The legendary François Guillemot, the vindictive and mocking voice of Bérurier Noir, presents in Montreal the first show of his new project, No Suicide Act. An invitation to shout Yes Future in the gloomy face of a world that badly needs the vital energy of punk.
No Suicide Act, François Guillemot’s new project, contains the word suicide, but it is the no that precedes it that is important, essential. When he discovered punk in the late 1970s, attending shows in Paris by the Ramones, Blondie, The Clash, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, the young man was seized by a powerful discharge of life.
His most memorable show? That of the New York synth-punk duo Suicide, to which the name No Suicide Act is obviously a nod, on July 12, 1979 at the Bains Douches, a legendary nightclub on the 3e arrondissement. “Suicide played three nights, but I only had money to go once,” says Guillemot, aka François Béru, aka Fanxoa, reached at his home in Lyon. “It was a completely unpredictable concert, Alan Vega [le chanteur] was dangerous as a character, in the sense that you never knew where it was going to go.”
“All these bands taught me that the body had an important place in the way you lead a concert,” he continues, recalling an Iggy Pop show at the Palace in 1979, then another by Joy Division in England in 1980, seen not long before its singer Ian Curtis killed himself.
It’s something I integrated unconsciously, a kind of vital energy that punk imposes. It was both a great freedom and a way of asserting oneself in society.
François Béru
Punk, the soundtrack of a nihilistic youth? For Bérurier Noir, the group he founded in 1983, the English No Future would quickly be subverted into Yes Future. Funny to say, but nevertheless true: there was hope in several of the Bérus anthems, starting in this Hello to you prophesying the advent of a human brotherhood transcending borders.
A hope embraced by No Suicide Act, the new duo that Fanxoa, 61, forms with saxophonist Madsaxx. “We are the mistakes of globalization,” he shouts in I am a mistakeconvulsive extract of‘Interbelluma first minimalist and noisy album to be released on September 6, which calls for solidarity with all the oppressed.
« Oui, il y a une forme d’optimisme chez moi, reconnaît Fanxoa. Je me souviens d’une amie qui animait une émission sur une radio libre qui s’appelait Pessimisme combatif. On peut difficilement ne pas être pessimiste, face au monde dans lequel on vit, mais il faut aussi relever la tête. La terre va mal, mais le bon accord de guitare sur le bon mot peut déjà ouvrir une fenêtre. »
« La jeunesse emmerde le Front national »
Bérurier Noir, actif de 1983 à 1989, puis de 2003 à 2006, n’a jamais vraiment cessé d’exister dans le cœur d’une France dont une partie de chaque génération aura adopté ses refrains-slogans. C’était le cas durant les élections législatives de juin et juillet derniers, alors que face à la montée du Rassemblement national ressurgissait une formule intempestive scandée en 1988 à la fin de Porcherie : La jeunesse emmerde le Front national.
PHOTO CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT, ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Une manifestation anti-Rassemblement national à Bordeaux le 10 juin dernier
« Moi, ça m’a surpris », confie un Guillemot dépité par un président Macron « dont l’exercice du pouvoir a été le contraire de ce qu’il préconisait » et déçu par une gauche ayant « du mal à produire un discours entendable par une population dont la gorge est serrée par l’économie ».
« Ce qui m’a fait plaisir, c’est que c’était beaucoup de jeunes filles sur TikTok qui s’emparaient de ce slogan, qui se mettaient en scène en nous singeant, pour répondre à Jordan Bardella [président du Rassemblement national] who had bet everything on social networks.
Back on a Quebec stage for the first time since the Fiesta Berrurière on July 11, 2004, which saw 50,000 agitators cause a mud carnival – a joyful mess! – on the Plains of Abraham during the Quebec Summer Festival, Fanxoa chose the Foufounes électriques to present the first show of No Suicide Act, simply because Quebec is dear to him.
PHOTO ROBERT MAILLOUX, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Fanxoa and Micky de Bérurier Noir, in October 1989, at the Spectrum in Montreal
He even almost settled in Montreal in the early 2000s, when he launched Rout Notebook (2001), the only album by François Béru and the Anges Déchus, a group formed with Sylvain David (guitar) and Jef (Jean-François Désourdy, drums) from the defunct Longueuil group Banlieue Rouge.
A historian specializing in Vietnam at the National Center for Scientific Research, François Guillemot has collaborated over the last few years in bringing Bérurier Noir’s archives to the National Library of France, which last February devoted an exhibition to what can easily be described as the greatest French punk group.
Isn’t there a risk of stripping this subculture of its subversive charge by letting these noble institutions open their doors to it? “French universities,” he replies, “have finally understood that punk and alternative music is a real subject of research, which can produce interesting academic stories, whereas it has long been considered not serious.”
“But we had big discussions internally,” adds the man who is still good friends with all the former Bérus. “Loran [guitariste] was rather against the idea of the BnF, I was for it, but it is my training as a historian that makes me understand that it is of interest to those who will study us later. Loran, for his part, has the look of someone who wants to burn everything, for whom our time on earth is ephemeral. We have divergent points of view, but that does not prevent our friendship from being unwavering.
“And we must remember,” he concludes wisely, “that we are lucky to live in a relatively democratic society. Being a punk in Iran is more complicated.”
No Suicide Act, September 7 at Foufounes électriques during Droogs Fest