Clap your hands
say yéyé

>>Les Handclaps move from the
DJ booth to the stage

READY, SET, GO-GO: Les Handclaps

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

For an act that strives to recapture and remodel the retro-pop spirit of French yéyé, go-go dancers and all, les Handclaps came about in quite a novel way. Daniel Saucier and Hugo Clermont’s plan was to tour as DJs, specializing in the very style of music they aimed to play live, and make contacts along the way to facilitate future band tours. So, for two years, the duo made beautiful music, producing les Handclaps at home and spinning vintage Québécois pop on the road.

“In New York, we saw that there was really a place for this kind of music,” says Saucier. “There’s a big French culture over there, but they didn’t really know the phenomenon that we had in Montreal, so we really concentrated on this type of music to make us a kind of special product, a trademark.”

Apart from the fruits of touring, MySpace was an essential tool for the band in finding collaborators, from the go-go girls who’ll be part of this weekend’s show to the band’s singer, Lorraine Muller of Lo and the Magnetics. Saucer and Clermont had been fans of hers since she led the Kingpins, and they knew that she was a great singer and a strong performer with all kinds of musical expertise, so they took a chance.

“We asked her out for a beer,” says Saucier. “We were not pretending to be big enough so that she could be tempted by our project, but she offered it by herself. We’re really proud of this.

“She started as a guest singer, but she’s [gotten] more attached to this project. She really became a third member of the band.”

The trio has recorded a three-song demo and played a handful of shows, and they intend to spend this summer honing their stage skills, a process that will eventually take them back to the road.

“For Hugo and I, it’s quite new as a lifestyle—I’m a French high-school teacher and he’s at the ministry of education, so it’s a second side of us, and we have a lot to learn, but I really like the energy it gives us.”

With Chinatown and Die
Romantik at petit campus
on Friday, July 20, 9 p.m., $7