The Soundtrack Of Our Lives @ Gibert Musique, Paris April 16 2011 12:00 am

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives @ Gibert Musique store for The Record Store Day
Paris April 16 2011 12:00AM

Swedish Psyche rock band The Soundtrack Of Our Lives is promoting the Record Store Day by playing showcases in Paris (@ Gibert in St Michel) & London for two shows.
It's early in the morning (for us) 12:00 am , lots of people and old geezers looking for collectors, most of the interesting vinyls were sold-out immediately when they opened this morning at 10:00 am.
As the stage is very small , we only have 3 of them out of the 6 members : the singer, the piano player and the percussionist.
The band is playing a 8-9 songs set for 40 min+ show.
Can't really tell you about the setlist but they've played a couple of covers including one from Nick Drake.
Cool set of 60's-70's influenced music

Then CARL BARAT who's playing later that saturday @ Trianon hall in Paris will make an appearance @ Gibert Musique in St Michel @ 3:00 pm to sign cds and vinyls for the record Store day.He will NOT be playing any music, sorry !

[NOOOOoo ! He was supposed to come and... he didn't turn up !!!]

Josh T Pearson will play a showcase @ Agnes B Store ( Rue du Jour) @ 12:00 am

That saturday night will be @ Oliver Peel's session

Troy Von Balthazar @ La Machine, Paris April 15 2011

Troy Von Balthazar + A NEWBORN RIOT OF DREAMS @ La Machine
Paris April 15 2011

First we have Chokebore's guitar player Jonathan Kroll opening with a short set of instrumental ambiant guitar playing with loops.
Then Troy is getting on the stage on his own, playing with the help of loops. Unfortunately after the first song his guitar broke down so he had to borrow one from the venue so it took a couple of minutes to sort this out.
He took time to "play" one of his song on a vinyl player while reading the Bible, he later did a bit of yoga (see pics).
He played most of the set on his own and was joined later by a drummer (from Chokebore) and female french bass player Adeline for a few rock songs, that's the part we prefered.

He ended the set on his own
Good show but we 're more into rockier songs with the band.

see ya

Josh T Pearson @ Gibert Musique Store, Paris April 15 2011 6:30 pm

Josh T Pearson @ Gibert Musique Store for the "Record Store Day"
Paris April 15 2011 6:30 pm

Folk Man Josh T Pearson is promoting the Record Store day, which is in fact tomorrow, by playing a showcase @ Gibert Musique Store in St Michel , the heart of the latin quarter of Paris.
It started 30 min late, he's a bit dodgy but nice, talking to people, he seems to be in his own world.
Hard to judge his music as he probably played the shortest showcase I have ever seen in my entire life of concerts as he only played 2 songs.
Sounds like Johnny Cash to me.
The songs he played were pretty short compare to what he's doing normally: 10 to 15 min long songs. He played later that night @ Café de la Danse in Bastille.
He then signed cds and EPs that were done specially for the record day.

Stornoway + John Grape @ Café de la Danse, Paris April 14 2011

Stornoway + John Grape @ Café de la Danse

Clap Your Hands Fest #1
Paris April 14 2011

Pop Folk-Rock band from Reims John Grape , we only saw the last couple of songs but they were great, really cool melodies between Grandaddy and folk.

Stornoway

Then we had Stornoway from Oxford, nice English pop band with some celtic-folk influences, they've played a few songs acoustic without amplification. They add banjo, cello and trumpet for extra flavour.
cool set

JOSH T. PEARSON free showcase @ Gibert Musique store on April 15 2011

JOSH T. PEARSON free showcase @ Gibert Musique store on April 15 2011 6:00PM before his show @ Café de la danse with Lisa Germano.

Josh will also play a free showcase @ Agnes B store ( 6 rue du Jour, next to the Pompidou Center) on saturday April 16 for the record Store day.


Cat Power will be playing @ Salle Pleyel on July 3rd for the Days Off Festival (click for the full program with Fleet Foxes, Peter Von Poehl, The Do,Metronomy, I'm from Barcelona...), her first show in 3 years in Paris. Wake Up ! it's almost sold-out, bookings opened on April 11.

Guns N Roses guitar player is joining Thin Lizzy for the end of world Tour

Thin Lizzy line up 2011 Part 2 with Richard Fortus (second from right)

GUNS N ROSES axeman Richard Fortus will join Thin Lizzy temporarily for the rest of their world Tour as Vivian Campbell is going back to Def Leppard which are about to tour the US.

Check our review with lots of great Pics & Videos from their show @ Bataclan (Part 2 HERE) in Paris.

New York Dolls @ Fleche d'Or, Paris April 11 2011

New York Dolls @ Fleche d'Or
Paris April 1 2011

New York Dolls have just released an album "Dancing backwards in High Heels". They were in Paris @ Trabendo just one year ago on April 16th. There has been a few changes withing the Dolls : Steve Conte and Sam Yaffa have left and new dolls Jason Hill (who's also the producer of the latest album) and Earl Slick have joined the New York Gang.

French "hard rock " band Fancy is opening, I don't know what to think : is this band serious or is it a novelty act ? They are between the Darkness and Quiet Riot.
Fuckin' ridiculous if they are serious about it, funny if it's a novelty act.

Sold-out show (just this afternoon) for the return of Sylvain Sylvain & David Johansen the only original & surviving members of NYD.
Late start at they're getting on stage @ 9:45pm.
Sylvain Sylvain on the far left, Earl Slick on the far right (in front of us) David and Jason Hill on bass in the middle and Brian Dalaney on drums in the back.
Cool start with an oldie "Looking for a kiss" then the band will play many songs from the new album , 7 songs in all, Including "Funky but Chic" (click for video)

Earl Slick is the main man on guitar, holding the house together as Steve Conte was, whereas Sylvain Sylvain is making the show playing also some keys for the new songs which are less heavy than on the two previous records.
David Johansen looks once again very tired or maybe is it his "Droopy" face that makes him look so tired but he's doing fine always with a smile on his face. His girlfriend is a bit useless doing backing vocals on a couple of songs or dancing on stage.
Only one song from each previous records :" dance like a monkey" for "One day..." & "Cause I sez so" from..."Cause I sez so".
Of course we had all the classics (see setlist for details).
New songs sound better live than on the new record which is a bit disappointing, not enough guitars for me.

Earl Slick on guitars

Really good 90 min show even though i would have prefered more songs from the first record when they reformed " One day It will please us..." which is one of my favorite rock album for these last 10 years, great atmosphere down the front in the pit.

Oh Yeah, forget to tell you that the lightshow was COMPLETE CRAP , certainly the worst I have ever seen at the Fleche d'Or, hard to believe usually it's great.Only Earl Slick had lights on him.

setlist

Slash @ Zénith, Paris july 12 2011

the title says it all !
bookings opening on April 14

check Slash @ Hellfest 2010, opening for AC/DC @ Stade de France 2010
@ Bataclan with special guest Alice Cooper

Master Class with John Landis ( & Costa Gavras) @ Fnac Forum, Paris April 09 2011

John Landis ( & Costa Gavras) @ Fnac Forum
Paris April 09 2011 4:30pm

John Landis is in Paris to promote his new comedy movie "Cadavres à la Pelle" ("Burke & Hare" in English). He asked famous director and CEO of the Cinémathèque Costa Gavras to join him.
It started 30 min late as John Landis was probably very busy doing interviews, Costa Gavras was there early and hang out nearby.
I've done a few master-classes with movie directors including one with Francis Ford Coppola and one with Sofia Coppola but this one was the most fun and the most interesting.
If you don't know who is John Landis, he's the Director of The Blues Brothers (one of my favorite movie), Trading Places , Beverly Hills Cop III & Coming To America with Eddie Murphy, Twilight Zone ... He also directed Michael Jackson's Thriller video-movie.
John Landis is very funny and most of all can't stop talking & talking & talking...which was really great as we were there to hear him talking.

Costa asked him a few questions first about his life as a director and how he get into the movie business but the most interesting part was when he talked about Michael Jackson's Thriller video making and the business around that video and the making Of of it.
He started nicely by calling Michael Jackson's father " a Pig"...
Watch this :

After this interview , he signed posters, dvds for the audience, a really cool guy.
The funny part is that he never talked about his new movie !
It lasted almost two hours.
Great !!!

Festival Cool Soul with The Bellrays, The Jim Jones Revue & Legendary Tigerman @ Bataclan, Paris April 08 2011

Cool Soul Festival @ Bataclan Paris, April 08 2011 with
The Jim Jones Revue, The Bellrays, The Legendary Tigerman
+ Restavrant, Scott H Biram & Cool Kleps

The Legendary Tigerman

Cool Soul Festival @ the hot & sweaty Bataclan, early start as there are many bands and the curfew is @10:30. Doors are opening @ 6:00.
We missed Cool Kleps who were opening and SHIT as we're getting into the theatre Lisa, the singer from the Bellrays, is already on the main stage. Why are they playing so early ?
In fact NO, she's only playing a song as special guest of The Legendary Tigerman. He also had a female singer on a couple of songs.The guy is on his own sitting down playing guitar and singing AND playing drums with his feet : a one man band. He's playing some heavy greasy blues rock music.
Some Pics from his show HERE
Short set probably no more than 45 min.(corrected).

Restavrant

The we have Restavrant playing on a small stage next to the entrance, not the best location, it's hard to get 3 stages in a 1200 capacity theatre. It's a duet Drums/ guitar-vocals playing some punk greasy heavy country blues-rock.

The Bellrays

As soon as they're done The Bellrays are playing on the main stage, I would have prefer to see them headlining but it doesn't prevent them from playing a heavy set.
The last time I saw them they were playing some of their cool soul songs not tonight it's pure rock'n roll from start to finish with short fast & heavy songs. Maybe are they trying to compete with the headliner or stay in the mood of the festival.
I don't know why they call it "Cool Soul" it's not Cool Soul at all and more "Heavy Blues Rock". Anyway, 45 min take-no-prisoners set.
We're never disappointed with The Mighty Bellrays.

setlist

As the techs are getting the main stage ready for Jim Jones Revue, Scott H Biram is playing on the third small stage next to the emergency exit. He's on his own , another greasy boogie blues rocker from Austin

Scott H Biram

It's 9:30 and it's time for the headliners of the night to take the main stage by storm, a fucking tornado these guys.
It's chaos down the front with people pogoing, dancing , jumping up & down.
We already saw them a couple of times at The Album de la semaine tv show for Canal+.
The atmosphere is really important to feel a gig and at these tv shows the audience was sitting down and clapping nicely at the end of each songs.
Tonight you feel the power.
Don't know about the sound as we're front row next to the guitar player so the guitars are drowning everything.
Once again from start to finish it's a heavy, i mean very heavy hour set.

The Jim Jones revue

For the encore The Bellrays (+ The Legendary Tigerman) are back to play the most heavy version of Good Golly Miss Molly I have ever heard.

It's only 10:30 and we're shattered, sweating buckets.
It's time to go home for a good shower after a visit to the merchandising tables where the musicians are meeting the audience.

Jam with The Bellrays & The Jim Jones Revue & charming lady at the merch

FUCK YEAH !!! That was HEAVY !!!