Adventures and Dinosaurs

Paris is awesome. A few years ago when I came here briefly with the parents I wasn’t such a fan, but now with a proper opportunity to explore it’s a fantastic place. It nicely balances the classic and the contemporary, with a stylish flair that most places can’t handle. In fact, i really need to steal some of the fashion ideas kicking around here, but i probably won’t be able to pull them off unless i lose a hell of a lot of weight. Suffice to say, the hipsters here are beautiful, both the guys and the girls. Plenty of Jeremy Jay and Yelle lookalikes all over the place.

So far i’ve taken it pretty easy here, because I’m not leaving for over a week. The first afternoon i got here, though, i went to see Mahjongg, and it was awesome.

I don’t think fate wanted me to make it there. I was already worn out from an early start and a 6 hour train trip, and i was also halfway into a food coma (my relatives here are so amazingly hospitable). But i decided to go, and as soon as i got out of the metro station it POURED. And i don’t mean “oh crap i might get damp”, i mean “i hope my phone makes it out of this alive” kind of rain.

So finally i got into the bar, a little place called International. On street level it’s a cozy little pub, but downstairs it’s an awesome venue… remniscient of Mandarin Club, but with a better stage and a more clubby kind of interior. The opening band were called Le Club Des Chats, and their name was pretty appropriate… while the lyrics were mostly in French, there was plenty of meowing and references to cats. Musically they were really fun, reminding me a lot of the more lighthearted DIY bands that don’t seem to be around much anymore. They were a boy/girl two piece, for most songs both playing drums, but occasionally with one of them on guitar. So it was really percussive, cutesy music that almost had a slight no-wave influence, and as it went on it got better and better.

And Mahjongg were amazing. On record i’ve enjoyed them, but not loved, but live they absolutely killed it. With a powerhouse drummer fronting the band, they played through a mixture of styles that leaned mostly towards dance – at one bit when they really got going it even sounded like a kind of breakbeat music played live – but at other points there were more rock/indie influences such as liars and dancepunk.

Yesterday was a chilled day… I spent most of the day in, sleeping in and generally chilling out after a hectic week in Italy. In the evening I joined my uncle and cousins for some music hunting, which was pretty great – got a few more cheap Gainsbourg albums and the Atlas Shrugged 7″ among other things, but it was really hard looking through the 12″ section… I even came across a James Blood Ulmer LP on Blue Note, but how the hell am i gonna carry that around Europe?

Then I caught the metro to Bastille and walked up the Rue de la Roquette towards La Mécanique Ondulatoire to see The Strange Boys. I don’t know much about the area but it’s an awesome street, covered in bars and sushi joints and little restaurants. It kind of reminded me of Kings Cross if you got rid of the strip clubs, sleaze and wayward testosterone. I’ll have to return for dinner at some point, maybe when Meg gets here.

I got to La mechanique though, and one of The Strange Boys were sick! So the gig is rescheduled to tonight. So i just had a quiet night in, reading for about three hours. Man that F Scott Fitzgerald is addictive.

Which brings me to here. It’s almost lunchtime. I think i’ll grab some lunch, check out the Pompidou, do a bit of shopping, and go see The Strange Boys. Man, staying with family makes me lazy.