Metal Urbain - Paris Maquis

Metal Urbain, "Paris Maquis" (YSI link)

Metal Urbain, "Clé de Contact" (YSI link)

Let's stay in Paris (oh, if only that were literal) for the rest of this week. Cool? Good. I wanted to turn to another one of those bands that has the dreaded label of 'influential,' Metal Urbain. Paris isn't exactly known as a punk epicenter, but there was a tiny scene there during that punk period of the late 70s. The big fish in that small pond was Metal Urbain, a band that didn't get a whole lot of attention but was way ahead of the curve in terms of predicting the electro punk sound with synths and electronics that would start to happen in the 80s.

We're going to do a little retrospective over the next few days of the band's small output (what I have of it), I want to start out short and sweet. Paris Maquis is their second release and it was a landmark at that, the first 7" on Rough Trade Records, released in 1977. It's not as interesting as their later ones, when the electronic element comes to the forefront more. This is punk music, loud, fast and pissed off. However, you'll also notice the drum machine in use, giving it a nice mechanical vibe that works against the furious vocals of Clode Panik. I will talk a lot more about the music and band in future posts, just want to get the ball rolling.

Also, in honor of that "Fasciste!," I wanted to get the word out about the latest atrocity and attack on women's rights in the form of a new proposal by the Health and Human Services that allows any health care employee to refuse to provide a treatment they object to, from abortion to contraception to anything else. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Cecile Rodgers have a nice op-ed today in the Times about this (thanks JH-B!) that spells it all out. This amazing post at Daily Kos by Elise goes into much greater detail and explains the ways that you can voice your protest on this proposal. If that's too much reading, just go and sign the petitions at Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and NARAL. Let's do this people! Pro-choice! Yeah! All you fascists bound to lose!