“La Classe 2019“, un article de Jeremy Allen dans le magazine Shindig!, Issue 90, April 2019.
Wow ! La presse anglaise parle de Freaksville Records !! See below :
La Classe de 2019
Freaksville
“Belgian pop doesn’t really exist,” says Liège-born crooner and Freaksville label boss, Benjamin Schoos. “I prefer to talk about Euro-Pop than Be-Pop.”
Schoos set Freaksville up in Belgium in 2006 because he wanted to hear the musical town that was bustling around his head. 13 years later, and what started as a tiny label in the industrial backwater of Seraing, now has an office in Brussels and Paris, authenticating geographically the claims that this label makes skewed French pop. Artists who’ve recorded as part of the Freaksville stable over the years include the brilliant psychedelic space- rock outfit Aquaserge, transexual Parisian pop icon Marie France, ’80s Belgian pop superstar Lio, veteran scribe of many a throwaway pop gem, Jacques Duvall, and April March, a US singer who repackaged the works of French artists like France Gall for an American audience, kind of in the same way Johnny Hallyday repackaged American rock ’n’ roll for the French in the ’60s.
And then there’s Benjamin himself who, on China Man vs Chinagirl, drew upon the talents of a number of acclaimed musicians: The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Ride’s Mark Gardener and most memorably Stereolab’s Lætitia Sadier on the 6 Music-listed ‘Je ne voir que vous’. Emmanuelle actress Sylvia Kristel was also meant to collaborate, but sadly died of cancer before their track was completed. As well as being an internationally successful chanteur, Schoos runs a radio station, is a cartoonist, writer, actor and looks after the talented stable at Freaksville among other pursuits.
He’s like a Belgian Boris Vian, the polymath mentor of Serge Gainsbourg, or for a more up-to-date reference, a man-about-town like Bertrand Burgalat, who you can read about elsewhere in this magazine. How does he get so much done? “Hard work!” says Schoos. “Get up early and sleep only a few hours except on Sundays. But I also have great people I work with.”
La Classe de 2019, Jeremy Allen, Shindig!, Issue 90, April 2019, pp. 34-40.
LIENS.
→ Freaksville Records : https://www.freaksvillerec.com/
→ Freaksville Publishing : http://freaksvillepublishing.com/
→ Shindig! Magazine : https://www.shindig-magazine.com/