Jennifer Hutt is part of the band Faren Khan playing Le Zebre on Thursday, October 20th.
1. What initially inspired you to move here or visit?
To escape from the hood.
2. Earliest Paris memory?
The Pop In…and meeting musicians at Studio Campus.
3. Best neighbourhood you've ever lived in?
11th...
4. What's the best meal you've eaten in Paris?
Slow - Le Pré verre – 5ème…..fast – Rose Bakery
5. Sexiest moment you've had in Paris?
I can’t say!
More on: 20 Questions
Image: Sarah Bastin via Flickr
Text: Kate Ross
Eldorado is now in its second month, and seasoned visitors to the music festival should now know just what to expect from Café de la Danse. So if Nuit Blanche hasn’t totally knackered you out, then pitch yourself a spot on Passage Louis Philippe, and prepare to remain there almost exclusively for the whole of October: This month, the French musicians are stealing the limelight and there’s plenty to look forward to.
Coming Up
French singers Renan Luce, Alexis HK and Benoît Dorémus play, quite fittingly, a three-night line up, from Monday 10 to Wednesday 12. The boys take a simplistic guitar and vocals approach, veering between solo performances, duets and trios.
And the Frenchmen continue to dominate the stage for the rest of the week. On thursday comes performances from Joli and Laurent Lamarca; and on Friday, rock from Ray Bartok; the Parisian duo comprised of Phil Ray B on drums and Ray Tino on vocals and sampler.
Back over the pond on Tuesday 18, and Joshua Radin plays his beautifully moving acoustic folk, showing just why he’s a film and television soundtrack favourite (he’s amassed over 75 placements). Support comes from fellow American Joseph Arthur, who brings his own poetry with his indie folk sounds.
Image: Nuit Blanche
Text: Kate Ross
If you’re on the prowl for music to accompany your sleepless night, sling back a few cafés noirs and head to Hôtel de Ville, which this year snatches the lion’s share of musical events.
For a night back in old school Paris, lounge with your verre du vin over urban jazz from Tiss Rodriguez and his band at Le Baiser Salé Jazz Club, or vocal jazz from an impressive lineup: Agathe Iracema, Monica Shaka, Madeleine Besson and Chloé Cailleton, who sing at Sunset-Sunrise. Or, if you’re feeling soulful, head to Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles for Dina B, and help celebrate the release of her shiny new album.
Over at Église Notre-Dame des Blancs-Manteaux is a sure-to-be electrifying and moving performance from a blend of 150 opera singers from the National Conservatory of Music, and young singers with motor or mental disabilities.
Mairie du 3e will throw out a contemporary cabaret of musicians, composers and DJ sets, all there with the purpose of renewing the contemporary traditional concert. Electric guitar, electric piano and drums will weave together to perform Karlheinz Stockhausen's Tierkreis – each one of the 12 melodies represents a sign of the zodiac. Afterwards, you can stay contemporary with a string of DJ sets.
Hitting the decks elsewhere are DJs HIFANA, a group of Japanese audio-visual creators and graphic designers. They're throwing on a performance at the Pompidou in honour of the interactive, multi-sensual Tokyo Graphic Passport exhibition.
And at the Collège des Bernardins, Joseph Ghosn and Rhys Chatham will be mixing minimal music DJ sets and trumpets: Think beautiful harmonies, with echoes of Indian music.
Of course, Paris’ other music houses will be doing their best to grab your attention this evening too. The epically energetic Enter Shakari will be at GLAZART, with support from Your Demise and LetLive. Point Ephémère host noisemakers Ganglians, who blend noise rock, psychedelic pop and folk, with support from similarly pop-folkers Fenster. And Fleche d’Or stretches the ranges of indie pop from the dream to the folk variety with Dear Reader, Love Inks, Eleanor Friedberger and Kai Fish & The Lights.
If there’s a risk your eyelids will head south, then brave your eardrums and go loud. Night Birds, Youth Avoiders, Police Truck and Loud Girls play punk over at Le Parvis de Bagnolet; Battle of Britain Memorial, Poles and (Platane) play post-hardore rock at Café de Paris; and there’s more punk at La Ligne 13 from Burning Heads, Wunderbach, Spermicide, Myciaa and Les Marteaux Pikettes. Definitely no risk of a mid-night snooze with all that noise going on.
For bittersweet jazzy love songs guaranteed to make his adoring French fans weep, Charles Aznavour is at l’Olympia. There’s more jazz and blues is at the Institut du Monde Arabe with Mohamed Abozekry or, if you want to keep it classic and elegant, the Pasdeloup Orchestra will be performing Wagner, Mendelssohn and Beethoven at Sale Pleyel.
Otherwise, French rap from Booba is at POPB; Lameck plays Brazilian pop at La Maroquinerie; and electronica fans should find minimalism paradise with incite/ at Le Cube.
Finally, DJ sets can be found at The Rex Club, with house and techno from Nina Kraviz and Cormac; DJ Number Six playing hip hop at Panic Room; and at Batofar’s Fanatik #4, who feature a whole host of DJs, plus video installations and graphic performances on the terrace.
Enjoy. See you on the morning-after Métro.
Image: Exposition Official Poster
Text: Natalie Turturro
Opera is a religion, and the house that Charles Garnier built is the cathedral where Paris comes to worship its divas. As I walk up and down the Grand Staircase and through the Grand Foyer trying to find my way to the exhibit “Tragédiennes de l’Opéra,” it is as though I’m walking through a hall of ghosts. There is a rehearsal going on inside the auditorium, and I can hear faint operatic shrills in the background. It’s eerie, yet appropriate. I find the exposition tucked away in what seems to be a dusty back corner on the second floor. It is shrouded in darkness with chiaroscuro spotlights on fading black-and-white photographs. There are headphones attached to the wall, so I take in the exhibit while listening to celebrated arias by long-dead sopranos. It feels just like when the lights dim in the theatre before the curtain goes up. I become appropriately soothed and embrace the spookiness of it all.
The terms diva and tragédienne dance in my mind, and I wonder if Beyoncé's song “Diva” was inspired by the classic tragédiennes of French opera. Are the famous tragédiennes: Gabrielle Krauss, Rose Caron, Lucienne Bréval, etc... ‘female versions of a hustla’ from a former generation? How can divas of today continue to carry their "ardent torch of beauty"?
"Tragédiennes de l'Opéra" teaches us how:
1. Obliterate the image of runway models on nicotine and champagne diets from your aesthetic memory. A tragédienne’s life is usually hanging on by the thinnest of threads; at the very least one can hold onto one’s ample proportions! Thus, we must look to the voluptuous Adele, and eat sumptuous treats from Dalloyau.
2. It is a requirement to own at least one fabulous headdress and subsequent matching jewelry. For daily purposes, a well-adorned sparkly headband from Le Bon Marché will suffice.
More on: Tragédiennes de l'Opéra
Photo: L'Etrange Festival 2011 official poster
Text: Susie Kahlich
September is the official start of film festival season, kicked off with the granddaddy of them all, the Venice Film Festival, now in its 68th year. But if you can’t get to Venice, France has its own clutch of festivals to keep film-lovers busy this month and beyond:
It’s the French version of The Sundance Film Festival at the 37th Deauville Festival du Cinéma Américain. Just a 2-hour train ride from Paris, catch the newest from indie faves Todd Solondz (Dark Horse) to up-and-comers Amy Wendel (All She Can) and Andrew Okpeaha Maclean (On the Ice).
Closer to town is the L’Étrange Festival, bringing film from all four corners of the globe to Forum des Images. In addition to Grindhouse Night, Sushi Typhoon Night and A Night with Rutger Hauer (!), the festival features a Carte Blanche series with selected films introduced by filmmakers you really want to meet: Julien Temple, Liliana Cavani and J-P Mocky.
La Cinémathèque Francaise continues its cool fall programming with a retrospective of the films of Nanni Moretti. Known as the Italian Woody Allen, his films are a sharp, often moving and almost always funny take on the realities of modern Italian and European life. A musical journey through the key moments of the work of the filmmaker featuring the Orchestra Nazionale dei Conservatori takes place 10 September at MC93 in Bobigny, with the director himself in attendance and narrating.
More on: Film Festival Season Underway
Photo: Official Eldorado Music Festival 2011 poster
Text: Kate Ross
September marks every Parisian’s nightmare: La rentrée. But rather than sob into your wine glass that summer is over, rejoice instead that four months of indie, rock and folk at Eldorado Music Festival lie ahead of you, plus a electrifying September elsewhere, with plenty of tunes to warm your cockles.
Eldorado, now in it’s third year, throws Café de la Danse ahead as one of the month’s best musical hangouts for those indie inclined. The spoilings start on Monday 5 with Megafaun, who bring smoothly easy listening with freak folk. They’re supported by French solo singer-songwriter Botibol, who offers stripped down indie folk.
The Leisure Society, boasting an impressive seven-person lineup, play Tuesday 6. And not happy with acoustic guitars alone, they juggle flutes, jazz drums, banjos, ukuleles and harmonicas, whilst syncing delicately together into melancholy harmony. Keeping up the mellow indie folk feel is Laura Stevenson and The Cans, plus Lightning Dust; the softer, indier side project of Black Mountain’s Amber Webber and Joshua Wells.
Text: Gigs In Paris
There aren’t many bands who can sell out L’Olympia in the space of two days but one suspects Beirut could do it a few times over. Zach Condon the heart and head of the band first travelled to Paris as a teenager with his older brother after growing tired and frustrated of New Mexico. Whilst in Paris, Zach encountered Balkan brass bands, Serge Gainsbourg, and started composing a number of pieces which would later become his debut record the Gulag Orkestar.
The frontman shares a great affinity with this city and the city with him.
Ahead of the Beirut’s show at L’Olympia in September and the release of the bands’ third album The Rip Tide, Gigs in Paris met up with the man himself. Here, in the first segment of our three-part interview, Zach talks of his early encounters with music, composing in his bedroom, leaving for Paris, and finding Beirut’s sound.
Image: Rock En Seine
Text: Kate Ross
Rock En Seine’s ninth year showcases a real musical smorgasbord as rock and roll returns to the Parisian masses next weekend in a final salute to summer. This time around, they've rolled out a brand spanking new fourth stage, meaning a whole 15 extra bands.
Friday sets off as a real stormer, with more talent flying around than you can shake an apéro at: Seasick Steve strips it raw with bluesy folk; Death In Vegas shoot us some psychedelic rock; there's energetic Scottish rock from Biffy Clyro; and Dave Grohl pops along with Foo Fighters, just one of his enviable list of musical projects. Plus ex-Clash guitarist and singer Mick Jones lines up Big Audio Dynamite, fresh out of their 14-year hiatus, and art rock arrives from The Kills, with Jamie Hince appearing as Alison Mosshart’s other half, rather than Kate’s. Here’s hoping too that Smith Westerns will be fully recovered after the tragic stage collapse at Belgium’s Pukkelpop festival.
Saturday is a day of painful conflicts – no, not the Noel and Liam Gallagher type – but expect similar tears and tantrums over time clashes. Parisian favourites HushPuppies will no doubt be drawing in the crowds with their smouldering indie rock and elongated stage dives, as should the illuminatingly experimental noises of freak folk sister duo CocoRosie. When the temperature drops, warm yourself up with post-punk from New Yorkers Interpol, and headliners Arctic Monkeys, who seem to be hotfooting around every venue possible this summer, bringing their usual charming Brit indie antics and over-tight skinnies. And if you’ve still got the energy afterwards, you can pogo stick style dance to indie pop from three-piece The Wombats.
More on: Rock En Seine 2011
The latest Paris Undercovers session featured the excellent Dry the River back in sunny May. (Remember sun? No, neither do we.) Gigs In Paris takes up the tale:
East London boys with tattooed arms, tank tops and luminous sun glasses – the quintet could be Shoreditch Twat caricatures. But there are some voices you don’t see coming. Dry the River’s talent is instantly recognisable, accessible and universally compatible. Far from being obnoxious or pretentious the band are also welcoming and approachable.
It’s an incendiary May afternoon, the band are in town to warm up for one of Sony’s new beaux at La Flèche D’or, but before that we’ve been given access to 3/5 of the band for a couple of hours.
More on: Paris Undercovers - Dry The River
Image: Flickr CC mrmatt
Text: Amazinglyblog / Aidan Mac Guill
The final two weeks of July sees the schedules start to thin out a little ahead of the big shutdown in August, when most venues will be closed and Paris' gig promoters do one to the nearest beach. Having said that there's still plenty to look forward to, including The Strokes, Joanna Newsom and the Festival Sin Fronteras.
The Bitter Sweet Paradise festival, run by the good folk at Boutiques Sonores, will welcome the promising French singers Mehdi Zannad (July 19 at Plage de Glazart), Mina Tindle (July 22 at Flèche d’Or) and Pokett with This Is The Hello Monster (July 23 at Nouveau Casino).
Experimental rock outfit Deerhoof follow up their performance at last week's Congotronics v Rockers night with a show at the Nouveau Casino on July 18, while on the same night jazz & funk legend Herbie Hancock performs the music of his former bandmate Miles Davis at L'Olympia.
More on: July Gig Guide (2)
Recent Comments