R.I.P. NIKOLA
The Hellboys en live à la Flèche d'Or le 16 janvier 2008, filmé par Ovidie.
Photos du 9 janvier 2008 par Robert Gil
Photos du 16 janvier 2008 sur le site de Maho
Andrew Loog Oldham presents the Hellboys :
I'm here to introduce and thank the Hellboys, for bringing us the finest in rocknroll and taking me back to France.
I was schooled in the UK, but embraced and street trained in France. I was asked to leave school in 1960 at the age of 16 , I got my first job with fashion designer Mary Quant, had my first nervous breakdown six months later and left for France. I'd taken the ferry to Calais and train to Paris, intending to hitch from there to the Med, but, dressed in a lime-green angora sweater, jodhpurs, riding boots, a Sherlock Holmes deer-stalker hat and with a Union jack flag strapped around my suitcase I was attracting the wrong kind of attention. I spent three days on the road being attractive and then arrived in Cannes. The days were great. You didnt need money - you were amongst it, and there were a load of Brits so I didnt stick out.
My new pal and room-mate was an ex-American soldier, Pete Fanning, whod fought in Korea and was now drifting around the world. He showed me a suitcase full of marijuana, which hed bought in Morocco. I'd seen people under the influence, but I'd never seen the farm. Pete would spliff, grin and get horny, pull girls back to the room and I would be given marching orders On one evening stroll, I sniffed the pungent herb that perfumed our little room. I followed the aroma around the corner, and there stood the man, Pablo Picasso, casually pulling on a spliff while checking out his own work enshrined in an art-gallery window. The artist looked totally contented with his lot and at one with his Cubist art-glass. He cut an impressive figure, minotaurial in his tight French striped T-shirt, his espadrilles hugging the kerb. It was a power moment for moi, and I guess if I had thus far ignored ganja but, from this Picasso moment on, I embraced the idea of marijuana as another staple tool of creativity. I decided that if marijuana hadn't shut down Picasso, then when opportunity reared its bud, Id let it into my life where it stayed until it tried to run it.
I was running out of Cannes,so I packed my bag and relocated a little further down the coast in the next paradise of opportunity - Juan-les-Pins. Within two days of arriving I'd landed a gig - major-domo at an English tearoom called Butlers, situated at the tip of a peninsula of buildings that overlooked the lapping blue Mediterranean. I was off the streets for a while.
In 1960 Juan was the youngest scene in the South of France, it was a massive film set and the dialogue was perfect and superficial. The place was colorful, criminal, rich, pink and med blue and that was just the day. The rock'n' roll clubs were amazing. They were all open-air, tucked behind a row of hedges and you could hear the music from the pavement. It was basic stand-up Gene Vincent dancing in the streets. The French rocknrollers were great. Imitation was an art, homage and the only way to survive. The French wanted their rock Americain , they did not want it filtered like the poor-boy version just one step up from skiffle we Brits had been allowed. Brit Rock wore a condom around it's chops. Even Cliff Richard and Billy Fury behaved sooner than later for the sake of hits. The French rockers were unashamedly American, unlike the Brits they understood Jett Rink. In the winter they would go shopping in America and claim they were on tour there.
The refreshing thing was that in France rock & pop were celebrated, whereas in England it was merely tolerated, something to be sniffed at as suspiciously American , something to be broomed under the rug. In England the warnings were muted put persistent : " Do not get above your station! ". This was the country that had attempted , via it's monopolistic BBC , to wean us squeaky clean on skiffle and trad jazz, in denial about Blackboard Jungle ; The Girl Can't Help It, Elvis, Little Richard, Eddie and the Teddy boys. In France, an entertainers success was seemingly welcomed and applauded, not scorned. France had a completely different notion of art and society, at least to this lad on his first extended holiday at my chosen finishing school.
What I took home with me remained in my heart. A little later after 1963 when I had started to work with the Rolling Stones I took extra pleasure in the covers made of Mick & Keith songs by the likes of Eddy Mitchell, Francoise Hardy and Richard Anthony. Mick, Keith and I had no idea that along with this pleasure came the pain of our French publishers fucking us out of our copyrights. Though, as Keith and I have both said, and Mick has sorta nodded or knighted to in agreement, if you are not prepared to be fucked the first time around, then find another game.
Later I left the Stones, and some might say left life for a while, but kept my privacy intact in South America. I came back from lunch in 1995 and wrote two
books, Stoned and 2Stoned, about the thrills and spills of my life thus far.
It was through this world that I met the Hellboys, and along the wunder e-world that allows us to eat history as a present time meal , we met and bonded over my books and their enthusiasm for life and music. We e-gabbed about Bob Dylan's first manager ; Jacques Dutronc's lyrics about a pair of shoes ; the wonder of Joe Strummer ; the talent of Al Kooper and so much more. Along the way they shared with me their music - the music of the Hellboys. Through this process I was able to meet Nikola Acin, Ghani El Hindy and Christophe Lagarde, who first rehearsed together to the tune of Paint It, Black and Little Red Rooster how could I resist ? Completing the quartet is bassist Adan Jodorowsky ; he co-wrote one of my favourite cuts, Disconnected. I met his dad in Sicily when we were both under the same American gun.
I wondered what had happenned to my time in France ; and now I have heard it
again. The thrill has not gone, it's upright, on-the-money, Long Tall Sally
, does not even need any more of my word, it has stance and prance, it's
jump back in the alley so lend us your ears for the Hellboys.
Andrew Loog Oldham, Bogota, Colombia, Fevrier, MM6
Andrew Loog Oldham managed and produced the Rolling Stones between 1963-67.He has written two volumes of autobiography, Stoned and 2Stoned. They will appear in France later this year as Rolling Stoned.
The Hellboys - clip
Add to My Profile | More VideosThe Hellboys - La cigale 1/2 - Réal Thomas Boujut
Add to My Profile | More VideosThe Hellboys - La Cigale 2/2 - Réal Thomas Boujut
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INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
Interview des Hellboys pour le site Scare Culture
" 'Besoin De Rien' from The Hellboys is a perfect garage track. Super fuzzed guitar with yelping, howling and 100% pure garage punk attitude. 'L'Enfant Prodige' by Les Shades is another jaw dropper. Vox Continental organ rattles around under strung out guitar with real ballsy hoarse hollers. Both of these tracks could easily be mistaken for something from the mid sixties and are by far the most impressive tracks. In fact, The Hellboys other track 'Burn It Down' is grade A punk too. If one band has the most promise from this comp, it's them. The fact that they're a little older than their peers may mean that they've had more time to soak up the real sounds of garage punk."
Electric Roulette
"We don't want to spoil too many of the surprises held within Paris Calling, just the biggest one - Paris Calling is good. Unbelievably good. Click on the Paris Calling album sampler now and let Les Shades gently woo you before our new favourite dumb rock band The Hellboys punch your teeth out. Twice. Finally, a warning - listening to the Paris Calling album sampler might trigger a spontaneous imported French album spending frenzy."
Heckler Spray
"As if to prove that the cool kids in france are getting down to the garage rock-n-roll thing in a fine way, bonus tracks records have put together this compilation with audio and visual references to the ig naturally, new york and even elvis (the superb the hellboys)."
i really love music
" 'Burn It Down' by veterans the Hellboys is also garanteed to create incontrollable leg and arm movements in the listener. Just what the doctor ordered."
Up Magazine
CD & TELECHARGEMENTS / CDs AND DOWNLOADS
Cliquez ici pour télécharger Mutant Love sur fnacmusic.com / Click here to download Mutant Love from fnacmusic.com
Cliquez ici pour commander le CD Mutant Love sur Amazon.com / Click here to order Mutant Love on CD from Amazon.com
Cliquez ici pour commander le CD Paris Calling sur Amazon.com / Click here to order Paris Calling on CD from Amazon.com
Mutant Love, le premier album des Hellboys est disponible en téléchargement sur le iTunes Music Store / Mutant Love, the first album by the Hellboys is available from iTunes Music Store
La compilation Paris Calling, avec Plastiscines, les Shades, the Parisians, the Rolls, Second Sex et the Hellboys est disponible en téléchargement sur iTunes Music Store / The Paris Calling compilation, featuring Plastiscines, les Shades, the Parisians, the Rolls, Second Sex and the Hellboys is also available from iTunes Music Store.
The Hellboys support Andrew Loog Oldham's radio show from Little Steven's Underground Garage on Sirius Radio.
Click here for the archives of ALO's radio show
The Hellboys are featured on the Pirate Rock'n'Roll Radio Show
