I was so excited about the outcome of the election in New Zealand yesterday that I forgot about a Music Saturday post, so today you get a “Musique dimanche” instead.
Le sujet du poste d’aujourd’hui est Philip Proulx, chanteur, auteur-compositeur et guitariste québécois. Il joue en tant que « Pépé et sa guitare », et peut-il jouer ce truc !
Like most of the artists I’ve featured so far, I found Pépé on Twitch. With live gigs mostly canceled for the time being, he’s been playing from his basement (“sa cave”) regularly, and the show is a combination of his high energy, often humorous original songs, storytelling, quick bits of covers in both French and English, and interactions with his wife and manager, Karine, who acts as his on-screen moderator (and also sings backing and some lead vocals herself). In a weird way, it reminds me of the Howard Stern show, if Howard spoke and sang in fast-paced Québécois French.
Even if you don’t speak any French (mine is improving but it’s hard to keep up – Québécois speak pretty fast and there’s lots of slang and contractions that you don’t learn in formal French), you’ll enjoy his energy and showmanship, even in his cave.
Here’s a video from a few years ago for his song “Du pain su’á table.” Its a song about becoming a professional musician and putting “bread on the table,” and the video shows him being pretty successful at that. You also get to see some of his wizardry on sa guitare.
Profitez-en!