EXTRABALLE - Extraballe

EXTRABALLE Extraballe lp 1979
Good Night Dresden / Quand la ville dort / 1000 km en U.R.S.S. / Abri / Monde souterrain / Wild Boys / Je pense à Sid / In the goldmine / Lovetrap / Retour dans la grosse pomme.
Produced by R. Millar
Extraballe: J. R. Jovenet (r.i.p): vocals, guitar / M. Peyronel: drums, vocals, keyboards / L. Carabine: guitar / M. Ward: bass, vocals / N. Sykes: keyboards.
"It was a few years ago and Paris was a different city, encounters were easier, there's always been a rough edge to the place but in 1978, there was still a collective Spirit that contributed to make things Happen.
That's when I decided to form EXTRABALLE , as soon as I met with Michel PEYRONEL.
EXTRABALLE was created by Energy , thru' Energy , for Energy. And the name really means that you always have a second chance,there's always a second take... on things , Life, etc... you shoot again , because there are no limits except the ones of your own decay that can stop you.
Even Karma IS not irreversible , you take my word for it, I thought I was doomed and damned for Real, for Years but some Daikinis must have intervened...
We were now signed and produced by Elektra and published by Warner's.
With all accessories and utilities , we soon found ourselves at the gates of the Château d'Hérouville. David Bowie was just finishing the Idiot album with Iggy Pop and the masters of the Low album were still just there on the shelves.
The library Room @ the Château was a trip and a half with Van Gogh and Chopin's ghosts having dramaramas, both had spent time nearby and incidently the weirdest stuff would manifest in that place.
Le Château d'Hérouville was a very special spot and one day the experience of recording the magical take of "In the Gold Mine "when the Sun was just rising is still memory stored for ever.
" Retour dans la Grosse Pomme " was the Hit single that kept us 22 weeks in Europe 1's charts. Then the award at Midem in 1980 for best french group of the year landed like a cherry on the cake.
We visted many times RTL's Video studios in Luxembourg , to shoot those tracks and gigs were plenty.
A lot of pressure was piling up, Murray Ward had replaced Olivier on bass and Nick Sykes, the english keyboard player who had just finished playing on the "Broken English" Marianne Fairhfull's album came to join during those sessions for this first Extraballe alabum on Elektra.
This line up with a heavier stucture needed more back up
This ended with our signing with Super boss Alain Levy on Columbia.
It was obvious that this new profile implied a lot of changes and I was forced to upgrade the line up of the band for the following album:"Sales Romances", the first album recorded for C.B.S.
One Huge Mistake ! I should have said "NO" to all those changes when Warner's publishing was not even communicating well anymore with C.B.S.
With Lolita , rebaptised Loilita Carabine and Olivier Huret becoming Olivier Hurt ...
with such a casting, we had a winning hand.
We traded Mercedes Benz's trucks and cars from Germay to Paris and AKS moogs from London that were rare in "the frog pond" to purchase the best possible music gear... Red and Purle or White Marshall Amps, Ludwig Drums, U name it we had all the tools.
We rehearsed until the end of Spring 1978, then I went to Finland to write most of what was to become the material of the first album.
EXTRABALLE pragmatical and strategic: Exit London 1 : to record the first maxi Single.
Danny Peyronel , Michel's brother, was playing keyboards with the Heavy Metal Kids and he made all very easy for us to achieve this first recording.The other main factor was the encounter with Robin Millar. ( Mick Taylor's brother in law).
I still have in mind Robin playing all the lead guitar parts of this first EP songs, he was playing and I was pretty much just shouting the chords changes... surreal..."Johnny la Hyène", "Capitulation" or "Haute tension",@ Matrix studios , Great Russell Street was in Awe...,ask Nigel, he was and still is Matrix and Maison Rouge studios's boss.
Meanwhile, I was living in Shepherd's Bush in a freezer of a flat and we were rehearsing in Camden, under the arches of the Stables, was Atlanta studios, Billy Idol and Generation X used to rehearse there too.
In 1978 Camden was a different sight :BSA's , Norton and Indian bikes , scrapyards, carbreakers, industrial post war slums...
A long shot from Michel 's residence in St Germain des Prés.... I was living in that hood too, it made sense then... Soon we were to become the resident act @ the Campagne Première theater anf from this point all started to flow like a Wild River.
This place was the Ultimate weapon and allowed us to appear quickly on bigger stages , such as the Bataclan to front the Stranglers and many other venues where we got a lot of exposure, hence a lot of good reviews. We sold each and every copy of this limited edion EP ...5000 copies, eventually with Extraballe FLAMINGO RECORDS became NEW ROSE, a label that did a lot for many bads under Patrick Mathé's Influence..." Source
To be continued... read the following here!
Buy Extraballe stuff HERE or HERE!
J. R. Rovenet (r.i.p) died in London a few months ago...he would have turned 60 in 2012.
A lire aussi l'article de C. Eudeline consacré à Jean Robert Rovenet et Extraballe dans le N° 535 de Rock & Folk.