Halloween treat #1: Wilfrid Du Pont de la Carpe

In an effort to be original, I decided to offer a few Halloween treats to the world, every day until this Saturday! Cue applause!

I love every freak singer that Halloween has ever produced! From John Zacherley to everyone’s hero Screaming Lord Sutch, it seems that putting on a cape and causing hilarious mayhem has become a lost art.

Our first weirdo du jour hails from France. I bet you didn’t know France had it’s very own caped freak, huh? Fear not, neither did anyone else!

My many efforts to find out who this Wilfrid Du Pont de la Carpe is have been fruitless. The only hint the record gives us is that both songs have been written and adapted by Frank Gérald, who famously wrote songs with Pierre Delanoë, including a lot of stuff from Les Parisiennes, Françoise Hardy (Le premier bonheur du jour) and countless French classics. Could it be that Wilfrid is Frank, and vice-versa? Is life really that simple?

Another enigma that I hope someone will be able to help with concerns the song I am featuring today: “L’arrière petit-fils de Frankenstein” (Frankenstein’s great grandson). The record suggests that this is a French adaptation. Does anyone know what the original is and who sang it? The single is from 1975.

As someone who grew up watching French TV and cartoons, Wilfrid’s voice sounds very familiar, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was a voice actor, like Monique Thubert.

Wilfrid’s ultimate tactics to scare the beejeezus out of you, besides the fact that he’s Frankenstein’s great grandson, are exagerated, outlandish uses of “Moooaaa-aaa-aaa-aaa” and “Eee-eee-haaa-aaaaaa”.

Sleep tight!

Wilfrid Du Pont de la Carpe – L’arrière petit-fils de Frankenstein

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)