29 mai 2004

POLITICS, DIJON TRIBU FESTIBAL AND "LA NUIT BLEUE" (TEASER).

while typing this, i'm listening to national information radio, where 2 of the stupidest french politics, so-called representing french points of view, are speaking about these last days hot topic here in france : do we really want these homosexual marriages "authorized" here in france ? that's what are trying to answer Dominique Strauss Kahn and Roselyne Bachelot. the first is supposed to be left-winged, but he's a total liberal piece of shit, a pro-"free-all-economic-markets-it-will-help-everybody" freak (who was supposed to never come back from some dark affairs, as too many of them politics here in france), and the other one is probably the worse woman in the politic field, some hysteric and republican pink (or blue, depends of the wind) clothed cow who just fall in all her adversory traps as she so stupid and totally off-the-topic, always.

if i got some still-not-finished-ideas about the situation of childrens in homo couples, i cannot see a single wrong point against leaving gay and lesbians marry ; now i wonder how they will speak of the next natural topic, the famous rights for homo couples to raise and educate "their" childrens ; and now this is an interesting topic, but from both of their points of views, maybe it will be a hard laugh, but i got doubts about it...
anyway.

each year for a while, those precious Zutique peope, in Dijon, work on some real cool event : the Tribu Festival. it looks like the ideal journey unto nowadays "world music" soundtrack, with an indy and critic view on it, and this year prog looks like a worlwide winner : Rokia Traore (from Mali, who won the 2004 BBC critic award for best album, for her "bowmboi"), the mighty band called Antibalas (USA) must rock the place with their fantastic afrobeat, the pretty cool recently Ninja Tune signed Skalpel (Poland), Krishna Das and the modern light brass (Nepal), Sainkho Namtchylak (Tuva), Mahala Rai Banda (Roumanie), Fisz (Poland), Banda De Santiago De Cuba (Cuba, right !) and many more interesting stuff, as some musical creations, and i'm sure i'm forgetting some other shit.
it's in Dijon, eastern France, from May the 21 to the 27, and there's even some website.

well well ! La Nuit Bleue, uh ? forget this worlwide hot folklore i talked about just before with the Tribu Festival, and let's come in the pure electronic landscape.
Leafcutter John and Philip Jeck are the 2 highlights of the 2004 edition of "la Nuit Bleue", THE electronicacoustic event this side of France, thanks to Elektrophonie, which is in some of the coolest place to have a musical blast (les Salines d'Arc et Senans).
if you wanna try the experience of listening music all night long, on some comfortables little beds, and in a totally semi-atmospheric mood, you know what to do on the 9 to 11 of July.
the hardest thing is, of course, to not fall asleep. 8)

RALPH SNART OOOOOOOLD 94 DOUBLE-SIZED SPECIAL ONLINE.

i really love to try to write longer and longer titles, and feeling like i got nothing to tell more. 8)
anyway ! Marc Hansen offers you the seventh ish of Ralph Snart, his free web comic. and it's a "double-sized special" featuring some "lost issues for Ralph Snart from 1994", says the author : "In the bizarre storyline, a bodyless Ralph is father to a gigantic killer infant."...
what are you still doing here ? go !

27 mai 2004

QUICK ADVERTISING.

i got this Kaput and Zosky as a background of the CPU for so long... time to pay a little tribute...  8)

tonight at the Se7en bar : Feetwan, breakbeat maestro from hip hop to drum'n'bass.
tomorrow nite at the Se7en bar : Alcor and Howie, full drum'n'bass spectrum.
and on June 3rd, well... the 12 bpm invader. 8)

ANIMALS.

SHAC was set up at the end of 1999 by the some activists, fighting for animals rights, or simply for a little bit of respect out there.
they used to get many targets, like HLS (Huntingdon Life Sciences), a contract animal testing laboratory who test weedkillers, pesticides, drugs and household products on animals to enable big business to get their products on the market quickly and cheaply. did i talked about Shell ? no ? ok, so here it is : just boycott Shell. if you wanna know more, ask me, or go visit these links.

there's many SHAC around the world now, and i remember SHAC France did, in 2001, an extensive undercover investigation on Aventis Pharma SA (in Alfortville, near Paris), where there were 250 beagles, 200 monkeys, and some mices, rabbis, rats...

OneVoice (previously Talis) is a megagroup who grab all associations working for the animals rights and respect.

anyway, i just wanted to talk a little bit about them, and invites you to check their sites ; buying cosmetics is a thing we'll do on a regular basis, and there's companies who signed some moral contract with animals defenders : Nuxe, Caudalie, Boiron, Florame, L'occitane, and of course Body Shop are some of the few who're still in the good camp.

well, of course it's a little bit more expensive than the usual shit, but it helps you to buy yourself some keys to paradise, ooooo lorddddd have merrrrrcyyyyyy, oooo greeeaaaatttt lord saaaaave myyyyyy sssooooououououououuuulllll.... or at least, just save some cool of these small (and innocents) animals.

sorry, i gotta make Lassie have a pee outside.
see ya.

YESTERDAAAAAY... ALL MY TROOOUBLES SEEEEMS SO... UH, SORRY.

these last days were pretty 48H per day oriented around here.
I did some posters advertising for my pal Seb, for a meeting/sign with artists Marc Malès and Philippe Thirault, doing "Lucy" comic book for Dupuis (and released in a few days), and happening in Dijon (in the bookshop i used to work a few weeks ago), i helped Drine finishing some graphotism artwork for a summer theatre plays festival, i received thousands of indy books and i tried to find some place to expose it at the bookshop i work now... plenty of bizness to do.

on the cool side, i now got tons of books i'm glad to carry on and will try to push, which is, at last, the main thing which gives me interest to be a bookseller. and there's a few people who already saw it and were glad of it (and who spent a few money in it, too !), so everything's fine on this.

on monday eve, Drine and I went to watch "le pays du chien qui chante", a Y. Dedet movie, some real interesting movie full of sensibility and ideas ; a japonese couple comes to live in France, in the exact area where i live. distance, barriers, exchanges, meetings and a dog who can sings are the main elements of it, and, if you forget half of the french actors (awful, horrible, baaaaad), it's a cool movie who save the day.

on tuesday eve, Drine, our good friend Benny and i went to Ralf and Fabienne' new place, some giiiiaaannnt house lost in the countryside, in a very quiet and beautiful small town, where we spent the evening with him and Fabienne, his girlfriend who saved our computer affairs with her USB zip. 5 people working (or who had worked) in the visual communication field speaks of course of visual communication shit, but we spent a very cool evening and i cannot wait to visit them again, quickly.

other cool thing, i finally receive another Barbelith mixtape, and this is the kind of thing i really like. 8)
people from the Barbelith crew did some list of colunter people, and the first recorded one his favorite track on a tape, sent it to the second, who did the same, etc. i receive a tape already half recorded, put some shit on it and will post it to the next one. at the end, we got some worlwide and totally of control mixtapes, full of unknown stuff and of smart choices ; freedom comes from diversity, isn't it ?

i'm not hanging this much on Barbelith since a few years ago, tired of the usual blabla of some of its members (a very few), who tried to show themselves a little bit more for me. some people in lack of self confidence or i don't know what, but who where always coming for controversy and self-advertising...
in fact, i remember spending loads of time on it for months, and also how usefull the lith was when 9/11 happened : in real time, we exchanged news, comments, infos, minute per minute, and with each of the so called "big infos sites" crashed one after the other, it becames in a few hours the only platform of info closest to the reality. right now, i got to say that i don't feel so much envy to read it this much.

it's doesn't mean anything wrong on this community : the strongest, smartest i've ever seen, some people really pushing intelligence and curiousity in the field, and full of badass people all going in another kind of state of mind. and when i write "full", i mean what i write : plenty of its worldwide members are interesting people with interesting beliefs, thoughts and tastes.
plus, they're a lot into books, music and comic books, too, so this ain't bad, either. 8)
but even if i'm not going a lot on the 'lith, i'm still checking what happen to some of its members, that i felt i'm having some commons things with ; people who get websites, or blogs (90% of my "blogs" area in this blog' left bar), or people i exchange mails with.

when i discovered Barbelith, a few years ago, i was a pretty new ass in the webfield, and it was awesome to discover that people (some of ones i could feel close with) were spending so much time blabling about so many topics, exchange so many points of view, with so much enthousiasm ; one of the exact reasons i'm loving the www so much. for full history of this really cool website, all is explained on it. and, give to Caesar... i think you all already know the site of one of the main people under the Lith' website, Tom Coates's very own PlasticBag, and a real cool spot to hang around.

26 mai 2004

I'M A COMPILATION DONE BY A FAMOUS DJ. WHAT AM I ?

...and cause the guy who did this mix is quite famous and well knowed in this business, he asked to all the followng people to allow him to use unkown tracks or to do exclusive shit to him. and he got some serious shit !

"they're all on it. everyone's a dj. the Ipod generation is here compilng its own "worldwide" !
gotta progress. stay ahead. i'm pulling out the joker baby !
private numbers pressed. personnal cuts created."

ah ah ah ! i love this guy but sometimes, sometimes... 8)

anyway, here's the tracklisting :

- Cinematic Orchestra "Wheel within a wheel" :
more than just an intro, this track from Swinscoe and co is a real gem.
chords and quasi-infrabass in a serious, serious mood. dope shit.
i'm kidding : DOOOOOOPE SHIT. this track is a real, real wonder.

- Umod "Puffin dance" :
this Dominic Stanton did a massive downbeat headbanger, once again : the prog is incredibly powerful in its minimal beat construction (earth to june, earth to june, do you get me ?), and the loops which are turnin around and around your head and between your ears just make it great, too. oh, and the bass is there, too, as usual with Domu.

- NSM "The show" :
what can i say ? i'm a real IG Culture freak, but i gotta say that i'm quite disapointed about his last effort, recently done under the New Sector Movement diminutive nick ; well... well well well.
no worries about the way it's done. IG is one of the biggest producers in the area, we already knew that. now, i'm a little less enthousiastic about this way he's going in : his last album, "turn it up", is going eveyrwhere in the dancefloor spectrum, but maybe too much in the r'n'b sphere. and even a good r'n'b track is still something i'm having hard times to deal with. IG last album is too r'n'b oriented, using too many "classic" r'n'b recipes that don't fit that much, for me (even with the terrific Eska on the mic).
attention, ladies and gentlemen : this guy can do the best and purest shit around, i'm repeating ; i have too many respect to this guy to just put him in the "r'n'b easy shit" area, and i'll wait for some more of is extract funk, in its "old" fashioned way. no, not this hip hop one, neither.

- TY featuring Eska "Sophisticated & course (everyday thoughts)" :
Ty can do the best pieces of hip hop around as he can just miss it. for years by now, he showed us how far he can go in writing real strong tracks, with a real intelligence and his own twist, so personnal. well, i'm a lot into his latest afrobeat oriented hip hop, but i'm not into this track (even with the terrific Eska on the mic, ohhhh sounds deja vu).

- Eric Roberson "Couldn't hear me" :
if this nu-soul wave must go somewhere, please give the handle bar to this guy.
brilliant, brilliant track, nice voice, nice way of using it, and great lyrics. do you think it's all about love ?

- Nicola Conte "Wanin moon" :
i'm not into this track at all. don't ask me, i don't know.

- Build an Ark "The blessing song" :
all praise due to Carlos Nino to save the day with some of the biggest positives vibes i've heard for a looong time ; a track full of happiness, of the sweatest attitude around. for those who wanna have this track, i think it's on the very top of my current selection, right aside the green and flowering plant... Amon Contact ? the same who just got these "micro solutions for mega problems" shit on Soul Jazz Record label ? acoustic twist ? let's go for it.
Build and Ark got some of the nicest tracks on the Sun Ra tribute i've talked about a few times ago. they released also some originals tunes inspired from the mythic Arkestra people, an album called "Peace with every step", available on Todosonidos.

- Deadline vs Batacumbele "Batacumbele" :
Seiji explores new angles, with its eternal mix of quality and curiosity. right now he must drink rhum and eat coco slices for breakfast, and his neighborhood must use their soles listening and dancing to his mad, mad shit. is it some West Puerto Rico shit ?
definitely not my favorite Seiji track, but another proof of the man abilities.

- Jazzanova featuring Shaun Escoffery "Boom klicky boom klack (that's what we do)" :
another german breaks affair ! and as usual with the Sonar Kollectiv crew, it's an instant dancefloor filler if played at the right time... and when not doing the usual (but always classy) jazzastuff routine, the collective can defy west london inhabitants on their own ground : broken beat time, baby ! vocals from Shaun Escoffery ain't too bad, too.

- Outlines "A matter of time" :
i'd probably loved this track a few years ago, but right now it looks like a little bit lost in the middle of an ocean of broken-broke-beats, sometimes produced in a better way, no disrespect to Irfane. classic shit, i thought...
...and then, at 2'40, the bassline pops out (i mean, really) and it's feeling real better. how's that ? it was made for it ? fuck.

- Matthew Herbert & Roisin Murphy "The night of the dancing flame" :
i looove Roisin voice, since the early Moloko stuff ; seing her from a featuring to another is always a good investissment. and Herbert, well, does his Herbert guy on this one. A good track, but not the atomic production that could marry perfectly with Roisin voice.

- Two Banks of Four featuring Canning Town Socialist Collective Choir "Brilliant circles" :
do you know loads of people who goes through the 90's acid jazz wave and comes out for doing some of the highest shit around ? Ski is a real hero for me, the guy got his fuckin sound, a real personnal way of producing music. and the 2Bo4 just drop another massive tune there.
miss Cowell to his son : "Stanley, are you up there in your bedroom ? come downstairs, some childs wanna play with ya".

- Gotan Project "Paris texas" :
this is it, i'm fed up with Gotan Project. quite ok for a few tracks, but still the same substance just makes me bored to death...

- Roy Ayers "Reaching for the highest pleasure" :
not the ultimate Roy Ayers track, but from these amazing guys at BBE comes another 1976 amazing piece of work, which looks quite like a training session for Ayers and co, but also got some good moments in the +6 minutes it plays.
and finishing with a Roy Ayers can only a proof of good taste, isn't it ?

going to change the record on the turntable, i'm putting on the radio. fm, france, 1:52 in the night. and... billy ze kick were on air. awful, awful french crap, i wish i could break all their records and put it in some Saturn garbage. crap crap crap. sick sick sick. shit shit shit. euuaarrghhh.

Gilles, you can write anything you wanna to, even if it looks like really pretentious.
after all, i owe you so much for having so many real things to hear... and not having to listen to french radio...

"Gilles Peterson Worlwide exclusives" is the last album released from Talkin'Loud.
his barcode number is 602498193105 and it's really better than the previous one.
and as good as the first one, for example, or as any good Worldwide radioshow (available on Radio 1 in the UK, Radio Active in New Zealand, Radio Nova in France, FM4 in Austria, Radio X and Radio Multi-Kulti in Germany, Radio B92 Yugoslavia in Serbia/Hungary, Radio Montecarlo in Italy and Russia, WKRZ in Singapore, Radio Oxygen in Turkey, Radio Helsinky in Finland, and Radio Oxigenio in Portugal ; it's not on Couleur 3 anymore ? did i missed something ?).

25 mai 2004

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I NEED YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE.

"FLIGHT is the best anthology i've seen in years ; a soaring lift-off for a powerful new generation of cartoonists." - Scott McLoud.

do I have your attention ? thanks, Scott. 8)
many, many people were offered to do some pages for artist Kazu Kibuishi's (and co) project called Flight (and i know one who was really enthousiastic about the idea, but who was deadline-killed already, holy shit...) ; what looked like another anthology finish as a brilliant 2 hundred full color pages.

if you're familiar with my blog, so are you with Kazu's artwork ; this guy write intelligent and interesting stories, full of emotion and poetry, and, guess what, he know how to draw.
Copper, for instance, one of his recurent characters, goes through many adventures which, at their end, appears as they are : "just" some dreams (or daydreams) of our little "hero" ; it's inventive, really smart, and from storytelling to inks, from lettering to colors, it's very, very professionnal.
Flight started a few months ago, the always awake Kazu even started a website devoted to this project. i don't know if he was knowing, at the time, that Flight will have the first page in the Image (its publisher) section of monthly comic's shop catalog Previews.

Flight is a collection of short stories, all using and pushing the narrative process to its best ; as its title mean, it's focused on the theme of flight in its many incarnations.

Erik Larsen, the boss at Image (and famous artist and creator or Savage Dragon, to name a very few), look like a real enthousiastic about publishing it, and there's nice little pieces in May Previews (ish#XIV, 5).

artists Derek Kirk Kim, Clio Chiang, Jacob Magraw, Jen Wang, Chris Appelhans, Neil Babra, Phil Craven, Bengal, Dylan Meconis, Enrico Casarosa, Bill Mudron, Kean Soo, Khang Le, Catia Chien, Erika Moen, Hope Larson, Jake Parker, Joel Carroll, Kazu Kibuishi, Rad Sechrist, and Vera Brosgol all teamed up for this baby monster scheduled to be in stores at the end of august ; for those of you near me, feel comfortable to ask me to save one issue, as there will be a pile in the bookshop where i work ; save $19.95 right now for it, please.

and hats off, Kazu. you did it, and it looks like a big hit you got there. 8)

24 mai 2004

HONG KONG PHOOEY, NUMBER ONE SUPER GUY,
HONG KONG PHOOEY, QUICKER THAN THE HUMAN EYE .


i had thoughts/memories this weekend, about thursdays mornings, back when i was a kid, watching cartoons till my grandma called me to "clean your room and come eating, ju".
so i listened to this 1995 Ralph Snart compilation of cartoons tunes revisited by nowadays artists ; it's features all the biggest cartoons themes from Violent Femmes, the Ramones, Mary Lou Lord, Juliana Hatfield, Butthole Surfers or Frente!, between others. many bad tracks, but some good ones, and i don't talk about the many cartoons that weren't imported here in France.
for example, i don't remember spending some times watching "Jonny Quest", "Speed Racer", the Jetsons", "Underdog", "Josie and the Pussycats", "the Bugaloos", "Gigantor" or "Sigmund and the seamonsters" ; i don't think these cartoons made it over the ocean... i can be wrong, but as i was a cartooholic kid, i think i had memories about it.

BUT ! i remember "Hong Kong Phooey" ("Hong Kong Foufou" in french), the Mutt of Steel and his pal Spot the cat, which was, if i'm correct, totally stupid ; at least stupid as this "Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines" ("Satanas et Diabolo" in french), and "Wacky Races" ("Les Fous du Volant" in french). As written in the cd booklet, what stays in mind is Muttley (Diabolo)'s signature wheezy laugh. it was a 5 minutes laugh each times this asshole appeared and, even more, when he "talked". Of course, there was the Fantastic Four, but what was so coooool was Spiderman, and its cllllaaaassssssic theme. Joey Ramone (and his 3 bro) sings "...to him, life is a great bang up, whenever there's a hang up, you'll find the Spiderman !..." and it's a real cool tune.
("Saturday Morning : cartoons' greatest hits" is barcoded 008811134822, an MCA record ; yeah, i do free advertising for major companies, incredible, uh ?)

so what, you will say ?
so the booklet is illustrated by many cool stuff, and its cover is drawn from Glenn Barr, and it's a masterpiece, if you ask me.
but you don't, so...

Drine and I went to Kill Bill 2, and it's even better than the first part, which was a little bit too of an homage for me. a nice homage, full of creativity, of course, but the second part is really more Tarantinesque, if it means something ; the dialogs and the rhythm are more into the usual Tarantino ways, and even if i'm not that much into the story, there are some really dope scenes, the photo is wicked thanks to Bob Richardson, nice music from the Rza, and David Carradine, Uma Thurman and this Michael Madsen badass, are doing a nice job... a pretty good movie. Drine saw the last Almodovar, "la Mala Education", and even if it's a good movie, she says, it's a little bit under his last ones ; we'll see.

(note to myself : this week, not forget to go watch this "le Pays du Chien qui chante" from Y. Dedet, a free rendez-vous at our local cinema, and also Kiyoshi "Jellyfish" Kurosawa's "Seance", and Yu Li Kwai's "All Tomorrow's Parties".)

i still haven't heard Cannes results (from yesterday) and i don't give a shit, as for all these awards shit, but Dude and Fabien, who were at home on saturday evening (...night) told us (there were also Tom and Karine, and, of course, Drine too) that Michael Moore won the Gold palm, which is something i'm not totally convainced (i haven't seen his last movie "Farenheit 911" yet), but for which i'm pleased : this will probably help his ideas to find their ways and some echoes easier, which is nothing but a good thing, of course.
(note : i just checked it. it's true.)

speaking of good thing, and speaking of my friends Fab and Dude, after more than 10 years of blabling, it seems that finally we'll work on something together...
Fabien already wrote many books and done some scripts for some comic book projects, and Dude is working hard on his own smart semi-SF book too, and we launched some ideas saturday night about doing some kind of shit ; well, they launched ideas, cause i was sleepy and wasn't totally right, but hell, saturday night, we started something. it must be just a start, but we all agreed on the fact it were already late... more soon, hopefully. 8)

public note : on sundays evenings, for diner, never try saturday's chinese foods in the microwave. wrong, terribly wrong idea.
going to the bathroom.
peace out there.

22 mai 2004

BEATS, LOOPS AND VIIIIBES (part. 673847)

a few heavy tunes who just make my day these last days/weeks :
- Robust "Thinking ahead of time" (Galapagos 4).
- Mr Complex featuring Biz Markie "Glue" (70 records).
- Patrick Forge's thrust the dj compilation part. 3 (Trust the dj).
- Cinnamon "cakes and pies" (Lewis Recordings).
- Nicolas Repac "swing swing LP" (Universal).
- Build an Ark "the blessing song (extended version)" (GP's WW compilation released on Talkin'Loud).
- N-E-R-D "she wants to move" (Virgin).
- the Opus "earthwalker" (Mush records).
- Leroy Hutson "Love oh Love" (Curtom).
- Sequel featuring Guillermo Soria "neptunes, moon and mars" (Sonar kollektiv).
- Trilok Gurtu "broken rhythms LP" (sony).
- Jehst "get your shit together" (low life records).
- Madvillain "all caps" (Stones Throw records).
- Morgan Geist rework of Franz Ferdinand's "take me out".
- Cinematic Orchestra "Wheel within a wheel" (GP's WW compilation released on Talkin'Loud).
- Hu Vibrationnal "beautiful LP" (Soul Jazz records).
- Amp Fiddler "i believe in you (Bugz in the Attic remix)" (Genuine).
- Skalpel "1958 LP" (Ninja Tune).
- Lotus "the grand masterplan" (Yoruba).
- Gift of Gab "fourth dimensional rocketships going up" (Quannum records).
- Mike Ladd and Vijay Iyer "in what language ?" (Pi records).

also, this blog left bar is slowly but surely coming to its nomination to "the Biggest Number of Cool Links in A Blog' Left Bar Award 2004", and if you want proofs, i got some, here's a few additions that you probably already know ; sometimes, it's like this, balblin', blablin', time is passing through and then, 3 years after, you find out that this Soul Jazz Records still not in your links bar ; and it's a shame. well, it will be -bar updated this afternoon- hopefully :

Rope A Dope records
Soul Jazz Records
Todosonidos Presenta
Low Life records
Wah Wah 45s
CatSkills records
Quality Records
Bear Entertainment
Locarno
Revirth
Rush Hour
Crue-L recordings
Flower recordings

New Sector Movements

Soul Brother
Intoxica
If Music

Mix Of The Week
We Funk Radio
NuJazzSoul
Royal Groove

2nd Class Citizen

i'm out.

CURRENT READINGS THAT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.

- "Ruboki (la muraille de chine)", from Takeshi Kaiko (Picquier).
- "Montedidio" from Erri de Luca (Folio).
- "the Invisibles : entropy in the uk TPB", from Grant Morrison, Phil Jimenez and many more (DC/Vertigo).
- "Sakme apie juza (la saga de Youza)", from Youozas Baltouchis (Pocket).
- "L'enfer, dit-on", from Bernard Noel (Leo Scheer publisher).
- "il sex appeal dell'inorganico (le sex-appeal de l'inorganique)", from Mario Perniola (Leo Scheer publisher).

BEATS, LOOPS AND VIIIIBES (part. 673848)

- Black Grass are two guys who released a pretty pleasant album out on CatSkills Rec. not the ultimate shit, but a really well done one.

- dj Feetwan and I will play for a gig in Troyes on may the 29th. don't ask me which venue we talk about, as my man Feet take care of the story. more soon, hopefully.

- another great website, full of interesting and smart ressources : We Funk Radio are some nice cats from Montreal, Prof. Groove and dj Static, uploading weekly quality radioshows, from soul jazz to hip hop. nice work indeed.

CANNES 2004 FILM FESTIVAL REPORT.

just kidding.

THANKS MISTER FREDGRI.

FredGri, some up and coming artist (and good kebab eater pal) from Dijon, lended me a few comics a while ago.

- "Autobiographix" is a collection of short stories about, guess what, personnal stuff, offered by a top roster : Sergio Aragones, Gabriel Ba, Eddie Campbell, Paul Chadwick, Farel Dalrymple, Richard Doutt, Will Eisner, Paul Hornschemeier, Jason Lutes, Linda Medley, Metaphrog, Frank Miller, Fabio Moon, Bill Morrison, Arnold Pander, Diana Schutz, Stan Sakai, William Stout and Matt Wagner.
some pages were really great, while others missed my attention. my faves :
Jason Lutes, who tells a intimate story where he shows his skills about narrative creation and smart emotionnal use, a beautiful little short piece called "rules to live by".
Bill Morrison, in "my life as a bat", went for a funny tale of childhood and, hum, batman, in a very charming way.
in "comic bok chef", Matt Wagner offers us a nice chicken dish cooking recipe, thanks to him even if this badass use crushed tomatoes in cans, instead of real fresh ones (and i'm sure he do the same thing for basilic and spices...) ; i think i'll offer him lessons exchanges... Matt ! if you read me, you must know that ! doing huge and cultissim comics won't excuse your way of cooking !
Eddie Campbell, with "i have lost my sense of humour", considers how debate with your own curious evolution, and about how life affect him and his ways of working, on this cynical, caustic mode he know how to use so well.
Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon tell a story ("qu'est-ce que c'est ?") who happened to them while visiting Paris, where violence falled on them ; it remembered me a strange feeling i had a few years ago : i took the subway a couple of times, for walking through some not so quiet suburbs around NY, alone, and nothing happened to me, even in the middle of bad boys twice my weight, gangsta rap attitude and gold chains, while i was agressed by suckers (with knives, hotdammit !) in my native (and so really quiet) town.
Still in "France", Stan Sakai counts one of his trip to Angouleme comics festival, coinciding with his 25th wedding anniversary, and is the witness of a "death by chocolate".
"Autobiographix" is a Dark Horse book, isbn 1593070381.

- "HERO : powers and abilities", written by Will Pfeifer with art by Kano, is the first HERO tradepaperback, which we could resume by : "what if you gain the powers of super-heroes", on a quite realistic look at this idea. i liked it, cool read. too many friends told me it was a really huge book, so i think i was a little bit confused and disapointed about it, as it's a real nice book, but... well, you got the point. for sure, at least, a brilliant turn on the classic super heroes theme. a DC book, ISBN 1401201687.

- "Scarlet Traces" from Ian Edginton and great art from D'Israeli, another Dark Horse book, and "Lovecraft", and adaptation from Keith Giffen of the screenplay wrote by Hans Rodionoff, with art from Enrique Breccia, courtesy of DC/Vertigo, are the 2 books i still have to read. yeah, quickly, FredGri. 8)
SPECIAL FUCK.

i just wanna say that i truly, deeply, fuck these folks at VillagePhotos.
all the pics used for keeping this blog alive since its creation seems fuckin lost, thanks to VP, who fucked up my account even if i don't think i made anything wrong (i mean, all the porn pics i took with my zebra and my snake are on some hidden ftp, no worries).
i would like to know if, because people are offering free service, that means they can decide to fuck off this very service ; does it have to be different if i paid for this service ?
don't answer me...
...and if somebody got some archives of this blog somewhere on its HD, please contact me (email on top fo the blog) as i'm interested. 8)

TRIBUTE TO ARISTOPHANE

french comics author Aristophane died this last may 11th.

i knew his shit for a pretty long time but his strange heavy narrative, hard to focus drawing (for me, uh) always leaves me away from this shit, untill too many friends told me that there was some strong shit in it.
and they were right, of course.
"Contes Demoniaques" is a real long story of Hell's last fight for power, a tale where nothing never stops the fatal end of all things, full of deep characterized demons and hell's inhabitants. told my way, it's looks really boring, i agree, but it's a must read for those who got some appetite for disturbing tales who don't leave you 100% ok... "Contes Demoniaques" is one of the heaviest books published through L'Association.

"faune" of "Les soeurs zabime" are another example of the man available published works that deserves your attention. it's a no less powerfull story full of reals human vibrations... heck, i'm feeling like i dunno what to say exactly.

one of his publisher, Ego-Comme-X, leaves a place on their website for those who wanna tell something about this tragic loss.

21 mai 2004

PI DAYS (+ LAST SUNDAY MINI REPORT).

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh !!!!!!! this Lyon town rules !
and by the way, last sunday was really nice and relax, mainly due to my pal Fred (and her sweet pregnant girl) (see, i did it, fred, uh...) who took care of me (well, sort of, if you except this train station story) (and i call him "pal"... pffff) while some big students event happened there in Lyon.

Vanyda ("l'immeuble d'en face", "l'annee du dragon"), Nancy Pena ("le cabinet chinois"), Guillaume Long ("comme un poisson dans l'huile", "les sardines sont cuites", and the soon to be published "Swimming Poule mouillee"), Nicolas Otero ("amerikkka") were there for an intra-comics mini festival, too, as the people taking care of the real cool zine called "Rhinoceros contre Elephant" ; watch these guys, many things to come from their own batcave, and on some of the best quality (paper, printing, look of it all...) indy books around here.
we spent the whole day hanging around the festival location, under the sun, which was cool. and even the 6 hours of train ride worth it. or is it ? 8)

so !?
well, for eastern french residents, here's something you don't wanna miss, which is a part of the Nuits Sonores, musical event of the year in the Lyon area.
Pi-days (and night) is a videomusicalprojectionexhibition which must be cool to check, apart from this year Nuits Sonores program : Plaid, Carl Craig, Tarwater, King Britt, Fuckaloop, Jamie Lidell, dj Spinna, Jazzanova, and many, many more (i spoke only about the people i would like to check, but there's also Jeff Mills, Derrick May, DAF, Rechenzentrum, Smash TV, and tons of other, from 19 to 23 of May.

but ! but but but ! check also the really alive and always moving Kid Acne (Lex/Invisible Spies), Akroe, Krsn, and others people like Yee-king (Rephlex), Pleix, ASPIC, Oldine, X&trick (Bugklinik), Switch, Slush, Sébastien Roux, Sebastian Oschatz (meso.net), Le Gentil Garçon, N-com.user, reuter & belter... will be part of this looking great event :
"In partnership with the Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art, the collectives BEE Records and Dopebase propose three FREE days (PI-Days) and a FREE evening performance (PI-Night) centred around numeric arts associated with electronic music creation. An exploration of the channels between contemporary art, numeric video, graphic design and electronic music" said sweet Camille from the Bee record label connection.

Venue : Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art
Pi-Days are from thursday 20 of May 2004 to saturday 22 of May 2004, from 14:00 to 18:00.
Pi-Night is thursday 20 of May 2004, from 20:00 to 08:00, and all events are free entrance.

LAPUTA DAY !

yesterday was public holiday in france, and i got a chance to, well, do nothing.
i got some friends who where around there for this few days, and we decided to make some barbecue all together, yesterday night, at Dude's place, which is a 50 kms ride from my town.
nothing special, isn't it ?

as it was a very hot and sunshiny day (and as i'm on negative at bank), i decided to not take the train, and to make some hitchiking in the afternoon, which looked like an adventure, believe me ; first, i forgot to take my wallet with me, which looked like a little march to the other side of the town : hitchikers knows that no cars stops while in the center of town, uh.

after a walk under some really hot sun, i finally reach the exit of the town, and some young b-boy, complete with training clothes, last metallic (and awful) Nike shoes, took me in some deluxe BMW cab, french rap loud in the speakers, filling his lung with some real tasty weed, right to the next little town in the next suburbs.

the guy was surprising cause he was a total cliché, i mean people were watching us at our crossing, hearing "...now you can suck my motherfuckin' dick, biiaaaaatch...", but the guy was a real nice citizen, stopping to let people walking across the road, driving slowly and seemly even if the road was clear, even stopping on our prior road to let bicycles crossing it ; he had plans and it was just sad cause he could have drive me, he said, offering me a few weed while dropping me out of the car. i was grateful and all, and walked to the next area where i could clearly be in viewing field of the next drivers.

10 minutes later, a VW minivan reduce his speed, and 5 guys, dreadlock and pure reggae crap (god, i hate this french bad dub wave...), just showed me the fuck finger while shouting "are you full of sweat, sucker ?" and "walk, lazy guy !" ; i don't remember i was a bad boy enough for doing this kind of attitude while being younger (however, i was really stupid too), but i asked/shout them if they were sharing the same brain, too, but they didn't answer, just going faster. fuckers.

30 minutes later, some 50 years old little guy stopped in his little car, and offered me to go to a town in the middle in my wonderful and amazing trip ; we didn't talk that much even if i tried once or two, but the guy was listening to some tape playing in his stereo.
strange tape, indeed.
strong melodic arrangments, and dialogues, but... in english (i wanna say then that i'm a french living in france, uh).

at first i was thinking about some radiophonic pieces, you know, these plays they do especially for the radio use ; i haven't heard any for years, but it was quite strange in the rhythm, the tone wasn't this clear, and of course, it was in english, not this usal.
i tried to focus on the dialog, but the wind going in the car and the noise of the motor didn't help me. i've heard some words and it looked to me like some sci-fi or heroic fantasy pieces...
until i heard "this is Laputa". I'm not an otaku that much, but it was clear : it was some Miyazaki stuff played there, i recognized the story after identifying it !

as the man told me he got to quit the main road, he found a place to let me go out, but i made my frankly too curious guy while leaving it :
me : "sorry, don't wanna be too curious, but it's not usual to hear the kind of stuff you listen to. can i ask what is it exactly ?
him : ah ah ah, well, i know it ain't this easy ; well, i suppose. in fact, i didn't find the original soundtrack of a movie i saw recently and really like, so i made a copy of this very film on a audio only format. in fact, it's coming directly from the dvd of...
me : is this Laputa from Miyazaki ?
him : ???... ahhh exactly ! you knew the dialogs, even if english ? or do you know it as much as i am ?
me : no, no, i just heard "laputa" in the talk between some characters, and i recognized it, but i'm not fan enough to recognize it from its english dialogs ! but yes indeed, i saw this movie, i truly love Miyazaki...
him : this is really funny ! i'm a real fan of his work, i saw each of his movies several times, and i love to listen to it even while driving.
me : yeah, i realy loved Totoro and Mononoke, which are my faves.
him : greeeat ! you saw Kiki ?
me : yep, but i got to say that it's not on of my favorites ones. i...
him : well, i said the same thing while leaving the cinema, but i thinked about it twice, and it's fantastic the smart notions Miyazaki inject in his stuff, even Kiki ; it's so much better done than any Disney...
me : yes, it's quite sad that we had to wait for so many times before seing any of his movies...
him : ...sure, but think about it, we got one per year, it's a great thing too !"

we talked about a few moment, and seing how enthousiastic the guy was, i remembered that i got a keychains from the bus-cat from Totoro, even 2 of it, so i told the guy that if he comes through my town, he can have a stop by the bookshop i work for, and passing by the comics section, i'll give him some Miyazaki little gift, as a "thank you" for helping me in this afternoon.
in the middle of the countryside, the guy was already a customer of the shop !

the last kilometers were done thanks to a young pair, some silent guy and a very talkative girl, coming back from a picnic and looking for a bathing place around ; the girl was really kind, offering me cookies and all, while offering me to drop me at the exact place i wanna go, "no worries if it ain't on our road".

there's some days where i nearly gain some hope in humanity. 8)

my old pal Tom took me while leaving his parents place in a real little village near our friend's place ; we grab Fab too and went at Dude's place, where we eat and drink quietly his barbecued food, remembering how cool it is to spend time with good friends, and all of us were ok to say that we probably doesn't do this often enough. we looked closer to this Hellboy trailer, and i'm quite enthousiastic about what i saw, i gotta say ; we'll see if Del Toro loves Mignola as much as he repeats in every interviews here and there. we saw also Michel Gondry' "External sunshine of a spotless mind", his next movie with a Jim Carrey who doesn't look like its usual Jim "faces" Carrey anymore (which could be great). we talked about many things, but unfortunately, i was the only one living away from there and working tomorrow, and with this public holiday day, i only got a very few choices of train timetable for going back home. Dude provided the ticket for me, which was cool as i'm just totally broke. Dude, i owe you Peeters' Lupus part. 2, no worries. 8)

Fab, working for Virgin France, got some promo cd's and dvd's for all of us, and i came back by train with a bag with Spike Jonze/Michel Gondry/Chris Cunningham Directors' label dvd, Jared Leto's 30 seconds to Mars album, Adrian Sherwood CD for RealWorld, some Gonzales stuff, some old Kid 606 remix of Depeche Mode, some Sofa Surfers stuff, dj Mehdi's Espion LP, some Liars stuff, the huge and already classic Neptunes' track "Beautiful" from Snoop Dogg and Pharrell (i didn't wanna hear about Snoop since loooong, but when i first heard "beautiful" i was mad for it : i gotta admit, i'm more or less a Neptunes freak, nearly ready to buy it...), Sebastien Tellier CD, and, how cool, Dwele's CD. Thanks again, Fab. 8)

but after all this hooot times, by midnight it was thunderstorm time, and raining a lot. in the middle of the way back to my town, while in the train, some very big lightning flashed our eyes and some big noise broke my ears right at the same time ; the train quickly stopped in the middle of nowhere, we were 2 in the wagon and i was already fucked up, thinking of going out under the violent rain with my only t-shirt... shit.
finally, after a few minutes, the train started again, and i quit my town' train station for going home, at last ; on the road to my flat (near the station) is the place where there's lots of prostitutes, and all of them told me something, either "sweetheart", "mister", "lonely bwwwoy" or "darling", which were the last instalments in this day where everybody was kind with me.
yes, i know, they weren't telling me nice things for pleasure, or for free, but shut up, i didn't ask you anything. 8)

now it's 2:00, it's not raining anymore and it's refreshing outside, i'll finish this Takeshi Kaiko book and sleep instead of listening news at the radio (an US raid killed some civilians iraki, the catholic church officialy says homosexual marriage in france should be a wrong thing, israel shooted some palestinians, the corpse of a young boy disepeared a month ago was founded somewhere, well, the usual and classic news...).
thanks for reading. 8)

2 mai 2004

MILKY SUNDAY.

First, thanks to Dolph for his huge tiny letter. this guy have more ideas in one minute than me in a year, and when it comes to make them "alive", there's no match. 8) thanks Laulau !

i'm feeling bad, in some kind of asshole mood these days.
yesterday, helping my friend Ralf moving from Besancon to some nice little town left in our countryside, in his own biiiiiiiig quiet and beautiful house, doesn't help : i'm quite fed up with living neither in some "cool" towns, neither in real country areas, and, more than everything else, staying in a place i'm fed up with ; i think that i cannot blame anybody but me, so maybe we'll talk about something else. 8)

it's sunny outside, so i won't stay that much connected. just a few minutes to post my last reads : all of them are highly recommanded by the AJTABO (Association For June's Tastes As The Best Ones). 8?

courtesy of Alcor giiiiiaaaaant photobase and Fred's webspace (thanks to you, guys), some shots from last weekend, with Ibn Al Rabin, Guillaume Long, and Drine...
(and while we're on it, some other huge thanks to my man Fred for having this FTP shit done and complete ; our little project will come to its real interesting part since we got some space for our people...)

friday night in besancon : drine, IAR, Guigui and I.


saturday in dijon, at the bookshop.


i already wrote a few lines about this year best US comic. yeah, we're only in April but i can't imagine anybody doing something good enough to rivalize with Seagle and Kristiansen's "It's A Bird", a magnificent piece of work, full of autobiography and huge paintings courtesy of this wonderful duo.

"Part savage deconstruction, part tribute to the enduring qualities of the Superman character, part tender and awkward human drama, "It?s a Bird" has as many scintillating facets as raw jewel Kryptonite. With luminous and expressive artwork by Teddy Kristiansen, it defies genre categories and poses questions about the relationship between man and superman which are hard to answer but important to consider here at the dawn of the 21st century. It?s also about as mordantly accurate a description of what it feels like to write superhero comics for a living as anything I?ve ever read. Quite simply, this is Superman for grown-ups? said other-guy-who-knows-about-comics, Grant Morrison.

it's a bird. run and buy it.


find some interview from both authors right here, and a sneak PDF peek here.
and go buy it. really.

but there others books that really deserves your attention, too :

Le Syst?me.

At last !!! "Le Syst?me" from Peter Kuper, in its first french form (L'An 2 publisher, thhhaaaaanks ot them...). a classic that you don't wanna miss. Kuper at his best, in some critical masterpiece that, many years after, stay one of my favorite comic book ever.


Passer l'hiver.

"passer l'hiver", from Vincent Rioult and Marc Lizano (la boite a bulles publisher).
post-apocalyptic tale full of easy quite-metaphysics feats, all from nice little animals' mouths, thanks to Lizano, some really great artist who turns to be a really good dialog writer, and beautifully rendered in b&w by wood engraver Rioult, some guy we will heard about more and more, hopefully.

Julie Doucet.

"Julie Doucet : Journal" (l'association publisher).
i still have doubts about the contents, the container itself is why-I-love-Julie-reason : magnificent and wildstyle drawings, stickings, assembly that reall how far this artist can go. now, i'm quite less enthusiastic about what she tells in her journal. it's more about our daily facts (what she did yesterday, which emails whe receive, what she eat...) than some deep and/or personnal shit (i loved when she tells about her mood ; i wish there was more "personnal" shit like this). for Doucet addicts, no way of missing this piece.

Les larmes de la bete.

"Les larmes de la bete" from Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Vertige Graphic publisher).
nothing to say. Tatsumi tells stories that disturb, stories that concerns some part of you, for sure. and he tells it with his own and terrific way of doing it. another japonese masterpiece.
speaking of japonese gods, the excellent "9eme art" (the magazine published by the CNBDI, official french authority about comics world) got another new ish, which is incredibily cool, with tons of great features : OuBaPo, Y. Tsuge, etc. great magazine.


and thanks to IokanaaN, some drawing notes from Joann Sfar about Claude Chabrol next movie's making, "la demoiselle d'honneur".

i'm out.