Thomas Brun | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Liftoff: Finally, a Paris Open Mic Night That Let Me Dream

December 6, 2012
bradspurgeon

Okay, so, after a couple of down nights, or average nights, or not so inspiring nights, or make me want to quit nights at the Paris open mics – no fault of the open mics – I finally had the dream moment last night. This was really, purely and simply down to a few factors, the two main ones being the person who runs one of the open mics and the audience at that open mic.

I started off by saying to myself that it was way too late to go to the Highlander open mic, since it is so popular that you have to show up at 8:15 if you really want to have a hope in hell of getting behind the mic before about 1:20 AM. So I went to the new and cool and laid-back Vieux Léon open mic in the Vieux Léon bar near the Pompidou Center. Part of the reason I went there, too, was because my inspiring friend Baptiste Hamon runs the open mic, and announced it on his facebook.

A letdown was that for the second time in a row, he wasn’t there! But the open mic was just as laid back and cool as usual. Furthermore, I found out that a guy who worked there was also head of the association of homeless people for whom the proceeds of my gig the week before on the Dame de Canton peniche were given. (Sorry for the twisted sentence.) So I was greeted warmly by him and by my friends the musician, and I got to play two sets and a total of six or seven songs. Great stuff. But I felt kind of low and out of it and not really cool or effective, with every song I sang.

Part of that feeling, I was sure, was that I had had such a great time the night before playing acoustically at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance at the end of the evening. On neither night, however, did my “Mrs Robinson” really seem to go down the way I had hoped – although less so at the Vieux Léon than at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance.

So anyway….

The Vieux Léon open mic ended at midnight and I decided to head over to the Highlander just to say hello to the friends I expected would be there. The Highlander is THE mainstay open mic of Paris, the best attended, best loved across the board, and always draws a loyal clientele of musicians and spectators. It is run by the genial Thomas Brun. For me, the problem remains always that it is so popular that I cannot get there in time for the 8:15 sign up that you basically have to do so not to be relegated to the graveyard set.

The other potential problem with it is that it is one of the most talkative audiences in the world. But at the same time, it is also one of the most captive audiences and if you manage to grab that audience and lift it out of the talk vein, then you have an amazing experience of singalong and love attention.

Well, the place was rocking when I got there near 12:30. And Thomas Brun was really warm in welcoming me back after a couple of months of absence with all the trips around the world I had made that prevented me from attending. I met up with old friends, talked, listened to some cool musicians – met a guy I had seen playing at around age 16 and who was now around 20 and playing better – and I just generally fell into the nice warm world of the Highlander.

Then Thomas came up to me and said one of the people who had signed up had just disappeared and if I wanted to, I could do a set. I was really delighted, as I never expected that. And it was so kind of Thomas to suggest it, rather than take advantage of just closing down early. So before I knew it, I was up to play. And I decided that this crowd was hot and ready for stuff that they could take part in – and so, after what I’d been through for the previous two nights, was I.

Totally unexpected, Thomas announced me at the mic, introducing the return of the guy who had been around the world since the last time he played there a couple of months before, and everyone cheered to a degree that left me speechless. I had to give. So I started with “I Won’t Back Down,” of Tom Petty, and it went really well. On that, I thought I could push it a bit more and go for the so-far not fantastically successful “Mrs. Robinson,” and whoosh…..! It was a huge success, everything I could ever have dreamed of. I knew suddenly what it felt like to be a rock star and have everyone sing along and feel the love together with you as you do it.

It confirmed my feeling that I could add Mrs Robinson to my list of “crowd pleasers,” and I was just blown off my feet. I then said I did not know what to do next, but I wanted another drug addiction song, crowd pleasing thing. So I said, “Mad World” or “What’s Up!” and two voices said, “Mad World.” I actually wanted to do it, and I dived right into it. As I began that song, this darling gorgeous young woman with a bandana – what, 20 years old? – came up and started dancing beside me next to the mic as I played. I thought she was there to join me in the chorus too, but she wasn’t. So we just went through the whole thing with her dancing, and the crowd clapping, dancing and singing along.

I KNOW what it means to feel like a rock star and have this communion with the audience. It was last night at the Highlander. Thank you. Of course, next goal is to have the same reaction to one of my own songs – although I have had similar things occasionally. But I can imagine what i must feel like for Simon & Garfunkel or Bob Dylan or the Beatles, when everyone knows the song and sings along and goes crazy with you as you go crazy…. Thanks Highlander!

Bad Luck at the Good Luck Bar – or I WOS There, They Weren’t

August 22, 2012
bradspurgeon

However great, omniscient, informative and even invasive Facebook may be, it is NOT the place for an acquaintance to make an announcement on behalf of an event the person usually has nothing to do with in organizing it. So it was that I had told a couple of inquirers that the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar was indeed happening last night after a single session break last Tuesday. And so it was I rushed down my dinner, rushed on some clean clothes that I ironed, rushed out the door and hurried up to the bar to find that it was closed.

Fortunately, I knew that although my night of giving entertainment had a fall-back in receiving entertainment just up the road at the WOS bar, where the host of the Highlander open mic, Thomas Brun, was giving one of his weekly concerts. There I met a friend who attends a few of the same open mics I attend, but she as a spectator only, and it was from her that I learned one of our mutual Facebook friends had announced the sudden and unexpected closing of the Ptit Bonheur la Chance.

It was not, I discovered, the person most likely to make that announcement – the MC – but this musician who plays there most weeks, and who IS a friend on Facebook. But unfortunately, Facebook just is not reliable enough to make that sort of announcement, so I and I guess a few of the other people who thought it was open – including those whom I told – will have showed up and found they wasted an evening. (I hope it was not something really serious that kept it closed.) The month of August in Paris continues its reputation as a dead month. Forget April, T.S., August is the cruelest month!

Well, no, it was not a wasted evening, in the end, as I did go and listen to Thomas Brun. And there I heard the one-man band playing practically nothing but songs that I never hear him play as the Highlander MC. I am continually amazed at this man’s repertoire. When I commented on it afterwards, Thomas told me that he had a whole lot of songs he did not usually sing to open the open mic at the Highlander because he did not want to get the crowd too excited, foot stompingly mad right at the beginning of the evening, with much thought of whoever might take to the mic right after him. IE, who might be a lot, lot more down tempo and romping. As I then said to Thomas, following him is a difficult task for any musician no matter what he may decide to play.

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.

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…. 🙂

Wicked Games, Betrayals, and Laughing at Oneself with Impossibly Crazy Stories – Through Two Open Mics

June 28, 2012
bradspurgeon

I did not have the time to put up a blog item last night because I had a devastating night the night before followed by an offer to meet an old friend to pick up a lent book that was so important to me that it took precedence over the blog posting – THEN I had to go on to my next open mic adventure. But that means stories of three venues here on this page today, as I made a brief transitional stopover on Tuesday at a bar where the host of the Wednesday night open mic was playing. Things get simpler:

So, the devastating night on Tuesday? Well, I think I just now suddenly realized that it all fits into a general movement and theme right here now: On Monday night at the Coolin bar I had started feeling problems of loyalty and correct, good treatment of people to other people. Right? Okay, so on Tuesday I go to the Ptit Bonheur la Chance open mic, and my faith in the goodness and correctness and rightness of human nature is reinforced as the MC and organizer, sometimes known as Ollie Joe, fought off a somewhat aggressive effort by another musician to hold the stage while calling up his friend to sing a duo with him after his own slot, but with me standing in the wings holding my guitar as I had been told I would play next.

So Ollie Joe holds his ground and say, “Yes, fine. After Brad.” “No,” he repeats. “Not now, Brad is on next.” More insistence…, and Ollie Joe again says: “She can go up after Brad. It’s his turn.”

Oh boy did that feel good and right!!! So I had a good time at the Ptit Bonheur, sang some quieter songs, and put my head out on a limb dying to get one right that I have so rarely got right, and I did: “Only Our Rivers Run Free.” So then I leave with my friend Brislee Adams to go to make a brief stop on the way home to take in a few songs by the transition man, the MC of the following night’s open mic, Thomas Brun, who was playing not far from the Ptit Bonheur la Chance, in the Wos Bar on blvd St. Jacques, and he was playing in duet with Philippe Germaine. They were really good.

That was a transition to the Highlander open mic last night…. or not really. The transition was that I get back on Tuesday night and discover by Facebook that the woman who last Tuesday and Wednesday made out with me in a bar, sang with me on stage, invited me back to her place and told me I was the man of her life, she had realized how important I was to her, and loved me and wanted to run off to Spain with me for the weekend to see if we could really live together – as we had broken up and got back together – we make love on Wednesday in her apartment and then…suddenly after the first step of becoming “in a relationship” on Facebook with another guy on Saturday she has the guy MOVE INTO HER APARTMENT TO LIVE WITH HER, as of Tuesday, which I discover on Facebook as I arrive back home. Just a week after I was the man of her life she’ with another guy and I did nothing to provoke it!!!!

Okay, so that was the REAL transition. So I go off to meet this other woman from a previous relationship, pick up the book and find the woman has not changed one iota – which I had not expected anyway – and then I go off to the Highlander. I see Thomas Brun immediately, he signs me up, for once I’m pretty early on the list, and allows me to go out and eat my dinner – a loyal, honest and direct signer upper at open mics. So I got out for a falafel, come back, hear some good music, and get inspired by one of the performers who is a good storyteller. He tells tales before his songs. So I decide at the last minute to do the same thing.

I tell the tale of this woman who tells me she loves me and I’m the man of her life, we make love, she wants my child, etc., then of how she is “in a relationship” with another guy a few days later, and living with the guy as of the very night before! I say something like this to wrap up the story: “Now if that is not a ‘Wicked Game,’ I do not know what is. So then I sing Wicked Game, by Chris Issak. Then I decide to continue on the same theme, and I sing my song “Borderline,” about a treacherous love affair with an unstable woman. Then I finish off with the most logical song for the series: “What’s Up!” with its appropriate chorus: “What’s Goin’ On!!!”

PS., anyone who knows me well will know that it was all my fault from the beginning and I never should have seen the treacherous woman!!!! But still, I thought I had seen every possible scenario! In fact, no. There was still this other one to come. NO MORE!!!

PPS., not sure I should write such personal items on this blog, but what the hell – one from the heart…. One reason I am putting it up here is that I am capable of laughing at myself and what a fool I can be. No problem showing that publicly. Plus it’s the sort of story that if it was NOT true, no one would believe!

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.

Highlander on the Move Too

January 19, 2012
bradspurgeon

This could be considered Part III in the series of Paris open mics coming back into the usual high level of attendance and action, as the Highlander open mic was bustling full of performers and spectators last night. Thomas Brun, the founding MC of the open mic, had also returned from his winter holidays, and was in great singing form.

I managed to get there at a reasonable hour for once, signed up and got on in about the middle of the evening, so that was great. Even greater was having an upright bass accompany me on all three of my songs. I started with “Crazy Love,” since I wanted to do a kind of “Irish” soul song, to try to match Conn Bux’s Irish soul…. I had met Conn last week at the Galway, and then on Monday at the Galway, and then there he was at the Highlander.

I did my song, “Except Her Heart,” and then “Mad World.” It was great fun playing with the acoustic upright bass!

Conn was great, and I particularly enjoyed his song he wrote when he was 16 years old, about some rotten boss he had in a sandwich joint.

There were several new performers and a few more established ones, including All the Roads, who did his wonderful Irish song by Damon Rice, with some French in the middle of it – but my recording device was not turned on or died out or something, during that one….

After the Highlander I popped in to the Cavern to find its open mic – or live karaoke – just bursting at the seams with musicians and spectators, including Dr. Chouette, whom I videoed at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance a few weeks ago. And he invited me to his concert this Friday at the Abracadabra bar….

But I had by then drunk a little too much to go up on stage and try to repair my damaged reputation on the ill-fated rendition of “What’s Up!” a few weeks earlier, so I decided to return home after listening to a few fine songs…. I especially liked the Peter Gabriel one they did with one of the regular guitarists doing the singing, and the bass player doing the Kate Bush part of the song… Don’t give up….

Happy 5th Birthday Highlander Open Mic in Paris – and a Visit to the Cavern

September 29, 2011
bradspurgeon

Five years that the Highlander open mic has been running in Paris. That is a very long time for open mics, even if there are some around the world that have been going for several decades. But this is clearly the work of a good venue and the presenter, Thomas Brun, who does a great job of organizing and hosting the open mic. Last night’s birthday celebration of the fifth year was an example of that, as Brun took the trouble to celebrate, put up balloons, have a birthday cake, a free drink for musicians, and someone donated a guitar as a gift!

It was almost a perfect open mic evening, too, with interesting musicians regular and new. And an audience that was typical for the Highlander, celebrating the music when they liked it, talking when they felt it didn’t fit their mood. Whatever, I enjoyed it immensely. And I had the honor of playing my three songs just before Thomas brought out the birthday cake. Unfortunately I just missed the blowing out of the candles with my video camera.

Even so, I felt the need to go on to the Cavern Club vocal jam open mic thingy up the street on the rue Dauphine with a couple of friends. Unfortunately I did not sing there, as the list of songs contains nothing I feel competent at. But there was some great stuff.

Business Picks up as Summer Fades at The Highlander Open Mic in Paris

September 1, 2011
bradspurgeon

Something in the air last night told me that the traditional month of August in Paris was finished. The Highlander open mic was as big as ever, but this time there was a very high level of musician from beginning to end. (Well, until I left around midnight, in any case.) Thomas Brun, the MC, did some cool songs as usual, and I particularly enjoyed his duelling harmonica thing with one of the performers who would perform later.

Thomas Arlo did his Elvis song and then a Dylan and then a Beirut, and there were some other great voices of people I had not seen before. I did my “Borderline,” “Mad World,” and for the first time my memorized “Runaway Train.” It did not run away from me. So I was happy.

No much more to say, unfortunately. I am perhaps a little spoiled by the travel and tasting so many new – for me – open mics around the world all the time that I have less to say about this Paris one? No, just something else in the air.