Willie Loco Alexander is a V.I.P. in the underground, a musician whose name has been around since the Sixties. A renegade specialising in a slightly warped rock, he is a man who lives outside of time, fashion and compromise. In spite of that, he keeps on recording discs that pass the test of time and are regularly reissued. The part he played in the very last days of the Velvet Underground is probably one of the facts that carved his name in golden letters in the minds of the "Believers". Luckily for him, there are other chapters in his book. You're holding one of those in your hands.

Recorded during the annual French music festival the "Printemps de Bourges", "Autre Chose "(something else), was first issued in June '82 on the New Rose label. It's an important record, one which concluded a 13-date tour of France, that followed a few months of bad vibes and which was made despite Willie being neglected in his homeland. In another time, not too long ago, France was a real land of opportunity for the tender eyed rockers.

I was born in Philadelphia, PA but I moved a lot and I lived successively in Medfield, Gloucester, then Providence, a few miles outside of Boston. My father was a reverend and I started to play piano in his church. The music of my childhood was of course rock & roll, the pioneers', Little Richard's and Jerry Lee Lewis's, and yet I was also listening to a lot of latin music, Tito Puente for instance. My nickname "Loco" comes from that culture, from a piano player named Joe Loco who used to be often on the same bill as a timpani player named Willie Bobo. For me, it was obvious that I had to take that name, especially as I didn't start with a rock band but with a Caribbean style orchestra

This was 1961.

A few years later, Willie Alexander was member of a garage band, the Lost. They were all in the same school, Goddard, and had made up their minds about putting a group together. The Lost were Willie's first recording band, with two 45s for Capitol that would've felt at home in the Nuggets box. Lately, two CDs have documented that era. Surprisingly, the bass player of this pre-punk gang, we're talking 1966, is Walter Powers, the same as features on the live recording you're holding. Not that the pair ever went their separate ways since those days, but both being Boston based and always part of one musical adventure or another, they never lost touch. It's actually through Powers that Willie Alexander ended up in the Velvet Underground. After the Lost came Grass Menagerie with Powers and Doug Yule, lasting a few months, then Bagatelle who, despite it being the psychedelic era devoted themselves to Soul Music.

We were nine in the group and we made an album half live, half studio. It went nowhere, commercially speaking, but we ended all the three of us touring as the Velvet Underground with the only original member left being Maureen Tucker on drums. In fact, I took Sterling Morrison's spot as he had gone back to his studies. We started touring in June '71 and we even came to Europe. I have mixed-up memories as the group was sometimes excellent, but was generally awful. I couldn't wait for this thing to end, as the Velvet was Lou Reed's band and we had no legitimacy to use this name. Two tours, no one cared and the group was over.

Willie started to make records under his own name. First with his own label, Garage, then with a major, MCA. That's precisely when the specific sound of the "Loco touch" was born. A kind of rock always balancing on some imaginary thread, which seems ready to sink but always manages to stay upright thanks to its rhythm. It's as eccentric as it is magical. Many of that era's songs are among his best work as far as his fans are concerned: "Hit Her Wid De Axe", "Radio Heart", "Dirty Eddie" and of course the classic "Kerouac". The Beat writer is one of his main influences, through the jazzy vibe that surrounded him but also for his taste for the bohemian way of life they shared.

Tougher times followed as MCA dropped the rocker, following the "unsatisfying" sales numbers and the personal troubles within his backing group, the Boom Boom Band. Whatever! Willie Alexander moved to New York and worked in a bar, waiting for new opportunities. They came from France, the country that had welcomed Vince Taylor and Gene Vincent.

Patrick Mathé : Before New Rose the record store and the label of the same name that came out of it, I already worked in a record store, Music Box, which released a few records under the Flamingo label. Among them was a certain The Count, a famous nutter in the Boston Scene. Through him, I met Willie Loco Alexander who had just been dropped by MCA and I ended up putting out his new album. It's one of the first releases of the label, just after the Saints and Charles De Goal.

This LP was issued in October '81. And if "Solo Loco" has such a synthetic sound, it's because the artist wanted to prove that guitar wasn't the only attribute of the binary beat. A tour was then booked with a band baptized the Confessions especially for the occasion. Walter Powers was on bass, along with two ex-Taxi Boys, Ricky Rotchild on drums and Mathew MacKenzie on guitar (the latter had already been part of a blues band with Willie in 72/73, Bluesberry Jam). The tour started with three shows in the capital city, on March 23rd and 24th at the Rex Club, as part of the "Actuel" (a famous underground/leftist French magazine) nights, then at the Gibus on the 25th. It was followed by some ten gigs in France including the "Printemps de Bourges" on April 3rd, recorded for posterity.

On the set list were eighteen songs including an old country classic recorded by the late Patti Page in the very early Fifties, "Tennessee Waltz", previously the work of Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King. Because there are boundaries among Willie's influences he then goes for a raging "Be Bop A Lula" borrowed from Gene Vincent. What comes next are the more expected numbers. Including his best-loved songs : "Home Is", "Kerouac", "AAWW", "Hit Her Wid De Axe", "Radio Heart", "Dirty Eddie".

Patrick Mathé : That specific tour was set up by one of the "Printemps de Bourges" bookers, Bernard Batzen. In fact that recording almost never happened, as the previous night Willie Alexander was playing in Toulouse, in a club called Le Pied (the Foot). It's such a nice place it's almost impossible to leave it, specially after enough beers. Which is why in the early morning we missed the train. So we hit the road by car and Willie made it to Bourges an hour before going on stage. Back then there was no highway and we thought we'd never make it there. And as it often happens, these were the perfect conditions for a marvellous show.

The Press was unanimous, it's a great record, a "live" that'll stick around and that you can spin again and again.

Christian Eudeline
Translation Laurent Bigot, thanks to Sylvie Simmons