Listening to garage rock in the springtime is a fine thing. It is time to start sorting out some summer songs for all those hot hours to be spent drinking beer on the balcony or sweltering in a car, stuck in the inevitable construction traffic jams that are part of life in Michigan. In fact I've already begun playing the Madcaps at my job and annoyingly asking my coworkers to guess where they're from. Answer is France, which they didn't guess by the way. Yet that isn't surprising as the Madcaps sing in English and their garage pop style could just as easily have come from California, Ontario or South Africa. Garage rock is an international affair after all and France happens makes some of the very best.
Nevertheless, the Madcaps have gone a bit farther toward being American-esque, for this garage is leaning heavily toward popular music of the 60s and a slew of references in the lyrics to high school, jukeboxes and girl's named Shelly. I mean, I suppose that could all happen in Rennes but more likely they're fans of pop culture of which the United States has been exporting for decades. Yet, the most important part of any album is most obviously whether the songs are any good. It is here the Madcaps have shown themselves to be masterful songwriters of retro garage pop. This must be one of the most positively catchy albums I've gotten to hear this year so far. Additionally, these rocking Frenchmen appeared on SRM a bit back with a likewise self-titled EP, both of which were released by the most righteous garage and psychedelic Parisian label Howlin' Banana Records.
To be had here:
The Madcaps - The Madcaps
Our record has managed somehow to cross the big pond, crazy. Who would have guessed? And who knows, may be someday we'll go to Michigan...
ReplyDeleteGlad you like our record, and that our accents don't point towards our frenchness.
If I may though, there's no mention of a girl named Shelly in the album. There could have been, and if it had been the case, it would have been the one from Twin Peaks of course, cause she's quite the sexy waitress. And even though I'm not too keen on cherry pie, I'm definitely a coffee head. That being said, the name your hear is Shirley in the song Too Good To Be True. It goes like this "I saw you standing in the shadow all alone, taping your foot on Shirley's Clapping Song, you looked at me with how you're doin' eyes, thriteen seconds, I was hypnotized"
I'm here talking about the excellent Clapping Song by Shirley Ellis, which is quite the hipshaker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWuSPPLtkEQ