The Franco-Afghan musician and producer has just released “The Alminders”, a first dystopian novel on technological abuses. Co -founder of the Taxi Girl group, he looks back on this photo taken in 1983, when he and Daniel Darc were in the hollow of the wave.
by clementine goldszal
This photo was taken in 1983 by our friend Mathilde Malaval, the daughter of the painter Robert Malaval, who had a little bit introduced to photography, and I remember where we were: Street Joseph-de-Maison, in the 18th e arrondissement, towards the Caulaincourt bridge. This is the place where we ended up with the members of Taxi Girl when we played candy pink, but, at the time of the photo, we were only two. I lived towards Guy-Môquet, Daniel [Darc, right] lived with his parents, rue Cauchois. Pierre [Wolfsohn, the drummer] was died in July 1981 of an overdose, in full success of looking for the boy , which was a little cooling …
We had released Stéphane [Erard] and Laurent [Sinclair] was no longer in the group since the end of 1982, after the English tour. So there were two of us to continue and we became more and more radical. We had been one of the first groups to sign at Virgin and we gave the direction of this label a bit that accompanied the emergence of modern French music, but we had been ripped off by our manager and we did not have a cent. Daniel and I have to see where we came from, we were far from being rich … I spent a large part of my life getting back financially. This photo is also that, once luck has passed…
magnetic alliance
In the early 1980s, we had experienced an immense ascension phase. Everyone wanted us, Indochina made our first games … But we didn’t care. Afterwards, when everyone was waiting for a looking for the boy, we made Seppuku, a very experimental album. This photo is at the time of this reflux. Virgin had signed phone, then Richard Cocciante, he had gone to Variet’Branché. We were out of the frame musically and there was no more room for us, the drug addicts.
At 14, I took LSD, Shit, glue, but I was doing bad trips and, above all, I had a project, a great group to develop, so I stopped everything. Unlike Daniel. In the hollow of the wave, we got closer. But he never had anything to do with music; He wanted to walk in the street and take himself for Kerouac. Even on the photo, he poses! Now, we describe it as an angel and all those who have really known him are dead, but it was a filou. As I composed a large part of the songs, he needed me and, I needed a singer because I was not Frontman. But this alliance cost me psychically. After the group’s stop, in 1986, we only saw each other again or twice.
The khôl on my eyes, I happened to put it. I am of Pachtoune origin and it is very widespread with us. Before Taxi Girl, I was a poor guy, a political refugee waiting in the cold for hours, Porte de Clignancourt, in front of the OFPRA offices, to make his residence permit. My father was an intellectual who had organized resistance in his country, but no one cared for Afghanistan. Maurice G. Dantec, who became a writer but played in the Artefact group, at the time of the candy pink, was crypto-communist and completely defended the invasion of Afghanistan by the Russians. We came to hands! In short, 1983, it was a difficult time, but I like this photo. She has long been in my library.