Les Secretaires Volantes

Thermoplastique (Cargo)
by Jon Sarre

So knock me over with a feather! Who woulda thunk that the most fucking vital punk rock I’ve heard since the demise of Pussy Galore (actually even before that) would’ve come from goddamn Canada? Not only that but from Quebec! They don’t even speak fucking English up there!

That could be the reason that Les Secretaires Volantes can produce such a physically engaging mess using the exact same guitar, bass and drum framework countless other bands utilize to crank out what Rick Miller of Southern Culture on the Skids aptly characterizes as “term papers on punk rock.” English is obviously a second language for this band (and if you’ve ever been to Montreal, you may have noticed that the inhabitants only speak English when they wanna insult you), and American culture comes to them as an outside, foreign form.

“Went to a party at the county jail,” vocalist/guitar player Lubrique yells at the beginning of Thermoplastique. He massacres the words on the second line, he mumbles what he thinks the lyrics are and hits the words he knows, “wail” and then, “Yarrrgargh!” Everything else kicks in: the go-for-broke riff over Gallic lyrics I can’t understand, ‘cos I took French way back in high school and couldn’t understand it then. All I pick up is Lubrique and singer/organist Cocktail’s tandem shouted “Thermoplastique!” chorus and then a Jon Spencer-style “yeaaahhh!”

Like any great punk rock record, the lyrics come second to the physical qualities – the sweat, the smoke, the blood and the puke breath. You catch all that with Les Secretaires, whether they’re doing a rave-up like “Power Ballade,” a pretty ditty like “Recidiviste,” an organ-drenched garage blast like “Je Crois Que J’Ai Ma Dose,” or, of course, on a scuzzy falling-down-the-stairs-with-the-guitar-still-plugged-in fuckrock fest like “Bangkok.” Plus, I’m positive they could mop the floor with a buncha lightweights like Chixdiggit.