Last Thursday I took as an excuse the of meeting an art consultant who had recently contacted me to head down to Geneva and check out the jam at the BAG – Geneva’s Blues Association – something I had been wanting to do. As luck would have it however I hadn’t really checked out who was participating and earlier in the week had already learned that the few I knew wouldn’t be there. Never mind, to late to change the art appointment and in any case I was planning to eat with and old friend and hoped he would tag along for company.
Of course or perhaps out of habit I also visited a few galleries and as one little chat lead to another, ended up late in meeting my friend. We had a beer but he wasn’t interested in listening to a blues jam, and in fact dragged me to the Les Enfants Terrible, a curious furniture creation/repair and wine shop/bar that has a live act every Thursday too, and could possibly be a place to play with CBB. Two acoustic guitarist where singing inaudible songs due to atrocious acoustics and a noisy crowd... Looked like fun to me so it was with some disappointment that I left him and dragged myself across town in the rain to pick up my gear at the station before heading over to the Brasseurs des Grottes; into the backroom where the BAG has their Thursday night jam and concerts.
It was early, 20h45, a few musicians where sound checking, a few more where lurking in the dark corner tables. I did likewise.
As the room slowly filled and the pressure to play grew, the sound check turned into jam as the two guitarists exchanged some electric blues licks over a repetitious groove.
Is there a drummer in the room? No, guess not, at least no one volunteered. Until I did, warning that I wasn’t but could “play the washboard and stomp on the bass drum… maybe.” Which I tried to do for a couple of “patterns” (what do you call it when the drums and bass groove in circles so that the guitar players can show off their chops?).
Anyway.
…Here were two very different worlds trying to fusion and not succeeding. They needed a steady snare drum beat and I needed a song…
So the guy who wasn’t a drummer but who could play the drums came back to replace me and I returned to the corner to lick off my pride, before asking around to see if there was an acoustic guitar player in the room, but no such luck. So after a bit it just seemed obvious that getting blurry with an old friend was the better way to end the evening.
And it was!
;-)
PS. Sorry no pictures to post besides this one from Friday morning walking along the lake end/Rhone river edge downtown. When I was an art student in this fine city way back when, I sunk all the bank buildings on the right there into the water with a photomontage…
Ah, those were the days!