The (other) one that got away

Poor Noëlle Cordier, like Giorgio, she too has been called up for the past two months, but has ended up sat on the subs bench throughout, looking a bit despondent. It's not the first time she's been mooted for an airing either, from what I can remember.

Maybe it's just that she comes on a bit too strong: Whenever I go to cue her song up, I dig the rhythm'n'blues piano and the quick blast of brass, and then she slaps me round both ears with that opening salvo of "cheeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE" and has me reaching for the record box to find an alternative.

Noëlle, you had your moment in the past.  It was 1967, 3rd place in the Eurovision Song Contest, back when it was worth taking part.  Sandie Shaw took the prize.

Still at least you have those memories and that little snapshot of you and Sandie: the photographer caught the two of you amidst the chaos of the aftershow, camera poised, flash bulb in hand, and on the count of three say "cheeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE"!

Noëlle Cordier - Cheese

[buy Noëlle Cordier on the increasingly hard to find Ultra Chicks vol 4 from discogs | cdandlp]

Dam Dam ou Dum Dum

Look, here comes Michèle, she’s been hanging out with that peculiarly monikered gang Ses Wouaps.

She’s got a sweet spot for her Wouaps, with their preppy, geek charm and their twangy guitars, and they love her for that spooky operatic wail of hers. Together they made a record with a nonsensical title and a sinister undertone, the kind of thing Joe Meek liked to knock out in his Holloway Road bolthole - the vampiric Moontrekkers making a horrorshow din, and a peroxide beehived gal on lead vocal.

Are the lyrics littered with references to bloody carnage and death? Not to these ears, but it would certainly sit moodily alongside any death disc. All drenched in reverb, it gives me those same goosebumps I get when I hear Johnny Remember Me by John Leyton and Give Us Your Blessings by The Shangri-Las.

Michèle et Ses Wouaps – Dam Dam

Jina Miko’s got the bubblegum pop thing down pat – the cute untrained voice; the odd nagging telephone ringing in your eardrum sound; the little ‘woop’ before the Lipstick On Your Collar-esque guitar solo comes in; and a production so hot and distorted it sounds like the tape was melting when they laid it down...

But the best thing is it sounds like she’s saying “Dom Dom” rather than “Dum Dum”, and I’m a sucker for any French girl who calls my name…

Jina Miko – Dum Dum