Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics | Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Major Updates to the thumbnail-guide-to-PARIS-open-mics-jam-sessions-and-other-live-music

May 4, 2014
bradspurgeon

Paris Skyline

PARIS – It was the list that started all of my lists of open mics around the world, and started in Paris four years ago. It has grown to a huge popularity, and led to my more than 20 other such guides of open mics and jam sessions around the world. Today I finally got around to updating my Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, since making sure the list is up-to-date is the key to these things, and the biggest pain in the butt! But that pain is always washed away when I get emails, meet people and hear from other sources of the utility of the list. Then the pain turns to a great feeling of usefulness and purpose!

A word about the updates: The Tireuse open mic has been taken off the list, as it has finally really ended – it used to be called the Ptit Bonheur la Chance – as has the Anthracite jam, which I can find no evidence still exists. I have, on the other hand, added several new open mics and jams: The blues jam at the Angora, and open mics at the Café Oz Blanche, at the Blues Bar and the cabaret open mic of the Soirée Buzz. And there is, happily, another old open mic returning after a brief disappearance: That of the Lizard Lounge, the first Sunday of the month. I have also begun to add a new feature, which I’ve been incorporating in my worldwide open mic guide lists elsewhere, which is to put links from the guide entry to a sample story that I have written about my own experience at the open mic in the past. (How many other city or country guides to open mics can boast doing that nice little multimedia trick??!!!???)

Just to remind open mic people around the world, and readers of this blog, I am also this year updating all of my other open mic guides around the world as I do my sixth musical adventure around the world. So keep posted for the updates, each time I visit a new country this year – more than 20 of those….

In the meantime, here, again, is the updated Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music.

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Note and Update on Worldwide Thumbnail Guide of Open Mics

October 4, 2013
bradspurgeon

MOKPO, South Korea – This short post has practically no connection at all with my dateline of Mokpo, South Korea. Or rather, maybe it does: Because I failed to find anywhere to play last night in this less-than-lively town on the south tip of Korea, I decided that my blog post would be connected to the worldwide open mic guide.

I have just returned to make updates in the Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, the only major change being the return of what used to be called the open mic at the Ptit Bonheur la Chance bar, but which is now called, “La Tireuse.” As most readers of this blog will know, I’ve written extensively about the former, and now the great news is that after being closed down from May to September, the open mic was reborn last month at the renamed bar, which is under a new ownership. It looks as if it will continue to operate in the same way, and is being run by the same genial MC, Ollie Joe. I could not keep it off the guide any longer.

The Coming Weeks of the Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide and Adventure:

I also decided I would use this short post just to mention that in the coming two months I will hardly be present in Paris at all, as I complete the final stages of my around-the-world open mic adventure in visiting another six countries and putting up at least another six editions of the Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide. I’m in Korea now, and in the next seven weeks there will be a rapid-fire succession of new entries covering cities in Japan, India, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Brazil.

I also intend now to add during the same period a new section to the Thumbnail Guide: Up to now the only open mics that I have listed on the guides have been those that I have played in myself. I will continue to keep those under their own listing, but I will henceforth begin adding a list of open mics that I have heard of from other people and intended to play but couldn’t, or just thought seemed like good open mics. But they will be listed under a different category so that my own list remains the only one I can really vouch for, and the other list will be recommendations from others – for which, if you want to send me information from the places you know, please do.

Micro-Post: Update of the Thumbnail Guide to Open Mics in Paris

August 18, 2013
bradspurgeon

PARIS – As I start to prepare for my trip to Belgium later in the week, I thought I would just update my Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, with a couple of new listings – and the removal of the Lizard Lounge listing, as that one seems finally to have died a lizard’s death. I have added the Escargot Underground listing – under Thursdays – and the Caveau des Oubliettes, which I have long known about and played at a couple of times, but for reasons beyond my understanding, I have not until now got around to putting on the list!!! Despite it being one of the mainstay open jam sessions of the city….

Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide: Cologne Edition

July 7, 2013
bradspurgeon

Tankstelle Cologne

COLOGNE, Germany – For my 10th city installment of my worldwide open mic guide today I am loading my Cologne, Germany page. As a reminder, it all started with my now very popular Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, and due to that guide’s success, I decided this year to do a similar guide for each of the cities I travel to during my worldwide open mic tour.

The Musically Less Than Great Cologne is a Bad Place for Open Mics

I go to Cologne while attending the German Grand Prix when it is run at the Nurburgring in the south of Germany, near Bonn and Cologne and another city the name of which slips my mind. The point is, there is not much choice in the region for places to go for open mics, so I chose Cologne as one of the major cultural and nightlife cities of the region. It is a wonderful, beautiful city with lots of culture – but a lower than average number of live music joints for a city of this nature – in my opinion. And after my third biannual visit to the city I have still only found one open mic, although I have heard of the existence of two or maybe three others over the years, but they either always seem to close down or never have existed, really. So this will be my weakest, poorest, thinnest list of open mics in any of my Thumbnail Guides to date.

Worldwide Open Mic Guide Philosophy

The only guide I am really in a good position to update regularly is that of Paris, since I live there. But I decided to do guides to all the other 20 and more cities on my worldwide open mic tour in order to give the knowledge I have personally of each city’s open mics. The guide has links to sites I know of local guides that may be more up-to-date, but I have chosen to list the open mics or jam sessions that I have played in myself. There may be others that I know of, but if I have not played there, I will not include it on the list. That way, the user learns a little of my own impressions. But I cannot be as certain that the guide is up-to-date – so check before you go.

So here, now, in any case is the Thumbnail Guide to Cologne Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music. Please do help me whenever you have information to give me on venues.

Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide: Barcelona Edition

May 11, 2013
bradspurgeon

BARCELONA – For my sixth city installment of my worldwide open mic guide today I am loading my Barcelona page. As a reminder, it all started with my now very popular Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, and due to that guide’s popularity I decided this year to do a similar guide for each of the cities I travel to during my worldwide open mic tour.

Worldwide Open Mic Guide Philosophy

More Experience Than Existing Open Mics

Unfortunately, given the ephemeral nature of open mics – and bars themselves – in virtually all of the cities in the guide my own personal experience of playing open mics in the city in question usually goes way beyond the number of venues listed, since they things arise and close very frequently.

Mostly Jam Sessions in Barcelona

There are far more jam sessions in Barcelona than open mics as such – but the jams act as open mics too, and this is a guide to venues of both philosophies.

So here, now, in any case is the Thumbnail Guide to Barcelona Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music. Please do help me whenever you have information to give me on the venues – i.e., especially if they close down!

Thumbnail Guide to Open Mics Shanghai Edition

April 14, 2013
bradspurgeon

I did not do any open mics or other musical performances in Shanghai last night, aside from writing a song in my hotel room and putting together the promised Shanghai version of my Thumbnail Guide to Open Mics.

So here is the Thumbnail Guide to Shanghai Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music, to add to the other three, for Paris, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur.

Another Thumbnail Guide, This Time for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

March 23, 2013
bradspurgeon

Kuala Lumpur Skyline

In my fifth year of my worldwide open mic adventure, I have decided as I said in the post at the start of the travel, to publish a Thumbnail Guide to the local open mics and other venues, as I did a few years ago with my Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music.

Following on the introduction of my guide to Melbourne last week, this time it is for the capital city of Malaysia: Thumbnail Guide to Kuala Lumpur Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music.

Lot’s of people around the world would not imagine that Malaysia is a very, very musical country, and it’s open mic scene is very vibrant at the moment, and growing. There is some fantastic vocal talent in the country, and for most world travelling musicians, it is also a great city to visit to have a taste of Asia but with English as a language spoken and sung by almost everyone….

Launch of the Multiple Thumbnail Guide Open Mic Pages – First Stop, Melbourne, Australia

March 18, 2013
bradspurgeon

Before embarking on my fifth worldwide tour of open mics and jam sessions last week, I announced on this site that one of my projects for the year would be to expand my popular “Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics,” by adding making a collection of such pages, by adding a new page for each of the 19 other countries I visit around the world this year.

Today I have taken the first step, by putting up my guide to Melbourne, Australia open mics. I have also rearranged the blog to simplify and make sense of the new series of thumbnail guides. The Paris guide and the Melbourne guide and all future guides will be located in a new menu item at the top of the blog page, called “Worldwide Open Mic Thumbnail Guide,” which has a page with a full explanation of the project.

As I explain, the new pages will not be as exhaustive as the Paris page, since I live in Paris. But I hope they will help travellers and locals, and I also ask for locals and travellers to provide me with any open mics they think should be listed, by sending a word in the comments area on the relevant page, and I will add it to the list.

Updated Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics

November 11, 2012
bradspurgeon

Didn’t go out last night, just chose to play some music at home and get my life in order. Failed at the latter, but did play music. Today, updated the Thumbnail Guide to Paris Open Mics, Jam Sessions and other Live Music. It is easy to let such a guide fall to the wayside and get out of date. The problem is, I frequently meet people at open mics who use it and thank me for it – and ask if it is up-to-date. How could I face them if it was not?!?! (At least to the best of my ability and knowledge.) Anyway, the bad news is the dropping of the “Be There” bar open mic – which I think has been gone a year – and the Truskel open mic, which took a summer break and has not apparently returned…. The good news is the addition of L’Arte Café open mic on Fridays and the Vieux Léon open mic on Wednesdays. On the other hand, who knows how long those will last?!? Or any of the others, for that matter.

Update of the Thumbnail Guide of Open Mics

February 3, 2012
bradspurgeon

Too cold in Paris last night for a too sick guy to do an open mic. So I stayed at home and updated my Thumbnail Guide to Open Mics in Paris. Today, still sick, no voice left, and too cold in Paris, but can’t stop me going to test the new Truskel open mic in Paris.