I saw this just freshly posted on YouTube yesterday. This was recorded by The Band, Belle Star in NYC in 1980....I have to thank who ever posted this. The graphic was the poster for a gig at Cartune Alley on 84th Street in Manhattan in 1981 by my very good old friend, from Sylvania, Ohio, David Koepp, who was our downstairs naighbor on East Fifth Street and never called the cops inspite of having the roof fall on his head while we were practicing in the apartment above his head...I tend to stomp when I play bass....
This was the single we released on our own independent record lable, Just Another Multinational Corporation.
The song was written by Didier Poursain, who plays guitar. The vocalist is Janet Kerr, who plays solid body electric autoharp, the drummer is the absolute greatest drummer I ever worked with, Tim Chisholm and I played bass...a guy named Patrick, who you know as Microdot. The riff started when Tim and I were jamming with the bass part from an old John McGlauglin riff, Marbles. I still have some boxes of original vinyl around....We had actually shot a video for the fledgling MTV network, which as it tragically turned, bizarrely vanished....the imagery, though, magically resurfaced in the first 3 Pat Benatar videos...I'm very happy that someone I never met appreciates this music again after all these years...It was reissued a few years ago on a compilation of independent punk singles "Homework" on the hyped2death label. We were a pretty unique little band, walking a crooked path through a landscape of folk, punkrock and jazz....and we were truly a Franco-American hybrid machine. We had as many songs in French as in English.
2 comments:
Regarding the vinyl copies you still have: would you be willing to sell one? I discovered "Sweet Paranoia" on a Hyped 2 Death compilation roughly a decade ago and it's been a mix tape staple ever since. I'd love to have something, anything else by Belle Star.
Man, It really bothers me that this video was taken down over copy right infringements. The only thing I can think is that the band which came along later, The Belle Starrs of the C&W Singer's management pulled some shit here. Belle Star, the band existed before any of these pikers and we released our own records and managed ourselves.
Ryan, I have to look, but I am sure I have some vinyl and if I do, I will give it to you! Be patient...I have to dig around....
Post a Comment