Henriette Coulourvat – Rockin’ on the Red Book // Paddy Field (MM Records) 1979. What the fuck is this? Well its a totally whacked out French-synth obscurity, that’s what. Back in the day when all the whacked out synth obscurities had to have a Chinese theme. You think I’m kidding? I’m not. Who is Henriette Coulouvrat? I don’t really know. She is on the great Des Jeunes Gens Modernes compilation with a more overproduced song that I do not like as much. Why am I posting this? Cuz I like to Rock On The Red Book and hang out in the Paddy Fields as much as the next guy. I think these songs should have been on the classic Tin Drum LP by Japan. It could have lightened the mood a bit. I love David Sylvian and all, but does State-sponsored paddy farming really need to be such a dire subject? Indoctrination into Maoism doesn’t always have to be thru the barrel of a gun. Analog synths can be the hammer which we use to crush the enemy! Look at the cover of this great release (if you click it, you can see the full-res version). Doesn’t that look like fun? Sure as hell beats a Decembrists gig.
A Very Special Story- Pour un cheval, deux-trois robes, et un jolie garçon… on achète mes oreilles. August 24, 2010L’objectif d’aujourd’hui était simple : finir la mixtape de Septembre avant de manger. Le résultat c’est qu’il est 16:24 et que premièrement : je n’ai toujours rien avalé et deuxièmement : je n’ai pas réellement finit. Mais comme le manque … Continuer la lecture → […]admin
- Pour un cheval, deux-trois robes, et un jolie garçon… on achète mes oreilles. August 24, 2010
- Acute Records
- VIVA RADIO-TOO MANY SHOWS TO NAME August 11, 2010Yet another Viva-Radio Pyjamarama show catch-up. Seems like I’ve got 8 more shows, starting with three silly ones where I chose a word and picked all songs with that word in the title, then a bunch more awesome shows. Some of these show up in the Pyjamarama archives, some will stream live again during my usual […]Dan
- VIVA RADIO-TOO MANY SHOWS TO NAME August 11, 2010
- KBD Records
- Voodoo Idols – S/T E.P. 7″ September 5, 2010First of two excellent 7inches by Voodoo Idols from Tampa/Florida. Second one has the better known We dig Nixon etched into the grooves. Nixon is great but I think Do the Kirk here is one inch(the size of my supermans cock) better. Rough and stomping with a great bass sound, pretty sax and a singer […]Ted Frat
- Voodoo Idols – S/T E.P. 7″ September 5, 2010
- Lexicon Devil
- Untitled August 29, 2010TOUCH AND GO: THE COMPLETE HARDCORE PUNK 'ZINE '79-'83 (547 pages; Bazillion Points/2010)This has been waaay too long in coming. Touch and Go - the fanzine - had already reached mythological status by the time the 1990s rolled into gear. By last year, I figured that the periodical once known as Touch and Go was a myth. In all my years of being […]Dave
- Untitled August 29, 2010
- Noise Pollution Records
- The Web to play Boomslang Fest August 27, 2010THE WEB will be performing at this year's Boomslang Festival in Lexington, KY. The band will be on Saturday, September 11th's bill along with Death (from Detroit), Warmer Milks, Thee American Revolution and Phantom Family Halo among others. The Web will be playing the front room of Buster's around 7 or 8pm. Rumored to be joining the band on th […]NOISE POLLUTION
- The Web to play Boomslang Fest August 27, 2010
- One Base on an Overthrow
- Sound Lays You To Waste September 5, 2010Connecticut's Myty Konkeror released their first album recently, "I miss the future.", on their own Twin Lakes label. Besides the CD version, there's also a labor-intensive LP version, limited to 30, which includes an individually lathe-cut clear polycarbonate disc (made in New Zealand by Peter King) in a hand-assembled, hand-numbered jac […]Brushback
- Sound Lays You To Waste September 5, 2010
- Pig State Recon
- Caught In My Eye September 4, 2010THE GERMS – Live at The Starwood, Dec. 3, 1980 (Rhino Handmade, 2010) There was always something incredibly severe about the way THE GERMS sounded, playing together. Pat’s guitar, so trebly and screee-producing, took an unholy joy cutting broken shards of riffs into Lorna’s dumpy bass runs and Don’s frequent rhythmic change-ups. Darby’s animalistic howl [... […]mrowster
- Caught In My Eye September 4, 2010
- Small Takeover
- Wretch Like Me September 6, 2010Colorado is eternally linked with John Denver but was also the setting for the Mork and Mindy show which proved the existence of aliens and the fact that despite all the other things he is, Robin Williams is not a homo sapien. Wretch Like Me don't play faggoty country music or as far as know wear red track suits. They play strong pop punk (with just a l […]Chris
- Wretch Like Me September 6, 2010
- Son of Eet U Smakelijk
- THIS IS ROTTERDAM, NOT THE MISSISSIPPI September 5, 2010OK, so tell me which town the following bands are from: 10CC, Barclay James Harvest, Sad Cafe. Any idea? Now tell me which town these bands are from: Joy Division, Buzzcocks, Fall. Got it in a micro-second?In the immediate pre-punk era, there was no way of telling where a certain band was from; all local peculiarities were wiped out in favour of a generic Tr […]Niels
- THIS IS ROTTERDAM, NOT THE MISSISSIPPI September 5, 2010
YAY! Communist propaganda can be fun!
wow this is good. dude french synth wave? wow not bad for some hardcore/metal lover. thanks for this one good stuff.
I recently rediscovered Henriette through this video on Youtube. She appeared several times on French and Belgian TV back in the early eighties. I didn’t know this early single. Thanks a lot !
It’s weird almost all her early stuff was asian tinged. The B-Side of “Can’t you take a joke” is called “yellow fever” and talking about chopsticks and Kabuki men. Its kinda weird and maybe a little culturally inappropriate. Her songs start off so good and kinda pitter out as the keep going, especially on that “Can’t you take a joke” 7″. I had heard “Paddy Fields” but not “Rockin’ on the red book”. And what was up with the Asian fetishization in French Synth? There was her, the Tokow Boys, Mathmatiques Modernes, and even Metal Urbain after they became The Metal Boys made that Tokio Airport album. Anyone know what was up with that? All I can assume is it was veiwed as futuristic or something. Anyone?
@TBE – I had not really thought about this but you are correct. I think Asia in general was very in vogue at that time “Turning Japanese”, Asian themed shirts etc etc. But France did seem particularly obsessed with it