A few Discipline tracks can be listened to on Fairtilizer : http://fairtilizer.com/users/Joseph

Check them out, right ?

Today's playlist :

James Ferraro

Lawrence English

Metal Rouge

Theo Parrish

my next concert will be part of a special project set up by parisian strom varx. it will take place on march 15th and will be part of theAntenna Festival in Paris. More details here : http://www.kokeko.net/antenna2008.htm

and here is a video shot by a friend during the encore of a recent Disciplne concert :

Just before Xmas, a couple of new records are on their way :

first, we just pressed 100 copies of a Class of 69 single. Class of 69 is me and my friend Michel(www.myspace.com/classofsixtynine). The single is released on our own Scum Yr Earth label and is the first of a series of limited, clear vinyl singles recorded by us or people we like/love/know/enjoy/etc. The first four singles will most probably have a silkscreened cover drawn by someone whose work is pure (sexy) bliss. More about that later : sleeves are being sorted out at the moment, though we have just received the vinyls and they look amzingly AWESOME. More later...

second, I've been assembling a new project including a home made CD with a long unreleased track (after the drift, 42 min.), a fanzine (photocopied, painstakingly, between things) which will consist of xeroxed drawings all assembled randomly (so there are no two copies alike, even if they all consist of the same material). This will be limited, and the first five copies I've just made this afternoon will include two original photographs over which i've painted some minimal abstract lines. Don't know how many copies I will manage to make - not that many, I guess. Fanzine and photos and Cd will be included in an enveloppe and each packaga will have an original handdrawn "ghost" waiting somewhere.

Wish you all a merry Xmas, everywhere and anywhere you might be.

Joseph / Discipline

Dear all,

Change of Heart, a new 15 min Discipline track, parts of which were previewed on the myspace player last August, is getting an official release next week. The track is part of a CD compilation given free with Les Inrockuptibles (the magazine I work for). It has been inserted as a bonus track and is the last piece featured track on the CD which includes contributions by many pop acts including the great Tunng and the fantastic PJ Harvey.

The CD sleeve is an image taken from a film made by one of my favourite directors : Zabriskie Point by Michelangelo Antonioni. A nice coincidence : Change of Heart is the last track of the record and on the original soundtrack of the Zabriskie Point, that position was held by John Fahey's Dance of Death : another hero, another amazing track.

Best,

Joseph : Discipline

Just posted in the video section a short movie shot during a concert at les instants chavirés in december 2006. Charles and me, we both hated that gig. But please do check out the video anyway : it makes it look all nice.

I did a much better gig shortly afterwards in early 2007 at the same venue, by myself without charles, but it wasn't recorded. a shame but things shouldn't always be documented and recorded. it is often nicer when they become slowly fading memories.

"nobody knows if it really happened"

In the early nineties, before the internet made it so simpler to find elusive records and get infos about underground or forgotten artists, Lee Hazlewood's records were quite hard to find - especially if you weren't living in the US but in Paris, where almost no one had heard about him. Of course people there knew about Nancy Sinatra and her collaboration with Lee : These Boots was still a song being played on the radio, during parties, before gigs and, with some luck, you could score a battered copy of Nancy & Lee, their first album together.

Finding his solo records was more of a hunt with trails to follow. No one seemed to know they existed, it was as if they had fallen in a limbo somewhere between country music racks, psychedelic records, pop epehemera. Lee's music and singing didn't seem to belong anywhere and not even in a "crooners" section.

I actually found out about him through a fanzine called Pastelism, edited by Glasgow band The Pastels. In its first (and only ?) issue, there was an article (by Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening fame) about Lee and his solo albums, that gave me the impulse to go out and find anything i could get my hands on.

With luck, while scoring some of Paris second hand stores (shops that were specialized in "american imports" : e.g. their owners would buy tons of used vinyls from US stores and bring them back to Paris where they would sell for ten times their american value), I found Love and other crimes and Poet, Fool or Bum as well as a copy of Nancy and Lee Again. I listened to Love and other crimes all the time, from start to end and kept on reading the slim liner notes saying it had been recorded in Paris. that record was a perfect combination of straight pop and songwriter stuff, very melancholic at times and also very uplifting - it said many things about being in love, being alone, being young, getting old, findingyour ways around life. The other records I loved as well, especially the amazing Nancy and Me from Poet Fool or Bum, which also had Lee's version of Tom Waits' Days of Wine and Roses : both were heartbreaking songs, and Lee's deep voice gave them a special context as if he were both an actor and a spectator, involved and detached, sad and resilient.
What's more is that on each of his records that I managed to track down over the years I'd find something that influenced other musicians I loved, especially the Jesus and Mary Chain, who were my primal epiphany as a teenager looking forhis own different music.

Lee's records never failed me : Lee Hazlewoodism : its cause and cure, Trouble is a lonesome town, Forty, the cowboy and the lady were my favourites as they all had more than magical moments - some of their songs (even the ones that cover versions) were uplifting and tender, providing a painting of America that no one else ever cared about. Lee's americana was to me a bit like Scott Walker's vision of Europe : naïve and honest, complex and rewarding, full of love and passion for the people and places described within the songs.

Some years later, after my thirst for more of his recordings had been satisfied, I actually got to meet him. I interviewed him in Paris, in a crappy hotel basement. Our meeting took place around noon, which is the time when he switched from Coke to Whisky. I arrived my hands full of his LPs and he smiled ironically saying to his PR guy he thought he was meeting a journalist not a fan. He was very nice answering all my questions, though, with some distance, I still wonder whether I asked him the rightones. He ws nice, though I wish I knew how to make him talk a bit more. He was that kind of a guy, I guess, who thought his records contained everything he had to say. But, to me, they were just a part of a bigger mystery, that will remain, to my ears and understanding, forever unsolved. Better that way, I am sure.

the "fantômes de midi" CD was conceived to celebrate our appearance at the MIDI festival, which took place at the amazing Villa Noailles, Hyères.
The CD includes 10 unreleased tracks. This is an edition of 10 copies, handmade, handpainted, burned on the eve and day of the concert.

the concert itself was an invocation of dust ghosts and sun ghosts. Heavy winds were blowing by the end of the set.

a recent email interview with the black dog, i haven't had the chance to use anywhere else.

here it is, unedited, untouched.

>> 1-       What made you want to release the book of dogma ?

>> 

 

remastering the tunes with today's technology was something we all

felt was worthy of doing.

 

 

>> 2-       How do you feel about those early tracks now ?

>> 

 

they are out in the world, being listened to by people. thats all

we'd wanted for them,

so of course, i feel "good" about them. i feel honoured that people

still listen to stuff we

recorded nearly 20 years ago. given the fast and disposable pace of

the modern world, it's constantly surprising.

 

 

>> 3-       How did you feel about them at the time ? When did you

>> start to become aware of how influential they were ?

>> 

 

our sound didn't really gain a wider acceptance until 5 years after

bytes was released.

we made the tunes out of love. i think thats what we were feeling at

the time. there was

no thought for their future. just the here and now.

 

 

>> 4-       Please tell me about the time you composed and recorded

>> Virtual ? How did it come together ? What influenced at the

>> time ?  What were you listening to and reading ?

>> 

 

in the early days, we couldn't afford a studio, and had to hire in

all the equipment

we needed for a weekend.  so everything had to be finished from start

to end in

3 days. we were also interested in virtual reality and fractal

mathematics, which is

how the name bubbled up to the surface, and why a hypercube is on the

cover.

it was 10 minutes long, because thats as much time as we could fit on

a 12", and

still have good bass response.

 

 

>> 5-       How did the Black Dog work as a trio ? Why do you feel

>> the  other two had to also release records as Plaid ?

>> 

 

no comment.

 

 

>> 6-       There were lots of mysteries surrounding The black dog,

>> especially with many different names used (balil, etc.) : was it

>> a  conscious decision to be a ³mysterious² entity ?

>> 

 

there was a conscious decision not to be pinned down, or put into a

box, yes.

we also didn't want our photos to be in music magazines, grinning out

at people

like an idiot. because the aphex twin did that, and we thought he was

"mister self

publicity". fame and celebrity do not interest us. we weren't hiding.

we just couldn't

be bothered with it. some people found that "mysterious".  smile..

 

 

>> 7-       How do you feel today about Bytes and Spanners ? and

>> Temple of Transparent Balls ?

>> 

 

I still listen to them, and i like them a lot. as one would an arm or

leg.

but i also accept those times have gone, and they're not coming back.

 

 

>> 8-       Please, describe the ³black dog towers²

>> 

 

"And vast infinities away, past the Gate of Deeper Slumber and the

enchanted wood and the garden lands and the Cerenerian Sea and the

twilight reaches of Inganok, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep strode

brooding into the onyx castle atop unknown Kadath in the cold waste".

 

....it runs at night.

 

 

>> 9-       Have you ever felt connected with some other musicians

>> from your generation : Aphex Twin, Autechre ?

>> 

 

no, not really.

 

 

>> 10-   How do you perceive your musical evolution ? How would you

>> define the connection between the first era of Black Dog and today

>> 

 

it feels like something being unfolded. or the turning of a gigantic

wheel.

i can't see whats on the other side, but i know i will get there,

somehow.

 

 

>> 11-   Why call a record the Book of Dogma ?

>> 

 

because it's funny? the book of dogma is a collection of cabbalistic

quotations

we've built up over the years, and surrealism has always played a big

part in

what we do. so it all makes perfect sense to me.

 

 

>> 12-   Ever felt that your first recordings were too heavy a

>> legacy  to follow ?

>> 

 

no, not really. the first records were fun to make. when the music

stops being

fun it's time to not do it anymore. to be honest, we don't look back

at the past

at all. dealing with "the present", the here and now, is enough of a

challenge.

 

 

>> 13-   How do you imagine the future ? And has the present been

>> just  like you imagined it back in 89 ?

>> 

 

the future we have now is a sad travesty of the freedoms we all used

to enjoy.

the world has taken a huge retrograde step back into the paranoid

times of the

cold war, where you could trust no-one.  i find that really sad.

 

 

>> 14-   What are your next projects and what do you find inspiring

>> these days ?

>> 

 

i find the steppe nomads of outer Mongolia immensely inspiring.

it's a tough hard life, but they have nobody telling them what to do.

our next project is the "Radio Scarecrow" album.

 

thanks for your interest.