You've probably been following (via On The Record) the adventures of Bell X1 (right) in the USA.

With the States slayed, the Celbridge band's next objective is to conquer the old continent. In April and May, Bell X1 will be supporting Nada Surf on the latter's European tour.

The two bands will be calling to Spain, Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands... and it all kicks off in France, where Nada Surf have always been more than one-hit wonders.

After rolling off the ferry at Cherbourg, Bell X1 will be down the road at Caen on 21 April. The following night they hit Paris, with a show at the Bataclan - a lovely ballroom-style hall in the hip Rue Oberkampf part of town.

The French leg of the tour ends with a concert in Lyon on April 26.

With luck, the three French dates should help Bell X1 to build on their current exposure in France. 'Flock' has just been released here on the Rykodisc label and is on the listening posts of the bigger record stores. What's more, 'Flame' and 'Just Like Mr Benn' have been getting airplay on Paris radio.

And no, none of the French DJs have called the band "Bell Onze".

What the DJs have been mentioning without fail, though, is Bell X1's link to Damien Rice. Their former Juniper bandmate is very popular in France, a country which always loves sensitive artists - especially those visitors who do their interviews in French, like Damo does. We don't know if Paul Noonan spent as much time on his French homework as he obviously did studying 'Soundings'.

You can check out the full Bell X1 European tour schedule on their MySpace page. Here's 'Alphabet Soup', which features a reference to an Irishwoman who spent a lot of time in France:

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While everyone in England has been chattering about Madame Sarkozy, here in Paris all the talk is about a different female pop star and pin-up.

The big music news in France isn't the Teenagers album or summer festival line-ups. No, word on the boulevard is about two 2009 stadium shows by France's biggest female singing star, Mylène Farmer (right). The Quebec-born singer is often referred to as the French Madonna, for reasons that will become apparent as you read on.
 
We don't need to spend much time discussing her art: it's bland Pet Shop Boys/Dido-esque synth-pop that hasn't changed much since she started selling millions of units in the mid-'80s. Apart from her music, though, Farmer is a highly entertaining character whose story includes controversy, tragedy and mass hysteria. In other words, a proper pop star.
 
Born near Montreal in 1961, Mylène Gautier changed her surname to that of Frances Farmer, the American actress today remembered only for her psychiatric problems. Moving to France as a child, young Mylène moved from modelling to acting before meeting her future partner Laurent Boutonnat, who kickstarted her musical career by co-writing her singles and directing her videos.
 
As was the vogue in the '80s, Farmer's videos were epic productions, usually Barry Lyndon-esque costume dramas of over ten minutes. Costumes were often optional, however. The promo for 'Libertine' features what is considered to be the first full-frontal nude video appearance by a pop star. In a more recent video, 'L'Amour N'est Rien', she performs a complete strip-tease. Another video, for 'Je Te Rends Ton Amour', features Farmer as a blind woman raped and crucified in a church. And controversial film-maker Abel Ferrera directed the video for 'California', with Farmer playing a prostitute who murders her pimp.

The songs were just as provocative, often with sexual references or Lolita-esque characters. Farmer's shock-value and saucy image fuelled her incredible success - to date she has sold over 25 million albums worldwide.

Being a scantily-clad pop star meant that Farmer inevitably attracted stalkers. In 1991 one deranged fan arrived at her record company's Paris offices, demanding to see her. On being told that Farmer was not there, the man produced a gun and held the staff hostage. The situation ended tragically, with the stalker killing a receptionist before shooting himself dead.

The incident persuaded Farmer to move to California and live in near-reclusion. Her subsequent career has been conducted with minimum public appearances; typically, one press conference or interview per album or tour. This has only served to intensify the hysteria and speculation surrounding her.

Farmer is back in the news this week, with the announcement of 2 concerts at the Stade de France in Paris in September 2009 (yes, a year and a half from now). With depressing predictability, the posters (left) that are now plastered all over the Paris metro have raised some controversy.

They depict Farmer sprawled in a car park - according to some critics, suggesting that she has been either run over by a car, raped or has fallen from a height. Seeing the poster for ourselves, those are debatable interpretations - but once again Farmer has generated massive publicity for herself by doing very little.

So, for the most part Farmer's records are nothing worth hearing. There's one exception - we've already featured a fantastic single called 'Moi Lolita' (a predictably 'shocking' Farmer title) that she wrote for her protegé, a teen singer called Alizée. The 2001 single was a Top Ten hit in the UK and received plenty of daytime airplay in Ireland. Apart from the dubious lyrics, it's a brilliant piece of disco-pop.

Here's one of the rare not-awful Farmer songs, accompanied by an even rarer video where Farmer keeps her clothes on (the snow-covered setting was probably a factor there). As if to compensate for the lack of nudity, this 2005 song is heavy on the curse-words. It's called 'F*** Them All' and in France there were no asterisks or bleeps. The song is in French except for the chorus (the title, shouted) and a venomous English middle section. Imagine our thrill at hearing this on Saturday-morning kids TV:

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The Fondation Cartier is one of the hippest and most interesting cultural exhibition spaces in Paris. The building itself - all glass and greenery - is impressive yet intimate. Similarly, its shows are ambitious but always accessible and informative.

Your blogger saw the excellent 'Rock n'Roll 39-59' exhibition there last summer. And this spring the Fondation Cartier rocks out again, as it presents a selection of visual work by rock icon Patti Smith (right).

The exhibition is centred on Smith's photography. Unlike the sharp, provocative images of Robert Mapplethorpe (who took the famous cover shot of Smith for her 'Horses' album), her black and white Polaroid pictures are often blurred and impressionistic, making the viewer fill in the details and outlines.

One interesting series of photos depicts personal belongings of artists who influenced her: Mapplethorpe's slippers, Virginia Woolf's bed and Herman Hesse's typewriter. The viewer's instinct is to work back from the possession to its celebrated owner.

The show also features drawings and films made by Smith since her teens.

Though Smith and her music evoke late-'70s New York, her personal inspiration has come largely from Paris. Famously, she has spoken of Rimbaud as a major influence on her lyrics, creating new interest in the French poet. She first came to Paris in 1969, and drawings from that period can be seen in the show.

Among all the Frenchness there's an Irish contribution to Smith's exhibition. Kevin Shields has collaborated on an audio piece called 'The Coral Sea'.

As well as the visual exhibits, there are a number of live music events at the centre during the show's run. To kick things off, the lady herself will perform readings and music dedicated to Virginia Woolf. On 6 April Smith will be joined by longtime associates Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan for an acoustic concert. Other concerts during the exhibition period will feature Tom Verlaine and Jeffrey Lewis.

The show runs from 28 March until 22 June.  

Here's some vintage live action from Patti Smith, performing 'Free Money' live in Stockholm in 1976:

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Last Friday being March 21, this Easter weekend was officially the start of spring. Paris is famous for being beautiful in springtime - and your blogger can confirm that the city looks and feels fantastic at the moment.

At lunchtime today the sun was shining. We strolled down the Champs-Elysées, where the trees were beginning to show new leaves. Across Place de la Concorde to the Tuileries, with the Musée d'Orsay to the right across the river and the Louvre straight ahead. The Seine was swollen with brown water from faraway mountains; artists sat on the bank sketching the Ile de la Cité with swooping pencil strokes. Most of the weekend tourists had left for home, so both banks were relatively quiet. Bliss was it in that afternoon to be alive...

...and then around four o'clock a large black rubbish bag of a cloud tore open and spilled rain on everyone. Back to work tomorrow, then.

If you live in Paris, springtime is also when you start dreaming of escape from the city. If you listen carefully over the din of traffic on the boulevards, you can hear fresh new grass rustling in the mountain breeze, bicycle wheels whirring down country lanes, church bells ringing over villages and valleys.

There's a song on the radio these days which captures this longing to burst out of the city and into the country. Poney Express (left) are a duo, Anna and Robin. They make the sort of breezy acoustic pop that lots of French acts seem to be exploring these days (Cocoon being our favourite).

Aside from his Poney Express work, Robin is the bass player with popular French indie band Louise Attaque. Popular, that is, except with your Paris correspondent. In our very first French Letter article, back in January 2006, we named them as being among the chief culprits in making the tuneless, joyless rock that dominated the French scene on our arrival. Thankfully, we've found loads of brilliant French pop since then - and Robin's new act is higher in melodies and joie de vivre than his old one.

The song we're talking about, 'Paris De Loin' ('Paris from afar'), exudes this desire to escape the capital. It opens with a pulsating bassline full of adrenaline, and then bursts free with acoustic strumming and brushed drumming like those whirring bicycle wheels we described above. By the time Anna and her breathy voice gets to the opening line ("Quitter Paris..." - 'Leave Paris...') you're already miles away in some rural paradise, drinking wine and eating fine food in the sunshine.

Poney Express have plenty other nice songs which you can hear on their MySpace page. In May they'll be supporting Jonathan Richman when the great man tours France before visiting Ireland. Which reminds us that there's an Irish connection to Poney Express - Sean O'Hagan arranged the strings on 'Daisy Street', their forthcoming album. 

There's no official video yet for 'Paris De Loin', but someone in the YouTube community has obliged with the customary song + still photo home-made video. And here's an acoustic version of the song that the pair performed for the Takeaway Shows:

Paris De Loin

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There's been a wave of vitriol from China's state media in the midst of the ongoing trouble in Tibet and among ethnic Tibetans accross China. State media dispenses of its considerable army of foreign editors  ("polishers" in state speak) in cases like this and lets loose with a bunch of nasty phrases culled from Charles Dickens era novels which hints at the age of the scribes - usually the old guard is trusted for the hatchet job. My favourite line comes from Xinhua news agency: the Dalai Lama's description of China's cultural genocide in Tibet were a "tale of a tub," reported the agency, using Johnathan Swift-era English in reports carried accross the state controlled press. China's media ignored the Lhasa riots for a few days, then came out with a wave of TV and print reports which focused on the damage done to Han Chinese properties in Lhasa.

"We can say Tibetan culture has never been so flourish (sic) as today," the reports quoted a local official as saying, more proofs that the polishers weren't trusted on this dispatch.  

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