Dress up EP by Altercation

A year after our last demo recorded at The Enterprise studios, Altercation has finished the recording of the new EP.
The first half of the year 2009 has been pretty chaotic for the band. With irregular drummers for three months, the bass player Pete who has been with us for two years and a half didn't have the enthusiasm to carry on being in a band, and he also realised that his level on the bass had been stucked for too long.

The new year has given Altercation two new members on the rythm section with Vero on the drums who worships Dave Grohl and Nirvana and Ko on the bass who played in metal bands as well than in folk bands for the last ten years.
We've done about 20 rehearsals together working on all the songs, giving them more complexity and shape.
Then we came up with two new tracks, London City and Love Suicide.
Perfect stories of life, craze, loss and melancoly. London City is a statement about the London's lifestyle, the love and hate that every londoners feel towards their own city. But at the end this song is about the certain vibe that London offers you that can makes you feel stronger.
Love Suicide is a teenage ballad that is a mix of all the quiet songs I've done in the past, lyrically speaking. Love Suicide is also the death of the teens year.
Dress up is a clubbing tale, simple and not to be mistaken with a whore diary. ;)

Altercation recorded those three songs at the Area 18 in North Acton with Richard Bignell who worked with a lot of various artists over the years. The production is something that we have missed during our previous recordings. The kind of enginners we had in the past were more interested in the money they get at the end of the day rather than the music itself.
Richard has been helpful and a very good adviser during the whole process of the recording.
The musical chemistry between the new line up of the band has certainly made the experience very rich and inspiring.
The Dress up EP will be available on ITunes very soon.

Altercation is now focusing on gigs and promotion. We'll be playing this Sunday the 21st at the World's End in the heart of Camden Town, from 7pm. It's free to get in so come and join us to end the week end in a rock'n'roll night.
There will be two bands from Paris joining us with HiroshAmour.
We'll also be playing Bar Rumba on the 18th of July, it's just next to Picadilly Circus, it's a rock club. We were supposed to play there two weeks ago but they double booked us, so we have been given another date !
We also have a gig down south of England on the coast on the 28 of August in Margate. Grungy night in an high school area. Club night.
We'll also be in the process of making a video for the first single of the EP, London City.
Banana Castle Records which is our label is in the process of pressing some cds to send out to people at radio stations and promoters, hoping for a positive answer from them all. ;)

That's what on for us at the moment, any news or curiosity for our new songs, go there :

www.myspace.com/altercationmusic

Vice Squad

Vice Squad is a punk band formed in 1978 by the explosive Beki Bondage, here on the picture. She's been on the punk scene for more than 30 years and she's been called a jewel in the crown of England's glory...
After she left Vice Squad in 1983 she joined another punk band called The Ligotage and then in 1986 she formed The Bombshells.
It's only in 1998 that Beki reformed with Vice Squad and they've been touring ever since, specially in east europe.
She is often cited as being the first punk pin-up featured on the front cover of a number of influential music tabloids such as Melody Maker, NME, and Smash Hits.



It's with great pleasure that I went to see her play in Brighton at The Royal Albert. They were playing with The Derellas which is another punk band from London. The venue was quite intimate and it was packed.
She played a lot of old Vice Squad songs, she had a lot of energy and looked like a 25 years old punk singer still, after all those years she kept a kind of eternal punk youth.
She was raw and straight, talking to a mostly male audience, dominating them all by her jokes and answers that no one else could have think of.
Their drummer never rehearsed with them before, the original drummer had a problem and couldn't make it to the gig so they were lucky to find one quite quickly just before the gig. No one would have noticed he wasn't an original member if she didn't say because he was really good. (reminded me of my own situation in Paris at the Sentier des Halles gig )
They played a long gig, and they did it in a punk atmosphere, talking to the fans after the gig...

here are some more pictures i took of the gig :









Once a groupie, always a groupie ! ;)





and to finish on a rock'n'roll touch, my picture with Tim, bass player of The Derellas and also ex bass player of Nurotica.

Rock'n'Roll Losers (edited)

Bubblegum Screw were recording their album this week in Old Street at The Fortress and it's with pleasure that I took part to the experience for one day to do some backing vocals for them with Genna.
It was raw and inspiring, loved to sing "filthy little bitch" for them and all the rest of it included their great track Rock'n'Roll loser.
We sang on seven songs, can't wait to hear the final mix.
It's an honour for me to be on their album, they've always been one of my favourite London band, they make great punk'n'roll and their lyrics are just wonderfully dirty.












Mark, singer in Bubblegum Screw...



Zuri, bass player... and great guide for those vocals, so was Mark who recorded his vocals same time than us which was nice. :)










Magda and the boys in the break room...



Great experience, I say it once again.
The recording studio is a whole little town in itself, it gots a bar, rehearsal studios and a roof where you can go and take some fresh air or smoke, whatever the choice is.
In the bar section they have some pools tables with a DJ installation and some art and pictures are projected on one of the wall with some Psychedelic Furs in the background.
Here are some shoots I particulary liked :














Then Mark and me decided to play a bit with our poses and shadows, mixing the whole lot with the artistic background.
We had some nice shoots, with a few drinks behind ! ;)
Here are some of them :















My turn to be a bit crazy and pseudo artistic... ;) The Velvet Underground and all of the glam 60's movement a la Andy Warhol are one of the first to have invented art concept into the music. Our little session that night was just a laugh.

Detox

Inspiration time, going away for two weeks, eating healthy food, looking up at the beautiful skies and get away from the drugs.

So here I am, a true healthy junkie, or should I say healthy ex-junkie.
Those holidays were more than great, and now I feel like a monk.

Enjoy the pictures and take your mind away from the worries for a bit...






my famous home made hair creation... try it if you can !









blond as i've never been for a long time...







let me reach the moon....





"born with a spoon in the mouth..."



on the way back to England :

Healthy Junkies

We finally made a page out of our six songs and "Healthy Junkies" came to our mind a long time ago when we started using it as a private joke...
So here we are, it all started with the song Glam Sister which is now an Altercation's song but also a part of the Healthy Junkies set, and we did this song for one of my friend's birthday.
For a while our musical connection didn't seem to be there but as soon as we did this song Frozen Fields and Shot Idol followed and then it never stopped.
So we decided to set up this page on myspace just because we can't put all of our songs on the Banana Castle Records page forever, and also because it's always good to have your music heard by other people.
We are not going to dedicate as much time as we do with our other bands to the Healthy Junkies project just because we don't want to force it, we are creating for our pleasure before all, and if it goes further than that then it's because it was meant to be but our principal reason of doing this is passion and love for music.
Now maybe we will play them live in the future, but it's not our priority.
We did those songs as a home studio recording at Banana Castle Records place, we did the drums ourselves, bass, guitars, voices and mixes, so the songs are demos, we're just trying to make them sound as goog as we can for the time being.
Now for some little infos about the songs, Boy behind Bars is about Boy George, Shot Idol is a tribute to Kurt Cobain and Blinding Sun and Big Dreams of Tomorrow have been inspired by the other side of the world.
Healthy Junkies purpose is to make songs that you will want to listen again and again, so you can start to do that now :

www.myspace.com/healthyjunkies

EDITED TOPIC : We are actually giving more time to the project now, just had to free ourselves from some obvious chains...

ALTERCATION en concert a Paris !

So here we are, ALTERCATION's first parisian gig, after more than three years of fake "exil"... or "experience" we could also say.
But this is something Vince and myself are happy to do, it is almost symbolic, this gig is going to be even more important than the showcase we did in August just because it's in Paris, and that's where everything started with The Blue Fairies at first.
It is true we never did The Blue Fairies songs again but I think you can hear the influences of my first band in some Altercation songs such as Souless City and Shallow that are obviously the sisters of Black Moment and American Dream.
I actually started to work on a new project under the name of "The Parisian Suburbs" and after some serious thoughts that I had for a while already I decided to work on The Blue Fairies songs again and try to bring them some of my musical expericence I've absorbed during those three years in London.
There is obviously a certain teenage rage in the sound that gives them that little sparkle that make them so different and touching. So my old Paris songs should live again next year. I started a myspace page for it with the old songs versions that you can find here : www.myspace.com/theparisiansuburbs
We'll probably perform one of the Blue Fairies songs at the Paris gig, it's like completely unavoidable and I'm already pretty sure of which one it is going to be.

This gig in Paris will start at 8pm with a support band that isn't confirmed yet as our last first support band pulled out. It should be known soon, probably Enosense which is a band from the parisian suburbs.

They will play 20-25 minutes set. We will be on around 8h40 and we will play a 40 minutes set with four new songs with a surprise guest on the guitar for one of them. And like I said earlier a nostalgic moment should have his place too.

To book your tickets you can go at the FNACS or CARREFOURS or even do it online here :
http://www.fnacspectacles.com/ficheManifestation.do?codman=SHD19

There is no place for shyness any more, it is going to be something else this time, something you have suspected in me before but that you've never seen yet...

SEE YOU AROUND "CATS"

Frenchette

Here is one of my favourite song of all time that my friend Mark made me discover.

It's about special friendship and being in love in a certain kind of way. An inspiring subject and some dreamy piano parts too.

Here is a link if you want to listen to it as well :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz33yq9vOsw

FRENCHETTE

(Johansen/Sylvain)

You call that love in French but it's just Frenchette
I've been to France so let's just dance
I get all the love I need in a luncheonette
In just one glance so let's just dance
I can't get the kind of love that I want
Or that I need so let's just dance

You come on like it's all natural darling
But you know it's really only naturalette
It's just like all of your leathers darling, they don't scare me
I know it's really only leatherette
I take it down, gonna wash it down
I scrub you on down in any old launderette
I can't get the kind of love that I want
So let's just dance and I'll forget

Want you to come in my kitchen and not my kitchenette
Want you to come in my dining room, not my dining-ette yet
I can't get the kind of love so let's just dance and I'll forget

I can't get the kind of love that I want
Or that I need so let's just dance
I can't get the kind of love that I want
Or that I need so let's just dance

Let's just dance! Let's just dance!
I said let's just dance! Let's just dance
Let's just dance! Let's just dance!

Remember how we were marveling darling, we were marvelous
Yeah we were marveling at The Marvelettes
We fell in love with Veronica
And every last one of The Ronettes
It sure got hot when Levi Stubbs
He got burned boys
Messing round with Bernadette

You call that love in French but it's just Frenchette
I've been to France so let's just dance
I get all the love I need in a luncheonette
In just one glance so let's just dance
I can't get the kind of love that I want
Or that I need so let's just dance

Let's just dance! Let's just dance!
Let's just dance! I said let's just dance!

My doctor says to take it easy baby so let's just dance
My doctor said to take it easy baby so let's just dance
Let's just dance, baby let's just dance
I'm bound to take a little roll in the face so let's just dance
I'm bound to take a little stroll in the face so let's just dance
I said let's just dance! Well darling let's just dance!
I said let's just dance! Come on and let's just dance!

I can't get the kind of love that I want
Or that I need so let's just dance