Kid Loco first came to the attention of the mainstream French music scene in 1997 with his album "A Grand Love Story". This is not only the Kid's best-known album to date, but also his most commercially successful. ("A Grand Love Story" has sold around 20,000 copies to date in France and some 35,000 copies abroad!) Paris's hippest DJ, who works out of a studio in Belleville, scored an instant hit on the French music scene with his smoothly produced mix of trip hop beats and easy-listening sounds. The album also won Kid Loco a whole new following of fans in continental Europe and Japan. What's more, "A Grand Love Story" proved to be a cult hit across the Channel in the UK.

After the success of "A Grand Love Story" Kid Loco could have lounged around comfortably on his laurels for a while, but the whizz mixer soon returned to the studio, earning himself an excellent reputation as a producer and a DJ. Kid Loco was much in demand in 1998, creating more than 30 remixes for a number of leading French and international artists. A selection of these popular remixes has now been gathered together on a special Kid Loco compilation entitled "Jesus Life for Children Under 12 Inches".

The album, which boasts an especially eye-catching cover - ten top models striking a naked pose! - features 12 tracks which the Belleville Kid remixed in the course of last year. The selection is wonderfully eclectic, including everyone from Talvin Singh ("Traveller"), Kat Onoma ("la Chambre") and Brit Pop stars Pulp ("A Little Soul") to Cornu ("Youpi"), Saint Etienne ("4-35 In The Morning"), The Pastels ("The Viaduct") and The High Llamas ("Homespin Rerun"). Thanks to Kid's skilful and coherent re-mixing, these diverse musical ambiences fit smoothly back to back. But then that's just what you'd expect from a DJ who is a major fan of both the Beastie Boys and Massive Attack - and who claims to hone his artistic mixing skills with a few spliffs of cannabis!

Loco fans will be spoilt for choice this month as Yellow Productions has also decided to re-release the DJ's cult mini-album "Blues Project". A wise move - the original vinyl edition has already become a much sought-after collector's item! "Blues Project", which Kid Loco recorded in a tiny studio in Orly and released for the first time in 1996, was remasterised at the beginning of this year and fans can now re-discover the smooth, voluptuous sounds of tracks such as "Public Paranoiac Number One", "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" and "Sister Curare". Sadly, the new version of Kid's "Project" remains just as enticingly brief as the original - only 6 tracks and little more than 31 minutes of music in all. In other words - blink or leave the room to make a coffee and you'll miss the whole thing!

Who Is The Kid ?

For those of you who are not yet familiar with the French DJ's sound, these two simultaneous releases are an excellent means of discovering Kid Loco's work. So, we hear you ask, just who is this DJ Kid? Well, Kid Loco (a.k.a. Jean-Yves Prieur) was born in Belleville, a vibrant ethnic neighbourhood of Paris, in 1965. Jean's first contact with the music world came at the age of 13, when he discovered the excitingly anarchic (if musically limited) world of punk. Inspired by the give-it-a-go philosophy of punk, Jean went on to launch his own music career in his early teens, playing guitar with a French rock group called Les Brigades.

KIndie rock groups were denied access to the mainstream French music scene back in those days, so Kid Loco spent most of his early career in relative obscurity. However, by the mid-80's things had started to change and a thriving independent rock scene had grown up on the fringes of the French musical mainstream. The scene soon spawned a multitude of independent record labels and 'alternative' French rock bands including Les Garçons Bouchers, Ludwig Von 88 and Mano Negra. (Although, sadly, few of these independent groups and labels have made it through to the 90's).

Caught up in the 'indie rock' explosion, Kid Loco - who at the time was still known by his old pseudonym Kid Bravo! - teamed up with two musician friends and launched his own label, Rock Radical Records. Rock Radical Records would soon evolve into the legendary Bondage Productions, a label which was responsible for launching the careers of a host of leading 'indie' bands such as les Béruriers Noirs, les Satellites, les VRP, Nuclear Device and the Washington Dead Cats.

Kid Loco spent the next few years caught up in a feverish whirl of activity, working as a producer and artistic director as well as designing a string of 'indie' album covers. However, Kid does not appear to have a particularly fond memory of his early indie days. Far from it, in fact. In an interview published in the French weekly music mag. Les Inrockuptibles in February '98, Kid Loco slammed the mentality of the early 80's alternative scene, describing most of the musicians involved as having "no bloody talent whatsoever. And the proof of that is that hardly any of them are still playing today! Most of the artists involved in our label just saw it as an easy means of getting ahead - very few of us actually shared a real alternative mindset. As far as most of the groups were concerned, being 'alternative' meant getting us to stick hundreds of stupid little 'indie' stickers in the middle of their records! Most of them spent their whole time talking about artistic freedom but when it came down to it, they just recorded these really terrible tracks - and then insisted on adding all kinds of extra details which ended up costing us a fortune. The only thing I remember about those days is that we never managed to put out one good record. I've blanked it all out from my mind now - and I can quite honestly say that I never listen to any of the Bondage stuff these days!".

Disillusioned with the alternative rock scene, Kid Loco eventually quit Bondage (before the label sank without a trace!) and branched out in a radically new direction, mixing rock guitars with hip hop and electronic samplers. Kid went on to form Mega Reefer Scratch, a group which signed to Sony Music and recorded their first -and last - album "Honky Soul Times" in 1991. Just two months after the release of the album, the group went their separate ways, blaming their split on - yes, you guessed it! - 'irreconcilable artistic differences'. Kid Loco would not have much better luck with his next collective project either. His following album "Catch My Soul" never saw the light of day, Kid scrapping the whole idea because he claimed the female singer involved in the project was "totally impossible to deal with!"

Jean-Yves Prieur eventually ended up locking himself away in his ivory tower, far from the hassles of joint projects and music partnerships. And it was thus, after many long months spent playing around with samplers and old vinyl LPs, that the artist Kid Loco was born. The Kid (who takes his name from the famous Jean Roch documentary "Les chiens fous") has gone on to establish himself as one of the most exciting new names on the French electro scene - and if you want to know why, just take a listen to "A Grand Love Story", the cult "Blues Project" or Yellow Productions' new compilation of the Kid's wizard remixes!

French text: Gilles Rio
English adaptation: Julie Street

"Jesus Life for Children Under 12 Inches" (Yellow Productions/East West)
"Blues Project" (Yellow Productions/East West)