The Highlander | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Talkin’ Highlander Blues

March 3, 2011
bradspurgeon

Last night it was back to The Highlander open mic again. And I must say, I did not see that much that excited me in the way of wanting to make videos for this site. On the other hand, I did a lot more talking than I usually do at The Highlander, thus falling into the same crime as about 95 percent of the audience in that open mic. So probably while I was chatting a future star passed before me unknown to me.

It is one of the drawbacks of the open mic format that a lot of the people who attend are musicians who do NOT care for the other musicians’ music and don’t listen…. And then a lot of public is there for only certain friends, and they don’t listen to the others. By the time I got up last night there were only a handful of people left, and they listened. By the time Thomas Brun, the MC, got up to do his final closing bit, EVERYONE listened. But that was as much because Thomas seemed to me at that point – and by then I had ceased to chat much – to be on an even higher level than usual.

I rarely say much about the MCs of open mics here, but it is worth devoting three videos to Thomas. The first is a Nirvana song, the other two are a first and second part of the same song – which, as you will see, takes a certain amount of courage to be sung by a man…. (Someone knocked down my camera or it got turned off, so I did the video in two parts.

I also got Flavie Fontaine’s first song of the evening down on video for this page. She was the second performer of the night, and she has some very interesting, original stuff – this song being a fine example of it.

Mini Post: Rehearsal AND open mic

February 24, 2011
bradspurgeon

Rehearsed for three and a half hours last night with Félix and Virgile in preparation for our concert of my songs and a few cover songs too, the first concert in “group formation” – at the Disquaires in Paris on Sunday. It was a lot of fun, and really cool to work with these two for the first time on my most recent song, Borderline.

I nevertheless got out of the studio at 11:30 AM and that gave me time to go over to The Highlander for the tail end of the open mic. And who should I see playing as soon as I enter but Rony Boy, who is also part of the bill at the Disquaires on Sunday, as he will play with his band “The Romantic Black Shirts.” So suddenly I had a theme for the blog….

Actually, it was cool to see the power of Johnny Cash songs in an open mic situation, as Rony played a Cash song and got the crowd clapping and banging. And the theme runs away with itself now, as Thomas Brun also got the crowd clapping and banging, but through a different method – as you will see in the video below. For my part, I managed to play two songs, starting with “Miles From Nowhere,” by Cat Stevens. And since that went over pretty well I decided on a theme and played for second song, the Cat’s “Father and Son”… which I had also been rehearsing with Félix and Virgile. (Félix of the “Burnin’ Jacks” and Virgile of “Natas Loves You.”

Normally you have to be at the Highlander by 8:30 to get a good spot on the list. But as I arrived after midnight, I had a spot immediately as the last performer – around 1 AM….

Mini Post: Lean On Me

January 14, 2011
bradspurgeon

Nothing much to report after being destroyed by David Broad’s guitar playing on Tuesday. Went to the Highlander and the Cavern on Wednesday, and liked the cover of the Bill Withers song by the replacement MC at the Highlander.

Remember Bill Withers? This guy wrote some extraordinary songs, and if you did not know they were all written by him, the sound of the songs would not give it away – what a range. I mean, “Lean On Me,” and “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Just the Two of Us.” Three unconnected masterpieces.

Only other thing to report is the new blog for Paris expats about musical goings on. It’s called “Gigs in Paris.” Check it out.

Tonight, I’m off to the Industry of Cool festival at the Maroquinerie. There I will listen intently to the many bands that grew up at Earle’s Open Mic….

And I also want to announce my first gig with a band coming up at the Disquaires on 27 February. Also on the program will be Calvin McEnron and also The Romantic Black Shirts.

Another Wednesday Double-header, this Time with Joe on Violin

January 6, 2011
bradspurgeon

I was sitting in the Highlander last night when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Joe Cady and his violin case. It was the first time I’d seen Joe at the Highlander. Joe and I have had a funny criss-crossing life in Paris. Joe works in computers by day and on the violin, guitar and voice by night. He’s from somewhere in the U.S. where the accent is noticeable. He plays a mean violin, but his main instrument is the guitar.

We met at Norman Spinrad’s 60th birthday party in 2000 in Paris near Notre Dame. We then ran into each other a couple of years ago at the Biz’Art jam session near the place de la Nation, where we saw each other a couple more times. We then met up again at Norman Spinrad’s 70th birthday party in Paris in September. Then Joe came and played along with me at my brunch at the Mecano, where he also joined up with David Broad, and went on to do a gig with him.

Joe was at the Highlander with Rony Boy on guitar and vocals in order to warm up for a gig they are doing at the Baroc this Saturday in their band, The Romantic Black Shirts.

As a warm up for his warm up for his gig, Joe offered to play violin along with me at the Highlander. I was to perform just before them. I agreed to this whole-heartedly, as it is always a pleasure to play with Joe, and it is always nice to have the weapon of a bigger wall of sound at an open mic aside from just the voice and guitar. But I had to change song choices to suit this, and I decided to go with “Crazy Love,” which Joe suggested, with “Not Much in the Mood,” the song I wrote at 16 about losing a lover and being in the mood for nuthin’ (and which I have now given a name after X decades), and “Just Like a Woman.”

It went over very well, I felt good, felt into the music, wore no sun glasses, made no explanations about my black eye, and the three songs were filmed by some guy with a pretty professional video camera, and he may be sending me the results eventually. It felt right on.

Joe and Rony Boy then played and they were really together, and they got the whole room moving and shaking and tapping the tables with the Johnny Cash song I recorded…..

There was the interesting 73-year-old British “chap” who played before me, and for a while I was worried that I might be overshadowed by him – but in the end, the contrast proved helpful. I’d heard of this man doing the open mics – and apparently he uses my list of open mics to find places – but this was the first time I had seen him.

After Joe’s performance I suggested to him that we go to the Cavern, which had its open vocal jam just around the corner. I had a hunch I could get Joe up there playing with the band and with his violin, and I was right. And it proved to be the longest jam I’d seen at the Cavern’s open mic, and it was very cool – “Sympathy for the Devil,” with Joe singing and playing violin…. (oh, and reading the lyrics too….)

The Amazing 15-year-old, David Woroner at The Highlander

December 23, 2010
bradspurgeon

There were a number of acts worth talking about at the Highlander open mic last night, but I’m going to devote this post to David Woroner, 15, from Toronto. This kid just stole the show, stole the night, ran away with everyone’s hearts.

I had noticed in a first glance behind me at one point this very bizarre looking adult who just did not fit in The Highlander – until I realized that this was not a bizarre-looking adult at all. It was a 15-year-old kid from Toronto, on holidays in Paris with his dad and a family friend. The Kid, as he should be known, arrived a little later than most of the performers, and Thomas Brun decided to fit him in on the list, and went and asked a few people if it was okay for The Kid to go before them. I don’t know how many performers were asked, but when it came to me, I said, “Sure, of course, no problem!!”

But I turned and took another look at The Kid, and then I turned and told a friend at my table that I was sure I was going to be crucified. “I think I probably just screwed myself,” I said to her, “this kid is probably going to be some fabulous talent and he’s going to knock everyone out. Then I will go up and play and I’ll be like nothing next to his show.”

On the level of novelty value alone, I was pretty sure I’d be screwed. But whenever I get in a situation like that – or as often as I can – when someone really good or entertaining for whatever reason goes up before me, I always try to remember that all I – or any other musician – has to do as a response is to sing a song that is “true,” “real,” a reflection of your heart and others’.

In any case, Thomas later came up and said, “Change of plan. You’re going up now, the kid will go up after you.”

Phew!!!! I sighed relief. I threw all my heart and soul and body into my three songs: “Crazy Love,” “Borderline” and “Father and Son,” and I got some really enthusiastic applause and screaming of joy even during the songs, particularly the second two.

But I would bask in this feeling of accomplishment and love for no more than about 20 seconds when the audience suddenly took in the image of The Kid behind the mic and with the big guitar. He was so small by comparison to all the other artists that appeared – all adults – and so clearly a kid, that it caught everyone’s attention immediately. Then, man, when David “The Kid” Woroner belted into his chords and singing of his first song, he had won over the audience’s respect and love within the first couple of bars. “What the hell is this!?!?” In short, The Kid could sing. And better than most of the performers that went up last night. Not only that, he had some kind of clear, innate, rock ‘n roll attitude and an impeccable sense of rhythm, no struggle with the guitar and vocals, or if there was, he dealt with it like a pro.

I sighed a sigh of relief that I had not, indeed, been chosen to follow this act! I turned to my friend again and said to her, “You see!”

“Yes, you would have had a hard time,” she said. (For which I wanted to probe her to find out exactly what she meant by agreeing with me like that!!)

I was also disappointed, however, that my batteries ran out on my Zoom Q3 and all I had to record The Kid was my iPhone 4, so the sound would not be as good. Below are two videos, (the “creep” one ends with closer shots of him at the mic as I moved up the room).

After, I spoke to David and asked him if he played in open mics in Toronto. “No.”

He have a myspace? “No.”

His dad corrected one thing, “He has played at Grossman’s Tavern.”

“That dive?!?!” I said, in surprise for a kid doing such a place….

And David added, “I have a group and we have played around here and there.”

In fact, most of how he has learned his chops, it seems, is through this family friend, also named David, who comes around and plays with him in the living room all the time. I have put in a video below of that David playing “Psycho Killer,” in order to show where The Kid’s training comes from.

The Kid’s got a future, maybe….

Oh, and P.S., as soon as The Kid finished his three or four first songs, the Highlander just cleared out! Everyone went out to smoke a cigarette or something else, and the next performer had hardly anyone there to listen. It filled up again soon, and at the end of the night, The Kid went up to sing several more songs.

Toys at the Highlander, Soprano Sax at the Cavern

December 16, 2010
bradspurgeon

Checked out both the Highlander open mic and the Cavern vocal jam session last night. I was particularly impressed at the Highlander by Thomas Brun’s electronic toys he hooks up the guitar and voice too. It is not the first time I have talked about these, but I’m starting to feel more and more like I should invest – it turns every musician into a Dick Van Dyke in the “Mary Poppins” film. Remember? Going around with a drum strapped to him and symbols on his feet and I don’t know what all? The one man band? But in this case, you just have your guitar, and so you do not look so silly. It is a way of getting around the simple guitar/vocal problem of performing alone.

It was quite a different experience at the Cavern. This, as readers of this blog know, is a cool vocal jam in which a very hot band plays standards of rock, blues, soul etc., and anyone from the audience can get up and sing the lyrics – which are located on a book of lyrics in front of you, as in karaoke. I stink at this exercise. But I like going to the Cavern anyway, and seeing just how bad I might potentially sound next to all the professional singers who seem to flock to this place. It can be very discouraging. But the high moment for me last night was to see and hear the guest musician who jumped in with his soprano saxophone during some of the songs. Listen to this guy in video – you have to let it advance a little before he comes in. Then you can think maybe I should have asked him if he could play “My Favorite Things,” like John Coltrane. I didn’t ask.

An 8th of December in Paris, and long ago in Toronto and New York

December 9, 2010
bradspurgeon

I have always kept the same image in my mind of me walking down a snowy Toronto street, at Bathurst and Queen Streets, to be precise, and looking down at the slush and ice on the sidewalk, and up at the lights above the street, and thinking about the death of John Lennon. It was 8 December 1980, and I had had my own birthday the day before and I think I was basking in some strange sense of how I could be feeling good about my birthday – this is no longer the case – while Lennon would never reach another year, and the world – and I – was swamped by the tragedy of his death. How could such an icon die? Worse, be murdered?

In any case, who knows why we sometimes have certain banal images attached in our minds with big events (I mean, why Bathurst and Queen Streets? Right next to the Wheatsheaf Tavern, I think it was….) Of course, it’s the “where were you when John Lennon (or JFK or Martin Luther King etc) died?” question and phenomenon….

So last night, in Paris it was the 30th anniversary of Lennon’s murder, and not only did I have the memory of the snow Toronto evening in my mind as I walked to the Highlander to play in the open mic but I actually also had the same image of the Paris streets and sidewalk and streetlights: Paris was, as Toronto was 30 years before, under a blanket of snow and slush and ice. Where such a thing is banal in Toronto, however, here in Paris it means the city nearly stops functioning.

To Thomas Brun‘s great credit, however, the open mic went on. And it was quite a success, considering that most people had a hard time getting there – no buses, all taxis occupied, streets unwalkable, and metros full. While the Highlander went on, I learned later that the vocal jam at the Cavern was called off because some of the musicians could not get into town.

So it was that the theme at the Highlander was John Lennon. Just before he opened the evening Thomas told me I would go up after him – if I wanted – and began the evening singing three Lennon songs. I was rubbing my hands with delight at the thought that I would play second because I know only one John Lennon song, and that is, “Jealous Guy.” So I thought that I had a very, very good chance to be able to play it. If I went up in the middle of the evening, I was sure someone would play it before me. Oh dear, the third song Thomas did was… “Jealous Guy.”

But I did have a joker, and that was a song that Lennon did, and his rendition of it – rather than the original – is what really got me to thinking I should learn it. So I told the crowd that I would do “Stand By Me” as my Lennon tribute.

This was a night to remember as well, as it turned out, for Paris was SOOOO closed down that by the time I decided to go home the metro had stopped, all of the few remaining taxis were occupied – and every street corner had someone trying to flag down a cab – and all the hotels were booked. I finally managed to find a hotel room for a few hundred euros after a last minute cancellation by someone, and because I got to the counter before the many people sleeping on the floor and couches of the lobby…. Airplanes had been cancelled too, and people could not return to their homes so the hotels were crowded. Only in Paris!!!!!

Zara, Ollie and Texas in Paris at the Highlander

December 2, 2010
bradspurgeon

It was Wednesday, so it was the Highlander. I had been intending to sign up early at the Highlander, and then run over to the Tennessee to see Rafa and his band, with Les DeShane on lead. But in the end, I immediately signed up for the Highlander and met a newcomer, Zara Sophia, from England, so I just had to sit and talk and learn about her, as I had a feeling that she might have some talent.

How can one have that feeling? No idea. But I did, in fact, enjoy immensely what Zara did, so give it a listen and see if you agree – in the video below.

It was a great night with Ollie Fury doing a great song of his, with wonderful fingerpicking, and his rich voice. And one of the best moments of the whole night, unfortunately for the audience, ended up being last: Texas in Paris. Baptiste of Texas in Paris is the guy who hosted the Thanksgiving evening of music at the Disquaires last week, and he decided to come around and sing three of his songs. Fabulous. If only he had not been scheduled last, or if only the crowd had stuck around for his original sound….

I played three songs, and weirdly, oddly, bizarrely, found myself destroying my song “Since You Left Me,” by placing words in the wrong place, changing words and going mad with the realization – and trying to hold the whole thing together anyway as if it was all being done the way it is supposed to be. What fun!

Life Goes on Bro

November 12, 2010
bradspurgeon

Back from Brazil to Paris, I played in the Highlander and the monthly open mic at the Copains bar. I felt a sudden warmth at living in a city where there is an open mic just about every day of the week, not to mention music of all other kinds everywhere.

On the other hand, there’s little new to add to this blog, since I’ve gone over that ground so often. The only new thing, I would say, is that the song I wrote when I was 16 about losing a lover has become part of my regular repertoire now that I figured out how to transpose the chords down lower so that my voice – now deeper than when I was 16 – can sing it without being burned out. And the song is still, as the French say, “d’actualité.”

So rather than blah blah blahing, for once I will keep it short and just put up a few videos of the two nights. All are from the Highlander except the guy who has a guitar that he converted into a sitar….

Further Cool Meetings and Discoveries at The Highlander

October 14, 2010
bradspurgeon

I will keep my wordage to an absolute minimum here since I have written so much about the Highlander. Suffice to say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable open mic in Paris last night, and that like the one on Monday I had a meeting of minds with a foreign group on visit to this country. Also had a reunion with Ollie Fury for the first time since we played together in Singapore a few weeks ago. And got to see live David Broad play his St. James Infirmary, which is superb.

The meeting of minds, as it were, was with the two members of the band NoLand Folk from western Ireland.

I enjoyed their songs, especially the fun one about drinking up. And afterwards I spoke to Edel and found a lot of common ground, not just in music but in an interest in writing. But the high moment of that conversation was surely when we both connected totally on Paul Brady’s version of Arthur McBride, and we sang a few of the versions together. We both knew the video below as a high point of the return to Irish traditional music:

Here are a few of the videos I took from last night at The Highlander, oh, yes, and Thomas Brun’s version of the Dylan song, “Tangled Up in Blue,” which I love singing too, but cannot memorize….