PLASTIC BERTRAND

Recommended buy: "Plastic Bertrand" Best of that dates from 1998 and gives a very complete career-overview of the life and times of this Plastic Bertrand in 19 tracks. "Ca plane pour moi", "Tout petit la planète", "Stop ou encore", "Hula hoop" ... they're all on it >>> Buy this CD at Proxis <<< >>> 755 Bfr - 18,72 Euro - 16.54$ (op Oct.14, 2001) <<<

Alias to Roger Jouret.

Started out as the drummer for the group Hubble Bubble, which is one of the first Belgian punk bands. (note: being the first, certainly does not imply being the foremost, a title which is reserved for the Kids). Together with producer Lou Depryck he created the persona of Plastic Bertrand, a jolly satire on the safety-pin image of punk (the name he got from Bert Bertrand, punk-journalist and later on singer of The Bowling Balls).

A year later he made what would be one of the best selling singles by a Belgian artist ever : "ça plane pour moi" (all's well for me or This life's for me). This production and composition by fellow Belgian Lou de Pryck was an inspired attempt to capture the punk-spirit and still make big bucks out of it. According to Oor's Pop Music Encyclopedia, the song became "the laughing stock of the world's punk scene". Still, Rolling Stone (the Magazine) classified "ça plane pour moi" in the top 100 of best rock songs ever.

Or, as David Fricke says it on the Trouser Press website : "ça Plane pour Moi" is truly great dumbness--Bertrand singing verbose, seemingly nonsensical French lyrics over a classic three-chord Ramones roar with Spectorish saxes and a winning falsetto "oooh-weee-oooh" on the chorus. The Album An 1 (year 1) also contains more of the hilarious same--a spirited remake of the Small Faces' "Sha La La La Lee" and "Wha! Wha!," wherein Bertrand does barnyard animal imitations.

Since that, Bertrand has continued to make music, with considerably less success though. His 2nd album "Je t'fais un plan" (I'll draw you a map) and the third release "L'album" moved his musical direction steadily toward the new-wave scene, with exercises in reggae and synth pop in between.

In 1988, Plastic Bertrand smelled some money once again when the Belgian New Beat-dance craze came about. His "Slave to the beat" was one of the more successful singles of this form of music (more than 50.000 copies sold).

"ça plane pour moi" recently regained some "street credibility" as the fun and brilliant American group The Presidents of the United States of America feature it in their set list.

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- An 1 (Polydor - 1978)
- Je t'fais un plan (RKM - 1979)
- L'Album (Attic - 1980)
- Grands Succès - Greatest Hits (Attic - 1981)
- Plastiquez vos baffles (Attic - 1982)
- Pix (ARS - 1989)

Websites :
- AMC-records bio of Plastic Bertrand (french)
- Plastic Bertrand as one of "the weird and Erotic Stories from Europe, funny European Pictures" at the "Eurotrash" site of Planet Rapido

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