Paris Open Mics | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Four Years of Highlander, and an Annual Open Mic at the Copains Bar in Paris

October 1, 2010
bradspurgeon

Missed a day on the blog, but went out both Wednesday and Thursday to open mics – as usual. The first was one of the usual Wednesday places I have written about so often, but this time there’s news! It was the fourth anniversary of The Highlander’s open mic on Wednesday, and Thomas Brun had balloons and other party decorations hanging from the walls and ceiling, and he greeted people – well, me, in any case – with: “Happy Birthday!”

Four years for an open mic is a long time, I have begun to learn, as I have traveled the world and found simply from last year to this year a huge number of open mics have closed down, while others have opened.

Highlights at the Highlander were a new guy from the United States who has just moved to Paris and who calls himself, Glass Petals, and another woman singer, named Megg Farrell, who is also from the U.S., and who played with a ukelele and sang. But unlike so many of the young women I see these days playing the uke and singing, she really made the uke sing and got the crowd stomping along with her strong voice. It was a high moment.

On Thursday I went to Isabelle Sojfer‘s open mic at the Copains bar in Menilmontant. This is a tiny hole-in-the wall bar with a very big friendly atmosphere once the night gets going. And last night it REALLY got going. Isabelle Sofjer is an author, slam artist and…ukelele player and singer. I have seen her at two different open mics, and I learned that she has her own open mic once a year. So I went last night to the annual edition not only to find that it was just full of performers and quite wild and warm, but also to discover – with everyone else – that she would be holding the open mic again in two weeks, on 14 October, exceptionally running a second time in the same year.

Isabelle does not run the open mic the same way as most people, and while I was a little upset as the first performer to be invited to leave the “stage” after only one song – “Borderline” – I soon discovered that everyone had only one chance. Well, at least in the first round. She did a second round and all the remaining people got to do another number. I decided that since the bar was so small I would not use a microphone, and that enabled me to succeed for the first time ever in public in doing a half-decent job of my interpretation of the Hank Williams song, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” I do it with a pretty strong blues approach. The bar owner, Momo, jumped up and started playing a bongo drum with me and it turned out to be quite a powerful moment, I think.

On the other hand, there were only about four musicians throughout the evening, and the accent was on slam poetry. So the music was no doubt happily received as a break from the slam….

Les Chansonniers Open Mic in Menilmontant

September 16, 2010
bradspurgeon

Here’s some good news. I think I’ve never written about this open mic in the Menilmontant area of Paris, so I will not be repeating myself yet again with yet another description of a Wednesday night at The Highlander.

The Chansonniers open mic takes place only once per month, on the third Wednesday of the month. It takes place in a working class area of the city, that is turning into a very hip and artistic area as well. I like the area. And there is something quite different about the atmosphere at the Chansonniers. Although the name sounds like it is linked to the open mic, i.e., “The Singers,” in fact “The Chansonniers” is the name of a hotel, and the open mic takes place in the reception/bar area of the hotel on the ground floor facing the street. It is a small, narrow room with a bar on the left as you enter, and the stage on the right. The room extends back far and has tables and chairs for the spectators and musicians to sit at while the acts perform.

The sound system is good, and the lights in the room are left on bright during the whole evening, so the atmosphere is different from most of the darkened venues that usually host live music. There is a very large cross-section of performers at this open mic, and everyone is accepted very warmly. It has a good way of operating in that each performer is allowed only two songs, but if there is time after that, the list of performers gets another chance to go up and sing one more song. It ends quite early, usually, around midnight. It starts early too, though, around 8:30, and it is important to be there early to get on the list early too – unless you don’t mind going on last, obviously.

Last night there were some interesting acts, and one of my favorites was Pauline Paris, whom I first met around a year ago at the Swan Bar on Montparnasse, where she just happened to stop by one night after an open jam, but where she had a gig lined up for a month or so after that. She then did a wonderful tour of the Paris Arrondissements in which she played in one bar or venue of each of the Arrondissements, so 20 gigs. I saw her at Polly Maggoo’s in the 5th Arrondissement. Pauline Paris is a very short and small person, eternally smiling, and she has an enormous voice! She is only in her early 20s, she composes her own songs, and I think of her as a modern day day Piaf. I got a couple of videos of her, but the second one I took I was badly positioned at the bar, and I did not want to interrupt the performance or the view, so I stayed there and it was not good as I tried to catch sight of her around her harmonica player.

Another favorite of mine – and the audience – was Julian Robinson, who is a regular at the bar. He plays a mean semi-acoustic guitar, with spritely lead. And last night he used a looping box and produced something quite fun. Check out the video on that too.

Three ways to whip an open mic audience into a fever of excitement

September 14, 2010
bradspurgeon

There are three ways to send an open mic audience into a fever of excitement. The best way to illustrate these methods are to be seen and heard in the three videos below, which were made last night at the Galway Pub in Paris, by the Seine River.

1) The first method is that exemplified by Les DeShane: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take an old standard pop song that the entire audience knows and sing it fabulously, milking the crowd at every moment. Check out his style in the first video below, and note the arrival of new listeners from the street, and jolly making dancers in the pub.

2) The second method is that exemplified by Stephen “Danger” Prescott: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take a song that no one knows but that the entire audience thinks they know and sing it with great fun and gusto without an instrument, milking the crowd at every moment as they try to sing lyrics they do not even know but think they are getting the hang of, or think they should know. Check out his style in the last video below.

3) The third method is that exemplified by Brad Spurgeon: Make sure the audience has drunk enough alcohol and then take an old standard pop song that the entire audience knows and screw it up entirely, inadvertently milking the crowd at every moment as they try to sing for you. Check out his style in the last video below.

(I have to add here that Stephen just surprises me EVERY time at the Galway. The song he sings here is written by Stan Rogers, a Canadian folk musician from the east coast who died in a burning aircraft in Cincinnati in 1983, and the song is obscure on the international scene, and even in Canada. But Stephen came out with it. I have it on one of only four or five of my remaining LPs, two of which are Stan Rogers. I actually saw Rogers perform in a bar in Ottawa a year or two before he died. A wonderful voice, this man.)

Special Video Edition Of Brad and Les at the Galway – Thanks To DeShane

September 7, 2010
bradspurgeon

I think that since I started this blog last March or whenever it was, I have put up nearly 200 videos of other people at open mics around the world, but when I play, I can never get one of me. Thanks to my friend Les DeShane, a fabulous musician who is also a pro with a video camera, I finally have videos of me performing at an open mic. Unfortunately, Les also counted on me doing videos of him, and while his music is superb, there is no doubt I did flat and uninteresting videos of Les. But I’m putting up the best of each of us from the Galway Pub open mic in Paris last night. No more words on this page, I will leave the rest of the space for videos. Oh, no, must mention that I here screw up the lyrics on “Father and Son” for the first time in about a year!!!

I will write more about Les another time, as he is also on an interesting musical voyage like mine, that has taken him to most corners of the world as well….

Oh, almost forgot. At the end of the videos, I want to add a final video, that of Arturo from Colombia, who does a great version of an REM song….

In honor of Les, I start with the videos of him:

Boycott the Paris Pop In Bar’s Open Mic – a Story of “Ta Gueule,” the Bad Bartender

September 6, 2010
bradspurgeon

Two of my biggest criticisms of my own blog are that I am way, way too wordy – or rather, my accounts of playing in open mics around the world go on interminably sometimes, most of the time – and I am also way, way too nice. Today I will break with at least the latter fault as I attack the Pop In bar’s open mic, or at least the bartender who goes by the name of “Ta Gueule,” and who mistreated me last night.

The short message here is, if you are a self-respecting musician, amateur or professional, don’t go to the Pop In’s open mic on Sunday anymore. At least one of the people who seems to be running the place, clearly has no sympathy for musicians. So that’s a bad atmosphere.

Pop In bar in Paris

Now to try to keep it shorter, less wordy: The story goes like this. I have always had practically only good words for all the open mics that I visit around the world – last year alone I went to open mics 3 to 5 times per week, in 17 countries, nearly 30 cities and on all continents except Africa and Antarctica – and I have almost invariably found the people who run the open mics to be warm, music – and musician – loving people. Occasionally they can be a little high on their horses, but in general they are warm people.

Not at the Pop In. Or not with ALL the people who work there. I’ve had no problem with the Pop In for the nearly two years that I have been going on average once per month to the open mic. The only criticism I have had started last year when the Pop In changed its method of getting your name on the list. You used to be able to call on the phone and sign up. Last year they said you had to show up to sign the list. This meant, unfortunately, that the list was full most of the time by around 7:15 PM. As I live in the suburb and it takes me 45 minutes to get to the Pop In, that meant that I could not really have a dinner with my children AND do the Pop In.

But the list method at the Pop In was also hypocritical because they allow friends to sign friends’ names, so someone can show up and sign up 5 or 6 people, and those people stay at home or eat out at a restaurant and show up at 10 PM to play.

Having once a few months ago arrived at around 7:30 after rushing through a meal with my kids and finding that the list was entirely full, I expressed my great let down and upset when I saw the list. “Damn! Oh, I don’t believe it! I’ve come all this way for nothing, and rushed through dinner! Oh man, this sucks. This is horrible!” And I left. Anyone in their right mind will have understood that I was really not happy to have wasted all that time only to find I could not get on the list and had nothing to do for the rest of the night in the way of playing music in public. No one in their right mind would think that I was being abusive to the man behind the bar who gave me the list.

No one, that is, except a man who has the unusual name of “Ta Gueule.” In French these words mean, basically, “Shut your mouth,” or “Shut your face up.” An insult, really. But this, I learned last night was the name of the man behind the bar at the Pop In. I once again pushed myself and my kids to eat early, prepare the meal early, rush out, take the metro and arrive 45 minutes later at the Pop In, but this time I was absolutely certain there would be no room on the list. I had called friends, but they had not answered. So I was on my own.

So it was that after wreaking havoc at home and rushing out to get there and arriving at 7:45 I entered a nearly completely empty bar of the Pop In and found only 4 names on the list of a potential 15!!! I was so relieved and happy that I looked at the list when the man handed it to me to put my name, and I said with a smile, delight, and relief: “Incroyable!!!”

The man, roughly 30 years old, thin of bone and thinner of hair, looked at me in anger and said, “I don’t like that kind of comment. In fact, I don’t like what you said and how you behaved last time you were here either.”

“What?” I looked at him in complete confusion. He saw that.

“It was, I don’t know, maybe in May. You came in and got angry that the list was full and you stomped out and ran into someone while doing it. I don’t like that kind of behavior.”

“Ah,” I said, and I slid the list back over to him and turned to leave. I was not going to accept being rapped on the knuckles or spanked and put in my place for my natural behavior, my natural upset at having been let down by the Pop In and its policy of allowing musicians to let other musicians sign up their friends and limiting the list to 15 no matter what happens.

As I turned to leave, therefore, without expressing any anger – I was simply disgusted that the conviviality of an open mic should be so destroyed – the man said, “Yeah, and never return again.”

Well, of course, I have no desire to do so. And as I left and walked down the street, I realized that I would at least have a good fun blog item to write about. So I decided it would be best to get the man’s name, as well, to write it here. I call up on my cell phone, therefore, and asked, “C’est quoi ton petit nom de connard, en fait, pour que je le mets sur mon blog?” (Rough translation: What’s your little asshole of a name, so I can put it on my blog?)

“Ta Gueule!” he said, hanging up the phone.

Gee, once again I’ve written an endless story about a little incident! Anyway, make my day – boycott the Pop In, or at least don’t go when “Ta Gueule” is working the bar….he’s a nasty piece of work who has no understanding of musicians and the open mic zeitgeist. I suspect that Ta Gueule was grouchy because there were only four clients in the bar, only four names on the list, and business was looking really bad at the end of his summer holidays and the debut of the new season. But he forgets that we musicians not only bring in friends, consume alcohol, but we provide free entertainment. Yes, we use the venue to sharpen our skills and pass a good evening, but the bar is making money out of us. Be nicer, Ta Gueule!

Highlander Meets Galway, Another Mid-August Night in Paris

August 12, 2010
bradspurgeon

On Monday I said thank goodness both the Tennessee Bar and the Galway Pub were holding their usual open mics despite the August holiday in Paris where the French disappear. Another of the stalwart open mics continued on Wednesday, with the Highlander Pub remaining open and entertaining with its open mic.

It was a usual evening at the Highlander, with a good mixture of crap and great stuff. One of the problems with the Highlander open mic is that it is so popular that you really have to get there at close after 8 PM to be among the first performers on the list and not have to wait until after midnight to play. I dragged my feet so badly last night at home that I ended up not getting to the Highlander until around 10 PM. I thought I was doomed in terms of when I might get a chance to play. Then, much to my amazement, Thomas Brun, the organizer, came up to me within minutes of my arrival, and he said, “I’ve had someone pulling out at the last minute, so you can go up next if you want.”

Wow! I had just bought a pint of beer and the shot of adrenaline was so strong that I said “yes” very quickly and then drank as much of the beer as I could as quickly as I could, since I knew that I had only about one more song to listen to of the performer who was singing, before I would have to go up and sing. It was so rushed that I was not mentally prepared. Needed the beer to calm the nerves. But I’d rather that than wait until nearly 1 AM to play.

The other down side, though, was that the singer was Etienne, whom I mentioned a few weeks ago played at the Galway and was fabulous. And here he was blowing them all away at The Highlander too, with high adrenaline, hard played chords and sandpapery voice striking right to the heart. What the hell could I do after that overdrive performance? I elected to go soft and cool, and sang “Jealous Guy.” Then did one of my own, then another of my own. I survived, the audience did too. All was well.

I then spent until midnight or afterwards listening to most of the other performers, so in a way I didn’t really save myself much time after all. But I enjoyed it, and there was a kind of a feeling of a theme here. For while Etienne was the first, he was far from the last of the performers that I saw at the Galway, again playing here. For example, there was the Dutch (and French) woman I have mentioned – and showed a video of – in my Galway post recently (which she asked to be removed years later). And after her, by the time I got near the end of my stay there, it turned out that even the MC of the Galway, the Australian from Melbourne, Stephen Prescott, decided he would go up and play a few songs for fun. In fact, his fun was so much fun – carousing fun – that while I was recording it on video in stealth behind a pillar near the door so neither he nor anyone else would really notice the candid camera, Stephen stopped singing for a moment and turned my way and said, “Brad, don’t put this up on your blog, I’m….”

Well, all right, I left the last word out. And I have decided not to. But I’ve got the evidence, Stephen. So next time I go to the Galway, if you don’t want the world to see it – let me on early there too, no matter what time I show up.

But seriously, I love it when I see an MC from an open mic show up to do another open mic two days later, as a performer. This is devotion, passion, fun.

From Earle’s Ultimate Open Mic to the Studio and Some Music Less Than Ephemere – I Hope

July 17, 2010
bradspurgeon

I have been away from the blog since Sunday in Oxford – probably my longest hiatus so far – but that is not because I’ve been away from music. On the contrary, I’ve had a phenomenal week I will never forget, and I wanted to get a few words and videos down before it was too late.

First, briefly, the last night in Oxford I did go and play at the Old Bookbinder’s pub. Played four songs in two sets. There were some interesting muscians there as well, including one I had met last year, and one I had heard at the Catweazle Club three nights earlier. ‘Nuff said.

Monday back to Paris and a quiet evening listening to a new stock of LPs that Vanessa bought – some cool 80s stuff and some 70s stuff too.

Tuesday was the beginning of the musical adventure of the week. It was announced as the last of Earle’s open mics, and it was being held at The Panic Room, on rue Amelot, near the Pop ‘In. It was meant to be a celebration of the end of Earle’s open mics, which had ceased to happen for the last couple of months or so. The list of potential guests on Facebook had grow to more than 170 people by the day of the event, and that was a lot more than ever signed up for the regular open mics. So I had great expectations.

I had never been to the Panic Room before and found it to be a fabulous venue. It had a spacious upper bar on two levels with clean painted walls and a nice shiny bar. The basement room was a cave with a vaulted ceiling – typical Paris thing – and a big fumoir. The stage was small by most standards but big for an open mic, and the sound was good for the listeners and for the musicians.

Upstairs, part of the evening was not just that it be an open mic, but it was also a photo exhibition of photos done by Olivier Rodriguez and Céline LiLi Faye, two friends who took photos at Earle’s open mic for years. They decided to organize this last open mic and do put up a photo exhibit of the ones in the previous years, and they did a great job both of the photos and the organization of this open mic. I’m putting in a video below that takes a brief tour of the photo display and includes a moment where we see Olivier looking at me with a face that said, “Camera shy.” Sure thing, Olivier! In the video there is a moment at which you will see the oldest of the musicians looking a little like Jacques Brel, c. 1966 at the Olympia, in a white shirt, face in a grimace behind glasses, and that’s me. Just below that you will see a photo of a young man with long hair and a similar face to mine – that’s my son Paul. Yep, Father and Son.

And it was in reference to those two photos that I sang Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” when I went up on stage. I was the second person up. First was my friend – and my son’s friend – Calvin, whom I have mentioned here before. I also played “Just Like A Woman” and “Since You Left Me” and “Except Her Heart.” I know that I did a good job for two reasons: One was that I felt good, in the groove, and really delighted to be up there and singing for the audience. The second reason was that a few of the women who listened told me afterwards that they had been brough almost to tears by my songs. Sheesh!

The evening progressed at a nice cool pace, and Earle was at his best, promoting the singers, singing along, enthusiastic as ever. In fact, he said to me that he thought he might like to continue doing open mics, but perhaps only once a month. He just loves it. Despite this being the so-called last one.

A few of the big names of the many years the open mic has existed showed up to play and honor Earle and the audience. They included François, who is the singer from The Agency, and Stevan, the singer from The Parisians, as well as Xavier, the guitar player from the Parisians who backed Earle on “Teenage Kicks,” and Syd from The Burnin’ Jacks was there, as were other members of that rising band in the Paris music scene.

Among the aforesaid was the brilliant lead guitarist from the Burnin’ Jacks, Félix Beguin. I have played with Félix on and off at Earle’s since November or December 2008, when I first started playing at his open mics. And we were supposed to play my set together, not only as a tribute to the Earle scene, but also as a warm up for the following two days in which we were going to live out the next step of my week’s adventure, my time recording four songs in the studio at the Point Ephemere. This post has become so long that I have decided to do a separate post for the studio days. Coming right up… up there, up above this one…. î

Across the English Channel From Gudule to Catweazle

July 9, 2010
bradspurgeon

Wednesday night in Paris, Thursday night in Oxford. I have had a busy couple of days, no time to think let alone sleep. But I have had time to play music, as usual, and the last two nights have been rich in discovery of new experiences at new venues, and a lot of fun.

Vanessa and I had signed up a couple of months ago to sing together at Chez Gudule bar in the Guduleries of the Bande a Gudules. (Gudule is the patron saint of Belgium, by the way.) It calls itself an open mic, but it is much more a cafe theater kind of thing, with a mixture of the regular actors and comedians of the Gudule group and four or five featured guests in the open mic part of the night. We had dropped by on a Wednesday only to find out that you had to sign up far in advance. So we did. Each night there is usually a mixture of one music act, a comedian, an actor, a poet, etc.

Each performer has five minutes in the first part of the show and five minutes in the second part, so for us that meant a first song and a second song. We did “Just Like a Woman” in the first part, and “Mad World” in the second part. The audience sits at tables, and there is a proper little stage with spot light and microphone and a red backdrop curtain. A lot of fun, and very much NOT a classic open mic.

Best of all, the spectators are there to watch and listen and be entertained. The room is above the bar on the first floor, so it is really a private theater-like set up, and Candice, who organizes it, takes it very seriously and insists on a certain protocol. It’s really fun to stand in the wings, in the dressing room and rehearse, etc. For an open mic!

At the end of the show the audience votes on the best act of the evening. I was surprised when we arrived to find Emeric Degui there to do a comedy routine. Emeric is the radio DJ at the station where I took part in the song contest a few months ago, and I ran into him again at the Culture Rapide Cabaret that I mentioned before on this blog.

Singing with Vanessa was just such an incredible pleasure with both songs and for different reasons each time. With the first song, it had to do with singing “Just Like a Woman” to a great woman, and feeling the woman in the song in her. I had to shake myself to not ignore the audience and turn away from her occasionally. I have not heard the song done as a duet before, but it is made for it, and although for the moment Vanessa sings mostly only the lines “just like a woman” and “like a little girl,” she also joined in with harmonies on other parts that really make the song so much more full and complete as a duet.

On “Mad World,” we’ve had more practice on it now as the months pass, but we’re still exchanging lines a little at random, probably each of us fighting to express the ones that suit our own particular feelings of madness and world view the song expresses so well…. It was probably an advantage to have only one microphone at Gudule, since it was a little easier to balance our voices, but I was again guilty of singing more loudly than I should have…. Vanessa has a great voice, and our voices go really well together – they complement each other – but I tend to blast it out louder than I should and sometimes I drown out her voice… But Candice said she played with the sound settings to get us both right. I’ll get it right myself someday, I hope.

Barely had enough sleep and I was off on a flight to Birmingham the next morning with my guitar in the hold of the small Avro airplane of Air France operated by City Jet. The cabin really was almost too small for the guitar this time, and I just offered it up at the luggage trolley at the base of the stairs leading on the flight.

Had a good productive day at Silverstone, where the British Grand Prix is taking place, and then went to Oxford to seek out the one open mic that most frustrated me last year as I arrived a few minutes too late to take part. I was frustrated because I had heard that this open mic – with another name as weird as Gudule – was the coolest, hippest open mic not only of Oxford, but almost of all Britain.

I had learned about the Catweazle Club, as it is called, through Anton Barbeau, the American with the French name who lives mostly in England. Anton had told me Catweazle was a fixture of the Oxford music scene, that it had a special ambience, an almost hippie-like vibe, and that the audience was so quiet you could hear a guitar pic fall. (Actually, I think he might have said a “pin drop,” but I’m trying to avoid cliches these days.)

That prospect filled me with both delight and fear, as when an audience is that quiet it means you’re really being listened to! In any case, as I said, I had missed the list last year. But this year, I got on it. Run and founded by Matt Sage since 1994, the evening and concept has become such a success that there is now a regular Catweazle Club night in London once a week, in Brighton, and most recently in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, on East Third Street, which of course is where Gerde’s Folk City used to be….

Catweazle has had many homes in Oxford, but Matt said that he is happiest with the most recent one, at the Oxford Community Center, where it has been located for several years. Indeed, the room is big but not too big. There must have been a hundred people in it last night, sitting on living room sofas, on cushions on the floor, on chairs, and standing against the walls or by the bar – yes, there is alcohol served.

It is difficult to say what makes it unique, but I think it’s the vibe, it’s Matt – he has a very good sense and talent for patter, and a mixture of slightly catty jabs and snide comments with good humored banter. The evening is not confined to music only, but to “music, poetry, story, song and all manner of acoustic artistry,” as a story in the current edition of the East Oxford Community News says.

There is no microphone and no amplification, indeed. But the other aspect of this that is unique is that the audience is invariably quiet as hell. I enjoyed standing under the spotlights, looking across the room at the young and old, hippie and conventional, student and worker. And I enjoyed many of the other musicians and performers and poets.

My only frustration was that I had the right to sing only one song, and usually it takes one song to warm up and by the second things go better. I had hoped to do a cover song and then one of my own. As it was, given the creative accent to the Catweazle evening, I decided just to do my own song, “Since You Left Me.” It went over well, and I had some nice compliments afterward. But it is very difficult to go from using a microphone to singing to a crowd of a hundred people without a mic.

I told a little story beforehand, saying I had never seen a place like Catweazle in all my travels to open mics around the world, and that was received with a few exclamations of agreement and appreciation. But it was entirely true. Afterwards I was thinking of a line that the jazz saxophone player Stan Getz used on one of his recordings – I think it’s on “Serenity” – in Copenhagen or some such place, where he compliments the venue and the crowd and they applaud and then he says, “I said the same thing last night in Stockholm….” to more laughter. But my words about Catweazle’s uniqueness were true. Try it out and see!

The Lesson of the Bus Palladium – After Work

June 23, 2010
bradspurgeon

I already mentioned the Bus Palladium before on this blog. Now I have another mention, and I’ll have to do it fast as I prepare to leave for Valencia, Spain early tomorrow morning. But I HAD to get it up here.

The lesson is the same one I have had so many times since embarking on this musical adventure in November 2008. It is the lesson of taking a chance, changing your habits, going out purposefully on what you think is a proverbial “limb.” Because that is the way to get somewhere you might find fantastically agreeable.

Last night, I had the option of going to the usual Tuesday offerings that I am in the habit of doing; ie, the open mic at either Au Ptit Bonjeur la Chance or the one a Le Baroc. Well, it turns out that I was in a terrible state last night and did not want to go anywhere. So I decided that I would push myself to do something different. The invitation fell into my Facebook, and it came from Cyril Bodin, who organizes soirées and music at Bus Palladium.

It was just a general announcement saying that there were still tables for dinner open at the Bus Palladium‘s restaurant on the first floor where every Tuesday Bodin organizes his After Work evening of a meal and music by musicians on the small stage, mostly cover songs. This is not the large stage on the ground floor made so famous by so many musicians, including the Rolling Stones, as I mentioned before. This is the upper restaurant.

I had glanced in once and seen that it looked like a cool restaurant and was not overly pricey. So I called up and ordered a table for one – with potentially two, as I had a few other people in mind to invite but finally settled for enjoying my own company – and I then called up Bodin and asked him if this was an open mic night. The announcement on Facebook speaks of Cyril Bodin and friends, or something of that sort, providing the music. So I thought there might be a way for me to play.

Bodin, it turned out, did not remember who I am. We had met, I swear it, at the Truskell when I did one of Earle’s open mics, and so I thought this particular faceboook friend was a friend. But it turned out he didn’t know me from the 5,000 other friends he has. Understandable.

He sounded very hesitant, asked if I was a professional musician, etc., and it became clear that this was not at all an open mic. But at the same time he held the door open and said I might be able to do something that it could possibly be arranged.

I hung up and had to weigh things. If it’s not an open mic, I’m a stage crasher. But he said maybe I could play. So maybe I should go. Then I thought, “All right, go have the meal, enjoy yourself, read your magazines and books and have a good glass of wine or two. Take the guitar and see what happens. Don’t invite anyone.”

So that’s what I did. I found a semi-posh restaurant with a simple menu and several tables that were just bursting with people who all seemed to work at the same company, and when I had got to the door I could have sworn they asked if I was with EMI. So perhaps that’s who was dining there. In any case, I ordered a meal and listened to the music.

The meal was fine, though not haute cuisine by any standard. My bass filet was very good, especially the vegetables.

The music was very, very good. A guitar player and singer and a piano player and singer and Cyril who mostly provided backup vocals. They played cover songs, nothing but cover songs, famous ones, “I almost cut my haiiirrrrr.” You know, 60s and early 70s stuff. Very agreeable, and the singer, it turned out, was French, but his accent in English was soo good that I thought he was English.

But as the night progressed and Cyril and his musicians played for more than an hour, I thought there was no chance for me. And I was disappointed because I loved the room and the crowd and I wanted badly to sing, even if I did not think I was perhaps as good as Cyril and his singer.

Then slowly my hopes began to rise. Another singer went up, and he looked like a Cyril “friend.” And then suddenly a group of young guys arrived, looking rather rocky, and after a few minutes they began waving to me. It took my a moment to realize that it was the band “Natas Loves You,” whom I mentioned earlier on this blog. We spoke and they told me they were going to sing shortly, and Cyril approached them and spoke to them, and I realized this really was Cyril and friends.

So I went up to Cyril again and asked if there would be a place for me, and he told me I could play after Natas Loves You. I said “great,” but separately to the band I said, “That doesn’t work in my favor.” They’re so good. You don’t want to follow someone that good. Anyway, they asked me to play a Bob Dylan and a Cat Stevens, as they remembered me doing those and liked it. That pumped up my sense of self-worth, and I said that’s what I had planned on doing anyway.

So they went up, and then I went up and sang my two songs, and as I started the Cat Stevens, “Father and Son,” the piano player of Cyril’s original band, came up and played piano while I did the guitar and vocals. This was now becoming a dynamite situation for me. But I stopped after the two songs, as Cyril had asked only for two. Later he said I could have done more, and the same was said to me by a couple of friends, Celine and Marion, who had shown up and listened and encouraged me as usual.

I received some nice warm applause and a diner at the table next to mine later congratulated me on a great performance.

So, well, there’s the lesson. I was just floating with happiness and excitement and release as I played in the famous Bus Palladium, and I never believed at the beginning when I set out on the empty evening that I would have such a chance. But I pursued the goal and achieved it. So that’s the lesson. Just go for it, do it and attack. Take risks and try new stuff and don’t get caught in life-denying habits. Jeez, and I thought this was supposed to be a short post!!!!

My only regret was that I forgot to take my Zoom Q3 with me, so had to make due with the iPhone for videos. I like the one I did with Natas Loves You singing a Beatles song while I checked out the bathroom with its bathtub handwashing bowl and the music from the restaurant piped in.

The Uncool Fête de la Musique

June 22, 2010
bradspurgeon

Dear X:

You were right, the French Fête de la Musique, or one-day musical festival on 21 June every year since 1982, is not cool. I had not experienced the Fête de la Musique in probably a couple of decades, and my memories of it were that it was splendid. All of Paris became one giant concert hall with musicians, groups, semi-musicians, half-musicians, full musicians, playing in the street acoustically, with amps, with radios and DJ sound systems, you name it – music everywhere.

So when you recently told me that the cool people stay in on the night of the Fête de la Musique in Paris, I must admit that I felt you were being overly cool, a little pretentious and pretty complicated too. But it now turns out that I have had a fresh experience with the Fête de la Musique, and I am sorry to have to admit that you were right about this, as you were with so many of the things that I misjudged you on. (Though I do not want to get carried away and say you were right about everything, because I know for sure that is not the case!)

There is always a small chance that my experience walking the streets of Paris last night in the Fête de la Musique was negatively colored also by the fact that I was doing it alone, without you, and therefore had a little grudge against the world and was seeing it through the dark glasses of my heart at the moment. But I don’t think so. I think you were just plain RIGHT.

And here’s why: Monday night being a good night for open mics and me being one who goes out as often as I’m alone to sing on a Monday night, I decided I would again seek out last week’s two venues. These, you will remember, were the Tennessee Bar and the Galway pub near St. Michel. Well, the first horror was taking the metro from Duroc to Odéon and finding the thing so jam packed with people going to see and hear the Fête de la Musique that although there was just enough room for me, there was no room for my guitar. I received some dirty looks from people for daring to think of carrying a guitar into a packed Métro – on the Fête de la Musique.

I also felt rather dorky and uncool carrying the guitar around as if I only did so on the day of the Fête de la Musique, when in fact I do it all the time. But I will return to that theme in a moment. Once I got out of the Métro at Odéon and went to the Tennessee bar for the open mic my worst fear was confirmed: I walked into the bar and the barwoman said, “There’s no open mic tonight. I thought James told everyone. He’s playing at the Moose.”

Okay, so the previous week, no doubt, James the MC did probably tell everyone there would be no open mic. But I had left well before the end to go to the Galway, so I didn’t hear it if he said it, and it was my own fault anyway. Still, the basement room was empty, and why not do an open mic anyway with another MC!? After all, it’s the Fête de la Musique.

Let’s move on. I then went to the Galway and found a soccer game of the World Cup on the television and a full crowd of soccer lovers. I asked the barwoman if there was an open mic.

“No, there isn’t,” she said. “But after the football game there will be a concert, and if you want, you can play. But it is not an open mic, it is a concert.”

This, at least, was more in the spirit of a Fête de la Musique. But it said this to me: Game ends between 10 and 10:30? Then the band prepares to play and plays and maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to do a song sometime near midnight? Not worth the gamble, or the wait, I thought.

And in any case, I said, tonight is the Fête de la Musique in Paris, and maybe I should look around, and maybe I’ll be asked to play somewhere in the street or in a bar, when my guitar is spotted – you know, like in Istanbul, that music-loving city.

So I set out on a long, long walk through Paris, heading through several different districts, St. Michel, Les Halles, Oberkampf, Belleville, and elsewhere. And all along the way the city blared with music, just like in Istanbul, in fact. And here as you went from one quarter to another you often ran into the kind of music of the prevalent population of the quarter, as in Arab music in some places, African in others, French chanson in others.

But guess what? My growing feeling, actually it was pretty immediate, was one of disgust, a letdown and a feeling of a lack of authenticity. When I walk through the streets of Istanbul in a wall of sound in every street at nighttime, I know that it is part of the local culture. It is natural, and it happens EVERY DAY. Here in Paris last night, I had the sense of a fake culture being slapped on the usual staid and boring and silent world of the French capital. (Or rather, those parts of Paris that are usually able to be characterized thus.)

And I said to myself, too, “Where the hell do all these musicians come from? Why do I not see and hear them every other day of the year?” Actually, truth be told, I would not have WANTED to hear most of them every day of the year, and once was enough. My feeling was, you see, exactly what you were trying to tell me, I think: That suddenly all the weekend guitar players come out of their bedrooms to go into the street and “play Bohemian” on the one day in the year that it is not only permitted, but condoned. Whereas the people in your world – and also in mine, Dear X – are full-time bohemians and music lovers and committed to a love of music ALL the time.

One day a year for a Fête de la Musique? Get out of here. I think the people who had the best idea about the whole thing were the 239 thieves the Paris and regional police force arrested for petty crimes last night. Yeah, man, I hope they got a few of those guitars!!!!!

I considered recording some videos of the bands and the ambience with my Zoom Q3 for this blog as I always do on my musical adventures. Then I said, “No, don’t! Don’t stoop that low.”

So, once again Dear X, I must apologize to you for underestimating your understanding on a point of great importance – although again I will not go so far as to admit being wrong about everything! There were, for example, some cool, committed and hip bands playing about town, like The Shades, and as my son said, the ideal thing to do to really Fête la Musique, would have been to go listen to a concert pianist or an orchestra, or something that pop music lovers don’t usually do. That would really be paying hommage to music. But for the most part, you were also right, this was nothing more than another example of the hysteria surrounding the marketing tool known as Beaujolais Nouveau – it has a sweet and exciting smell to it, but no depth and is often downright unpalatable….