I did my first Brad’s brunch after an absence of three weeks, after my trip to Asia. By my return had to be on a very quiet Easter weekend with a lot of sun in Paris and most sane people no doubt electing to spend time on the various quays around Paris near water. Even so, I had the very insane idea to do the brunch and have one or two very insane, but cool friends and guests. The only other musician who came was Stephen “Danger” Prescott. But he did a great couple of sets, and one of them inspired me to have fun with the video camera. In fact, the next day I attended Stephen’s open mic at the Galway – and also the Tennessee bar open mic – and decided to have even more video fun.
Stephen spoke of one of his favorite bands and songs, and he said he recently saw them and loved to play their song. So I decided to go all out with the video recording, aiming two cameras at him at the Mecano, and then doing another one at the Galway when he sang the song again. I also had a separate sound recorder at the Mecano, so I’ve decided to blend all four things to come up with a little montage vide of Stephen singing this song.
The song is “Song Songs,” and it is by a band from L.A. called Old Man Markley, which has existed since 2007. It is a cool song, indeed. Although Stephen also did an excellent one of his own with the catchy lyrics of “When You’re Okay.”
Anyway, I have decided that since I am collecting mountains of material for the film I am doing open mics around the world, and since I will have far more material than I need, I will put up the occasional bits and pieces of interviews and other snippets that I find and create along the way. Do not expect the editing of the stuff to be good. I will be doing this for the blog as time permits, and to start to get into the stride of making and putting the film together as I go. Some of the snippets may end up in the film, most probably won’t. But I’ll just wing it as it goes – that’s what a blog is for.
At the Tennessee bar there were some original performers, such as Jamie Freeman, who is part American and part British. He had a very hard driving, hard strumming, rhythmic style on the guitar along with some interesting singing and songs. He made me want to record everything he did as each song seemed to merit it, and to have a slight different sound.
Then there was this French guy who calls himself Gyraf, and who dresses in a giraffe skin scheme overall and wears a strange giraffe head/hat, and who plays songs that call for audience participation. In short, a wild and crazy guy. But that is open mics. Anything goes. And, as it turns out, he performs for kids – and kiddie adults, no doubt – around France.