Genre: garage
Rating: 3 stars ***
Title: Les Serpents Noir
Company: Olympia
Catalog: LPT
3372
Year: 1967
Country/State: Liege, Belgium
Grade (cover/record): VG / VG
Comments: Belgian pressing; minor ring and edge wear; name and address in blue ink top left corner back side
Available: 1
GEMM catalog ID: 5523
Price: $100.00
My French is rusty, but I believe their name translates to The Black Snakes ... Anyhow, there's quite a bit of web material available on the group, but almost all of it is in French. Here's what I could piece together.
The group apparently formed in the early 1960s. Inspired by surf and beat instrumental bands, the original line up consisted of lead guitarist rhythm
Franklin 'Frankie' Charlier, drummer Raymond Gillain, bassist Jacky Gramtinne, and rhythm guitarist Andre Tixhon. Signed by the small Victory label, they made their debut with 1962's 'Le train d'Alcatraz' b/w 'Exciting Twist" (Victory catalog number 11.408). Extremely rare, reportedly only 300 copies of the 45 were pressed.
The following year saw the band expand to a five piece with the addition of keyboard player Albert Belaire. Club dates saw them begin to build a local following and in 1964 they got a chance to return to the recording studio via a contract with the small Spots label. Over the next two years they again expanded the line up to include sax player Robert Patard while touring throughout the Benelux, Germany and France they released a pair of singles:
- 1965's 'A Dream In Ciney 64' b/w 'Kiss A Kiss' (Spot catalog number )
- 1966's 'Mon seul amour' b/w 'J'ai froid' (Spot catalog number )
1967 saw the band' get a major break via a contract with the French Olympia label. They made their label debut with the single ' Mirage' b/w 'Je ne Peux t'oublier' (Olympia catalog number LPQ 550).
1967 also saw the band finally given a chance to record an album. The cleverly titled "Les Serpents Noirs" featured a mixture of guitarist Charlier-penned originals and material written by then 19 year old Gilbert Lerat (the back panel had a great photo of an uncomfortable looking Lerat sitting in front of a tape recorder). While the band photo on the cover gave you the impression these guys were a bunch of Sgt Pepper-wannabes, for the most part their paisley jackets were about as psychedelic as it got. Kicked along by some nice Charlier fuzz guitar the clumsily titled 'Keep Your Hands Quiet' actually sported an outright psych feel with the instrumentals 'Sixty Nine' and 'Psychy Beat' including brief psych influences before mutating into more conventional Stax-styled instrumental jams. Charlier also deserved notice for turning in a killer fuzz guitar solo at the end of 'Sixty Nine'. The rest of the album was heavily geared towards MOR ballads ('Porquoi?', 'Sourire a l'amour'', and 'Mon Seul Amour'). Most of the twelve tracks were in French, but Tixhon and company showed some versatility with a couple of English performances. 'Come On' was a nice rocker while the previously mentioned '' was easily the standout performance. Tixhon had a surprisingly nice voice that was capable of powering the band through the sappy ballads (yah, 'Dany' was beyond help), as well as the more up tempo numbers. His English may have been a little fractured, but his gruff delivery more than made up for those deficiencies. The rest of the band were also pretty good; the one exception being sax player Patard who's irritating and occasionally out of tune solos seldom added anything to the flow (check out the opening to 'Elle a touts justie 17 ans'). Needless to say, the sax propelled blues instrumental ' Bobby Blues' was essentially unlistenable to my ears. All told it was one of those LPs that shouldn't have had a great deal of appeal to an Anglo listener, but perhaps because it was different, has a unique charm. I have a copy of the LP on my iPod nano.
Elsewhere the LP was tapped for a single:
- 'Mon Seule Amour' b/w 'Elles a tours Justie 17 Ans' b/w (Olympia catalog number LPQ 744)
"Les
Serpents Noir" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) Porquoi? (Gilbert Lerat) -
2.) Come On (F. Charlier-Malinda) -
3.) Elle a touts justie 17 ans (Gilbert Lerat) -
4.) Bobby Blues (instrumental) (F. Charlier-Malinda) -
5.) Sixty Nine (instrumental) (F. Charlier-Malinda) -
6.) Sourire a l'amour (Gilbert Lerat) -
(side
2)
1.) Psychy Beat (instrumental) (F. Charlier-Malinda)
-
2.) Mon Seul Amour (Gilbert Lerat - F. Charlier-Malinda) -
3.) Dany (Weisman - Wies Fred) -
4,) Keep Your Hands Quiet (F. Charlier-Malinda) -
5.) Mirage (F. Charlier-Malinda) -
6.) J'ai Peur (Gilbert Lerat - F. Charlier-Malinda) -
Over the next two years the band underwent a series of personnel changes. Keyboard player Belaire was replaced by Marcel Amont, who was then succeeded by Pino Napolillo. Singer Tixhon quit in 1970 and was replaced by René Dombard. Two years later Dombard was replaced by Tony Tuttobene. Drummer Gillain was replaced by Jimmy Warzée . Bassist Gramtinne was replaced by Jacques Robert. In 1972 Robert was replaced by Luc Hansen. Through it all the band soldiered on, released a sting of three non-LPs 45s for Olympia:
- 1968's 'Douce Angelina' b/w 'Sourire a l'amour' (Olympia catalog number LPQ 580)
- 1969's 'Les Anges Noirs" b/w 'Porquoi?' (Olympia catalog number LPQ 598).
- 1969's 'Oh Maryse' b/w 'Je Vais Siffler' (Olympia LPQ 628)
With even more personnel changes the band continued on through 1978. They regrouped in 1991 and have been touring on and off since. I'll finish their 1960s and 1970s discography at some point in the future. The rough outline is found below.
- 1969 'Where Is Love?' b/w 'Lonely Boys' ()
- 1969 'Every Morning' b/w 'I'll Be Back' () credited to Regeneration
- 1971 'What Ever You Want' b/w 'Trees' (Vendette catalog number ) credited to Black Snake Regeneration
- 1972 'Serfina' b/w '' (Vogue catalog number VB.204)
- 1972 'America' b/w '' (Vogue catalog number VB.218)
- 1973 'Nana Hey, Nana Ho' (Vogue catalog number 45 VB 4316)
- 1973 'Dolce Vita' b/w 'L'Amout Que J'ai Pour Toi' (Vogue catalog number 45 VB 4229)
- 1974 'Une Rose se Meurt' b/w 'Rosemarie' (BASF catalog number )
- 1974 'Mister President' b/w '' (Vogue catalog number )
- 1975 'Voyage' b/w 'Chaque Fois' (RCA catalog number YBPBO 413)
- 1976 'Si Je Pouvais la Retrouver' b/w '' (RCA catalog number YBPBO 422)
- 1977 'Alice' b/w 'Life Melody' (instrumental) (Philips catalog number 6021 163)
- 1978 'Toi L'Amerique' b/w 'Dites-Moi' (Philips catalog number 6021 198)
1972 line up: left to right:
Tony 'Lex' Tuttobene - Luc Hansen - Pino Napolillo - Christian Boissart - Jimmy Warzée
For anyone interested they have an interesting website (though it's all in French) at:
http://users.teledisnet.be/web/eme03421/index.html
Drummer Warzée
died in a January 2002 car accident.