Brad Spurgeon's Blog

PARIS – There came a moment when I was deeply ensconced in singing and playing “Year of the Cat,” in fact, winding it up, when suddenly I seemed to enter into some kind of acid sound hallucination with my voice and guitar starting to go multiple…. I kept singing a moment, looked over at Brislee and thought that he was doing some kind of wizardry. It turned out that I had simply put my foot on a machine button of some kind that had rocketed off my singing and guitar into a zone from which it would never return….

Until Brislee pressed a few buttons. Then we were back to normal – or rather, back to the open mic at the Café Oz bar in Pigalle, an Australian pub where Brislee has been hosting a new open mic for several weeks now. It was my first time there last night, and I will definitely return. This open mic has a different feel to it than the others we know so well in Paris, and part of that is what feels like a clear, warm acceptance by the bar to hold this thing.

The sound systems is better than at most, Brislee does a great hosting job, and there was a very impressive list of performers there last night. That included the interesting San Diego musician Aaron Bowen, who has a voice that on his web site someone likened to a cross between Paul Simon and Michael Jackson. It’s too bad they did that, because I had not thought that for a moment last night, just being subjugated by his virtuoso and cool guitar playing, and his velvety and flying voice. Now, yes, I can hear the Paul Simon part – but no Michael Jackson. Check it out yourself! (And I mean both the open mic and the velvety smooth voice of Aaron Michael Paul Bowen.