Hermine Demoriane
Encyclopedia
Hermine Demoriane is a French singer, writer and former tightrope walker
. Born in 1942 in Neuilly-sur-Seine
, daughter of an engineer and a journalist, she married the British poet Hugo Williams
in 1965, with whom she has a daughter, Murphy Williams, also a writer and journalist.
, a hippy magazine, carrying out interviews with Jean-Luc Godard
, Philippe Garrel
, Len Lye
etc.
In the early 1970s she spent time as a tightrope walker (see her book The Tightrope Walker), performing for example with COUM Transmissions
(pre-Throbbing Gristle
), and spending a season with Jérôme Savary
's Grand Magic Circus in Paris in 1974, acting in Copi
's play Goodbye Mister Freud. She played the character of Chaos, singing Piaf
's Je ne regrette rien, in Derek Jarman
's Jubilee. She also took part in Alternative Miss World, organised by the artist Andrew Logan
.
Hermine wrote three plays: Lou Andréas Salomé (starring Richard O'Brien
and Jenny Runacre
), He Who Is Your Lord Is Your Child Too (starring Anne Bean
) and The Knives Beside the Plates (with the Neo-Naturist Cabaret), between 1978 and 1980. From October 1980 until 1981, she performed musical interludes at The Comic Strip
, a pioneering café-theatre in Soho
with comedians such as Rik Mayall
, Jennifer Saunders
, etc. In addition, she performed and organised various evening shows of performance art.
She acted in John Maybury
's Court of Miracles in 1982, and Hilda Was a Goodlooker by Anna Thew (London Film-Makers Co-Operative) in 1986.
during her musical career. In 1974, employed as a tightrope walker by The Moodies, she sang for the first time in public, singing a song by Nick Lowe
I won't make it without you. With Moodier, successor group to The Moodies, she performed a version of Roy Orbison
's Blue Angel produced by Max Paddison in the style of a Marlene Dietrich
song.
In 1976 she played two concerts with the group The Subterraneans, composed of Nick Kent
and The Damned without their singer Dave Vanian, and also recorded with both Nick Kent and Peter Perrett
, the resulting single never being published. David Cunningham from The Flying Lizards
noticed Hermine and recorded her for her single Torture, originally planned for Virgin Records
but which was eventually released on her own label Salomé Records, with a later remastered release on Human Records. She then released a second single with Human.
In April 1982, the Belgian record label Crammed Discs
released an album containing six songs by Hermine, The World On My Plates, well known for the cover photograph by Richard Rayner-Canham where Hermine loads 7" singles into a dishwasher while wearing a ball gown. She toured in 1982 and 1983. The follow-up album Lonely At The Top was released in July 1984 on her own label (Salomé). Swiss session recordings for another album, along with a couple of re-recordings, were eventually released on Who'll Come Walking in 2008. Her two albums were both re-released in digitally remastered CD editions in 2006 by Les Temps Modernes (LTM).
Although having recorded very little since 1984, viewers of the TV series French & Saunders
and Absolutely Fabulous
have been able to see her as well as hear her French-accented voice in numerous musical pastiches (she sings a French version of the theme tune at the end of the episode Paris in 2001.)
In April 2008, Hermine released Who'll Come Walking, a new CD album through her label Salomé Discs. She sang in May during a cycle rally that took place between Sacy-le-Petit and Verderonne in l'Oise, France, and on the 11 and 12 June at Andrew Logan's Summer Sale at the GlassHouse in London.
Hermine is to play three dates in Switzerland (Bern, Geneva and Zurich) in November 2008, backed by Ian Hill, Ian Kane and Susie Honeyman.
, l'Oise
. The organisation organises artists' residences by British and French artists and hosts exhibitions.
She is also Secretary of the Blondin Memorial Trust, dedicate to the memory of the tightrope walker Charles Blondin
.
Tightrope walking
Tightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope, usually at a great height. One or more artists performs in front of an audience or as a publicity stunt...
. Born in 1942 in Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
, daughter of an engineer and a journalist, she married the British poet Hugo Williams
Hugo Williams
Hugo Williams is a British poet, journalist and travel writer. His full name is Hugh Mordaunt Vyner Williams He is the son of actor Hugh Williams and the model and actress Margaret Vyner, who co-wrote some upper-middle-class comedies in the late 1950s...
in 1965, with whom she has a daughter, Murphy Williams, also a writer and journalist.
Bohemian London
At the end of the 1960s she contributed to International TimesInternational Times
International Times was an underground newspaper founded in London in 1966. Editors included Hoppy, David Mairowitz, Pete Stansill, Barry Miles, Jim Haynes and playwright Tom McGrath...
, a hippy magazine, carrying out interviews with Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, Philippe Garrel
Philippe Garrel
Philippe Garrel is a French director, cinematographer, screenwriter, editor and producer. His movies have won him awards at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival...
, Len Lye
Len Lye
Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific...
etc.
In the early 1970s she spent time as a tightrope walker (see her book The Tightrope Walker), performing for example with COUM Transmissions
COUM Transmissions
COUM Transmissions was a performance art group interested in pushing boundaries, influenced by Dada and the Merry Pranksters.CT was a whimsical, eccentric as well as confrontational band and performance art group, from Hull, Yorkshire – a collective the constants of which were its...
(pre-Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle were an English industrial, avant-garde music and visual arts group that evolved from the performance art group COUM Transmissions...
), and spending a season with Jérôme Savary
Jérôme Savary
Jérôme Savary is a French theater director and actor. His work has democratized and widened the appeal of musical theater in France, drawing together and blending such genres as opera, operetta, and musical comedy.- Biography :...
's Grand Magic Circus in Paris in 1974, acting in Copi
Copi
Raúl Damonte Botana , better known by the nom de plume Copi , was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.-Biography:Damonte spent most of his youth in Montevideo...
's play Goodbye Mister Freud. She played the character of Chaos, singing Piaf
Piaf
Piaf is a French word:* Édith Piaf* Musée Édith Piaf* Sans Fusils, Ni Souliers, à Paris: Martha Wainwright's Piaf Record* Piaf * 3772 Piaf , a main-belt asteroid discovered on 1982 by L. G. Karachkina...
's Je ne regrette rien, in Derek Jarman
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...
's Jubilee. She also took part in Alternative Miss World, organised by the artist Andrew Logan
Andrew Logan
Andrew Logan is an English sculptor, performance artist, jewellery-maker, portraitist and painter.He was born at Witney, Oxfordshire, in England. He was educated as an architect at the Oxford School of Architecture, graduating in 1970...
.
Hermine wrote three plays: Lou Andréas Salomé (starring Richard O'Brien
Richard O'Brien
Richard Timothy Smith , better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze...
and Jenny Runacre
Jenny Runacre
Jenny Runacre is an actress.Runacre was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She relocated to London as a child, attended The Actor's Workshop there, and trained in the Stanislavski System....
), He Who Is Your Lord Is Your Child Too (starring Anne Bean
Anne Bean
Anne Bean is an internationally-known installation and performance artist whose work is managed by Artsadmin.-Life:She is resident in the UK...
) and The Knives Beside the Plates (with the Neo-Naturist Cabaret), between 1978 and 1980. From October 1980 until 1981, she performed musical interludes at The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents.... The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and...
, a pioneering café-theatre in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
with comedians such as Rik Mayall
Rik Mayall
Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...
, Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Saunders
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English comedienne, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won two BAFTAs, an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a Peoples Choice Award.She first came into...
, etc. In addition, she performed and organised various evening shows of performance art.
She acted in John Maybury
John Maybury
John Maybury is an English filmmaker. In 2005 he was listed as one of the 100 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain.-Early life:...
's Court of Miracles in 1982, and Hilda Was a Goodlooker by Anna Thew (London Film-Makers Co-Operative) in 1986.
Chanteuse
Hermine was one of the new wave divasNew Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
during her musical career. In 1974, employed as a tightrope walker by The Moodies, she sang for the first time in public, singing a song by Nick Lowe
Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain "Nick" Lowe , is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica...
I won't make it without you. With Moodier, successor group to The Moodies, she performed a version of Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
's Blue Angel produced by Max Paddison in the style of a Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
song.
In 1976 she played two concerts with the group The Subterraneans, composed of Nick Kent
Nick Kent
Nick Kent is a British rock critic and musician.-Career:Along with writers including Paul Morley, Charles Shaar Murray and Danny Baker, Nick Kent is seen as one of the most important and influential UK music journalists of the 1970s. He wrote for the British music publication New Musical Express,...
and The Damned without their singer Dave Vanian, and also recorded with both Nick Kent and Peter Perrett
Peter Perrett
Peter Perrett is an English singer-songwriter. He fronts the recently re-formed 1970s English band, The Only Ones. Perrett lives in Forest Hill, South East London. The Only Ones often described as New Wave were noted for their musicianship during the Punk period...
, the resulting single never being published. David Cunningham from The Flying Lizards
The Flying Lizards
The Flying Lizards were an English experimental rock band, who were formed in 1976 in England. They are best remembered as New wave one-hit wonders, thanks to their deliberately eccentric cover of Barrett Strong's "Money", which became a UK and US chart success in 1979.-Career:Formed by and led by...
noticed Hermine and recorded her for her single Torture, originally planned for Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
but which was eventually released on her own label Salomé Records, with a later remastered release on Human Records. She then released a second single with Human.
In April 1982, the Belgian record label Crammed Discs
Crammed Discs
Crammed Discs is an independent record label whose output blends world music, rock, pop, and electronica. Based in Brussels, Belgium, Crammed was founded in 1980 by Marc Hollander of Aksak Maboul and has since released over 300 albums and 250 singles, working with artists from all over the world...
released an album containing six songs by Hermine, The World On My Plates, well known for the cover photograph by Richard Rayner-Canham where Hermine loads 7" singles into a dishwasher while wearing a ball gown. She toured in 1982 and 1983. The follow-up album Lonely At The Top was released in July 1984 on her own label (Salomé). Swiss session recordings for another album, along with a couple of re-recordings, were eventually released on Who'll Come Walking in 2008. Her two albums were both re-released in digitally remastered CD editions in 2006 by Les Temps Modernes (LTM).
Although having recorded very little since 1984, viewers of the TV series French & Saunders
French & Saunders
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act....
and Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous
Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written by Saunders, who plays the leading character. It also stars Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks...
have been able to see her as well as hear her French-accented voice in numerous musical pastiches (she sings a French version of the theme tune at the end of the episode Paris in 2001.)
In April 2008, Hermine released Who'll Come Walking, a new CD album through her label Salomé Discs. She sang in May during a cycle rally that took place between Sacy-le-Petit and Verderonne in l'Oise, France, and on the 11 and 12 June at Andrew Logan's Summer Sale at the GlassHouse in London.
Hermine is to play three dates in Switzerland (Bern, Geneva and Zurich) in November 2008, backed by Ian Hill, Ian Kane and Susie Honeyman.
Lady of the Manor
Hermine is President of the non-profit organisation Ateliers d’artistes de Sacy, based in the Château de Sacy (a country house that she inherited in 1994 from her grandparents Hermine and Armand Dupuis, after having bought out the shares of her brothers and sisters, cousins and aunt), in Sacy-le-PetitSacy-le-Petit
Sacy-le-Petit is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.-References:*...
, l'Oise
Oise
Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.-History:Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
. The organisation organises artists' residences by British and French artists and hosts exhibitions.
She is also Secretary of the Blondin Memorial Trust, dedicate to the memory of the tightrope walker Charles Blondin
Charles Blondin
Jean François Gravelet-Blondin was a French tightrope walker and acrobat.-Life:Blondin was born on 24 February 1824 at St Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France. His real name was Jean-François Gravelet, and he was known also by the names Charles Blondin or Jean-François Blondin, or more simply "The Great...
.
Original
- Torture/Veiled Women, 7", Salomé, re-released Human Records, Torture/Veiled Women/Born a woman/Foxes will, HUM 3, 1980
- TV Lovers/Valley of the dolls, 7", Human Records, HUM 11, 1981
- The World On My Plates, 12", Crammed Discs, 1982
- Lonely At The Top, 12", Salomé, 1984
- Who'll Come Walking, CD and download, Salomé, 2008
Re-releases
- The World On My Plates, Remastered CD, LTM CD 2473, 2006
- Lonely At The Top, Remastered CD, LTM CD 2476, 2006
External links
- The site of Château de Sacy.
- Hermine's MySpace page.
- Biography, on the site of Les Temps Modernes (LTM).
- Murphy Williams' MySpace page.
- The Blondin Memorial Trust web site.