Let's step into the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and his pet human, Sherman and set it for say, June1980, Tompkins Square Park on Avenue A and East 7th Street in Lower Manhattan. Why, there's that French/American band, Belle Star. They are going to play their soon to be released record, Be In / Sweet Paranoia! There's Janet, Didier the guitarist, Tim the drummer and a guy named Microdot who was just learning how to play bass
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| poster by David Koepp/1981 this material just resurfaced thanks to Graham Dawson! Thanks Graham! |
6 comments:
This is great! I love the video introduction between songs, fiddling with the reception on the tv... you guys had a unique sound.
Electric autoharp? Correct me... is that an autoharp Janet is playing?
Anyway, well worth the post! Gotta be a thrill for you to see this after thirty or more years. (I'm hoping nothing we ever did during our drunken late-night guitar fests got caught on film!)
solid body electric autoharp....a very unique instrument. She really came out of the folk universe in the early 60's. I have a few tracks that were just released by the BBC as part of a collection of an British folk archivist of Janet playing as an 18 year old in London...with just autoharp.
But Belle Star? I never saw anything like this band....and we just got better....soul meets folk meets new wave punk rock and so much of our material was in French. We played constantly in NYC for 3 years....then Janet and I worked out of an apartment studio doing sound tracks for dance and theater pieces. I had my own bands in which I played more guitar and sang. My band, Mr. Bubble did a lot of dates with the early rock version of The Beastie Boys...That was a period of intense cross fertilization. I played bass on a lot of other people records...
Good stuff yo!
Hello Microdot,
I really enjoyed this clip....it was fun.
Me too. I loved it. I really loved it.
When we recall the things we were doing in 1980, it's hard to believe it's 2012, isn't it?
I'm so glad I found it and was able to get it to you. This has been a year of finding old friends and memories. All my best.
Graham
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