Monsieur Bing

Monsieur Bing

sampler, *1961 FR
Musician of Rock and Reggae
A.k.a. Benoît Careil

Benoît was born in Rennes, France in 1961. He was 11 years old when he bought his first guitar and by 1979, he evolved towards electric guitar, and then bass guitar. In 1983, he joins a nameless band in Villejean Université, Rennes, to cover bands such as Siouxsie & The Banshees or Marquis De Sade, but quite fast they plan to hire a female singer. End of 1983, they'll meet with Nathalie Cousin later known as Billy Ze Kick, fresh back from London where she met with the Punk scene. She went to Rennes to pursue her English degree, mostly motivated by the good reputation of the city over music. Their first band was created under the name Les Passants. Benoît will also be part of La STPO the same year. Early 1985 will see the split of Les Passants and the creation of Le Kâ, with Cousin on vocals, Jean-Christophe Masson on guitar, Luc Nanpon on keyboards and Didier Larive on trumpet, Careil is on bass and computes a Roland TR-606. In 1985 he also creates a non-profit organization called Les Productions Du Fer, managing STPO, but also Splassh, The European Sons and his forthcoming bands. Le Kâ will split in 1988. At that time, Jean Vautrin will be releasing a novel called Billy Ze Kick, which Nathalie really enjoyed, so much that she decided to take the alias and to name her new band that way. The other members came aboard, Careil became Monsieur Bing, Nathalie's brother Benoît Cousin on guitar became Boby T. Bang and relying on a beatbox at first, they'll soon be joined by Jean-Christophe Bénic alias Colargol (2), previously drummer with Verska Vis. Benoît will record all the tracks sung by Billy on a 4-track recorder in his house of Rennes, some will be compiled by Grignou Production, from Canal B. Early 1992, they'll sign an edition contract with BMG, and end of 1992, a few labels are interested to sign the band but they back off once the lyrics of "Mangez-moi, mangez-moi" are assimilated. At this point the band is about to split, but Benoît convinces Nathalie to release an album with all previously recorded material, some with Les Gamins En Folie, their side band when going live and others as a wink to RPG which they all enjoy. April 1993 will see the release of Billy Ze Kick Et Les Gamins En Folie, heavily aired by Edouard Baer and Ariel Wizman during summertime, then journalists at La Grosse Boule on Radio Nova. A distribution company called Media 7 will fast be overcome so the demand is high. They'll be programmed on Trans Musicales De Rennes that year, but decline Ubu, Rennes offered by Hervé Bordier. Instead, they'll be granted the creation of a Barnum in the old Rennes, sold-out every night. Their motto: "No smoking, G's only"! Soon, their BMG editor called Piranha will launch its own label: Shaman under PolyGram, licensing the album in April 1994. 100k records will be sold less than a month later granting them a Disque D'or selling certification, and by September 300k copies were gone. Somewhere during fall that year, a policeman from Nantes files a complaint against incitement of drug abuse, all the country seems to discover the existence of psilocybin, the hallucinogen mushroom as portrayed in Mangez-Moi Mangez-Moi Mangez-Moi. By the end of the year, the band decides to take a time off. Benoît will then produce Nathalie's solo album Paniac, still with Les Productions Du Fer, recorded with -M- and released in 1995. He'll then sell all his rights on Billy Ze Kick to Polygram against quite some money, then produce a few friends album such as Demain Les Poulpes, Les Nains De Jardin, Les Raggamins, then Sloy's firt LP initially recorded by Rosebud but sold to Benoît by Alan Gac. The company will be sold to Yann Hamon freshly building Yapucca Productions in 1997. He'll bounce on the cultural scene, becoming head of a non-profit organization called Le Collectif and with the help of Martial Gabillard (later to become director of L'Orchestre De Bretagne), will ensure the birth of Le Jardin Moderne. He'll be the director of the structure from 1998 to 2000, then president up to 2004, and the director of a Celtic music festival for 9 years called Bol d'Eire held in Noyal-Châtillon-sur-Seiche. Leaving his responsibilities, Benoît will reform with Billy Ze Kick to release Verdure & Libido in 2001, under the umbrella of a new production company launched for the event, Pudding Productions. The production house will also release Les Oisives (a duet between Soazig Le Lay and Sylvie Jourdan), The Milk (2) (Soazig's solo project), Fannytastic, Carbel and many more. His political engagements close to the ecologist movement since 1998, and at large in the city life will push him towards the creation of an indie network called "Labels A Rennes". He is an active member of Europe Ecologie Les Verts (one ecological party in France), and in 2008, he was elected to the city council, he's now deputy to the culture for the city of Rennes.