About Parisian Living

Parisian Living formed in February 1981 in Reading UK, when brothers Mike (bass) and Alan (drums) joined forces with multi-instrumentalist and vocal maestro John to begin forging a path through the forests, over the mountains and across the oceans of modern music in search of the funky Holy Grail, the Muthalode. Alan and Mike had been David Marx' rhythm section, during which time David was also playing with Restaurant For Dogs, the vehicle of former XTC keyboardist Barrie Andrews. John had been in The Bop Natives, Mark Pringle's band, which led Mark to Hot House with Heather Small, later of M-People.

By the time of our first demo cassettes, Timski (keyboards) and Phil (piano, above) had augmented the line-up and the sound really began to strike home. The same five musicians still form the creative core of the band today. Our philosophy is to take somethin' funny and make it funky. We have a tendency towards semi-epics of six minutes or more with a backstory and characters, and by Clapton, how we love our guitar solos!

We are still the last surviving independent cast-iron all-weather ever-optimistic still expanding flood-damaged no-budget home-video bona fide 100% home-made from natural ingredients oldest-established permanent floating Anglo-French-Australian funk band in the South (of England)!

"You guys are the British Funkadelic" may be the nicest thang anyone's ever said about us (Adam, our favourite sound engineer in expansive mood). Also "Reading's finest"! (Murph The Lighting Guy). And "Purley's answer to the Jacksons" (Saxophone David in his journalism days. We think the question was "Can You Feel It" in 1980). And "Fantastic... if you like that sort of thing..." ("Blah Blah Blah"- our local fanzine). We've also been compared to Ian Dury & The Blockheads and Frank Zappa. We're not worthy...