Ma femme et mon chien

All right ladies: take a good look at this guy.

Have you not been seduced yet by the double/triple/quadruple vision of extreme hotness?

Oh yes, it’s À la carte’s countdown to Valentine’s Day! In the next couple of days I shall be bringing nothing but LUV songs for all my gentile readers.

First off, in case you haven’t noticed, all the MP3s previously archived on this site are gone. From now on, every post will feature MP3s for 2 WEEKS ONLY! Before you hit the panic button, hit the “Subscribe to à la carte” button on the right hand corner of this blog. You’ll have a choice to subscribe to either my RSS feeds, or to receive email notifications everytime I post to my blog. That way you are sure to never miss a post!

Back to Monsieur Charby : Pierre Charby was a French/Moroccan singer whose claim to fame was that he participated – and didn’t win – in Eurovision’s 1977 contest.

This song is an ode to his fans. It’s also the greatest and creepiest tribute to “fans” I’ve ever heard from any artist in my life.

First off, the song is GREAT and is always a dance floor favorite. It has grooves you would not expect from someone wearing *that* shirt.

Secondly, the lyrics are just insane. In a nutshell, Charby has a huge hard on for his “petites fans chéries” (his “young female fans”). As he puts it, he loves them because they “follow him everywhere”. So, this song is for his psychotic league of fans. Love it! (so does he!)

He also doesn’t have “one wife”, he sings, but “5000 wives”. Big Love!

But how much does he love his fans, I hear you ask? “More than my wife, and my dog”. The greatest love of all!

He’s a keeper!

This one goes out to the Facebook Pierre Charby fan page!

Come back tomorrow until Sunday, February 14 for more Valentine’s Day offerings!

Pierre Charby – Mes petites fans chéries

Halloween Treat #2: Spooky Sounds & Scary Tales from Winchell’s Donuts

I was going to post something completely different for today’s 2nd Halloween audio freebie, but then I spotted *this* little gem lying around in our music room and decided this would be a lot more fun! I love all the screaming, novelty goofball Halloween 60s tracks as much as anyone else, but product music oddities such as this one also entertain me to no end. I can’t say I’m very familiar with Winchell’s Donuts as I don’t think they ever crossed the border to Canada, but I’m sure I haven’t missed out on much.

This record, I should point out, is brought to you today by the man with whom I share, among many other things, a record collection: Mr. Otis Fodder. Even the more special, Otis still remembers going to Winchell’s Donuts as a child around Halloween time with his mom, getting the record with a box of donuts, bringing it home and listening to it. Which is quite amazing, because all the records I had as a child have certainly not been subject to the same, attentive care as this one!

Otis also included the track in his infamous 2 volume Halloween CD-series called “Ghouls With Attitude“, a compilation that has travelled all over the Internet since its release in 2004. Shockingly, Otis never kept a copy, and while trying to find a copy online today we came across a blogger who recently posted both volumes, which I’m happy to report you can download here and here).

The record, in a nutshell, has a Vincent Price-like voice actor telling a “scary” story to children (who don’t seem the least bit scared or impressed). Mr Creepy voice actor makes it very difficult not to cringe or laugh at his not-so-subtle product placement at the end of the story, when he tells the children that “Winchell’s Donuts does magic things to your mouth”.
:

Note to self: start using words like “flame retardant” more in conversations.

Waaaaatch oooout for ghooooooosts!!

Winchell’s Donuts Spooky Sounds & Scary Tales MP3

Bazooka – not the bubblegum kind!

Remember the time when singles were released and the B-side was an instrumental version of the A-side? If you don’t then I’m probably getting old.

It was usually meant as a karaoke thing, for you to sing along to (at least that’s what I always figured it was all about). Most of the time, the A-side is what would get the most plays, because seriously…what is a musak instrumental B-side good for, besides irony?

Well this single was quite the opposite: French band Bazooka’s “Dada Dodo”. The A-side is the vocal version, with a beefy voiced male singer. When I first heard it I thought it was so bad I half-heartedly turned it over to listen to the instrumental version. I’m very glad I did! The instrumental version has some insane Moog as a vocal replacement. In fact, I would say this entire version stands on its own as a demented, crazy Moog freak orgy. Not that I would even know what that means.

This record is found nearly everywhere in Montreal (even though the band was French), yet there is little info about them out there. If anyone can enlighten us, please do.

I didn’t have a cover for this record, so the image seen here is taken from L’Encyclopédie du disque.

Bazooka – Dada Dodo (instrumental version)

Zaine Bowi…Griff

Who is Zaine Griff?

The single didn’t do too well, but that didn’t stop Griff from releasing a few more, before retiring from the music biz and focusing on his career as an artist. At least, that’s what Mr. Internet tells me.

Previous to all this, Griff was vocalist for the group Screamer, who recorded one of my favorite singles from the late ’70′s, “Interplanetary Twist”.

Zaine Griff – This Could Mean Everything