Hello to anyone who still checks in here. I'm posting to let you know Blog City is closing down in a couple of days, so Spiked Candy will be moving. Its new home is not ready as yet, but if you bookmark www.spikedcandy.com, it will redirect to the blog when it's finished. Meanwhile, there are some tunes on the holding page you might like to check out. 

Happy New Year, everyone, and thanks for your support over the years. See you over here -> Spiked Candy

Sorry, everyone, not to have blogged for a long time and to have neglected to let you know that I'm on (unintended) hiatus. I kept hoping I would get back to blogging at any moment, but I just have not been up to it. I will return when I feel like I can blog without it taking too much out of me. I also want to take some time to rethink/redesign/relaunch the blog just as I'd like it.

Apologies also to my last.fm friends and group members. I'll catch up when I can, but need to continue having a total break for now. Socialising online with everyone has been really fun, but it snowballed into something I couldn't keep up with.

You may also have noticed my Youtube account is once again gone, and I won't be setting up another, as it's too much of a gamble that hours of work will be wiped out at their whim. Instead, I'm migrating to Imeem, where many videos are allowed, since Imeem has deals with labels and pay royalties. And if a copyright holder wants to exercise their right to keep everyone from ever seeing obscure videos, as they are wont to do on Youtube, the video gets cut but I get to keep my account. Hooray! So far I've uploaded one of my faves and my most popular video on Youtube, Marianne Faithfull singing 'Hier ou Demain ' in Anna:

Another exciting thing about Imeem is I can upload whole albums for you to listen to on demand. So far I've added France Gall's 3 long players from the 60s - Baby Pop, Les Sucettes and 1968, Francoise Hardy's beautiful 1972 album of mostly English covers album If You Listen, and Sandie Shaw's brilliant, unique 1969 covers album, Reviewing the Situation, with more to come. (Not sure if you have to log in to listen to those). 

Peter Falk & Natalie Wood on a break during the filming Penelope (pic via IMDB ) 

I've also added a sweet tune sung by Natalie Wood in the 1966 comedy Penelope called 'The Sun is Gray' (ripped from the original soundtrack LP).  This is Natalie's real voice, whereas the normally impossibly high standards of the day meant she was dubbed in West Side Story (Marni Nixon) and The Great Race (by Jackie Ward). I'm glad she was for once allowed to use her own voice, which is endearingly imperfect with a lovely, gentle tone. The song was written by Gale Garnett, a singer best known for her 1964 country-pop hit, 'We'll Sing in the Sunshine'. 

One more thing before I disappear again for a while: I've created a Yé-yé -themed 'blind test'  on Deezer, a French site with tons of great music to stream. The blind test plays a 30 second clip of a song and you have to guess the artist. Play the yé-yé blind test below or go here. (You'll note the slightly odd English translations on Deezer at times!). Enjoy! Bye for now :).

*Edit 21 Jan 2010 - Well so much for Imeem. First they removed video uploading, now they are gone altogether. Instead I've uploaded the Natalie Wood song to (the far superior) Grooveshark. Stream it below, or go here.

 The Deezer widget is currently not working. I'll update it when they release their new widget. Happy New Year, everyone :)

I'm sure if Emily Post had foreseen to write etiquette guidelines for music bloggers, having a Christmas post as one's latest entry as we begin, *gulp*, May would be considered a dreadful faux pas. Once again, I've found myself on an unintended hiatus from blogging, and I'm hoping to get back to posting regularly. For now at least, it's time for my blog to cease to be the virtual equivalent of a home strewn with tattered decorations and a sad Christmas tree wilting away months after 'twas the season.

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Recently, I picked up an excellent CD compilation called Greek Beat Greats, released by Gyro Records. This is definitely not a CD to judge by its cover: the artwork alone, with a polite-looking combo hovering in the sky over a generic picture of the Acropolis, would make me fear I'm in for something supremely dodgy, akin to what I'd find in my parents' vast collection of 70s Greek "easy"-listening records. Thankfully, that's not the case. Instead, it's packed with 29 fun, melodic, upbeat tracks from the 60s Greek garage scene. Greek Beat Greats is Vol. 4 in a Gyro's Wildworld series (Vols 1, 2 and 3 featured 60s garage from around the world, Japan and Italy respectively).

The entire CD is worth getting your hands on, but I was particularly excited by a surprising find in the form of the very last track. 'Let's Shake, Baby'* by Zoe & The Stormies is an English-language cover of France Gall's 'Laisse Tomber Les Filles'. A Greek 60s cover of 'Laisse Tomber Les Filles' in English! Who knew?! (Just the one mention of it online is at Garage Hangover - one that, likely due to the misspelling, escaped even my prided Google super-skills at first). 

Zoe & The Stormies - Let's Shake, Baby (1965)

The lyrics of the Stormies' version aren't a translation of the original, where France Gall warns her main squeeze to give up his girl-crazy ways or else. It's a tough song to translate directly into English and retain both the vocal phrasing and the magic of the song's simmering, don't-mess-with me vibe. A direct translation would mean the song would start with the clunky, dull-sounding "Drop the girls, drop the girls, or one day it's you who will be dropped". April March's 1995 English cover, 'Chick Habit ' was an excellent re-imagining, keeping the theme in tact but opting for different lyrics which give it more flavour than a dry translation could, and sprinkling in some retro slang to complement the feel.

'Let's Shake, Baby', follows the approach sometimes found in the reverse scenario of English hits covered in French, where lyrics that loosely mimic the phonetics of the main lyrical hook were used. An example that comes to mind is 'Chains' by the Cookies, covered by both Johnny Hallyday and Sylvie Vartan as 'Chance' ('Luck'). Another French 60s singer, Dick Rivers, covered Buddy Holly's 'Rave On' as 'Yvonne' in 1991. So here, 'lai-sse tomber' becomes 'let's-shake together'. Remember, I said loosely! But it does in effect sound similar. Interesting that Gall's 'Laisse' did have a Greek release: I suspect that in cases where the original song is already known, the translators wanted to maximise cashing-in potential by not straying to far from what was already familiar to listeners' ears.

From there, 'Let's Shake, Baby' sidesteps most of the original's theme: where Gall warned her steady  his playboy days must come to an end, Zoe has already lost her love and is trying to lure him back from his new lady with a provocative invitation to 'shake it' with her. Double entendre alert: while she is definitely referring to recapturing their chemistry on the dancefloor ("let's show them that we'll really dance"), when Zoe offers to "show you what I'll do", you get the feeling she's also offering a little more. The fast-paced bongo beat, a unique addition not present in 'Laisse', adds to the seductive feel of the song.

The word 'shake' pops up a lot in anything to do with Greek 60s rock, e.g. '60s shake', 'Greek shake bands', and seems to be a blanket term for that style of music. Whether this was adopted at the time or is a retrospective term, I don't know. If the former, it reminds me of the way the French 60s scene used the word 'twist', which was used not just to refer to the dance itself or music specifically designated for dancing the twist to, but to more broadly refer to any danceable pop/rock music. The Shake was also a 60s dance move, so possibly the term's use in Greece is comparable.

The 'shake' then in Zoe and her Stormies' call to "shake together, baby" perhaps served a triple purpose, making it an ode to dancing, sex and rock'n'roll. And if shake was in fact the buzzword of the time, its inclusion in the title - just like the word 'twist' in French 60s song titles - might have been a canny choice, intended to prick up the ears of hip young things.

What looks like a very interesting article in Greek on the history of the Greek 60s bands can be found here. It's written by Nikos Mastorakis who was a songwriter for many of the bands and possibly a svengali/manager/promoter to some. What I can best extract from the article is that Nikos put together the Stormies when he temporarily parted ways with the Forminx, for whom he was writing songs. He says the Stormies are an example of a band created out of "retaliation, rather than need", implying the nature of the "retaliation" was to outdo whatever band one was on the outs with.

Zoe was Zoitsa Kouroukli (Ζωίτσα Κουρούκλη; -itsa is an affectionate diminutive in Greek), a jazz singer in the 50s who'd been out of the limelight for a little while. Nikos hatched a plan to reinvent her as Zoe (in the anglicised spelling: the Greek rock scene seems to have been quite Anglophilic), and dress her in miniskirts and boots as a hip symbol of the modern era. He teamed her with the Stormies, and promoted them as the band to watch - and it worked. A frenzied young audience "waited with baited breath for the first appearance of the brand new Zoe with the group onstage at the Orphea. [There were] two thousand teenagers in seats, corridors and balconies, and ten thousand others outside, trying to break the police barricade. Zoitsa and the Stormies were suddenly the hottest name in pop."

Most of their success must have been on the thriving live scene, as they only recorded one 45 together, featuring 'Let's Shake, Baby' and 'The Girl Of Ye-Ye', an English cover of the 1965 Spanish mega-hit 'La chica yé-yé'.  On 'The Girl Of Ye-Ye', the lyrics stay true to the original's tale of a girl who knocks back the boy she loves because her heart belongs to rock 'n'roll, but a little more detail is added (again necessary in English to fill out the vocal melody), including a cute line about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The lyrics don't entirely make sense ("you're in love with moonlight glow"), though this only adds to the song's charm. Even the title phrase "Girl of Ye-Ye" is in slightly-off English, making the song's title a succinct summary of why the song itself is an interesting artefact from the annals of European pop: that it's a song from Greece in English referring to a Spanish term for rock borrowed from the French!

Zoe & The Stormies - The Girl of Ye-Ye (1965)
Conchita Velasco - La chica yé-yé (1965)

Curiously, a band credited as Zoe & The Storms perform in the 1966 film Na zei kaneis in na mi zei? (Να Ζει κανεισ η να μη ζει;). They perform a fun bubblegum go-go number, 'The Yuppee Ya Ya Song' and 'Akou Me', a ballad with a subtly groovy backing which sees Zoe's splendid voice soar into a passionate chorus. The credit is curious because 'The Yuppee Ya Ya Song' was actually released on record by Zoe and The Minis. Perhaps the Storms was a transitional name between the Stormies and the Minis? A couple of members of the Minis, Demis Roussos and Lukas Sideris may have played in the later days of the Stormies (according to this article), and I believe can both be seen in the above videos (on bass and drums respectively).

Zoitsa appeared on vocals on just the Minis' first single, 'The Yuppee Ya Ya Song' backed with 'Darlin'. Minis members Roussos, Sideris and Anargyros "Silver" Koulouris along with Vangelis (who guest-spotted on a Minis record) would soon after form Aphrodite's Child, the Paris-based prog rock outfit who achieved success throughout Europe. Roussos, like Vangelis, is now best known for his later solo work, in his case as an extravagantly mumu'd warbler (who prominently features in the afore-mentioned torturous parental record stash). 

Zoe & The Minis - The Yuppee Ya Ya Song (1966)

As for Zoitsa, not much else about her career is clear: I can't find anything about her pre-Stormies career other than that she performed in the Greek Song Contest (modelled after Italy's San Remo festival) in 1961, singing 'To Peristeraki', a song that launched the songwriting career of Stavros Koujioumtzis, a significant Greek composer. She took part in the festival again in 1963, this time placing second. There are several film credits to her name from the late 50s to the late 60s, probably again as musical guest appearances.

She recorded pop tunes solo until at least the the late 60s, including a song written by Vangelis and Mastorakis, 'Oldies But Goodies', in 1966. Many of her recordings were covers of songs from other countries like French singer Antoine's 1968 San Remo entry 'La Tramontana' and Brazilian song 'Nem Vem Que Não Tem' as 'Sakoumdi Sakoumda' (also covered by both Marcel Zanini and Brigitte Bardot in French as 'Tu veux ou tu veux pas' and Italian singer Mina as 'Sacumdi Sacumda'). Her cover of 'Those Were The Days', best known as Mary Hopkin's 1968 UK number #1 hit, sounds really lovely in the Greek tongue:

Zoitsa Kouroukli - Hamena Onira (Those Were The Days)

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Where To Buy

I was excited to find a collection of Zoitsa Kouroukli's greatest hits on Emusic because it means there's an affordable way to collect her hard-to-find music. The album features the songs posted and mentioned above and more: Megales Epitihies @ Emusic.

It's also available to buy on MP3 at Amazon.

The CD doesn't seem to be available outside of Greece: try Studio 52 (in English), or this google search (in Greek) to search for more Greek stockists.

The same label has also released two Greek 60s comps that have some of the above tracks, and lots of other fantastic stuff from Greek 'shake' bands. Be kind, support the small labels that put together great comps like these!
Ta Gie Giedika @ Emusic
Ta Gie Giedika No. 2 @ Emusic
Ta Gie Giedika @ Amazon (on MP3)
Ta Gie Giedika No. 2 @ Amazon (on MP3)
Note: Confusingly, the first volume's title is misspelt and incorrectly listed as No. 2 on both sites.
Both volumes on CD @ Studio 52 (Greece)

Greek Beat Greats on CD @ Merchmusicdotcom

Or got a spare $273 to buy 'The Girl of Ye-Ye'/'Let's Shake, Baby' on 45? Wow.

Update: Musical.gr sells Zoe's greatest hits CD and a few 60s comps featuring her songs, including two volumes of the excellent Oldies But Goodies series. Her song on the George Mouzakis CD
is a piano jazz number, quite possibly from her earlier 50s career. You can hear a sample at last.fm.
It seems she has continued to perform until now, at least occasionally, as evidenced by her appearance on a couple of recent CDs listed there, as well as a some later live performances.

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Links
- Review of Greek Beat Greats @ Shindig
- Zoitsa Kouroukli @ Vangelis Movements (some of this info is wrong, more on that soon)
- Vinyl rips of the 2 other Stormies singles @ Garage Hangover. One of these is listed at an astounding $1186. Yowsers. Note: a couple of the Stormies songs are also on the Ta Gie-Giedika comps.
- Conchita Velasco performs of 'La chica yé-yé' accompanied by a comedic singer and musicians.

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*'Let's Shake, Baby' is incorrectly credited on Greek Beat Greats as 'Let's Shake It Baby'.

Danièle et Michèle - Noël à deux (1965)
Side A (20MB)
Side B (19MB)

I've saved the best for last! A full-length album of Christmas tunes from Québec duo, Danièle et Michèle. I haven't come across any other Christmas albums from 60s female Francophonic pop singers before. I only know of a handful of remotely yuletide-esque songs performed by girls from 60s France, and I'm not sure they were very common for the Québecoises, either. So an entire yé-yé girl Christmas LP feels like a bit of a treasure - well, certainly to someone obsessed with both genres!

Daniéle et Michéle are definitely more on the pop side than the rockin' side of yé-yé and certainly not lacking in a certain cheese factor. But I would wager most of my readers, like me, aren't afraid of a little kitsch. Plus, that somehow addictive sound of girls singing 60s pop in French probably goes a long way to making a record like this more appealing to our ears, even though you can be certain there's someone in Québec it would likely induce some serious cringing for. Overall it's pretty darn cute and fun, with a couple of upbeat numbers that remind me of Les Parisiennes, and there are some quite genuinely lovely moments on here, too. The softer numbers have a sweet, soothing lullaby feel to them. I'm not sure if this record was aimed at children, but the Disques Mérite link below would suggest so.

Link: Daniéle et Michéle @ Retro Jeunesse 60
Buy: You can find some of these songs on this album at Disques Mérites.

Phew, this is now the final post in what has turned out to be a Christmas Eve blogging marathon for me. I hope these tracks reach you if not by Christmas day, then at least while you're still feeling festive. And I hope you enjoy them immensely!

Spiked Candy Canes 3 (49MB)

Tracklist: Rotary Connection - Christmas Child, Petty Booka - Christmas Island, The Surfaris - A Surfer's Christmas List, Karine et Rebecca - Chantons Noël, The Cannanes - Six White Boomers, The Long Blondes - Christmas Is Cancelled, The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song, Helen Love - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight), Bijou - La fille du père Noël, The Belrays - Mary Christmas, The Orchids - Mr. Scrooge, Gillian Hills - La tête à l'envers, The Magic Whispers - Crystal Nights, Bessie Smith - At The Christmas Ball

It's all about bulk here at Spiked Candy at Christmas time, despite my declaration not long ago of my usual love of audioblogs with a more minimalist approach. My enthusiasm for Christmas songs means they're spilling out of folders on my desktop, begging to be shared in time (well, just) for Christmas. That is why I am sitting here like a woman possessed well into the early hours of this Southern Hemisphere Christmas morning. 

I have a brand spankin' new set of Spiked Candy Canes to share that I hope will be as exciting for you to listen to as they are for me. Time constraints mean I'm unable to both post these songs and write an entry that would do them justice, but I hope the mix will speak for itself. I'll try to pop any relevant links up in the near future.

The pics above are the front and inside of a vintage Christmas card I scanned. Don't you love how the road has multiple signs saying 'curve', in case we don't get the joke?! 

This blog has gained many new readers since I first posted my Spiked Candy Canes mixes in 2005, so I thought I'd share them again for anyone who missed out the first time around. Hopefully they'll give you an idea of the abundance of lesser-known but fun, interesting, weird or sometimes beautiful Christmas songs that are out there, and maybe introduce you to some artists you haven't heard before. I'm also posting a bonus package of five of my favourite songs I've previously blogged at Christmas. If you're looking for more info and links to purchase anything that's still in print, have a look through the December 2005 and the December 2006 archives.

Spiked Candy Canes 1 (45MB)
Tracklist: Claudine Longet - Snow, Dressy Bessy - All the Right Reasons, Deerhoof - Xmas Tree, Isabelle Antenna - Noelle A Hawaii, Peggy Lee - The Christmas Spell, Stina Nordenstam - Soon After Christmas, The Diskettes - Noel, The Gems - Love For Christmas, The Kinks - Father Christmas, The Knife - Christmas Reindeer, The Pipettes - In The Bleak Midwinter, The Sonics - Don't Believe In Christmas

Spiked Candy Canes 2 (44MB)
Tracklist: Belle And Sebastian - I Took Some Time For Christmas, Brian Wilson - On Christmas Day, Ginette Reno - Vive Le Vent, Julie London - I'd Like You For Christmas, Lauren Laverne - In The Bleak Midwinter, Marlene Paul - I Wanna Spend Christmas With Elvis, Nena - Wunder Gescheh'n, Of Montreal - My Favourite Christmas (In A Hundred Words Or Less), The Carpenters - Merry Christmas, Darling, The Shitbirds (ft April March)- Christmas Is A-Coming, Universal Robot Band - Disco Christmas, Yo La Tengo - It's Christmas Time

Bonus Songs (17MB)
Tracklist: A Girl Called Eddy - The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot, April March & Los Cincos - Last Train To Christmas, Jacques Dutronc - La fille du père Noël, Margo Guryan - I Don't Intend to Spend Christmas Without You, The Ronettes - Frosty The Snowman (7" rip)

(Pic: Paris Match Christmas Holiday special issue, 1962. Implies you will be smiling as maniacally when you hear these mixes) 

I'm feeling spoiled this year thanks to all the quality Christmas music I've found online that the artists have generously made available for free download. Below is my list of finds. Got any more to add?

Summer Cats - Plastic Christmas Trees
Sofia Talvik - Christmas
Tiger Baby - This Christmas
Romantica - Home For Christmas
Irene - Christmas On The Beach
Celestial - Saving Up Her Wishes (For Another Christmas)
Candypants - The Happiest Time Of The Year (Head to their Myspace page for the download)
Rose Melberg & Gregory Webster - Merry Christmas (Myspace download)
Lula & Wayne Jackson - Merry Christmas (Myspace download - thanks to BridgedJones for this one!)


Some songs I've blogged before that are still up:

El Perro Del Mar - Oh! What A Christmas
Thee Headcoatees - Santa Claus
Bobby Baby - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town                 
Gamine - Oh, What A Kiss! (French Kiss Remix) and Oh, Mon Cheri!



Tag blogged about Swedish italo-disco queen Sally Shapiro's cover of Nixon's 'Anorak Christmas' last year. This year, a new piano mix is available via Paperbag Records:
Sally Shapiro - Anorak Christmas (Piano Mix)

You can also download the original by Nixon from his Myspace page.

Links: Summer Cats, Sofia Talvik , Tiger Baby, Romantica, Irene, Celestial, El Perro Del Mar, Thee Headcoatees, Bobby Baby, Gamine, Memphis Industries, Where It's At Is Where You Are .
Electric Fantastic Christmas 2007, and 2006 .

I've been obsessed with hunting down every enjoyable Christmas song (and some winter and December-themed ones) I can find on Last.fm, and as a result, Spiked Candy Canes Radio is now more than three times the size it was last year!

Click here to play it in a pop-up window, or here to play it in your last.fm player (get the player here).

What has gone into the Spiked Candy Canes mix? Generous handfuls each of twee pop, Phil Spector, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 60s pop, crooners, soul, Japanese ukulele girls and Doris Day; a dash of jazz and a splash of glam rock; a sprinkling of country, and a, uh, tiny pinch of Tiny Tim. Sneak a peek at the track list here.

Stay tuned...  more Christmas posts still to come!

(Pic of 'Les' Beach Boys from Jukebox mag). 

I've re-uploaded the Christmas-themed French 60s videos I had on YouTube last year: 

Sheila - L'Heure De La Sortie . From Douce France, Dec 18, 1966.

And the crazy 'Noël à Vaugirard' sketch from Dim Dam Dom, Dec 23, 1966. (See this post).

Part 1 : 

Part 2 :

And I've added a brand new clip -

France Gall - Il Neige. December 31, 1966.

Another special guest post: this time Graham Welch of Ready Steady Girls! tells us about the career of French singer Séverine, and shares her Christmas song with us. - Spiked Candy

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Séverine - Les enfants qui attendent Noël (1969)

Sadly, the European girl singers of the 1960s rarely did Christmas songs anywhere near as well as their American counterparts. However, here French chanteuse Séverine gives it her best shot.

The singer had more IDs than a credit card fraudster. She started out life as Josiane Grizeau but became Céline for an EP on the Vogue label in 1967. The release led with 'Tu dis september', but when it failed she was dropped by the label.

A year later producer Georges Aber found her singing – as Robbie Lorr – in the Golf Drouot. The result was a contract, this time with Philips, and a new stage name, Séverine.

Her Christmas gift to us comes in the form of 'Les enfants qui attendent Noël'. The song is taken from the second EP issued under her new name and was released in 1969. It is based on a melody by Johann Sebastian Bach, with words by Aber and Jacques Revaux.

In 1970 she released the theme to the film Le passager de la pluie, which topped the Japanese charts, but she really hit the big time in Europe the following year, when she won the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest with the beautiful 'Un banc, un arbre, une rue' for Monaco. The song went on to be a hit continent-wide.

At home, she enjoyed further hits with 'Comme un appel' and 'Mon tendre amour' but a legal dispute with Aber in 1973 put paid to her career in France. A parallel one in Germany lasted longer, though a succession of French-themed songs such as 'Ja, der Eiffelturm', 'Olala L’amour' and 'Der Duft von Paris' risked turning her into something of a one-trick pony. Nevertheless, she enjoyed great success, selling some six million records in the early 1970s.  - Graham Welch
 
Link: French Girls @ Ready Steady Girls!