Getting increasingly popular and attracting many spectators also growing. It seems that is now over the period where only English bands manage to complete the hat. Do not dream, however, claiming that Magma has received the hearing it deserves because we're not there yet. The success of Magma is a success then he should be able to reach the stage victory. Over the months, the progression of Magma can be summarized simply: "It is increasingly difficult. While showing a rather exceptional richness in music, the group has a second advantage, moreover, necessary to make a good group with a large group: the Impact. The viewer comes out of a concert of Magma, whether loved or hated, needs to recognize that something has happened. Even if sometimes, the audience seemed a little confused (which is due to the wealth offered by the group), they never remain long indifferent. Another feature of success: the few seconds between the end pieces and applause. One has the impression that the public seeks to catch his breath, to recover before occur (with conviction). Magma can be summarized and need not be, but the simple word "violence" gives a fair idea of the band's music. Those who still doubt need only look at the great shows they have learned: a vision of disaster after a fiery tongue, evoking both the talons of a hawk and a mushroom cloud. Let us wait until the Americans discover Magma before venturing to say that holes have a large group? Will he have to that "Tendei Magma" reached the Top 30, Top 20 or in any other classification, as long as it is obedience to the Anglo-Saxon, that Magma can rotate regularly? Do we must await the moment when, tired from work too often, the musicians decide to separate support for the "stars" to find the two excellent albums already made? In short, when Magma will he recognized at fair value, that of one of the most exciting today? From July 8 to September 11, the group has been without work is that of France (end of argument).
Returning to Gibus itself (paragraph Magma has been achieved at their last visit, 6, 7 and 8 July), regretting that this item can not be content that I had originally intended. Article "incomplete" because I hoped to include the program of many celebrations that will mark the opening of the season 71-72. A default program, but I can give you half board: call 700-78-88 and ask for any information of interest on the parts groups. Third Ear Band and Mott the Hoople are two groups that should occur in September. This is not bad, but as there are many others you can get an idea of what can be program. In addition to these groups, you will also have the privilege, say a chance (to be modest), to meet members of the editorial staff or (if you prefer) of the drafting committee told the newspaper.
Dear readers, it only remains for me to affix my name at the bottom of these columns to complete this monument that journalism is the "Pop France", after which I can enjoy the free spirit and serene, a great glass of pink (as you know, beyond, the main drink Best).
Joking, I remind you that you can write to me with concert dates, I suggest a particular topic, send me any information on the French pop. Soon with a Pop France a little more responsible, do not forget the guide next visit in a month.
Jean-Paul Commin
Best No. 38 - September 1971
VANDER POWER/2In a second part, a more precise portrait of Christian Vander, beater and leader of Magma, the “group besides”.
The sun fell, as with regret, involving in its fall some delayed rays which were ingéniaient to perforate the dense curtain of the forest. The sky, heavy and bad, seemed to scorn the land residences with the red tiled roofs, while the men hastened through fields towards their ridiculous dwellings, in a hurry to put a wall between their body and this storm which approached by thundering on the plain … Once again the lightning was going to strip the large trees of their bark and to tear off them from this fatty ground from where they drew their quiet force, disrespectfully throwing them across the gray and soaked roads. All the night during, from large trees were going to die, lying in water, their anguish sometimes crossed by the gleam of the headlights of a car whose driver, after many imprécations, should turn back … Demain, of the simple hearts would evoke the passage of the devil by discovering corns devastated by the wind. Tomorrow couples would wake up, happy to push the wood of their shutters against the stone of their walls. Tomorrow carefree children would throw small black stones towards the sky and would span the trees died while laughing. “Tomorrow”, Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic thought, according to the progression of the storm through the painted panes which separate its Territory from the rest of the world … idea the one following day did not seem, at this time, duty to impassion it in addition to-measurement; it once again raised the lid of the coral snuffbox where were usually deposited the synthetic candies which enabled him to exceed land realities when those became too foreseeable, but it had to go obviously: it was empty. II looked at Christelle, lost in another dream, which embroidered in the light of the old oil lamp. II wanted to be some, suddenly, to have made the negligence not to refill the snuffbox; there wanted to be some to remain nailed in front of the painted window which, when a flash tore the sky, made pass its face of the green bronzes with the mauve by successively giving him all the colours of the celestial pastels… “That of lost energy”, he had thought when his body had become very electric, just after the first crash of the thunder; this time, it could not imprison the energy which the night offered, as for the narguer, in long white flashes which cut out clearly on the gray walls of the village. Smart-Ass Rock' roll Critic did not feel that it was going to be necessary for him to have recourse to another planet, the too small Earth proving once again … It is, naturally, KOBAIA which it chooses, as he had always done it for this evening of autumn where he had heard, in the wind which howled on the city, following words: “Dewa trïwen ëk straïn da fennh dro zanka - Dusz wurdah dusz hamtaï …”. Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic moved towards its secretary, opened one of the drawers and a pile drew some from layers of which one was covered with a writing which was not his, but that of his/her friend VANDER; on this last layer one could read names like Görutsz Komputëhr Kommandeuhr (Klaus - Zaszpiak), Mekanïk Destruktïw Köhntarkösz Kommandeuhr (Rene Garber - Töht Würdah), and Mekanïk Extermïnatïw Zërëbrahl Kommandeuhr (Christian Vander - Teiusz Bïngöh /W ürdah Glaö …). Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic did not know that the moment had just concluded the article on MAGMA of which ROCK'N'ROLL & FOLK had published the first part a few weeks more early. II took its feather and wrote …
The night of July 8, 1970
This night, Christian VANDER dreamed a poem. Here the …
“GROUND
Eat your C œ ur, wood your blood, burns your heart
Faded tree which the blades of the sun tear
Aggressiveness is the fortune of your weak brain to the barks
What crushes the pillar of your centre
Aroma made thirsty for heredity which outline the spectrum of your violences
You were this imaginary blazing inferno deprived of passion
Who forged his crematory
Noise silence, noise silence
Time passed
Noise silence, noise silence
Its flood of waves flows inlassablement
II the universe, imperturbable floods
While sap of your poor life
Bead painfully on your bark revives
Noise silence, noise silence
Your life is stretched and time passes
Last drops of your sweat
Fruit of your constant anguish, escape from your roots
Your death greets you
Noise silence, noise rest
That you did not wait
Your spine howls its convulsion
Its cry is lost in the ocean of time
You burst without a sound
Why you do not speak, ashes
In the apocalypse of this interminable night
Where you sink forever?
Floods of time, floods of time
Do not forgive
Avenge these pure hearts with the translucent veins
Who only asked to breathe
Your misleading perfumes of hatred and hypocrisy
Ground, purging this first nothing!
Air of time as your fate
Is prisoner of the infinite cycle of the life
I sympathized, I sympathized
“AMEN “…
Christian VANDER.The night of July 8, 1971
I was in Gibus. I had come to listen to MAGMA of which it was last engagement until mid-September. The afternoon, I had envisaged an interview and we had delivered ourselves without enthusiasm to the usual play of the questions and the answers; I looked at time to another VANDER which remained quiet, as if it were eager not to contradict the other members of the group, not to interfere itself between them and me … having noted, in my chronicle of MAGMA 2, qu ' it missed with the compositions of François Cohen and Teddy Lasry “a quality (violence) essential without which the step of MAGMA could be one day seriously blocked”, I discussed with them this question and they declared me that “their” violence supposed a certain development, contrary to “that” of VANDER. The conversation “did not burst”: it missed a kind of intoxication and our remarks remained enough pain-killers; at the end of the interview however, VANDER acknowledged me, when we were alone, that there were many very important points on which it had preferred to be keep silent and that we would have to discuss together in the near future …The evening, MAGMA was on scene. The first passage of the group was rather difficult, because of heat which reigned; television turned and the projectors directed on VANDER did not arrange of anything its nervousness: it was to entrust to me later besides how much it had been painful to him to play under these conditions … And then it was the second passage, magistralement directed by VANDER; he had said to me during the afternoon: “II is necessary that you remainders this evening, you will see, one plays the new album …”; I remained and I thus could note at which point the leader of MAGMA lived SA music more intensely than that of François Cahen and Teddy Lasry. II was, for “Iss lanseï doïa” and “Ki ïahl ö lïahk”, this beater irreproachable of effectiveness which we are numerous already to appreciate, but never one could not say that it approached the paroxystic fever that one knows to him in his great moments. All that changed as of the introduction of “Rïah Saïhltaahk”, this splendid piece which it composed for MAGMA 2; one abruptly saw it becoming worse, more heinous and merrier, knocking skins and cymbals with an alarming precision, him it warlike whose rods split the air the such fatal weapons of a child who would have sworn himself to kill giants … VANDER, when he plays SA music, is all the opposite of these civilized beaters which make interminable demonstrations of their technique; in exercises of this kind, the technique it could however take pleasure not missing it since it gained it with people as Elvin Jones whereas he was old only fifteen years … But VANDER is a WILD BEATER more interested by the visceral impact of its speech than by smoothnesses of ornamentation such as the rats-jazzmen practise some which pullulate in the Parisian cellars. VANDER DOES NOT BEAT, IT FIGHTS …! The flexible chest, the untied wrists, it propels, the heinous features, the enormous machine which is MAGMA. Those which seem to assist best are Francis Moze, imposing mass with the closed face which imperturbably supports the group of its strong foundation; Klaus, of which the vocal parts gain unceasingly in majestic beauty and François Cahen, the pianist, capable of interventions of a rare smoothness. After the passage of the group, we found ourselves all around the tables of Gibus. I remembered the afternoon last … Francis Moze had said to me “When I finish playing, I have the fingers which tremble still a long time after” and Louis Toesca, the trumpet player: “Although I would be exhausted, I cannot sleep after having played with MAGMA …”. They were there, now, the members of MAGMA: Francis Toesca and the others, seeking which a woman, who glass; they had separated and occupied each one a table around which followed one another of the friends or relations come to tell them a mot. II had there only VANDER which was alone … or almost; we started to speak, very naturally: that made so much a long time that we had not on the occasion … II of it made me share of what obstructed it at MAGMA: the others which seemed to surround it and want to substitute their explanations for his when it wished SPEECH; Teddy Lasry which chahutait on scene, presently, right before the final one of “Rïah Saïhltaahk “… I it felt tired, VANDER; the rods/weapons were arranged in its bag, fixed on the back of the chair; ” I would like to record with of CH œ the USSR, of the percussions something of immense … Teiusz Bïngöh, it is not my name of war, it is my name of circus in order not to frighten people … You are the only person whom I appreciate in this trade; there is also Laurent Thibault; you do not know Laurent? II will be necessary that I present it to you … Ah! and then I must make you listen to my new band … “. We spoke, a long time, establishing a complicity as people alone establish some who meet the night in the boxes and decide to tell themselves while waiting for the small day. And then we were joined by Rene Garber, saxophonist-flutist black who made a time started from MAGMA; Garber, freak among the freaks, read us an extract of the French edition of the Weddings of Stravinsky and disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. ” If you speak about Rene Garber, says to me VANDER, I would like that you write that I regard it as the only musician who saw really his music … “. In the small hour we rolled, VANDER, Garber, Christelle and me in the car which spun along the gray walls …
The time of hatred
One afternoon of August, I re-examined VANDER; as soon as I arrived, it made me listen to its new band. “Theusz Hamtaahk”, of which it intends to make its third album. “Theusz Hamtaahk”, it is the time of hatred … That makes one year that he works on this tape; front, he had worked one year on that of " Rïah Saïhltaahk “… One can already say that with” Theusz Hamtaahk “the leader of MAGMA will strike a great blow; there is in this piece, of which I however did not listen to the principal part, of the superb climates: the music of VANDER slowly purifies … II has many projects, VANDER: first of all, this series of recordings for Barclay (always in Hérouville with Laurent Thibault) deferred to at the end of August; then it there with the realization of an album which will recall the history of the rate/rhythm through the ages, with study of the various techniques of percussion and summary of their progression; and then especially, there is this project of exploitation, and there if possible from improvement, from the quadrophonie by a process allowing to bring the listener at a stage even more advanced of its dependence with respect to the recording … This afternoon Rene Garber, Mekanïk Destruktïw Köhntarkösz Kornmandeuhr, passed; it currently forms a group which will be called Mekanïk and included/understood four pianists … In October, VANDER will start to organize the meetings of the Sect and many will be those which will realize (too late, alas that MAGMA is not only of the music, but ANOTHER THING also … NEW INNOCENCE, It IS DREAM MALÉFIQUE BECOMING REALITY. SUBJECTIVITY SE DOES NOT BUILD WITHOUT DESTROYING ITS OBSTACLES; IT DRAWS FROM the INTERMONDE VIOLENCE NECESSARY HAS THIS END. NEW INNOCENCE EAST the LUCID CONSTRUCTION Of a DESTRUCTION (Raoul Vaneigem. Treaty of good manners to the use of the young generations).Smart-Ass Rock' Roil Critic did not take a new feather and signed …
YVES ADRIEN,
Hell Zërëbrahl
Endoktrinaïhr Kommandeuhr.
(with the approval of Kommandeuhr Suprëm).Rock'n'roll & Folk n° 56 - September 1971
A group besides
Magma and Smart-Ass Rock' roll Critic:
first part in six tablesTEXT DREAMED BY ADRIEN IN the NIGHT OF the 12 AT July 13, 1971 … and more particularly intended for those which did not include/understand yet than Magma was the best group of this solar system.
1) All dreamers passed, present … and to come.
By an attic window opening its small famished mouth of light towards the frozen vastness of the Sky, the paddle grisâtre slowly took possession of the part without heart in which a trip finished which had proven extremely testing for its participants. The shade was dislodged little by little of each recess where she had thought to be able to take refuge and a girl cried not to more see (“Something is happening young stag, and you of which know what it is …”) the face of that which made fortune by slapping America to be detached on the thousands from telegraphic kilometers of pylons bathed from dew.
“With the ant-memories
Sometimes who make quiver
Pink and black walls
And naked of my memory … “The bad poet baudelairien had suddenly stopped, become aware that the white and scented skin of the fair woman to which it dedicated her well ordered pain was not any more in respite but for a few fifty years: in a torn laughter of sobs of dislike, it the Jura suddenly, driving out of its spirit the image of the putrefied carrion that in fifty years the white and scented skin of the fair woman would be (and maintaining almost buried) to which it had dedicated its well ordered pain, not to like never again. In this part where ploughed up some large sad clowns lay Parisian underground, an young man with hair longer than the others morfondait himself, wearied by the saraband which around him the puppets and the “psychedelic” whores danced; Smart-Ass Rock' roll Critic (thus the young man with hair was called the longer only others) saw decreasing its energy which was already nothing any more but the vain word than use sometimes to be pointed out the freaks without imagination; it evoked certain images likely to bring back it towards the original impulse … the immense stone cities that H.P. Lovecraft had imagined beyond the Beyond polar one; the russet-red task of this soaked squirrel of sun and rain fixing it curiously in the eyes (and C œ ur) the afternoon of April when the storm had attacked the forest; the night during which, at the time of a watery trip, the nice face of Christelle had quickly broken up into abominable in addition to oozing. But nothing of all that could be able to release it from the torpor which held it nailed with this old leather armchair; it passed by again a long time in its spirit the instantaneous démoniaques ones or marvellous of its forwardings towards what had formerly been the Unknown but it that he was prisoner of apathy reigning among the supposed shades to constitute his entourage … the TRAGEDY OF PARALLEL LONELINESSES, thought one had well to go obviously moment, while refusing to cherish the foot which had posed on the balustrade of the armchair, EleKtric Prune, a twelve year old young girl very, very invading; it is at this time that he realized that a sharper blood beat with its temples: far in its head, a deaf rate/rhythm had occurred and developed of second in second … It was a wild bearing, like that of an army moving, intersected with shingling gusts of coppers and heinous cries bright in a language that it was impossible for him to translate, although familiar; the run up against blows now redoubled intensity and the fugitive impression that the young man with the hair longer had tested than the others changed quickly into certainty: this violence without call, it could be only his/her friend VANDER, and this piece … RIAH the SAIHLTAAHK, most beautiful of its compositions. Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic did not leave without same realizing the old leather armchair of it which fell mollement on a large tropical fruit plate; the faces of people of which it had shared the intimacy still seemed more ridiculous him: small EleKtric Prune had lain down close to an old Swedish opium addict and it tightened against its belly the small pocket of “Chelsea Girls “… electric violence already tore the thick air; Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic was planted in the middle of the part and, of the music of full MAGMA the head, howled: ” ETERNITY “.
The opium addict had a spasm, two girls tore black satin their long dresses and, the counterirritated eyes, were whipped some wildly; EleKtric Prune placed the ventilator between its thighs and, cambered kidneys, reversed head it started to cry gently, the throat tended towards the crystal gloss which oscillated already in a way threatening with the ceiling. Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic did not leave definitively THEIR trip which it had broken.
2) Who is there to only allow Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic to find his identity (the banal one I) … but perhaps also regarded as a means easy to announce the 3).
When the fresh air cherished its face, the young man with the hair longer than the others passed two fingers distracted on his neck and, realizing suddenly that it would be exquisite for him to write some lines on MAGMA, decided to locate as fast as possible his typewriter. II reached that point after several hours of an unfruitful vagrancy which brought it to the door carries chenue of its ancestral residence, Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic' S Territory; it entered the garden, sat down with the sun, ate a grapefruit and, after having driven out flexible instrument a CGT couple of pensioners which had elected residence there, it wrote:
3) (which should be the 1) but will have however to be well satisfied to remain the 3) since there was before the 1) and the 2).
One afternoon of June 1970, I went up the Saint-Germain boulevard very extremely while thinking of the way in which I was going to be able to return to me in Bath to attend the concert of Frank Zappa and his new Mothers when I saw Klaus Blasquiz, singer of MAGMA, a group from which the first double album just came to leave, collecting contradictory criticisms of the specialized press (of which I was then very proud not to form part). Klaus and me we stopped (referring certain common physical, we always stop in order to check if it is well with different or oneself that we deal); we sat down and spoke about music; the conversation turned quickly on MAGMA; Klaus asked to me whether I knew the disc of the group and, noting that I had never listened to it (I was not yet Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic at that time), it proposed to me to pass at his place one evening … When I went to his invitation, it was more with one initiation than in a listening of disc than I took part: Klaus undertook méticuleusement to explain me the various phases of the voyage towards Kobaïa, the feelings tested by the men on their arrival on planet, the reactions of the occupants of this ground, the feelings of joy and terror; he frequently spoke to me about VANDER, Claude Engel also and I returned several times street Jacob to discuss MAGMA … there
4) The meeting with VANDER.
To the last fall, MAGMA gave a concert to Olympia; there was little world this day in the room; I was in slides and I live to arrive VANDER, hard and solitary in his large black leather overcoat, tightening on the occasion a hand which was tended to him, smiling with the mouth but never not ceasing fixing of his clear and incisive glance people who approached it. A man on the defensive, I thought by seeing it passing. A few weeks later, a friend dealing with theatre workshop proposed to me to organize evenings during which I would invite a musical personality of my choice to come to be made interview in public. The image of VANDER crossing the slides of Olympia returned to me at once to the spirit and I accepted this offer, deciding to make of the leader of MAGMA the first subject of my talks … Entrer in contact with him was not as difficult as I had discounted it; after some unfruitful telephone calls, I was able to join it one morning and exposed to him what I awaited from him: with my great surprise, it accepted and an appointment was taken so that we can meet before the evening itself …
At his place, Sunday morning, it was not very loquacious: I first of all guessed it tended, then, towards the end of our interview, I felt that it lowered a little its defenses; however, when I left it disfigured me same icy air that when I had entered, one hour earlier … two days later, it was the interview with the theatre workshop; to 8:45, VANDER entered, vêtu of the large black leather overcoat and, without looking at anybody, moved towards me; the room filled up gently and I proposed to him to drink something: it accepted but did not soak its lips in glass that I had offered to him; on the other hand he asked me to accompany it to seek cigarettes and, when we had found a bar opened, got informed about what I wanted to take, explaining me consequently occasion which it was wary of drinks that one offered to him where it was invited.
VANDER, this evening, astonished me much. He delivered himself quasi completely, summarizing the sometimes intimate circumstances in which it had been brought by it to adopt certain positions with respect to the human relations; he spoke about the work which he had undertaken in order to improve the kobaïen, settled with the piano in order to better render comprehensible the strictly musical explanations. VANDER attentive, ironic, provocative, was detached in turn according to whether the public were sincere with him and that Francis Moze, the bass player of MAGMA also present, was given the responsability to answer or not. Some found that VANDER was sufficient and pretentious, others were touched by that which they regarded as an idealist. Nobody in any case remained indifferent afterwards … A few times, VANDER and me had our respective problems to regulate and we lost sight of the fact ourselves until the beginning of July.5) The interview of MAGMA.
On Thursday July 8 with 15:00, the sun crushed Paris and I descended the steps from Gibus in order to find the members of MAGMA with which I had appointment; Gibus, it was their last engagement until the … September 11, which proves that the owners of clubs able to recognize a good group are not legion.
First of all, could you make us a rapid summarized of the reasons for which was born MAGMA?
Francis Moze: It is very simple. In 1969, we made, Christian (VANDER) and me, a round in Italy; on our return we felt a need pressing to do something of personnel.
VANDER: this round occurred in boxes to champagne where the iron ores are interested by the shoes of the bass player than by the music.How did the selection of the musicians take place?
Teddy Lasry: partly thanks to meetings of friends, conversations.What becomes Uniweria Zekt?
VANDER: Uniweria Zekt. Initially it is not a chance if it were called Uniweria Zekt and not Internationa Zekt. It is an organization founded to contribute with the blooming and the propagation of creations of quality, that it is in musical artistic fields, cinematographic, pictorial or scientists, and even philosophical. The handicap today, it is that we do not have money …
François Cahen: but the Sect in any case already exists on our level … MAGMA, it is the Sect.Which are the reasons for which Richard Rault, Claude Engel and Paco Charlery left?
François Cahen: perhaps would it be best theirs to ask?
Teddy Lasry: with regard to Richard, I believe that it was purely aesthetic. For Paco, it is different: he did not work obviously enough his instrument; at MAGMA, one cannot be satisfied to give the impression; moreover it took as racial implications the fact that one points out to him that it arrived late …
Francis Moze: for Claude, I think that there was a problem of employment, it perhaps felt that he could not be expressed so much within MAGMA … And then he had other … proposals the sessions … he was necessary that it has the freehands. I intended to say that it prepared its first album solo; that will be certainly interesting …Did you have problems to recruit new musicians?
VANDER: Not, none.And didn't their arrival create a certain loss of identity, a kind of weakening of the image of the group?
François Cahen: not, they adapted very well and one is really happy to have them with us …
Teddy Lasry: in any event, from the musicians, it will still pass from there to MAGMA.Which are your immediate projects?
François Cahen: rest forced until September because we do not have any engagement by then.
VANDER: we will record each one an album in solo, more commercial, for Barclay; we will work with Laurent Thibault; we record during the first week from August in Hérouville.Do you have something to add?
VANDER: yes. I like everyone. And more particularly named the Gilbert Rovère, who plays at Martial Solal and allowed himself one day to judge Coltrane.Thus spoke VANDER, the most violent musician of his generation.
6) Smart-Ass Rock' Roll Critic did not put back its feather in the inkpot and, while the ash of its cigarette flew without haste towards three centuries the old ashtray, the half one one hour that he did not know sounded with the belfry … (to be followed).
Yves ADRIEN
Rock'n'roll & Folk n° 55 - August 1971
Posts
All Comments
