Copycat video, behind the scenes...

Brief making of... to start with six little videos of behind the scenes.


















Pictures and videos by Brigeoo.

The story line is two ex teenagers that used to be best friends have fallen out and one of them is a Copycat.
Virginia B. Fernson has specially come from Paris, having inspired the whole video and song concept. Here is the link of her music project in Paris : www.myspace.com/skinsitive
We've always worked well together, complementary to each other; we've been in the same drama class since we were 16 so it probably showed in term of chemistry on the screen.
We used three locations; the first one was in New Cross in an ex school for girls which is now reconverted in a beauty salloon, held by mister Alberto Banana. We did some serious fighting there, throwing pillows at each others on the 'bedroom bed', like old times... ;)
Hair and make up was done at that same location by Banana of course.
I've combined all my female singers influences in that look, a mix between Nina Hagen, Courtney Love, eighties era Madonna and Cindy Lauper... with a touch of Ziggy Stardust when it comes to the lighting thanks to mister Steve Cole. My coiffure also has been called a trashy version of Marie Antoinette. Hope I won't lose my head in all this...
Virginia was more like a Siouxsie who meets Syd Vicious to give a punk emo kid, it was a very good contraste and it suited her well.
The second location was at Bombproof studios, thanks to Steevo who let us used his premises. The disaffected local gave us great spots like the brick wall for the grafittis scene and some obscures corridors gave us the chance to use some psychedelic lighting offered by Steve Cole.
We've also put art on the wall, kindly lended by Niki Chan and Sam Hamilton who both joined force to create the mister emo painting that has been a key accessory in the whole process.
A lot of driving was involved, actually there was more driving than shooting, and thanks to Steve loving Nightmares and his van it made the whole thing a lot easier. (As you noticed it I keep mentionning Steves, and that's because we had a unique team made of four Steve including the camera director...)
We ended up at mine on the top roofs of London doing some look alike scenes made possible thanks to Rocky's cloth shop Year Zero that you can find in Carnaby Street. We got granted the permission to borrow some cloth, and it was the perfect place if you were looking for trash teenagers look outfits.
We also did a memorable feather scenes, stabbing pillows and covering my whole flat of those vicious little feathers. It was an intense scene to do as we had feathers coming in our throats and blinding us madly.
It was also great to have Brigeoo on the set who provided us very cool pictures and immortalized filmed moments behind the scenes.
The last shot to do is with the whole band and we also want to include as much people as we can to make it a nice little party with 'tv eyes' on it.
Rock'n'rollers from London come together please.

On the roofs... of London !

In a mixture of thoughts and confusion
I was looking at the sky from my very high spot
On the very top roof of London
I felt like I could as well be in Paris
Writting a story under the evening sunlight
Letting the night come settling down in silence
Light a candle in the fortress of dreams
Look at the window to see the midnight walkers
You can see the world without being seen
Inaccessible in a tower of thoughts

It is a refuge made on your image
Pink lighting's been seen from the tube station
Red light district call or angel retreat
What you see in it is what you do not have


*Spring's mood mode*

Trash My Love

TRASH MY LOVE

I wanted to be the perfect girl
With unreal visions and prison of dreams
I've locked myself in my world/a room
And my body went robotic
I could only breath through despair
I couldn't feel hungry nor tired
Just this door in front of me
Blocking out the end
And putting a hold on my own life
I've trashed times and times again
I've heard the sound of the glass breaking on the floor
I've trashed my love
I've trashed fuck knows
I've created a kingdom of darkness
I'm the girl who likes to blow it
But doesn't really like it
The altercation inside of me is a big contradiction
It feels like someone close died
It feels like dying
Like a neverending fall that doesn't allow you to touch the ground
ever again
Repressed anger let go of me
I'm tired of escaping control
Making my days look all the same
Giving in abondon
Dreaming to confort myself
Trusting in my paranoias
Maybe I should try another way then
''Be brave, be strong, be free !''

Altercation launch release party @ The Purple Turtle

I look like a fucking saint on that picture !
Sorry for this opening line...
The launch went very well, we had about 100 people there, we covered our costs, sold some t-shirts and cds, it was a good night !
I was told our performence was one of the best one we've made, obviously it's not going to stop there and it's always going to get better and better, but it's nice to hear that, specially when it comes from someone like Mark Thorn, Bubblegum Screw singer, who's not the easiest person to please... ;)
I found the perfect dress for the night, about 10 pounds only, it was love at first sight when I saw it in the shop window; it's a purple cocktail dress who could belong to Cinderella as much as it could be owned by a maid of honour...

/>

Banana did my hair during the afternoon as well as my make up which was obviously more than useful.
Show up at the gig, Burma Guns are the first ones there, we're all waiting around and when Dave drummer from Bubblegum Screw arrives we set up everything on stage.
It was a bit of a slow start and as a result none of the bands got a soundcheck. I guess with a venue like The Purple Turtle it doesn't really matter as the p.a is one of the best I've seen.
People started arriving slowly, I was obviously stressing thinking it's going to be a big flop and that no one care about the Dress Up E.P....
I went to the backstage to re-do some of my make-up, saw Mark there and made sure he would wear the feather boa I bought him on stage, he sure did.



When I got out from the backstage I was surprisingly happy to see the venue fuller and finally coming to life.
DJ Frog was great and he put some great tunes to make people stick around for all the bands.


me with Dj Frog

Burma Guns opened the night, they had some technical problems on stage with the bass sound but in spite of it I really enjoy their set and they were the first band on so as a conscequence they were the one sounchecking for the rest of us.

We went on at 9pm. I enjoyed Paranoia like I've never did before, the set went all smooth and nicely for us, Ko attempted once again to make some jokes in the middle under my request, he made me swear to not pass him the mike ever again on stage or he will tell about some compromising secrets of mine next time I do it, I won't take this risk. ;)







some live action :



We ended our set with a jam joining with Glam Sister, it was inspiring and it felt good to have more freedom and not always follow a verse chorus bridge formula, just trusting in your instincts is sometimes very liberating.
We did that same kind of thing at The Dublin Castle just before Insomnia, I put the video of it in the Charity topic, just two blogs down this one, feed your curiosity and have a look...
Here is a video of London City, at The Purple Turtle...



Then HiroshAmour went on...
They delivered a hell of a set with jam, long instrumentals and soulful songs such as Fever and Suicide Bomber.
Hiroshamour and I did a cover of Mylene Farmer for Ethan's birthday who is a huge fan of her, we did Desenchantee. It was a new thing for me, I won't make it a habit to cover the french Madonna but always good to do once !
Here are some live pictures of them where you can see the lighting is better... Maybe because they're only three in the band so they stood in the right spots. However The Purple Turtle isn't the best venue for pictures.









After the brillant performance of Hiroshamour it was the turn of Bubblegum Screw to entertain the crowd...
They gave a very good gig, once again, Mark was great with the red feather boa on, they were all on fire, Mark showed his ass at some point just to make sure that everyone was paying attention.
Unfortunately they didn't have time to do Rock'n'roll losers as they were last on the bill and it was all running a bit late.
So they ended with their brillant song Power ( my new favourite one )...
Here they are :









We all ended the night in The Purple Palace, and I even got Mark to model for my band t-shirt :



Now Altercation is preparing for the last gig of the year as a part of the Christmas itch festival which will start on the 7th of December at The Purple Turtle, again, and Healthy Junkies will be playing that night, their first gig !
We'll only be performing five songs.
Then Altercation will be playing at The Bull and Gate on the 9th of December, check the website for more infos :

target="_blank">www.myspace.com/xmasitch

Also I just thought I'd mention it, all pictures and videos of the launch and of the charity gigs have been taken by Brigitte, she's been a dedicated fan who has supported us for quite a while now and it's always nice these days. So thanks again miss... :)

So no gig at the Proud Gallery for HiroshAmour tonight due to childish behaviour...

Until next time, and then expect a period of silence on this blog as I'm planning to go on holidays... well deserved break I should add.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Altercation charity gigs @ The Spice of Life and The Dublin Castle

On the 25th of October Altercation did a charity gig to help raising funds for children. Our drummer Veronnique had been selected in a draw by the company she works for and her price was to ask for anything she wants (pretty cool isn't it ?)...
So she decided to organize those two charity gigs with Altercation and other bands we met along the way.
The first bill on the 25th was After the Ice who played at the O2 recently, then Thunderbird 13 who apparently appeared in the sitcom Eastenders, then Rubinger, we met them at the Comedy Pub and us.


Ko, bass player in Altercation

The first time I went to The Spice of Life was to see The Duel doing a gig to support The Skuzzies. It's a very intimate venue very different from any others in London. The atmosphere is so warm, maybe because of the orange lights and sofas. The stage is also non-existent, not even a step, so it's on the same level than the audience that you find yourself performing.
Tiny place then but with plenty of advantages like the sound system; everything was so clear, you could hear the slightest thing on stage.


Vince guitarist of Altercation

We apparently sounded like a well rehearsed band, I'm waiting for some video to be sent, will post one here asap.
We had an encore and we did Silence, it sounded very cool, not having done this one for so long.
I think we raised about 400 pounds that night for the cause and I found it very inspiring to actually play for a reason, thinking your performance will actually help someone. You're not doing it just for yourself then.

They put some open mike nights at The Spice of Life every wenesdays, that's how Vero got the idea to do the gig here. That'd be more than great to play at The Spice of Life again on a saturday night. This venue is also very well placed.



Thunderbird 13 are a glam band with strong riffs and melodic choruses. The singer has long viking style blond hair and his drummer is literaly a beast on the drum, the bass player add a nice groove in all that male boyish element, very good band with inspiring lyrics too.
After the Ice is led by the french frontman Paul Lisak.
He is an incredible songwritter guitar player. You have to like that kind of mellow style but even so you can't deny they are great players.
You sometimes get lost in his dreamy solos melodies...



Second date on the board was The Dublin Castle on the 11th of November.
There is a nice vibe to this venue, on parkway road, a bit retired from the camden heart's craziness, there is a nice pub part and in the back room is the venue. The sound system was once again excellent, the sound engineer has been working there for 20 years so he knows his sound very well.




On the line up that night was HiroshAmour headlining, Thunderbird 13 again, The Figurines and Stolen Car.
Quite a big line up then and in conscequence of that there were more people than at the Spice of Life and we raised more money that night for the charity.
It was also quite stressful to get the band to play just 30 minutes each as we started with a bit of late but it all went well in the end.
We started our set very well, I got delays and reverb put on my voice, it really worked, specially when after the second song which was Sick Of You Vince broke a string. So he had a back up guitar which wasn't tuned. While Vince was sorting out his situation on stage I had a jam with Ko and Vero on Insomnia and with the delay on my voice it just worked perfectly.



But then it was taking a bit of time to get the guitar right so Ko started telling jokes to the audiance, winding me up a bit by the same occasion which was funny...
I told Ko when I saw him play his last gig with his other band Tuggy Tugs to take control of the mike for the talking on stage just because he's so good at it.



After that little situation which was actually a good experience of improvisation we finally carried on with the set and I absolutely loved the sound on stage, the lights were good too because you actually couldn't see anyone from the audience.
Paranoia is coming out so well, better and better every time.





Pictures were taken by Brigitte who also did a film of the two gigs. Thanks a lot for that ;)
The Figurines were very good, they're a kind of mixture between Nirvana and Cure with Tom's violent guitar riffs and Steevo's evasive vocals.
HiroshAmour gave an impressive set, they did this long song jam of 20 minutes that they never played before, it was completely on the moment and it had a grungy psychedelic raw sound...
They played Jack and Sacrifice as well. They ended the night superbly.

So now those two gigs are done the next one on the list is our launch release party of the Dress Up E.P, as well as the HiroshAmour debut album One.
It's at The Purple Turtle on the 19th of November and Bubblegum Screw will be on the bill too.
They will also be a grunge band which are the english Nirvana in my humble opinion and they're called Burma Guns.
Always wanted to see them live and never had the occasion too so as my guests I finally will experiment a new musical experience with their set.
If you want to check them out : www.myspace.com/burmaguns
for more infos check the banana website : www.bananacastle.co.uk

We also got our band t-shirt. I choose the Love Suicide theme for those. Here it is :



There will be some at the launch as well as cds of the E.P.

We got a new song in the set as well as Paranoia, this new one is called Ego, will be performed during The Christmas Itch Festival.
Healthy Junkies will also be playing a short set on one of the Xmas date at The Purple Turtle once again, I'm looking forward to this gig.

Enough promotion and gig talk, I'm going to stop the writting now and go meditating about ageing rockers trying to seduce young aspiring vocalists with their industry contacts..... ;)

x x x x x x x x x

Here is a video of a jam we did at The Dublin Castle just before to start the song Insomnia...

229 CLUB vs Hope and Anchor

There were two venues in London that I always wanted to play which are the 229 Club and The Hope and Anchor, legendary venue in Angel, North London, were U2 played on their way to success.
There was also one band in London that Vince and me are big fans of and that we always wanted to play with : Noxshi.
On Monday morning we were surprised to find in our myspace inbox a proposition from Noxshi to support them for two gigs at the 229 Club and the Hope and Anchor. It just made my day, and my week for sure.
Those gigs took place on last thursday and saturday.
We had two rehearsals in a row with Altercation, because like Ko ( our bass player ) said ''we better be good, but not just good in fact, very good''.
The 229 Club is a cool venue with a lot of potential concerning the space and sound. HiroshAmour played there in May, unfortunately the night they played was organized by some promoters who wanted to make a maximum of money on the doors and who were taking the whole thing with a corporate attitude.
That night we did was organized by Noxshi themselves, so they were in control of the line up and they was absolutely no pressure concerning the amount of people, even so we had a good crowd there.
There was another band on the bill called The Palpitations, kind of cabaret rock, I really liked their sound and the singer is adorable.
The night was called Altered beasts, there were a lot of psychedelic lights and atmosphere which gave us great pictures and a feeling we were in the 70's again.



We soundchecked on London City and Paranoia, it all went well.
Ko was saying that in his experience it's always when he had good soundchecks that the gigs are a mess.
When the time to go on stage arrived I was suprised to hear that everything on stage was just too loud. Vincent's guitar, Ko's bass, my mike, and the drums were a bit lost in all that, I couldn't really hear anything but we just carried on.



Phil Honey Jones was once again our guest guitarist. He did Love Suicide, Glam Sister and Paranoia with us. It was good for Love Suicide on a personnal level. I love that song on the E.P but when it comes to do it live it seems to be something missing, I can never live that song fully. I did this time, for the first time since we performed it, and I think the guitars bits that Phil was adding made the song closer to the E.P version which is probably why I enjoyed it more.



Glam Sister was too fast, and Paranoia was a small chaos. That's how it seemed from the stage. We had a encore request from Mark who arrived late and just saw the last song. ( even late for his gig yesterday at the Tommy's Flynn, almost late ;) so we did Artificial Paradise. I had to whisper the guitar melody to Vince and Ko as they couldn't remember it. We took off that song of our set quite early in the year. It was a fun version, I did about four verses and a lot of No More No More No More....



A bit disappointed with our first performance then, but still good fun and it was much enjoyable to see Noxshi do their set. They sounded just perfect. Shame they don't want to include Aliyah in their set any more, that song is an absolute wonder.

Saturday arrived. I had to wake up extra early to go to Alberto's place as I was expected for a photo shoot. I thought that'd be really good to do that shoot, be all made up and dressed for my gig in the evening.
I arrived at the Hope and Anchor for the soundchecks. Small stage with a camera that projects the stage in the pub area, so everyone can see and go down to the live room if they feel like it. A bit like The Bull and Gate, I like that kind of concept.
I noticed straight away at the soundchecks that we were going to have a better gig there, as the room was smaller. It all make a difference when you play in a bigger venue, the sound can get lost sometimes, be too loud than you think and not giving enough feedback on stage.
That wasn't the case this time, the sound engineer put a nice reverb on my voice and I had a pretty good feeling about the show.
Noxshi in contrary weren't too pleased with their sound, weird how it sometimes goes so differently for each band.
Our bass player was having a house party on the same night, so he had to rush to the soundcheck, go back to his party and then come back to the venue to do the gig to then leave straight after we finished. It must have been stressfull for him as it was for all of us, wondering if he would show up, and he did. :)
So we started the set, I made quite a few changes in the set list, it's always useful, and I took off Insomnia off the set, I want to rework the lyrics to make them clearer. I also put Paranoia in third position, instead of Insomnia, rather than at the end. Because it's a strong song (and a new one ) I thought third position would be good to keep people interested. And that change of setlist really worked.
The sound was wicked, I could hear everything, the audience's answer was a million time better than at the 229 club and we had photos taken by strangers. I'm hoping to get my hands on some pictures a guy took, who knows maybe they'll be on here next week.
The second band were called Tales of George, the singer looks so much like Alex Turner, singer of the Arctic Monkeys and not just physically, he also got the behaviour and the notes on stage. Cool band.
Noxshi did their set, in spite of what they thought of their sound on stage I really liked it. It was more intimate and deep. The 229 club might have been their best gig in term of performance as they seemed more inspired by the sound system. However their time at the Hope and Anchor was memorable. I love the singer's tools. He got this vibrations machine that is controlled by the moves of his hands, and it makes very dark and psychedelic effects.
Their guitars riffs are powerful, specially in their song Swan.
Check them out : www.myspace.com/noxshimusic

Also another thing you can go and see in your spare time is the new Healthy Junkies song, ''Cat Story'' : www.myspace.com/healthyjunkies

music music music more more more...