
Happy New Year! Our first (proper) post of 2011 is the next step in the chain of love: The link is Marseille, where a certain Italian composer heard the 3-note police siren that inspired the stirring and monumental Je Changerais D'Avis ... Les 5 Gentlemen formed in Corsica as Les Ambitieux, but set up base in Marseille where they switched names and honed their Franco-R'n'B psych-garage sound. They also had a pop at the British pop charts releasing one single - Daytime: an English language cover [...]

Du nouveau, du vieux, du culte et de l'étrange. Ou tous à la fois. Gill Scott Heron - New York Is Killing Me Les 5 Gentlemen - LSD 25 Ou Les Metamorphoses De Margaret Steinway Sun Ra - China Gate Kadebostan - Love in Looxor

Happy Birthday Lysergic acid diethylamide – 71 today! LSD was first synthesized on 16 November 1938 by Dr. Albert Hofmann at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. 5 years later, he accidentally ingested an unknown quantity of the chemical, and felt a bit funny – he had discovered that LSD had psychedelic properties. He also learned to never bite his fingernails in the lab without washing his hands first. In 1943, Hofmann intentionally ingested the chemical as an "experiment", he freaked out on the cycle ride home, and [...]

While Johnny 'alliday was the Gallic Elvis in the Sixties, Hugues Aufray took the part of the French Bob. In 1965, he recorded Aufray chante Dylan, adapting Bobster songs like It Ain't Me, Babe (Ce n'était pas moi) or All I Really Want To Do (Ce que je veux surtout) – a stunt he repeated in 1996 with Aufray Trans Dylan. New Yorker, his brand new hommage to the three-chords prophet, features mainly duet versions of the most blowin'-in-the-wind Dylan classics, among them collaborations with Alain Souchon, Eddy Mitchell, Jane, and Carla. My grandpa thinks it sounds thrillingly [...]
Due to an overwhelming response, via email, to the bootleg sixties freakbeat compilation featured last week, here is part III. You can find parts one and two via the links below. Tracks up for a very limited time only. Be sure to check out "Bof!" ----- While in Austin for SXSW I was often asked [...]
Last week in Austin I was often asked what I've been listening to lately. My reply was/is: this excellent, yet shitty sounding, bootleg compilation of vinyl rips of 1960s French Freakbeat tracks I happened upon about a year ago. Unfortunately, that is about the extent of my knowledge of the recordings as little information [...]