Entrevista a Nicolas Retiere, Anarcopunk De Grenoble (Francia)

Nicolas en una acción pacífica...contra la guerra de Irak. 

Lo siento, por ahora no la he traducido, para los que sepan inglés pués acá esta!

1 - Present yourself Nicolas.

Hey Juan Pablo. I'm 35 years old and I work at the university as a teacher in electrical engineering. I live in Grenoble. It's the biggest city of the French Alps. There's not so much punk activism in the area. Musically speaking, people are more into reggae or electro stuff. But there's a long squat history. The oldest place has been squatted for almost 20 years ! And each time a squat is closed by the cops, an other is opened three blocks further. At now, there are about half a dozen of squats mainly involved either in artistic stuff or in autonomous and political activism. My job is very interesting because it offers plenty of opportunities to
work on various topics, with very different people and without a strong hierarchy. Last but not least, it is well paid ! But, on the other hand, it's sometimes a bit schizophrenic for me to work on one side for the French capitalist state and on the other side against the capitalist system by trying to promote a diy anarchopunk movement.

2 - How long have you been involved in punk/hardcore? What style do you
prefer?

I have been listened to punk/hardcore music since the end of the eighties. But, during the 10 first years, I was mainly a punk consumer, buying some records, going to gigs but doing nothing myself. In 1998, I began to do a weekly radioshow. It was called Les Nains Aussi Ont Commence Petit. The name came from a crazy movie directed by Werner Schröder. This movie shows the sudden rebellion of a group of dwarves living in a closed center (a kind of psychiatric institution). It doesn't show why they do that, what are their aims but only crazyness, violence, rage and revolt. It's a totally weird and disturbing movie indeed. Some critics said it was a
metaphor of anarchy. I don't think so. It is more a story about people who suddenly say no to an oppressive system and try to break it violently. The purpose of the radioshow was to promote punk music without forgetting the general political, cultural and social background. I did it during two and half years and I stopped it because it had become a boring routine. The second reason for that stop was that I had not enough time to do all what I wanted to. Indeed, at this period, I have become to be more and more involved in punk activism, doing a zine, setting up shows, distributing records and releasing some records on my label called Les Nains Aussi. Recently I have begun to do a monthly radioshow but it is not a punk show.
It is dedicated to the guys who are imprisoned near Grenoble. We try to keep alive the link between them and the outside world by giving them some information about other prisons or prisoners. Of course, we're also trying by this way to fight with the prisoners against all prisons and walls.

I don't prefer any style in particular. For 15 years, I've been listened to a lot of different bands, from emo-melo to grind bands. Beside music, the most important to me is that bands are political. It doesn't mean that I only like bands claiming political slogans. No . Being political means to me that you try to do your best for promoting alternatives to the dominant sexist and capitalist system. This could be done either by diffusing alternative thoughts and practices (as does the Crimethinc
collective each month in MRR columns) or simply by acting in the diy way for editing, recording, releasing, distributing records, zines, tshirts, posters, leaflets .

3 - How is the scene in France or in your city? There are a lot of bands?
Concerts? Zines?

At first, there's no real punk scene in my city. There are only a dozen of punks organising gigs and editing zines on an irregular basis. The French scene is far less active than the German, Swedish, Polish or Czech ones even if strong diy collectives are very active in some cities. To name a few, there is La France Pue in Saint-Etienne, Détruire l'Ennui in Paris, L'Etincelle in Angers the famous Maloka collective in Dijon. All these collectives organise gigs on a regular basis, mostly in social center, squats or bars. What's more they are often politically active,
participating to the organisation of many events (demonstrations, gardening guerrilla, debates .). About two years ago, a French branch of the AnarchoPunk Federation was organised in order to promote anarchist ideas through the punk media (several support gigs were organised and a zine entitled CounterCulture has been edited). here's also a bunch of very good bands: La Fraction (melopunk from Paris), Amanda Woodward (emopunk from Caen), Face Up To It (Old school hc from Bordeaux), Vömit for Breakfast (crustgrind from Saint-Etienne), Coche Bomba (furious crust legend from Lyon/Saint-Etienne) . It is nice to notice that a lot of members of these bands are old punks involved in diy punk for many years. Old punx are still alive ! Concerning zines, few last more than two issues. It is worth to mention
Rad Party, an excellent zine ala Cometbus which was first issued in '91, Vendetta, an anarchopunk zine from Toulouse, WeeWee an other interesting punkHC zine from Toulouse, Black Lung, a rageous diy punkHC zine from Paris, Barricata, a red and antifascist skinhead zine from Paris, Earquake, one of the famous and oldest French punk zine.

4 - What is the most common thing to fight or to scream against?

It depends on the fashion!!!! No, I was joking! I guess that the most common causes are antifascism, antiracism and anticapitalism. In 2002, there were huge demonstrations to protest against the fascist candidate victory at the first round of the presidential election. In May and June 2003, hundreds of thousand of people demonstrated in the streets during weeks to denounce conservative attacks against the welfare system. In both cases, a lot of people were involved but the way those fight were led was far from self-management and autonomous principles. And, the results were not so great. For the presidential election, Chirac, the very conservative-wing party candidate won against the fascist candidate ! And in 2003, no result was obtained at all. Indeed, Chirac government is certainly the most conservative one since the beginning of the eighties. That's why, despite massive demonstrations, the government did not change at all its politics and went on its reform against the welfare system. Anyway, I'm much more interested in autonomous and self-managed actions even if their impact is often much reduced. Indeed, they don't focus only on big economic or social issue. They address "the daily-life class war". It means that they raise all the collective and individual issues related
to oppression and exploitation. Therefore, some collectives and people move around gender, others around specism, ecology, illegal people, prison, psychiatry . In my mind, autonomous movement offers everybody a very interesting way to move themselves for their freedom without forgetting other people's freedom!


5 - What do you like from southamerican bands? And what do you think southamerican bands likes from European or Us bands? It exits a difference between latin and european bands, Which it´s? 51/2 - Why do you think some latins bands have that 80´s sound?

I appreciate South-American bands because they're sincerely punk. That's partly due to their typical sound full of rawness and fury. By the way, I don't know why a lot of South-American bands sound like this. Perhaps, it is the result of the lack of resources so that the recording conditions can be far from the occidental standard. Or it's only due to the fact that most of the South-American punks listen to a lot of classical old punk bands. Indeed, recent bands are not very well distributed in South America. Labels prefer to focus their distribution on U$, Japanese or
European distros. I think it's still a collateral effect of imperialism!!!!
But, beside the sound, what makes me crazy about South American punkHC is punx themselves. All the punx I met when I travelled in South America were very nice, sincere and much less apathetic than the occidental punx. Indeed, most of them still feel what means freedom and autonomy (even if very relative) by living in countries where class war is still intense (see what's happening in Argentina, Bolivia and Venezuela for instance). Moreover, a lot of punx come from the middle-class which was made appeared by the bourgeoisie in the eighties in order to break the class
antagonisms. At the beginning, it certainly works but with the fail of the ultra-liberal politics imposed by the Latin American government with the encouragement of IMF, World Bank and other bullshit institutions, some of the middle-class people have begun to feel that all that was a big farce. That farce could be summed up in few words: obligation of working, illusion of consumption and certainty of being always exploited!!!! So, punk rock seems often the only solution to reject all this crap and to live for yourself by deciding yourself what you want to do. Of course,
this situation is not specific to South American kids but the social and politics context in South America reinforce the needs and the desire for this kind of revolt. In Europe, most of the punx come also from middle-class. Most of them feel against their social and family
background, their involvement in punk movement is sincere but they often lack this kind of madness which is characteristic of the people who don't have any choice except angriness and revolt.


6 - Which latin countries have you visited? What is the principal difference that you feel in people from your country?

I travelled two times in Argentina and one time in Venezuela and Cuba. Each time, it was different. My first travel in Argentina was also my first stay on the South-American subcontinent. So, you can imagine my state of mind . It was amazing for me to be there, to see this enormous and beautiful country, to meet some Argentinean people, to realize what was the social and political situation, to feel the weight of the Indian genocide and of the military dictatorship. I felt a kind of atmosphere of emergency and drama. It was just like if the Latin American society was
near to explode at the lesser excitation. Recent events throughout the whole subcontinent proved me that I was not so wrong. One year later, I went to Cuba. It was totally different from Argentina. I did not meet a lot of interesting people, only those who worked for the tourist economy!!!! But it was interesting to see a bit of the consequences of castrism and of the American boycott. I came back two
years later in Argentina to visit my friend Checho from AMP discos. And last year, I visited Venezuela. It was certainly my most interesting stay in Latin America. I met a lot of nice people in Caracas and Maracaibo, sharing their daily life. I stayed also one week in a Pemon community in La Gran Sabana. It was a real cultural shock to live with those people. For instance, they refuse electricity because electricity
means that you must work for getting the money to pay bills. Finally, as work means to be exploited in a factory or in a mine, Pemons prefer to live without electricity and to spend their time taking care of themselves and of their community. For me, it was a real lesson of practical anticapitalism!!!! My stay in Venezuela was also an opportunity to better understand the political situation and to discover that Chavez is a fuckin' left-wing populist and militarist, taking profit from the
situation to keep the power.

7 - How works Les Nains Aussi?

I try to run my label in a diy way. It means that I try to do everything by myself at the lowest cost (around 7 euros for one 12" and 2.6 euros for a 7"). That's also why I like to coproduce my releases. It costs less money and it is always nice to do something collectively. Of course, I have to do some compromises with the capitalist system. Thus, I use the money I earn as a teacher to run the label without profit. The pressing and printing of the label stuff is done by capitalist societies.
But in my mind, the diy-est part of the work consists in the distribution of the records released on the label. For that work, I use only the wonderful network made by punks from all over the world (at the noticeable exception of Africa). Thus, I trade with about 100 labels from Western and Eastern Europe, from Latin America, from Japan and from the United States. I'm totally against the exclusive distribution made by U$ or big European labels. Indeed, trading is the basic principle of the punk scene. It enables to distribute stuff all over the world, to discover unknown bands, to develop links between punks without any money relation. In this way, an Indonesian punk can distribute its stuff in France which would be
impossible if he tried to sell it directly to French punks. I was really impressed by the trading system of CD-R used in South America. It enables to widely distribute stuff without a lot of money since the duplication costs are shared by all the distributors. Punk labels who refuse to trade are small-scale capitalists using the diy ethic as a moral caution for their business!!!

8 - Which are your releases until now (discography)?

OK, here is a complete and detailed discography:
* LNA 001 - Boda (France) / Eterna Inocencia (BsAs-Argentina)- split cd - Both bands decided to do this split during the French dates of the European tour of Eterna. It was a coproduction between 5 French labels.
* LNA 002 - Life's a Riot - 7" - This band was from Helsinki and included former members of Yuppiecrusher, Pax Americana and Diaspora. They played a powerful melodic anarchopunk with multiple mixed voices. I met them in Helsinki. It was also coproduction. Unfortunately, the band split up just after the release. Some of them are now playing in War of Word.
* LNA 003 - Urban Blight - 1998 / 2001 - cd - Urban Blight is a one-man-band performed by a guy named Laurent. He plays a powerful and tense minimalist crustpunk. I contacted Laurent just after reading a very interesting interview of him. I think that he writes some of the cleverest and most enraged punk songs. I released this discography in coproduction with an old French anarchopunk label called React (he began in the early nineties as a tape label). It includes most of the songs released on tape between 1998 and 2001.
* LNA 004 - Migra Violenta - HC Crust - lp - I met Juan from Migra Violenta during my second stay in BsAs at an open-air feria. When I came back to France, I proposed Migra Violenta to release a vinyl version of the "hccrust" cd. They accepted and the lp was released about one year later. It also includes the split 7" with Cucsifae.
* LNA 005 - Urban Blight - It's alive - cd-r - Actually, I released this cd-r with a printed sleeve before the discography. It was a small project coproduced with Urban Blight, Maloka and React rds. The 13 songs were recorded live.
* LNA 006 - Migra Violenta - Superficial - 10" / cd - It was my second release with Migra Violenta. I first participated to the cd release in South America. It was a big coproduction with other labels from Europe, Latin America and the U$. Then I released the 10" with Alerta Antifascista, a nice german label, for Migra Violenta's European tour in 2003.
* LNA 007 - Dona Maldad - .y el Estado hipocrita continua asesinando - lp - I guess you know everything about this Venezuelan anarchopunk band!!!! I discovered DxM at a gig of Apatia No in my town. There were a distro run by Johnny and he proposed some ". y el Estado ." tape. I bought one and decided to release it in vinyl just after the first listening. It was also a coproduction with Alerta Antifascista.
* LNA 008 - Dona Maldad / Generacion Perdida - Atentando y propagando en Suramérica - split 7". Just after the DxM's lp release, I was contacted for participating to this split and of course I accepted it. * LNA 009 - Altercado - 12" - this lp should be out when the interview will be published. It includes 16 angry songs of fast and tensed punkHC which makes me really crazy. Concerning this record, it's the same story than for the other releases. I listened to some stuff of the band and
decided to propose them releasing some stuff. * LNA 010 - Segue - S/t - 10". I decided to participate to this release for two reasons. At first, I really loved their live performance and their depressive, disillusioned, chaotic crust. Secondly, Flox from Fight for your Mind records asked me if I wanted to help him. And, as he is a real nice guy, I said yes.

Some other releases are planned in the next months :
* Silence 10" and 12". It's a polish bands with members of antichrist. They play a kind of emocrust with a slight metallic edge * Urban Blight 7"

9 - Like an independent and anarchist label what do you expect from a band?

I guess that it's possible to know what I expect from a band by reading my discography. I don't expect any sound in particular. I expect only sincerity, rage, political stand and simply to have a good feeling with the members. Moreover, it's very important for me to have a strong relationship with at least one member of the bands. Thus, until now, I have always met the band one time, with the noticeable exception of Segue.

10 - It is difficult to have a band in France?

The principal difficulty in France is the lack of independent and low-cost structures for rehearsal. Some squats propose some rehearsal room for almost nothing. Some social centers propose also some rooms for a moderate price. Otherwise, you have to rent a private room and it costs a lot of money.

11 - Which bands from Us and Europe do you think we have to listen here in
Venezuela?

You DON'T HAVE to listen to some European or U$ bands!!!! That's not an obligation!!! Feel free to discover bands from any country, be from Russia or from Indonesia. As far as I'm concerned, the Europeans bands I really like to listen to at now are Uro (Danish anarchopunk), Aggra Makabra (German oldschool punkHC), Koyaanisquatsi and Kobayashi (German anarchopunk), Asebia (Danish powerful crust), Acursed and Kontrovers (Swedish crust), Disface (Spanish anarchopunk), Mass Genocide Process (Czech atomic crust). For U$ bands, get some MRR copies. I know that's
pretty expensive but it gives a good overview of the U$ scene. You can also listen to their weekly radio show on their website. It's free!

12 - It´s time to stop now, say goodbye and anything you want to add.

Thank you very much Juan-Pablo. Don't hesitate to contact me for anything you want (trade, information .). Hope to see some of you soon somewhere in South America. And don't forget . DIY or fuckin' DIE. Un fuerte abrazo.