Stephen Danger Prescott | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

A Quiet Easter Weekend at the Open Mics and Brunches – But FUN with Videos

April 26, 2011
bradspurgeon

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.

Video Show of Little New Things from Brunch and Tennessee and Galway

February 15, 2011
bradspurgeon

Just getting ready to go off to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance and Ollie’s open mic, I realize I have posted nothing for the last couple of days. But as I await the news to see if my scheduled visit to Bahrain will happen in three weeks for the first of my world travels this year, I thought I should just put up the bits of new stuff I noticed at my brunch on Sunday at the Mecano, the evening at the Tennessee Bar open mic last night and at the Galway Pub open mic.

Trying not to go over too much familiar ground here, I want to simply say that the brunch was another resounding success, with more musicians than ever, and a wonderful atmosphere and a great brunch. I will not put up all the musicians, but just the little twists of difference. Pierre Doucet showed up for the first time, with his violin, and I was delighted to be able to play with him, for several songs. Pierre often plays with Stephen Prescott at the Galway, and yesterday was our first time playing together. I started with “Crazy Love,” and it is the only one we got down on a single video. I would have preferred to get the “Mad World,” which went much better, and which we again played to resounding success last night at the Galway. But I’m putting up the “Crazy Love” for the hell of it, even though it is not my best rendition of the song – but the violin gives a bit of a different dimension.

The other videos below all have some new aspect to them – like the different kind of singer at the Tennessee, Tory Roucaud singing her own French song, or Stephen Prescott singing about where the wild roses grow, which I had not heard him sing before, and which I was too far gone over to do a proper recording of…. (no prepositions at the end of sentences, please….) Ayse Ayhan singing in her native Turkish, Martin Rahin finally visiting the brunch and singing his own French songs and a great cover about being 20 years old….

“Blind Boy” Brad Plays His Usual Paris Haunts

January 4, 2011
bradspurgeon

I left out a detail in my previous post in which I tried to sum up the previous week’s activities. I wanted to keep the detail personal, private and just not make anything out of it. But as I decided to sit down and do my blog entry today about last night’s musical activities, I thought that it was not possible to write about the spirit of my evening – and what the people there saw – without unfortunately unveiling the news.

blind boy brad with glasses coolly covering the black eye

It’s pretty banal, actually, but a little embarrassing: I was attacked on New Year’s Eve and had my face re-arranged. Well, okay, it’s not as bad as all that. But the black eye is a doozer. I had to cancel my Sunday brunch two days ago because my face was still something of a mask of red and black spots. But I decided last night that I would not let the assailant get away with destroying my glasses, my Lacoste coat, my face AND my fun!

So it was that I went to the Tennessee Bar and the Galway Pub to play in the open mics as I usually do. But I wore dark glasses to cover the dalmatian look. Unfortunately, my forehead still has some bloody scrapes on it, and it was clear that I had been beaten (although the scrapes are much less visible even today). So this raises the question as to whether a performer really should go up and play music – which is supposed to be entertaining for the audience – when clearly in a state of disgusting ugliness through visible wounds. If I were a Sex Pistol, or maybe Nazi Dog of the Viletones, I would actually do all I could no doubt to inflict such wounds upon myself while actually on the stage performing. But as these open mics are generally considered nice family entertainment, and worse, as they are carried out by amateurs, it can look like a strange assault and self-indulgent act to perform in such circumstances.

These, at least, were the thoughts going through my mind when I got up on stage soon after arrival at the Tennessee Bar. It was odd to get up behind the mic and suddenly realize that I could not see a single person in the audience through my dark glasses. This really made me feel cut off. I tried to joke about my face and seek a thread of banter that would link the music to the face – after all, think of how odd it would be to sing of happy days with a face like a pulp! (I exaggerate.)

I sang Tom Petty’s song, “I Won’t Back Down,” which seemed appropriate. Then I sang my own song, “Borderline.” Then I ran out of ideas and thoughts on how to blend the face with the music, and for reasons beyond me I immediately segued into “Unchained Melody.” Judging by all the talk I heard in the audience building up as my three songs progressed, I did not grab the audience.

I left almost immediately afterwards, feeling as if I had been self-indulgent. But I also thought I would nevertheless test out the waters at the Galway. Stephen Prescott, the MC, immediately greeted me with a laugh and a talk about black eyes of his own in the past. I inquired as to whether he thought I could expect the permanent pink spot I am seeing to disappear, and he said in his experience he had seen nothing for days and it all came back.

I was immediately put at ease. Then when it finally came my turn to play my songs, good-natured Stephen presented me as “Blind” Brad, or “Blind” Brad Spurgeon, or something like that. This made me feel really comfortable, and even cool, with the glasses, and I realized there were precendents and even a tradition of performing like this – from Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and even the Frenchman Gilbert Montagne. So I instantly ceased to think about my physical appearance, and I asked the lead guitarist from a group that had played just before me if he could play with me – he said they were from England and that the band’s name was “Mana King,” but I cannot find a link for them – and we played the first two songs together. I played “Crazy Love” and “Father and Son,” and he played some great lead. Then, alone, I did “Andalucia” and “Since You Left Me.” Had a great time, felt exorcised and as if I’d had my revenge on my attacker and I was back to normal.

I’m Not the Only One to Travel from Tennessee to Galway

December 21, 2010
bradspurgeon

Monday night is often the double-header of the Tennessee and the Galway, two Paris open mics within 10 minutes walk in the Latin Quarter. Last night at the Tennessee I was thinking it was the holiday season doing in the attendance figures when I arrived “late” only to find practically no one there.

But just like at my brunch on Sunday, the crowd began to fill in, the musicians came, and soon it was a Tennessee classic like any other. Having said that, I played as the first musician, a task that is rarely easy, and I felt a little stiff and uncomfortable. Played four songs to a big backdrop of talk, and I probably deserved it.

I hung around for several more performers and I was particularly interested in a newcomer from Brooklyn, named Jay Erickson. He played some nice, laid back country/folk/blues kind of stuff and had a rich, deep voice that carried, and his guitar playing – on Sood’s guitar – was quite effective. He reminded me a little of Viking Moses, the anti-folk guy who played at my brunch a few weeks ago.

So I took Jay’s card after he played and I decided I should go off to the Galway. I really wanted to go up to Jay and say, “Hey, listen, clear this place out now and come to the Galway, another open mic just up the street and down the quai.” But I thought that was very disloyal service to the Tennessee, a kind of poaching, in fact, and so I refrained.

Off to the Galway I went to discover that the holiday season had in no way affected the crowd or the number of musicians. The place was bursting with people and Stephen Prescott, the MC, told me I would have at least an hour and a half wait before I played. No problem, I said, and went to drink a beer and chat with a friend – and met a new friend.

So anyway….

I went back down to refill the beer and found Jay walking in the door, having found the Galway himself on a web site of Paris open mics. I welcomed him, told him to speak to Stephen, and I told him I was so glad he came and that I had been thinking of tearing him away from the Galway.

My turn came up to play after midnight, and I got to do four songs. After my talk with the friends, after the beers, after the arrival of Jay and just a general feeling of satisfaction, I found myself totally into the playing. From the low at the Tennessee, suddenly I felt like I was riding a high on my four songs – “Andalucia,” “Father and Son,” “Crazy Love,” and “Since You Left Me” – and I could see that the talking had been reduced to a very low level and I recieved some nice compliments afterwards. I repeat how astounding it is that live music is so entirely spontaneous and “living.” Sometimes it works perfectly, other times it wilts, finds it hard to take off, and just fails.

So anyway…. (I’m feeling like Kurt Vonnegut with, “so it goes…”)

Jay finally went up and played some of his own stuff and cover stuff – I think – and then he did the famous song by The Band, called, “The Weight.” His girlfriend, or wife, invited me to go up to sing with him, but I had to back out, knowing I would fail even on the very few words of the chorus, which I really do not know. But having done the song within the last week with, I think, Stephen, I told Stephen to go up. He went up with a woman also in the audience, and together the three did a pretty cool job of the song.

Afterwards, I learned that this cool Mr. Jay belonged to a very cool group in the U.S. that has had some very good press in some impressive newspapers, and I gave a listen to the album – their third release, called “Walk,” – and I liked it. His band is called Red Rooster, and it is interesting in the way it mixes the old folk, bluegrass, blues, folk-rock, country sound with some wind instruments and computer sounds. A very modern mix, in fact. And all based on the nice deep vocals, too….

Three Sunday Adventures, one common thread

December 13, 2010
bradspurgeon

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.

The Difference a Guitar Makes

December 7, 2010
bradspurgeon

I won’t give a day-by-day account of all the open mics I do in Paris, because that could get tiresome (if it hasn’t already). But the one little point I took out of last night’s playing at the Galway – I also played at the Tennessee Bar, where there was some great jamming with many musicians together – was the difference a guitar can make to a musician’s sound.

That may sound like a banality. But as I have recently been contemplating buying a new acoustic guitar, I have continually come back to the same conclusion: Since I’m not much of a guitarist, my Seagull S6 does me just fine. In fact, this fabulous guitar has been praised around the world, even once in England by a guy – a good guitarist – who said it blew away a 10,000 euro Martin signature guitar he had played a few days before. And this Seagull – minus the pick-up – costs less than 400 euros.

So back to last night. Stephen Prescott is the MC of the Galway open mic and I have always enjoyed his singing and stage persona, and I have also been intrigued by his guitar playing. I’ve liked the guitar playing, but I have always found there was something I could not understand about it, or pinpoint. That may sound weird, but last night when the battery ran out on his regular guitar – a travel guitar with no body to it – he asked if he could use my Seagull. I agreed with no problem – the guitar has been used for two years now at various open mics by people around the world, and I love that.

So then when Stephen started playing away in his usual way on MY guitar, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here, finally, I realized, was what Stephen’s guitar playing really sounds like! The Seagull gave to it, above all, the “body” it was missing with his no-body guitar. A depth, a range, a sound that was very cool indeed. It not only added a whole dimension to his music, but also made my guitar come to life in a different way than when I play it. Unfortunately, I ran out of battery life on my Zoom Q3 recorder at the same time as his guitar ran out of pick-up battery life, so I only got a small little taste of the Stephen sound on my guitar in video, and more unfortunately, the automatic level thingy toned down the guitar too much when he really got to playing it hard. But give it a listen:

P.S., it is normal that Stephen does not have a great guitar for his open mic, since it is the one that gets passed around to all takers, every Monday, many hands, if they do not have their own instrument.

P.P.S., I forgot to finish off with one of my conclusions! To see the difference with Stephen’s sound when he used a different guitar made me reconsider my relationship with my S6. On the other hand, so far I have only found Gibsons and a one or two other guitars that cost 5 to 10 times more than my Seagull that strike me as adding a little difference in sound to my guitar playing….

Further Musical Discoveries in Paris

November 30, 2010
bradspurgeon

I wanted to keep the names of the Tennessee Bar and the Galway Pub out of the headline this time, since my weekly haunts while in Paris might cease to look very attractive as a read. But they continue to be attractive as places of musical discovery.

Last night I showed up at the Tennessee Bar at 9:10 PM and I was far too late. I never would get a slot on stage. But I stayed long enough to hear some fabulous music before heading on to the Galway where I basically always get a slot on stage, thanks Stephen Prescott.

But the discoveries at the Tennessee were well worth the visit. The biggest discovery of the night, no doubt, was Benjamin Scheuer, who sang some songs of his own composition before picking up the lead guitar to help Les DeShane with “November Rain.” When you hear Benjamin singing his songs you think of the 1960s, and more the 1970s, and you think of the great singer songwriters of that era. You think of Simon & Garfunkel, without the harmonies. I’m sure some people could come up with some much better parallels, but this much is certain: Benjamin has a very cool voice in terms of expressiveness, natural timbre and emotion. And he writes some beautiful touching lyrics AND he places a wicked guitar. In fact, after hearing him play his songs with the acoustic I had no idea that the same guy could do that “November Rain” lead – which was very cool. Check out the videos, and his web site. The word “up-and-coming” cannot be better fitted than to this guy Benjamin.

Then there was this wild old French guy who took to the stage and was immediately joined by Les on the lead and another guy on the piano, and we had to have the oldest guy in the place provide us with the most rock ‘n roll stuff of the night. I recorded his “Route 66,” and it’s pretty cool.

Les himself, in fact, also played a song I had no yet heard him play, and I enjoyed it immensely, and this was a Robert Johnson song. I also had fun with the camera work, managing to get Les in the shot and to also simultaneously get Les in the shot on his own camera that was videoing the whole thing.

When I realized that I did not want to wait around any longer at the Tennessee and that if I did get up the audience would be reduced to 1 person by then, I decided to head over to the Galway. There I heard a cool guy named… Brad as I entered. And then a cool guy named Matt, who was from Montreal. And then I heard cool Stephen, who showed off his new toy, which is a box that can turn your voice into harmonies as you sing. Now, although I had seen Les with the same thing at the Mecano, I had never tried it. Stephen told me I could try it, and that was another very cool discovery. I want one. I used it to harmonize my voice on my song that I wrote when I was 16, and which still has no title. I put the harmonies on the chorus: “My love she’s gone away, she’s left me here to stay, all by myself, all by myself.”

This is me, Brad, at the Tennessee holding on to Ladie's Di's CD compilation

Ladie's Di lied, saying I looked 20 years younger in this photo. Shit, I look like a grandfather.

Oh, the other discovery was not on stage. I ran into Ladies Di, a friend and fellow open mic traveler from Chile, whom I have mentioned on this blog before. He presented me with the CD he had been working on for the last year or so, and it was finally finished, packed, ready for distribution around the world, and now entitled “Who else is gonna leave me?” (Could have put my song from when I was 16 on that.) Ladies Di had invited me to put something on the CD and I didn’t. Couldn’t get myself together enough to do anything, and hesitated to put my Ephemere Recordings on it. But the concept is this: The CD is a sampling of I think 12 musicians, each of whom contributed 2 songs (although one seems to have contributed 1 song). Each group or musician then gets a 100 or so copies of the CD and distributes and sells it at gigs around the world. Indeed, the artists come from all around the world: Chile, France, England, Sweden, Norway, Japan, etc. Very cool. And it ain’t half bad! I found a number of songs I liked. The CD project has its own myspace page, robotminimalista.

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.)

Last of a dead month in August in Paris with Danger at the highlander

August 25, 2010
bradspurgeon

Just a quick item before I travel on to explore musical Liege over the weekend as I attend the Belgian Grand Prix for my IHT and NYT coverage. I just wanted to wrap up the Paris August blues with a note about last Monday when I went back to the Tennessee Bar and The Galway, the fabulous venues that dared stay open all month.

I made a fool of myself at the Tennessee by singing my new song that was not yet finished and which I had not memorized – so read from a piece of paper that fell from my knee just before the bridge. But then went on to the Galway and sang four songs in what felt like an inspired manner, and that was confirmed by friendly comments afterwards. One of those comments came from Stephen “Danger” Prescott, formerly of the Salvation Army punk band, and now the MC of the Galway. This is the same Stephen “Danger” Prescott” that I mentioned who had turned up at the Highlander the previous week or so before in order to perform just like any member of the public, which I found extraordinary for this Australian from Melbourne who has lived in Paris for the last three or more years, playing every week at the Galway as the MC. But there was something very different about his act at the Highlander, and I was greatly amused at how he told me from behind the mic NOT to use the video, given his state of…. well, you’ll see. He gave me permission on Monday, noting that it was all in good fun and not a typical night for him. And it really wasn’t his fault, either, as a client bought him that huge jug of beer…..