Saint Tropez/Je T'Aime

[Marcio**]

Probably nobody answer me, the cover of one of Saint Tropez'album (probably the first, Je T'Aime, produced by W. Michael Lewis and Laurin Rinder) has, in French, this words:

"Inspiration par: WM, CM, AJB, AL, AJC, DJG, NS, SDA"


Maybe WM means Woman&Man. Do you what this words means ??? Thanks your atencion.


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[Ysl]

Hello

I'm french speaking an this means nothing to me except maybe the initials of some peoples.

Ysl

[disco1999]

Speaking of St-Tropez, I have recently rediscovered one of their sensual slow jams dated from 1977: "Violation", being the story of two lesbians (one of them named Nicole) who broke up and being hurt. This was a pretty big hit on local radios. I also got to rediscover "On a rien a perdre" (We have nothing to lose) from late 70's.

[ehuerta]

Perhaps WM stands for W. Michael (Lewis), Producer; AJC stands for Alfonso J. Cervantes, executive producer.

[Marcio**]

Thanks Ysl & Ehuerta, now I see, this words are about the people who did the record.

"On a Rien à Perdre", disco 1999, has wah wah guitar (the same of "Cocomotion"), I love wah wah guitar (thank you, Isaac Hayes), it's more sophisticated than Rush, an almost progressive rock group who is going to my country.

[Paulo]

Hello Marcio

It is great that you mentioned progressive rock (which is a very complex form of music). The interesting thing is that disco music was always said to be rubbish and expendable, but if we listend carefully to many disco sons, we will find the same degree of sophistication present in the so called "clever" rock!!

[Paulo]

One more reformed "clever" progressive rock outfit is coming to play here. This time is the dutch group FOCUS. The funny thing is that the "new band" contains only one of the original 70's members. Their most important player (the guitarrist Jan Akkerman) is missing from the new line-up!! So, why should this band be called Focus ??? For money reasons of course...

[Marcio**]

Hello Paulo,

Thanks for your information, Focus is another fabulous and legendary progressive seventies rock, there's a flute in the air!
The price of Rush concert is R$ 70,00, it's not for me ! Rush is an old dream of many brazilian rock people.

It's very interesting the discussion about disco-rock and the rock-disco. "Come Down Boogie People"/David Willians, a real disco song, has a beatiful guitar solo. "Rock Solid"/Chi-Chi Favelas (10:OO), a rare 70's strong rock song (like Susi Quatro), has the disco beat (tum, tum, tum...), the result is catastrophic .

.

[Paulo]

Hi Marcio
It seems that you are a Rinder & Lewis fan... you mentioned another track by them: Come On Down Boggie People...

I have many stuff from them since the late 70's/early 80's and thanks to Graham Start I now have even more. If you're looking for something talk to me.

Paulo

[Marcio**]

Hello Paulo,

Yep, when I discovered El Coco (and Rinder & Lewis) I strike oil (eu descobri petróleo). I saw the rinderart.com (thanks dj phillip esparza) too. I got "Lust"/Rinder&Lewis, a very nice intergalactic progressive disco song. Do you recommend anything ?

[Paulo]

Don't ask me that, because I will recomend you everything.

The nice thing about RINDER AND LEWIS is that they have a specific sound for each of their fake projects. I mean: we could label them like this:

SAINT TROPEZ as pop disco;
LE PAMPLEMOUSSE as soul-disco;
TUXEDO JUNCTION as trad jazz disco;
EL COCO as sophisticated disco music;
etc...

Concerning their "solo" albums, as you well said, their first (SEVEN DEADLY SINS) is a very complex musical voyage bordering on progressive.

Their second (WARRIORS) has also extremely beautiful songs, although treated in a very uncommercial manner. It seems Rinder & Lewis tried their most to de-comercialize their disco music. The sound is weired, yet very melodic... but never POP.

I read somewhere on the web an article saying they were the strangest duo in the pop world trying to subvert the disco language, when it supposedly should be as much pop as possible...

PS: In the early 70's William Michael Lewis was a great fan of english progressive rock. His favourites were YES and EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER... maybe that explains their weired sophisticated synth based disco music.