Something was happening in France in the first three years of the seventies all over a bewildering assortment of singles that stand as excellent examples of the variety and power of French Rock that has been hidden for WAY too long. And as is the case with most singles from anywhere on this planet, the fire of the outstanding side is usually paired with an opposing side of 100% drab filler that bears little or no relation to its killer counterpoints. Which is the case here (save for one) which makes the kick ass tracks even more precious, for only two of the ten groups discussed herein even got to the stage of releasing full length LPs; the majority lucky to leave behind a mere legacy of one to three singles, tops.

But most of all, the main characteristic this collection of curveball, one-to-several-off 45s share is that they help dispel the long-standing misconception popular among American and British Rock’n’Roll devotees that France is entirely without merit when it comes to Rock. Barring Magma and the tiniest amount of early Gong (albeit fronted by an expat Aussie acidhead), I was in complete agreement because sad fact was: the miniscule portion of French Rock that wound up edging itself into the peripheries of the Anglo-American slipstream always fell way short of the mark from even before the time I first started paying attention. I mean, The Stinky Toys? Punk as fucque. Apparently. Telephone? ‘Les Wave Nouveaux calling collect!’ (Click…) Plastic Bertrand? One-off snottage pony copping a punk frottage offa The Beach Boys’ collective flabbiness when Ray Burns committed a far more iconoclastically stupid feel up with “Jet Boy, Jet Girl.” Telex? File under: Haute Tech ala Werk d’Kraft.

In fact, I knew of no one who even RATED France as a part of the geographic landmass of Rock (and that even included some French acquaintances.) Least of all, my high school music pals — who were rushing over to my house blue in the face not with the latest Metal Urbain single (or anything else on Rough Trade, for that matter) but rather: Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene” (which was barely a patch on even “Stratosfear” or Klaus Schulze’s “Body Love Part 2” and had me doubling back in no time flat to my small, underachieving yet entertaining-for-the-sleeves-alone space rock collection comprised mainly of Tim Blake imports and cut-out Synergy and Vangelis albums.)

So it was little wonder that this representation wasn’t exactly assuring France a place at the head of the Rock’n’Roll banquet anytime soon as its transparent faux-everything-ness was considered so laughable it was scorned roundly and often: even by older music heads who’d actually heard albums by Francois Breant and other import disques of the day. And the abundant back catalogue of library records by chanteuses and chanters like Edith Piaf, George Brassens and their ilk hardly helped the French cause du Rock, because it was all either too old-fashioned, folk-based, stank of Broadway Brel from Hel and all of it was sung in French as though accompanied by an omnipresent fog of Gitanes smoke. This was hardly the meat and drink of a sixteen year old who was just discovering “Their Satanic Majesties Request” while guzzling a cocktail of beer and downers in between stints of free supermarket nitrous, secret Rock & folk & jazz cigarettes, defacing public property and generally rebelling against all forms of authority any-which-way-willy-nilly, while generally not knowing or caring what the fuck was expected of moi. Basically, I was a fuck up until my savage teen heart were quelled somewhat with the soothing balm of bared female caresses, kisses and more for the first time as I… Hey: who you calling a cornball romantic? Me?! All of a sudden I’m Screamin’ Lord Fucking Byron because I was going through exactly the same headcase heartbreakin’ scenario like any other non-bull-fruit jock, future pillar of community hobgobbler or exam-swotting intellectual-to-be that felt something/anything? Before you accuse me take a good look at yourself and besides these were the same kinda scenarios what scripted “Leader of the Pack,” “Louie, Louie,” “C’mon Everybody,” “(I Cannot Receive A Modicum of) Satisfaction (So It Looks Like I’m Jerking Off Again Tonight),” “My Generation,” “Talk Talk,” “No Fun,” “Kick Out The Jams (Because I Am A) Motherfucker, Motherfucker” and basically, ALL of Rock’n’Roll. Oh, alright then, make that a YEAH! And by the way, mine’s a double. YEAH! YEAH! And this one is for Alice speaking: “YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!” I only wax this affirmative because if I am a romantic it’s only because I care and I don’t care if you don’t — but I wish you would all the same would because then we’d all seal the deal and make it all for real instead of creeping around sniggering potshots at some hothead typing this in at ten times the speed of some amphetamined monkey churning out scripts for the Globe fricking Theatre. Speaking of which, my own Teenage Archangel of a Juliet unlocked my heart, blew my mind and managed to straighten my head just when things were just getting too crazy all the way ‘round in my life. Things are still crazy, although I’m older and not a little wiser (Although at this point my IQ should tower over the collective grey matter high marks of Newton, Einstein and Nietzsche’s if William Saroyan’s old chestnut ‘We get very little wisdom from success’ has any measure of truth to it and I think it does) and maybe things aren’t as exciting as I’d like ‘em to be. They rarely are, but WHEN they are, I live a new set of existence ten foot tall and am able chop down the side of a mountain of bad vibes like nobody’s bizniz. Which is where and why this collection of insane racket from France enters the fray…

Docdail

Docdail — Aere Perennius

Docdail — Stone Me

Opening up with a series of concussion blasts is “Aere Perennius,” a crushing instrumental by Parisian quintet Docdail. Managed by the French offices of The Robert Stigwood Organisation, Docdail exhibited a barbarian bone crusher of a B‑side for their first single called “Aere Perennius” (‘more lasting than brass’) and it sure do live up to it’s name. A wailing guitar eruptum hedged in on all sides with slight wah-wah blares out right before a fissure cracks open into a killer sludge instrumental that is as deftly handled as it is barebones freakstorm. Belying it’s mid-tempo pace, guitars sound and wail until a sudden dip into a quietude of chiming guitar, heavy bass and drumming detailing like Densmore’s quiet bits on “When The Music’s Over.” Lead vocalist Ticky Holgado intones like a tribal chieftain, addressing not only his cohorts but to entire world that Docdail are “Aere perennius!” And with a track like this, who could argue. Wouldn’t wanna either: for Docdail are calling up the ancestral storms above to continue and rage unfettered by everything except their collective imagination as the track swamps freely through its structure, structured to work within the confines of your own head as an expanse of yanked, cranked and permanently damaged guitars that fry, crackle and howl and detune through a thousand dying orgasms. Like Grand Funk playing an abbreviated version of “Yogi Talks To Yeti (Improvisation),” “Aere Perennius” is stone age Jurassic punk caught rising up from the psychedelic ashes. For their second single, the Docdail sound headed back in time to a late sixties Midwestern garage punk approach with shades of “Shake”-era Shadows of Knight crossed with something a tad more orthodox but just as lumpen as the sludge plow that is “Aere Perennius.” Perhaps the head of AZ Records or the French Stigwood office demanded more tuneful material. Either way, Docdail would be destined for only one further release, a single on RCA before calling it quits.

L’Assemblee

L’Assemblee — Le Chien

L’Assemblee was a mysterious group who squeaked out just this one single that was psychédelique to extremes with a rollin’ and tumblin’ freak out spat out all over the A‑side and called “Le Chien.” It’s a stampede of drumming and percussion over the melody of Jimi’s “Gypsy Eyes” as played by Amon Düül Eins doing an inept rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Up The Khyber” as Moorish/Ibizan flute trills scatter throughout the entire indescribable crawling chaos that keeps building and bulding. Suddenly, a solo guitar cuts in sideways to corkscrew in and around to rides the rails of this percussive train wreck for an entire minute until falling away; content to just slash rhythm downstroking out in the background when the French vocals reappear. Suddenly, it all comes to a halt and ends abruptly to studio chatter. Strange…but not nearly as strange as the picture sleeve which features in silhouette a shapely lass with an outgrown Brian Jones bob brandishing what looks to be a shotgun. Go figure.

Lover’s Love

Lover’s Love — After Yours

Many of these bands were Paris-based, with a few notable exceptions hailing from points south or east. Like Lover’s Love, who hailed from Cannes. With their romantic group name, Lover’s Love offered a singularly odd horizontal ride on the B‑side of their first single, “After Yours” that took Steppenwolf riffage ala “Rock Me” or “Sookie Sookie” and played it on a mental repeated locked groove for the song’s duration. The topography here is as linear and driving as Kim Fowley’s “Born To Make You Cry” and is trapped in the holding pattern of rigid rhythmic uniformity. There is organ, but it’s held to the rear of the mix at all times as the depth is coordinated by the unswerving rhythm fuzz guitar that hangs above the never-changing tempo. I think the sappy A‑side, “Youth Has Gone” was a sizeable hit in France; not least of all because my copy showed obvious signs of sustained umpteen plays while “After Yours” was in near-mint shape.

Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis — Zeppelin Party

Quo Vadis was formed by bassist Serge Doudou with vocals Ronie Lazareth, guitarist Duret Jean-Wolf, and drummer Jean-Paul Draper. Out of their three 45s released on Atlantic, it was on the B‑side of their second that they really went over the top. With production by French avant garde composer Igor Wakhevitch, the greatly named “Zeppelin Party” saw them boil down a veritable catalogue of Page’s Gibson Les Paul-directed megadiddley ala “Communication Breakdown,” “Black Dog,” “Heartbreaker” and “Whole Lotta Love” then cross-pollinated it together with Edgar “Frankenstein” Winter paces and hijacked the whole damn thing into superhype/rspace drive. First time I eyed the sleeve and saw the word ‘Zeppelin’ placed that near to an Atlantic logo, I was intuitively hipped to what this was all about. Released in 1972, the first year of no new Zeppelin album since 1969, it musta been at least some sort of balm to French fans during that dark interregnum. It certainly captured at least that thing that Zeppelin did so self-assuredly and effortless: Rock’n’roll, and nothing but. And the vocals are insanely reverbed Percy-styled caterwailin’ from that place waaaay dowwwwwnn insiiiide:

“WHOOOOOAAAAAAA…
Let them be…!
WHOOOOOAAAAAAA…
Rock’n’Roll…!”

Dramatic French spoken word gets overdubbed throughout the non-Percival segments, as though giving a blow-by-blow account of the Rock Action and seemingly bedazzled at the qualities of “le SOLID ROCK” currently in progress. And special regards must go to THAT drum sound: courtesy of the insane room ambience of the Parisian studio, Europa Sonor-Wagram where Aphrodite’s Child, Magma and Chico Magnetic Band also recorded. Fuck, how I wish Led Zeppelin had entered there for the recording of “The Runes Album.” And their first three and “Phys Graf” as well. Whoa: “Kashmir” alone would’ve decimated an entire generation and razed entire metropoli to ash…”Quo Vadis” translates from Latin for “Where are you going?” and “Zeppelin Party” is the answer with yet another resounding “WHOOOOOAAAAAAA…Rock’n’Roll…!”

Rotomagus

Rotomagus — Eros

Rotomagus — Fightin’ Cock

In Roman times, the city of Rouen was originally called Rotomagus, but why such a barbarian Rock band as Rotomagus would go by that is puzzling: unless it was out of some idiosyncratic pre-Napoleonic civic pride, I dunno. But I do know that both sides of their “Eros” / “Madame Wanda” 45 are entirely sung in French, excellently overwrought in the then-emerging Progressive style and very heavy. In the French Rock mag ‘Rock & Folk’ Jacques Chabiron wrote, ‘Rotomagus create an emotional music, violent, even aggressive, where abruptly moments of backward flow fit… of violent contrasts, abrupt falls of tension in the rhythm. Much work in the vocal parts.’
Make that a LOT of work in the vocal department, for on both sides at least four or five vocals are arranged to weave and break its moorings as they waft above and all around the tightness and flinging rocks at each in the form of hectic time signatures that emanated from the ruins of the minds of these Rouenese upstarts. “Eros” is hard progressive Rock with multi-part vocal interplaying within an arrangement that seeks to take 10 minutes worth of ideas and compress them all into a 2:15 single side. As heavy drumming keeps everything tightly nailed down, there’s a classical breakdown in the middle and for most of time, vocals call and respond and issue forth in a pre-Queen segment of “Bohemian Rhapsody” with all the dexterity of “Oh, Mama Mia!” but replaced with hulking brutes in tutus declaring public death threats and love letters in the town square. So much passes so quickly, it can’t all be taken in the first several spins as it’s such a head rush bearing down towards the finale. The second side opens with an introductory “Voodoo Chile” riff cranky with colic soon steamrolled out of existence with blistering fuzz guitar as “Madame Wanda” unfolds into some tremendously restrained yet once more, bestial progressive Rock territory. Rapid wah-wah guitar like a whinnying, quivering saw combines with slapback echo tambourine (!) of dub snare qualities to dizzying and spectacular extremes. Again a highly complex vocal arrangement comprised of harmony vocals lets loose in the highest registers available to bearded men until a sudden breakdown into a quiet psychedelic calm before the storm…which is where the Rotomagi return to stomp it down, and I mean: WAY down.
After CBS unceremoniously dumped Rotomagus along with Chico Magnetic Band after one single apiece, Chico Magnetic Band went on to record their excellent eponymous album for Disques Vogue while Rotomagus went on to only one further single, released on the Sonopresse imprint of Butterfly Records. I don’t know how many of the original crew reconvened on this single, but I’d hazard a guess that Rotomagus were shaved way down from its original six man crew and that it was performed by the Peresse brothers plus drummer Jacky Billaux. Not only because I don’t hear any of the intricate vocal parts, flutes or French horns present on the previous 45, but because here Rotomagus sound like an almighty gonzoid power trio. Not on the B‑side (which blows, natch.) But what of the A‑side?

Get ready to have thy sox rocked well and truly off, for these Rouenese cocksparrers let loose with one insane track that will make you question why this song is absent from the first chapter of every tome written on the roots of punk Rock, I kid you not. The first time I heard this track, I did not freak out. I merely walked into a nearby closet and screamed my head off for a minute solid, beat the floor and ripped my t‑shirt. I think I also broke something, but I didn’t hear it crash due to the raging blastitude emanating from outside the door. Then I cowered when it hit me: This thing came out in 1971? Insanity. Before “Damaged”? *I* felt damaged. Before “Raw Power”?! I just lost my mind. Fuck, this steamin’ side was recorded even before the SESSIONS for “Raw Power” that birthed “I Got A Right” and “Gimme Some Skin” so it was even before THAT? The only thing that predates this monster in terms of being a full-on amassing of all things heavy is “Pumped Up” and all the other many key points on Sir Lord Baltimore’s “Kingdom Come” LP and THAT’S it, brother. This track is so good; it scares me into a stupefying state. Three and a half minutes of to the point, snotty as fuck and out there in your face PUNK. Like Greg Ginn before he had a bellyful of his Dad’s psychedelic spaghetti and started bonging it up to umpteen spins of “Steal Your Face” and Sabbath’s “Born Again” Dio-saster, combining his playing on “Rise Above” with James “Strait” Williamson and managing to sound like a revved Tony Iommi simultaneously. Incredulous, I know…only it ain’t. Glib? Nope: The solo is SHREDDING. Especially when the guitarist momentarily trips up on maintaining top speed when he’s tripled the velocity and a note cluster goes AWOL and totally out of reach because his wrist and knuckles are seizing up — but keeps powering it onward regardless; going for broke even (especially) when it’s JUST out of reach. MERDE: it’s this sort of will to Rock it out that casts the enter thing with a special momentum unto oblivion. And the vocals are spat out so Ur-Oi Gestalt, I always give the “V”s along to it, 77 ‘punk unity’ stylee: “FIGHT! / COCK! / ’E WUZZA FIGHTIN’ COCK!” And the drumming is fantastic, too — with one snare, hi-hat, bass drum, two toms and two trashed cymbals that sound flat as pangs or maybe rusty tin garbage can lids given the thrashing of their short-lived existence. The extended “Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown” bass zooms are nuts and when they set up the guitar solo it’s as though it’s just gotten caught on electrified razor wire and just stays there frying interminably. And the fake rooster caws fore and aft are truly raving, drooling and cock-a-doodle-doo’ing as if heralding the dawn of punk…for it is right here. Pre-Skydog, too.

Tac Poum Système

Tac Poum Système — Asmodai

With a front line of three skinny Parisian guitarists that looked for all the world like a trio of late ’69-era Jimmy Page look-alikes wearing all-white flairs and blouses all the better to reflect their psychedelic liquid light show projections, Tac Poum Système gigged regularly at the long established Parisian music club, Golf Drouot. Their first single was released on their own TPS label with the B‑side a quasi-autobio number about their early days leading up to the then-present era of triumph onstage at Golf Drouot. But of far more interest is the A‑side, “Asmodaï” of which Henri Leproux noted on the back sleeve “…is completely representative of their music. It is delirious and fantastic.” Leproux is right on both counts: for housed in a “Vincebus Eruptum”-styled picture sleeve “Asmodaï” is a SCREAMING garage punker, with fuzz guitar resounding like a 5 foot diameter log being fed and pushed into a belaboured rotary saw half its size but still fiercely gnaws and grinds all the same with an horrible overworked din. Like The Open Mind’s proto-Sonic’s Rendezvous Band overdrive of “Magic Potion” crossed with The Moving Sidewalks and the drive of earliest Led Zeppelin, Tac Poum Système’s “Asmodaï” is a howler. Over and over they incant the name “As-Mo-Daiiii…whoa!” while the unfussy drumming simply and understatedly drives the whole epic further and higher and further still until a series of huge blasts and crashes end it all gloriously. Here, Philippe Carminati is the lead guitarist and vocalist; Fernand “Titi” Pena is on rhythm guitar and vocals; Serge Meunier is on bass, Jean-Louis Carminati is on the drums and I think they were all onto something fierce, completely out there and uniquely terrifying. Tac Poum Système recorded one further single on their own TPS label, as well as contributing one track to the compilation album on Philips, “Groovy Pop Session” in the form of a cover of “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love.” Unfortunately, by 1973 Tac Poum Système were only a dazzling memory of how Rock should and could be done.

Variations

Variations — Generations

Variations — Love Me

After spending the past two years constantly gigging throughout Northern Europe as opening act for such established groups as The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream and Taste, Variations signed to EMI/Pathé Records in 1969. Managed by the French arm of the Robert Stigwood Organisation, Les Variations are without a doubt the best known Rock group from France, largely in part to their commercial successes that followed them during their nearly decade-long run. With the core lineup of Joe Leb (vocals), Marc Tobaly (guitar), Jacques “Petit Pois” Grande (bass) and Jacky Bitton (drums) they released a prolific amount of records in their peak years of 1969–1973 when they confidently exhibited all their subsumed influences with substantial and highly focused power. Three of the member bore more than a passing resemblance to Mick Jagger, Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith so it was poetically appropriate that they appropriated the same approaches as late sixties/early seventies Stones, MC5 alongside a good dose of “Live At Leeds”-era Who and a whole lotta Zep moves to boot as their songwriting manned a array of every cherished hook, cliché and cinquer from the back catalogue of this contingent into wallop-packed singles that were as stinky and sweaty as you please. And their name was chosen wisely, for Variations passed through a succession of ‘em in the course of their protracted career. As the times changed, so did Variations with the times so that by 1974 they had started cutting hooky, glam-bang singles like “Silver Girl,” signed with an American label and began to introduce elements of their Moroccan roots on the succinctly-titled “Moroccan Roll” album. But prior to their US exposure in late 1974 when sent on the road opening for Bachman Turner Overdrive, they were a quartet without the many session musicians and vocalists that were already starting to be ushered in by the time of their second album, “Take It Or Leave It.” And without a doubt, up to and including this last named LP, inlcuding their excellent debut album “Nador” and the singles released in its wake is where Variations were at the peak of their powers. Their third single for EMI/Pathé, “Free Me”/“Générations” saw them blaze through a tempestuous fest of falling hard Rock zone on the flipside. Joe Leb shrieks like Roger Daltrey, Tobaly’s guitar is caught in the ringer twixt Keef Riffhard and Jimmy Page and the rhythm section is always all-knowing where to place another loping bass or extra fill and the entire bludgeon-fest ends with a gradual RPM slowdown that never fails to unsettle. The next two singles were an excellent pairing of the album tracks “What A Mess Again” with the delicate acoustic, conga instrumental “Nador” quickly followed by the non-LP single, “Down the Road”/“Love Me.” Whereas the A‑side is an ultimate sun-setting over the tour bus road song, the B‑side of this last-named 45 sees elements of Led Zeppelin, Who and Stones all joining together into unashamedly high definition and no frills Rock. The rhythm is the sort of held back and disjointed rhythm Zeppelin put to work on “Good Times, Bad Times” and here in the hands of Marc Tobaly and crew is wielded just as effectively. As though in tribute to The Stones’ female choir in “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” they assembled their own crew of Nanette Newmans to sway with the song’s elegant come-on song title as an extended outro. 

And this is only the tip of the iceberg for Variations were amazingly tight and ambitious in their quarrying of such unvarnished Rock cut from the slabs of giants. And they did it with such truly righteous heaviness I’m pissed they never really cracked America like they should have. (Note: this earliest period of Variations is available on a 2‑CD set of their first 2 albums, “Nador” and “Take It Or Leave It” along with their first eight singles and several astonishingly great outtakes. It was released in 2002 on the Magic label and is highly recommended.)

Voyage

Voyage — Outre Tombe

On the B‑side of their first single, “Outré Tombe” saw Paris outfit Voyage tap into an odd progressive vein that musically was all over the place while the vocals remained staunchly rooted in the slurred vocabulary of Ian Anderson’s bug-eyed, dirty Mac-wearing “A Song For Jeffrey” guttersnipe persona. But the flute and organ placement take their cue more from “Trespass” than “This Was” and are offset with some excellent, primitive fuzz guitar work outs. During their submersion into a veritable multi-passage tomb that is the B‑side, “Outré Tombe” is most outré in its progressive-based thematic tendencies to run through a variety of wildly contrasting and distended expositions. They even wind up burrowing into a wild vamping on “Tequila” (of all things) in the instrumental bridge with brazenly over-recorded fuzz guitar soloing as percussion swamps the background. Then they’re into a breezy jazz section and back into the opening theme of throaty, un-cleared Aqualung vox and more blazing fuzz guitar until on a final flute vignette it gets yanked to a close.

Zoo

Zoo — Hard Times

Zoo were an aggregation working within the stylistic horn rock modes of Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. But it was the welcome addition of stentorian rhythm fuzz guitar on infinite-repeating a portion of “Tales of Brave Ulysses” at top end that makes this horn-rock monstrosity somethin’ else entirely. It’s a tight funk workout and a wondrous treat with weirdly stiff and flatfooted robotic drum beats. The vocals are token throwaway and about as stiff as the drumming but taken as a whole, is weird ass funk by anyone’s definition and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The band is steady, Eddie and since they find it hard to swing, they just flail instead. All the while, that fuzz guitar keeps on cranking and working into the rhythm, building trance-like with each cycle and once it returns from the snazzy double time middle bridge, it’s even louder than before. A genre for every B‑side, Zoo would release three albums between 1969–1972 as well as almost ten singles; two of which were included in the soundtracks for the films “Le Champignon” and “Les jambes en l’air.”

Little Sammy Gaha

Little Sammy Gaha — Heavy Head

Little Sammy Gaha was an expatriate Australian singer who used Paris as a home base for recording and touring Europe throughout the early-to-mid seventies. Although not French, he cut a string of singles, including the romping ruckus that is “Heavy Head” in Paris, so I consider him a kindred spirit and outsider joker in this pack of Frankish Rock tribes. This altogether hairy vocalist was given to strange promotional gag shots in ripped T‑shirts, short pants offset with clashing women’s leggings and blue platform shoes. Hahahahaha… Li’l Sammy’s even licking an all-day sucker on the sleeve of this demented 45. With a guttural vocal alternating between Louis Armstrong and a laryngitis-afflicted Wolfman Jack as they both beat the flames off the seat of their respective pants, his delivery is pricelessly demented. The backing music to “Heavy Head” combines Ten Years After’s Utopian Woodstock descending riff from the quick parts of “I’d Love To Change The World” that keep charging over a stampede of drums accompanied by the most waka-jawaka-ing I’ve heard within any song outside of “Papa Was A Rolling Stone.” And since it’s a fairly long track, it gives L.S.G. the space to explore the multitude of ways he can beat his heavy head, describing its condition in a hundred ways until he comes to the conclusion: “Don’t worry if it comes off! / You can get another one! / It’s allllllllright!!” Yeah, he’s gotta head full of ideas driving him insane, running roughshod AND gettin’ trampled in the process, hahahaha…Gaha truly broke out of the box and decided to just spazz it out on the B‑side for kicks. 

Which is what Rock’n’Roll is all about, ne’s pas? 

French Rock…who would’ve thunk?!!!