This was a show I did last summer after getting back from Montréal with some psychedelic sounds from la belle province in the late 1960s. Some of the records out on Gamma in 68 and 69, like Louise Forestier's second self-titled album and Robert Charlebois' Lindberg struck me as something not far off from a Québecois equivalent to Tropicalia, in its effort to mix psych rock with local musical idioms. It'd never occurred to me that there'd be much of a scene for this stuff, but it's not surprising that there would be. A bit of online digging around led me to great resources like
Vente de garage and
Patrimoine PQ, which gave me access to a lot of the music I used for the show.
But I'm motivated to post this now after coming across this fascinating article by
Will Straw in the course of other research. I especially appreciate his section on "musical recordings as cultural waste." What happens when pop culture refuse starts to haunt thrift store and record store bins in the future, especially in places like Québec that produce cultural artifacts in such great quantities? Formats matter here, Straw explains:
In Montreal there were, until recently, several large retail stores, of a scale I have seen nowhere else, offering old vinyl records for sale. Over the past five years, many of these have closed, their stocks ending up in the few stores which remain; more generally, one can see the consolidation of used record stocks as they move from radio station libraries and small independent stores towards a very few retail outlets. There the records tend to remain, static, their very bulk conveying their undesirability in almost monumental terms. The compact disc, on the other hand, is one of the most efficiently mobile of commodity forms, moving through primary and secondary markets in ways which link it to a whole set of legal and illicit economic activities. Newspapers, over the last half decade, have written extensively about the heroin trade in Vancouver, a city which is now considered to be the heroin addiction capital of North America. Part of the economy of addiction, it is suggested, are the proliferating second-hand stores and pawnshops in Vancouver, commercial institutions through which funds for drug purchases might be quickly raised. Compact discs are considered one of the key commodities within this commerce insofar as they are easily stolen, easily converted into cash, and easily resold. The compact disc circulates quickly and relatively easily from retail stores to apartments, and from there to pawnshops or second-hand stores and back into individual collections.
I could probably go to Montréal tomorrow and come with stacks of unwanted records that are a lot cheesier than the local Motown knockoffs that open this show, but the fact that I'd have a harder time finding similar shitty Canadian albums in Toronto, Calgary, or Vancouver probably says something, doesn't it? This article is from ten years ago, though, and I wonder if the landscape has changed with more digital downloading. Are 90s Québecois alternarock CDs starting piling up in pawn shops, thrift stores, and record stores the same way that earlier easy listening and disco LPs fill the bins? How long is
that stuff gonna take to be cool again? Anyway, it's an article worth skimming as you listen to the sounds of sixties Québec. Enjoy!
| 4:28 PM | Les Coquettes | Jimmy Mack | Girl Group Power | |
| 4:26 PM | Réal Barrette | Y faut jamais faire brailler sa blonde | 45 tours... | Simple 1969 |
| 4:20 PM | Pierre Létourneau | Chanson d'Amérique | s-t | London 1967 |
| 4:18 PM | La Famille Casgrain | Peel Ste-Catherine Jeudi Soir 9 Heures | Simples Barclay | |
| 4:12 PM | La Nouvelle Frontière | Pacification | s-t | Gamma 1970 |
| 4:10 PM | Louise Forestier | J't'aime en masse | s-t | Gamma 1969 |
| 4:04 PM | Tony Roman | Au Canada | 45 tours... | |
| 3:59 PM | Cyril Cendrillon | Le Québec se cherche un chef | 45 tours... | DSP |
| 3:56 PM | Robert Charlebois | Egg Generation | Lindberg | Gamma 1968 |
| 3:53 PM | Claude Gauthier | Concerto déconcertant pour flûte homme et enfant | Cerfs-Volants | Gamma 1969 |
| 3:46 PM | The Medium | Give Me A Peace | The Medium | Gamma 1969 |
| 3:41 PM | Les Classels | L'herbe de la paix | | |
| 3:36 PM | Melchior Alias | Chu mnu en métro automatique | Melchior Alias... | Capitol 1968 |
| 3:33 PM | Les Anteks | Cheveux Blonds et Pantalons | People of Tyme: Canadian Garage Beat '66 | |
| 3:30 PM | Les Sultans | Tu es impossible | Les Sultans | |
| 3:27 PM | Norman Fréchette et les Hou Lops | J'étudie mon grec | 45 tours... | Riviera 1967 |
| 3:25 PM | Les Différents | Soyons différents | 45 tours... | Disques Monde 1967 |
| 3:20 PM | The Dandy's | Amour et mariage | Girl Group Power... | |
| 3:18 PM | César et Ses Romains | Money | Les Super Succès Rhythm & Blues | DSP 1968 |
| 3:15 PM | Les Beatlettes | C'est grâce à toi | Girl Group Power - Quebec Girl Groups | |
| 3:13 PM | Denis S. Pantis | Les mauvais garçons | 45 tours... | Jeunesse Franco |
| 3:12 PM | Les Napoléons | Fou de toi | Gogo | 1966 |
| 3:09 PM | Gilles Brown | Le karaté | 45 tours... | Télédisc 1966 |
| 3:07 PM | Marcel Martel | Sous le soleil du Mexique | s-t | |
| 3:06 PM | The Four Pladds | Gros Poulet/Scratch | Compilation vente de garage vol. 3- Rock, Cowboy, Rock |
Hour one (show starts around 3 and a half minutes in)
Hour two
