Year 2000 is not easy for Boo-Fonk. With the departure of David and Olivier, we're a little bit demotivated. By chance, a new bass player (Conrad Brouwer, with whom I played within Brenn d'Avis in 1992) and a new guitar player (Joël, a friend of Fred) join us for a new start.

We've also put our songs on mp3.com. We can now sell our CDs on line. They're burned on demand! All our songs are available to our friends in .mp3 format. We raised up to the Funk top ten chart with Kinky Lily, and up to #3 in Vocal House chart with a special remix of Hot Baby (Britney's Strip)!

Meanwhile, very few concerts planned this year; next one should be at my 30 years birthday!

We should also record a new song (only one...).

On MP3.com, I've set up a great station that made thousands of hits in a few months:

It compiles the best of R&B music found on MP3.COM.

This year, I also did a great work of putting together all the old records I made during the last 10 years. Alltogether, that makes... 71 songs! Check the whole list with year, band, musicians and credits (excel file).

Gandara is renamed into Boo-Fonk for our first concert at La Traverse, Sélections des Vingt-4 Heures du Rock 1999 in January. This is my best concert so far. We were super ready, and had the best audience I ever had... 400 young people singing our songs!

We recorded a bunch of songs for this concert, recorded this concert LIVE, and recorded a few songs during the following months. Also, Malik leaved, and Erno replaced him at the bass guitar. That gave us the opportunity to compose a few more songs, some of our best ones! And make a few more concerts with our delighted fans...

That summer, Erno and David succeed at their Highschool exams and leave other countries. They are replaced for a while by Olivier (guitar) and David (bass).

Check the Boo-Fonk site for plenty of details and pictures.

All the Boo-Fonk songs we recorded that year:

• Girls R Fonky (our first song)
• MF In The Home (song I had previously composed on my own, but that we enhanced together)
• Hot Baby (our most successful song... "Let's play the doctor...". I found the Chorus of this song in 1994, on Holidays at the Maldives)
• Funky Ball
• Get Love
• Some Love For Me
• She Wants 2 Fonk
• Hot Baby (Disco Edit)
• Kinky Lily (Erno plays the bass)
• Party (chorus close to Prince's 1999, Erno plays the bass as well)
• Wait

I recorded all our songs the same way:
1) record drums, bass guitar, guitar and keyboards on my 8 tracks Forstex R-8 recorder.
2) transfer the tracks to Cubase
3) mix a little bit
4) add voice(s)
5) final mix
6) mastering

Lot of work with Gandara. Olivier leaves, and is replaced by Malik. Erno Klijzing (percussions) joins us. We are preparing or first concert...

While we're working, I draft a few songs of my own:

• Little Witch (dedicated to my wife)
• The Way We Feel (kinda Michael Bolton gimmick)

Thanks to my wife's cousin Nicolas Guignet, in October 97, I started to play with nice guys in their band called Gandara. David playing guitar, Fred on the drums, July on the keyboard and Olivier on the bass. Funk. Finally.

Until the band started, I had time to compose and record a few more songs:

• Bye My Love
• Donne-moi du Fonk

This time, I didn't try to make the band play my songs. I figured out it would be better if everybody got involved in song's composition.

Recorded a few songs on my own with my new Home Studio:
My first attempts to compose real R&B and funky songs:

• MF in The Home
• Tabala
• Try the Song

I also worked a few months with Yvan Sokolov (bass) and Tobias (drums) at a band we called E-Men. I sang and played the guitar, and we made on concert.

While it improved my guitar skills, the fact that I was composing all the songs was not very motivating for the band - and I was not such a good guitar player!

End of FMD for me. They thought I was too much in the pop trend.

Too busy with my new BMSW Entertainment company (see Work - Events), and with the back and forth between my parent's home, and my girlfriend's parent's home, I made a pause on music playing and composing.

Only one song composed at the end of the year, before stoping BMSW: Nobody Knows

I joined FMD (Funk Ministery Department) as a singer. Christopher Durand (guitar), Boris Dunand (guitar), Frederick (drums),several bass players and myself composed a few good songs together. They were pushing us to the Rage against the machine style, and I was pulling for Jamiroquai or Red Hot Chilli Peppers feelings. Two successful concerts (we had several propositions after the second one at the 24h du Rock Festival in October).

Beginning of the year, the Brenn d'Avis adventure ended. We all wanted to do something different that we could not achieve : I composed almost all the songs on a keyboard basis. All the songs were rather cool or pop than rock or powerful. They wanted power! I couldn't give it, and they could neither bring it. The drummer wanted New-wave, the bass player wanted funk-rock (but couldn't slap), the guitarist wanted power-rock (but couldn't provide that many power riffs, I wanted better musicians, but couldn't give them the reasons to improve theirselves. That year, we were so poorly motivated that we only achieved 3 new songs ! After our dramatical concert, at the Festival Rock&Pop, I quited, thinking it could not be worse elsewhere. Dramatical means : when you start playing, and the people think it's time to move to the bar...

Then, I played a few months with three friends (Emmanuel Hungreger-Choir, Bernard Widmer and Alex) in 25 Days of Night, a hard/pop band just for the Autocontrôle festival.

At the end of that year, I made an association (BaBC Productions) with my 3 friends Ronald Menzel, Stefano Balestra and Philippe Wend, who wanted to settle back the 24h du Rock Festival. It soon became famous to the local bands in Geneva.

I also started the guitar (summer 93) to get that groovy/power feeling I could not grasp on the keyboard.

Beginning of that year, the ETM organized a Musical for its students: l'ETM en ballade à Broadway. I sang Just a Gigolo, and back vocals on a few other songs. A wonderfull experience. I met lots of musicians I was delighted to work with!

This musical lasted just one week at La Traverse. It's also thanks to that event that I discovered this special place, and decided to setup the Festival Rock & Pop 93 at the same place. See the Hobbies - Events section for more details.

Brenn d'Avis recorded a bunch of songs and sold tapes to friends (more than a hundred), made several concerts. After the summer, we started having troubles staying motivated...

In summer, I also stopped taking the trumpet and singing courses.

Recorded Brenn d'Avis first songs with our brand new hardware (Fostex A8 8 tracks recorder).
Luckily, we were also chosen for an ETM compilation CD, so we could record the Promiss in a professional studio (Taurus Studio). A great experience!

Joined the Brenn d'Avis, a band missing a leader but that had great ambitions. Musicians: Nicolas Cage (guitar), Conrad Brouwer (bass), Pieter Brouwer (drums).

As nobody wanted to hire us at the beginning, I had to organize our 1st concert (The Brenn d'Avis LIVE in Chavannes-de-Bogis !). See the Hobbies - Events section for details.

I also started taking singing courses at the ETM (Ecoles des Technologies Musicales) and trumpet courses at Le Conservatioure de La Côte.

Started composing on my own. Started the keyboard as well. At the meeting, I only played the white keys to keep it simple! Step by step, I started using the black keys as well!

During this year, I wrote 4 songs, using a Roland TR-707 drum machine, and an ELKA EK-44 FM Synthetiser:

• Si tu voulais (song for a girl I was falling in love with)
• Dans Les Affres De L'Amour (song for the same girl because she wasn't falling in love with me)
• Sad & Lonely (song one use to write when one is alone)
• If You Let Me Down (pure fantasy! This song seduced Nicolas Cage, and we started thinking about setting up a band together...)

Back to music! My voice changed that year, so I started to explore... I began by singin on some Leonard Cohen songs (oh, that dark voice...), and on the instrumental version of George Michael's Kissing A Fool.

With my friends Stevan Jovanovic at the keyboard, and Nicolas Cage at the guitar, we recorded a few songs (Please Diane Let Me) for a horror movie I wanted to set up (see Hobbies - Visual section).

Learned to play the Piano. At the end, I was really disgusted by the only style of music I could play: Classical Music. I gave up.

Learned to play recorder (flûte douce) and learned music theory at the Conservatoire de la Côte.