JULIEN

Since the day I bought my first 7" of Amdi Petersen's Armé at their show at l'Akademie de la Kontr Kultur in Lyon, things happened and I would have never thought that the musical scene I was going to be involved in would have so much impact on me and my evolution... The band is the reflect of my evolution and my love for this scene is its translation... on negative and positive aspect. Paradoxically, the more I put interest in punk, its roots, its evolution, the less I understand it... It seems to constantly go in all different ways according to its activists, the cities, countries, cultures, it often doesn't have the same basis, the same goals or the same expressions but it nevertheless allows people to tour, travel, meet people, share and trade. Sometimes vindicating spontaneity or reflexion, frivolousness or self-counscience, total freedom or communautarism, it seems to have taken many faces in 30 years. On my side, after a numerous years spent to understand it and to make it profitable for my daily life, I finally still wonder where all this leaded me, where I am in this big whole thing since there's always ways to be in contradiction, to find counter-examples or to live good and bad experiences.

I do consider this record as an outcome and a sythesis of all these years because I would never have been able to do it in an other ways and with other people. I now feel myself enough involved and sensitive to what's happening around and close to me in order to want to support things thanks to the band. Bringing substance to the form now appears to be more and more important to make our records, shows, etc. something unique and federating. I do use 'more and more' since it has not always been an obviousness for most of us, music often standing as the first match and the main engine of our motivations. As many of you, this counscious involvement procures me this nice feeling to be alive, to be able to bring things in a successful conclusion, helped and supported by a lot of friends, sometimes even living far from me. And I personnaly consider all of these as wonderful accomplishments.
This record also asked me an involvement as I never had before. From the writing process of the music to its recordings and the releasing of it via Echo Canyon (the record label we start with Gwen), from the artwork to the silkscreen, from my participation in Food Not Cops to its interview the simple outcome of it speaks better than every boring text I could have writen to explain my goals to do the things in this way. And I also do believe that every one would understand the same since acts often speak better than words, as far as I'm concerned.

Also, if this record is the synthesis of these years spent into observing or getting involved, it comes in a period where I more and more feel able to take hindsight, epecially to understand the traps and the negative aspects. Because there are some details of my daily life, some situations and painful remarks, some brilliants talks with 'non-punk' persons that procure me this horrible feeling to be a professional impostor, to speak to say nothing always saying the same things to people, as if what I called convictions were nothing more than self-satisfaction. Being 26 now, I sometimes come to the same conclusions of Arnaud, about these certainties that we can easily contradict... about this radical way of life being hard to bring into reality in my daily life. I also discover ideas coming from the community instead of coming from my own reflection and this annoys me since my own experience should be the main motor for my ideas...
Realizing this bring me other remarks, other more 'global' questions : don't we sometimes miss humility and frivolousness ? Aren't we too often self-satisfied, pretending to always have better understood than anyone to often judge, denounce, stigmatize other bands, other ideas, other people acting differently from a strictly DIY way-of-doing things? Because it's so easy to adopt this complacency to feel to be part of this community, to play the bad boys and the dangerous people... And on the other hand, don't we launder some consumerist or disconcerned behaviours thanks to some non sincere speeches or too many conciliating attitudes ? Don't we see more and more professionnal behaviours, don't we leave less and less room for alternative genders etc. ? Because it's so easy not to challenge our traditionnal/cultural western inheritances, to act like blinds or ignorants... So after 8 years spent to decode, understand, admit, refuse, take things in hands, this is still not clear to find my place, to know how to place myself and to have a clear and convinced speech, but overall sincere and upright... I actually still didn't manage to do it.

But, all in all, I finally must admit that punk made something neither better, neither worse of me, well I actually hope. Rather than some fresh air like Arnaud, I would now consider it more as a precious tool to build myself for now and later, rather than considering it as an ultime end. Of course, I still keep the same inspiration and esteem for people being more radical than me in their way of making their punk exist, but this way is the way that I feel more comfortable with thanks to my daily compromises to have some radical way of thinking but a 'normal' way of life. I above all have the feeling not to have to always justify myself. A really precious tool indeed, to which I'm attached thanks to my path and my experience, which above all allowed me to achieve this personal project you hold in your hand.