“I didn’t choose what I was going to do in life. I was 11 when I was caught by it. I was in boarding school and they had forgotten to lock a room. There was a drum set there, and I knew how to play right away. On thursday I touched the drums for the first time, and on saturday I was playing in a gospel group. When you get hit by destiny like this, you can’t really do anything about it. I was caught by the music, which is why I have quite a complicated life, with huge successes and things in which I believed that failed.
I was amongst the young ones when we created the AMR [Association pour la Musique impRovisée]. There was Goujon, Jacquet, Nicolet, we were all here. I had the keys to the crypt of the Saint-François church, et we were always playing there! We were playing free, we were playing jazz! Damn! We can be thankful to this priest, because it must’ve been hard to focus on praying in the room above (laughs)! It was the 1968 period, there was something revolutionnary about it. Jazz was the Black Panthers, Harlem, it was New York, Apollo Theater. Music had such a strong political and social power!
All of a sudden in 77, we feel the arrival of the first punk groups from Zürich. And with Léo Zouridis we start a group, Technycolor, with a single “Bunker”. My stage name is Fred Laser. We played everywhere, at very famous venues: at the autonomous centre in Zürich when the cops couldn’t enter. At the Palladium, at the Faubourg theater, we were as big a hit as U2. Or at the Gibus in Paris. Then, at the beginning of 1980 we evolved into new wave minimalism, and changed the name to Film de Guerre. It was the start of the independent radios, and we became the favourites of Radio Nova in Paris. We were putting on shows: for the Actuel at the Rex, at the Grand Palais, tours in the prisons… The Pyramide was a swingers’ club in paris where the politicians and actors went. We’d get the party started, and then, when people began to undress, they’d kick us out (laughs)!
The story ended when the dope arrived. It was a carnage in the group. I couldn’t fall into it, I was studying at the conservatory and… I loved the music too much.”
(Les Pâquis | translated from French)
Share this story :
“I didn’t choose what I was going to do in life. I was 11 when I was caught by it. I was in boarding school and they had forgotten to lock a room. There was a drum set there, and I knew how to play right away. On thursday I touched the drums for the first time, and on saturday I was playing in a gospel group. When you get hit by destiny like this, you can’t really do anything about it. I was caught by the music, which is why I have quite a complicated life, with huge successes and things in which I believed that failed.
I was amongst the young ones when we created the AMR [Association pour la Musique impRovisée]. There was Goujon, Jacquet, Nicolet, we were all here. I had the keys to the crypt of the Saint-François church, et we were always playing there! We were playing free, we were playing jazz! Damn! We can be thankful to this priest, because it must’ve been hard to focus on praying in the room above (laughs)! It was the 1968 period, there was something revolutionnary about it. Jazz was the Black Panthers, Harlem, it was New York, Apollo Theater. Music had such a strong political and social power!
All of a sudden in 77, we feel the arrival of the first punk groups from Zürich. And with Léo Zouridis we start a group, Technycolor, with a single “Bunker”. My stage name is Fred Laser. We played everywhere, at very famous venues: at the autonomous centre in Zürich when the cops couldn’t enter. At the Palladium, at the Faubourg theater, we were as big a hit as U2. Or at the Gibus in Paris. Then, at the beginning of 1980 we evolved into new wave minimalism, and changed the name to Film de Guerre. It was the start of the independent radios, and we became the favourites of Radio Nova in Paris. We were putting on shows: for the Actuel at the Rex, at the Grand Palais, tours in the prisons… The Pyramide was a swingers’ club in paris where the politicians and actors went. We’d get the party started, and then, when people began to undress, they’d kick us out (laughs)!
The story ended when the dope arrived. It was a carnage in the group. I couldn’t fall into it, I was studying at the conservatory and… I loved the music too much.”
(Les Pâquis | translated from French)