Things of Interest:
Stinky Toys / Elli et Jacno

It goes without saying that I’ve been learning a great deal from Joe Stumble’s spectacular recent round up of French music from the punk/new wave era over at Last Days of Man On Earth.

Of all the tunes and videos he’s posted though, the two that really did it for me turned out to be the work of the same people.

First, here’s Stinky Toys from 1979;



As you will have observed, Stinky Toys appear to be a replica of a ’79 power-pop band created by aliens who tried their best to replicate earth culture, but, rather like the creators of the room Dave Bowman wakes up in at the end of 2001, got everything slightly wrong. By which of course I mean completely right.

The singer’s dress and dance moves are of an order one rarely sees without having ingested powerful drugs. The interlocking guitar strumming patterns are simple but quite unusual and deeply pleasing, as is the deceptively ‘normal’ rhythm. The English language lyrics are slurred and kind of perplexing (“Chinese Chinese birthday party / give me Chinese birthday cake”?). The whole thing is awesome and fascinating.

Before long it seems, the singer and one of the guitarists broke away from the band and began to build a pop career as a duo: Elli et Jacno.

Stinky Toys seem pretty rad, but I think this was undoubtedly a good move for them, because Elli et Jacno are simply incredible.

In fact, I have no words that allow me to quite quantify how incredible they were.

By way of explanation, let’s just watch this;



Oh man, the bits where he plays the ‘solos’. GENIUS. I love you Jacno.

Elli et Jacno did some other songs and videos in 1982 as well.

They’re all pretty similar.

They’re all pretty great.





‘Main Dans La Main’ Is still totally the best video, but ‘Le Telephone’ is probably the one I’d go for if I was DJing somewhere.

Wikipedia says:

Elli & Jacno was a French 1980s electro-pop group. They were quite successful in France and to some extent in Britain, having been featured once on the front page of Melody Maker magazine.

Denis Quillard alias Jacno and Elli Medeiros decided to start a music duo after leaving the punk band The Stinky Toys. Jacno composed and performed the music and Elli sang and wrote the lyrics. They released three albums together before splitting up and beginning solo careers.

I have found The Ramones of minimalist, tongue in cheek French synth-pop, and I couldn’t be more happy.

Labels: Elli et Jacno, France, Stinky Toys, things of interest