Back when I was a wee little kid (cough), I used to listen to this crazy radio show on Montreal’s CKUT radio (McGill’s campus station) called “The Subterranean Jungle”, a fixture of Montreal airwaves for nearly 15 years, from 1985 to 1999. The show was an hommage to the crazy, delirious radio personalities of American AM radio of the 60s, such as the Mad Daddy or Howlin’ Wolf, and to the wild and cool 60s garage punk sounds of those days.

But the impressive thing about the show was its host, Flipped Out Phil. Besides his ability to talk at the speed of light and transform his voice into any character, Flipped Out Phil would interject in rhymes in between each set of songs.

Flipped Out impressed whoever listened, regardless of their musical tastes. I remember a few years back a very serious jazz music host from CKUT telling me that it took him 5 years to realise the show was broadcast *live* and was not, in fact, a rehearsed or edited tape.

The show influenced a great number or people, myself included, and musicians, most of whom later formed Montreal’s flourishing garage scene of the 90s.

Well behold: “The Subterranean Jungle” is now archived, finally!

Flipped Out is one of my best friends in the world, and I’m very happy this project has finally been brought to life, as we had talked about digitising his shows for many years now. What seemed like an overwhelming task (15 years of weekly shows!) has now been seen through, thanks to friends who stepped in to help. Now, with this wonderful invention called the Internet, the rest of the world can finally hear this great staple of Montreal radio.

His wife, cartoonist Sophie Cossette (mentioned before on this site), designed his website and voilà! Blast your ears off:

http://www.flippedoutphil.com/

Flipped Out

Ah yes, Christmas! For the last two years now, I have been offering my wonderful readers a special little X-Mas offering. I already consider it a sort of twisteuse tradition. Remember this one?

I hereby offer you the angels of French pop: Les Anges.

One of their songs, “Une fille mais qu’est-ce que c’est?” (my fave of theirs), has already been featured on the comp “Gentlemen de Paris“. They were very poppy and saccharine, and took most of their inspiration from American “barber shop” pop such as Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, which I am a big fan of. In fact, they do a cover of The Four Seasons’ “Girl Come Running” (“Aimons”) on this EP. Les Anges’ harmonies are right on the money, too.

Their title song, “Les Anges”, makes me smile every time I hear it. Especially near the end, when the final chorus kicks in with more harmonies. I love it! I have no clue who these guys were or what their story was, but they make me happy, and I thought I’d share the happiness.

To top it off, and oddly enough, the musical direction of this EP was by none other than Tony Meehan of The Shadows! If anyone has any details on that collaboration, I would love to know more!

Joyeux Noël!!

Les Anges – Les Anges

Bébé Suong is – to my knowledge – a severely underrated female singer/songwriters of the 50s and 60s.

Her voice reminds me of Shirley Bassey and Eartha Kitt: beautiful, powerful, sexy and very unique. And, much like Bassey, she was first and foremost a jazz vocalist who recorded pop songs.

This beautiful woman was born to a French father and Asian mother. She moved to Belgium at the age of 7, and already at 16 was singing in Jazz clubs and touring. In the 1950′s, she was writing and recording her own jazz material (including the Belgian hit “Rio de Janeiro”), an unbelivably rare thing for a woman at the time.

She wrote and recorded a few pop songs in the 1960s, including “Mine de rien” in 1966 (written, arranged and produced by Suong). The song was a deliberate attempt at having a hit with the young crowd: Bébé was in her 30s by then, yet here she was singing about boys and screaming like a 15 year old at a Beatles concert.

The record unfortunately didn’t do that well. One could argue that her voice was not typical of French pop at the time, and not necessarily a crowd pleaser. Most people I know who hear this single for the first time are either put off by her voice, or consider it the song’s strongpoint.

I’m with the latter: Bébé kicks some serious derrière.

Bébé Suong – Mine de rien

Those are all fine choices, and of course all very subjective, since not everyone is expected to agree with “Top 10″ lists of any kind. Sooooo….that being said, here’s my geeky rant opinion: CBC, you can’t do a Top 10 Greatest Moments in French pop and not include Antoine’s “Les élucubrations d’Antoine“!! It is a song that affected everything and everyone in France in 1966. It sparked debates on the pill, on drugs, on the Vietnam war; it created a “song war” between Hallyday and Antoine, not to mention the countless “Antoine” joke novelty acts who started poppin’ up, like Edouard:

…the song also helped kick start Jacques Dutronc’s career, with his “Et moi, et moi, et moi“, which was a direct parody of Antoine’s song.

Someone over at bootlegsfr.com recently did a brilliant mashup of OutKast’s “Heya” with Antoine’s “Les élucubrations” (“Les Hey-lucubrations”)! Click on the “play” button below to hear it, or download the MP3 by clicking on the image!

“Oh yeah!”

I have to say…it’s quite unnerving to write about an artist you don’t know much about, but when you search what’s out there on Bernard Chabert, there really seems to be a sea of non-information. Or maybe I’m just not looking in the right places.

Regardless, Bernard Chabert is someone I am completely fascinated by. Chabert himself also appeared to be completely under the spell of The Beatles – who wasn’t? – and their distinct sound seemed to easily melt into French pop gems, under Chabert’s masterful direction. I’m absolutely certain that if Chabert had kept up at it, he’d be right up there with Polnareff as one of the greats. Heck, I’m almost to a point of giving him that winning title anyway.

Chabert also seemed to think he was all that…take a look at the cover of his most coveted single (unfortunately not available in this post, due to the fact that I don’t have the ridiculous amount of money it would cost to acquire it):

“Those who don’t believe in Chabert, are the same people who, in seventeen hundred and some peanuts, didn’t believe in WOLFGANG A. MOZART. So there” says the cover.

Oh dear.

Don’t get me wrong: I kinda think Chabert is all that too, and quite frankly I’ll admire anyone who is willing to write *that* on a record cover.

Anyhoo, back to the three records featured on this post.

If you have my friend Satan Bélanger’s fantastic Freakout Total* comp, then you already have one of his songs: Olga Selzer (spelled Helga Selzer on the cover, but Olga on the original record). By far, this is one of his best, and one of THEE most underrated French rock tunes of the late 60s. Again, I’m always baffled as to why Chabert was not a superstar in his own right. The B-side was a cover of Hot Leg’s (ie 10CC’s) Neanderthal Man. Both these songs feature French prog band Triangle.

All these songs are just brilliant. Even that Dear Prudence sort of rip off (Dear Jean). My personal faves are L’Ascension sociale de Francis F and Il part en Californie.

Bernard Chabert – Olga Selzer
Bernard Chabert – L’homme de l’univers (Neanderthal Man)
Bernard Chabert – Easy Miss Lizzy
Bernard Chabert – Mare Serenitatis
Bernard Chabert – Tramway 7B
Bernard Chabert – Dear Jean
Bernard Chabert – Il part en Californie
Bernard Chabert – L’Ascension sociale de Francis F

* available through Mucho Gusto Records: http://www.muchogustorecords.com/

You can click on each of the three cover shots for a closer look.

If you happen to be in Montreal on Thursday July 2, I will be a guest DJ, along with DJ Pleeze Bongo (of Les Breastfeeders), to Montreal’s soul/60s DJ night Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches, at Korova on St-Laurent.

This great weekly 60′s night is held by DJ Tinsoldierman of High Dials fame and DJ George Donoso III. I haven’t DJ’d since I moved back to Montreal, so this will be fun! I will be playing a variety of French, Italian and international 60s pop from my record collection.

Here is the night’s Myspace page, and the Facebook event for more details.

Come on by and dance a storm!

I’ve had this record for a few years now, and never could get into it. The other day I gave it a new listen and absolutely loved it! Go figure.

Released right smack in the Bubblegum craze of the late 60′s, The Cherry People only had a minor hit with “And Suddenly”. Unfortunately for these guys, it appears they were “Monkee-fied” for the purpose of this album: producer Ron Haffkine wanted a fluffy bubblegum sound vs their wishes for a more psychedelic album. The disagreements over sound and style ended up with the band being shut out of the recording studio, with session musicians playing on every track instead.

After the release of the album, The Cherry People immediately went back to their rock roots and toured with a new hard rock sound and original songs. The band split up in the mid 1970′s, when guitarist Punky Meadows joined Bux (later called Angel) and shortly after became a glam rock God. Zing!

Here are my favorite tracks:

The Cherry People – And Suddenly
The Cherry People – Imagination
The Cherry People – I’m the One Who Loves You
The Cherry People – Don’t Hang Up on me Girl