Fun music

As I keep exploring the world wide web hoping to find some Über crazy metal bands that somehow didn't make it to my blessed ears yet (breathe), I came across this total craziness: The Diablo Swing Orchestra!
Oh my, that swings heavily!

If you are open to musical experiments, you should enjoy this one. It definitely made me smile, but in a good way. One last word: Refreshing!

Poll results

Dr Brisby?

It's a win for Dr Brisby! with an astonishing number of votes (4) it surpassed all of its opponents which stalled at 1 point each.

Of course the poll left only 4 choices and maybe your true favorite (if any) wasn't in the list.
But it's cool that you guys like the Brisby song! I got some more coming for you in a more or less near future :)

Clemster.

Back in Montana ... oh wait...

A map of France's départements, La Lozère is in red.
Paris is the tiny one in the center of the northern half.

Last month I went with a bunch of friends in Lozère, the least populated area of France. We stayed at Julien's farm house. His parents bought a few abandoned farm houses about 30 years ago and spent most of their holidays in Lozère to rebuild the houses.

La Lozère is a rural and mountainous area which reminded me of my Montana days (big up for my Montana friends!). The mountains in the center of France called "massif central" are really old, they used to be volcanoes. Now these volcanoes are just some nicely curved (but tall) hills due to eons of erosion.

Julien's farm house is located at about 1 kilometer high. So even though it was the end of September, which is warm in the south of France, it was quite cool.

Julien's farm house and Ruben's poncho (find it!)

We took Julien's family wagon and drove straight to the south from Paris. It took about 6 hours to get to his place. Good to know that there are places saved from the chaos of modernity this close :)

The guys started to freak out when they realized they couldn't get any 3G Internet connection with their iPhones down there. Edge only! Sounds like technological Jurassic Park. That pleased me, I work all days long on the Internet, I sure as hell wanted a break from IT stuff.

When we arrived I was a bit sick because of the mountainous roads (left , right, left , right, left , right and oh left, right... x 2346346) So I grabbed a guitar (Julien's awesome Ovation acoustic godess) and played in the garden, breathed the fresh air... But Lydie started screaming at me because I wasn't helping. The others where bringing the food from the van to the kitchen.

Sancho Panza and Rick Hunter
keepers of the farm's law

Being far from any piece of civilization, I enjoyed some good old plain natural activities like drinking beer (belgium, thanks nico!), shooting cans (while sober of course) and barbecue (the sausages down there, oh my god, the sausages, oh my god!!).

We also did some sports, we went kayaking on the Tarn river (the gorges are gorgeous) twice totaling about 24Km, I went running in the morning before breakfast (ok it was only once!) and the others did a couple of hikes while I enjoyed sleeping because of a major sun burn on me face.

Paris Clem!




How sexy a Kayak can be?

Evil Cattle, don't you try you horns on meeeeee!!!

A strange library for Dr. Brisby

One the things I like most about writing music is finding a title for a song. You should always start with a good title. I think « A strange library for Dr. Brisby » is quite a good one. It's quite verbose, a mouthful of a title it is. When you read that you expect a song that would be quite peculiar, rich in mysteries. I like that! Who's Brisby? why is he receiving a library? who gives away a library anyway? finally why the heck is this library strange? ... Or you could just give a damn and think, oh no... here it comes again, Clem is trying to be a grandiloquent as he can be.


Brisby's demo download

Grandiloquent it is! I wrote as much music as I could, and that's why I didn't write anything for the blog for a while.

One day at the beginning of this summer, I was chatting with Quentin (The Acolyts's bassist) and I got this idea for a story. It's set about a century back in time, in a western capital city, say London. A man, Doctor, named Bribsy receives a letter from his old friend from medical university. He hasn't seen him for decades. The letter urges Brisby to come because of a tragedy. The friend is dying, and seems to have aged extremely, much more than he should have. He offers Brisby the rich library he's got because he knows the Doctor has always been into books. The gift comes with a warning, that he shall not open the Red book.

For years Brisby reads all of the contents of the library, each book contains vast amounts of incredible knowledge, superb writings and poems. They are a delight to read (the contrary of my prose).

One day he finishes the last book except the Red one. Only the Red one remains, and becomes an obsession, why shouldn't he read a book, how dangerous a book can be?

You will know if you read the lyrics!! Quentin was quite excited by the idea and wrote the lyrics for the song. I like 'em, they sound mysterious, gloomy...

After Quentin sent me the lyrics I started writing the music. It took me about a month and a half! Of course I've been quite buzy so I actually just spent ... I don't know, about 6 to 10 hours on it.

The result I'm quite proud of, I know many of you guys won't like it. It's long 10 minutes and 34 seconds!! Definitely not a radio song. It has many changes of mood, some of the most aggressive riffs I ever wrote. It's still a demo and it could evolve a bit, the solos, transitions and the voice track are still perfectible. I bet rehearsing this song with the band will be quite a challenge and will bring other touches of influences from Martial (guitarist) and Anto (Drummer).
I can't wait to punch that thing in the face of a public live!

I hope you guys enjoy it. Leave me some thoughts about it!

Paris Clem: You know you like it.

Lyrics
Doctor Brisby please come to me
My life's ending, soon I won't be
Anymore

In my library you'll find wonders
Knowledge and Wisdom you'll discover
But

Don't ever under no circumstance
Open the red book and read its contents
For it is doom!

The book ruined many a man's life throughout the ages
It cannot be destroyed nor can it be harmed
It shall bring you riches should you keep it shut tight
Don't you open it, see my face and behold
The power of the book is not worth getting old

For a few years the book stayed under
A big pile of books still to be read
But one day he glanced at the red cover
And couldn't get it out of his head

His friend's warning came back to him
But that didn't make him yield
Brisby rashly took the book in his hands
And soon his fate would be sealed

Reading the first words he got in a frenzy
Filling his mind with so much knowledge
His head felt like bursting

Turning the pages at a frantic pace
By the power of the book Brisby was possessed
His hands he didn't see

For if he took even a second to stop
The poor cursed man would have seen
The skin of his hands was beginning to rot
As his hair whitened and became thin

While he was turning yet another page
The horror clenched a fist around his soul
He glanced at his reflection in a mirror
And saw how he was getting old

The book fell off his hands as he fell into despair
Shrieking “What has become of me ?”

“This book for sure is a wretched sorcery
what a bitter lesson lies in it
For the knowledge it gave me I'd have found out anyway
If I had taken the time to live
In my greed for sapience I got carried away
And now on myself I can only grieve”

Mr Brisby was in bed, feeling his last hour has come
With his last strength he took his favorite pen
And on a paper he wrote…

–back to part 1–
Sir Flaherty please come to me
My life's ending, soon I won't be
Anymore

In my library you'll find wonders
Knowledge and Wisdom you'll discover

Welcome in September!!

How is that not interesting??

Back to school Rehearsal

Kids are going back to school pretty soon after some long and hopefully sunny summer holidays. The Acolyts are back too, we have reheasaled yesterday. It's been a difficult one, we didn't get together for about two months, so we were a bit rusty plus we introduced for the first time the songs The Nameless and Bring me back to the sanitarium to our reheasing plan. For those who are totally nuts there is a 24 minutes long rehearsing video outtake:

The Acolyts - Repet 29 08 2009 sélectionné dans Musique et Metal / Punk

We are playing the new songs and Harbinger.

Paris clem: careful with this one.

In Barcelona

These are pictures from the Gracia Party. This party is about decorating the streets of Gracia's neighborhood and playing live music every night for one week. The streets were packed with people enjoying some Tapas and drinks, usually mojito or beer.

Week-end!

This afternoon I'm leaving for a long week-end in Barcelona! (spain) I'm hoping to get in touch with my old spanish friends from Helsinki (finland). Unfortunately Luis my ex-flatmate won't be in town... Another time pal!

blog update

I juste discovered a couple of features of Blogger, so welcome to the new buggy Comment thing on the right and the new vote thing under each post. Google should put a bit of time in improving the wysiwyg editor instead of adding dome wierd buggy addons.

Looks like a twitt but it ain't, it's just an uninspired blog post. (twitts could be just that?)

Dunkerque

Hello fellas! I promissed earlier some pictures of my week-end in the north (of france) so here they are!

Carole being a movie star on the beach with her brother being a surfer
The very wide shores of the north. This is where the Britts flew away from the battlefield when france was invaded in 1940
A Nazi bunker and its conqueror
Sign information FAIL, notice the "thanks for your understanding" at the bottom
Enjoying a weird smile next to a canal in Belgium
Me next to the satute of the local hero Jean Bart, the guy who got Dunkerque rid of pirates!
Yes I own this shop


Sorry for the bad quality of this post, Blogger really sucks at composing.

Paris Clem: La ouiche la ouiiiiche !!!