I am running out again to an open mic, and again will keep words to a minimum. Again, it is my new Q3HD that is causing me to lose a lot of time in uploading, as the high quality files are much, much bigger than with the old Q3. That’s not a complaint – the Internet should move faster!
But last night it was a real pleasure to attend Ollie Fury’s open mic at Au Ptit Bonheur la Chance with my new Q3HD because it meant that for the first time you will really have a glimpse of the open mic’s performers, which in the past due to the darkness of the bar were only disembodied voices.
And it turned out that we had a return of two of the stars of the previous night, Garrick Davis and Janet Labelle. Garrick, however, decided to sing without a mic and he advanced his chair to be closer to the listeners. His voice had no problem carrying, but by doing this he cast himself even more deeply into the dark. And the Q3HD has SOME limits.
Ollie too has some limits, so check out the video of him closing the night to see why and how….
One of the beauties of attending open mics is that it is really live music and that means it is really unpredictable as to what will happen, who will be in great playing shape, how you will react and play and how the audience will be in listening. It’s a real-life, live music situation – totally unpredictable. But another thing that sometimes happens at open mics that is even more unpredictable is the various synchronicities that can happen in meeting people.
It was by happenstance during a conversation a few months ago at Ollie’s open mic at the Ptit Bonheur La Chance bar that Ollie himself would be playing in Singapore when I was there last September. I learned this through a family member of his, and not through him. So we decided to link up and play at a bar while in Singapore, and it was very cool.
Last night at Ollie’s among the musicians was a friend whom I first met and discovered singing at the Galway last June. One of the main songs on her repertoire is “Jimmy,” by the band Moriarty. “Jimmy” was the band’s first single, and it was a hit.
“Jimmy” also happens to be the song that my friend sang in the first video I put up on this blog of her (deleted many years later, at her request), where I mention sung by “a Dutch woman.” Last night my friend decided at the last minute to go to Ollie’s open mic, and one of the songs she sang was “Jimmy.”
Let’s rewind a little. One of the regular musicians at Ollie’s open mic in recent months is an American who has lived in Paris most of his adult life – like me – named Wayne Standley. He sings a pretty classic American repertoire that runs from country to Bob Dylan, as well as some other 60s rock classics. I’ve put up videos of Wayne since as early as June (Wayne Standley is in the first video on the page under this link, for instance.)
In recent weeks I learned the Wayne was, in fact, the father of Rosemary Standley who is the singer at Moriarty who sings the song “Jimmy.” So last night, without her knowing it, my friend sang one of the main songs in her repertoire in front of the father of the woman whose song it is. Rosemary, like the other members of the band, grew up in Paris, but has a very strong American country, rock and folk background, and when you meet and hear Wayne, you know why.
After, up in the bar, Wayne presented himself to my friend. Needless to say, she was blown away by the news that he was Rosemary’s father. She also realized that she had heard the father of Rosemary singing too, without knowing who it was. (As it turns out, Rosemary and Wayne sometimes performer together too.)
And I thought, yes, this is the open mic. This is the rear nerve center of one of the great reasons we do these things – we meet people, connect with people, and we see and feel and hear our music different because of the context as well.
The two highlights of Ollie’s open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar last night were for me the three Swedish women (actually there was a fourth in the audience) and the fiddle playing of the Englishwoman, Georgia.
But even Georgia’s participation was with one of the Swedes, Sister Fay (who should not be confused with Sister Ray). It turned out that the two groups of Swedish women were not even connected, it was just happenstance that they both showed up.
In any case, Georgia played a jig to start with. Then she played with Sister Fay, who sang and played guitar, on a song from the 1930s – Dream a Little Dream of Me – that was also famous in the 1960s when sung by the Mamas and the Papas, one of whom knew the co-writer of the original song…. They also performed a song that I immediately recognized the music to, which was Shady Grove. But I knew it as Matty Grove, primarily through the Fairport Convention version (and recently the version sung by Zara Sophia at my Mecano brunch. I spoke to Georgia about it, and she said the two were similar. She has classical training on the violin, but has had much experience in folk and bluegrass bands.
The next highlight was when Sister Fay and her Swedish friend – whose name I do not remember – got up to sing a Swedish song. It was very beautiful, and another case of great music not really having to be understood literally to be appreciated.
I almost forgot, there really was another highlight to the evening, and that was Vincent Barriquand from the band Black Butterfly, who played solo with a guitar and no microphone. His strong voice carried with no problem through the small room, and without the mic we got to appreciate all its qualities. He too sang at my brunch, just a week and a half ago.
It feels somehow not right to make such judgments, and in many ways it is difficult to do anyway: But yesterday’s musical brunch at the Mecano, my first of the new year, really felt like the best one I’ve ever had since starting them last fall.
I had more musicians dropping by and playing than ever before, and a great level of quality, and I also had a large audience of intent listeners, coming from all over the place, including a couple of women visiting from Belgium.
Amongst the surprises were picking up for the show the wonderful Vessna Scheff from San Francisco. Vessna had intended to go to the Pop In open mic, but she said the Pop In was closed and there was no open mic there last night. So she ended up finding my brunch, and she ended up entertaining us with her lyrical and melodious music and voice. Rym also played some of her songs with her ukelele, and then gave the instrument to Vessna for her last song.
Two members of the band Black Butterfly played several songs, and Vincent Barriquand, the singer of the group, also did some solo stuff with the guitar and his voice. He also played with Sven Cosnuau, who came to play and sing on his own.
A young Frenchman who lives down the street from the Mecano also discovered the brunch yesterday and rushed off to bring his guitar to play and sing some songs. So all together, the vibe, the crowd, the musicians, it was all fabulous and a great beginning to 2011. In fact, Vessna may not like me to quote her here, but she said it was the best Sunday open mic she has ever done. Of course, it is not entirely an open mic as such – but as it turns out, the mic is always open….
Because the brunch was the closest thing in my memory, I started writing about that. But I did not blog for the last couple of days, so I want to move backwards and continue telling the musical adventure: On Saturday night I went to the Baroc and heard The Romantic Black Shirts, the band of my friend Joe Cady. As a special guest they also had Chris Kenna do a set. I first met Chris in 2009 at the Biz’Art open jam. He is a wild Australian with the voice of a Tom Waits. He played on Saturday with Melissa Cox on violin. A big moment, with both of these bands. I loved the Daniel Lanois cover that the Romantic Black Shirts did, and Chris’s voice and the violin were mesmerizing.
Friday night I went to a party hosted by Sister Fay, who is from Sweden and sings a lot at the open mics in Paris these days. There I met both Stephen Prescott and Ollie Fury, both of whom host open mics. And there was also Pierre Doucet, who plays violin with Stephen at the Galway Pub and elsewhere. I got Pierre on video with a bit of fiddle music in the middle of the party, though no one was really listening. It was a nice moment – but too dark for the video.
I then went off to the Planete Mars bar and listened to some DJ music mostly and spoke with a friend. A high moment with the DJ music was when he played a song from the last – or second last? – T. Rex album, Dandy in the Underworld, that I had bought at the time. Hadn’t heard anything from that for along time.
Sick of the dark glasses and knowing I was in the company of many friends, I decided last night to go out without the dark glasses. First I went to the International to hear Lou Rebecca and her band, which includes Etienne Shades of The Shades. She was cool as ever, the music was strong, the sound good at this interesting venue with a downstairs stage and speakers all over the place. I mentioned Lou Rebecca on an earlier post when she played at the Rex Club a few months ago. Oddly, I found the sound to be clearer at the International than at the Rex club – unless it was just my memory that had fogged over since the previous venue….
I then took a cab to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance at 18 rue Laplace to take part in Ollie’s open mic, the first of the year. It was “happy new year’s” and all that, and, of course, “What happened to your eye Brad????” (I was briefly worried that Ollie’s dog might take me for a dalmatien and try something on me, but it’s a decent dog and nothing happened.)
The cave room used in Ollie’s open mic seemed much brighter than usual, however, so I found myself on the little wooden crate used as a stage, and explaining to the audience why I had a black eye. I used as few words as possible, ie, “I got attacked on new year’s….” Then I said something about imagining that maybe I was defending a woman who was not worth it, and the following songs would work along that same theme. So I sang, “Andalucia,” “Borderline,” “It’s Easy” (which is my love song about the impossibility of falling out of love with someone), and then I finished with “I Won’t Back Down,” by Tom Petty, which also seemed on theme in the fight mode…. It all went really well, I felt at ease, happy, and again, exorcised – at least briefly.
It was the last open mic of the year at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance yesterday, and Ollie Fury made available a bottle of Jim Beam whisky for the occasion. He served everyone who wanted it a shot glass of the hot liquid, and with the cold outside and many colds in people’s lungs, it was worthwhile.
The evening was pretty lively, with some interesting stuff from some regular guests and some new guests too. Personally, I enjoyed discovering Blaise and Christian on guitars and vocals together, two guys of Cameroon origin who did a great rendition of a Charles Aznavour song. At the end of the open mic they could not get enough of playing, so they continued a jam session upstairs in the bar area, where you will hear another aspect to their vocal talents….
Jay from the band Red Rooster, which I mentioned in yesterday’s post, also turned up and sang some cool stuff. I did four songs and felt less inspired than the night before and somewhat shaky, but I put the shakiness down to the Jim Beam…and then I was delighted when I received some compliments I had not expected, and once again realized that sometimes when you feel you’re not on top of it, you are in fact communicating more than you think….
Did Ollie Fury, the host of the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, get an idea from Thomas Stock? Last week I posted a recording of Stock singing Serge Gainsbourg’s “La Javanaise” and I commented on how I wished more of the young generation of French singers would sing some of the French classics, instead of just the English rock songs. Yesterday, Ollie did a fabulous rendition of Jacques Brel’s “Le Plat Pays.” But remember, Ollie is one of those people who is as French as he is American in his upbringing and language abilities – when he speaks French, you think he’s French, and when he speaks English, you think he is American – so he can honestly lay claim to any English or French (or Belgian) music that he wants….
I am frequently asked by French people if I sing in French, and my usual response is: No. The thing that has always stopped me from singing in French is that the only French songs I ever wanted to sing were those of Jacques Brel, and I felt I could not get close to his sound, nor could I add any of my own interpretation with authority or interest. So I always found myself doing NO French songs. (The only exception is last year I suddenly got the idea to do the French rock group Telephone song “Un Autre Monde.” I still have not memorized the lyrics, though, and the rhythm ain’t right – but I put a recording on my myspace of it, done in my living room the night I learned it.)
But I also feel that singing Brel is not only a stumbling block for me. It is difficult for anyone to do convincingly and well and to bring something new to. Brel was such a monster of a performer, and his voice so distinct, that, good luck. But last night Ollie, after two or three false starts, got really into the song and did a fabulous job, as you will hear on the video below that unfortunately I recorded only with my iPhone 4, having again left my Zoom Q3 at home….
I’ll start immediately by saying the common thread between the three musical venues I want to talk about here was Stephen “Danger” Prescott, the Aussie musician of Paris. There may be others, but Stephen is the inimitable one.
My Sunday brunch was a surprise, massive, incredible, jubilant success…there was a salsa lesson and dance going on in the back end of the Mecano at the same time. So that meant that those who REALLY wanted to hear the laid back music of the brunch, got to bunch up in the front of the Mecano bar to listen to me and this week’s guest.
This week’s guest, if you have not guessed (sorry, that’s almost a pun), was Stephen Prescott, of Melbourne and Paris. Who would have thought that one of the audience members would be another Aussie in off the street – but that was good timing, since she knew several of the songs that Stephen sang, and requested more. In fact, Stephen has a vast and varied repertoire, from Aussie songs to the Pogues to Stan Rogers. Because of the salsa dancing and its accompanying music, at Stephen’s suggestion, after he and I did a couple of sets, he suggested we bring the guitar into the room at the front of the Mecano and sit down and just sing a few songs like that, at the table.
That’s when the brunch turned very cosy and informal, and Stephen and I shared the guitar and hammered out songs that are perhaps not always on our repertoires. We even had the visiting Austrian, Wolf, play and sing the Hank Williams song I do, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” And I thank Wolf for doing a vide of me when I sang my song, “Borderline.”
From the Mecano we all went over to the Disquaires, where Ollie Fury was set to play. But his set did not play until near 10 PM, so in the end we stayed only for Yaco and his band’s set.
Then we headed off to the Galway, where Stephen plays MC every Monday night at the open mic. There we listened to the amazing German phenomenon named Yann, who looks, dresses, speaks, acts and sings like an Irishman. Please don’t ask me to explain. But I think I liked best his Richard Thompson song, and the song he did with Stephen – the Stan Rogers one.
A long brunch, in the end, that went on from 2:30 to 12:30. Fun for a Sunday afternoon and night.
Last night was Ollie’s open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar near the Pantheon, and I had good evening. But it was really punctuated by the song sung by Thomas Stock, an up-and-coming Paris musician with a killer voice at age only something like 22 (not sure exactly).
I mention the age because what was so cool last night was Thomas’s choice of opening song in his moment behind the mic in the cave of this nice little bar on the rue Laplace: It was one of the rare times I have heard anyone in the open mic scene in Paris do a song by Serge Gainsbourg. Why don’t they do it more often? Instead of yet another Anglo-Saxon pop hit from the same period. In any case, Thomas chose “La Javanaise,” and did a great job.
At the end of the evening a Spanish woman asked if she could play, and it turned out to be her first ever appearance in front of an open mic audience playing guitar and singing. But when she got behind the mic she realized that she had to read her lyrics and chords and that she could not see in the dark. This is a very cosy open mic, but the darkness means that with my Zoom Q3 we never see anything. I wanted to hear the woman, so I proposed that I stand over her shoulder and beam down my iPhone in its flashlight mode, an application which turns the iPhone into a flashlight, and which I had downloaded in Sao Paulo so I could read Mojo in the darkness in the traffic jams.
I did not realize until today when I went to upload the Thomas Stock video that Ollie Fury, the organizer and MC of the open mic, had grabbed my Zoom recorder and videoed a bit of me holding the light, and the woman singing. I have included it here primarily because for the first time – why did I not think of it – you can catch a larger glimpse of the room in which this open mic takes place. By the way, it was quite full earlier on, but by the end there were just a few of us left, as you will see in the video.
Actually, I ended up in both places last night and had a nice bit of exercise walking between the two of them. That’s the beauty of the iPhone; you can pull up the GPS and see how long and HOW you can walk from one venue to the other and get your daily exercise – in the -10 degree weather.
Although I have seen and written about Ollie Fury in Paris for a while and in Singapore during the F1 race when Ollie happened to be there at the same time I was, this was the first time I had the opportunity to see him in action with a whole band. On bass and some kind of harmonica/keyboard instrument was Yaco Mouchard, and there was another guy on percussion – bongos, snare, something like that. It sounded great. A beautiful combination for Ollie’s haunting compositions. Ollie told me in Singapore that he was going into the studio to record like this, and now I’m really looking forward to the result.
I took the 36-minute hike from the Espace B – where Ollie played – over to the Cabaret Culture Rapide bar where I have written many a time about my Friday-night open mics there…without a microphone. But last night was the first time I have attended the Thursday night jam session with the Belleville Blues Band. And I was not let down. I enjoyed the band immensely, and I was delighted to be able to find four of my songs that just managed to squeeze into a blues feel of the evening. I was invited to do more, but I couldn’t think of anymore to do just then. Will no doubt return. But it was great fun to play with the guitar player and drummer, and then the bass player joined in and so did the other guitar players. I ended up with the full band on “I Shall Be Released.” (I had started with “Crazy Love,” then went into my blues version of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and then did my own song that I wrote when I was 16 and which has yet to find a title.) The band then played on its own brand of blues and blues rock, and while I am not a huge fan of electric blues evenings – with the same three chords endlessly played – this was a completely different effect with the acoustic instruments, and as you will see, with the cool singing.
