Phoenix at MSG (more by Andrew St. Clair)

"How a small group specialist woodworkers from Versailles, heir to the French touch to the end of the 1990s - and which the singer Thomas March is married to the trendy Sofia Coppola -, he managed to conquer America? How is it imposed before stars such as David Byrne, Brian Eno or Depeche Mode During the Grammy Awards, winning the Award for best album alternative rock? With Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, album sold more than 2 million copies, the group constitutes a true musical phenomenon."

Forgive the poorly worded synopsis for Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - From A Mess To The Masses (thanks Google Translator), a documentary on Phoenix which is viewable in full below. Be warned though, portions of the documentary are entirely in French. Phoenix recently recorded material for their new LP, though no word on a release date thus far.

Speaking of France (first Justice and now Phoenix) (not to mention that Daft Punk cameo in the Comic Con pics), the country will be repping hard with its more up and coming bands during CMJ in NYC this week:

FRANCE ROCKS CMJ NIGHTS'

DAY #1: Wednesday October 19th - Hiro Ballroom
8pm - The Lanskies
9pm - Hindi Zahra
10pm - The Two
11pm - Revolver
12am - Chateau Marmont

DAY #2: Thursday October 20th -Hiro Ballroom
9pm - Stranded Horse
10pm - The Inspector Cluzo
11pm - Zenzile
12am - Make The Girl Dance

Both shows are free with RSVP.

Revolver & Chateau Marmont both also play Joe's Pub as part of an ongoing tour.

Check out Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - From A Mess To The Masses below.

Continue reading "watch a Phoenix documentary online, check out other French bands in NYC for CMJ"

Holden is a French duo who began recording in 1997. Band members are Armelle Pioline (vocals) and Dominique Dépret (aka Mocke, guitar). With Pierre-Jean Grapin (drums), Evan Evans (clavier) and Richard Cousin (bass), they released 'L'arrière monde' in 1998. In 2001, they met the producer Senor Coconut aka Atom aka Uwe Schmidt, who mixed their second album, 'Pedrolira' (2002). They recorded their last album, Chevrotine, in Chile, 2006

Holden's newest album Fantomatisme was released in 2009. The four songs streaming at their MySpace are great. Time Out describes it well: "Parisian duo Holden offers wistful, transporting folk-pop, accented with bossa nova and jazz. Armelle Pioline's yearning French vocals make us feel like we're inhabiting an early Godard film." The slower / bossa nova songs remind me of Keren Ann or Astrud Gilberto, though in some videos (below), they also rock out a little more.

Supposedly the band is big in France, but nobody knows about them here. That means we get to see them in intimate venues while they're visiting NYC for five shows this week. The first was Saturday night at Zebulon (did you catch it?). Sunday (11/15) the show is at Sycamore. Monday is at Matchless. Tuesday at Barbes (as well as a WNYC radio session with David Garland earlier that day), and then Wednesday they end the run at Pianos (they play right before Violent Soho who play before... Group Sounds?!). All dates and some videos below...

Continue reading "French band Holden are here - 5 NYC shows & a WNYC appearance (2009 tour dates & videos) "

"This Parisian trio has been making scene noise, and for plenty good reason: their songs go a long way to carve out a real living end, so what you get is a neatly reductive sound universe, all patent recall and sass and open Gallic charm. Byron Coley calls them "devolved in a lopsided way," which is sort of spot-on. Cheveu excel at keeping things simple in the heat of an energetic rave-up. You sort of imagine these guys never breaking an honest sweat. Their songs roll out like a weird iteration of nature--all the rock tropes we thought we'd forgot, or lost interest in--made extant and coy, and attacked from within." [Cokemachineglow]

Almost missed the fact that Cheveu is in town from France! Catch them at Silent Barn tonight (7/17) and PS1 on Saturday. All dates and some videos below...

Continue reading "Cheveu are here from France - playing Silent Barn & PS1"

photos by Leia Jospe

"at yann tiersen, irving plaza with, probably, every french person in new york city." - Soraya Darabi

"the good news is that we got there early enough to watch the whole thing in the very front! the bad news is : yann + an electric guitar + band - his violin = major midlife crisis. i love this man, but it was awful.

he DID move me to tears when he finally picked the violin up for sur le fil - but 99.9% of the time was alt. rock hell. he even managed to butcher the amelie theme beyond recognition. & there was no piano. or accordion.

why yann, why?! i miss the good ol' days" [photobear]

I never saw Yann during the good ol' days. In fact, Amelie aside, I never even listened to Yann in the old days or the new days, but I do agree that the show wasn't what I expected, and it wasn't that exciting. You can see in the pic above that Yann was getting his Thurston on. "Awful" is kind of strong, but maybe that's because I like "alt rock", though I think my issue was that it wasn't "alt" enough, which I took more as a sign that I went to the wrong show. I wished I was at the Walkmen or Throbbing Gristle's 1st NYC performance - both shows happened the same night (4/16). Oh yeah, the violen parts were the best.

Asobi Seksu are on tour with Yann, and they sounded great as the opener (their first-ever show at the venue). A few of their songs sounded really great on the sound system - a few were so-so. All in all, I'm glad they were there. More pictures from the show (and yes there were a lot of French people there) below...

Continue reading "Yann Tiersen & Asobi Seksu @ Irving Plaza, NYC - pics "

Continue reading "Yeasayer Take-Away Shows (videos) "

me: Yelle is the biggest thing in France?

my French friend: oh my god ! No ! No ! Yes, it's huge... But... Amongst pre-teenagers

Yelle makes her U.S. debut at Knitting Factory in NYC tonight (Feb 19, 2008). She is also the surprise guest Thursday night at Hiro Ballroom, and she's playing Coachella. Videos and more tour dates below....

Continue reading "Yelle (from France) - U.S debut tonight, Thursday, Coachella"

DOWNLOAD: Cut Off Your Hands - You and I (MP3)

"French president Nicolas Sarkozy is endorsing a plan that would ban the provision of Internet access to file sharers caught pirating three times. The plan would use information from ISPs on "high-volume users" to find file sharers. Serial offenders would see their accounts suspended or terminated after their third strike. Music and film industries, naturally, are in favor of the plan." [Valleywag]