Tuesday, October 03, 2023

À la Rcherche du Filles Perdu

As promised, a (hopefully) interesting followup to yesterday's post on the possibly fictional Beetlettes:

Apparently, they were in fact for real, and were still gigging (albeit under a new name) in Canada as late as February 1966.

From the Ottawa Journal:

Les Guerrieres? That's brilliant, actually. And I'd kill to know what happened to those kids. If they're still around, I'd bet they've got some very interesting stories.

But wait -- there's more!!!

Courtesy of PowerPop No-Prize© winner ChrisE:

The album - and the label it's on - are REAL. But if you want a goddamn copy, it's gonna COST you.

According to Discogs (www.discogs.com), the album last sold in their on-line marketplace in Dec. 2019 for $271.99 Canadian (Sorry, I'm in Canada so that's the currency I get on my screen. And you can tell I'm Canadian because I just said sorry...). Right now 90 - count 'em, NINETY - people have it on their Discogs wants-list.

The label it came out on - Assault Records - was New York-based and had 25 releases (again, according to Discogs) in the early 1960s. It was run by Bob Gallo, who worked for Atlantic Records for a while and then, in 1974, moved to Canada and worked, in several capacities, for CBS Records up here. I remember seeing his name as a producer on some records by Jackson Hawke, a Canadian band that was signed to CBS in the late-1970s.

And oh my god -- here's a track from the album!

Wow. I mean, seriously -- wow. And not in a good way.

Anyway, I'm not shelling out for a vinyl copy of their LP under any circumstances, but if anybody has a digital transfer of the Outside Carnegie Hall album to share, I'll be your best friend.

[h/t mistah Blik]

8 comments:

Allan Rosenberg said...

The Beatlettes granddaughters all formed post punk bands.

Captain Al

edward said...

Sounds like the Chipmunks broke free from the domineering control of David Seville.

Gummo said...

Wow, that's sincerely awful.

Not ironically awful, or wink-wink awful.

Just ... awful.

ChrisE said...

Steve,

I'm going to check with a few-Toronto-based collectors I know, see if they know about this group. I'll get back to you soon.

MJConroy said...

Are the Beetlettes and the Beatlettes the same group with different spellings or 2 different groups? I found info online that maybe 1 was from New Jersey and 1 from Canada. But nothing is clear.

MJConroy said...

See this page:
http://donaldsauter.com/beatle-novelty-records-on-youtube.htm#bea

Alzo said...

It's pretty amateurish, but I actually enjoyed this 45 because I pictured Shonen Knife doing it.

Anonymous said...

You want to hear a great cover by a terrific band - Google the Bangles/Beatles and you will hear how it was supposed to be done. I would have heard this 45 as I poured thru the knock off singles at my Ben Franklin in 1966