Hermine

Hermine Demoriane (Hermine, Hermine Williams) is a French singer, writer and former tightrope walker. Daughter of an engineer and a journalist, she married the British poet Hugo Williams in 1965, with whom she has a daughter, Murphy Williams, also a writer and journalist.

At the end of the 1960s she contributed to International Times, a hippy magazine, carrying out interviews with Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Garrel, Len Lye etc.

In the early 1970s she spent time as a tightrope walker (see her book The Tightrope Walker), performing, for example, with COUM Transmissions (pre-Throbbing Gristle), and spending a season with Jérôme Savary's Grand Magic Circus in Paris in 1974, acting in Copi's play Goodbye Mister Freud. She played the character of Chaos, singing Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien", in Derek Jarman's Jubilee. She also took part in Alternative Miss World, organised by the artist Andrew Logan.

Hermine wrote three plays; Lou Andréas Salomé (starring Richard O'Brien and Jenny Runacre), He Who Is Your Lord Is Your Child Too (starring Anne Bean) and The Knives Beside the Plates (with the Neo-Naturist Cabaret), between 1978 and 1980. From October 1980 until 1981, she performed musical interludes at The Comic Strip, a pioneering café-theatre in Soho with comedians such as Rik Mayall and Jennifer Saunders. In addition she performed and organised various evening shows of performance art.

She acted in John Maybury's Court of Miracles in 1982 and Hilda Was a Goodlooker by Anna Thew (London Film-Makers Co-Operative) in 1986.

Links to Peel
Peel and Hermine both worked for the International Times in the late 60's and she also performed with one of Peel's favourite artists in the 70's, COUM Transmissions.

In a 13th February 1974 diary entry, republished in David Cavanagh's 2015 Good Night and Good Riddance book, she wrote of her experience in seeing John Peel DJ at a church hall:

"'I go and see John Peel playing his favourite terrible records in a church hall. These are things by Link Wray, Fabian, Annette Funicello ('Jo Jo the Dog Faced Boy'), Conway Twitty, Mrs. Mills' rendering of 'A Hard Day's Night', Stark Naked and the Car Thieves, the Cats who do 'Swan Lake', Wild Man Fischer, Bill Oddie (singing 'On Ilka Moor Baht 'at' in the manner of Joe Cocker), 'The Battle of Lieutenant Calley' by B Company, Mitch Miller's 'Peace Singalong'. Later on he complains over the radio that only eighteen people turned up.'"

Although Hermine was not a fan of Peel's musical tastes, he did play some of her records on his shows, when record companies in the 80's decided to release some of her work on vinyl.

Shows Played

 * 1983
 * 23 August 1983: Torture (7") Human
 * 1984
 * 19 September 1984: Happy Holiday (LP - It's A Crammed, Crammed, Crammed World!) Crammed Discs
 * Hermine - Blue Angel
 * 06 January 1988: Blue Angel (LP - The World On My Plates) Crammed Discs
 * 08 January 1988 (BFBS): 'Blue Angel (LP-The World On My Plates)' (Crammed Discs)
 * 1990
 * 08 August 1990: 'Blue Angel (LP-The World On My Plates)' (Crammed Discs)