Friday, December 15, 2006

Gilles Valiquette

Gilles Valiquette is a singer-songwriter with 11 albums to his credit, five BMI/PROCAN Certificates of Honor, and three SOCAN Awards for the success of his songs. As creator of the Québec Ministry of Education approved “Computer Assisted Sound Design” program, he is widely known as a leader in the field of new technologies through his Musitechnic College where he holds the position of President and CEO. Gilles Valiquette is a current board member of the Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles (SODEC), a board member of l’Alliance NumériQC and recently served as President of the Board of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) between 1998 and 2003.


Doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d play lead guitar in a psych band, huh? It’s like finding out your mom used to date John Cippolina of the Quicksilver Messenger Service (happened to a guy i know, really...). But, yes, this respectable member of society wrote and performed the song “Le Magicien” with his band Someone. It's not really a psych song, more of a stripped down rock thing, but the vocals (and I am ASSUMING the words, too) give it that vibe.

On the rocking level, this is about a notch above Spirit and one below Frigid Pink, which is to say it never REALLY gets going, but it does have a nice energy to it, like if someone who only listened to really fey folk music was locked in a room and forced to listen to Jumpin' Jack Flash for a month straight. The guitar solo is actually pretty smoking, the drummer throws some popcorn into the choruses, and the bass players insistance on sticking to the root during the main verses is admirably punky (in a proto-punk way). Also, the song is barely 2 minutes long. Thus, the whole package thrown together recalls a much tamer, lamer, Quebecois take on The Stooges (circ. Funhouse). But, that's not a bad thing, no?
The B-side is fairly average folk rock, a preview of the majority of Gilles' 70’s material, like his album "Chansons pour un café", which naturally sold about 10,000 times better than this piece of wax... 

Someone-Le Magicien

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello, My name is Therese Valiquette (Burch) I am told we are related. My ansestor Pierre Valiquet was born in Anjou France and immigrated to Canada and lived in Montreal, Quebec.I think around the early to mid 1600's. Much later Some of the family moved down into the US and lived in Wisconsin on an Island in the middle of the Mississippi River called "French Island". My grandfather moved away from there after learning to gamble from the Indians and becaume one of the first Pit Bosses at the Golden Nugget when Las Vegas opened in the 40's. I was born in the 50's and live in Calif. Did you know you have a cousin in California. Give me a call and we'll talk. But lets start with email first.
tburch@earthlink.net
Thanks, Therese Burch

March 3, 2008 at 1:51:00 AM PST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Y a rien à faire le samedi soirrrrr !!!

May 5, 2008 at 7:37:00 PM PDT  

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