Biography
Reintroducing Parkinson Square to the world : In January 1988, Gilles (guitar) and Hugo (drums) started the noise in Gilles parents cellar, making the good wine turn sour.
Soon they were joined by Akis, a greek bass player, who had just left his band in athens, Chaos Generation, to come over to France. Finally came Laurent, the one in charge of the vocal duties, only three weeks before the first gig in Lyon, France, their nice, boring hometown, supporting Les Thugs.
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Eventually, time passed by, songs were written, demos recorded, more gigs played... their first single came out in february 1989 on the infamous Gougnaf label. A 3 songs EP compiled from demos recorded on an eight track, it contained on side A their manifesto, "Whorehouse Muzak", which became an immediate hit in the punk french scene, with lyrics making fun of the then growing house culture.
A month later, the band went into the south of France, to record their first LP in Montpellier, with Christophe from Les Thugs producing. Titled "Square Up", and issued on Gougnaf with a photosleeve depicting a videogame where the band were the heroes, it held 9 tracks of pure incendiary power, alas ruined by the mix. When Gougnaf went missing (on the run from the law, and from many of the bands on their back catalogue), the album was deleted. One year later, it was extended to 13 tracks (adding the single + one more track from a comp) for a reissue on Bondage records, using the same white sleeve as the original single. Alas despite the label best efforts, the remastering still did not manage to capture properly the original power of the recordings.
But the band were past caring, already on the move, playing all over europe, with fellows like Les Thugs, Flitox, Young Gods, Parabellum, D.O.A., No Means No and many others, exposing for the first time audiences to real, FAST and HARD HITTING french hardcore, becoming almost mythical in the process. After the departure of original drummer Hugo, the band kept going, issued one more album, "Back to Front" on Dancetaria, (1992), a third one that came and went without being noticed, due to shoddy distribution "Shaking Palsy", and several singles and compilation tracks, before disbanding in 1996.
In 2006, 10 years after the noise went silent, PARKINSON SQUARE finally got back together. The band is currently rehearsing, having fun revisiting the old hits, and is planning a gig, in honor of the reissue of their first album in remixed/remastered form. The line up is 100% original, same as when the band disbanded 10 years ago. And there are talks of a new version of the killed by distributor death unknown to the general public third album, the original tapes having been lost. To be continued...
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.