lot like Van Morrison, too….):
Cabaret Culture Rapide at Belleville
So the next joint on the list was an open mic that I discovered about three or four months ago. It is in the Belleville area of Paris and it is one of the very few open mics I know of on Fridays, and it starts around 10:30 PM. So I had no choice to go there into that neighborhood, which, unfortunately, also happened to be the same neighborhood of my girlfriend whom I had broken up with yesterday before setting out on my trek!!
Called Cabaret Culture Rapide, the open mic is in a very small bar at 103 rue Julien Lacroix. The problem with this open mic is that there is no mic. They call it the barman’s evening, or something like that, and despite the pain of singing without a microphone, I like the atmosphere. The colored walls are cool, the little stage is cute, and the crowds are young and friendly, in general.
I didn’t arrive until 20 minutes past 11 PM, but I was able to get a spot to play, thanks to the nice MC. I saw a couple of regulars there, among them Elliott – whose last name escapes me, but I’ll put it up when I find it – and a woman who reads little poetic prose stories. This open mic is not just for music, but for standup comedy, poetry, anything goes. This night there was a comedian who I thought I recognized as the DJ from a radio station that sponsors a song contest that I took part in after he saw me playing at another bar and he invited me to do the contest. But I decided that it must just be my imagination, so I didn’t approach him.
I sang my song “Since You Left Me,” and then found that I was being invited to do another song in the next round of performances, so I did “Father and Son.” After my first song, the guy I thought I recognized ran up to me at the bar and said, “Hey, Brad! I didn’t recognize you at first, but I’m the one….”
So below I will put up a few video snippets of the performers at this Barman’s open mic, but none of me, which I did not make. The first is Emeric, the second is Elliott, and the third is the Italian poet who composes in French, which he often seems to have a hard time speaking. He calls himself a psychedelic poet, and he is a regular at this open mic, sometimes actually doing the MC chores himself.
After the Culture Rapide Cabaret I headed over to the Stalingrad metro, passing perversely in front of my ex-girlfriend’s place, and there I took the Line 7 to Le Tigre on rue Molière, but just a few stops from the bar I decided to get off the metro, take a cab and return home – I remembered too many recent nights in Paris where I could not get a cab and I was walking the streets for an hour trying to find one.
Tonight, I believe I have found another open mic, called Resistencias, that is open to more that just music, and it is the first time I will do it. So it will be interesting to see if there are any revelations…..
