Rétro: Métal Urbain - Numéro Zéro

I've featured Métal Urbain before, but I make no excuse for featuring them again as they really merit greater recognition outside France.

They were a genuinely innovative bunch, subverting even the conventions of the apparently subversive punk genre.

Synths were in the 70s tended to be the reserve of the well-heeled progressive, while many punk bands limited their musical horizons by sticking to a formula that ruled out innovation and experimentation as indulgence.

Métal Urbain saw the possibilities offered by the likes of drum machines and the opportunity to make something that was genuinely new rather than simply covering old ground.

Perhaps that's why their music still sounds fresh, while many of their contemporaries quickly lapsed into reheating a rock 'n' roll template that was establilshed decades before.

To the modern audience it is a reminder that Electro has its roots in Suicide as much as Depeche Mode.

This track initially appeared on the bands 1980 debut album Les Hommes Morts sont Dangereux. The band had only released singles up to that point, the album collecting them and adding Peel session recordings of other songs. This version came from the 2008 Crève Salope mini album, which featured re-recordings of early songs by the band.

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Mémoir

Charlotte Gainsbourg's song Mémoire has been attracting some much-deserved attention now that it has been made available as a download.

To these ears it's very reminiscent of Jane Birkin's work, easy on the ear and jazzy but with a dark poetic undercurrent. It's just perfect.

The song was written by Conor O'Brien from Irish band Villagers after Charlotte approached him to write a song for her to perform. Although written by someone else, Charlotte completely owns the song.

The song makes me wonder what a collaboration between Charlotte Gansbourg and the Tindersticks might sound like. That's something that I'd certainly like to hear one day.

It originally surfaced as a limited edition seven inch single for Record Store Day in April. Read about it on an earlier blog posting. >

The song is expected to appear on a double CD due out later this year to be entitled Live and Unreleased, her first album release since 2009's IRM.

Charts: Sisi K & Logobi GT

Some new French music in the French top five this week, with Sisi K & Logobi GT's Elle Danse Sexy.

The track comes from the album la Puissance, which came out in November 2010.

The song combines an electro sound with an African style.

Logobi GT's record label Five Music say that Logobi has become the new dance phenonenon, taking over from Tektonic electro dance in the public spaces around the train stations, schools and colleges of Paris

The music has established itself with the young French African community, and will certainly be getting a lot of play over the summer.

News: Johnny Halliday TV concert

Johnny Hallyday - currently on tour across France at the moment - has recorded a live private concert and interview for Belgian French speaking channel Bel RTL. A clip of his performance at the Paris studio has been put out by the TV company ahead of its broadcast on June 12, just day's ahead of Johnny's 68th birthday.

The show was filmed on May 30, with an audience of 100 in the studio.

During the show he was interviewed, and played a couple of his hits "La Musique que j'aime", "Oh Jolie Sarah", "Gabrielle", "Fils de Personne" and "Tes Tendres Années" as well as two songs from his latest album "Jamais Seul", "La Douceur de Vivre" and "Guitar Hero"

Johnny sounds in fine voice for a man whose obituaries were all but published not so long ago. The serious health problems that seemed to herald the final act of a remarkable life are apparently behind him.

Johnny's also been in in the headlines for voicing his support for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Johnny referring to the time he was accused of rape at a party in 2001. The charges brought about a year later, were finally dropped and he was cleared when the judge found that there was no evidence of a crime.

Speaking to TV Magazine, he said: "I was accused of rape, too. It's a story that pursued me and my family for two years! It was unfortunate for me, my wife and children before the lies of my accuser came out. Honestly, I think we went through a terrible..."

From September he's appearing on stage in Paris at the Théâtre Edouard VII in a play, Le Paradis sur terre, by Tennessee Williams.

He is also reported to be featuring in a film - Sleight of Hand - alongside Mel Gibson, Kiefer Sutherland and Gérard Depardieu. The film is a Paris-set tale of a team of burglars who inadvertently steal a rare gold coin belonging to a gangster.

Meanwhile, next year also sees a major tour over France, and there have already been over 100,000 tickets sold for the shows. Good to see Johnny going from strength to strength.


Johnny Hallyday interprète "Oh ma Jolie Sarah"... by rtl-fr

Fesivals: Hellfest, Clisson

While this weekend sees the Download festival in the UK's Donnington Park, France's biggest Rock festival Hellfest takes place in Clisson Loire Atlantique, on June 17, 18 and 19.

Hellfest - which has sold out all its three day tickets a month ahead of the event for the first time - has been running for five years, and has established itself as one of the major events in Europe's summer rock schedule. Last year over 70,000 people attended the event.

There are headline slots by Iggy and the Stooges, Scorpions and Ozzy Ozbourne, others on the bill including big names like Judas Priest, the Cult, Rob Zombie and Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society.

While there's classic rock from the likes of Thin Lizzy, Hawkwind and UFO, there are also less-mainstream cult acts like Down, Mayhem, Cradle of Filth and Opeth.

It's an unsurprisingly heavy line up and one that caters for fans of all types of extreme music from commercially successful classic to underground legends. It certainly reflects the the variety of sub genres to what used to be just referred to as 'metal' with Black Metal (Mayhem), Folk Metal (Turisas), Hardcore (Bad Brains), Punk (The Exploited), Thrash (Municipal Waste), Doom (Church of Misery) and Progressive (Anathema) all on the bill.

Previous headliners included Kiss who played as part of their European tour in 2010. Video from their set at Clisson is below, and having seen them when the played in Scotland during the tour it would have been quite a something to see them at a major outdoors festival. The picture at the top was taken by me at the Glasgow show.

Manowar headlined in 2009, Slayer in 2008, so the festival organisers certainly know both their audience and the bands that will make the most of the gig.

The festival has has some controversy, with right-wing MPs criticising the 'satanic' festival, and while Coca Cola stopped their support, Kronenbourg payed no heed to similar pressure.

Rétro: THX - Telstar (Richard Pinhas)

A track today by THX, a pseudonym used by Richard Pinhas for this single, a cover of 60s instrumental Telstar.

It sounds to me like what the Joe Meek instrumental - performed originally by the Tornados - from 1962 would sound like if it was beamed into space on the communication satellite of the same name, and a group of aliens heard it and sent their own version back to earth.

It's a more commercial proposition than much of Pinhas's other work, and could easily be enjoyed by those with no knowledge of his more progressive and experimental work.

It was released in 1978, a fertile time for Pinhas, the same year as his Chronolyse solo album and betweeh Heldon's interface (1977) and Stand By (1979)

Telstar was a space rock tune well before the term had any currency in the hands of bands like Hawkwind, Meek - an early pioneer of the possibilities of the recording studio - consciously attempting to make a record incorporating sound effects to evoke a space-like sound. It was the first single by a British act to get to number one in the USA.

Meek was subject to a plagiarism claim from French composer Jean Ledrut who claimed that the tune had been copied from a piece from the 1960 film Austerlitz. The claim was resolved in Meek's favour, although the judgement came after his death.

Of course, the French connection with Telstar runs deeper, with the actual Telstar satellite, which was launched in 1962, carrying TV pictures across the Atlantic from the USA to Pleumeur-Bodou in Brittany.

The THX track is available on the Japanese CD Richard Pinhas: Single Collection 1972-1980 on the Captain Trips label.

I'll have on Richard Pinhas on the website very soon.

Festivals: Bruce Springsteen at Vieilles Charrues

Bruce Springsteen played the Vieilles Charrues Festival in Carhaix in Finistère, Brittany in 2009.

The festival - France's biggest music festival - is a four-day event, with 240,000 people attending last year.

It has been running since 1992, and was originally held in the village of Landeleau in Brittany, and has continued to grow ever since, attracting bigger audiences and bigger acts year after year.

In the same way that T in the Park retains a Scottish flavour, the Vieilles Charrues Festival retains a Breton character despite featuring both international acts and artists from across France.

The video shows how The Boss learned how to speak to the crowd in Breton, his teacher being asked if he spoke the language as Bruce wanted to address the crowd in Breton. He wrote phonetically the phrase he wanted to say: Hello Carhaix, how are you doing?

The 2011 Vieilles Charrues Festival takes place from July 14-17, and features Scorpions, Pulp, Kaiser Chiefs, David Guetta, Lou Reed and the Chemical Brothers and PJ Harvey.

Whether any of them take the time to learn some Breton remains to be seen.