You sexy M.F…

C’est sur cette chanson de Prince que se termine le spectacle de Florence Foresti.

Les mamans prennent cher pendant son spectacle.
Les papas aussi d’ailleurs.
Et les enfants par la même occasion.

Et les fabricants de poussette, les médecins, les allumeurs de bombes nucléaires, les jeunes, les lions et les phoques, sa nounou, les parents du petit Poucet…bref une belle galerie de portrait.

Parmi tous ces portraits, son sketch sur la grossesse (ah le marouflage de vessie….) et l’accouchement. Le fameux. Celui qui me fait hurler de rire à chaque visionnage.

Mother F…… Ça c’est sûr!
De l’évolution de l’humeur de sa fille, aux séances ( à se pendre) au square, en passant par les grands principes (en bois, et qu’on se prend dans la tronche) et en s’arrêtant sur le Petit Poucet version Tata Kronenbourg, toutes les joies de la petite enfance y passent.

Nos attitudes amoureuses passent elles aussi à la moulinette Foresti (je résume: craquage, soulage, chouinage…et on recommence!) et c’est merveilleusement bien vu.
Tout comme le drame de la sagesse. Comprenez vieillesse…et on découvre les talents d’allumeuse de dance-floor de Florence.
Çagigote dans les Loub’s et on irait bien gigoter avec elle !!! Oui, on a dit sexy mother f….., donc Louboutin’s s’il vous plait! Et silhouette impeccable dans son pantalon à la mode et son petit top noir.

Ses attitudes, mimiques et autres secouages de cheveux font mouche à chaque fois. Charmante et à hurler de rire. Je crois que son spectacle est déjà sold out, mais si vous avez réussi à avoir des places vous allez vous régaler.Et les autres, guettez ses prochaines dates. 1h30 de rire ça ne se laisse pas passer.

Encore merci Miss Van, c’était canon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Florence Foresti au Palace (9ème) jusqu’au 9 Janvier 2009.

This appeared in the summer 2009 issue of Garageland (issue 8, pp. 30-33).

Unheard Melodies

Andrew Gallix goes in search of the most elusive of the phantom bands — L.U.V.

“As a rock critic, when you reach a certain age, you begin to wonder if all the mental and emotional energy you’ve invested in this music was such a shrewd move,” wrote Simon Reynolds in the introduction to Rip It Up and Start Again. More recently, he wondered if “searching for utopia through music” had not been “a mistake” (Totally Wired). To ascribe such doubts to impending middle age alone would be to forget that there was a time when music truly was a matter of life and death, when days were whiled away listening to records and poring over album covers in some ill-defined but all-important quest. Instead of producing plays or paintings, the best and brightest were busy perfecting one-note solos on replica Starways from Woolies. Rock’n'roll was central to contemporary culture: it was where it was at.

Needless to say, no band could ever totally live up to such high expectations. Malcolm McLaren shrewdly ensured that the Sex Pistols made precious few live appearances in order to enhance their mystique. Spandau Ballet would use a similar trick at the beginning of their career by playing invite-only gigs. Keats (Morrissey notwithstanding) was right: heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. After all, bands are necessarily approximations of the dreams that conjured them up. Some — like the Libertines whose Arcadian rhetoric was often far more exciting than their songs — are condemned to remain pale reflections of their Platonic ideals. By the same token, a record is always a compromise: The La’s famously spent two years recording and re-recording their first album without ever achieving the desired effect. Even at its best, music cannot vie with the silence it comes from and returns to — the silence inhabited by phantom bands.

We are not talking dead silence here, but rather something akin to the background noise during a performance of 4′ 33″ or the tinnitus burned on to the mind’s ear by imaginary songs overheard through the static in between radio stations. A living silence, perhaps. According to the great academic and critic George Steiner, “A book unwritten is more than a void”. The same could be said about songs unrecorded or unplayed: they actually exist, virtually, in some Borgesian iPod of Babel. Phantom bands themselves are not complete figments of the imagination either: to qualify, they must have some kind of shadowy existence, leave some kind of (lipstick) trace. The Chris Gray Band never existed beyond a few graffiti around Victoria Coach Station in the early seventies, but the idea of forming “a totally unpleasant pop group” designed to subvert showbiz from within would obviously be a major influence on the Pistols project (1). The London SS — whose short lifespan was one long audition bringing together most of the major players on the future London punk scene — is probably the most influential group to have neither released a record nor played a single gig. Synthpunk pioneers The Screamers were described by Jello Biafra as “the best unrecorded band in the history of rock’n'roll”. Typically, their first photoshoot appeared in a magazine when they were yet to play live (2). At a later stage, they were approached to release an album cover containing no record — an art stunt which never materialised but would have been a fitting metaphor for this textbook phantom outfit from Los Angeles. The Screamers managed to become local legends although — or perhaps because — they only did a handful of gigs and never got round to cutting a record (3). The Nova Mob from Liverpool did not even try to go that far. Fronted by Julian Cope, they were a purely conceptual group dedicated to never playing a single note of music. Instead, they would hang around caffs discussing imaginary songs — a practice they referred to as “rehearsing”. Definitely one for the Borgesian iPod.

“It’s like being in love with a woman you’ve never had,” says Dominique Fury, trying to account for the enduring fascination exerted by the group in which she briefly played guitar more than three decades ago: “The relationship hasn’t been consummated”. She smiles. A ray of sunshine has crept into her artist’s studio near Belleville. Through the open window, I can glimpse the pink apple blossom in the middle of the dappled courtyard. All is quiet. All is still. When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love L-U-V. For me, the most phantomatic of phantom bands has always been L.U.V., an elusive and largely illusive all-girl punk combo from Paris. I remember reading tantalising news snippets about them in the music or mainstream press at regular intervals. A quote here, a namecheck there. Just enough to whet my appetite. And then — nothing. A tale told by an idiot, full of silence and fury, signifying nothing. Nostalgia for a band yet to come.

Only one picture of the complete line-up was ever published (in the long-defunct Matin de Paris). Granted, it is worth a thousand words, but the fact that there seem to be no others speaks volumes about the fragility of L.U.V.’s collective identity. It is also rather paradoxical given that style was all the substance they had. From left to right you can see Aphrodisia Flamingo (the rebel), Dominique Fury (the femme fatale), Liliane Vittori (the cerebral rock chick) and Edwige Belmore (the It girl). Wearing matching sunglasses, Aphrodisia and Dominique — the terrible twins who formed the nucleus of the group — stand very close to each other as if they are an item. Aphrodisia stares the world down, her full mouth a smouldering moue of utter contempt — Bardot gone badass. Dominique, in terrorist chic mode, adopts a far more glamorous, almost provocative pose. Liliane, for her part, seems to be fading into the background, a faraway look on her anguished features. Edwige towers above her like some Teutonic titan, sporting a Billy Idol hairdo and the blank expression of a Galeries Lafayette mannequin.

L.U.V. (4) was the brainchild of Aphrodisia Flamingo (Laurence “Lula” Grumbach) who, having mixed with the likes of Nico, Lou Reed and Patti Smith in New York City, returned to Paris determined to launch a girl group of the punk persuasion. One night, down at the Gibus (France’s answer to CBGB), she caught sight of Dominique Fury (née Jeantet) (5). It was L.U.V. at first sight: “I just made a beeline for her because I instantly knew I wanted her in the band”. The fiery, long-haired brunette and the glacial, short-haired blonde were attracted to each other like polar opposites. Dominique speaks repeatedly of a “magnetic relationship”: “There was chemistry between us — something magical that was more than the mere sum of its parts”. Both came from very wealthy but troubled backgrounds (6). Aphrodisia lost her father when she was only eleven; Fury never really found hers (which may explain her penchant for collective experiences) (7). The latter was a revolutionary heiress who made donations to the Black Panthers and bankrolled a couple of utopian communities that she describes as “a quest for something beautifully wild”. Once the opium fumes of the communal dream had dissipated, she embarked on an equally eventful American road trip (almost meeting her fate near the Mexican border) and was soon drawn towards punk’s “dark and romantic aesthetics” — which brings us back to the Gibus circa early 1977.

Although L.U.V. revolved mainly around these two soul mates, the most famous member at the time was in fact Edwige — a striking bisexual amazon who was already a face on the local clubbing scene and would soon be crowned la reine des punks. For fifteen minutes, Paris was at her feet: she ran the door at the hippest joint this side of Studio 54 (Le Palace), was photographed with Warhol for the cover of Façade magazine, formed an electronic duo called Mathématiques Modernes, posed for Helmut Newton and allegedly had a string of affairs with the likes of Grace Jones, Madonna and Sade (“The Sweetest Taboo” is rumoured to be about her). Given her stature, Edwige seemed destined to bang the drums for L.U.V. As Fury puts it, “The group was primarily an image — a work of art — so it was great to have this iconic figure”.

This conception of the band as tableau vivant or performance art was (and indeed remains) at odds with some of the other members’ more conventional aspirations. “Aphrodisia gave me the opportunity to create something,” says Fury, but that something was not rock’n'roll. When L.U.V. petered out, she joined Bazooka, an art collective (where she famously found herself embroiled in a convoluted ménage à trois with two artists of either gender) rather than another band (8). But Liliane, the bassist (9), simply could not understand why Dominique showed no interest in musical proficiency and insisted on teaching her how to master her instrument. Fury reckons “she just wasn’t mad enough”. “She simply didn’t get it,” concurs Aphrodisia. Whenever journalists or A&R people attended rehearsals, they drafted in Hermann Schwartz — Métal Urbain’s axeman — who would play concealed behind a curtain while Fury struck guitar-heroine poses (10).

Aphrodisia, who is currently writing her autobiography, sees L.U.V. as a missed opportunity: “We never wrote a single song. We wanted to, but were probably too stoned” (11). She explains that rehearsals were constantly interrupted because someone always needed to score. She talks about major label interest. She remembers how Rock & Folk, the top French music magazine, would beg them to play a gig that they could cover in their next issue…

Some of us are still waiting for that next issue. Come, let us dance to the spirit ditties of no tone.

Endnotes:

(1) The eponymous Chris Gray was a member of the English section of the Situationist International (expelled in 1967) and the author of the seminal Leaving the 20th Century anthology (1974) which popularised Situationist ideas in Britain. Like Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid, he was involved with political pranksters King Mob.

(2) This is reminiscent of the Flowers of Romance (which included Sid Vicious, Viv Albertine and Keith Levene) who gave an interview to a fanzine although they had never played live (and would never do so). The Pistols would later cover the Flowers’ “Belsen Was a Gas”.

(3) The Screamers’ uncompromising music — all synthesizer, keyboard, drums, screamed vocals and not a guitar in sight — was unlikely to get heavy rotation, but delusions of grandeur were probably the main reason why the big time eluded them. A prime example of this was their decision to turn down a tour with Devo. There were also rumours that Brian Eno wanted to produce them, but the band felt that their histrionic live performance could not possibly be captured on vinyl. Instead, they envisaged a video-only release which would have been commercial suicide pre-MTV. It never saw the light of day anyway.

(4) The band’s name is obviously a reference to The New York Dolls’ “Looking For a Kiss,” but according to Laurence Grumbach it also stands for Ladies United Violently or Lipstick Used Viciously. Laurence’s nom de punk was chosen because she was born on 9 August which is St Amour’s day in the French calendar (hence Aphrodisia) and because she was fond of the Flamin’ Groovies (Flamingo). Apparently, it has nothing to do with John Waters’ 1972 film, Pink Flamingos.

(5) Dominique Jeantet reinvented herself as Fury in reference to Faulkner and the Plymouth Fury automobiles. She once owned a guitar with “Fury” inscribed on it.

(6) Fury recently discovered that her godfather was none other than the then future (and now late) President François Mitterrand.

(7) Fury’s father was a protean character. Among many other things, he was a spy with multiple identities who was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Before the war, he had been a member of a far-right terrorist group.

(8) The two artists were Olivia Clavel, who introduced her into the collective, and Loulou Picasso. Bazooka are most famous in Britain for producing the cover of Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces. Dominique Fury, who was once described as the Parisian Edie Sedgwick, also dated Lenny Kaye and Mick Jones of The Clash.

(9) Liliane was also a talented photographer who worked for the music press.

(10) Hermann Schwartz also acted as L.U.V.’s Pygmalion. It was he, for instance, who introduced the girls to The Shangri-Las.

(11) L.U.V. covered two songs: Nico & The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale” and The Troggs’ “Wild Thing”. Dominique Fury showed me some lyrics, both in French and English, that she had written for the band, but I’m not sure she ever shared them with the other members. Some are reminiscent of X-Ray Spex in that they describe a dystopian consumer society. Others stood out because of their violent imagery: “We’ll take the handle and you’ll take the blade”.

In April 1982, Steve Strange orchestrated the first serious sortie by a wave of young London designers to the Mecca of the established fashion world, Paris. An act of folie – or a marker for international success? Either way, this show sounded the last rites for New Romanticism…

Le Palace, Paris, April 1982: Helen Robinson’s PX swimwear leads the Brits onto the runway. Picture © by Shapersofthe80s

❚ “I don’t care if you ARE English designers,’’ the Stephens Linard and Jones were told at a club in rue St Denis, “you are too FLASH to come in here.’’ Streets famed for their prostitutes aren’t usually so choosy but the incident indicates how some damn Froggies still view us Roastbeefs. So kindly spare one ounce of sympathy for the intrepid club-host Steve Strange who was daring to stage an English fashion show in Paris – the very week after the spring collections had put French designers back in favour with the world’s press.

Christians being thrown to the lions was child’s play beside this sortie. As it was, Strange was calling his show The Best of British Fashion and who in France had heard of any of them?

➢➢ Click here to read on

➢➢ Watch the video here:

FRONT PAGE

… allez voir ‘Le clan des divorcés’ au Palace à Paris !

On rit de la première réplique jusqu’après le ‘coucher’ de rideau… Cette pièce à l’humour simple néanmoins tellement vrai est une perle de bonheur. L’histoire est plutôt minimale mais tellement bien menée : Le clan des divorcés, ce sont trois femmes qui divorcent, une bourgeoise Stéphanie d’Humily de Malanpry, qui quitte un berger ardéchois, une bristish Mary Bybowl, un peu délurée qui, elle, quitte un homme de plus, et une rurale Brigitte, qui elle aussi divorce !… Elles se retrouvent toutes les 3 en collocation ensemble.

Pour la petite histoire, cette pièce vient de Toulouse et devait être présentée une dizaine de fois au café Minime (je crois). Quand je l’ai vu vendredi soir, ils en étaient à leur 2196 e représentations. Ce n’est pas rien et cela représente au mieux le bon moment que l’on passe en compagnie des comédiens… Je ne les connaissais pas avant d’y aller, je peux dire que je ne les oublierai pas ! Je suis déjà allée voir des comédies mais là, c’est au delà… Du rire dès la première scène. Pas besoin que l’histoire se mette en place pour être transporter et pleurer de RIRE…

Ils sont en ce moment au Palace (métro Gds Boulevards) et il faut aller les voir… A ne manquer sous aucun prétexte !

Informations et réservations : http://www.theatrelepalace.fr/spectacle-le-clan-des-divorcees.html

Yeah, we all know and have been working with Edwige.  But STFU for a second and read her history.  I’ve known her for about 3 years now, but it wasn’t until we were working on the halloween project that we sat down for lunch and she told me her life. Who the hell knew!

Today, the word: Punk is used without any knowledge of who were the real punk icons of the 70’s: Punk today is only a fashion style. Rediscover or discover one of them:  Edwige Belmore.

1977. PARIS IS PUNK…

The scene explodes, the bands go wild. Edwige throws herself into the fray, briefly joining LUV, the legendary girl group. That same year, she marries Jean Louis Jorge, Dominican filmmaker, She is crowned “Queen of Punks” after appearing on the cover of Façade with Andy Warhol, with whom she makes her first trip to New York. He mentions her in his Diaries, photographs her, takes her to Studio 54 and the Mudd Club where she meets the elite of the NY underground: Maripol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, the punk and No Wave groups.

On Edwige’s return to Paris, Fabrice Aymer offered her the door at the Palace for its opening in ‘78.Edwige was photographed by Helmut Newton, Mondino,Pierre and Gilles, among others; she walked the runway for Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler.

In 1979, Claude Arto approached her and together they formed “Mathématiques Modernes.” Their single “Disco Rough” came out in 1980 and was NME’s “single of the week.” Album art was by Pierre & Gilles

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“EDWIGE OF LE PALACE”, INTERVIEW MAGAZINE;  CLICK HERE

Le rick-rolling, ça vous parle? Non, c’est normal. Cette blague un peu potache dont le web se gargarise depuis plusieurs mois déjà ne vole pas très haut mais peut se commuer en arme de contagion marketing massive.

A l’origine de la blague : une bande de fan d’un certain Rick Astley, gloire enterrée des années 80, s’amuse à détourner les liens de sites vers la vidéo musicale d’un tube du dit Rick. L’internaute est alors rickrollisé, comprenez redirigé à son insu vers le stupide clip musical.

Plusieurs sites chercheraient à s’octroyer la création de cette technique, qui, détournée à des fins publicitaires, peut faire très mal. Exemple : je rickroll une vidéo Youtube de Laurence Ferrari et Zidane en train de danser la tektonik au Palace prise sur le vif grâce à mon photophone vers mon site de vente en ligne de fringues pour ados, carton garanti. Je rickroll la vidéo casse toi pov’con vers le site web du Petit Robert…

Tout est permis, même les vidéos musicales débiles, à condition que les bannières matchent correctement. Internet démontre une nouvelle fois l’étendue de sa ruse…

Youtube semble petit à petit trouver les voies de la rentabilité.

PS : voici la vidéo, vous pourrez ainsi frimer dans le monde.

En refermant ma boîte aux lettres, je croise mon singulier voisin de palier qui accepte de faire l’interview. « Singulier » parce qu’avant d’être voisins, je l’avais aperçu aux shows, dans la rue, intriguée par sa longue et digne silhouette vêtue d’une robe ancienne de mandarin : « très fonctionnelle, achetée aux Marché aux Voleurs de Pékin, comme le châle utilisé en manteau qui rappelle la toge antique, les bergers Masaï ou encore les moines tibétains ». Je connaissais ses illustrations pour les campagnes du Bon Marché : Hyppolite Romain est un artiste rare, multi-talents et directeur du Jardin d’Acclimatation qui a travaillé pendant vingt ans dans la mode.

Fin des années soixante-dix, Hyppolite Romain est journaliste, puis très vite dessine pour Pilote, Libé, Sandwich (le supplément de Libé). Pendant cinq ans pour Palace Magazine, il dessine toutes les nuits, les « Mille et Une Nuits » du mythique club parisien, Le Palace. Anna Piaggi, l’incontournable rédactrice du Vogue Italie et Vanity Italie lui commande trente pages par trimestre:

- J’ai suivi tous les défilés de par le monde. C’était « Le Diable s’habille en Prada ». Je dessinais 480 dessins en cinq jours durant les défilés

- Le vêtement est avant tout une futilité. Acheter des modes ne m’intéresse pas. Je suis un artiste, je vis et je m’habille comme un artiste. Je suis une véritable provocation. Ca rejoint la liberté. J’ai toujours voulu garder cette liberté. J’ai toujours été mon propre mécène et je suis devenu clown, j’ai fait de la mise en scène, écrit des livres, cuisiné : je suis tous terrains, un parfait autodidacte.

Et un peintre :

- Je peins comme un calligraphe chinois. Je peins directement comme on respire : vous peignez l’intérieur de vous. Je suis humain.

Il y a treize ans, Madame Figaro envoie Hyppolite Romain à Pékin : « C’est une rencontre ». Il y vit moitié du temps dans une ancienne maison traditionnelle dont il est le propriétaire, d’une de ces étroites petites rues typiques, les Hu Tong qui tendent à disparaître. Le Pékin intimiste. J’aime beaucoup ce versant à la fois austère, la pierre est grise, et humain, c’est très vivant.

- Je rêve, j’achète des meubles, je cuisine. Je vis comme un vieux chinois, comme un mandarin. Mais sans nostalgie. Je viens d’écrire un livre historique : « Sur les Traces d’un Jésuite en Chine ».

J’admire dans la pièce attenante, un immense et magnifique lit chinois du XIIème siècle. L’appartement oscille entre boudoir et salon des curiosités d’un grand raffinement.

Il est convaincu d’un « tsunami économique » après les fameux J.O. :

- Qui va déterminer la prochaine dynastie d’après le communisme ?

Note de l’auteur: cette interview a été réalisée bien avant les récents événements au Tibet .

- Nous vivons un choc culturel, on a découvert qu’on était rien, l’Amérique, un géant aux pieds d’argile. Le XXIeme siècle n’a plus d’idéologie : on est dans une grande tombola, il n’y a plus de règle. Nous sommes devenus des consommateurs faibles. La France est un petit pays frileux, extrêmement corporatiste : le bling bling de Sarkozy, un petit homme agité dont le costume est trop grand.

- On ne peut pas ne pas être engagé. Je suis un des rares peintres qui peint son temps exactement comme Lautrec, Bruegel. Je raconte mon époque.

Hyppolite Romain, l’autodidacte érudit qui voue une passion pour le XVIIIème siècle et a récemment découvert le XVIIème est aussi un « vrai artisan » qui compare son rapport à la nourriture comme à l’amour  :

- Trente-cinq ans que je cuisine. Je fais de la porcelaine pour de grands porcelainiers de Limoge (Raynaud), dont le service « Marquise et Mandarin » que nous utilisons à la maison de thé du Jardin d’Acclimatation. Pour faire un bon bol, il faut parfois cinq siècles à certaines cultures. Il faut d’abord que ce soit fonctionnel et ergonomique, un objet manufacturé n’est pas une œuvre d’art. Tout n’est pas une œuvre d’art non !

L’artiste a aussi crée un cirque, d’abord « un dessin sur une nappe d’un cirque idéal », puis s’est fait prêter des lieux dans Paris (par entre autres Karl Lagerfield ) et a compté parmi les dix-sept saltimbanques de son cirque, le directeur financier du Nouvel Observateur en « Dresseur de Poissons Rouges en Férocité ». Rien que l’intitulé fait voyager. Le cirque a donné soixante spectacles uniques :

- Un rêve qui a duré seize ans.

Qu’il prolonge aujourd’hui dans son petit théâtre : « L’été à Richelieu, je fais un spectacle : Contes Chinois sous la Lune ».

Voici le Paris incontournable de ce vrai titi parisien, né en 1947 rue des Martyrs « derrière le Cirque Médrano » qui gosse, aurait pu sortir d’un dessin de Poulbot :

- Montmarte sans la Place du Tertre, là où ça ressemble encore aux tableaux de Maurice Trullot. Le Petit Musée de Montmartre, Le Lapin Agile. Les Quais de la Seine, Palais Royal, l’Ile Saint Louis, la Place des Victoires, le Musée d’Orsay. Les villes parlent, Paris murmure, aujourd’hui le brassage n’est plus là, changement d’époque. La gouaille parisienne, comme Michel Audiard, l’accent parigot, un héritage. La parisienne : une silhouette, un genre.

Et lorsque je lui demande de se définir par quelques objets, il sort de son sac un nez rouge de clown, un chapelet tibétain et une timbale « en vermeil » :

- Parce que c’est un signe de civilisation. J’essaye d’être un homme civilisé, un honnête homme qui rejoint le citoyen du monde du XVIIIème siècle. J’ai quitté la côte de maille pour arriver au gilet brodé.

Merci Monsieur Romain

www.hippolyte-romain.com