French Meltdown

French Pop Wednesdays et la encore, par demande populaire - and things are getting heavy this week.

Léo Ferré was the original aging punk - an old-school chanson singer in the thick of it in May '68 Paris; around then he put out a weird psych-rock poetry album out, recorded with a band called Zoo. This orchestral rendition of 'Avec Le Temps' is charged with anarchic bursts of feedback - I think the microphone was wilting in Ferré's presence.

Do not get into a staring contest with this video of Léo Ferré. You will lose. If his visage seems familiar, that's only because Léo Ferré is for Quebec what Kenny Rogers is for red-state America.