Les Sinners

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UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK BAND OF THE MONTH FOR APRIL 2013:  LES SINNERS

Most of the Under-Appreciated Rock Bands that I write about released an album or two and never really enjoyed any major success, but that is not true of this month’s band:  LES SINNERS, who hail from the heart of French Canada in Montreal, Quebec.  Likewise, most 1960’s garage rock bands (under-appreciated or not) never released an album at all; only a tiny minority released more than a few 45’s.  However, Les Sinners – the French simply means “the sinners” – released 23 singles and 6 albums over the course of little more than a decade, featuring a rotating line-up; the band also broke up and reformed at least twice over this period. 

Last year I was just about to exit that great record store in Atlanta, Criminal Records when I saw a short rack near the checkout stand; and I came upon a reissue of the first album by Les Sinners, Sinerisme.  (Actually it is probably a bootleg, though the album has been properly reissued on vinyl by an Italian label in 1989, and in Canada in both 2008 and 2010).  I like compilation albums as much as, if not more than the next guy; but being able to find an original album by a favorite band is a real treat. 

Among American garage-rock fans, this is the only album that is at all well known.  Checking my pre-Katrina database, I had apparently found a copy of Sinerisme at an earlier date, though I had completely forgotten that; it is way down the LP list – at #2532 – so I know that I never got deep enough in the stacks to actually play the album before the storm, and it has not yet shown up to be cleaned in the first half of my collection that I have gotten to thus far.   

Sinerisme – which is a kind of nonsense word that translates “Sinnerism” (but with only one “n”) – is evenly divided between songs in English and songs in French (with some songs having lyrics in both languages).  I had previously heard “Nice Try” on the Pebbles, Volume 13 LP, and this song proves that Les Sinners can snarl with the best of them; the other English songs are similarly raw garage rock recordings for the most part.  The album has out-of-the-ordinary vocals and musical passages, notably on the sort-of love song, “Cleopatra”. 

I later encountered one of the French-language songs from this album, “Sinnerisme” on the double-CD release, The Essential Pebbles Collection, Volume 1.  While still strong stuff, the French songs are more melodic and a little closer to pop music; the mixture of the two languages and several musical styles makes for a delightful album.  

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The original core of the band came together in 1965 and consisted of François Guy (rhythm guitar, vocals), Charles Prevost Linton (keyboards, vocals), and Louis Parizeau (drums and percussion).  The bandmembers came from a Montreal neighborhood known as Notre-Dame-de-Grâce that had a mixed French/English population, so it was natural that they should record in both languages.  For about two months the band went by the name of the Silver Spiders and then changed their name to Les Sinners.  There were changes in the second guitarists over the next several months – Georges Marchand and Jay Boivin – before the line-up stabilized with the addition of Ricky Johnson on lead guitar. 

Les Sinners performed for months in Montreal clubs and gathered R&B influences from the personnel changes and from the larger musical scene around them.  Canadian country music star Roger Miron signed the band to his Rusticana record label in 1966, and they quickly released three French-language singles, including “Sinnerisme”.  The record album followed later that year with other tracks that they had laid down in the studio.  Quirky song titles were definitely their forte:  “Candid Colour Count Down”, “Sour as a Sidewalk”, and “La Troisieme Fuite de Mohamed ‘Z’ Ali” (“The Third Escape of Mohamed ‘Z’ Ali”). 

The latter song is apparently a tribute to Muhammad Ali, though this was just two years after boxer Cassius Clay joined the Nation of Islam in 1964 and changed his name as a result.  With the notable exception of Howard Cosell, most in the sports world refused to acknowledge his new name for several years and continued to call him Clay. 

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After Ernest Rock replaced Ricky Johnson on lead guitar,  Les Sinners was signed to Jupiter Records, the Canadian subsidiary of London Records (which was the American label for the early Rolling Stones records).  Their second album (which was produced by Pierre Noles) had practically the same name as the first – Sinnerismes (“Sinnerisms”), but with a second “n” this time – and saw the band essentially abandoning the English language for most of the rest of their career (though several of the song titles were still in English).  Album highlights include a French-language version of the Beatles hit “Penny Lane”, “Les Disc-Jockeys”, and several weird psychedelic tracks like “L.S.D. Ha! Ha!”. 

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The next album by Les Sinners (though with the name shortened to just Sinners) for Jupiter, Vox Populi (Latin for “Voice of the People”) came out in 1968 and is among the crush of “concept albums” that followed in the wake of the Beatles’ 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  The album has acquired legendary status among fans of Quebec’s musical scene.  The album is entirely in French and is probably the first and certainly one of the best French Canadian concept albums ever released.  A whole barrel of musical influences are present:  the Beatles, the Monkees, the Byrds, the Who, Indian music, etc.  The cover appears to show Jesus speaking in a snowy cemetery. 

Remarkably, a CD reissue of the album in the early 1990’s was reportedly in English.  Another curiosity about this album is that Jupiter Records also released a third album that was purportedly a compilation album, called Chantent 24 Succes.  Actually the 24 songs are composed of both of the Jupiter releases, Sinnerismes and Vox Populi, that were squeezed somehow onto a single vinyl disc.  “Two-fer” albums were commonplace in the CD era, but this album came out in 1969. 

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Les Sinners broke up sometime in 1968 but reformed two years later, with only drummer Louis Parizeau left over from the original band.  In this edition, the other bandmembers were Alain Jodoin (vocals and bass guitar), Jean-Guy “Arthur” Cossette (lead guitar) and Daniel Valois (rhythm guitar, flute and vocals).  The newly reformed Sinners were signed to the Trans-World label and released a new album in 1971.  For the third time, the album name is practically the same, this time being Sinners; though the album cover is more sinister-looking.  The album is mostly in French and has a different sound (as might be expected with a flautist on board); there is at least one English-language song this time out, called “Groovy”.  Two singles were released from the album in 1971; after being dropped by Trans-World, Les Sinners put out another six singles on three other record labels in 1972 and 1973. 

Les Sinners came together a third time in 1975, with Louis Parizeau remaining from the original line-up plus Daniel Valois from the prior incarnation.  New bandmembers were Serge Blouin (bass guitar), Claude Hetu (keyboards), Serge Locas (keyboards, synthesizers), and Dennis Violetti (lead guitar).  The “Les” is back, but the last trappings of Les Sinners as a garage-rock band had fallen away in their three 1975 singles on Celebration Records, plus an album in the same year on Chelsea Records, called ?.  Both English-language and French-language versions of ? were released. 

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The last album by Les Sinners is scarcely mentioned at all on the various Internet sources that I researched about this band; it came out in 1976 on the CBS Records label (basically, Columbia Records outside of the USA) and is called Le Chemin de Croix De Jos Roy (“The Way of the Cross for Jos Roy”).  The Way of the Cross can refer to the road where Jesus walked while carrying His Cross to Calvary – often described in the Latin as Via Crucis or Via Dolorosa – and it can also refer to the Stations of the Cross, a set of 14 or more artistic representations (the associated prayers have the same name) of events that occurred from His being condemned to death to His being laid in the tomb, and sometimes the Resurrection.  

Thus, it is likely that Le Chemin de Croix De Jos Roy is a religious album of some sort, though there is little indication of this from the song titles (the entire album is in French again).  The bandmembers in Les Sinners for this final album are mostly the same as those on ?, including Daniel Valois (rhythm guitar), Serge Blouin (bass guitar), Claude Hetu (keyboards), Serge Locas (keyboards, synthesizers), and Dennis Violetti (lead guitar), with the addition of Wally Rossi (rhythm guitar) and Richard Tate (drums, percussion).  Longtime Les Sinners drummer Louis Parizeau produced the album, and another former bandmember, Alain Jodoin handled the arrangements. 

I have no idea who or what “Jos Roy” might be.  There is a poet in Quebec named Jos Roy (he even has a Facebook page), but he seems to be a contemporary artist, so I doubt he is the one. 

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Typically the Internet sources that I investigated had only sketchy and somewhat contradictory information on the band.  There is what appears to be a complete singles discography of Les Sinners at http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/2008/03/les-sinners-sinnerisme-1966.html .  Overall, the most reliable information on Les Sinners came from a website called Badcat Records, at the link http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/SINNERS.htm .  In addition to write-ups on the band and their various albums, Badcat also has information on solo work by the bandmembers as well as links to related bands. 

When I looked up one of these related bands, La Révolution Française, they seemed more like Les Sinners than the post-1968 line-ups of the actual band did.  When François Guy left Les Sinners in 1968, the band evidently broke up.  Guy then put together a new band consisting entirely of former members of Les Sinners:  Jean-Guy Cossette (guitar), Georges Marchand (bass guitar) and Louis Parizeau (drums).  Their debut single did well enough to justify an album in 1968 on CANUSA Records, called C. Cool.  Louis Parizeau also produced the album. 

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Two compilation CD’s of music by Les Sinners that came out in 2001 borrowed previous album covers and used the name of this related band, La Révolution Française as the names of the CD’s.  La Révolution Française, Vol. 1 uses the cover of Sinnerismes; while La Révolution Française, Vol. 2 uses the cover of C. Cool by La Révolution Française (though with the photograph shown much more clearly).  Additionally, a 2010 compilation CD came out on Merité Records that has the same name as Les Sinners’ first album, Sinerisme.  As if the trail of albums left behind by Les Sinners wasn’t already confusing enough! 

The following is another compilation CD called Les Sinners that concentrates on the 1960’s output by Les Sinners; I don’t have any details on the album though. 

(April 2013)