Porn, drugs, rock & roll: France’s greatest pop group, Les Rita Mitsouko

11.19.2019
10:22 am
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Music
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Les Rita Mitsouko

“When I was a lad…” well, it used to be at least moderately difficult to acquire music. Pre-internet, some stuff was really hard to find, even if you lived in New York or London and indeed this often meant paying beaucoup bucks for things back then. I’m frankly ashamed at some of the prices I’ve paid for certain LPs and CDs over the years. I cringe with embarrassment when reminded that I’ve spent $100 on a single soundtrack LP or a rare 12” dance mix. $80 for a 45 rpm single. It made sense at the time…

I mention this wistful old man shit by way of bringing up the most I ever spend on a single CD (times three): At some point in the late 80s, I paid $43 apiece for three Les Rita Mitsouko CDs that I special ordered at Rebel Rebel on Bleecker Street. I was a huge fan of the band (I’ve seen them live twice and I doubt they have played all that many shows in the US) but it was next to impossible to buy their CDs. So I had them special ordered from France and spent $129 plus tax on three CDs and it took about a month for them to arrive. Ridiculous I know, but I had to have them. The truth is that I honestly think I’ve gotten my money’s worth over the years.

Most Americans and Brits have probably never heard of France’s greatest ever pop band. Even Francophiles who love them some Serge Gainsbourg don’t tend to know much about Les Rita Mitsouko and this is a damned shame.

The group was comprised of lead vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Catherine Ringer and multi-instrumentalist Fred Chichin. There’s not a lot about written about them on the Internet, not in English at least, although there are tons of videos on YouTube of various French TV performances (including TV appearances with Sparks and Iggy Pop) and their incredible music videos, which more than lived up to their music. Their records were hard enough to find, but somehow I also managed a near complete collection of their music videos on 3/4” U-matic videotapes, a format that I was, of course, unable to play. Oh the youthful insanity, but truly they are a group worthy of utterly fanatical fandom, as ye shall see…

Les Rita Mitsouko, although they predate both bands by a few years, are in the same general category (to my mind at least) as Deee-lite or Japan’s Pizzicato Five. Aside from the music, the visual component of the group, like with these other two bands, was fashion forward and extremely well art-directed. Contributors to their videos included famed director Jean-Baptiste Mondino, and superstar fashion designers like Thierry Mugler, Agnes B. and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Their first album was produced by Conny Plank (Kraftwerk, Neu!, Ultravox) at his studio in Germany. Rita Mitsouko was named the 20th greatest French rock album in the French edition of Rolling Stone magazine. (The “Les” was added afterwards to warn off people from the idea that the band was Catherine’s). The follow-up, Les Rita Mitsouko Presentent The No Comprendo, was produced by the legendary Tony Visconti and was ranked #7 on that same Rolling Stone list. It’s a masterpiece of pop music, French or otherwise.

Visconti remarked about the group “I never thought I would hear a French rock band rival an English or American one.” If you don’t believe me, maybe the guy who produced Electric Warrior ought to know, right?

The song that you might know if you’ve heard any song by Les Rita Mitsouko, is “Marcia Balia,” a paean to a choreographer/dancer friend of Ringer’s who died young. This was a huge dancefloor hit all over the world in the mid-80s.

WATCH THIS:

Okay, so did you clock just how incredibly sexy Catherine Ringer is? Of course you did. It’s rather difficult not to notice, isn’t it? She’s a rare beauty, a hyper-intelligent, gifted woman, a truly great vocalist, one half of arguably the greatest French rock band, ever and…

Well, years later I found out from a French friend that Ringer, who was apparently a junkie in her youth (and perhaps beyond, when I met her in ‘86 or ‘87 she seemed somewhat disheveled and that’s putting it kindly), had made a number of rather specialist porn films in the late 1970s. The types of films for a certain subset of porn connoisseur, if you know what I mean, and chances are, that unless you’re thinking of something really dirty, you don’t…

Apparently during the time of the band’s initial burst of mid-80s notoriety, theme dinner parties were held to all over haute Paris to watch some of Ringer’s filthiest XXX antics—some filmed when she was just 17—made under the noms de porn of “Betty Davis,” “Cat’ Gerin,” ‘Claudia Mutti,” and “Lolita da Nova.”

I doubt that they served any sausages or chocolate pudding at such soirees, let’s just say. No lemonade, either, ‘kay?

Let’s move right along, now, shall we?

The pair met in late 1979. Chichin had recently gotten out of prison for a narcotics charge and both of them were hanging around in Parisian avant garde theatrical circles. Apparently from the first minute they met, they were inseparable. These bohemian weirdos began a union that spanned some 28 years and several children. Fred died in 2007 from complications of hepatitis C and Catherine Ringer has continued on with an active solo career.

In recent weeks, the Because Music label has put out L’integrale CD and vinyl box sets of every Les Rita Mitsouko album. Several of their albums are available individually on vinyl (remastered by Bernie Grundman) and there is also a greatest hits that comes in two versions, one a three-disc set with rarities and two documentaries, and the other a two-disc set without the DVD. There’s never been an easier time for music fans outside of France to discover this amazing duo.

Below, the Jean-Baptiste Mondino directed video for The No Comprendo’s “C’est Comme Ça.” If you don’t fall immediately in love with this band after watching this video, I don’t know what to say to you…