I spy (with my little eye)

Everyone out there’s ranting on about James Bond double-o seven… Now we have no idea what a Quantum of Solace is, and we couldn’t really give a flying Nick Nack.

Let’s go back to a time when Bond themes were good, and when CGI wasn’t relied upon as a valid plot-replacement device: It’s 1969, Jean-Jacques Perrey unleashes The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound of Jean-Jacques Perrey. Track 7 is his very own Moog-ed up homage to Her Majesty’s number 7 spy - a poignant, understated little ditty, which probably wasn’t even considered for official Bond-theme material because its composer was French!

Jean-Jacques Perrey – Mister James Bond

[Space Age Pop has a nice little biog of Perrey including links to get hold of his albums.]


Rewind three years: At the height of her fame, Petula Clark must have been itching to get her voice ‘round a Bond theme. But Mister Barry snubbed her, so she penned her own, complete with comedy dying sound effects.

Petula Clark – L’Agent Secret

[Dans Mon Café posted this song in January 07. It’s all gone quiet over there at the moment, and I imagine the mp3 link is long-dead now. However, a helpful reader left a comment with the lyrics in English and French, so you can see all the ways those secret agents died, and how to be the best!]


Here's something every spy should carry in their briefcase:

But there are other spies too y’know…

Plastics will tell you all about the most elusive spy ever to operate out of Tokyo:

Plastics – Top Secret Man

[I love Plastics, they’re like Japan’s answer to Devo and The B-52s. If anyone out there knows where I can hear more Plastics, please write in.]

And talking of Devo, here’s their De-volutionary cover of the US Danger Man theme from Duty Now For The Future.

Devo – Secret Agent Man

[I much prefer this earlier jerkier garage-version featured in the short film In the Beginning Was The End: The Truth About De-evolution. Things to look out for: Booji Boy’s wayward hand-jiving; 2 ape-masked men paddling the behind of a strange looking china-doll lady; the monkey-masked man that goes “SE-CRET!”; and the home-made electronic drums that look like car hub-caps. One thing to ignore: the idiot who introduces the video]

Devo – Secret Agent Man

ATTENTION!

There will be no L'Amour Electronique this Saturday.

Instead look at this:

Femme Fatale

Warning! There is a big fat shameless name-drop in this post.

Last weekend John Cale presented a tribute concert to Nico at the Royal Festival Hall, 20 years after her tragic death. We couldn’t go, but here’s our own little L’Amour Electronique tribute to the teutonic femme fatale…

The first time Verity and I saw Stereo Total in London, we snuck backstage (we had a big box of 120 Miss Pain Heartbreaker seven-inches that we’d picked up on the way to the venue – so it wasn’t particularly easy to sneak anywhere). We went searching for Brezel, and I rather gracelessly stumbled in on him taking a piss. He didn’t seem to mind though, and even chatted with us for a while afterwards. We gave him a copy of our single and went merrily on our way.

When they got back off tour he sent me an email it went:
“thank you for your 7 inch. It is a Hit !!”

We stayed in touch on and off, and when we played in Berlin he gave me a seven-inch which he explained as: two remixes of Berlin’s biggest smackheads – Nico and Christiane F. It came with a little bag of powder, of which he advised: “Don’t take it – It’s not drugs!”

When we got back off tour, I played the record. It too was a Hit !! In fact it’s been a constant feature in my record box, and I’ve played the Christiane F remix just about every time I’ve DJ’ed since.

Here’s the Nico side:

Brezel Goring – Eulogy To Lenny Bruce (featuring Nico)

I’ve just been re-reading Sylvie Simmons’ A Fistful of Gitanes (by far the best English language Serge Gainsbourg biography out there, if you ask me). It was there that I first discovered Serge had recorded with Nico - here’s an extract from the book:

“Banned in France for its nudity [!], it [Strip-Tease] starred Christa Päffgen as a dancer desperately seeking work in the nightclubs of Paris. Serge had taken the statuesque German blonde into the studio to record the theme song, but he didn’t like her sombre, death’s-head voice and binned the tape. It would be another two years before Päffgen moved to New York, where she was taken up by Andy Warhol and introduced into The Velvet Underground under her better-known name, Nico.”

Strip-Tease (1963) (Clip 1)


Strip-Tease (1963) (Clip 2)


Incidentally, the title track to Strip-Tease was recorded by Juliette Gréco in the end, but the Nico version surfaced on a box-set Le Cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg 10 years after Serge’s death (you can imagine him muttering in his grave about that one…)

Nico – Strip-Tease


Bonus mp3 – it’s Francoise and Brezel’s cover of Nico’s ode to the residents of the Chelsea Hotel (from their Do The Bambi album)…

Stereo Total – Chelsea Girls

5th Birthday (and last soirée at The Penthouse)

L’Amour Electronique is FIVE this month! Come and celebrate with us this weekend…

SATURDAY 27th SEPTEMBER
L’Amour Electronique
The Penthouse, above The Freebutt, Phoenix Place, Brighton
8pm until 1am
FREE ENTRY all night (and cheap-o drinks too)

We will be playing our finest selection of French bubblegum pop, synthesized ditties and electronic goodness, including some new gems picked up in Paris this week. And we will have a special guest DJ and Polnareff fanatic to join us in our quest.

As well as celebrating, you can also commiserate with us as this will be our very last soirée at The Penthouse – Booooooooooo!
It’s okay though, cos we have already secured ourselves a brand new home with a belle vue (and much nicer toilets) where we will be every 4th Saturday from November – Woooooooooo!

So come and help us go out with a great big
SHE-BAM!
POW!
PLOP!
WHIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

Now, how about a dash of Polnareff to get you through to the weekend?
Michel Polnareff – L’Oiseau De Nuit


See you at the weekend
L’Amour Electronique
xxx

Now we are 5 - a retrospective

Zut Alors! It would appear that we have racked up 5 whole years of French and electronic pop goodness under the tricolore banner of L’Amour Electronique.

Here's a little poster artwork retrospective...

The Negativ and Non-Negativ

In case you didn't join us for our krautrock psychosis tour of Deutschland over the weekend, and you're feeling a bit left out, we have just the ticket - A trip to Negativland.

Nurse! The pNEUmatic drill...

Neu! - Negativland


And now for the antidote, courtesy of Berlin "neuro, non-electro duo" Echokrank.

I hear Valkyries...

Echokrank- Non-Negativland

.................................................................................

ADDENDUM

Neu! should need no introduction.

And if they do, then you should visit the following sites:

Neu!

Neu!er

Neu!esten

Echokrank are Hotleg (drums) and Brezel (synths).

They make über-irreverent, ultra-lo-fi cut&stick bubblegum musik.

They have a new album out on Gagarin Records, and if you are lucky enough to live in Germany, Holland or Belgium, you may catch them on tour this week.
You may recognise one of them from our good friends and L'Amour Electronique faves Stereo Total.

Here is footage of Echokrank captured on our visit to Berlin in 2007.

Nightclubbing & Nachtmusik

Here’s some claustrophobic kraut-disko to set you up for a Friday night.

First up, Parisian duo Zombie Zombie, paying homage to one of Iggy’s darkest, most oppressive moments

Quick! Book that budget flight to Berlin, we can be there in time for an amphetamine breakfast, then we’ll live it up like it’s 1977.

Zombie Zombie – Nightclubbing

Tsssk! You were in such a rush to book the flight, you forgot about the return tickets.  Stay calm, neck these downers and we’ll catch a train… How about a little night music, courtesy of Modular Records, to lull away the journey?

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik – Etrinken

Deutschland passes by in a foggy, motorik blur – You dream of 12-hour krautrock marathons chez-Can, in a dank warehouse crudely sound-proofed with prison-issue mattresses… You hit metallic beats with Kraftwerk, after sneaking in the place of Wolfgang Flür’s showroom dummy… Your head pounds with pneumatic drills and rapier-like guitar scrapes and klangs as you crawl your way out of Negativland… You are Damo Suzuki… You are Damo Suzuki… You are Damo Suzuki… No, I am Damo Suzuki…