Offenbach Traversion LP Canada 1978 gatefold VERY GOOD

$

27

Note About Shipping To The U.S.
We are located in Canada, but have registered ourselves on eBay.com instead of eBay.ca because it gives us significantly better global exposure.  The problem with this is that eBay wants us to charge shipping appropriate to US, where media mail and other options make for fairly reasonable delivery costs. We tried it for a while but ended up losing money on shipping or having to cancel the orders because we couldn't afford to ship for those rates. To manage this we have set the US shipping to run a calculator based on an American location (we chose Plattsburgh as fairly close) and charging according to UPS pricing.  This avoids the cancellation issue, but can appear to the buyer to be a prohibitive shipping cost and misrepresents the shipping as being only expedited. If you give us your postal code we will see if we can offer a more reasonable option, but generally we can get a single LP by air to most places in the continental US for $11, a double $16, a few bucks less for ground. If you pay for the item and the shipping was less than you paid we will refund you the difference
Thanks for shopping Sir Helmitt,
Jeff Green, e-sales

Offenbach

Traversion

Kébec-Disc ?– KDL 963, Kébec-Disc ?– KDL-963  Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold  1978 (Canada) 

Prog Archives Review by Sean Trane

SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk

3 stars After the great rift of Offenbach that saw Lamothe and drummer Belval leave to join forces with former co-leader Pierre Harel another group, the band managed to survive with ever- changing personnel and had to wait almost two years to return to the studio with a (more or less) stabilized line-up. Boulet is now the only original member with guitarist Jean Gravel, the new line-up is featuring a second guitarist John McGale, who also plays the flute and will provide a few tracks. New bassist LeBoeuf will soon become the glue to the new line- up, compromising and arranging the almost-finished tracks. But the group had lost all of its momentum at home with the erratic Never Too Tender, and they were facing an uphill battle in a Quebec scene filled with Harmonium, Beau Dommage, Maneige, Octobre, et many more. Even worse, we are in 79 and fairly soon the local prog scene will be wiped out by the disco craze (La Belle Province reacted a little late to it, but massively), but this album will score well with the public, who appreciate the texts of the new lyricist Pierre Huet.

The album is a succession of classic Offenbach tracks that will get not only major airplay on the radios, but most of them will the core of their concerts for years to come. Boulet's joual lyrics, sung ala Robert Charlebois or Pierre Flynn (of the rival group Octobre) crossed with a tad of Eddy Mitchell, are of course a major feature of the album, but his Hammond B- 3 is still the other audible landmark in years when its appeal was definitely on the wane. Gravel's guitar shines in passages, but mostly as a solo instrument (the solo in Coyote or the opening Ayoye) and in the good opening track Je Le Sais Bien. In some ways their sound is still more of an early 70's than a late 70's, partly due to Boulet's excellent organ. Generally the album is a short blues-derived hard rock tunes, devoid of much adventures or experiments, but still having some instrumental bravura, when the occasion arises (not enough to my taste) and the odd flute (in Deux Autres Bieres) provide short hard'ons for progheads.

Despite the local public's wariness, especially with some Anglophones in the band, Offenbah created the album that the Québecois public wanted to hear, and the group will find healthy sales and a a local fame. In fact, they will be the last of the 70's group to live well, surviving until 85 and rake in many awards of all kinds, but that's another story. This is an overtly commercial album and a good mastery of French might come in handy, but obligatory, because the blues-derived organ-driven hard rock is quite accessible (but certainly not groundbreaking) and certainly held up with the AOR "kings" of the era. Despite it's overt commercial nature, this is a classic Québecois album that still might interest the prospective proghead.

Tracklist

A1 Je L'sais Ben 4:57

A2 Deux Autres Bières 3:25

A3 Les Eaux Qui Dorment

Flute – John McGale

3:21

A4 Mes Blues Passent Pu Dans'Porte

Piano – Gérald Boulet

4:10

A5 Je Chante Comme Un Coyote 5:18

B1 Femme Qui S'en Va 2:55

B2 Bye Bye 3:39

B3 Quand Les Hommes Vivront D'Amour 3:49

B4 J'ai L'Rock N' Roll Pis Toe 3:22

B5 Ayoye

Saxophone – Richard Beaudet

6:16

Distributed By – Trans-Canada Musique Service

Recorded At – Studio Tempo

Recorded At – T.M. Audio

Mixed At – T.M. Audio

Mastered At – Disques SNB Ltée.

Artwork – Vittorio

Bass – Breen Leboeuf

Drums – Pierre Lavoie (tracks: A4, A5, B2 to B4), Pierre Ringuet (tracks: A1 to A3, B1, B5)

Guitar – Jean Gravel, John McGale

Organ – Gerry Boulet

Producer – Offenbach, René Malo

Recorded By, Mixed By – Ian Terry

Vocals – Breen Leboeuf (tracks: A4, B3, B4, B5), Gérald Boulet (tracks: A1 to A3, A5 to B5), Jean Gravel (tracks: B3, B4), John McGale (tracks: B3, B4)

Vocals, Organ – Gérald Boulet (tracks: A1 to A3, A5 to B5)

Written-By – André St-Denis (tracks: B5), Breen Leboeuf, Gérald Boulet (tracks: A4, A5, B2, B5), Jean Gravel (tracks: A1), John McGale (tracks: A1 to A3, B1, B4), Pierre Huet (tracks: A1 to B2, B4), Raymond Lévesque (tracks: B3)

Enregistrements : T.M. AUDIO (nov. 78) à l'exception de B3 & B4 : Studio TEMPO (sept. 78))

Mixage : T.M. AUDIO (nov. - déc. 78)

CONDITION:  LP is VERY GOOD (light surface scuffs, no effect on play) in a plastic-lined paper inner sleeve in a hard card picture gatefold sleeve (VG)