Hello world !
Yesterday
was a very cold day in Bordeaux,
and we can fell that winter is closer than ever. It was a very particular
Saturday, and several times in the afternoon, I met a strange girl, dressed as
“Snow white” (without her dwarfs), walking through the crowd of people hunting
the perfect Christmas gift. I met her a lot of times, just like if she was
everywhere in the city, until I saw this scene at the beginning of the night:
She was not
alone, and for sure, she had many, many clones. Some of these were patrolling
with military weapons, and considering that the temperature was able to freeze
any common people dressed in typical winter clothes, I understood that they
were not humans. Was it a sect of a kind of alien’s invasion ???
As many
humans here, I decided to take a closer look to these specimens, in order to have my own opinion, despites the real cold weather. And after half an hour, I
understood that these could just be some kind or robotic humanoids, with a little bug : they were only looping positions and attitudes. Turning and
patrolling around the place every 10 minutes, and then joining a fuel container
in a kind of autism circle. Unable to talk, they were just sometimes
touching each other, with no panic, but clearly understanding that the invasion
plan failed because of this infinite and unwanted looping bug.
So I
decided to find a warm place, and crossed the city frontier separating
traditional Bordeaux
from real living popular zone ; “Victor-Hugo” street was dressed in a faint
“Champs-Elysées” style.
As King
Negrito recently related a cool rock event in Brussels (see his Gogol Bordello
report), I went to the Barbey theatre, one of the main concert’s hall of
Bordeaux.
At the
first look, I felt that a rock audience was still alive in the city (Bordeaux used to be a big
rock place with bands as “Noir Désir”, the “Wet Furs” and many others…). I was
also quite amused by typical MTV young fashion victims wearing sunglasses at
night or dressed as their parents used to be in the 70’s. Sometimes, it’s hard
to understand what a teenage rebellion is today…
That night
was a special regional rock event, and six or seven bands were in competition
in order to get a booking for one of the best summer festivals in France called
“Le Printemps de Bourges”. What I mean is that playing in that particular
festival is really a chance to get a journalistic focus, and access the real
music producers once a year (and specially not those from Universal, I’m really
talking about music, here).
These kind
of events have a strange audience, as small groups of people only come to
support their favourite band, leaving the concert’s hall once their “friends”
gig is over. The first band was not in competition, and playing something
between Calexico and Kat Onoma. Many musicians on stage, but I did not really
understood why it was necessary, as an half of them would have produced the
same sound. They were clearly having fun with each others, but I was not
surprised by their performance, just... interested.
No… the
real surprise came from the first local band, called “Jimbo Farrar”. At first, I
thought I would only see some kind of college bands… But I was really far from
it. “Jimbo Farrar” has all that a band needs to become a real, true international rock band : great music play, splendid writing, real atmosphere,
and no fashion attitude but serious and strong intensity ! They have
(it’s so rare in those days) their own sound, they’re creating something,
today.
By the way,
there is no singer in this band as it’s a purely instrumental rock
experience. In order to define their style (this is quite difficult, because
once again, they’re creating something new), you can imagine something
dealing with the authenticity of Einstuerzende Neubauten, surfing the
sensuality of some Joy Division’s tracks, and powered by an experimental
instrumentation between Githead, the Cure, and some Robin Finck’s riffs (from
early NIN). This was really, really fantastic. Be sure that I’ll follow
this band in the next months… According to the local Grito’s
council, they should really win that local contest, and maybe much more.
But I also
have to talk about to other interesting cool bands deserving attention. My second
favourite is “The Garçon”, playing quite more explicit references, but in a real
good mix.
There, you
should imagine a live atmosphere between “Devo” and “the Smiths”, rendered by
electronic live machines, a terrible extroverted lead singer and a pure psychobilly
guitarist. This was really a good time, delivering original happy rock music and alternative atmospheres. I enjoyed the trip.
The last
band I’ll talk about is a one-and-only performer, really mastering the art of
lice sampling, playing a kind of modern and personal blues. His name is “Eric
Bling”.
He played
nice tunes, and I felt really interested by the way a man can generate music
(drums, bass, voices and so on…) with only a guitar and a sampler. I thought
that this kind of music was not exactly compatible with a rock concert’s hall
like Barbey, and I’d be curious to discover later how it sounds in a warmer
place, as a real good blues cabaret.
Totally
exhausted, we decided to leave the place in order to have cool meals (it was
nearly 01.00am and we forgot to eat…), and the second big experience of the
night came from that wine, that fantastic wine, smoothly ending a really good
evening.
So now... just a little
gift, nothing illegal for sure !
I engage you to download two
official released tracks from "Jimbo Farrar", available on the Barbey
theatre website (not a real good recording quality, but still cool to listen) :
>> Jimbo Farrar - Part B (7min40
- 3,6 Mo)
>> Jimbo Farrar - Part D - Live (11min04
- 5,2 Mo)
Enjoy... !!!
See you
soon,
