Posted by Sky

No Strings Attached

  • Posted on 04/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

„G-strings are not required in Quebec“, Margaret Dragu and A.S.A. Harrison write in their knowledgeable Revelations: Essays on Striptease and Sexuality. „In 1979 over a hundred strippers were charged with nudity for removing their G-strings, but the attorney general did not sign the orders.“ Among those exotic dancers well may have been Montreal’s one and only Rina Berti, „the singing stripper who is still talked about in Miami Beach and farther“, though her website doesn’t reveal any information about her former avocation. Sadly, the website also doesn’t tell about her musical outings, among them the French-Canadian cover of the Bee Gees’ 1977 club smasher Stayin’ Alive and a red-hot menopausal disco version of Light My Fire, both proving all-too-well that there are few differences between pop and burlesque shows, surely related art forms traditionally announced in the same mode: Bonsoir tout le monde, ce soir chez FS je vous veux presenter la belle Rina!

Rina Berti – Viens dans mes rêves
Rina Berti – Light My Fire

Blank Generation

The so-called Relax series is the chillout compilation line of German dance/ house producers Blank & Jones, Café del Mar style. Relax Volume 6 also features a French language track for summer patios and Freixenet ads – a cover of Francoise Hardy’s Comment te dire adieu by Gallic schlager starlet Berry which brings to mind some all-too-fitting words by T-Bone Burnett: “We live in an age of music for people who don’t like music. The record industry discovered some time ago that there aren’t that many people who actually like music. For a lot of people, music’s annoying, or at the very least they don’t need it. They discovered if they could sell music to a lot of those people, they could sell a lot more records.”

Berry – Comment te dire adieu

Bâtard Pop XXI: In Bed with Bonnie

  • Posted on 02/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

Mash-up time again: On I’m in Love with Jane Birkin, a skateboarder and bootleg artist hiding behind the moniker B.A.R.T.O. & His Pop Orchestra fuses Serge & Jane’s immortal cunnilingual dialogue with Beres Hammond’s reggae tune I’m in Love – a daring, but smoothly executed operation. Another Gainsbourg aficionado is Nantes-based dancefloor entrepreneur and DJ John Poincarré: his amalgam of Serge’s Bonnie & Clyde (pic: Brigitte B. as Bonnie) and the Beastie Boys’ hiphop classic Body Movin’ feels like a first-class pas de deux, gangsta-style.

B.A.R.T.O. & His Pop Orchestra – I’m in Love with Jane Birkin
John Poincarré  – Bonnie’s Body Movin’

FS Rerun: Clare Torry

  • Posted on 02/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

„I think she only did one take. And we all said, ‚Wow, that’s that done. Here’s your sixty quid’“, Roger Waters remembered quite ungentlemanlike about Clare Torry, the sadly unsung chanteuse who did the orgasmic wordless vocals on Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig in the Sky – arguably the best song on 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon. Soon after Clare was hired to do background vocals for Serge G., as well on the acridly funny Rock Around the Bunker as on L’homme à tête de chou, his histoire maudit of a sadistic murderer, including Ma Lou Marilou, with Clare adding a few moments of big-eyed innocence to Serge’s half-erection porn funk.

Serge Gainsbourg w/ Clare Torry – Ma Lou Marilou
Serge Gainsbourg w/ Clare Torry – Eva

Pink Floyd feat. Clare Torry– The Great Gig in the Sky

FS Rerun: Le Grand Jeudi

  • Posted on 20/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

Gimme a board, messieurs. Pour les grandes vagues et les surfer garcons (et filles), here’s a twangy big-ninth-version of Charles Trenet’s „La Mer“ by Psycho Tiki entrepreneurs The Aquamarines, and the probably most liquid version of Serge’s & Jane’s „Je t’aime (moi non plus)“ ever heard, performed by Berlin’s number one surf guitarist and lounge expert Kahuna Kawentzmann – the German „Kawentzmann“ translates as a rogue wave you shouldn’t even try on a Big Wednesday, got my drift, kids? Wet name choice, and even your girlfriend may get instantly … okay, forget about that. Both tracks from the stunning compilation „Beyond the Sea – The Surf Instrumental Bands of the World Fearlessly Expand Their Repertoire“. For now: Wahini!

Aquamarines – Beyond the Sea
Kahuna Kawentzmann – Je t’aime

Extra: The original “La Mer” plus a few cover versions, including Cliff Richard en francais, Kevin Kline’s fine cover from the movie “French Kiss”, and a very charming mid-60s bubblegum adaptation by Francoise Hardy.

Charles Trenet – La Mer
Cliff Richard – La Mer
Dalida – La Mer
Django Reinhardt – La Mer
Francoise Hardy – La Mer
Kevin Kline – La Mer
Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea
Helen Shapiro – Beyond the Sea
The Three Suns – Beyond the Sea

The Way Serge Was

  • Posted on 18/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

Would you buy a used Jane Birkin record from this man? Berlin-based guitarist Kristof Hahn, who has played with the likes of Alex Chilton, Tav Falco, or Chris Spedding, is now touring with US 80s noise legends The Swans and hitting Munich tomorrow, May 19th; the pic actually is from the tour poster. Living in the Rue Verneuil of his mind, Hahn also has quite a francophile schtick that can be heard on his recordings with Les Hommes Sauvages, and he’s also a great storyteller, provided that you speak German: Four years ago, he told a few Serge Gainsbourg anecdotes during a gig in Vienna before continuing with a solo version of Serge’s Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais – deadpan humour plus some sharp, grungy licks the original song lacked for a few decades.

Kristof Hahn – Je suis venu te dire …

Siobhan Wilson II

  • Posted on 02/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

The reason why Siobhan Wilson’s soberly titled album Songs slipped under the FS radar last year might be due to the fact that it contains all English-language songs but one, a luminous adaptation of Jacques Brel’s Voir un ami pleurer – as simple as intimately gripping, as quietly lyrical as vibrant, the work of a Scottish-French fille fragile to boot. If you haven’t listened to her gorgeous version of La Javanaise, click here. Other videos here, here, and here.

Siobhan Wilson – Voir un ami pleurer
Jacques Brel – Voir un ami pleurer

Miss Wilson’s English-language side is decidedly folky, with some twists, especially when combining a hip-hop/ r&b rhythm with a minimalistic cello, as featured on Getting Me Down. Extra: DJ Anoraak’s remix of the song with a sweeping disco-pop beat. Jolie one.

Siobhan Wilson – Getting Me Down

Siobhan Wilson – Getting Me Down (Anoraak Remix)

FS Rerun: Alain Bashung

  • Posted on 01/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

When Alain Bashung hit it big in 1981 – Gaby oh Gaby was in the French charts for 54 weeks and sold a million copies –, they called him the „Johnny Hallyday de la New Wave“. Actually, the Gallic super-antistar who garnered eleven Victoires de la Musiques awards between 1985 and 2009, sounded all-too-often more like Paolo Conte merging David Bowie attitude with an unhealthy Dylan obsession, stadium rock style – including a whole lot of obnoxious Frenchican rock bummers (especially the Tom Waits/ Michel Sardou amalgam of 2008’s Bleu Pétrole), but also some significantly dazzling results, especially on 82’s Play Blessures, then teaming up with lyricist Serge Gainsbourg who probably would have liked to inflict these wounds himself: Combining lupine lamentos with No Wave splinters, this is French Rock’s Metallic K.O., with unmistakably hypnotic qualities.

Alain Bashung – J’envisage

Alain Bashung – Bistouri scalpel

Alain Bashung – Trompé d’érection

Face/ Off

  • Posted on 30/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

On his brand-new album I Wish I Was Someone Else, German singer Patrick Zimmer alias Finn employs a well-tried, though not very well-worn concept when covering mostly so-called classic radio smash hits from the 70s and 80s, Lo-fi production style. Flogging braindead horses like I Shot the Sheriff or Tina Turner’s Private Dancer bare bones folkie-style doesn’t make them the slightest bit more thrilling … in short, it’s all going nowhere in a hurry. With the exception of a quite upbeat cover of Ne dis rien, originally rendered by Serge G. and Godard favorite Anna Karina in 1967, in some studio booth Serge mistook for a boudoir again. Finn’s partner in crime is a sweetly knowing, sadly anonymous, and surely German female voice. Must be the way she walks: Who’s that girl?

Finn – Ne dis rien

Serge & Anna Karina – Ne dis rien

Try a Little Tenderness

  • Posted on 30/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

At the reception after yesterday’s royal wedding, Sir Elton John told William, Katie, and the French ambassador a fascinating story. While driving along the promenade of St. Tropez in 1980, he was so overwhelmed by a chanson on the radio of his Ferrari Testarossa that he pulled to the side of the road to listen. On the air was Janic Prevost’s synth-driven disco-pop drama J’veux d’la tendresse; Elton was so moved that he covered the song a few months later, in English as well as in French for the Gallic edition of his 1981 album The Fox. The French ambassador had to admit he wasn’t familiar with Mademoiselle Prevost, and shook his head again when Sir Elton hummed the tune for him. Slightly frowning, William grabbed his fourth champagne flûte from a lackey’s tray, while Katie said she had heard that melody before: Wasn’t it called I Will Survive?

Janic Prevost – J’veux d’la tendresse

Elton John – J’veux de la tendresse

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