#69 Malajube

For me, Malajube has always been an obscure band that I didn’t quite understand…but still, they know how to make me smile, which is enough. And they sing in French quite naturally, which is good, too.

To us, Malajube was a bunch of guys who just barged into Paris. One was wearing a wig, another one had a disco synthesizer, and the third guy brought a pair of spoons that he kept beating on his thigh. They were cool guys, but, we should confess, we didn’t quite know what to have them do. So we decided to go for a walk, and they began to beat on everything. That was Montreal at -40°C. We could have sat before some wasteland or in a bureaucrat’s waiting room, and still, the whole thing would have stayed just as breezy and light.

We still felt like jerks after they played Montreal, because we had no idea what to do next. Cross a boulevard, climb on cars, sing songs to old ladies, make a terrible mess in a café... and take the subway. Come on—we’ve never done that before, and we had tickets.

Thank you, Parisians. Thank you for being even more perfect than extras, thank you for hardly ever looking at the camera, for acting as if the guys we were filming didn’t even exist, just like the dude who asks you for change every morning. Thank you for acting like a still set, for resisting the urge to smile, for never trying to interact with this fun little band who came to try and entertain you between two stations of your run. Thank you for keeping a steady flow at the crossroads of République’s connections, thus emphasizing the humanity of this bunch of boys who tried and catch your eye and ear among the hurried surge of people.

In the end, the last video is just the metaphorical reflection of the one before. Cars have replaced people. Just like the people, they pass by, and it is only for a short moment when they meet that they allow us to get a glimpse of a band, over there, playing...

Translated by Nora