Tuesday, December 4, 2007

local Cyborgs make good in the music industry-Daft Punk.



Thats our lads..Dancing with Juliette Lewis for The Gap.
Wiki:

Daft Punk is a duo consisting of Paris house musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (born February 8, 1974) and Thomas Bangalter (born January 3, 1975). The duo is considered one of the most successful electronic music collaborations of all time, both in album sales and in critical acclaim. After Daft Punk reached significant popularity in the late 1990s house movement in France, other artists such as Air, Cassius and Dimitri from Paris began to receive a similar amount of attention.



Daft Punk are noted for their use of visual components associated with their musical productions. The music videos for their singles from Homework featured memorable characters and placed emphasis on storytelling instead of musical performance. The album Discovery subsequently became the soundtrack to Interstella 5555. (see the above interview)

The lads before the terrible accident-or so they say...

Their outward personae have also changed over time. During their Homework years, the duo would usually wear masks to hide their appearance. When not wearing disguises, they occasionally preferred to be replaced by animation (as they appeared in The Work of Director Michel Gondry DVD) or have their faces digitally obscured for press kits. Very few photos of the duo's faces exist, including a blurry one found in the Homework liner notes.
In their more visible Discovery years, they have appeared as futuristic robots for publicity photo shoots, interviews, live shows and music videos. These suits, engineered by Tony Gardner and Alterian, Inc.,[21] sport complicated helmets capable of various LED effects and metallic finger gloves. Daft Punk introduced the costumes to many U.S. television viewers through an advertisement for a special presentation of their videos during Cartoon Network's Toonami block. Thomas Bangalter once stated, "We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots.

Daft Punk..no more makeup and hair worries for them....

During a video interview shot in Japan, Daft Punk stated that they donned their robot masks to easily merge the characteristics of humans and machines. However, Bangalter later admitted that the costumes were initially the result of shyness. "But then it became exciting from the audiences' point of view. It's the idea of being an average guy with some kind of superpower." When asked on whether the duo expressed themselves differently within the robotic suits, Bangalter stated "No, we don't need to. It's not about having inhibitions. It's more like an advanced version of glam, where it's definitely not you." With the release of Human After All, the musical duo's outfits became slightly less complicated, consisting of simplified versions of the Discovery head gear and dark leather jumpsuits. The latter were designed by Hedi Slimane.



During he filming and promotion of Daft Punk's Electroma, the duo went to great lengths to avoid showing their faces. While on the tset of the film, the duo chose to be interviewed with their backs turned. As reported on October 2006, the band went as far as to wear black cloth over their heads during a televised interview.

It is believed that the mystery of their identity and the elaborate nature of their disguises has added to their popularity. The iconic status of the robotic costumes has been compared to the makeup of KISS and the leather jacket worn by Iggy Pop. Bangalter stated, "The mask gets very hot, but after wearing it as long as I have, I am used to it....


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that's very inspirational and cool to know

Anonymous said...

oh my god daft punk is the coolest band ever i dont care if u guys where masks ur awsome i wanna meet u guys so bad the helmets are awsome u guys rock if u read this pleaz come back to chicago u rockk

DJ Vay-Po said...

i LOVE daft punk, that great old sk00l feel to the music is amazing and it's so much fun when I mix the songs. my favez 2 mix are the voice-only parts of technologic and from the vocals on of harder, better, faster, stronger. I've also mixed technologic with Nobody Listens To Techno by DJ Tiesto with great results. ROCK ON DAFT PUNK!!!!