Les Surfs!

As you may have heard I have been pretty much completely obsessed with the Madagascar pop-group Les Surfs this week. I can not recommend downloading this best-of enough. Featuring covers of Be My Baby in both French AND Spanish!

Says the internets:

The eldest six of twelve children were Jack (Coco), Pat, Rocky, Dave, Monikya (Monique) and Nicole Rabaraona. Born in Tananarive, Madagascar the four brothers and two sisters performed as the vocal group "Les Surfs" from 1963 to 1971.

On October 14th 1958, they entered a singing competition held by Radio Tananarive under the name "Rabaraona Brothers and Sisters" performing two songs by The Platters, "Only You" and "The Great Pretender". They were awarded with first prize and then began performing under the new name "The Beryl". They toured Madagascar with Henry Ratsimbazafy and the CCC guitars and it was at this time they recorded their first 45's, "Little Flower", "Marin" and "The Three Bells".

On September 8th 1963, they appeared on the grand openning of the second television station in France. Their performance endeared them to the French public so Jean-Louis Rafidy, who was chaperone to the Rabaraonas while in Paris, urged them to sign a contract with Festival Records and release a single as soon as possible. With the release of "Reviens Vite Et Oublie" a cover of "Be My Baby", the group who were now named "Les Surfs" were at the top of the charts for three months in Franceand in Spain and Mexico with a Spanish version. They toured with Frank Alamo and Sheila and in 1964 they performed at the Olympia in Paris. It was here they were proclaimed the "Newcomers Of The Year".

They recorded and toured throughout the 1960's in languages and countries all over the world. Performances at San Remo secured them as a popular act in Italy, Spain and Germany. With further television appearances in France, Italy, England andAmerica they garnered an international audience of millions. As a dynamic sounding and original looking group they secured many original compositions and some covers of English language songs.

With their career spanning from 1958 to 1971, they performed for royalty and common people alike. By the time the late 1960's had rolled around they had their own young families and so in 1971, at the end of a very long tour, Les Surfs decided to call it a day.

The following years would see Monica and Rocky reunite for a couple of years but this didn't last. The boys settled in Canada and started their own families. Monica lived in Canada for a while but eventually returned to live in France. Nicole immigrated to the United States and worked as a carer for children in need. Monikya passed away suddenly on November 15th 1993 at the age of 46. She is survived by her two sons Lawrence and Nicolas. Nicole passed away on May 5th 2000 and has been laid to rest with her sister in the Rabaraona Family tomb in Fiakarana, Madagascar.

In 2008, Dave Rabaraona started a new group "Les Surfs 2008" which participated in the French tour "Âge tendre et tête de bois 2008" during the 2008-2009 season. The line up of "Les Surfs 2008" included, in addition to Dave Rabaraona, Isa Rabaraona, Jackya Rabaraona, his cousin Bruno and Mahenintsoa Fidy.

Scopitone Tuesday!

If someone could teach me to dance like this that would be just great

Says Wikipedia:

Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. It was a forerunner of music video. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time.^[1]Based on technology developed during World War II,^[2] color 16 mm film clips with a magnetic soundtrack were designed to be shown in a specially designed jukebox. The first Scopitones were made in France, among them Serge Gainsbourg's Le poinçonneur des Lilas (filmed in 1958 in the Porte des Lilas Métro station),^[3] Johnny Hallyday's "Noir c'est noir" (a cover of Los Bravos' "Black Is Black") and the "Hully Gully" showing a dance around the edge of a French swimming pool.Scopitones spread to West Germany, where the Kessler Sisters burst out of twin steamer trunks to sing "Quando Quando" on the dim screen that surmounted the jukebox. Scopitone went on to appear in bars in England, including a coffee bar in Swanage where Telstar was a favourite. By 1964, approximately 500 machines were installed in the USA, according to Time magazine.^[4] Several well-known acts of the 1960s appear in Scopitone films, ranging from the earlier part of the decade The Exciters ("Tell Him") and Neil Sedaka ("Calendar Girl") to Procol Harum ("A Whiter Shade of Pale") later on. In one Scopitone recording, Dionne Warwick lay on a white shag rug with an offstage fan urging her to sing "Walk On By". Another had Nancy Sinatra and a troupe of go-go girls shimmy to "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". Inspired by burlesque, blonde bombshell Joi Lansing performed "Web of Love" and "The Silencer", and Julie London^[5]sang "Daddy" against a backdrop of strippers. The artifice of such scenes led Susan Sontag to identify Scopitone films as "part of the canon of Camp" in her 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'."

The trumpet on this song is sort of unbearable truthfully, but check out those vampire hands!


Not lying when I said this is my new favorite band.



If you had to take a loving test I doubt that you would pass





Every video of Neil Sedaka I've ever seen starts with him suddenly standing up from his piano. true stories.


We will end with this, because it has a bear in it.

Song of the Day: Les Surfs - Tú serás mi baby

This strikes me as the best possible end point (though it turns out this group is from Madagascar).