THE ROOOF IS ON FIRE.

In the 36 billions sad news comin' daily from the Mighty Powerfull United States of Blessed America these days, here is something who looks like W.Bush 2 in a nutshell.
I'm here, quietly listening to some music recorded in november 1970 (Pharoah on soprano, Cecil on bass, Rashied on drums, and Alice using her fingers on some harp), and then i got some news from my good old friend Rooof , living in God's Real Country for the last years, and who sent me the following mail, surely one of the forthcoming 168735435976484 to spam your space for the next weeks :

"President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter lapsed.
As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members. This position does not require Congressional approval. The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination.

Dr. Hager is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice. His views of reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream for reproductive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women.

In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal of Sexuality Reproductive Technologies and the Family," Dr. Hager appears to have endorsed the medically inaccurate assertion that the common birth control pill is an abortifacient.

We are concerned that Dr. Hager's strong religious beliefs may color his assessment of technologies that are necessary to protect women's lives or to preserve and promote women's health. Hager's track record of using religious beliefs to guide his medical decision-making makes him a dangerous and inappropriate candidate to serve as chair of this committee.

Critical drug public policy and research must not be held hostage by antiabortion politics. Members of this important panel should be appointed on the basis of science and medicine, rather than politics and religion.

There is something you can do. Below is a statement to be sent to the White House opposing the placement of Hager.

1) Please copy and paste (DON'T forward) the entire email into a fresh email; then sign your name below. After you sign, SEND THIS TO EVERY PERSON YOU KNOW WHO IS CONCERNED ABOUT WOMEN'S RIGHTS.

2) Every 10th person who signs the list (i.e., #10, #20, #30, etc.) - please forward the entire e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov"


Once again, i'm using all emails contacts to spread the right word (i'm a kind of a messiah by myself, uh), so if you read this twice, please : this is Bush' fault.

ACOUSTIK ADDICTION ADDICTED.

Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-listening to... a mix tape ?!?!!!!???

Yep, in these times of MP3 and minidisc, today, i'm also forgetting my vynils and keep on listening to the best mixtape i've ever put my hands on : "Acoustik addiction 2" (from the Human Presence sounds series), from the genius work combination of Teorem and Ewae, two french guys from south france who just, let's keep it clear and simple, kick serious ass.

This ain't dope technical turntablist stuff, just one of the best selections ever, and simply done in a "respect the tracks" state of mind. I found this tape 3 years ago while some big skate'n'hip hop'n'graffiti contest in Montpellier (2001 Attitudes summer festival), and this mix stills sounds fresh. Dooooope.

The only mix that i can remember sounding this good is one of the early dj Vadim mixes that he done for swiss radio Couleur 3, back in the mid-90's, something like 96 if i'm correct ; the hairy russian deeeeeejay did a terrific piece of abstract combination, which is the ultimate slowmotion mix for the biggest downtempo beat headz around, believe me.
I recorded it live, and i think i'm using the third copy of it right now. really.

Of course, you can think of many radio dj's doing some big pieces of shit, too, when they're motivated and all.
Dj Debra also made some radio shows for Couleur 3 years ago, and it was cool as fuck (I don't even talk about Debra voice, who's just one of the best sensual, in-your-ears, really working voices you can thinks for a radio host) ; this girl kick serious ass, and if you're able to check her, don't miss it, even if i haven't heard about her for a pretty long time right now... Heck, You've gotta be in London for staying in touch with cool gigs, cools places, cools new hot wax... or tapes...

Ahhh... Tapes...
Tapes are like forgotten mammoths...
Like dinosaurs, tapes rulled earth thousands years ago... mp3 ? Bullshit. Tapes rules.
Hum. Anyway.

CONGRATULATIONS TO MY FRIENDS FROM THE USA.

4 years of 200% pure Bu(ll)sh(it) for you, ladies and gentlemen.
I know that all of you, my friends, are quite upset/sad/sick of the last Bush hold up.
Well, please wake your democrats friends, make them feel they're alive and in good health, ask them to show it the next time, and knock on wood : W could really fuck up more things in 4 years.

Take care of you, especially my not-catholic/not-white/not-hetero/not-owner-of-the-last-4x4-Chevrolet friends.
But you gotta know something : we got our own bandit for big boss, here too. France ain't full of pathetic catholic Texan as yours, but we got some pretty great specimen, too.

Where in the world can you learn to be patriotic ?
Surely not at your place, but definitely not at mine, believe me.

/end of fucked-up transmission. complete.

SHAAADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW... SHAAADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW...

Consssssuuuuummmmmeeeeeeerrrrringggg timmmmme !
I bought my third DVD ; yep, i'm not a big dvd collector, and when i think it took me 12 years to get... what... 50 video tapes ? Anyway.

"Product Placement - on tour" is another brick in the musical creative wall that dj Shadow and Cut Chemist are buildin' for years ; i'm still listening to this "Brain Freeze", their first recorded and published collaboration together, (first vynil pressing, of course, eh eh eh) at least once a month, but watching these 2 fuckers is a real good time investissment too : both of them do their usual (and now semi-legendary) 7 inch little games (Shadow even play some 3", which is really funny to see), and the dvd shows also plenty of good dj's, but the real thing is : these guys loves music, and shit (60's soul jazz to speed funk to 70's psyche rock to 80's breakbeats... the usual shit !), they have fun, loads of fun.
They're glad to spin, they're glad to play in front of people, all comes to the attitude of the audience, of the crowd, of the 2 turntablists.
Both of them are just having fun, and this is what is so good with them ; far away from the emptyness of only technical turntablists videos, here you've got dope shit (heck, i praise the lords to spent one day in their houses, just listening 1% of their records collections must be great as fuck), with nothing but real good attitude. it sounds a little bit cliche, but this is the main ingredient of their cooking lessons : have fun. Oh, and buying tons of 45, too. 8)

Including in the dvd is some parts of their show in San Franciso (of course), Los Angeles, NYC, in UK, and in Japan ; they catch their hosts shows too, and for the same price you've got some videos from the whole tribe of wax addicted : "Uncle" Nu-Mark (the beared J5 gives little instant lessons), Marvski, Egon (the StonesThrow cratedigger knowed worlwide), Keb Darge (nearly a living legend), Z-Trip (this punk spins "Nevermind" from Nirvana in his set, really awfull but heck, it works with his next record...), DJ Spinna, Charlie Dark from Attica Blues Shortkut... and inserts from their roads to foreign gigs, to local shops... Also including in the dvd box is the CD from the show. frankly, this is pure dope deal.

Go and buy it, even if you're not into this turntablism mess.

It's all about music here, and don't wait for some big fat hip hop or serious ass attitude : sugar funk, heavy bass lines, snair/drum patterns that will makes your head turn, and radical fun, really.
Oh : the original shit that Shadow plays at some moment, which was used by Biz Markie in his "Just a friend", is one the best part of the show... and the "I'm your puppet" little 3" game following doesn't help the fuckers like me : Mister Davis, I need your dealer adress please ! 8)

"Product Placement - on tour" is a Pillage Roadshow dvd, and got some milk in fridge and some cookies when you'll view it ; it will be even better.


+++ TOP 5 BLOGGED BONUS SERIES STARTS HERE : +++
today, june's favorites dvd's of his own collection of dvd's :
- "Directors Label : the work of director Spike Jonze" dvd.
- "Product Placement - dj Shadow and Cut Chemist on tour" dvd.
- "Studio Super8 animations" dvd.
how egotrip this blog is turnin'... anyway. 8)

JUST PASSIN BY (A 4 PARTS INSTALMENT).

Yeah, I know : this place looks pretty dead, uh...
Well, it's not. Not yet, anyway... Still thousands billions things to take care of, still trillions things to do... I'm quite late on all of my (many) projects already started, and i feel like I gotta progress on it before posting your usual quota of bullshit here... I think you get the point : tons of work (job)+ tons of work (associative shit) + tons of work (graphic artwork for instance) + tons of work (mixes and selections to think about) = pretty big lack of time.
If you sells extra hours of life, your price is mine. Thank you.

> PART. ONE : EARS.

- Hurry up ! You still got some FREE places for Subtle gig, in Paris (le nouveau Casino) on october the 24th... Subtle just released (on Warp' hip hop inprint "Lex") one of the best 22nd century' hip hop, with something like 100 years in advance. As usual, we're talking about all this Anticon marmelade here, and god knows how these guys know how to do it the best way : the Subtle one.
Just send an email to concours@radiocampusparis.org , with "Sutble, en concert le 24 octobre au Nouveau Casino" in the subject field of the mail, and just write "subtle" the phonetic way ; quite easy, uh. but hurry up : thes guys seems to be pretty hot at the moment.

- Talkin about cool gigs in Paris, General Electrics will be live at the New Morning on october the 25th (this next monday).
The cali-french guy released his last effort on Bleu Electrics in France, on Compost for Europe, and on Quannum in the states !
who said "huge" ? Check it out.

- Airborn Audio are M Sayyid et High Priest, both from the Antipop Consortium hall of fame.
"Good fortune" is another heavy piece of artillery, thanks to Ninja Tune, and it should be out pretty soon around here ; both guys already put some "brand new" landmark on what hip hop became these last years, but A-A is another proof of the magic between these suckers : another step in some kind of urban microwave music, which is probably some of their best work ever. High Priest also just released some solo new Ep called "Book Of Keys" on Sound Ink record label, and guess what, it's an headbanging slice of wax.

- Kazi got a new LP, Oh No got a new LP, Declaime will have a new LP pretty soon...
Stonesthrow is in fact some kind of secret laboratory where doctor Butter Wolf and professor Egon never sleep, but create clones of themselves for taking care of one of the best hip hop record label out there ; wanna some proof ? "Stonesthrow 101" is the first DVD of Peanut Buter Wolf' label, it's out now or tomorrow, and you don't wanna miss it.
15 videos (last Stonesthrow hyper Madvillain, fabulous duo of Jay Dee and MadLib , the classic Lootpack's "whenimondamic", some heavy twister funk courtesy of the migthy Breakestra, Declaime soulfull alter ego Dudley Perkins, ultra huuuuuge Quasimoto "Come on feet" and "Good morning sunshine" ...), some lives pieces (PBWolf and Charizma back in some 1992 SF TV, Stark Reality liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive on tv in 1968 !!!, Jaylib at the Jazz Cafe in London in 2004, MF Doom/Madlib/PBWolf/Egon and J-Rocc all together on Canada's MuchMusic TV), interviews (PBWolf) and documentaries (all on the Los Angeles Carnival), this dvd comes with a 70' StonesThrow history mix by the Peanut Butter guy himself (42 tracks !)... Yep, run and grab some copies for all your family, as x-mas looks earlier this year.

- TTC released their new lp too, on Chronowax/V2/Big Dada ; Para One, Tacteel and Tido Berman produced the baby, and if i'm not really totally into all the lyrics of the bunch, we gotta admit that these guys push things pretty far away from anything you can imagine of french hip hop...
each instrumental is a heavy shit masterpiece, and these guys got all the ingredients for making it a french record masterpiece of its own. Two things, unfortunately, will not let this happen : first, their big fat humor is sometimes a little bit shadowed from their sexual-contents-for-obscene-but-virgin-geek (which means that some tracks could be funny ones as missed, wasted ones), and second, frenchs still ain't ready for this. TTC are 5 years in front of their hip hop french friends, and french audience is always eating yesterday diner, when TTC does some cook for tomorrow. Ok, pretty dirty food, but interesting and 200% tasty flavors.
Another great thing in this release : the sleeve is another brilliant piece of work courtesy of Akroe, and if you seen it in some press, take a closer look when in shops : the real surprise of this sleev doesn't show itself on computer screen, but in your hands ; so go and buy it from your local dealer instead spending money on .com shops, you lazy bastard.

>>> Current tunes / october 2004.

- Peanut Butter Wolf and Madlib "rawcore" (stonesthrow/astral werks 2002).
- Subtle "I heart L.A." (lex records 2004).
- Oh No "the ride" (stonesthrow/pias 2004).
- BlackJoy "river people" (cdr).
- Ibn Al Rabin "une demi-heure de musique qui fait peur" (les moyen du bord 2004).
- Build an ark "you gotta have freedom (J-Rocc remix)" (kindred spirits).
- Bettye Swann "ain't that peculiar" (honest jon re-ed 2004).
- Weldon Irvine "I love you" (bmg 1976).
- Sugarman 3 & co "pure cane sugar" (daptone 2004).
- Ozomatli "street signs" (real world 2004).
- June + Monkey "octobre" (nowhere else 2004).
- Roger Robinson "illectica" (jazz fudge 2004).
- Jill Scott "Golden" (epic 2004).
- Mustang "back home" (compost).
- Wahoo "make'em shake it" (sonar kollektiv).
- Bugz in the attic "booty la la" (v2).
- BlackJoy "la stache" (Yellow productions 2004).
- Moodyman "already knows" (private collection 2004).

stay tuned, the planetoid is back. well, nearly... 8)

REEEEEAAAAAAL IMPORTANT DATAS FOR THE NEXT HOURS :
(french comics publisher makes a party, french experimental copimics online, weapons ban in usa, postgraffifi movements, 21st century toys, and various bullshit).


did you notice how sweat the summer was, with all these bloggers on holidays ? now, it's really over : you can spend hours by visiting daily updated blogs... Negative Velocity, Oslonovitch (aka "i read 34 books a week, why ?"), regular comics infos dealer Matt Murdock, Gilles from Neuvième art, Marc "i've got a brand new idea, but i got to finish the others 564654541351 i already started" Lizano, worldwide well knowed Tom Coates, Grant B., Vincent Rioult, the 24/24h awake guy called Gino, mysterious IokanaaN, Wembley and her Happening Fish blog, new little am' writer Neil Gaiman 8) , words machine Warren Ellis, sunshiny nice miss Fafe, Hinah diary... and tons of another ones (for example, visit also the blogs section in the left bar...).


- a few months ago, french indy publisher Ego Comme X celebrate its 10th birthday (paris, 06/17/2004).


- another comics project that kick serious ass, another shot from my pal ease...
recipe for a great comics cook : * lowest resolution drawings ever * pixel world domination * magnifying-glass rules* size matters * point gif.


- something you probably already got in your mailbox, but which is probably a little bit more constructive, or more interesting than the usual "don't break the chain or gain instant bad luck for the 200 next years", and relative to this always growing importance of internet (it was years since i wrote internet around here...) : five years ago, as 13 of his schoolmates, Daniel Mauser, a 15-year old boy, fall on Columbine High School floor, and just died.

since this fucked up story, his father, Tom Mauser, is working hard on some petition to renew the assault weapons ban in this crazy united states of amerikkka ; it's something pretty mad (and sad, too) to see that anybody or so can fuck with each other and just grab some AK 47 to teach stupid lessons, and in this times of heavy politic moves, maybe Bush and his congress turkeys will hear something from it... eh, dreaming of changing things is one of the last things left for this poor father, after all. i remember that the ban expires pretty soon, so... visit it now.

Tom Mauser launched some nice website devoted to the cause, using technology to create some kind of "6 degrees of separation", allowing their petition software to map the growing support for their cause ; if you sign it, you will receive a link to your personnal petition page, where you can see a real time map of your impact on this cause. of course, it's USA focused, but hey... it's a real good cause, isn't it ? my personnal link to Tom's page is in the left side bar, so go and say hi for me.


- nu-sign did some massive post-graff exhibition in paris this last july ; Andre, Influenza, KRSN, Miss Van, Stak, Zevs, and the infamous Akroe (who did some serious pieces this last weekend in the area, alongside the Mutan crew, some eastern bunnies eating spraycans for breakfast for many years by now) joined the fun.
also, check some great book called Art of Rebellion, a collection of 100 streeturbanpostgrafwhatever huge artists.


- speaking of post-graff, in a parallel world lives some adults who save some kid brain cells and spend their days creating the coolest toys ever ; find some Michael Lau, some Capsule Toys, some Eric So, some Qees, some Monsterism... right here thanks to Artoyz.
in another style, but still on the toys corner, there's some bricks around here and here.
Lego powaaaa !!! 8)


- never no time to play : guerrigliamarketing.
another shot ? "lemon is lemon", your nice and sweat own cure.

that's it.

ALTERNATIVE COMICS NEEDS YOUR HELP !

a few months ago, i've talked about the financial problems that Fantagraphics publisher went through, then it was Ferraille Magazine who got some trouble, well... this is the turn of Alternative Comics, one of the best nowadays publishers around.
Jeff Mason, Alternative Comics publisher and one-guy-does-it-all, speak to you ; listen carefully, and then buy some food for your eyes and your brain with ordering a few AC comics.

"Alternative Comics needs your help!
Please buy our books from your local comic book store to help Alternative Comics survive!"

"Dear Comics Fans,
I'm Jeff Mason making a direct appeal to you, our faithful readers, in a time of serious financial difficulty. If you could find a way to buy some of our books listed below, you would greatly help in our time of financial crisis. Please check off the books you want below and then buy these books from your favorite retailer. You can also use the checklist in the back of your copy of Alternative Comics #2 that was given out by your local comic book store on Free Comic Book Day. If your retailer does not stock our comics and books, they can use this form below as a way to order our in-stock titles form any of our distributors.

Alternative Comics is suffering some very dire cash flow problems and I am turning to you for help. In the spring of 2002 our book trade distributor, LPC, filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy owing Alternative Comics a lot of money. I had hoped that I could weather the storm by taking money from my savings and by borrowing on credit until receiving the agreed-upon 42% of what LPC owed us. Now over two years later, LPC is still in bankruptcy proceedings and I am completely out of savings and credit.
In the past (prior to LPC) I had ample working capital - I had great credit terms with my various printers. Now (post LPC) I have absolutely no working capital and must pay up front to print every book.
For each publication, I now wait for all of the retailer advance orders to come in to Diamond, then I contract Diamond to assign the payment they'd pay to me to my printer to print the book. This contractual agreement costs money and cuts into our razor thin margin.
Lack of cash on hand has also caused me to have to shrink print runs on some books. This increases the cost per unit of each book, and speeds the looming reprint costs.

I've been increasing my publishing schedule over the last two years, and in hindsight, I expanded too quickly.
Alternative Comics is moving forward with a much more reasonable, much more foresighted publishing schedule, with some really amazing projects in the works! Alternative Comics' cash flow problems have been the only reason for not yet reprinting Bipolar #1 and Humor
Can Be Funny as well as having been the only reason a number of books have been arriving late or re-solicited.
I am asking you to please buy Alternative Comics books from your local retailers. In my fanciful imagination, the best result would be for retailers to quickly sell out of all Alternative Comics books in inventory to customers and hurriedly place nice reorders with distributors.

Alternative Comics has no staff other than myself, so I am unable to handle orders directly. I ask that readers buy from your local comic book retailers, and retailers to buy from your favorite distributors.
The single most important variable for our publishing efforts is the number of comics or books advance ordered by retailers. Retailers decide their advance orders of books based on what you, the reader, let them know you want to buy.

If you can find it in your hearts to help Alternative Comics, I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you,
Jeff Mason
Publisher - Alternative Comics"

beam me up, scotty. ZZZZTTTTTTT!!!!

FIIIRRRSSSSST :
i just wanna say CONGRATS !!! to my pal Fred, to Delphine, and to their sweat little Odessa, recently landed around Lyon, for their parents' pleasure. i'm glad for you, guys ! 8)


COMBAT MEDIA HUB. AND OTHER SHIT, TOO

it's been a pretty long time since i haven't done any Warren Ellis related post. talking about the guy with some net friends reminds me it. so, let's go.

sometimes in june, somewhere in one of this +50 mails that he send on a monthly regular basis (under the Bad Signal mailing list moniker), the always highly pertinent Warren Ellis (who also run some brilliant kind of blog) had another of his usual smart mind gigs ; this one was called "[BAD SIGNAL]Combat Media Hubs", and it goes like this :

"This is something I was talking about with a friend on a private forum last night. It's been in my head for a couple of weeks. I'm going to road test the notion here.
Combat big media. Use the web.

Every day, people release new creative work on to the web. Prose, essays (often in blog form), art, photography, music, animation, video, spoken word, whatever. The web, and a bunch of free or cheap tools, gives the creator access to the full spectrum of media for web broadcast.
Live Journal gives you the ability to subscribe to other LJs, which you read on a dynamically updating page - your own channel of selected content.
Expand that up a bit.

Take Dr Joshua Ellis' notion of "taste tribes," small communities connected by a shared aesthetic.
Now, you and your tribe -- and if you're all on Tribe.net, you can grab a bit of code from the site that displays you all on a sidebar on your website -- select out the content streams on the web you like. Your favourite online comics, the internet radio stations you like, the artists who put new mp3s and art and photography on their sites, etc.
You grab some webspace. Your Hub, if you like.
And you cause to be created a system whereby the Hub is informed when one of your selected sites updates. The way a blog puts a new entry at the top. The way a new piece by a favoured LJ appears at the top of your Friends page.
You've just built a multimedia channel in webspace.

If you feel like it, you can nail some community software onto it, like Beehive. And you've got the place on the web where your tribe is, in real time. At the very least, you could set up to launch IMs off the site. Make your friends' information invisible to the public, set up an account with Ipipi, and you can SMS your friends' mobile phones from off the site (I set up a system like that for a private community earlier this year).
Hell, there's not even any need to make the Hub public, if you don't want to -- put the whole thing behind a password gate. But if you do make it public, you can construct a powerful evangelism tool for the content you like. Use it to create awareness of your favourite artists, even set up PayPal donation points.

It's your full-spectrum multimedia channel. It's the TV-killer.
It's the advertising-killer. It's all free original material selected by you and the friends you share tastes with.
Your Combat Media Hub.

I'm on the Treo at the pub, so I don't have the link to Josh's original "taste tribes" article, but a quick Google should
bring it up.
There could be great big holes in this, but I figure the idea's worth road-testing in any case."

i like this guy, i tell you.

as you see (and probably know by now), Ellis is very attentive to today-is-tomorrow technologies ; he spend months on the web and here's a few selection of the Alternative Comics published stuff he offers recently through this same Bad Signal mailing-list

"Quick Alternative Comics thoughts :
- Dean Haspiel's always good ; the Billy Dogma stuff is just mental.
- The Hanuka twins are brilliant.
- I know nothing about Rebecca Dart's work, but I love the shit out of that cover.
- Derek Kirk Kim is the guy whom everyone will be pretending they independently discovered next year. Alternative are distributing one of his books. Get it now, be ahead of the curve.
- Colleen Coover and Laurenn McCubbin were in True Porn. You don't need another reason.
- I haven't read Perverso, but Rich Tommaso is very good."

oh, and while around the Ellis topic, here's an interview of his "crazy southern belle", Colleen Doran, who works with him quite often, and a few Ocean pages available as PDF on DC website.


many things to do these last weeks doesn't help to update this blog that much ; next weeks seems pretty busy too, but i think i'll be able to blog a little bit more in the upcoming weeks. well. we'll see.

BACK.

i was out for the last weeks but all goods thing comes to an end, and that's something that i'm still learning each and everydays. which is one of the main exacts reasons why this life is so hard to live, sometimes. out of topic. anyway.

french southern and western coast (we're talkin about atlantic ocean here) was really, really great.

not because we founded some totally (and i mean totally) empty beaches in august (in august, yep).
not for the giant waves that were thousands to try to kill me every day.
not because we filled the maximum of our days with a maximum of cool things to do.
not because we take our time and visited a lot of cools places like museums, expos, old monuments.
not because we learned plenty of things about this french countryside.
not because we were two and glad to be together.
no.

these last weeks were cool cause for the first time in (maybe) years, i'd understood a few things about how my mind is really working ; it wasn't this easy and i didn't wished it that much, but there were some gears who strangely decided to fit, and i've learned things.
which doesn't make any sense for those of you reading this shit, but believe me, it makes sense for me.

the only thing that i can easily transcribe around ?
fuck.
i'm 32, or so.
and looooaaaaads of these last years are just wasted times ; i already knew that, no big news. no. only the fact that i think i know a few shit to do, quickly, really quickly.

so what ? well... we'll see, as it's still pretty disturbing to find only bad decisions to take, and trying to stop wasting any other time.

START.
STOP.
RE-START.
ORGANIZE.
CLEAN THE PLAYGROUND.
CHOOSE WHO TO BELIEVE.
WAIT LESS,
DO MORE.
DON'T THINK THAT THE NOWADAYS AREA YOU'RE TRYING TO CONSERVE AND FEED IS THIS GOOD FOR YOU.
THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE.
DECIDE.

well. nevermind.
which doesn't mean i gotta nothing to say...

Jamie Thomas, in some 411 dvd, looks like a crazy motherfucker that don't give a shit to anything but him. ok, he looks pretty stupid, but gosh, he probably fill his life with plenty of things he like, which is the ultimate good point. oh, and this poser got some pretty nices tricks in his camouflage skate bag too.

what can i say ?
well, i tried this bodyboard shit (pictures soon), as i'm a pretty bad swimmer and doesn't know how to surf (i've tried a few years ago and after 2 days, surfing looked to me like doing some 50/50 to backside flip 360° on skateboard : impossible, not for me).
and gee, it was funny, really ; i'd never drink so much salted water in my whole life, but it was really, really cool.

ok, one day, Drine and i almost killed ourselves, really : we almost forgot that sand and beaches slowly moves everyday ; the result : sure to be in the same quiet water than the day before, we went too far from the beach and cannot reach it back.

people who already saw me knows that i haven't got the shadow of one single muscle, and i really thinked that i was ready to die.
pretty scary.
ocean' big waves (the weather wasn't this beautiful, loads of wind) won't let us reach the beach, it was slowly but surely send us away from it ; as soon as we saw it, Drine and I tried not to panic, but of course, i was unable to stay quiet... i mean, i tried to stay calm while talking (or not talking) to her, keeping my "no problems" face, but inside my head was the terrific pictures of my death. gosh ! 8)
at least, Drine was in front of me, closer to the coast, which means that she got more chances to survive... don't laugh : a few seconds, i was sure to die. really. really, really scary experience.

after a few minutes (which looked like years for my calf of legs attacked by several cramps at once), i had regrets about the place we choose : a desert and really quiet beach, faaaar awwwaaaaaay from any people or any David Hasselhof kind of guy ready to save my miserable life...
...of course, 30 minutes right before it, i was glad to forget all clothes and expose my hairy ass to the timid sun, alone for the 5 kilometers around at least.
but while in the water, i felt really, really stupid, alone on atlantic ocean which never looked this big to me.

ok, you know how it ended as you read me right now... we survived, of course, but frankly, the days which followed were pretty strange when we were on the beach : i think we never went far enough to have water on our knees. 8)


what else ? well, i read books while in the car, on the beach, or in the tent. 8)

- "Slaughterhouse-Five" , from Kurt Vonnegut ("Abattoir 5" in its french version).
well, i don't think you can call it "war story", even if war is a big ingredient of this absurd recipe... some says there's some Swift in it, and it's pretty ok ; Vonnegut had a big sci-fi background and loads of SF books behind him when he wrote this, in the early 70's.
but this story goes in more humanist roads, and shows, one more time, how far in stupidity the human being can go.
a disturbing read, with a mid-acid, mid-sweet taste.

- "Something fresh", from PG Wodehouse ("bienvenue a Blandings" in its french version).
well, don't ask me why i'm loving so much this classic english humor that Wodehouse made his own mark.
it's nothing but quick dialogs, misundertandings, non sense... first published in 1915, this books is not one of Wodehouse's "Jeeves" saga, but it could be ; same situations, same kind of stories. a funny read.

- "The mistress of spices", from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ("la maitresse des epices" in its french version).
well, this author knows how to handle words and specific vocabulary with a grace, with a real personnal way, which is already 50% of what makes a good book to me. now, it was quite hard to understand how to enter this little realm where the story goes...
...but as far as i came into it, i read it very quickly. a good book full of good ideas and positives waves, with a brilliant creating process of writing.

- "Ostre sledovane vlaky", from Bohumir Hrabal ("Trains etroitement surveilles" in its french version).
another book from Hrabal is one of the best books that i had ever read in my life. this one is a quicker read, with less negative contents and more optimism... with one of the best writings i'd ever met, it's another story of war, of despair, of hope... of life. it's incredibly hard to resume Hrabal's books. you gotta read it to make your own idea. satisfaction guaranteed.

- "Comment je suis devenu stupide", from Martin Page.
(the title means "how i became stupid"...)
a few months ago, i loved the comic book adaptation from this book, with Witko on pencils ; i decided to read the original version of it too, as this sarcastic, caustic and acid story looked like a great idea to me. Antoine, a guy very intelligent and full of various knowledges, isn't happy with life. and he think that these intelligence and knowledges are exactly the main reasons why he's not.
so, he decided to stop thinking, like this.
at first, for helping himself in his quest, he try to be an alcoholic, then a people with suicidal tendencies, but cannot die this simple.
the last step for him is the ultimate one : he only got to becomes stupid.
Martin Page is a dirty fucker younger than me who write stories that really deserves more attention.

- "All quiet on the Orient Express", from Magnus Mills ("sur le depart" in its french version).
with only 3 books, this Mills guy definitely rules ; a naive and simple traveller slowly fall into the claws of the owner of the boss of the camp site where he stopped. the more he try to escape, the more he finds him stick to this strange english countryside...
really funny : original humor, and totally surprising, fresh. i loved it.

- "Nihon sanmon opera", from Takeshi Kaiko ("L'opera des gueux" in its french version).
Bertolt Bretcht probably fall on Kaiko one day... i started it another time but read it too quickly... it's the third book from this author that i read, and each time i tell to myself that his use of words has something totally different. the tale of a bunch of forgotten people, let aside from the highest society that rules their society and send police to their ass on a perpetual basis ; it's moving, it's alive, it's full of life... nice tale.

- "The best of animals", from Lauren Grodstein ("le meilleur des animaux" in its french version).
french publisher 10/18 probably publishes its worse cover ever, an horrible 72 DPI pixellized picture which sucks, and well... this collection of ministories is not this bad, not this good... a few of them are correct reads but frankly, either her writing, either her stories, i didn't find anything really satisfying into this Grodstein's book. i didn't read it entirely.

- "Survivor", from Chuck Palahniuk ("Survivant" in its french version).
holy shit, this book is a real good book. Palahniuk is the author of "Fight Club", and i loved it also, but here's, well... it's going into something totally disturbing. i gotta tell that i was really, really, really into the first part ; then, things take another twist and change of speed, and it's different... but still pretty good.
it's full of real mighty caustic humor, full of terrific ideas, and written on a real nice mode ; Palahniuk did it again, and this guy is not only a original freak, but also one of the best contemporary authors i'd read for years.

while on the beach, i also read some old Adrenalin magazines that i founded half priced in local press shops, plus the last issue. there's short prose and essays that deserves the try in it, depending in which ish you'll find and if you're into slide culture, either skate, surf or snowboard. there's this personnal touch and editorial line that is missing in 99% of today's skate press... nice mag, really.

what else, again ? well, nothing for today. more tomorrow.
ladies and gentlemen, have a very nice day.

MUSIC. STILL MUSIC.

back in 2002, those guys at Offbeats made a nice 21st century hip hop compilation featuring tracks from dichotomy, anonymous inc, mnemotrauma, buck 65, offbeat turntable mechanics, kunga219 & dj moves, white collar criminals, scheiterhaufen, sixtoo and stacs of stamina.

in a similar approach, in 2003, Plague Language "farewell archetypes EP" is another kind of compilation featuring the Plague Language crew and friends (check also Offbeaters), featuring Noah23, K-the-?, Stapplemouth, Orphan and many others) on Subversive records.

oh yeah, still in an afrocentric mood, stttiiiillll... i'm keeping on those New York gang called Antibalas, but also on the magnificent Daktaries shit (check "super afro beat", the third LP released by Desco records around 1999).
i'm also keeping on my original afrobeat journey through the Kalakuta Republica high lord, Fela Anikulapo Kuti ; even if i'm still discovering mad shit from the guy and his all stars crew, i gotta say that "water get no enemies", a track that i discovered around 10 years ago (thanks to Gilles Peterson Worlwide radioshow, once again...), is still my all times favorite track from the man and his peeps.

LINKS FOR THE END OF THE WEEK.

check out some brilliant comicbook innovator from finland doing shit for King Nosmo. Go jenni Go !

and...



and...

- stupid game for agoraphobic punk.

-for the Tron freak inside you deeeeeeep self.

-best tetris movie ever.

-put the sound to the max level and enjoy.

-this is turntable art at its best.

-apple power pizza.

once again, thanks to Ease for the links.
we're sometimes wastin our time while at work, but at least it's funny. sometimes.

and...
end.

JONATHAN, MATT, WILL, WHENEVER YOU WANT FOR MY CHECK.

While Big Jus, one of the main guys under last century best hip hop band ever, Company Flow, have a pretty heavy lp ("Black Mamba Serums v2.0") in the recordshops (review here, listen here, and buy here), Diplo got some exciting shit courtesy of those smart ass @ big dada, who offers either one of the 500 run limited, numbered, screen-printed and hand stamped promos of Diplo's new album, "Florida", or one of the megamixes that Diplo for RJD2. Diplo also get some hard times with his pals from TTC : it's really, really a good use of your time to click here.

Speaking of TTC, the best hip hop act this side of solar system released another kind of recorded ufo : "dans les clubs" is a meltdown between Cents "in da club", but it's another hip hop TTC practice here. as usual, lots of humor and some solid sense of derision can hide how far the 3 lyricists can go. their beats are stronger than ever, th production becomes slowly really good, and as it wasn't enough, the sleeve is simply awesome. in fact, if you don't 21st century hip hop this much, you can easily buy all TTC shit for their sleeves. really.

Infinite Livez (who got an impressive "honestly, I'd be surprised if a better rap album is released this year, from anywhere" review by Simon Reynolds in the Village Voice) got a new video here.

and Part 2, one of the very first beat headz from uk who really get me, made a pause into his LP production to grab again some of his old pens and spraycans for some exhibition in York :
"the themes are portraiture and typography with faces represented including old Bill Burroughs, Stravinsky and Sun Ra, plus some abstract shizittle and some explosive lettering" does it says, and the exhibition runs from July 4th to July 27th at the Slug & Lettuce in York. More details (including buying original art from the abstract boogaloo guy), call Victoria Gray on (+)07793 356 317.

talkin about solid shit, here comes the next ish of the Solid Steel series (see how good i am for transitions, uh ?) : Amon Tobin did a Final Scratch mix, and you can win your own FS system (if you know how much it is, you'll probably try to win it...) around here.

i think that when it'll be wrote that dj Vadim has another new LP on its way ; which is a pretty good news, considering that he probably won the award for the 2004 Best Traveller by Plane Customer at Air Whatever...

those cats at Ninja or at Big Dada.
they don't sleep, either.

LEWINSKY DEMOCRACY AND SANITAMAYA.*

i received 3 cd's full of Ibn Al Rabin music. Ibn Al Rabin ? don't we talk about some indy minimalist comic books swiss artist ? so he's a musician, too ?

yep, IAR is also an excellent guitarist (don't wait for some Satriani soli, i'm talking about music here...), and he looks like a funny entertainner, if I listened well to his "live" cd, recorded live in october 2002 in some bar ; there's also 2 cd's, "les moyens du bord" vol. one and vol. 2, where IAR plays guitar, harmonica, xylophone, neighborhood talks, noisy fridge, sony playstation and, yes sir, basic programmed music on Commodore 64. IAR sings, too, and his work looks like a melting pot of a sismic Bob Dylan, a totally high Kent, somewhere between the late 80's french indy rock and the last french good poetry wave (Matthieu Boggaerts, Sylvain Vanot and others...).

i'm not really into all of this stuff, but some tracks really comes from a great mind, that Ibn Al Rabin definitely got, as we already know it ; if you loved what you read from the guy, you'll love his music, for sure : we talk about 2 different views of a same creator universe, which is rare enough, and which is unmissable.
hurrah and bravoes for mister Ibn Al Rabin, one of the most complete artists around. but how many of us knows it ?

*(these are both titles of some Ibn Al Rabin tracks. check it !)

WELCOME N & V.

did i talk about the visit of Nancy Pena and Vincent Rioult a week ago ? well, these two brilliant comics artists will soon move around here ; so it looks like i'll finally have opportunities to learn how to draw with great teachers, uh uh uh. hum. well. 8°
Nancy (blog) and Vincent (blog) are working on many projects and books for the near future, but their last big one are "le Cabinet Chinois" (Nancy) and "Passer l'hiver" (Vincent did the art -we talk about woodcut here- it while it was written by Marc Lizano), both availables thanks to La Boite a Bulles, a little french publisher that really slowly put its marks on nowadays little publishers area.
i hope i'll soon have more to tell about these 2 nice and talented artists. right now, i hope the rain will stop here, or they'll quick learn how the weather sucks here... 8)

LAST WEEKEND UPDATE.

we're in july, the sky is grey and it's raining outside.
my throat is like a volcano, i'm having hard times dealing with swallowing food or beverages, i cannot clear it without any pain, this larynx ache just kill me slowly. fuck it. probably happened while sunday evening...

last weekend was the time to break our drums of ear, thanks to those guys from les eurockeennes de Belfort. well, usually i do some shit for them while the 3 days, but this year was "freeeeeeetime !" days, and having time to watch concerts with friends was pretty cool.

everybody says that it was evident that the Pixies weren't glad to play this gig ; we know that the mythic band never was the best when it comes to playing live, but this saturday, does this sad attitude came from their own relationships as members of the band, or from something else, i don't give a shit but well, it wasn't this good, period ; PJ Harvey sound was awful, but everybody (them again ?!) agree on the fact that the lady doesn't need any big soudsystem to seduce everybody. we tall about big charisma here.

RJD2 and the Def Jux peeps looks like they were totally awesome on stage, which isn't a surprise at all. RJD2 used turntables and MPC, this config looks pretty usual by now. the only good thing from this Elista guys are their record sleeve art, which is done by Julie Doucet herself, so we don't need to speak about them.

i would like to get some echoes about all the artists i didn't saw on friday and saturday (my nigga Feetwan and I played in our usual bar on friday, 85 thousands of billions people, cool) : Youngblood Brass Band, Buck 65 and his mates...

on sunday, i went to the festival with pals Ben and Ease, which was pretty cool. we missed Blonde Redhead and Doctor L : unfortunately, we came right at the same time that Svinkels started, and who are totally awfull on stage, still playing a punk hip hop that nobody wish to get by now, except maybe old Beastie Boys fans (by the way, i wasted my time listening to their last album, a big, big deception) that regret their first years, or teenagers fans of Jackass ; not my cup of tea at all...

Lust, our own local heroes, made a pretty cool gig ; they already got tons of fans, who were waiting for their show, and i think eveybody was glad about it. we'll see what happens with this next album, done with the help of Steve Albini himself. while i'm on the Lust topic, don't miss to visit their website, done by this same Ease i talked earlier.

i met Amp Fiddler and his crew while the guys were looking for chicken in the public area ; i like when artists don't act like big stars and it's usual in its kind of big festivals to meet somebody drinking on the same table as you, or using the same awfully dirty toilets you used. 8)
so i spoke with my old good friend Amp, yep, and so... 8) no, we exchanged 5 words but enough to let the man that some peoples didn't came for Slipknot or Korn, but for him ; and god, Amp Fiddler and his mates did a great, great show. this is an exact update of what funk is in 2004 : the audience goes for a journey through all the "black" dancefloor spectrum, from classic afrofunk tunes to reggae routines, from discoid house to the best soulfunk playground.
this +40 years old guy got a strong bunch behind him, all of them are great musicians or chorist. Amp got a real interesting life to speak about, he played for Georges Clinton in Parliament, or for Eddie Hazel, and it's frankly time for him to have a little bit exposure as a great artist himself. a huuuuge gig.

Le Peuple de L'Herbe ? i prefer to don't talk about it, i'll made myself another enemies. (hiya Guigui) 8)
le peuple de l'herbe have nothing to do on a great scene. they don't have anything pertinent to say, they don't even look easy in their music field. i don't give a shit about them having success, it's just sad that they got the audience that others deserves better. anyway.

Antibalaaaaaaaaaaassssssss !!!! do we have to call them Anti Bad Ass ? these guys made it again !
10 days after a great night in Dijon, i had the chance to check them again, and it was enormous. 8) the audience was into it after 30 seconds of music, and it was the biggest groove machine once again, playing its afrobeat to a crowd slowly becoming mad at it. these people have fun to live from their gigs, it's an evidence. and their enthousiasm about sharing it with you, is a real invitation that you cannot refuse ; the conductor of the band (and baritone sax) and the conga player (and main vocalist) went to met their audience, and my old pal Manu and I went home with another record, of course. 8)
let's put it simple, once again: if you know the Antibalas plays near you, don't miss them.

before to leave, Manu and I checked at least 20 seconds of Slipknot. one bass, one guitar, and 3 drums, sure these guys are totally deaf...
- uh ? ggrrrrmpppphhh ? wwwhat the fuuuuckkk ggrrrmpbblll ?
- no, nothing, mister Slipknot. everything's right. no problems."
these guys looks pretty bad and awful with their plastic masks, but how funny they are. and how funny are their audience, too ! a big musical circus, complete with clowns, to check also. well, 1 minute maximum if you want to save your ears. 8)

goodbye Belfort, see you next year...

FRIDAY MEANS...

...have a nice weekend, people !

BLACKJOY, LIVE.

for the parisians of you, don't miss Blackjoy live on Radio Nova tonite, 10 pm till noon (french time).
for the others, it will be also online, still live, here.

"From Marcos Valle to Jay Z, Steve Miller Band to Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield to Paul Simon... Just Blackjoy live on radio... says the blue eyed guy behind BlackJoy.

(thanks J.) 8)

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA BE AN ASTRONAUT.

what does Drew Friedman, Daniel Clowes, Jim Woodring, Peter Bagge and Chris Ware have in common ?

yeah, they're all some of my all times favorites comic book artits, that's it... 8)
...but for the Arizona residents that reads these lines (you know who you are !), they're all part of the massive exhibition happening in the The Arizona State University Art Museum, called "when i grow up...".

as told in some of the last Fantagraphics newsletter, "Taking brief glimpses at the current lives of seniors existing in a variety of communities and living situations, "When I Grow Up..." examines issues every human will deal with, in one way or another, during his or her lifetime. ; and for you, miss "always late" L., it's from may 22 to september 11, 2004, @ Arizona State University Art Museum Tenth Street and Mill Avenue Tempe, AZ 85287-2911.

thanks to Lilly on this one. you only got to send reviews/echoes about the exhib, now... 8)

STREET ART LOVERS UNITED

for street art lovers, from street art lovers, on a creative commons share-alike license basis, here's streetmemes.com, a brand new public repository for all these spraycan and sticking terrorizm showing itself more and more everyday, for our pleasure.

"I am writing emails to a few bloggers who might be interested in the topic. The project tracks the spread of stencil graffiti, sticker art, and political posters ; It is run entirely by submissions from the public, so if you have a camera you can send street art from your neighborhood." says Ryan, StreetMemes editor.

images updated on streetmemes will be availables for any non-commercial purposes, so it's another big collection of great art we'll got there, hopefully. we'll speak about it soon, as it looks for me like a really good news.

STUPID LINK OF THE MONTH.

thanks to Dirty Howie, drum'n'bass rollercoaster from the eastern countryside. 8)

FANTA-STIC VOYAGE.

the best publisher this side of the universe seems to have the busiest schedule around.
and still a real "all stars" line up, too.

- "The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952" is the first installment into Fantagraphics's Best-sellers collection ; well, i hope so.
it's a pretty cool thing to see this book debuted at #19 on "the NY Times nonfiction hardovers bestsellers list" last month, and also #1 on amazon.com's "Comics & Graphic Novels Bestsellers" list, which means nothing but great news for this publisher who goes through real bad times a few months ago. "Peanuts 50-52" will quickly reach his 100.000 sold book... i think i know at last 10 peoples who already got one. thanks Fanta !

- Daniel Clowes is a new daddy (welcome Charlie), which doesn't stop the guy working on something which looks like a second movie (more news soon, maybe here on Fanta's Dan page)... don't miss the 23rd issue of Eightball, a 7 bucks oversized book.

- many interviews from Fanta artists : Johnny Ryan (who got a new Angry Youth Comix (the #7) released this july), Sophie Crumb, Mark Bode (Vaughn Bode' son Mark has re-enlisted his father's entire cast of characters for The Lizard of Oz, a full-color graphic novel that pays playful homage to and parodies the classic L. Frank Baum fairy tale and its beloved film adaptation, and blessed with huge artwork from Vaughn, introduction by Bode expert and Paper magazine contributor Carlo McCormick, and a sketchbook of Mark's preparatory work), Gary Groth, Tony Millionaire, and Seth.

- his wife, a costume from an old serial called "alias the cat", the tragic story of a czech, some romance, some fun, some excitement and a New Jersey town called Midgetville : these are the ingredients of Kim Deitch new issue of "the Stuff of Dreams" (Eisner-winning "Best Single Issue 2002"). wow, sounds pretty good...

- news from Jim Blanchard ("truckers fags in denial"), Steven Weisman ("the kid firechief") and second issue of Blood Orange are the july highlights at Fantagraphics.
it's a cruel, cruel summer... i really need money.

SECU-RRRRITTTTTTY !!!

yeeeeeeesss !
on june the 24, we went in Dijon, for this Tribu music festival i blogged about (hiya Fred, if you read this) before, for seing Antibalas live.

gosh, it was won-der-ful, i really liked it ; Antibalas are a classic afrobeat band, and if afrobeat deserves special listening conditions, it must be live, on stage. and Antibalas rocked the place, as it was written !

a 10 pieces band, composed of 10 pretty good musicians (i doubt the average age of its players excedeed 30 years old ?), and of 10 exstatics peoples, this is what New York city sent us for this gig : they were playing the best stratospheric afrobeat around, and it was a strong communion of energy, of happiness, and of pure groovistic joy. of course they played in Fela's field, but they also put a personnal twist to it ; just great, this is what i think of this bunch of assholes. 8)

need supra dose of good musical energy ? check their records.
need extra dose of positivism ? check Antibalas live.

WHISKASS.

Ronald from the Antimatiere zone (remember Annihilus in the Fantastic Four ? Ronald is his father) (or was it the negative zone ? damn) always send (though emails) tons of stuff. sure, the guy seems a little bit, hum, ON-DA-RUUUUN kind of guy (seing his "Free & Ahead Movement" mail signatures...), but it's pretty great to have some news from the one who try to keep some fire in the french underground ; the more, the best.
you can find some Ronald art nearly everywhere where thoses crazy guys from ChezJeromeComix shake their ass, but also some published stuff in Silver, some really biiiiig size comics including art from Escarbille, Audrey Lhom and Guillaume Long, and available in all the good fast foods.
hmmm !

still on the rampaging indy french visual creators side, Melvil Massacre relaunched his website, complete with news never-seen-before shit, videos, and some Pluton microsite, and... updated soon (hum). check his work around here, and tell him that your grandma send you.

JUNE DIARY.

after a few weeks without any updates, my calendar (first link in the leftsidebar) is updated.
i don't have anything else to tell, really.

have a nice weekend, you all.

FIFTEEN YEARS.
(HOMAGE TO LEWIS TRONDHEIM).

as it's pretty beautiful outside, and as i'm slowly recovering extra free time from my new job, i'm arranging and cleaning home each days, after finishing work ; so it's the usual round of classifying stuff, including old press, forgotten records, and... comic boxes.

between dirty X-Men comics and destroyed old french classics, i re-found out some old fanzines that i totally forgot, at the time where i was mainly reading Marvel comics, Fluide Glacial (french humoristic monthly magazine) and (A Suivre) (another magazine devoted to more classic french creators - i remember having read one of my all time favorite french comics, Boucq' "Bouche du Diable", inside its pages), i discovered some pretty old fanzine, called "la Poubelle de l'Incongru-Kamizol", a special issue of "l'Incongru", a local fanzine done by, along others, Fred Neidhardt and others disturbed people.
well, not so old, as it's marked 1989, december on its cover.
"so what ?", will ask my friends from Lyon ? 8)

so, it was the first time i saw some art from this Lewis Trondheim guy ; at the time, frankly, it disturbed me to see what looked like easy shit, published in this zine. for me, comics were slowly showing themselves as something else than just entertainment. heck, i was 16... and clearly, it looked like this guy had two left hands, and a real little, little sense of dialog and narration.

in this undersized book published by some crazy folks from Besancon (already ! yesss...), Trondheim use the same strip composition basis that he used later on "le Dormeur" : each time the same drawing, repeated 3 times in a row, and with only wordballoons differents the ones from another. it's pretty stupid humor we talk about here, all the bunch were deeply into scatologic/private jokes, and even the legendary Carali was involved (1 strip)... well.

year after year, i became one of the tons of people sick of all the clones and sub-clones of every success i read by the past ; i saw publishers forgetting their job (exposing all kind of stuff, helping discovering new talents, etc), i saw the comic medium going faster in a wall that i supposed pretty heavy and fatal. then came to my eyes some concrete examples that not only i wasn't alone, but also that some creators decided to do the thing to do : self publishing.

we all know the stories ; in usa, japan or europe, others creators were always doing things in their corners, lauching new publishing homes for their different work. and in France, Trondheim went into the wagon with other people who got the ultimate book of this time (Labo), people who became l'Association. since, he did many other books, too much to name it all, and became one of the top name in this field. sometimes, he did some just correct shit, but too often he did top books, alone or with friends.

i wonder if Trondheim got memories of this old stuff. if i'm correct, his oldest stuff published through a bigger publisher is from 91 or 92 ("Monolinguistes" and "Psychanalyse", Le Lezard) ? meanwhile, he did "Imbroglio" through l'Association and "le Dormeur" through Cornelius...

... and in september this year, the publisher Breal, through its collection for younger audience (and with Lewis's friend Joann Sfar at its head), release his so-called last drawn book, "A.l.i.e.e.n", a children book which looks pretty, pretty beautiful, from the little i saw ; it's supposed to be one of his last books, at least drawn by himself, but it will be a nice one.
it's already knowed that some major event (and i mean, major, uh...)will happen to our favorite rabbit in Trondheim last "Lapinot" book (released next month), so i hope Lewis will give us cool and funny story with A.l.i.e.en... we'll see.

even if it's a good thing to stop doing things when you doubt having pleasure to do it, i just wanted to tell that Lewis Trondheim is one of the rare guys who fed my interest for "other" comic books ; by doing something different, for pushing his limits and the medium limits with him ; by doing tons of things, going everywhere at once, but allways for the pleasure of the curious readers who, year after year, became legion behind him, making him one of the best comic creators around.

thanks for all this, mister Trondheim (and don't forget my check).

READINGS (part. 6794321534).

so there's another little selection of must have there.

- the Autobiography of Me Too, from Bouzard (Requins Marteaux) : another shot from Plageman creator : heavy humor at its best, this is what Fluide Glacial's legendary sense of humor should look like in 2004.

- Comix Club (le Groinge) : pretty smart and full of good suprises (all the Groinge bunch are featured, and many other artists too), this is a critic book of others comics or comics creators (between others). another point of view, another way of "speaking of"... quickly, the second volume, please !

- La Fantome (la Boite a Bulles) : another brilliant book from La Boite a Bulles... nice art (ful of influences that i won't tell you), nice story... we'll wait for some more from its authors.

- Smart Monkey, from Winshluss (Cornelius) : without any doubts, one of the book of the year, so far. Winshluss, as usual, shows some others of his skills with a story full of intelligence, and with loads of narrative ideas. it's beautiful, it's real, it's a huge book.

- Grand Vampire #5, from Joann Sfar (Delcourt) : what can i say ? i was pretty sure that i had found this book done too quickly, in the way of the last Chat du Rabin, with not so good art... and i was wrong. Sfar, the guy who publish at least 1 book per month, signs a real good tale of our favorite vampires. the book #6 will be published in september.

- Meka, from Morvan and Bengal (Delcourt) : without any story, this book (part one of two)offers some Bengal art (big manga otaku, we see that) that is quite correct. but there's no story.

- Gothal Central #1 (Semic) : the first issues of this Batguy related police officers, quite good.

- Lapin n°34 (l'Association) : this is one of the best Lapin ever, if you ask me. all the creators hanging around l'Association are featured, and frankly, there isn't a bad page in this book (except maybe the legendary overestimed Marjane Satrapi, once again) : Ayrolles does his Ayrolles with a beautiful absurd tale, Parrondo does his Parrondo too, Vincent Vanoli confirms, as seen in his last books, that he's really leaving his dark, melankolic world for some lighter stories, Julie Doucet does some cool cut'n'paste art, Riad Sattouf confirms his skills when it comes to stupid but funny shit, Max and his homonym Max (Andersson) exploses in color and in few-page stories, Gunnar Lundkvist's kat goes through usual moments, Lewis Trondheim try some new methods of creating, Guy Delisle does a funny and vibrant homage to onf of his idols, Munoz, Matti Hagelberg still have sexual relation with wood (yeah, wood), Jochen Gerner becomes MAD, as he doing a... a... i don't know how to call this crazy "artwork"..., Laurent Andre is (also) stills on pretty heavy drugs that slowly eating his brain (does Laurent reads Kid Acne's Zebra Face comic book, or is it me ?), Lucas Methe and Lionel Tran do a nice story about relations ship and magic, Imius explores some really dark pages (and it's a blast), and there's also some Mattioli pages from the 70's...
oh yeah,the great moments ? there's some huuuuuge Jim Woodring art, a 24 pages magnificent piece of shit (as usual), Tobias Schalken do a great tale full of incredible art, Killofer shows that he's one of the best artists around, doing a story a la "676 apparitions", and Lars Sjunnersson signs a magnifical piece of shit with a story about taxis and cats...
a must have, of course.

- L'orme du Caucase, from Taniguchi and Utsumi (Casterman) : not the ultimate Taniguchi book (when does Le Seuil will publish the third "Botchan" book ?), but a good read indeed.

- Mauvais Chemin, from Jason (Atrabile) : five books at Atrabile, five must-reads. Jason is one of my favorite storytellers, and this last effort is in the exact continuity of the others : poetry, emotion, funny ideas.

more tomorrow. maybe.

ITALY INVADES ?

well, not yet, not really.
but finally, maybe readers will have opportunities to discover new readings, as publisher Casterman translate "Pasolini, une rencontre", an homage done to the great italian movie maker by Davide Toffolo ; which is just great cause i've heard about Toffolo for a while by now, and he looks like an author to watch closer. i don't speak a single word of italian (even if there's real easy ways of doing it as i'm french), and i waited for this kind of news for long.
Toffolo's work will be published in the "different shit" Casterman collection (called "ecritures"), the very one which already got tons of Taniguchi stuff, Andi Watson' "breakfast after noon", Seth' stuff, Mattoti's stuff, and Craig Thompson multigold book, "blankets".

as if it wasn't enough (i stopped to wish anything from Casterman a long time ago, they probably felt bad about it, that's why they published so many good things these days) (yeah, thank me), Casterman said they will finally publish Art Spiegelman last effort (yeah, the towers...), scheduled for september. and some news manga collection, too, Sakka, with many great books to come. i think i'll get more news soon as Casterman invites us in Paris, this monday, to speak about the future of their collections, alongside Benoit Peeters, Tardi, Fred Boilet, Art Spiegelmann... more after this monday, uh. 8)

but don't worry : this publisher still manage to offer us many, many real pieces of shit, too. 8)

APPROXIMATELY 23 MINUTES OF LOVE...

"approximately 23 minutes of love, hip hop and electronica from the dephts of mother earth" are the words on 2.nd records best record untill now.
Stacs of Stamina and Pilot Balloon released a real nice 10' collaboration full of good ideas and of nice achieved music ; both music and lyrics are brilliant, and it's probably one of the few pieces of indy-21st century-post-break and loops that deserves a try.
oh yeah, "isn't it enough/hug dusty/throe stasis/vampire tonic" got one of the sweetest covers i've seen for a long time, too.

today's soundmakers are also availables somewhere somewhere in these web pages :

the giantissim Noah 23 got his "quicksand" album available also on 2-nd too, as for Nitrada (abstract pop with nice melodies) and EPY (intelligent dancefloor fillers from a 5 pieces austrian band).

check 2-nd website.

Marcus, from Stacs of Stamina, teamed up with Tom from Cavemen Speaks for "the world after 4/02 : vikings and waffles" 57 minutes long record done on Shadow Archives.

check also ShadowAnimals website, and SideShow Recordings website.

Pilot Balloon got the album "ghastly good cheer" released on Komadose records.
Komadose, Pilot Balloon, Mystic Gift Creations and Distorted Megabytes.

what else ?
The Opus "breathing lessons", a double LP which takes boudaries of hip hop a little bit further, once again ; an aaaawwwesome album, this is it, and, once again, a Mush product.
go outside, visit your record shop, and buy them all.
I DIDN'T SAY SOULSEEK THEM, GODDAM PUNKS ! BUY THEM ALL !!!

The Opus is online, and of course check Dirty Loop.

enough music for today. go to sleep.
zzzzzzz.

JIM WOODRING'S FOUR SEASONS.

the uncanny artist and creator of Frank (among others delicious comicbooks full of original universe and incredible art) just released some pretty cool port folio that you, lover of sweet graphotism, must check, thanks to Pressure Printing.
The Four Seasons are 4 little Jim Woodring drawings printed with highly attention, and it's a real piece of first class shit we got there.

"You’ve seen etchings, lithographs, woodcuts and silkscreen prints, but these engravings are strikingly different. The ink does not lie on the surface of the paper; it is pressed deeply into it, creating an embossed texture you can feel and giving the images an almost hallucinatory crispness.
Brad Keech, the printer, is known for his fanatical dedication to quality and detail. The prints are made on 100% rag handmade paper with deckled edges, produced especially for this project.
They are wrapped in a vellum, letterpressed colophon, accompanied by a poetic exegesis (also letterpress on vellum) and packaged in an
amazing die-cut wrapper of thick, stiff, shiny black bristol with a
monstrously ornate Woodring-designed “4” embossed on the front".

there's only 80 sets of this magic packagewere made for sale and they are going fast. don't miss it !?

WATCH OUT FOR THIS "LIFE:STYLES" RECORD SLEEVE !!!

yep, it sounds like some fashion or other shit related thing, but it's not. it's just some free advertising, thanks to the soooo kind world of bloggers. 8)

"life:styles" is a 2003 released record courtesy of some of the best labels in the field, called Harmless. if you're curious and bored enough to check the credits of my playlists (either radios shows or live "mixs"), you probably saw Harmless quite a few.
and if you're listening good music, too. 8)

but look at this ! they talk, too :
"LifeStyles gives musical innovators a chance to hark back to days and lay down a selection of records that shaped their collective mindset, moved their feet and stirred their soul. We kick the series off with 4 hero whose early forays into drum & bass arena then developed into a mastery of the broken beat scene culminatng in the release of two ground breaking albums, Two pages and the multilayered Creating Patterns" said the record sleeve.
so what is all about, uh ?

well, tracks from 1963 to 1994, from Nancy Wilson to Sly Stone, from Weldon Irvine to Syreeta Wright, the english duo did another impressive and massive musical knock out in my poor, poor ears. and not only for beatdiggers, believe me !
fuck, these guys even put one of my favorite tracks ever (and i mean EVER), Gary Bartz' "music is my sanctuary". do you know loads of tracks perfect in bed, on the dancefloor, in the studio, in car or while your funerals ? well, Gary Bartz wrote a few greeeaaaat pieces, but this one is the one, i tell ya.
anyway, everybody knows it already, so...

if not : it's Harmless number 050CD if you're for a mixed cd, and Harmless number 050LP if you're up for an unmixed pack of vinyl slices.

and the sleeve, you ask me ? how's that, i wrote it in the title ?
well, here's the point. i finally got some computer at home.
some computer which works, that's it.
complete with scanner, printer, graphic tablet, etc.
and of course, of course of course, of course, the scan doesn't work. 8)
so i was quite glad to think about all the neat-o shit i was ready to play with and blog non-stop, but heck, no, not this time, as usual.
we'll see.

visit 4 hero
and harmless recordings.