Dominic Sonic
© Emmanuelle Margarita
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For nearly forty years, he was a figure in music in Rennes. Dominic Sonic passed away on July 23, 2020 at the age of 55. A year after his death, two records look back on the singer’s career: the reissue of his first solo album, Cold Tears and Acoustic, a tribute disc recorded with a host of guests. Relatives and collaborators tell about this musician fed on punk, from the Rennes wave of the 80s until his last moments.
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The first time we heard about Dominic Sonic was from a punk fan. The forty-something then told us about the heroic times of French rock at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, and the first parts of Noir Désir that the singer had made. Dominic Sonic’s name seemed to come out of nowhere.
Far from success, the Breton musician nevertheless continued his career, occupying the stage or putting himself at the service of musicians like backliner, driver or manager. Long dark man, he was for those who knew him a jovial boy, right in his rocker boots.
Dominique Garreau, alias Dominic Sonic, entered the Rennes scene with the punk group Kalashnikov, a group formed in 1979 at Lamballe high school by two brothers, Martin and Tonio Perrault, joined a little later by their friend Dominique. In full swing, the Rennes scene welcomed young people from all over Brittany. “They arrived around 82-83, they came from near Saint-Brieuc and had known each other in high school, describes Christian Dargelos, founder of Marquis de Sade and singer of the group Les Nus, which saw him land. It was the archetype of the punk group: 1, 2, 3, 4 and then fire … Dominique was mainly a singer. I don’t remember having seen him on the guitar at that time. Their feat of arms was to have performed at Transmusicales. “ Faithful to the Rennes festival and his team, Dominic Sonic will perform there often, including once with his idols, The Stooges.
Iggy Pop et Lou Reed
The singer does the 400 blows, his nights often end in the early morning. More than anything, he likes to summon the rock heroes who have accompanied him since his youth. “It was his life hanging out at night, telling stories, drinking Jack Daniel’s and smoking packs of Marlboro. It made him grow up, he was learning, and he put that in his songs. When he quoted Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, he spoke of them a bit like colleagues. He liked this rock mythology and told himself that he could get involved “, notes Christian Dargelos. Having become a guitarist, Dominic Sonic must wait to go solo to hear the wind of success whistle.
His first album, Cold Tears, is recorded in Brussels with former members of his group as well-known musicians from the Rennes scene. It appeared on the Crammed Discs label in 1989. Reissued in the middle of this summer, we rediscover an abrasive rock sung in English and French, carried by the cranial voice that Mister Sonic will keep until the end.
Just like his hit When My Tears Run Cold, he often seems to hesitate between acoustic inclinations and the electric furia of the Gun Club. “Rock was a way of being in the world. Dominique liked things to go fast. Life had to be lived fully, intensely, and without looking back “, notes Cathy Charlier, his last companion.
A success of esteem throughout Europe, this first album sold 40,000 copies. He signed with Barclay, where he made two records without obtaining the expected success. “It is true that he produced few albums in the life of a musician. But he never stopped the music. It was not possible for him not to play, not to compose, not to be on stage “ summarizes Cathy Charlier.
An acoustic album and a posthumous “black album”
Over the decades, the youngster “respectful of his elders” turns into a big brother for the young rockers of Rennes. He performs accompanied by the group Bikini Machine and follows the careers of promising young musicians. Even if he moved to Montreuil, in the east of Paris, Dominic Sonic remains inseparable from his city of Rennes and he continues to work with local musicians. For his album Acoustic, the last one that he led from A to Z, it is drummer Romain Baousson who is in production.
“Initially, the idea was to make a guitar / voice record to accompany solo dates. Except that his illness was starting to gain ground. We decided without consulting to make a more ambitious album, an acoustic best-of with more instruments and guests “, he explains.
Friends like the violinist Mirabelle Gilis, the guitarist Olivier Mellano, the saxophonist Daniel Paboeuf, Laetitia Shériff, Didier Wampas or Sanseverino, his Parisian neighbor participate. Romain Baousson, who knew the musician in the last years of his life, remembers someone who was “100% in the present moment, not at all tidied up cars “.
A last posthumous album, his Black album, still has to come out of the boxes. Dominic Sonic had recorded the voices and left models for Romain Baousson. In recent years, the musician had also written in notebooks his anecdotes gleaned in the world of music. “He had even turned down an invitation to dinner from David Bowie because he had to take someone home. He said that for a little guy from Lamballe, he had had a very full life “, concludes Cathy Charlier.
Dominic Sonic Cold Tears (Crammed Discs) 2021
Official site / Facebook
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