[Deathwatch] Lizzy Mercier Descloux, punk musician, 47

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Again, thanks to a reader for this one - Ed.

LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX
A Brief Career In Punk And World

Paris, 29 April 2004 - French singer Lizzy Mercier Descloux died a week
ago at the age of 47, but news of her demise did not filter through to
the media until yesterday. For the mainstream music public, Lizzy?s
name will forever be associated with her one and only chart hit, Mais
où sont passées les gazelles. But committed fans will recall other
Lizzy classics such as Wakwazulu Kwezizulu Rock. In trendier circles,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux will be remembered as one of those protean
figures who pioneer cultural revolution.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux was born in Lyons, but she soon moved up to the
capital to follow the trends, launching her professional career in a
boutique in Les Halles (a neighbourhood which was at the centre of
swinging Paris in the mid-70s). Lizzy managed the boutique Harry Cover,
an outlet for T-shirts and records, with her partner, the producer
Michel Esteban. The couple established themselves as the Parisian
equivalent of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and Lizzy soon
earned a reputation as the muse of the city?s burgeoning punk movement.
Lizzy had acquired essential avant-garde experience in New York,
picking up on new ways of living and playing rock as correspondent for
the magazine Rock News. Her articles found her at the cutting-edge of
the music scene, reporting on two new ?schools? that emerged from the
same origins: punk and new wave. Lizzy was on hand to witness the rise
of Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, The New York Dolls,
Johnny Thunders and Patti Smith.
 
On her return to Paris, Lizzy became the driving force behind Harry
Cover, the boutique which the city?s first punks adopted as their HQ.
Lizzy, in her early 20s at the time, thrilled to the raw new sound
pioneered by her new friends, future members of Les Stinky Toys and
Asphalt Jungle. Caught up in the musical whirlwind of the time, Lizzy
went into the studio on her own account to record a debut album, Press
Color, in 1979. This was followed by Mambo Nassau in 1980. With the
French punk movement burning out in the late 70s, Lizzy began looking
to new musical horizons, however. In the early 80s there was a general
buzz around what journalists at Actuel and Libération dubbed "la sono
mondiale" (long before anyone coined the term "world music"). And Lizzy
found herself a pioneering force on this burgeoning new Paris scene.
Indeed, in 1984 she rocketed up the French charts with a single
entitled Mais où sont passées les gazelles, an adaptation of a South
African song immortalised by Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens.

Lizzy?s album of the same name was, for the most part, recorded in
South Africa with the crème de la crème of local musicians. This was an
unprecedented move in those days (two years before Paul Simon embarked
upon his Graceland venture!) Lizzy?s album, released on CBS (one of the
major labels of the time) went on to win the prestigious French rock
award, ?Le Bus d?acier.? And although the album never made it past
no.30 in the Top 50, Mais où sont passées les gazelles made an
indelible mark on the French music scene. How could it not, when for
the first time in music history a French artist managed to chart with a
non-European sound, which had not been bowdlerized or watered down to
suit French tastes.
 
The album Mais où sont passées les gazelles featured a number of South
African songs which were as remarkable for the vibrant energy of
Lizzy?s performance as for their hard-hitting lyrics. On Wakwazuku
Kwezizulu Rock, the single which followed Mais où sont passées les
gazelles (with far less chart success), Lizzy raised the issue of
colour, singing ?Je te le dis noir sur noir/Laisse tomber les mots et
la couleur de peau? (?I?m telling you black on black/ Drop the labels
and the issue of skin colour!?) However, despite Lizzy?s pioneering
musical and social spirit, the success of the album was short-lived and
her subsequent albums - One for the Soul (1986) and Suspense (1988) -
failed to rouse the same interest amongst the general public or
industry professionals. Over the ensuing years, Lizzy Mercier Descloux
increasingly distanced herself from the music world.

Lizzy eventually left France and made her home in Corsica where she
devoted herself to a new career as a painter. (Incidentally, an
exhibition of her work is due to be held in Japan, in a Tokyo gallery
shortly). Lizzy continued to paint while bravely battling against
cancer, but it was the disease that finally won in the end. According
to her last wishes, her family scattered her ashes in the Saint-Florent
Bay in Corsica. And it was only after this last promise had been
carried out that an official announcement was made about her death. RFI
Musique takes this opportunity to pay its respects to a true music
pioneer. Adieu, Lizzy!
 




No-Wave Icon Lizzie Descloux Dies

The influential no-wave musician, Lizzie Mercier Descloux, died on
April 20th of cancer. She was cremated and her ashes put into the
Mediterranean Sea. The French-born Descloux emigrated to New York in
her youth, and there fell among the avant-garde crowd and released two
albums on the Ze Records label, 1979's Press Color and 1981's Mambo
Nassau. Press Color contained covers of "Mission Impossible" and Arthur
Brown's "Fire" which were much loved by the scenesters of a generation
past. Mambo Nassau is the album she is most remembered for, and
contains elements of both no-wave and traditional world music, as well
as a Kool & The Gang cover, and was a great influence upon the Talking
Heads.

Described in her Ze Records biography as "a French boyish poetry cute
girl singer living in New York," Descloux was a friend and fellow
artist to Patti Smith and was admired by many. In 1981, an article was
written about her and Mambo Nassau in Sounds magazine, entitled "Sex
with Style." Let it be her eulogy now: "Lizzie Mercier Descloux is a
cunning naif, an aware waif, an experienced virgin, a tipsy teetotaller
and a star in the shoddy, shady niche of obscurism... These songs are
the current number ones in Heaven... Mambo Nassau is an album to be
cherished, to be over played, left alone and then returned to. It is
the tastiest sweet in the shop. It embodies the heavy thudding of a
heart in love."