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#1244: Hot Club de Paris – Sometimesitsbetternottostickbitsofeachotherineachotherforeachother

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‘Sometimes It’s Better Not to Stick Bits of Each Other in Each Other for Each Other’ was the first single released by Hot Club de Paris in the good days of 2006. One of the longest titles for a song that I’ve come across. It’s officially stylized as one word, according to the album packaging, so I’ve gone ahead and labelled it that way too. But when I first became aware of the track, when its video showed up out of the blue on MTV2 one day, the little notice that showed the artist/song name had it under the name ‘Sometimes It’s Better’. And that’s how I knew it until I was told otherwise. It was the first song by the band I heard by them. It’s the last time they’ll appear in this series thing.

What I like about this song is it doesn’t really have any verses. Maybe one. But the rest is all hooks and choruses and instrumental breakdowns. All jumped-up like and erratic, delivered in just over two minutes. I’m all for it. Hot Club de Paris have a little math rock thing going in their music, and that’s all present here. From what I can tell, the intro is in 11/8, the drummer calls out “9, 10” to bring the guitarists out of the short break, the choruses are in 4/4, and then the verse and instrumental break are in 6/8. Time signatures all over the gaff. But while the rhythms are shifting, the lyrical content is compact and direct and usually repetitive. The way it’s all sung and performed makes it a very memorable one for sure.

As to what the song’s about, your guess is as good as mine. I don’t think it’s really about anything. Seems to me like it was a product of getting some phrases down and setting them against the bustling music. And there’s nothing wrong with that, loads of other people do it too. It sounds good to me, so I’m not complaining. When the track was released on the band’s debut album, listeners were surprised with the inclusion of an additional outro added to the song. Alongside a 5/8 guitar lick, the band harmonise “All the way, away, away” until it fades out. It’s a nice thing going on there. I think it’s to do with the fact that it’s the last track on the first side of the album if you had it on vinyl, so it’s a bit of a goodbye moment before flipping the record over for side 2. I listen to the single version which omits all that, but it’s cool to have the option.

1201: Hot Club de Paris – Shipwreck

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It’s been a long, long time since I’ve written anything about Hot Club de Paris around here. The last time I did, I was a bit of an arse about them. Very dismissive. You know how it is when you’re 18, you think you’re smart ’cause you’re an adult on paper and you think everyone wants to know your real opinion about something. It’s a time of my life I don’t miss. What I’ll say now about the band is that, even if I haven’t listened to any of their albums in full, the three songs I got to know by them whenever their videos showed up MTV2 got stuck in the brain usually at an instant. Those videos may have played only a few times, and that was almost, almost 20 years ago. The third song will get its own post soon.

But for now, here’s the second, and it’s the song that opens the trio’s debut album. It’s the second on the linked video, but that somehow includes the pregap track that was hidden on the CD copies. ‘Shipwreck’ was released as the second single from Drop It ’til It Pops in about early 2007 or so. Saw the video on the TV in the morning one day, saw that it was by the band who made another song I liked a few months earlier, the third song I was talking about earlier, and was into it right away. Compared to their previous video that had a stop-motion thing going on, this one showed the band actually performing, and as an 11-year-old kid in grammar school who wasn’t going to gigs anytime soon, it was quite exciting to see.

All the time I’ve known the track, I’ve never stopped to think what it was about. I’ve always been a more “music first-lyrics later’ kinda guy, I can’t help it. But looking at the words briefly, I think it’s about a group of lads – maybe referring to the band themselves, who knows – being rowdy on a night out at a club, but it’s all told with the inclusion of nautical/pirate-themed lyrics and imagery to cleverly make things that little more difficult to gauge. Paul Rafferty, the bassist, and guitarist Matthew Smith both take lead vocals on the tune, as demonstrated in the music video, usually amidst rollicking “woo” and “yo-ho-ho” chants in the back, with both pulling off melodic licks that drive the track along. Sections of the song are also played in 7/8 time, kind of a math rock thing going on but not really. It all sounds good to me. Wouldn’t hurt to actually listen through their discography one of these days.

My iPod #195: Hot Club de Paris – Clockwork Toy

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Hot Club de Paris is a band that you have probably never heard of before.

Well, I will take you back to 2007 when MTV Rocks was called MTV2. I still don’t quite understand why it changed, but that’s not the point. The point is, videos by the band were played on this channel. “Clockwork Toy” was one of them.

“Clockwork Toy” was the last single to be released from the trio’s first album “Drop It ’til It Pops”. That was the last time I heard anything by them. I haven’t bothered to listen to anything else that was released after that. My bad. I wasn’t very interested in them.

But the three songs of theirs (including this) I do know are good enough.