Les Francos de Montréal: Two very different spins on Acadian music

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If you ever doubted that Acadian musical culture is extremely diverse, all you have to do is look to two high-profile Acadian bands playing this year’s Les Francos de Montréal festival.

In one corner, you have Salebarbes, a kind of Acadian supergroup à la the Traveling Wilburys featuring five established artists. Their recently released self-titled debut album is a raucous, joyous celebration of the Cajun music of Louisiana.

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In the other corner (of the universe) is Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire, a group from Moncton that is beyond flyé, best known for their near-psychotropic live shows and their ambitious, fully whacked 2018 Acadian rock opera Viens avec moi.

Let’s start with the story of Salebarbes.

It all began when the five members of the band, all of Acadian origin, met up on the set of the Radio-Canada TV show Prise de son in 2017. The guys — brothers Éloi and Jonathan Painchaud, Jean-François Breau, George Belliveau and Kevin McIntyre — started playing Cajun music together and soon began performing live. Their debut album, Live au Pas Perdus, came out a month ago. It’s an infectious, rocking set of franco Louisiana fun, recorded at the legendary venue Les Pas Perdus in Îles-de-la-Madeleine, where les Painchauds hail from. It was only their fourth show, though you wouldn’t guess that from how tight the band sounds.

In a recent interview, Éloi Painchaud talked of how the music on their album is based on the rich musical history of the Acadians in Louisiana, and how some of the songs are tunes that are shared by the Acadian culture in Canada and some are not. He also underlined how Cajun music influenced American country music.

“It’s an exchange,” said Painchaud. “I listened to an incredible thing on Buck Owens. If you can ever get your hand on the podcast, it’s called Cocaine and Rhinestones; it’s unbelievable. It’s a look behind the scenes at country music, and it’s really well done. They talk about the Bakersfield sound and Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, and they have said they were influenced by Cajun music. The patron saint of American country, Hank Williams Sr., his classic Jambalaya — that’s inspired by going to parties in Louisiana and listening to francophone music by Acadians. He ripped that off!

“That sound is the sound of the survival of francophones in America, and the survival of francophones in the U.S. goes directly via Acadian culture, by people who got together because of their desire to sing en français. The desire to party in French even if it was illegal.

“We have echoes of that in our Acadian culture here. We don’t have the same struggle as our Acadian cousins, but we see that the language is in trouble, here in Quebec but it’s even more dramatic in New Brunswick. There’s lots of slang, lots of Chiac (a mix of French and English), and there are people in power in New Brunswick who are clearly not interested in promoting the French language.”

The Painchaud brothers come to this musical tradition naturally. Their dad, Alcide Painchaud, who died in 2012, was one of the founders of Suroît, a group from Îles-de-la-Madeleine that explored the roots of Acadian music.

“He’d go to Louisiana and he’d come back with Cajun songs,” said Éloi Painchaud. “It’s like you’d come back from a trip with a bunch of new recipes to cook new dishes. Back then, the term ‘cultural appropriation’ didn’t exist. It was just about being open-minded.”

That’s the cultural history, but the real reason they formed Salebarbes is even simpler.

“The sparkplug that created Salebarbes was the pleasure of getting together and playing music that made us feel good inside, that hits us in the guts,” said Painchaud. “There’s no big machine behind us. No one saying, ‘We’ll put these guys together and it’ll be a huge hit.’ But a lot of people have identified with the idea that we should be celebrating together. To party together, to leave our iPhones, to use music to bring people together — it’s something we can’t lose, and maybe it’s even more important than our language. Language is a source of pride, but to party is something fundamentally human, and this is party music. It’s not having fun in a dumb way — it’s celebrating that we’re alive and we’re all pushing in the same direction. For one night, we forget our differences.”

AT A GLANCE

Salebarbes perform a free outdoor show Sunday, June 16 at 8 p.m. at Scène Loto-Québec, Clark and de Montigny Sts.

There’s a whole other Acadian party going on with Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire, a wild progressive-rock band based in Moncton that took the franco music scene by storm in 2018 with the rock opera Viens avec moi. They are known for outrageous live performances, and lead singer Serge Brideau has caused no small amount of controversy by appearing on stage in some eye-catching dresses. They recently released a live recording of Viens avec moi.

Brideau is ultra-outrageous, but that doesn’t stop him from having a good grasp of the history of Acadian music.

“What Lisa LeBlanc and Radio Radio did was to show to Quebec that Acadians have another sound,” said Brideau. “That it’s not just violins and Celtic music. There was Édith Butler and then for years nothing happened, so people in Quebec forget about Acadian music.

“Then Wilfred LeBouthillier (who is from Tracadie-Sheila, N.B.) won at Star Académie (in 2003), and then all of a sudden people in Quebec were saying, ‘Oh, OK, there is Acadian music.’ Then Lisa and Radio Radio happened, and it just opened the doors for the rest of us.”

In fact, LeBouthillier’s story was the inspiration for Viens avec moi. Brideau is from the same town as LeBouthillier, so it came naturally for him to write a storyline about a fellow named Kevin who takes part in a reality-TV music show sort of like Star Académie, wins it and then has trouble dealing with stardom.

“He’s playing at the Bell Centre and then backstage, (veteran Quebec rockeur) Lucien Francoeur comes and gives him some LSD, and he has an epiphany and quits the whole thing,” said Brideau. “He then becomes lead singer of Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire, because meanwhile Serge, who is played by me in the opera, has developed a bad cocaine habit and has quit the band. I end up becoming a coach on the TV reality show that Kevin turns his back on.”

The live rendition of the rock opera, which premièred in the fall of 2018 and will be performed at Club Soda during Les Francos, features numerous actors and musicians, including the all-female Moncton folk-pop trio Les Hay Babies.

“I say it’s like Notre-Dame de Paris, but on acid,” said Brideau.

Part of the inspiration for the rock opera was that producers of shows like Star Académie and La Voix often like to have Acadian contestants, because it provides a good dramatic backstory.

“Every time there’s an Acadian on one of these shows, Acadians are all proud and they vote,” said Brideau. “They send a lot of money (you have to pay to text your vote) and it’s a bit hilarious when you think that we’re one of the poorer parts of Canada and we’re sending money to Montreal for a reality-TV show.”

AT A GLANCE

Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire perform the rock opera Viens avec moi Saturday, June 15 at 7 p.m. at Club Soda, 1225 St-Laurent Blvd. Tickets cost $29.75 via lepointdevente.com.

Les Francos de Montréal runs from Friday, June 14 to Saturday, June 22. For more information, see francosmontreal.com.

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One language, countless genres

“I have the feeling that it’s been a long time since Les Francos have been as eclectic as this edition,” said Laurent Saulnier, vice-president of programming for the huge French-language music festival.

“Eclectic in the sense that we have everything from a soirée of punk rock with Ludwig Von 88 (June 20 and 21, 7 p.m., Club Soda, on a double bill with Carotté) to Mario Pelchat (June 22, 8 p.m., Maison symphonique), who’s doing an homage to Charles Aznavour, to metal with Mass Hysteria (June 14, 7 p.m., Club Soda), to hip hop with 5sang14 (June 15, 9 p.m., MTelus), to country with Paul Daraîche (June 15, 8 p.m., Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts). I love that eclecticism. I think it gives you a good snapshot of the francophone musical production from the past year.

“But the fact is that Les Francos is not a festival that is defined by one musical style. It’s not le Festival Western de St-Tite! It’s a festival that’s defined in the end by the language that all of these different genres are sung in.”

Perhaps the diversity at Les Francos this year is simply a reflection of the diversity in contemporary francophone music.

“Today there aren’t many musical styles that are not represented in francophone music,” Saulnier agreed.

And the fans are following this variety, he said, noting that Ludwig Von 88’s June 21 show is already sold out and the second will follow suit, and that Pelchat’s show and Coeur de pirate’s June 14 Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier concert will also sell out.

Képinski puts her songs ‘up for adoption’ to remixers

The eight songs from Lydia Képinski’s 2018 debut album, Premier juin, were remixed by eight producers for the album Premier juin remix, which was launched May 31 exclusively on YouTube and hits all the usual digital platforms on Friday, June 7. Those remixes will be the starting point for her show at Les Francos, June 19 at Club Soda.

“I thought it would be fun to put my songs up for adoption,” said Képinski. “The producers took the same elements and put them together in a different way. And then they came up with something new. Some are quite similar to the original and some are totally different.”

Képinski didn’t want to give away all the details of the show.

“We want to keep a few surprises for people, so I don’t want to tell all the stunts that will take place,” she said. “Basically, it will be inspired by the remixes. But the show will be one of a kind. It won’t be the same show that I’ve been doing. It’s the same songs, but the stage direction is going to be different.”

AT A GLANCE

Lydia Képinski performs Wednesday, June 19 at 7 p.m. at Club Soda, 1225 St-Laurent Blvd. Tickets cost $35.25 via lepointdevente.com.