by ALICE AND YANKA

Now, who is this man, this dishevelled bum on the cover of the Mirror? Un trappeur des temps modernes? Le King of Hobo Hills? Ben non, voyons. C'est Plume Latraverse, l'ours mal léché d'la chanson québécoise, the old gorilla who has been rattling & shaking the foundations of Québec's francophone culture for more than 30 years.

Never heard of him? Well that's okay, because for some obscure reason, maybe just out of curiosity as to what the editor of this paper might send his way, the notoriously media-shy Plume eventually agreed to be interviewed by us runts, deux novices d'la grosse machine médiatique. But it all turned out good in the end, for la belle bête barbue took a few steps out of his shell and, even when our chips were down, he tranquilly answered our questions broche à foin.

When this interview was being set up, the word was out that Plume was "inflexible" and would only agree to meet us at 2 p.m. at a music business office in Longueuil. So we can never thank him enough for finally moving our rendez-vous from the sterile office to la Taverne Verres Stérilisés in the Plateau at the height of happy hour. Taverne de nos amours!

Enter Plume

"Téléphone? Toilettes?" the nice waitress asks when we walk in, unaccustomed to serving les femmes before later. The place was empty, save for some quiet tepid beer drinkers, so we chose the huge table, spread out the mess from our bags, and sound-checked our 1902 Sony mini-recorder. Then, two long legs of man with a big scruffy smile and a venerable hint of cleavage unfurled on the tiny school chair between us. Hmmm. Yanka, j'ai peur, dis quelque chose!

Alice & Yanka: Hey Plume, tu veux une bière?

Plume Latraverse: Oui, donnez-moi une sip.

A&Y: Euh, ben, on partage le pichet, alors. So, hmm… T'aimes ça faire des entrevues? Nous, on a jamais fait ça…

P: J'aime pas ça. J'en fais jamais. Mais là, j'me suis dit, bon, avec les anglos, on peut toujours aller voir kesse qui s'passe là. J'tiens quand même à mentionner que y'a 35 ans, c'est les Anglais qui nous ont donné notre première chance à CKGM FM, devenu CHOM, c'était la première place qui nous a donné un break, avec l'aide de Linda Gaboriau. Y'a beaucoup de choses quia sont considérées culturelles, mais y'a à peu près yienk les anglos, esti, qui ont pas ce côté là, qui s'donnent pas le trouble, on dirait, de creuser dans une autre langue pass' veux, veux pas, quand t'es québécois ou français, t'as pas le choix d'apprendre des rudiments d'anglais pass' tout l'monde parle anglais. (1)

A million deliquent poems

Us, we can't speak anything but broken Esperanto. It's true, however, that among les francophones au Québec, and in our frisky little hearts, Plume is a quasi-legend, notorious for his mythical antics and brilliant tongue. It's as if language becomes like wax inside his head, wax that can be wrought into a million delinquent poems placed over music.

An earful of Plume's verbo-moteur provides a fresh approach to Quebec culture and history, un peu comme un grand coup d'poing dans face. He swears a good deal, so that you can almost hear the Church crumbling 40 years ago, and you wish you were there with friends and a bag of popcorn. And so it goes that most of Plume's pieces are fraught with Satire, Irony, Polemic, Wit and all their friends. As for subject matter, la liste est endless: there's brainwashing, poverty, "Catholic Cowboy," "Springtime," "UFOs," le "Vieux Nèg" and a dead man's fête. Otherwise, he sometimes wraps himself in an old carpet or claims Jésus as his branche de sapin. Coming from him, it all makes sense. His delirious imagination, acerbic views and mighty pen have shaped him into a unique, blissfully fucked-up personnage.

We discovered ce charmant sanglier bourru as young adults, buying his vinyl records for one dollar at l'Échange and perusing his fantastic book, Contes gouttes, peppered with many, many words we had never encountered before. Ahhh, Contes gouttes, we set it on the table among the clutter. Plume wrote it all by hand, "une entreprise folle," and as we thumb through it he goes on about his old friends, les ivrognes.

A&Y: Hey, les photos à la fin du livre, c'est toi qui les as prises, Plume?

P: Non.

A&Y: T'écoutes tes disques, desfois?

P: Non.

A&Y: Dommage.

P: Mouin, c'est bien d'être avec des jeunes qui boivent d'la bière. Un autre pichet?

A&Y: Sure, on paye, on paye, es-tu fou, on paye! (2) So where does it come from, cette belle carrière là, ton langage magnifique?

P: C'est pas inné du tout. J'viens d'une famille ou y'avait rien, une bibliothèque toute petite, comme le calorifère de la taverne, là. J'avais rien. Un jour, suite à un événement marquant sur lequel je ne m'étendrai pas, j'me suis dit, "Bon ben now that I've reached the bottom, comment j'me sors de là?" Alors j'me suis rassemblé pis j'ai commencé à faire vraiment de la chanson. Faut dire que l'époque poussait à ça, c'était vers '68, '69. Mais ça a pris du temps. Mon premier disque est sorti en '70. J'me suis fait fourrer ben raide par la compagnie, comme tout le monde. J'ai commencé à organiser mes p'tites affaires pis j'me suis ramassé avec beaucoup de chansons, assez pour sortir trois disques par année." (3)

Eternal underground

During the '60s, Plume played with bluesmen; sang with Big Mama Thornton, a lesbian donning men's suits who was much, much older than he; and practiced his early Inglisse at the Swiss Hut. The Swiiiiisssss Huuuut?! We want to go to the Swiiiss Huuuuut! Plume built his career far away from the mainstream, "sur un éternel underground," and he never fathomed going down the predictable, ghastly Star Académie-ish road: une chance! He says his career's like "a chaloupe" to their "paquebots de plaisance." So pendant toutes ces longues années, his words and music spread like a beautiful virus, a mix of slang and polished lingo that French papas passed on to their seed as a heritage, for Plume was never much played on the radio, even though he recently enjoyed a few spins sur la bande mega-hertz and won a Gilles at l'ADISQ.

A&Y: Alors, tu les aimes, maintenant, les médias?

P: Les médias, j'm'en fous. Toute le blah blah médiatique, tu fais ça quand t'as 20 ans, après ça, qu'est-ce que tu veux dire… qu'essé qu'tu veux que j'dise aux médias? Y vont me d'mander qu'esse que j'vas faire aux FrancoFolies, pis j'vas leur répondre: "J'vas faire c'que j'veux, comme j'fais depuis 35 ans. C'pas plus compliqué qu'ça." (4)

The big pitcher

"Okay, les filles, j'prends l'prochain," says our lanky crush, pulling out the bulgiest wad of $5 bills ever to be seen on this side of the taps. "So, euh, hmmm, ton band, comment ça va?" we ask. Plume boasts of leading the oldest band in Québec, together with fellow hooligans Cholet and Jean-Claude, whom he met lightyears ago. Two Europe-virgins, they followed el grand Plume all the way to Holland et al., and are still dans la fanfare with him 24 years later. They never fought once, says Plume. Jamais une seule engueulade! He's thinking of digging into his archives to celebrate their 25 candles. "Un show de transition," he says, for which he will try and track down "les gars qui jouaient du brass ek moé dans l'temps." Archives?! Really? Nous, on se morfond d'entendre Va z'y dru, oui, d'la confiture de Va z'y druuuuuu!

Of course, people can't get enough of fucking "Bobépine," Plume's big hit from his 1975 album Le vieux show son sale. But why, hein? We usually snicker to ourselves that it's due to Eric Lapointe's execrably unimaginative cover of the song, but Plume's in fact happy LaPinte took it away from him because it's one of those things that stick to his personnage like bad glue.

"Pis anyways, les gens aiment pas l'introspection. Après les Festivals, ils voulaient toujours yienk d'la Bobépine. Aille, j'ai écrit ça sur un coin d'table, criss…" (5)

So, les amis, tonight's your chance to test your French, or, even better, to finally learn it, and explore l'oeuvre du Plumo. It'll hopefully be an opportunity to hear how le québécois can be turned into a Blues de la bêtise humaine, or a Porte de Shed, an ode to Don Quichiotte, or un troupeau d'Moutonoir. You might actually come out of this show without the slightest inkling as to why there might be a language barrier in this land, and how come you got fucked out of these songs because of it for so long.

Or, as Plume himself wrote for us on a piece of paper at the end of the night: "Listen to my music as if it was Inuit/Inuk/Portuguese/Vietnamese/ Jerusalem music. Smoke a couple of joints and bring your Birds dictionary." Salut!

Plume Latraverse performs as part of Francofolies tonight, Thursday, Aug. 5, 9 p.m., at the Metropolis, $29.50

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