Mondo P.Q. !

Bonne nouvelle : Je suis de retour à mon premier amour, la radio! (avec tout mon respect, cher blogue)

Dès le mercredi 8 juin, sur les ondes de CIBL, 101,5 FM à Montréal!

Tous les mercredis de 19 h à 20 h, c’est avec grand bonheur que j’animerai l’émission MONDO P.Q. avec mon ami Sébastien Desrosiers, auteur de l’EXCELLENT blogue Patrimoine P.Q.

Mondo P.Q. sera une émission consacrée aux chefs d’oeuvres oubliés et aux illustres méconnus du psychédélisme, pop, rock et folk québécois. Vous y entendrez aussi des trames sonores groovy et jazzées, du funk, de la soul, du garage, de l’électro, etc.

Première : mercredi le 8 juin, à 19 h (heure de Montréal). Disponible en version Podcast sur le site de CIBL et prochainement, sur notre site mondopq.com .

Vous pouvez également nous “aimer” (euh…) sur Facebook!

Un exemple de ce que vous pourrez y entendre?

Normand Gélinas

Normand Gélinas – Cécila

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Great news! I will soon be back on the radio, my first love (no offense, blog).

Starting Wednesday, June 8, I will be hosting “MONDO P.Q.” on Montréal’s CIBL 101.5 FM, with Sébastien Desrosiers, author of the AMAZING blog Patrimoine P.Q.

MONDO P.Q. will be entirely devoted to unknown, obscure, and/or just plain good Quebecois psych, groovy jazz, sunshine pop, library, folk, etc.

Want an example? Click on the above MP3!

MONDO P.Q. will be broadcast (in French) every Wednesday, from 7 to 8 p.m. (E.S.T.) and will be archived on both CIBL’s website and our own: mondopq.com .

While you’re at it, like our Facebook page!

Gainsbourg

Oui allo ?

Pour souligner le 20e anniversaire de la mort de Gainsbourg, l’émission Bande à part de Radio-Canada m’a gentiment invitée à sortir de mon hibernation hivernale, le temps de jouer une heure de matériel gainsbarrien. Comme je m’intéresse surtout aux années 60 (peut-être l’aurez vous remarqué?), vous y entendrez des reprises françaises, mais aussi québécoises de Gainsbourg: Michèle Richard, Pierre Lalonde, sans oublier la joueuse d’orgue des Canadiens de Montréal et sa succulente version de Comment te dire adieu! Aussi, quelques chanteuses inspirées par l’effet Bardot et “Harley Davidson”, des pièces composées pour d’autres artistes, etc.rock.

C’est donc ce jeudi 3 mars, de 15 h à 16 h (heure de Montréal) que vous pourrez m’entendre. En direct, à part ça.

Sinon, l’émission sera en reprise sur Espace Musique, à compter de 23 h, zzzzzz…et disponible en ligne pour le restant de mes jours par la suite (c’est mieux d’être bon!)

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Are you still here?

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Gainsbourg’s passing, Radio-Canada’s Bande à part radio show have invited to guest DJ and do an hour long set, on Thursday, March 3. You can hear me spin live from 3 to 4 p.m. (E.S.T.) or listen to the archived show online afterwards.

You’ll hear a lot of French and Québécois covers from the 60s, like Michèle Richard’s Bonnie and Clyde, featured not too (ok quite a while) ago on this blog; the “Harley Davidson” effect: French women singing about their love of motorbikes; songs he composed for other artists, etc.

Turn on, tune in, but please don’t drop out.

Halloween Treat #3: Montreal’s Condition

Here’s a band that is so fantastically creepy, they made one of my high school girlfriends cry tears of horror when I played it for her one dark and stormy night. Back to her safety net of Richard Marx, she went, but not before telling everyone I was a Satan worshipper.

The band in question was Condition, Montreal masters of ghoulish psychobilly, horror hops and creepy dance jives. Montreal in the 90s and especially the 80s was well known for its garage and psychobilly scenes, and for some reason Condition never really stood out, at least not to my knowledge, something I fail to understand given their amazing material and, of course, singer. To this day, I have rarely met anyone in Montreal who has heard of them. They recorded three albums throughout their career, all very hard to find, and the album featured here is “Swamp Walk”, their 3rd and last one.

There is no doubt that Julia Gilmore, lead singer, was the main force behind the band. Her voice was unique and her vocal techniques hinted towards Jazz more than pop. She moved to Montreal in the 80s from New Hampshire to study art at Concordia University, and today is an accomplished painter. Other band members were Slim Lanthier and Vinny Vezina.

I first saw Condition on television at the age of 15 or 16, when I lived with my parents in St-Clin-Clin des Moeux-Moeux, PQ. My very impressionable young self was suddenly glued to my television set as I saw a creepy but beautiful Julia Gilmore sing the dramatic and, let’s face it, scary as fuck Beat my Daddy to the Grave on primetime Quebec TV, a surreal moment if there ever was one. If I remember correctly, she wore a thorned vintage dress and had fake blood dripping from her mouth as she sang.

Condition were my first taste of Montreal’s bubbling underground scene and later when I got my first radio show on CISM, I played the living daylights out of this record (which I’m sure you can tell from the very used record cover in the above photo). The album even appealed to my mother, who enjoyed their covers of “Runaway” and “Caravan”. Despite the dark undertones, some of these tracks are simply gorgeous, such as Ghost Train or the title track Swamp Walk. The album was recorded at Beat Studio, in Berlin.

For those of you who would like to discover more forgotten Montréal/Québec underground music, I would urge you to visit my friend Sébastien’s wonderful blog “Patrimoine PQ” for his series on forgotten Québec underground music.

Happy Halloween, kiddies!

Condition – Beat my Daddy to the Grave
Condition – Ghost Train
Condition – Swamp Walk
Condition – Bop or Drop

Sylvie-Anne

I’ve noticed these last few months that popular search items for my blog were “60′s French pop” and “Girls in the Garage”. Well, I thought I would make everyone’s life easier.

Here is an artist that appeared on volume 10 of the GITG series, volume 10 being an all French volume. If you have this particular volume, perhaps you noticed the amazing cover artwork featuring two girls cat fighting over a Jacques Dutronc LP? It was drawn by the same talented woman who did the caricature that you see at the top of the page on this blog. Her name is Sophie Cossette, she lives in Toronto, and she’s amazingly talented. When I was doing the Zoï Zoï French pop DJ nights in Toronto (hence the name of this website) in 2005-2007, Sophie generously drew all the posters for us, and featured a different French pop icon every month.

The Sylvie-Anne track on GITG 10 was taken from the same 45 single I’m offering you today. I apologize in advance, as my record is very scratched. In fact, this track almost didn’t make the cut, because of its condition.

The “Retro Jeunesse” website (follow the link to see a photo of her!) says this about her: Sylvie-Anne was born Sylvie-Anne Trudeau, in 1951. She was given the nickname of “Mademoiselle Dynamite”, because her voice and style was similar to another energetic Quebec singing star: Jenny Rock.

This was her first of two singles, and she was accompanied by legendary Quebec musician, Georges Tremblay.

Interestingly enough, the two songs on this single are blatant copies of the Hazlewood produced and Billy Strange arranged Nancy Sinatra covers of “Day Tripper” and “Lies”. In a nutshell, they are covers of covers. And they are great!

If you listen closely (and I mean *very* closely!) to the first seconds of “Un tour dehors”, you can (faintly) hear her clear her throat.

One wonders where she is today and what became of her.

So here’s Mademoiselle Dynamite doing the Beatles’ “Day Tripper” in French (check out GITG 10 for a clearer copy though, oops!) and its B-side, her cover of “Lies”, both done à la Sinatra/Hazelwood.

Sylvie-Anne – Un tour dehors (Day Tripper)
Sylvie-Anne – Reste (Lies)

Érotique PQ!

I thought I would let you all in on this great event, happening in Quebec City this Thursday, July 16, for the Festival Off de Québec.

Call me Poupée will be performing, along with a 15 piece orchestra, songs from 1970s soft core Quebec movies, such as L’initiation, Valérie, Après ski, etc.

The event will also feature my better half Otis Fodder, as well as Satan Bélanger and Mingo of Les Georges Leningrad fame.

In 2007 I posted the Après Ski soundtrack, find it here.

À bientôt!

Le reel facile

June 24 is St-Jean-Baptiste!

For the occasion, here is a song I love, by Quebec singer Emmanuelle.

Emmanuelle was a classicaly trained singer who veered towards pop music, much like Sarah Brightman did many years later. She was discovered by Quebec lyricist Luc Plamondon (who shot to fame with the musical Starmania in the late 70′s) and later became a favorite of Stéphane Venne, a prolific Quebec songwriter. Venne namely wrote the theme song to Expo 67 among many, many others.

Emmanuelle’s “Le reel facile” (written by Venne) is unbelievably groovy, and a modern touch on traditional québécois music, which itself is taken from traditional Irish/Scottish music and dance.

Santé!

Emmanuelle – Le Reel facile

Claude Dubois

Quebec singer-songwriter Claude Dubois was in the news this week. I won’t go on about it.

In any case, here are some amazing early songs of his. I don’t care what your opinion of him is, I’m just letting you hear for yourself the man’s fine early work. Why? Because it’s damn good, that’s why.

Le Labrador is a masterful, poetic, classic, beautiful song.
His earlier songs like “Sullivan” remind me of Antoine‘s early work. “Evolution” and “Essaye” are friggin’ fantastic late 60s groovers.

Claude Dubois – Je tourne
Claude Dubois – Evolution – Essaye
Claude Dubois – Sullivan
Claude Dubois – Le Labrador