Brad Spurgeon's Blog

Went to the arts space called Point Ephémère yesterday and had a drink of sparkling water with Vanessa on the terrace overlooking the less than sparkling water of the canal in the 10th Arrondissement in Paris. Went and listened to a psychobilly guy playing guitar and a couple of drum pieces operated with his feet, along with some art films running at the same time. While standing there, noticed a former colleague, Ivan, from the International Herald Tribune who is now in a band called Control Club, which is managed by Earle’s company BPM.

I had been planning on perhaps working with one of the band members in Control Club to do some recordings of my songs along with a guitarist, drummer and bass player, and I had been intending to call him up. But it turned out that the studio itself is in the Point Ephemere building and so I went and spoke to the guy. This is Hervé Bouétard, and I learned yesterday that not only did he play in Control Club now but in the past he was better known as a member of the French band called AS Dragon.

That drew together a few other worlds, as it turned out that AS Dragon was formed by Bertrand Burgalat, a French producer, to act as a backing band for Michel Houellebecq, the French writer. I had met Burgalat a few months ago when I went to attend and say hello to April March, who was the former girlfriend of a friend of mine, John Kricfalusi. Burgalat’s company, Tricatel, produces April March’s records. And I was introduced that night to Burgalat by Etienne Shades, who noticed me in the audience, and whom I had met while singing at Earle’s open mics. I had written a story once in which I spoke about Houellebecq as an exiled French writer, in a story about exiled writers.

Anyway, this is all going on and on, this item. But the point is, the meeting seemed very promising and with so many different paths leading to this same spot, I thought I really should pursue this idea of recording with Herve in his studio. It might happen in July.