User:The Grid/FCFDTD

Notes of information from the book: French Connections: From Discotheque to Discovery

Daft Punk

Influences

A bunch of musical artists is presented in the book as possible influences for Daft Punk. Some of these musical artists include:

• Taxi Girl (page 98)
• Giorgio Moroder (page 100)

Tidbits

• When the duo finished their debut album, Homework, they invited a small selection of six people to the first playback of the album. DJ Deep was one of the six people. (page 107)
• Reasons for staying mysterious (page 265)
• Darlin' band: Bangalter played bass, Guy Manuel played guitar while under the group, and Laurent Brancowitz played drums. (page 265)
• Pedro Winter became Daft Punk's manager in 1996 (page 266)
• Have been called the "Parisian Chemical Brothers" which deepens Daft Punk's mistrust in the media (page 267)
• Signed up with Virgin but made a deal that they license their tracks through their production company, Daft Trax (page 268)
• Very picky about doing remixes. They don't do it for the money. (page 271)
• Thomas quotes about their live sets: "The way we tour is to show people something new. Basically, there's no DAT [digital audio tape] or pre-recorded sequences. Everything is done at that time, which means there's a lot of room for unexpected things." (page 273)

Homework

• Bangalter quotes, "The album was called Homework mainly because it was recorded in a bedroom. We weren't originally going to do an album. It was supposed to be just a load of singles. But we did so many tracks over a period of five months that we realized that we had a good album." (page 269)
• "We didn't put it on the album because it is a B-side to "Da Funk". It was never going to be on the album. You know what, in the first few months after the album, the single of "Da Funk" sold more copies than Homework. So more people owned "Musique" as a single than they'd bought it on the album." (page 272-273)

Discovery

• Bangalter and Guy Man quote about what Discovery is about (page 278-280)
• "Discovery has many influences, but we wanted to do was try and make music that captured the feeling of when you were a kid and you liked a record for what it was rather than if it was cool or not. We tried not to be influenced by underground, or even mainstream. Just music as it is. So yes, we used disco, electro or glam-rock we wanted to try and get that naive relationship kids have with music on Discovery. So we tried to include most of the things we liked as kids and bring that sense of fun to it, which is why we included guitar solos on "Aerodynamic". Some people said it was bad taste, but we said it was honest." Guy-Man (page 278)

Thomas Bangalter

Tidbits

• Turned down the offer to help produce Madonna's Music album before she went to Mirwais (page 100)

"Gym Tonic"

• Bob Sinclar's second release titled "Gym Tonic" was co-produced with Thomas Bangalter in 1998
• Bangalter initially thought the single wasn't going to be released and insisted the single would never get an official release
• Jane Fonda refused permission for clearance of the sample of her which resulted to the track being withdrawn - new mixes of the album featured a different female vocal delivering Fonda's words
• Bob Sinclar's licensee in the UK, East West Records, put out a new version of the song under the name Spacedust "Gym And Tonic" (This whole section is referenced in pages 201-202)

Around the same time of "Music Sounds Better with You", Bangalter co-produced Bob Sinclar's second single titled "Gym Tonic". The single caused a dispute between Bangalter and Sinclar. Bangalter initially thought the single would never be released as an official single and did not want the single released. Also, the single contained samples from a Jane Fonda workout tape, which led Fonda herself to refuse permission for the single to be released officially. A different act called Spacedust released an re-recorded version of the track, titled "Gym and Tonic" under East West Records to wider commercial success. "Gym and Tonic" became a number one single in the United Kingdom shortly after "Music Sounds Better with You" had peaked at number two in the same chart. The whole ordeal with the single was negative for both Bangalter and Sinclar. (page 201)

Air

Tidbits

• The song "Wonder Milky Bitch" is about oral sex. (page 246)
• Development of the score to The Virgin Suicides and how it appeared in the film (page 242)

Mr. Oizo

History

• A film director before working with music. His father was a car salesman from a lot on the same road as Laurent Garnier's street. His father told Garnier of his son's achievement when selling a car to Garnier. Made a music video to "Flashback." Started making music under Garnier's FCommunications label. The first singles "1" and "M-Seq" were duds. "Flat Beat" would make him successful on an international scale with Flat Eric. (page 124)

I:Cube

Tidbits

• Name of I:Cube (page 261)
• Daft Punk remix (page 260)