Our guest is the author and musical journalist Michka Assayas, for the release of “Very Good Trip, an intimate history of music(GM Editions/France Inter).
In An Intimate History of Music, the intimate rubs shoulders with the universal. Michka Assayas recounts the “trip” of a passionate life, which merges with the story of a generation whose life has been turned upside down by the discovery of a new musical world.
As he tells it, there was first a concert of the Stranglers which will mark him forever, then his amazed discovery, even staggering, of Joy Division, one of the groups, if not the most important group in his life. after that, nothing would ever be the same…”Since 2015, I have been programming and hosting the program Very Good Trip on France Inter, the fruit of a fascination for music that has pursued me since childhood and has never died out. This book contains a list of three hundred songs whose publication spans almost sixty years, from 1965 to 2022, that is to say the entire duration of an already very long life. I’m not saying at all that these are “300 masterpieces to leave on a desert island“, of the “300 must-haves of world pop» or even less «300 hits from an ideal playlist for cycling“. These are the songs that changed my life. They have marked the different stages of my journey, from early childhood to the advanced age which is mine, and have never abandoned me. These three hundred songs form my private playlist. They say everything about my life, better than I can express myself. And I continue, even today, to want to share them. Chance, fate or fatality have put them on my path, according to an order and a distribution that will seem strange, no doubt: those of my life – and no other. Good to know In partnership with France Inter. The author will be invited to the various branches of the group. Michka is the producer/host of the weekly program ‘Very good trip’ – bringing together ≈ 250,000 listeners/evenings on France Inter. From his first trips to London, to the creation of Inrocks, through the history of the press, radio and the birth of independent rock, he tells the story of a generation that found its identity in music. . Includes many personal archives (photos, drawings of his family…) Fragments of life / Press clippings of the time / Concert tickets. Without the presence and listening of Maud Berthomier, this book could not have seen the light of day. By conducting and structuring long interviews, she was able to guide me to the heart of my life.»
Michka Assayas was born on November 2, 1958. A former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud, he collaborated from an early age, in 1980, with Rock & Folk and Liberation, as a specialist in post-punk rock, a trend then minority (New Order, the Smiths, etc.). Literary criticism at Release and columnist at Unbreakablehe published in 2000 the dictionary of rock in the Bouquins collection at Robert Laffont, revised and reissued in 2014. His book of conversations with singer Bono of the group U2, published in 2005, has been translated into many languages. Also a writer, Michka Assayas has published several stories and novels, including exhibition who won the Deux-Magots prize in 2003.
This book is the work of long interviews with Maud Berthomier. Born in 1982 in Poitiers, she graduated with a doctorate in Human Sciences, after studying in Montreal, New York and then Edinburgh. Today, Maud Berthomier returns to the techniques that are dear to her in this third work with Michka Assayas – the interview – to write a musical journey where individual memory and collective memory intertwine. In short, Maud Berthomier as always questions the power of music to radiate: why does music inspire us so much? What cultural smugglers are hiding behind it? And what power does the word have to make us relive this great story? Since 2015, he has programmed and produced a daily program for France Inter, Very Good Trip, which has enjoyed growing success since its creation, bringing together an average of 260,000 listeners per evening.
Playlist by Michka Assayas
– The Equals baby comeback
– Chuck Berry Havana Moon
– Fats & The Chessmen Ooh Poo Pa Doo
-Buddy Holly Well All Right
– Richie Havens Freedom
– Gilbert Becaud Orange
-Nino Ferrer Oh ! Hey! eh ! Good !
-Al Green Love and Happiness
(Replay)