Dans un monde sans nouvelles frontières,
Je ne sculpte pas dans l’océan, ni dans l’air,
Peut-être sur la lune, peut-être dans l’éspace,
Est-ce que je peut engraver mes initiales sur un petit place?
- Spike LeBloke
Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to be a rock star.
A year ago, on Tuesday, I trudged through 20 centimetres of driving snow, my black guitar case under my arm, past the soaring Saint-Grégoire-de-Nazianze church spire and the statue of Jesus, and on to the Café des artistes de la Lièvre, to attend its first open mic.
“My name is Spike LeBloke and that’s the only lie I’m gonna tell you tonight. Everything else is true.”
That’s my line.
I created this alter ego, my holy twin, my nom-de-plume – Spike LeBloke – 11 years ago. He’s my Ziggy Stardust.
I was living in London, England. It was 2009. My friend Jules had died of bacterial meningitis on February 9.
Life is short.
I bought a Fishman pick-up for my Yamaha acoustic on the famed Denmark Street. It was time to take these new songs out of the private space, where I had been creating, dreaming, for years and years. In the bedroom. In the living room, with its hardwood floor, with the door that led to the long, narrow garden. With my two cherub young children, girl 6, boy 3, in the single room in bunk beds. Deep at the end of the garden wild blackberries grew fat and juicy in the summer.
I plucked up the courage one night and went to the open mic in Soho at The Spice of Life. It was dog eat dog. The signup was at 7 p.m. Wannabe musicians of all kinds were in the stairwell from 6:30 p.m. When the supremo showed up everybody jostled for position to get their name on the signup paper and there was no etiquette. I got my name ninth because I was determined.
Every performer was freaking professional. A woman with a full-sized harp played Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. And I had to follow that angel. I was crumbling. Shaking. I forgot my name.
When I sat on the stool, in the spotlight, I felt like a kitten at the bottom of a deep well. My mouth was dry and filled with cotton wool. But I played my songs.
'Rusted Inner Wheel…busted up but at least I still feel…'
The end of the song, there was not a single clap. Then Blue Bird, then Divine Grace…The English they can really take the piss. I bombed. Big time.
I have been in two bands. My first, Sucker for Blondes, included my best friend Ed on bass, and this young upstart JP the drummer, age 17. Man JP, my beat, was the powerhouse of positivity. Then I travelled.
One night, back in a Montreal bar. Who comes up to me? JP. At the Gypsy Club. He says, “Hey Mike the Spike”. Cause that was him that gave me the nickname, on account of my spikey hair. And JP then recounts to me word for word a song I wrote that I had totally forgotten about. That’s when we agreed to start a new band, and SWAY was born, named after The Rolling Stones song on Sticky Fingers (Side One). That Mick Taylor solo on Sway always sends me, man.
And indeed, as my last will and testament, at my funeral, when they stick me in the fire, please play Sway.
So here I am now back in Quebec. Buckingham. The transition back to Canada was not easy. I had abandoned this hybrid personality. This Quebecois Anglo. Even though at age 22 I had gone to Gaspé, Quebec, to work as a reporter for The SPEC, instead of going down the 401.
One night, in a honky-tonk bar, Guy says: “Mike c’est un bloke mais c’est un maudit bon bloke.’
After two referendums, I had gone back to my people, my blood. England. Then, after 14 years, I can’t afford to buy a house in London. And my kids for sure would have no upward mobility. So back over the Atlantic we come. Long story short, Buckingham seemed good. It hit these criteria:
= Half hour drive from major city;
- Swimming pool in walking distance;
- English school for the kids (because I am a historical Anglo).
Six years in Buckingham, missing the vibe of London, and all the open mics I had played there – The Green Man at Edgeware Road, Bar Vinyl, The Elephant’s Head, and Inspiral, in Camden Town. The spit and sawdust. The international audience. The rollicking anarchy of all the freaks, genius musicians, like David 9 Lunas, and J.D. Smith. Pint after pint I had learned to master the fear, to use it as energy. This was my dream. To stand by the front window of some pub with two speakers behind me, playing my own songs:
‘In Past Life #45, you were my stillborn twin…
‘The Black Boots of Coltrane, to lace them up is to seal your fate, walked 10,000 addresses north on the Main…
‘Spike’s Walking down the street, sailing on a straight line to heaven, fluid like Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven, thousand yard stare, locked and loaded to the horizon…’
Most of this organized by impresario, Zaid Joseph. There was nothing quite like being introduced by this cockney Iraqi geezer: ‘E’s come all the way from Canada, put your hands together for Spoike LeBloke!’ And then TWANG-BAM, off I go.
Boom! Hooray! A local open mic in walking distance!
It is like a heaven, this open mic at the Café. The wood attic upstairs of the stone lumberjack lodge, by a river where they used to drive logs down to the pulp and paper mill.
There is a lot of talent and a lot of love. I have made many new friends. And all thanks to Stephane Otis, an amazingly, versatile talented traditional musician and entertainer. And Jun Courville, a prolific songwriter and mystic angel, who is overcoming a major accident, but is now back in action after a serious operation. And there is Pat Hardy, Pat the Hat, on the beat box. He sits on that wood square and drives the beat for all of us. He’s the one who humps all the speakers and sound gear here every week and does the sound. We played a show together at the Bar du Parc last August and rocked out. I gave him $50 of the take.
So now every Tuesday I go and see my family at the Café. It’s like my local pub. I get off the 95 bus at 6:30pm, walk home, tune and grab my guitar and head over to the Café. Every week is different. I go with my 3 songs. Sometimes all my own stuff. Sometimes covers.
And I listen.
To other searchers, poets, rebels, divas, bongo-beaters and old souls.
To the freaks. The damaged. The enlightened.
My brothers and sisters. Non-judgmental, open-minded. It’s always a great night. So much emerging talent.
Like Ben Sarrazin, un vrai, with a voice like thawing ice, smouldering coals in the campfire. ‘La bonheur dans la faussé, c’est moi qui l’a tué.’ So you’re the guy who killed happiness in the ditch!
Like Terry McNamara, a local sweetcorn farmer and mandolin-maker and bluegrass band leader who can play anything, banjo, guitar…you name it. Sweet Georgia Brown…
Like James Lawlis, the godfather of the Buckingham music scene who’s been-there-done-that in so many bands. Nothing beats his version of Tennessee Whiskey.
And his daughter Katrina Lawlis, with her Billie Holiday / Amy Winehouse soul, who puts out better and better songs every week. How do these young kids get so wise?
Like Mathieu Martell. A very old soul and musical genius with an infinite repertoire of his own songs, and a studious fan of Bob Dylan. He did a flawless version of Girl from the North Country. Tragically, Mathieu jumped off a cliff on September 10, by the dam, behind the Giant Tiger. We are all devastated and always will be. The night he was overwhelmed by his demons, we had sung The Man in Me together around the piano with James Lawlis. And I had told him, ‘with Dylan, it’s all about the intonation’. I patted him twice on the back and that was the last time I saw him. It haunts me that we sang Dead Flowers together in the parking lot of the Bar du Parc after his stupendously awesome gig there just weeks earlier. To begin to understand this great loss, check his song Berce-Moi, filmed at the Café.
And like Vicky, Vi Lach Vi Lach, his girlfriend, who also has a tender, sweet, soulful voice. She continues to tap into the healing source of music. Transforming loss into beautiful sounds.
Like Michel Jetté, a true poet and playwright, who bravely appears naked with no instrument except the spoken word.
And so many others. Like S.U.N. (Smiles Unite Naturally), with his soulful groove and silverback gorilla presence; Dwight Maloney, proving to everyone that age is just a number – he’s 73!; and Lisa-Marie Serafin, a well-accomplished singer-songwriter who channels everyone from Joni Mitchell to David Bowie and always rocks the house with her leopard-skin jacket; and Gabriel Titus, the barman and ukulele ace who usually ends the night with his amazing range of influences – Seriously, Venus in Furs?!
My real name is Michael, the messenger. Or Mike.
Mike is now open.
Et je suis chez moi.
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