Matinée Recordings has an amazing catalog. I’m not saying anything new.
In the early days there was a French band that released with them, a 7″ single and an album, and then it seems they disappeared. They were called Ego and they were great.
The 7″ was titled “The Question Mark” and it was Matinée’s 2nd ever release (Matinée 002). It came out in 1998 and included three songs, “Do You Want to Be My Love ‘Till 1998?” on the A side and “What Am I Supposed to Do?” and “Can’t You See I Love You?” on the B side. All songs had a question mark, hence the EP name.
On the back of the sleeve we find the names of David, Emmanuel, Marc and Yvan. We see that on the record other friends of them played, Caroline, Marie, Pierre, Ludovic, Philippe, Romain C. and Stéphane.
Then an address in Clapiers, France. Where is Clapiers? It seems it is close to Montepellier I read this about this small town: “Located to the north of Montpellier, this little village was the home of wine makers for centuries.
Now, Clapiers has developed considerably. One of the jewels of this village is its forest. It covers 170 hectares. A paradise for all walkers, hikers and bikers. The Tomato Festival in September is an opportunity to discover and taste 250 varieties of this colourful fruit.”
Then I find the band members’ last names, David Frayssinet, Emmanuel Vigne, Marc Collombet and Yvan Ros. This is thanks to Discogs, and thanks to Discogs I find thata the band recorded a demo cassette in 1995 called “Superego”.
This tape was recorded between the 18th and 19th of February in 1995 and it was mixed on the 20th by Joel Cébé at TYMIX. This tape had four songs, 2 on each side: “Place on Earth”, “3’55”, “A Liquid Song” and “Do You Want to Be My Love ‘Till 1998?”. I notice on this tape that the first and third song were written by David while the other two by Marc.
The band would release a full-length album in 2001 on Matinée (MATCD006). It was titled “La Main Devant La Bouche” and included 13 tracks: “Oriane”, “What Am I Supposed to Do?”, “Sunny Day”, “To Sleep Like You”, “Alone in Rome”, “(Die For) Drew Barrymore”, “Charlie”, “Under my Tree”, “The Speed of Sound”, “Patricia’s KItchen”, “What is Fame?”, “Une Petite Fantaisie Sentimentale” and “Faire L’Affaire”.
The band also contributed many songs to compilations.
In 1996 the band contributed “3’55” and “A Liquid Song” to “Les Belles Promesses – Collection “Acoustique”” that was released by XIII Bis Records and Ora Pro Nobis. That same year on “Imbroglio”, another tape comp, they had “Kaori” and “Under My Tree”. This compilation was released by Pâte A Modeler (PAM 008). Continuing in 1996 the band released the songs “Do You Want to Be My Love ‘Till 1998?” and “Place on Earth” to the tape comp “Press Play” released by Candy Chérie. All of these compilations were released in France.
On the French tape “Galée Royale” released by Maya Label (BZZZ 2) from 1997 the band contributed the songs “What Am I Supposed to Do?” and “Under My Tree”.
Another tape comp wroth mentioning is the Italian “The Colours of an Enchanted Dawn”. This was on the label Shiny Sunset (SUNSET 9) and there Ego contributed the song “Do You Want to Be…”.
Then in 1999 there was a Matinée Festival in Paris, where four bands participated, The Windmills, Ego, Sportique and The Lucksmiths. So a tape was made for the occasion and was called “La Soirée Matinée”. This tape included unreleased tracks and also a set of six badges. Ego would contribute 3 songs (same number as the other bands), “Do You Want to Be My Love…”, “Nothing Succeeds to Success” and “Under my Tree”.
On a double 7″ compilation released by Matinée called “A Smile Took Over” (Matinée 005), where four different bands were featured, Ego appears as the last song, on the D side, with “Stephanie”.
I look if any of the band members is also listed on other bands. I notice Yvan Ros also played in a band called Astrïd as the drummer.
Not much more info on the web about Ego. Also the name is not Google friendly to search for them. So I hope some of my French friends can help me learn more details about the band!
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