Irresistblement

From the golden age of Eastern European variety shows.

Tirez Pas Sur L'Ambiance: Tuca

Tuca is a personal favourite musical artist of mine - she is utterly unknown but as I plunged into the investigations of my two main music obsessions of the last few years - sixties/seventies pop from France and Brazil - her name kept coming up.

Tuca put out a couple of records in Brazil in the sixties but then decamped to France, fleeing the dictatorship that took particular trouble to crack down on the nation's artists. In one year (1971) she arranged and played on two records I would take with me to that mythical desert island... Nara Leão's Dez Años Depois (a two-record set of Jobim songs) and Françoise Hardy's La Question (Tuca is also credited as a co-writer on this, Hardy's best record).





Both records are immaculately produced - spare Brazilian acoustic instrumentation captured in the air of a Parisian recording studio... to hear them both together is to realize that Tuca was probably what made the records as great as they are, which was confirmed once I tracked down a copy of her final solo record, also recorded in France, Dracula I Love You (1974), which is steeped in her unorthdox approach (bossa nova guitar enhanced with both symphonic and electronic effects). She died a couple of years later, back in Brazil, her death attributed to an extreme weight loss.

Here's the first track from Dracula I Love You...

The Girl With You

Françoise Hardy, unplugged.

French Pop Wednesdays Goes To Japan

Barry-UQAM

French Pop Wednesdays has a quiet mindblower from the quiet revolution this week - the Québécois version of Barry Ryan's 'Eloise' - of course it's not a patch on the original (not even The Damned could top that) but this could be classified as a college try.

Cat Power

French Pop Wednesday breaks out the cat microphone this week and passes it off to Pussy Cat - "C'est Ne Pas Une Vie" she says, but I don't believe her.

I Have Your Daughter

French Pop Wednesdays is in a race against time to out-think a master criminal at his own game. A game of cat-and-mouse. And when the cat's away...the mice will play!

Most kidnappers just leave a crude ransom note for their victims to discover. But in France it's much more psychological. Sometimes the kidnappers will film cryptic, sleazy, taunting music videos of them cavorting with the hostage, then demand that they be aired on a variety show, or else! In this one, France Gall looks blonder than ever - chalk it up to the Stockholm Syndrome. Not sure if her family paid up, or if he just wound up being her Svengali.

Tout Ce Qu'on Dit

French Pop Wednesdays wonders...how come every time Françoise Hardy comes around, our London London Bridge wants to go down?

N'avez-vous jamais mellow ?

French Pop Wednesdays celebrates Françoise Hardy's birthday a little early. She turns 62 on the 17th.

It's All Gone Bob Mackie

French Pop Wednesdays is awash this week in a teal blue sea of buckskin and background dancers. Sylvie Vartan sings Irresistiblement. Points given for the art direction and overall gusto. Subtractions taken for not fully working out the choreography.

I Have So Much Sorrow

French Pop Wednesdays claps it's hands and says "oui" with a jaunty pas de trois belted out by Annie Philippe - "J'ai Tant de Peine".

Dutronc Dutronc Dutronc !

French Pop Wednesday thinks, therefore... I forget. That's life.

Jacques Dutronc sings 'Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi' en direct. I've said it before and I'll say it again - what's the point of having a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame if Dutronc's not in there? He's been eligible for more than 15 years.

Noir est Blanc et Blanc est Noir

French Pop Wednesdays goes through the looking glass this week with something you probably thought you'd never see - Jodie Foster fluently covering Serge Gainsbourg, with the help of Clo-Clo himself, the late Claude Francois. I think if they are able to get enough momentum going on that swing they can do a 360 degree loop and enter another dimension.



(You talkin' to me, Absentreferent?)

Serge Suppressor

French Pop Wednesday has a question for Serge Gainsbourg: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Here he is making like the Big Bad Wolf to France Gall's Little Red Riding Hood...'Pauvre Lola', indeed. Reminds me of an exchange from the Gene Hackman movie Night Moves:

"I mean, there oughta be a law!"
"There is."



(Gemear, you love Serge as much as I do...)

Before the Brawl

French Pop Wednesday puts a little too much sugar in your coffee today, thanks to the deadly sweet stylings of France Gall.

France was big in France in the sixties - the standard bearer of the Yé-Yé scene, responsible for some of the more massive hits in the genre. This is from her late sixties album '1968', a tumultous time in Paris, though she sounds unfazed by it, judging by the title of this number: 'Avant La Bagarre'. Her beatnik fighting technique is unstoppable.

And who was the genius who thought to set off her cornsilk-blonde hair against an robin egg blue-toned set? This appearance is from the French TV variety show Dim Dam Dom; so named because it aired on Sundays (Dimanche) and was aimed at the Salut Les Copains crowd (Des Dames et Des [H}ommes).

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.

Mini to the Max

If it's Mercredi, this must be French Pop.

This week's selction is from Jacques Dutronc, i.e. The Luckiest Man Alive, since he was the guy who got to marry Françoise Hardy. This amazing clip is from Françoise's phenomenal black and white TV special 'Hardy Show' from '65. What's the point of having a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame if they haven't put Dutronc in it already? He's been eligible for about 15 years.



(Merci bien, Warranderj.)