The Highlander open mic | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

All Downhill Up to Here

September 13, 2012
bradspurgeon

Please excuse me while this blog goes totally downhill. It can only be uphill from here – in a good sense. What I’m trying to say is that I have been so occupied with a million other things, including performing and practicing or rehearsing with my friend Felix Beguin, that I have let the blog slide downhill. It will not stay there, I’m sure. And it is not representative of the state of affairs in my life….

In fact, it was business as usual at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance on Tuesday night with a great open mic, and a few new things – like duets. Including a duet consisting of Yaco and me. We did “Mad World.”

Okay, so there was no time yesterday to report on that because I was practicing for my gig this Sunday with my amazing lead guitar player, Felix Beguin. Then we went directly off to the Highlander to perform there together. On the way there after more than two hours rehearsal, I received the message that our gig at the Lizard Lounge had been cancelled due to a double booking. What crap. But that did not prevent Felix and me from performing a couple of songs at the Highlander and blowing away the crowd of five people that remained there until 1:30 AM. And then I was able to make the wonderful and profound announcement about our upcoming concert – IE, that it was cancelled….

Between times while waiting on the long, long waiting list, we dropped off at the Cavern to listen to the vocal jam band at work, especially because there is a great lead guitarist there I wanted Felix to hear. Actually, I’d have loved it if we could have taken that stage over for a few minutes, but that’s not the way the jam there works.

So anyway, before I run off tonight to something else – a new thing – I am just slamming down this huge number of meaningless words and a bunch of video proof that I have indeed been active….

Early to Arrive, Earlier to Play at the Highlander – and a Neat Instrument

August 23, 2012
bradspurgeon

For the first time in a year or two or more I arrived at the Highlander in time to be one of the very first people on the list. How did I pull off this miraculous thing? Well, I had a meeting with someone else, a friend, and we decided to make a night out of the Highlander and a local Asian food emporium. And it all worked. The downside? There is not really a downside, except for right here on the blog where I discovered to my own amazement today as I sat down to write this that I had taken only TWO videos of the music last night.

The Highlander was just as bubbling full, with its usual list of maybe 17 musicians, and I actually managed to play at the real height of the evening and right after Jolly Roger the mad lead guitar player who does not sing. So it was prime real estate to get everyone else singing once I got up there, and I did What’s Up! and Father and Son to do just that, along with my own Borderline – which maybe a few people did the “ooooooooooo” falsetto part, but not much else.

It was shoulder to shoulder…except when I arrived and I heard some musician say: “What? Brad is here while the sun is still up?” Yes, early on the list. And it was a pleasure. As was the Asian food emporium. A night to remember at the Highlander, which unfortunately I only managed to give you witness to on two videos, both, to my shock today, of the same person – but the little finger harp was very cool. Oh, and it was also neat that the first bit turned into a jam….

A Steve Forbert Connection in Mid-Summer in the Highlander Open Mic in Paris

August 16, 2012
bradspurgeon

Way way back when, in a period I shy to talk about on this blog it was just so far and long away, I met a young performer named Steve Forbert, while we were both playing at Gerde’s Folk City open mic in New York City, in the Village. I could barely keep a beat, was little able to express emotion in the singing, and had not memorized my songs. But this guy Forbert was blowing everyone in the room away and filling it with his presence, just knocking us all out. I just couldn’t figure it out. Like, who is he? Why is he here? How does he do that?

I arrived one day in the long sign-up line up outside the door on East Third Street and stood right behind him. It was fall, and his coat was full of holes with the cotton insides hanging out. This was not a cultivated look, it was poverty. Anyway, I asked him how long he had been playing the open mics, etc., and he said a couple of years – he was 21 – and he said he was also busking in Grand Central Station….

I made no sense of him until a couple of years later when I was in a taxi in London, England I heard on the radio his distinctive voice again, and then heard the announcer say his name. He was the next Bob Dylan, it seemed, and he had this album out that was making everyone go crazy. Anyway, today Forbert is comparatively forgotten, but really alive and kicking and playing small venues all over the States and occasionally England.

Well last night at the Highlander, when a performer named Jake Weinsoff broke a string on the house guitar, I offered Thomas Brun, the MC, for Jake – and others – to use my guitar while Thomas put a new string on his guitar. Thomas accepted, Jake took my guitar, and then he announced he was going to play a song by Steve Forbert! First time I have heard anyone – aside from me – do a Forbert song at an open mic! And it was with my guitar. I spoke to Jake afterwards, and he told me that he too had met Forbert…. Cool!

More generally, what to report? It was smack in the middle of the month of August last night, and the only joint offering an open mic in Paris as far as I could see – on the public holiday of the 15 August – was the brave Highlander. On the other hand, you almost had to have been brave to go there. It was so packed with spectators and musicians! I arrived one hour earlier than last week, and like last week I signed up as the 17th musician on the list. And as the Highlander offers three songs per night come rain, shine or sickness, that means going one well past midnight.

Still, unlike the week before, I did manage to do my three songs by 1 AM this time. That, too, gave me the great possibility of watching all the other acts of the evening. And there were a lot, and some original – even off-the-wall – performances. Well, all right maybe just one off-the-wall performance. But lots of great stuff beside that.

Still, as I continue this long, long stretch in the Paris open mics while I have my holiday and take a break from my world travels, I maybe don’t have a hell of a lot of different stuff to say about this – for me – local hangout.

Wow in Every Way at the Highlander

August 9, 2012
bradspurgeon

Walking to the Highlander open mic last night from the Odeon metro to the Seine, I noticed a number of bars and businesses closed for the month of August – as goes the Paris cliché. These included the Cavern, where I had thought of maybe dropping in for the vocal jam session. So I went only to the Highlander, and I saw immediately that all the business that the other bars had decided to ignore and get rid of and close the door to, was congregated at the Highlander for the open mic.

It was just jam – no pun intended – packed with clients, musicians and people who might have gone to some of the other bars had the bosses not so intelligently shut the bars down for the “quiet” month of August. I thought that this might end up being a boring night at the Highlander, nevertheless, as there were lots of faces of people I had never seen before, and I just had this feeling….

ALLLLLL wrong. In fact, after a few regular musicians that I have seen numerous times there came a period in the middle of the evening when suddenly the stage was inhabited one after another by really cool, impossible to ignore, and really quite inspiring musicians. This included a duo from a band called “The Confessions,” and also Séraphine Pinpin, who said she has practically no other experience singing outside her shower….

I wanted her to invite me into the shower – to hear more of her singing, of course! -, but I didn’t suggest it just then. She had one of the most powerful voices I have ever heard – you cannot imagine the effect when she backed off from the mic and belted things out and we had the impression of having our eardrums blown out on the purity of her lungs and vocal chords alone. I really started getting off on her when she sang in French, too, as it turns out – then got into the English stuff more.

I got the open mic once again so late that I was probably No. 891 on the list. I did not get to get on stage until just after 1:30 AM, and even then Thomas Brun made an effort to give me the stage – as he had already been instructed to stop the music. I was thankful to him, since contrary to the feeling I had the week before, this time I was really hot to go. And I decided to finish with Mad World, since it was such a mad mic…. It went well.

Premature Exit at the Highlander

August 2, 2012
bradspurgeon

If you feel like you want to walk off the stage in mid set, do it MAN! If, that is, you are performing in an open mic and not doing a professional, paid gig. That’s what I did last night at the Highlander.

Of course, there is a very strong argument to be made for being 100 percent professional at all times and in all situations, whether you are professional or not. It’s like that old Hollywood guy talking once about flighty actors who think certain roles are beneath them are useless, whereas if he found a bit-part actor treating his role like the most important thing in the world, then that is a future star.

Having said that, one of the great things about doing open mics, as opposed to paid gigs, is that it really is acceptable to just decide mid-set that you only want to do one song. You do the song, get off stage and that’s it.

Last night at the Highlander, I arrived so late that I was No. 17 on the list and had a nearly 3 and a half hour wait until my moment to play. So that moment came well after 1 AM, and I had been drinking beer after beer – okay, three and a half – and talking to people all night. I had had a busy day, and the Highlander was so full it was elbow-room-only. There were a lot of interesting musicians, interesting people, and it was just a fabulous evening.

But by the time I got up to play I was really nearly overcome by fatigue and the beer, and the audience had all but disappeared. I told everyone that I had counted 14 people left in the room…to which one attractive young woman then decided to make a joke/heckle, and said, “Then let’s start the orgy!”

It was kind of funny. In fact, it completely knocked the wind out of me, as everyone started joking about her comment – including me. So how do I plunge into the seriousness of the emotion of a song after that, especially the one I planned to play, my latest concoction. Well, behaving “professionally,” I did just that.

But oh, dear, it did not feel good at all! I did not feel into the emotion, and I felt my legs shifting under the lightness of the beer and fatigue. I could not, in short, find the center within, the zone that is needed to connect with to sing. I decided to sing a completely different kind of song, “Only Our Rivers Run Free,” but as I thought of the orgy and thought of the lyrics in the song about laying down one’s life for one’s country… I could not mix the two, and the fatigue and the drink, and I simply stopped the intro chords and said, “Well, I think I will just leave it at one song tonight…..” And I left the stage.

It felt weird to wait 3 and a half hours to play my three songs, and then to do just one and walk out. But in the end, it felt right. And this being an open mic, it actually meant that there was still another musician waiting to get up, and an equally fatigued audience, so I did a few people a favor.

Still, I had enough energy and balance to go home and ride my usual 5 kilometers on the unicycle, to encounter some people in the street who wanted to try the unicycle, to let them – one had done it before – and to go to bed quite contented. There had been, after all, a lot of good music before my mini-set at the Highlander.

Earliest, Quickest, Thinnest Ever Report on Open Mic

July 18, 2012
bradspurgeon

I went to the Highlander a few hours ag – I’m writing this at 1:21 AM – and found I was around No. 121 on the list of performers for the evening. So I stayed and listened to a few acts and then decided “I really must be on my way,” to quote a line off a Jimi Hendrix album that appears in a song about earthlings and space aliens….

Anyway… realizing that I have to get up early tomorrow and drive to Germany for the weekend, I was certain that I would never get the videos and report up about the Highlander, and I really wanted to mark my territory on that one – even if I did not hang around to perform.

So it occurred to me to put it all up tonight before I spend the day driving tomorrow. This will, therefore, have been the earliest, quickest, Thinnest post about any open mic I have ever done…. the thing at the Highlander is most certainly still going on as I write these final words – they must be up to performer No. 110 by now….

Drop in over the next few days, and I hope to have some musical news from Germany….

Village of Paris: From Highlander to Shakespeare and Co and Back Again

July 12, 2012
bradspurgeon

Grabbing hold of your own destiny. It feels great when you do it. Last night I went to the Highlander open mic and found it bursting with life, musicians and spectators. So much so that I was around 20th on the list of performers, and I wondered how I was going to make it from around 9:30 PM to 00:30 AM standing, listening, drinking, before I got up to express myself.

After a beer, I decided that I knew no one with whom I wanted to have an extended conversation – despite some great friends present – as I was feeling a little low. I decided that my life is my own, and rather than standing there, I should go out into the evening and take a walk down the street to Shakespeare and Company bookstore to see if they had a recent issue of The New York Review of Books. I would freshen my spirt, and return to the open mic with a different mindset.

So I went. A nice night, sun still, not dark. And when I arrived at Shakespeare and Company I still had an hour there before it closed. I found an issue of the 12 July to 15 August of the NYBR and then decided to look at the books. I found a few that intrigued me, but I bought none. I then heard some piano from the first floor, and applause. Hmm… Life music?

I went upstairs and found the piano room in the library and there were a couple of teenagers, one with a violin and the other on the piano. They also had an electric guitar. There was a nice little audience of five or six people or more, of all ages. The musicians finished playing their song, saw my guitar and asked if I wanted to play. I sure did! So I did “Mad World,” and “Father and Son,” and the pianist and violin player joined me on the first, and the pianist tried to join me on the second too, but they were on the way out the door.

It was a real pleasure to play in amongst the books at this monument of Paris bookstores where you are truly free to roam, read, play and whatever…. When I finished my song, a woman with her boyfriend or husband, said, “Do you play at the Highlander sometimes?” I said I did, and she said she recognized me from perhaps three months before. She and the man had only been to the Highlander once, but she had remembered me. Ouch! That was cool. And it showed what a small village Paris can be sometimes.

Of course, it brightened my spirits massively, and I left Shakespeare and Company feeling as if I had been in control of my life and raising my downer spirit. I returned to the Highlander after barely an hour’s absence and walked in the door to order a beer, and a woman greeted me: “How are you?!? Long time no see. You cracking?” Or something like that. “Ready for some action?” she added. Well, I had to admit, “Yes.” I was ready. What was she proposing?

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening at the Highlander with her and a friend with her, whom I met and got on with like a highlander on fire. (sorry) I then performed my songs, and they liked it and the stuff went over well, despite me not doing only the usual stuff but trying something new.

The only drawback to what turned out to be a fabulous evening all together, was that I only managed to make three videos of the great musicians present last night. My favorite of the three is the one of Thomas Brun going crazy on the final song of the night with all his electronic toys. It was very cool, and grabbed the spirit of the night.

But meeting up with the woman of long time no see, and meeting the people who had seen me months earlier, it all made Paris feel like a village…. One where it is possible to control one’s destiny – or at least whether you are having fun or not…. 🙂

Aborted Highlander – for Me, Anyway (oh, and a video)

June 21, 2012
bradspurgeon

I managed to get to the Highlander open mic in Paris last night earlier than I got there the week before – around 9:20. But that still made me too late for a good spot on the list. I think I must have been around 15th. Given that I had to get up early to travel to Valencia today, I stayed and listened to a few interesting performers, and then cut out and called it a night. That’s always the problem with a popular and successful open mic – you HAVE to get there first, to have a good chance at playing before 1:30 AM! I guess I could call that an aborted night out, and this, an aborted post…. (Except for the cool videos in the darkness of the Highlander – oh, the video of Scott Bywater is aborted too after my Zoom Q3HD camera was inadvertently knocked to the floor…. :-))

Low Landing at High-lander

June 14, 2012
bradspurgeon

Sometimes I do not realize just how much fun I had on a trip to another world until I land back in my own again – despite loving my own world. But my trip to Montreal was obviously a lot more fun than I thought when I was there – and enjoying it – because I had a real sense of coming down to earth in Paris last night. What?!?! In Paris? Yes, well, I do live here, and I have developed certain weekly habits – and any habit can become routine.

So last night I went to the Highlander open mic feeling a little empty about everything. Fortunately there were some good and different musicians, starting with a wonderful rendition of a Bowie song by Thomas Brun, the MC. Then I decided that I would snap myself out of the sense of desolation that hit me as I realized that I was around No. 15 on the list and would not play until close to 1 AM, by deciding to use the waiting time to restring my guitar.

That was something I had planned to do for months, and never had the time for. So there I was, sitting in the open mic and waiting and losing no time, restringing my guitar. But I would pop up and record an act when I heard something good and interesting. There too, however, my trip to Canada sent me an aftershock….

I had no refill of batteries for my recording device, and a lot less power left than I thought. So I had to choose very carefully, and finally, the Zoom cut out in the middle of a cool act.

All of this made me determined NOT to do the same songs I always do, so I did my song, “Crazy Lady,” and Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” and Cat Stevens’s “Miles From Nowhere,” which was exactly how I felt last night – all of them.

In the end, had a good night, and felt like the man who fell to earth. Or something like that.

Quick Highlander Round-up

May 31, 2012
bradspurgeon

Time waits for no one, and things are stacking up, and today was tax day in France. So just a few words and some videos to mark my territory on a great night at the Highlander open mic last night!!! Anyway, super long posts get monotonous, no doubt….

I got to the Highlander late-ish but got to play at a reasonable time. I met up there with some old friends and new, like Salt Petal from the night before – and they were even better at the Highlander than at the Ptit Bonheur. And my bonheur was that after I played “Year of the Cat” as an opener, someone from the audience asked if I knew anything by the Righteous Brothers, so I jumped right into “Unchained Melody” instead of Cat’s in the Cradle. I finished with Borderline, just to show it to Salt Petal.

That should probably be about it. Check out the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qasO98HxSRI to see that it was a good night at one of Paris’s best open mics.