Kevin Kretsch’s arrival to Paris was anything but glamorous. Bouncing between a tiny 9m² hotel room to couch-surfing spots, he took on the city armed with determination and his electric guitar. Kevin landed his first guitar gig at a small bar, which soon led to an 800-person Saint Patrick’s Day performance at one of Paris’ largest pubs. Since then, Kevin has played over a thousand concerts all over France and abroad. While he still performs, his main focus today is being a new dad(!) and guitar teacher via DrKevGuitar.com.
What is your Paris story?
Hi! My name is Kevin, I’m from Dublin and my Paris story started in the year 2000. At the end of 1999 I had just completed my PhD in physics and accepted a postdoc position near Saclay, south west of Paris. I arrived on February 1, 2000, which happened to be the day of a big train strike. With a too-big suitcase and too little French, I took the RER B from Roissy, got lost in Gare du Nord for an hour, and arrived three hours late at Gif-sûr-Yvette for my first day in the office. Just one month in, my boss announced that he had quit, fed up with lousy management. With the boss gone I had virtually nothing to do for rest of my contract. I spent 4 months living in a 9m² room in a 1 star hotel in Montrouge, followed by 9 months of short term sublets and sleeping on couches. It was a very difficult first year to my Paris story!
But I had made some wonderful, supportive friends. Paris anglophone bars were fun, there was lots of live music around town, and I had my electric guitar. I got to know many musicians and they’d invite me to play a song or two during their gigs. Then one day I got a phone call from a friend of a friend who said “I need a guitar player, and I hear you’re pretty good”. We started rehearsing, I also learned to play mandolin, and in March 2001 I played my first real concert, in front of small crowd of 20 or 30 friends in a tiny Irish pub near Jussieu. My second ever gig, the following afternoon, I’ll never forget – St Patrick’s day at one of Paris’s biggest Irish pubs in Paris in front of 800 people! I was terrified! But I got over the stage fright and I spent the next nine years playing over a thousand gigs around Paris, France, and abroad; from Paris’s cafés and Irish pubs, to festival stages and corporate events.
In 2009 my Paris pub gig scene came to an end due to the global financial crisis. Budgets shrank and nobody wanted to pay musicians anymore. So I started work as guitar technician in the warehouse of Paris’s largest music store, testing and maintaining their electric and acoustic guitars and basses. Over 4000 instruments passed through my hands while I was there. But crappy management reared its ugly head again and at the end of 2010 I got out before the ship sank (it closed its doors a few years later). In 2011 I started a few projects, including a classic soul band and teaching Paris expats to play the guitar. I enjoyed teaching way more than I would have guessed and when the singer in the soul band moved to London it became my primary focus.
2011 was also the year that I fell in love with Bridget, an American expat and researcher in linguistics at the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research). And so here we are in 2017, married with a baby girl, Madeleine, who was born last year. After 17 years I often think I have had enough of Paris life, the big city compression, and the noise and pollution. But I bring my guitar to work every day, I get home for lunch every day, and when it comes to travelling from client to client for a living, Paris is a pretty great place to be!
Tell us about this spot you chose.
I’ve been here long enough that I could hark back to many old times and places but I’d rather reflect life as it is now. The obvious choice for me is Square Saint-Lambert, a 5 acre garden buried in the heart of the 15th arrondissement. There is some great art deco architecture hidden in the 15th and that is reflected in square Saint-Lambert, which was designed by Georges Sébille in 1933. I love the perimeter walks among the trees, the raised terraces and lookouts, the amphitheater, and I love the big sky views when lying on the two huge lawns. It wins bonus points when the big fountain is working and the trees can be quite colourful during the fall.
What is a typical day like for you here in France?
I’m now a morning person, whether I like it or not, and so I wake at 7:30 AM, give or take a half hour. After breakfast and a shower, I take baby to creche for 9 AM. I’m home by 9:30 to catch up on news, guitar forums, and emails before reviewing my guitar lessons for the day. We moved to the 15th arrondissement last year from the 17th, in part because most of my expat guitar students live in the 15th, and that saves me a lot of daily metro time. My students are hugely varied in age, musical styles, and ability. Some students change it up every week, and I don’t know what we’ll do until I turn up, so my days are always interesting.
If I’m teaching in the evening I may not be home until after 8 or 9 PM, otherwise I usually cook dinner after baby is in bed. I do love cooking and where we live is close to rue Lecourbe which has a some great primeurs, poissoneries, bouchers, etc. Easy access to Marks & Spencer at Beaugrenelle also keeps us stocked in good tea, scones, sausages, and real mature cheddar. Home comforts are important and there are some things the French just can’t match!
What do you like most about living abroad?
Living away from my home city, I loved the “clean slate”, the lack of expectations from family and old friends of who you are supposed to be. Meeting so many people from so many backgrounds and parts of the world is for me a big bonus to living in a city like Paris. Paris is also cleaner and more efficient than Dublin in the 90s, particularly the public transport. And where Dublin’s winter just sort of melts into a cool overcast summer, Paris has more sun and a real spring time, which I love.
What challenges do you face as an expat?
Take all the paperwork you ever did back home, triple it, and then do it in a second language that you’re not confident in? It’s exhausting! But you have to live with it and dive in and do it. Many expats ignore it but that approach will backfire in the long run and can delay something that one day you need in a hurry.
The Paris rental market can be a nightmare, even when your dossier de location is in order. Things can happen quickly for expats with the right job and big salary, but everyone else could have a long and often disheartening search. Just be persistent and make your apartment search part of your daily routine. Plan for your search to take months rather than weeks.
How do you meet people in Paris?
Even back in 2000, the internet was a good place to suggest activities you enjoy and but it’s just a start. You have to get off the couch and get out there. Each Paris quartier has a different vibe so try them and find out what you like and where you feel comfortable. Then stick around and make yourself a part of the scene. The French bars and restaurants love return customers and a friendly expat will always be recognised quickly. Being greeted with a familiar smile and warm handshake always softens the rough edges of expat life.
What advice would you give to others wanting to move abroad?
First, the idea that every one speaks English is an unhelpful myth for expats. Learning only basic tourist phrases is a big handicap when you’re living here. I find that wordreference.com is a good resource for English to French, and the user forums are great for learning correct usage and avoiding the « faux amis ». And pay close attention to pronunciation, what expats think is close enough is often not understood by native speakers. Websites like forvo.com can be useful for that!
Expats should also spend more time learning local customs. It can be so important! In France, when someone says bonjour, you should always bonjour back! Not doing so may be perfectly OK in many anglophone cities but here it it’s insulting or rude, especially if you’re not a tourist. So don’t be shy with your bonjours, mercis, and au revoirs! And you can learn a lot just by being observant. Watch people react and respond to each other. Listen to what they say, how they say it, how they pronounce it. Then dive in and enjoy it!
How can people continue following your story?
I’m always reachable through my website, DrKevGuitar.com, where I have guitar- and guitar-lesson-related blog posts. I have a ton of new content to come soon, including video content for my Youtube channel, though life with a baby has delayed everything a little. I’m also on twitter @drkevguitar. Instead of doing over a dozen concerts each month I’m now doing only half a dozen each year but I’m still involved with a fantastic band called The Downtown Merrylegs. Our new album is just finished and the CDs is off to print! You can follow us on Facebook, Bandcamp, and Reverbnation. I’ve also recently started working with Rock U, a Paris rock band school for expat kids and adults, who you’ll also find on Facebook.
