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‘Moderne, c’est déjà vieux’ La Féline   I   I pretended to remember and I smiled: it was time to tell the story once again   A few hours before the concert, backstage at La Maroquinerie in the northern part of the twentieth arrondissement in Paris, I was smoking, legs crossed, sitting on a stool, in front of two freelancers for guitar magazines and three writers for French indie-rock sites Our singer refused to talk to the press anymore, as if the press still existed The tour promoter was selling us as part of a set of Californian rockers who had been famous in the eighties: a junkie who had survived the Paisley Underground scene was playing ahead of us, and after us would be a band we hadn’t thought much of back then, a weird take on Camper Van Beethoven that had landed a Levi’s jeans ad just before grunge took over They’d written a hit, just like us, and we’d had plenty of fans Right outside the concert hall, I’d seen a few fans already hanging around when I’d stepped out for a bit of air late in the afternoon Guys my age, of course, but here, just like for the other tour dates around Europe, there would be some younger people We’d been minor players in musical history, and there would always be teenagers who were into the also-rans rather than those who had made it They’re wrong, but I still have a soft spot for them   Anyway, the story In 1984, before going into the studio to record Wave Packet’s second album, I came back to sleep at my parents’ in Redwood City with my girlfriend at the time The first album was terrible, hadn’t sold at all, and I was scared as hell of flopping The first time around, I’d been completely clueless, but now I knew The compositions were weak My dad, who was part Native American, told us about local tribes all around the bay and I got way too drunk I fell asleep on the bed I’d had since I was a kid, with