Entrevista en audio

[zopa]

Aquí en este link, y también os acompaño la traducción al inglés, cortesía de Lahavana, del foro Blah Blah Cafe:

http://www.france-info.com/chroniques-tout-et-son-contraire-2009-10-28-jean-michel-jarre-defenseur-d-un-bon-son-361902-36-38.html

Part 1:
Phillipe Vandell - PV
Jean Michel Jarre - JMJ

PV: Jean Michel Jarre, good afternoon!

JMJ: Good afternoon!

PV: You are a musician, composer, you are perhaps the best known French musician around the world, with more than 60 million albums sold, a planetary mega-hit (? "mega-tube"? that's what I heard, but probably my ears can't recognise the word...) "Oxygene", giant concerts everywhere around the world: Paris, Beijing, Houston, London, the Pyramids in Egypt, Moscow and many others. And now you have announced a French tour, beginning in March, but the tickets are already for sale, we shall see and hear you at Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseille, Nice, Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, and I emphasize that because we have grown accustomed to your free concerts. What does that change for you?

JMJ: Yes, well, it's less the matter of free or paid tickets but more a matter of out-door concerts...

PV: Well, the 1 million spectators at Place de la Concorde didn't have to pay their seats

JMJ: No, but at the Docklands concerts, people had to pay for their seats.

PV: Really? How many seats?

JMJ: 400.000.

PV: 400.000 seats with charge!

JMJ: Yes, 2 times 200.000.

PV: I will ask a rude question now: What did you do with the money? I mean, 400.000 paid seats!

JMJ: Well, at that time, the promoter left with all the money...

PV: That can't be true!... Really?...

JMJ: Yes it is - it beat the record in cash flow, and at the same time, it beat the record in scams.

PV: And how much was a seat?

JMJ: About 15 pounds, I think, 20-15 pounds.

PV: So, 10 euros?

JMJ: Yes, that's it.

PV: So, the guy left with 4.000.000 euros!

JMJ: Yeah, and we're still looking for him, well, it's a long story about the Docklands...

PV: You've entered the Guinness Book three times, Jean Michel Jarre. With what title?

JMJ: Well, there was an Audience record for Houston 1,5 milion people, then the concert in Moscow, 3,5 milion people, and for the disc I've made, which has been sold in one single copy, an album that was sold in an auction in the beginning of the CD era, as an act of protest against the industrialisation of CDs and the fact that CDs were sold like yogurt in supermarkets and that was like some sort of premonition, because we've seen it happen some years later, well it was actually not a good sign.

PV: You are saying, and rightfully so, regarding technology, that the CD is already obsolete, that it has filled the place of the VHS.

JMJ: Yes, it was obsolete even from the very moment it was launched, because it was a lot less good than the vinyl-

PV: Oh, that's (I suppose the word, which I couldn't understand, means something like "mean", "unfair") . It doesn't get scratched, you can borrow them, clean them up if you drop jam on them...

JMJ: Yes, I know, but it's the same difference as that between a woman with make-up and a woman sliced into pieces. The vinyl is a woman wearing make-up, while with the CD, you simply "cut up" the sound into large pieces-

PV: That's called sampling (is there another meaning he means to give to "echantillonage"?)

JMJ: Yes, sampling, and that's a blunt sampling, and I think that the CD is responsible for the crisis of the music industry because, in the end, it insidiously cast people away from the media - not from music itself, but from the way you are supposed to listen to music - we pay a lot less attention nowadays to the way we listen to music: on the mobile phone, on the plastic speakers on our laptops, and in the end, the emotional liaison with music and its media, this liaison is considerably less generous, and I hold the CD very responsible of that.

PV: When you think of Record companies and the illegal downloading, you say... you cry at their side or do you feel that they deserve it - they should have seen it coming?

JMJ: None of that - I think that, obviously, on the one hand, they should have seen it coming but then knowing that people in the music industry are in fact the ones that have invented the pirate radios and then, 20 years later they're thrown in prison, you realize that something's wrong, something isn't working anymore and I think that from the beginnings of downloading, they should have planted viruses in all hard-disks, the "smiley-we-love-you" type and the pirating teenagers would have immediately stepped away and said "We don't touch the music-people because they're part of the family". Instead the music industry made the mistake of thinking that "now we're settled" and they proceeded to chasing down the teenagers that download illegally. I think that's what troubled the world of music.

PV: Jean Michel Jarre is here with us on France-Info, do not go away, we'll be right back.

[ZZERO]

Ignoraba que en los conciertos de Docklands le hubieran metido un sablazo en la caja registradora a JARRE. Desde luego encima de puta, apaleada. No tuvo suficiente con enfrentarse a la Corte Suprema Inglesa para que le permitieran llevar a cabo los conciertos, actuar bajo la lluvia dos días y tener que tocar con el gafotas hortera de HANK MARVIN, sino que además lo dejaron con una mano delante y otra atrás...

[zopa]

Aquí van las otras dos partes de la entrevista, de nuevo cortesía de Lahavana:

Part 2

PV: Jean Michel Jarre is here with us, musician and composer, known world-wide for his music and his gigantic concerts. It was most striking to me when you said that it's a lot more modest to do a giant concert than to climb on stage and perform all alone, with a guitar.

JMJ: Well, that's true, because when you are out-doors, well, in the out-door concerts that I've made, you are part of a scenography and a group and a certain order of things and it's true that, coming on stage with your guitar, in front of 2 or 3 thousand persons and see that people focus their attention on your during 2 or 3 hours' time, that is, in the end, a quite megalomaniac act.

PV: Do you play for real or are there machines and instruments that play-

JMJ: As a matter of fact, I'm glad you ask this question because, now, in the era of technology, there are more and more concerts that are pre-mixed, pre-recorded for reasons which usually regard technical problems, we want everything to go smooth, no accidents, mistakes etc. Everything that I do is totally live and on air, with all the accidents that might occur and there's four of us on stage, with about 60 or 70 keyboards. I've had a quite notable incident, with two Moogs that simply went berserk and it took some 2-3 minutes to recover what I was playing and the people felt it and started encouraging and applauding-

PV: Just one word - that these are old synths, from the '70s that sometimes fall out of tune or cause incidents out of the blue.

JMJ: Exactly, and well, in fact, these risks, in a time when we're so afraid of accidents, we've formatted so much and in a society that' so... smooth, these accidents are actually linked to a creative process and in the end, they make some sort of complicity between you and the public and of course in a show there should be less and less pre-recorded music and of course if you go on stage for a concert, things should sound different. That's what I do in this tour - from one evening to another, concerts will be different, with different track-lists, different songs.

PV: You've also been a song-writer for Cristophe and Patrick Juvet. It was you, Jean Michel Jarre, that made the lyrics for "Le mots bleues" and for "Ou sont les femmes"

JMJ: The Gay Pride Hymn, I very much claim my rights on that one.

PV: And do you still get the copyright for that?

JMJ: Of course.

PV: That's extraordinary! That's-

JMJ: We've entered a system where everyone thinks that music should be free or charge therefore we should be able to reach a minimum of rights some time now.

PV: The ex-wife of the Minister of Immigration Eric Besson, speaks about you in her book - are you aware of this fact?

JMJ: Not at all.

PV: Well, not at all because you're not up-to-date or because you've cowardly abandoned your girlfriend, Isabelle Adjani for a younger woman?

JMJ: Oh, that I didn't know at all. That story is history already now.

PV: Well, in the book it says that Jean Michel Jarre has cowardly abandoned Isabelle Adjani because she was too old.

JMJ: (laughs) That's very unpleasant for Isabelle Adjani. In any case, this is a non-event for me and I think I've spoken enough about it at the time-

PV: It might have been a non-event, but it held first page all summer long in 2004. How did you live that down?

JMJ: I lived through it pretty rough, because I wasn't used to this kind of situation, especially a situation in which, in the end, you just meet someone, you live together for a while and you're not married, there are no children, so there are no victims. When you enter a relationship, if the two parties involved want to make it work, then it works, if not, then it's a responsibility of both people involved. Therefore, I don't feel at all that this entire campaign really concerns me, but still, what hurt me was that my children and my family were involved, it was something that I didn't take so well, but apart from that, I've nothing else to say.

PV: Let us change the subject, be back in a bit, with Jean Michel Jarre on France-Info.

[zopa]

PV: Jean Michel Jarre is with us, on France-Info. A lot of things were written in the press about you - sometimes false, sometimes not so false. One of the things I've read - is it true that your father, composer Maurice Jarre, admired you greatly but he's never listened to any of your albums?

JMJ: I think that both facts are false. Not necessarily the fact that he admired me that much, but he did listen though to my albums.

PV: You've performed big concerts in Beijing. Is it true that at your last concert you were given an illiterate taxi-driver that knew nothing of Beijing?

JMJ: No. No,no,no,no.

PV: It's a title from Paris Match.

JMJ: No, I don't think so, no, not at all. I don't remember any such thing. There a lot less illiterate Chinese people, because the school system works a lot more better now. So, no, not at all. On the contrary, I had a driver... I was given an interpreter who spoke French in a Lyon accent - and I found that incredibly polite.

PV: Oh la - and how can you find a Chinese that speaks French in a Lyon accent?

JMJ: Simply because he had done some studies there.

PV: You are born in '48. That's no secret.

JMJ: That's right.

PV: You always have this perpetual adolescent look. It's incredible. You look younger than (I can't understand) you even look younger than me, and I don't really understand how you manage to look like that. And you have been, obviously, often asked about the secret of your youthful look and you have answered: "If I were to believe the mass-media, it's about my sexuality. It is said that when you sit upside-down, that relieves the blood-flow". What was that all about? (Indeed, WTF?!)

JMJ: It's true - actually that's a Chinese proverb (LOL) If you hang upside-down, your blood-flow will be improved in your veins. I don't know if that is true, but-

PV: So you don't believe in that at all?

JMJ: Not at all.

PV: So you've said that as a joke?

JMJ: Actually I have tried it-

PV: You have, have you?

JMJ: -but not long enough to see if it does cause any effects.

PV: How do you sit yourself upside-down?

JMJ: Just like that, well, it's complicated. I can't explain on the radio, we'd need to be on TV for that.

PV: No, no, no miming, just explain.

JMJ: Just, just stand upside down and that's all.

PV: And does (I don't understand who or what! dammit :P ) have to be upside-down as well? Or only you?

JMJ: (laughs) Not necessarily. It'd be funny.

PV: Is it true that you've studied, in '68, Law, Chemistry and Linguistics?

JMJ: Yes, it's true that it hasn't been spoken so much about this formidable period of time, in '68, when there was such a chaos that you could do almost anything. Me, I did music, but I approached my studies and the university by doing exactly the things that I was interested in: a bit of Chemistry, a bit of Law, some Literature.

PV: And there are reasons for which Chemistry goes well with Literature...?

JMJ: Yes, they go very well, it's totally coherent.

PV: And what did the teachers say?

JMJ: "You absolutely anything you want". There was a moment- well, it is important, at a certain point, to just do something and to be able not to have to choose too early and I think that's actually something from which a lot of children would benefit.

PV: Is it true that you still remember your topic for the Philosophy exam during your Baccalaureate?

JMJ: Yes, I've always and will always remember: it was a phrase by Nietzsche " It is not doubt, but certainty which drives us mad".

PV: Very nice concept. And do you agree?

JMJ: Totally.

PV: And one last question, something to delve into deeper memories: I think that the (again, i don't understand, but you'll understand out of context) made everyone dream, all those that started to listen electrophone-music - spoiled yet beautiful. Is it true that it was your grandfather that invented the basic turntable?

JMJ: Yes, the basic turntable - well, it appeared a little bit after the war - this type of turntable that had some tweed-looking plastic texture on it and had it's speaker in the lid. Yes, it is very true, and sweet and of course, I'm very proud.

PV: And one last travel down the memory lane: what are your most beautiful memories (again I don't understand)

JMJ: Yes, I got two: Apache, by the Shadows and What I said, by Ray Charles.

[ZZERO]

Joder, el puto entrevistador se ha currado la entrevista y le ha echado un par de huevos con asuntos peliagudos como su ruptura con la ADJANI. Se ve que el tipo ha hecho una labor periodistica antes desentarse delante de JARRE a preguntarle cosas.

INteresantísimos los detalles sobre los estudios de JARRE, el abuelete inventor del tocadiscos y esa postura rara "upside-down" para fomentar la circulación sanguínea. Lástima que JARRE siempre tenga que meter la pata de una u otra manera, y cuando le preguntan si hace playback se haga el desmemoriado, olvide sus infames playbacks y se escude en lo que hace actualmente.

Pero bueno, genial entrevista. Si un día me cruzo con el autor de la misma le invito a un par de birras y además las pago.