I asked Albert for some info on the background behind the Underbelly...

It started on Valentines Day three years ago when Dom Berard hired Les Vegas to open a Brain Surgeons show in Paris. David Hirschberg and I joined Les on a half dozen songs and it came out surprisingly good considering we'd never rehearsed and I hadn't played live with Les since that last Soft White Underbelly gig in 1969.

Anyway with the demise of the Brain Surgeons Dom and Les approached me about doing some more dates in France this year. At the same time I had been approached by Alan Burridge to do an atypical song on the Motorhead tribute album, "Sheep In Wolves Clothing".

Also my writing has taken a jazzy turn as you can hear from my myspace page recordings. So I thought why not do Lemmy as if he was a French gypsy in Paris in the 1930's? So that's how we came to record our version of Funny Farm.

Even stranger is that it goes over really well when we play it live. Well, we've only played live once since we learned the song but it was the hit of the night. Anyway we are talking about writing some new material (already started on that), redoing some old stuff and playing some more gigs.

We plan on coming back to France and hopefully do some gigs in the UK or Ireland at least.;-) It will not be my only musical outlet but it is one that I'd like to continue to develop.

The guitarist is a guy who came to a Brain Surgeons gig and handed me his CD. When I listened to it I thought it was great and I ended up going to one of his shows and jamming with him on Cities on Flame. He had a great take on the song and definitely brought his own style to it.

After that I wanted him to be the understudy guitarist/bassist for the Brain Surgeons in case David or Ross could not make a show. It was only a matter of time before we would play together. He is really great and lots of fun to work with. Nobody who hears him with me will miss some great guitar playing. He can, and does, "bring it."

The Canadian band is being put together by a promoter, Lou Molinario, who booked the Brain Surgeons in his Corktown tavern in Hamilton ON in 2006. I'm leaning toward calling it "Bouchard's Outrageous Canadians."

Hope I don't get sued by the other BOC!;-0 We'll be playing BOC favorites with 4 different lead singers. It should be pretty cool and if all goes well, there'll be more Canadian dates to follow.

I have 3 other projects I've been recording with but I'll wait until they're closer to done before I start talking about them.

Gail has just posted this review of the 169 Bar gig on J&A's:

The venue was a small funky bar on the lower east side. I FINALLY had the great fortune to met Les Braunstein, who I have heard SO much about from various people over the years. Les arrived from upstate NY with his wife, and they were joined by their daughter, who lives in NYC.

I spoke with David and Albert for awhile and they are REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to the Paris shows....Dom and Gerard....GET READY !!!!!!

Adrian, who is their guitar player, arrived soon after, and I couldn't decide who he resembled more....Matthew Broderick or Robert Downey, Jr.

Set List:

• Critical Mass
• The Red and the Black
• Scratch Around
• Funny Farm (this is going to be on the Motorhead tribute)
• Cities on Flame
• Dark Angel
• Astronomy

If any of you on the other side of the pond can rearrange your work schedules/holidays/military service/vacations so that you can catch these shows, I would encourage you to do it if you can. You can always get another job, but you can't always catch Les Braunstein and Albert Bouchard together on a stage....so let's get our priorities in order.

There was no encore. They played about 40 minutes.

I got there around 9:30 PM and it seemed like from around 8:00 PM on, they had different people performing in half hour time slots. I saw two singers - one girl performed and played keyboards, and the other girl sang acapella. The band went on at 11:00 PM. It didn't look like Albert's drums, since it was a Gretsch set, and I think all he probably brought was his cymbals. The stage was tiny.

I had never heard Les sing before, so I had no idea what to expect. He did a wonderful job and I thought he sounded great. His onstage presentation is much more....theatrical. He also plays guitar....a Telecaster.

"Astronomy" is my favorite BOC song of all time, and I love hearing it no matter who sings it and so many people have... James Hetfield, Deborah, Albert, Joe, Eric....I think even William Shatner would sound good....

Prince Omega himself has just made this announcement:

First gig will be this Thursday Valentine's Day Feb 14 at the 169 Bar in Chinatown NYC. 169 East Broadway, NY NY 11PM.

Rather nice touch having the show on 14 Feb - that's three years to the day since Les supported the Surgeons in Paris.

Dom Berard has just posted this news on J&A's:

The Underbelly will open for THE ANIMALS and Friends on the following March shows :

• Thursday 13th The New Morning, Paris.
• Friday 14th Compiegne (Zicodrome) 60 miles North East of Paris.
• Saturday 15th Caen - Herouville St Clair (Next to Caen - Big Bang Café)
• Sunday 16th Vaureal - Le Forum (15 miles North of Paris)

New Morning club is located at walking distance of Euro Star station (Gare Du Nord).

Hope to see many of you there !

Les has just announced the following news:

I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you, but I believe Albert and I are going to open for the Yardbirds in Paris, in April. I think were gonna call ourselves the Underbelly.

Before that, we'll play a couple times in New York. I'd love to add London, but we don't know people there. Got

This Sunday were getting together, I think to record a cover of a Motor Head tune - Funny Farm. It's for some collection...