Frenchie Oldies #1

Mmh, according to google-analytics, I have a base readership of about 10 people, mostly from Georgia, US. Guys, I know who you are. I know as well you'll be kind enough to let me indulge in some educational nostalgia. So, let's start a new series, "Frenchies Oldies".

1981 was a pivotal year in France. Mitterrand was elected in May, the first socialist president of the Ve Republic. Hopes were high. Would times be a-changing ? What would come next ?

Then, that. Chagrin d'amour, "Chacun fait (c'qui lui plaît)" (which translates as "Everyone does (what they want)").
Written by Philippe Bourgoin and Gérard Presgurvic, performed by Gregory Ken (real name Jean-Pierre Trochu) and Valli Kligerman (a NYC native), remixed by Dominique Blanc-Francard, "Chacun fait" quickly became a hit. Remember that at that time, rap music wasn't popular at all in France, and you would have to wait 1982 and Grandmaster Flash's "The message" for rap to gain some mainstream visibility.

The plot is quite simple : 5:00AM, a lonesome alcoholic suffering from insomnia runs out of booze and cigarettes. He drives through Paris to get a last drink, ends up in a dive bar, where he picks up a hooker. Hotel, he doesn't come, she goes back home.

The story is narrated at the first-person (by the guy on the first three verses, by the girl on the last two, the fifth verse being an almost word-for-word repetition of the first one), with some interruptions by a third party on the mode of interview (or police questioning, as hinted by the video-clip ?) before the chorus, supposed to be playing on the radio. Partly psychological analysis, partly social commentary on a playful yet melancholy tone, "Chacun fait" illustrates a feeling of alienation, foreshadowing the individualism of the 80es. Of course, it's only now that I can understand the content(s) of this song. The lyrics were way over the head of the third grader I was at the time. But I knew some of them by heart, like many of my schoolmates, and they still resonates more than 25 years later...

Unfortunately, Chagrin d'Amour never really made it and remained a one-hit wonder. They released two albums in 1982 and 1984 which never achieved any real commercial success. Gregory Pek was the voice presenting the programs on Canal + in the 90es, a trendie channel at the time, until he passed away in 1996 from a throat cancer. Valli got a solo career in the 80es, before having her own radio show about the music industry. Presgurvic wrote songs for several French artists, composed soundtracks and wrote a musical based on Romeo and Juliet in 2001 (with another based on "Gone with the wind" in preparation) (God help us). Bourgoin also wrote songs for other artists in the 90es. "Chacun fait" remains a classic. It has even been recently covered in Japanese...

The clip (an extract of):

Chagrin D'amour - chacun fait ce qui lui plait - clip video

MP3: Chagrin d'Amour: Chacun fait (c'qui lui plaît).
MP3:Tomuya: Chacun fait (Lost in Paris).

Super Ash Wednesday

No, I didn't vote (I'm not allowed to in the States), no I didnt' get to eat any bugnes, but I let the good times roll by attending a show in the Hidden Hamster, a famous DYI venue a few blocks away from my place.

Christopher's Liver opened the evening. I don't have to introduce them if you leave in Athens. If you don't, Christopher's Liver is a duo of very kind people, Christopher Ingham on guitar, Laura Swindall on drums, who play some very heartfelt folk-pop. It's lo-fi, it's a tad off-kilter at times, but that's just charming. The duo will soon take a break for a few months, as Christopher planned to spend some times in Lyon, FR. The bugnes' season will be over, but that shouldn't matter much, eh ?

Vytear is Jason Begin from Philadephia, PA, playing solo keyboards, samplers and loops for a fairly efficient cocktail of electro/drum and bass/industrial jungle, with the occasional reference to Aphex Twin. That kind of danceable electro is relatively uncommon in our neck of the woods, so that was a pleasant surprise. And Vytear produced the first album of our next band:

Pony Pants, a trio from Philadelphia, two brothers (Steve and Ryan Ellis) on guitars and Emily Kovach on vocals, with a drum machine for the beats. They play some kind of dance-punk with heavy metal riffs. Even if I'm slowly getting used to metal and its derivatives, it stills tend to get on my nerves rather quickly. However, it worked great with them.

Athens' Pegasuses XL closed the evening with their heavy synths and live beats, after a fairly long break (a couple of kids got robbed by gun-point on the other side the venue, which brought us police forces but got us rid of the polo-shirt parasites. Everything's fine, don't worry). The show was chaotic, with shoes and pants flying around, but that was exactly the point: they were full of energy, unashamed and unabashed, they were having lots of fun and it was quite communicative. Mercer West (Mouser, Quiet Hooves and many, many more...) even joined them for an harmonica jam, certainly an highlight of the evening. Remember that their EPs are available for donation download at Quote Unquote Records, and that their next record, "The Antiphon", will very soon be available on EJRC.

A side note as conclusion: DIY venues such as the Furtive Ferret provide a service to the indie community, it's a place where to discover new bands or support the ones you know already. The donations may be on a voluntary basis only, that doesn't mean it's free. It's not a keg party, it's a show. Don't look offended when you're asked for a spare buck, it helps the band to pay for gas. Kids nowadays...

MP3:
Christopher's Liver: Thank you for the nostalgia...
Vytear: Milli Vanilli Midi Moves
Vytear: Keyed
Pony Pants: Slay The Ego
Pony Pants: Haircutz
Pegasuses XL: Run The Gauntlet
Pegasuses XL: Every House Is Not A Homie

[Edit 02/08]: Spelling corrections.

Think about a happy place...

...and it may look like Athens, GA.

I mean, where else can you get a PBR and end up watching "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (the 1935 version) while listening to some indie-pop ?

Where else could you run into friends just past midnight, and find yourself in a restaurant attending a show from New Sound of Numbers ? That was Fri. 02/01 evening. Pretty good show, actually. Randy B. is a perfect addition to the band, bringing a more organic aspect to the music. And they sounded great !

And then, there are the local dens. Sat. 02/02 at Caledonia brought us The Buddy System, The Young Sinclairs and 63 Crayons.
Great show of TBS, as usual. With the upcoming free Jammy Jamm gig at the 40W next Friday (08/02), that'll be their fifth show, the third in barely two weeks. With such a busy schedule, they couldn't give us any new song this time, but they're working on one for Friday, the goal being to have a 20 min set for SXSW. The night's surprise was the introduction of the guitar hero controller to control some of the animations...
The Young Sinclairs, from Roenoke, VA, play some awesome 60es British invasion / psychedelic pop à la Kinks. They have already three albums behind them, none being distributed yet. And yet is the operational word here. The show itself was great, if you forgot some sound problems, the voices being far too in the foreground. And between us, I'm no big fan of the singer's voice. He must have heard this one fairly often, as one of their songs start with the lines "I know you don't like the way I sing my songs / But does it mean we cannot get along ?". Rest assured that we can, mate. Anyway, I can urge you enough to go and check them out. The lead guitar/singer used to drum for the next band:
63 Crayons broke their sampler as they were going on stage, which created yet more confusion soundwise, so much that I left relatively early. I liked what I heard, or could hear should I say. Yep, there are nights like these.

Or afternoons like today that remind you that in Athens, GA, springtime can be right around the corner. And before leaving, have a look on Saturday's pictures on Mike W.'s site. You'll get an idea of what you missed.

Another Z movie...

Blood of the Beast, by Georg Koszulinski (2003).

2012 marks the end of the Third World War. One third of the total population of the globe died from the chemical warfare, 98% of the surviving male population is sterile, and cloning becomes the principal mode of reproduction. "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" until 2031, where problems arise. Clones of the first strand start exhibiting strange behavior: nose bleed, epileptic convulsions, necrosis of the front lobe, hyper-aggressivity, and a certain taste for human flesh: in short, they become zombies.
Three groups of characters are followed in parallel: three hikers in their early twenties, one of them has been bitten to the arm by a zombie; three youngsters fleeing town and trying to catch up with the hikers; a father and his teenage daughter, who found refuge with a Southern Baptist preacher in the countryside. Meanwhile, chaos reigns in town, and some First Strand inmates escaped from the local military base.

Shot on DV with a microbudget around Gainesville, FL and the Ocala National Forest, Blood of the Beast is rather trying. Forget the Blair Witch Project meets the Night of the Living Dead plot, the inexperience of the actors that give rather terrible performances, and the overall very cheap-looking aspect, that's sort of part of the charm of the movie. My beef is simple : the whole movie reeks a UFL film school graduating project. As writer-director-editor-actor, Koszulinski aims at artsyness: slow-motions (oh, Atom Heart Mother), surimpressions, experimental soundtrack, weird camera angles supposed to emphasize the confusion of the protagonists, pseudo-philosophical consideration, heavy handed references (Brave New World, Murnau's Nosferatu...)... The end of the movie is characteristic: shot with a night-vision lens, the scenes are silent, the dialogs appearing as inserts. Call me square or bourgeois, but effects of this kind do not bring anything to the story and look gratuitous and fake. The movie tries far too hard for its own good (and the pleasure of the audience). According to imdb, it was Koszulinski's first full-length. Since then, he released a few other fictions and documentaries, that I haven't seen yet. I can only hope that they avoided the artistic pitfalls of this Blood of the Beast.

As you guessed, I didn't enjoy the movie at all. But I didn't enjoy hating it or laughing at it either, on the contrary. I feel actually compelled to support the approach: after all, it's a first movie, it's indie, and we all know what a dreadful place the world would be without alternatives to mass cultural products. Despite all its shortcomings, Blood of the Beast exists as a piece. That should be enough. Hey, not everybody can be Marker. So forget what I said, forget this movie, and keep it going.

A week in gigs

I'm behind in posts, so let's wrap up this week in shows:


Mon., Jan. 21st - 40W
Tin Cup Prophette + Murder Mystery + Little Francis

Despite one of the coldest nights of the winter so far in Athens, and... a Monday (glad you follow), there was a non negligible audience (understand about 40, 50 people) for that show. I assume that the Hillary's laudative review of Murder Mystery in the Flagpole and Gordon's plug helped, or maybe was it just the presence of Tin Cup Prophette, or the debut of Little Francis who brought their friends as support.

I caught only a few songs of TCP, but was still impressed. Amanda Kapousouz had definitely a huge stage presence, huge like in 8.5 months pregnant. Nevertheless, that didn't prevent her to give us a nice soothing dose of her folksy trip-hop. Highly recommended to fans of Portishead.

Murder Mystery is a quartet (3 guys, one gal) from NYC, currently promoting their first album "Are you ready for the heartache cause here it comes". They play what would be lazily described as indie pop with slight country western overtones, or a musical equivalent of sherbet: it's refreshing, quite enjoyable, but not filling. The show itself was fairly OK. They lost some points for complaining about the lack of dancers (only a couple of people were actually dancing, while the rest of us were cosily sitting on their chair), and for trying to play games with the Athenians: "Athens is a hip town, right ? So you'll know what cover we're about to play...". FYI, that was an Orange Juice song, "Poor Old Soul" if I remember correctly. All in all, a good show, but nothing extraordinary. Their album is definitely worth listening a couple of times. Of the two MP3s linked with this post, "Honey Come Home" is the most representative.

Little Francis are four dudes, three on acoustic guitars and the last one banging on some stuffs. Don't ask me more, I was not paying attention and left in the middle of their song, it was cold.

MP3: Tin Cup Prophette:Going Numb
MP3: Tin Cup Prophette:Speak or Spill Down
MP3: Murder Mystery: Love Astronaut
MP3: Murder Mystery: Honey Come Home


Thu., Jan 24th - Flicker Bar
Joe Rowe's Coming Out Party

First show of Joe Rowe's (of The Glands and Casper and the Cookies fame) new band. Joe sings and plays keyboards, along with fellow Cookie Jim H. on drums, Eli on guitar and Adam on bass. Good solid indie-rock, great first show (sounding even better when you know they practiced only four times as a 4 piece), with a cover of Echo and the Bunnymen as a bonus ("Villiers Terrace"? "Do it clean"? I'm not sure. Correct me in the comments). Most (all) of the songs were actually written for Joe's other, semi-aborted projects, The Ice Caps and The Goons. Guys, congrats again, and we want another show very very soon!
MP3: JRCOP: Green Umbrella



Thu., Jan 24th - Caledonia Lounge
Attached Hands - Caledonia Social Club

Attached Hands are a duo playing live keyboards on pre-recorded samples, with some psychedelic animations in the background. Boards of Canada, anyone ?

Caledonia Social Club is a shoegaze jam experiment involving members of Local bands such as Maserati, A. Armada and others. Fairly efficient, but you definitely have to be in the mood. It took me 15 min. to realize that in fact, no, not that night...



Fri., Jan 25th - Go bar
The Buddy System - Pegasuses XL

The Go Bar was packed for the third Buddy System show, so packed that it was easier to brave the cold and watch the animations from the outside patio than trying to peep through the crowd. If you still don't know anything about the Buddy System, I can't really do anything for you: check some previous posts, and go and see their coming fourth show on Sat., Feb. 2nd at the Caledonia Lounge, where they'll support 63 Crayons and an exciting band of Roenoke, VA, The Young Sinclairs . Note that Friday was the premiere of the Buddies' new animation,"Nature's Tiny Realm".

Because of conflicting schedules, I missed Pegasuses XL. Shame, shame, shame on me.


Fri., Jan 25th - Farm 255
The Ice Cream Socialists - Casper and the Cookies

Because of conflicting schedules, I missed the Ice Cream Socialists, but frankly... Casper and the Cookies delivered us an strong, honest show, mostly consisting of songs from the "Optimist Club". After all, that show was more a live practice before their Japan tour than anything. No big surprises here, a good time for all the family.


And that's all for this week. Stay tuned for more goodies.

Return of the Z movies

As a European hipster, I'm naturally attracted to foreign movies, and Japanese ones in particular. That's basically the reason why the other day I rented two DVDs at my local store. I should have stayed home.

Actually, the first movie wasn't that bad. "Suicide Circle" (by Sion Sono, 2002) retraces the events following the mass suicide of 54 teenage girls who jumped in front of a train in the Shinjuku station. The police starts investigating, and begins to suspect some foul play as more suicides take place, and strange hints pop up on the web. Would there be some connections with a famous tween idol band ? Enough for the plot.

The movie is rather uneven, to say the least. Some scenes are gratuitously gruesome, such as the opening sequence, where the Tokyo subway gets flooded by the blood of the schoolgirls (fake blood must have represented a significant portion of the film budget), or when puppies are trampled on to death by a peroxided singing maniac on platform boots. On the other side, some elements of the story are worth pondering, for example the critiques of fads, formatted pop culture, generation gaps... if they were developed and not skimmed over.

However, the biggest turn off remains the abstruse plot. The last 15 minutes do not solve anything and raise actually more questions: who is behind the band ? Behind the suicides ? Behind the script ?


No, we have a real winner with Kibakichi, by Tomo-o Haraguchi (2004). The back of the DVD says it all: "half man, half werewolf, all samurai". Bingo !

It starts like a regular samurai movie a la Yojimbo. A lone traveler is attacked by ruffians, but quickly dispatches them ad patres with his mad skillz. Our hero (Kibakichi) then meets a foreboding blind beggar, fights ninja turtles and eventually finds his way to a small village inhabited by yokai. These flesh eating monsters, disguised as humans, are all but one big family lead by a guy looking a lot like James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom. The yokai have a deal with a rising element in the local human clan: get rid of yakuzas and you'll get a nice place where you can leave in peace instead of being hunted down. Of course, the audience can guess straight away that the humans are double-faced: they wear long black leather uniforms that must have been designed by Hugo Boss in the 30es, which is always a bad sign. Kibakichi, as a true lone traveler, decides to leave, but quickly returns to fight alongside the yokai as they are attacked by the Gatlin-gun-carrying humans. Little did they know that Kibakichi was in fact a werewolf ! After growing himself some hair and fighting a betraying cyclops, Kibakichi eventually kills the human leader, who explodes (never carry a grenade when you don't have a head). End of the movie. I voluntarily forget some side plots.

This movie is really terrible. The genre confusion (samurai + latex monsters + gun-wielding badasses), the ridiculous costumes, the ultra-cheap special effects (remember the tunnel of horror in the local funfair ? same thing), the 2c message of tolerance towards our friends the monsters, the mandatory sex scene (where as a bonus the girl transforms into a giant spider), the 15 minutes of explosions... So many reasons to complain that I don't know where to start. So I won't. And I'll skip the sequel.

Anybody has a spare brain ? Mine melted...

Gossips

And now for some random gossips:
Casper and the Cookies will play their last show Athens show of the winter on Fri. Jan 25th at Farm 255 (of all places...). They'll be hitting Japan like a power-pop tsunami on Feb. 5th for a 9-day tour promoting the release of "Optimist Club" on Waikiki records.

Talking about Cookies, on Thu. Jan. 24th, Flicker will host the premiere of a new band composed of Joe R. (guitar), Jim H. (drums) and two other guys whose name I forgot (sorry). The name of the band isn't cast in stone as I write this line, but expect something along the lines of "Joe Rowe's Coming-Out Party". Or maybe not.

Sat. 24th Andy from Denver / The Lolligags was short (4 songs for Andy, 5 for the Lolligags), but really excellent. Andy played a slightly more subdued set than the day before at Flicker, without suggestive dances nor powerglove, but endearing nevertheless. The Lolligags quickly won over the part of the audience who were only discovering them, and Leslie overcame her natural shyness to give us some sweet moves.

Andy will spent 21 days at the end of March, beginning of April on the road for a East Coast/ MidWest show with Keith John Adams. More about that when we'll get closer to the dates.

The Lolligags just spent the week-end recording two new songs with Jason NeSmith at his Bel-Air studio. "Best behavior" isn't fully mixed yet, but amateurs of English education will be pleased. "Carnival" is also still in draft, but we have a hit here already: think Siouxsie meets DM meets Goldfrapp meets the Cure, with a killer groove. 2008, the year of twoth, remember ? By far the most exciting song I've heard all year. Sorry, I can't post anything now, so go and visit their myspace page. Oh, and there are rumors of remixes...

And... That's all for today. Stay warm, I'll be near the carousel.