Helmet heads ... Daft Punk with friend
In the 90s I helmed a dance music fanzine called Jockey Slut. My partner in the venture, Paul Benney, had been the first journalist to interview a teen French duo called Daft Punk in 1994 when the fanzine was still a black and white concern.
In 1996, with Da Funk under their belts and debut album Homework pending, we decided they were ready for their first front cover, which would also herald a new dawn for the Slut. It was to be the first issue printed in full colour. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Man de Homen-Christo were shy guys. On the Friday of the weekend of the shoot I had accompanied them to Nottingham for a DJ gig at Heavenly records' Social. The coach trip up was rowdy and featured fifty or so Londoners dipping cigarettes into amyl nitrate and setting them ablaze, and there was a raffle for an E. The young Parisians were sat, no doubt terrified, at the front of the bus, prompting a song from the hedonists at the back, which was sung in a Scottish accent and concluded with "The front of the bus ye cannae sing for peanuts!"
On the Sunday we held the photo shoot in one of the rooms of London's Embassy hotel. Bangalter gamely threw shapes for the snapper and feigned interest. Guy-Man, perhaps still traumatised by Friday's experience, remained surly throughout. When we looked over the contact sheets the cover choice was simple. There was only one shot of Guy-Man not contorting his face into a scowl, so we went with that.
In our leap to full colour we had sourced a new printer for the job. Unfortunately their only other clients were peddlers of low rent porn (perhaps the title of our fanzine had led them to believe we were an adult experience for diminutive horse riders). The print job was shoddy and the cover - and mag - looked awful.
Daft Punk were so dispirited by the whole experience that they took to wearing masks in all ensuing photo shoots (the face-hugging, bank robber kind). When Homework proved both seminal and saleable, they upped the ante to the gleaming robot suits they wore on Saturday night at their headlining slot at the Wireless Festival. With his face now concealed, Guy-Man can scowl all he likes, though during the performance he did reveal he was enjoying himself by punching the air with his little robot hand.
