Les Baroques

Among the strangest and best Dutch rings from the mid-’60s, Les Baroques always seemed from sync with real life. That they had a French name, a business lead vocalist with an certainly anglicized pseudonym (Gary O’Shannon, actual name Gerard Schoenaker), and performed R&B-tinged pop/rock and roll with unusual streaks of Western folk music and corny orchestral plans. Their status hinges chiefly upon their 1st four singles and self-titled 1966 LP, all documented with O’Shannon prior to the vocalist remaining the group by the end of 1966. At his greatest, O’Shannon could appear to be a less refined, neurotic edition of Vehicle Morrison, delivering tunes that, like very much Dutch beat from the middle-’60s, had been sullen and minor-keyed. Les Baroques required this moodiness to extremes, nevertheless, in slashes like “Silky” and “Summer time Seaside,” which experienced a dreamlike sheen and forlorn, doomed atmosphere. At additional occasions, they espoused an earthier, R&B-based audio more consistent with some English groups of enough time, specifically in the razor-sharp body organ riffs; “She’s Mine” carefully approximates Them’s ballads, while “O, O, Baby Provide Me That Display” is an excellent Pets clone. “This type of Cad,” a strange punky number which was, like many of their 45s, embellished with bassoon fills, was a big Dutch strike in 1966. But after yet another fine solitary, the typically inscrutable “I’ll Send You towards the Moon,” O’Shannon needed to keep the music group for military support. Les Baroques do continue for five even more singles another LP with Michael Vehicle Dijk as business lead vocalist, nonetheless it wasn’t exactly the same, although the 1st two singles with this lineup, “Focusing on a Tsing Tsang” and “Container Party,” had been acceptably twisted pop figures.