Moshi Moshi days - "Paris" then and now

it's summer! b/c Friendly Fires is a summer type band IMO, I'm going to treat you to not just one, not just two, not three, but FOUR videos on this Friday.

Moshi Moshi is a v. small, independent record label in London. despite its relatively small size, it's nurtured some of the most popular bands out there today. check out a smattering of their artists (starred are the ones I've seen live)...

Au Revoir Simone
Bloc Party
the Drums
Fanfarlo*
Florence and the Machine*
Friendly Fires*
Hot Chip*
Hot Club de Paris*
Late of the Pier
Lykke Li*
Kate Nash
the Rakes (RIP)
Slow Club
the Very Best*

(read more about them on Wikipedia)

now that I think about it looking at the list above, it makes a lot of sense why Friendly Fires supported Lykke Li on her first North American tour. the first video below, the first promo they filmed for 'Paris', was directed by Price James and is from their Moshi Moshi days, before Richard Russell found them and signed them to XL. the one features, rather oddly, guitarist Edd Gibson playing drums. he told me last year he was very uncomfortable playing them but Ed Mac insisted it was b/c their was one boring guitar line throughout the whole song and he (Gibson) would have looked stupid standing there holding his axe. Edd countered this by saying even so, he would have still have felt more comfortable holding his guitar. ha!

this is also an interesting piece of history b/c there isn't a huge amount of media of back in the day when Edd didn't have much of a beard and Ed Mac's hair was long and out of control. even though it's kind of kitschy, I still prefer this one over the over stylised one XL had them record, which I have also included below. what's I find really silly about the XL one is that the video has nothing to do with the song whatsoever. at least the Price James one had stars! in the third video, a behind the scenes look at the filming of the XL version, you can just feel the discomfort in all having to do all this choreography. (you know what, I haven't watched this behind the scenes thingy in ages. and now that I've seen it again, I wish I hadn't b/c I now have a lump in my throat. long story.)

the fourth video has nothing to do with promos - I've included it b/c some people have not yet seen the band live. there's the Jools Holland videos that are quite good, but I just found this 'Paris' one from 2007 a couple days ago and wanted to share. you know, get everyone in the mood for summer and everything, b/c last summer Ed Mac wanted everyone to be having picnics and be drinking fishbowl-sized margaritas. so just spreading the joy.