Alcools / Alcohols

Hervé Picart in Best, October 1975

Malène Lemoine writes to BtP:
This article comes from one of the two big French rock magazines. Apparently in those times (70-75) there used to be long articles on Procol. This one I really like. It was written in 1975 after a concert during a rock festival at Orange in the south of France.

The author is a well-known French rock journalist, Hervé Picart, who used to be a PH 'defender'. What he thinks now, I don't know - yet (but I'm trying to find out).

I don't know if I managed to preserve the tone of the article. What Hervé Picart does NOT do is criticize or denigrate (or even pity) the group. From this article and others, it is clear that he knows PH well and likes them, that he regrets their lack of success and understanding, especially in France where, in quite a few concerts, things didn't go too well between PH and the audience (according to him).

Here, he gives his own vision of the group and there is a lot of fondness here. And I like this 'painting' of PH - whether true or not. Call that cheap French romanticism if you want ...

Pictures on this page: the first one (Gary with 'angelic' face) is from magazine Best,
November 72, and the second one (with funny colours, Gary with not so angelic face) is from Best october 75 (like the article).

Bien, et voilà l'article :

ALCOOLS (Best 87, Octobre 1975)

Gary Brooker a encore grossi, le visage de Chris Copping s'est déformé un peu plus, l'alcool remplace peu à peu le sang du groupe, et sa musique s'est faite encore plus dure.

Gary Brooker has put on more weight again, Chris Copping's face is little more deformed, alcohol, little by little, is replacing blood in the group's veins, and its music is becoming harder.

Le concert-incendie d'Orange nous a montré un Procol Harum hargneux qui a mis bas la redingote pour reprendre la défroque du rocker, suite logique de ce neuvième album accrocheur, entêté avec ses rythmes lourds comme des lendemains d'ivresse et ses flambées qui s'étirent à en devenir malsaines.

The fiery concert at Orange showed an aggressive Procol Harum who had gotten rid of the tail-suits in favour of rocker outfits. It is the logical sequel to the ninth album : compulsive, stubborn with rhythms as heavy as mornings after inebriated nights, and with blazing outbursts that stretch so much they become unsound.

 Le rock a tout à fait repris ses droits, et le rappel avec "Be Bop A Lula" en est le plus excitant symptômes. Mais toute la musique du groupe s'est faite bien plus escarpée qu'avant. L'acide discret s'est fait napalm. Procol Harum n'a plus rien d'un groupe romantique.

Rock has totally resumed its rights and the encore of Be Bop A Lula is the most exciting of its symptoms. But all the music of the group has changed into something much more abrupt than before. The quiet acid has turned into napalm. Procol Harum has nothing left of a romantic group.

L'a-t-il jamais été d'ailleurs ? Il fut plutôt, et demeure à présent un groupe alcoolique. Cela se sent à sa façon de brûler jamais franche, plutôt perverse.

Has it ever been one, by the way ? Rather, it was, and remains today, an alcoholic group. You can feel it by the way it burns : never frankly, but wholly perversely.

Le groupe a l'amertume des buveurs aigris. Il a aussi cet appétit de distinction que l'on retrouve chez tous les ivrognes, cette ivresse qui leur fait reprendre une vieille valse, un 'Beau Danube Bleu' qui devient soudain une parodie piquante et âcre, qui leur fait rêver à ces grands hôtels où l'alcoolisme est mondain et où le sommet de la perfection se niche dans le pétillement discret d'une coupe de champagne.

The group has the bitterness of sour drinkers. It also has this appetite for distinction that you find in every drunkard, this drunkenness that makes them take up an old waltz, a Blue Danube, which suddenly becomes a sharp and acrid parody, which makes them dream of these grand hotels where alcoholism is worldly and where the peak of perfection hides in the quiet bubbles of a champagne cup.

Mais cette ivresse sait aussi retrouver et libérer la gouaille première, ces accents lourds des faubourgs malsains où le rock reste le langage de l'enfance, celui qui vous revient quand le brandy a suffisamment chauffé vos veines de parvenu.

But this drunkenness is also able to retrieve and free their original cheekiness, these heavy accents from seedy suburbs where rock remains the childhood language, the very one that comes back to you when brandy has sufficiently heated up your upstart's blood.

Procol Harum, aussi loin que l'on s'en souvienne, a toujours joué du rock, lors de ses rappels notamment, et engendré de purs rockers, comme un Robin Trower, déroutant de purs esthètes comme Matthew Fisher en comparaison duquel Chris Copping a une personnalité infiniment canaille - mais ses cauchemars harmoniques sont tout aussi insupportables.

Procol Harum, as far as one can remember, has always been playing rock, especially during encores, and it has given birth to pure rockers, such as Robin Trower, confusing pure esthetes like Matthew Fisher compared to whom Chris Copping has a much more rascally personality - but its harmonic nightmares are as unbearable.

Réécoutez leur version du "Eight days a week" des Beatles : on dirait un groupe de pub rock qui revivifie de toute l'épaisseur de son authenticité un gentil produit fini de l'entreprise Fab Four. Et le ventre replet de Gary Brooker pelote sans équivoque le clavier distingué de son Steinway.

Listen again to their version of the Beatles' Eight Days A Week : they sound like a pub rock group who, from the depth of its authenticity, gives a new life to a cute finished product of the Fab Four enterprise. And Gary Brooker's round belly is unequivocally petting the distinguished keyboard of his Steinway.

Mais les gens de Procol Harum sont aussi de vieux buveurs, habitués aux dérives alcooliques, qui boivent avec conscience et calculent leur ivresse comme un art suprême. Sur scène, tout reste d'une perfection et d'une clarté qui contrastent avec toutes les brumes et les caillots que charrie leur musique.

But these Procol Harum people are also old drinkers, used to the byways of booze, who drink consciously and plan their intoxication as a supreme art. On stage, everything maintains a perfection and clarity that contrast with all the mists and clots that their music carries.

Avec cette structure que l'on ne retrouve nulle part ailleurs : ce parallélisme piano-batterie qui est le fondement de la construction. Deux baffles, à chaque extrémité de la scène, renvoient à chacun le son de l'autre, Brooker n'entend quasiment que Wilson, et Wilson que Brooker. Ils sont les deux pôles autour desquels naviguent les autres, formant le globe des sons d'appoint. Construction d'une intelligence rare. Sur cette base, les autres peuvent broder sans crainte.

With a structure that is found nowhere else, this piano-drums parallelism that is the foundation of their formation. Two speakers, at each end of the stage, send each other their sounds so that Gary Brooker hears almost only Wilson and Wilson only Brooker. They are the two poles around which the others navigate, completing a sphere of additional sounds. A construction of a rare intelligence. On this base, the others can try their creativity without fears.

L'on regrettera toutefois l'excessive platitude de Grabham, qui est sans doute le moins bon guitariste que Procol ait jamais eu. Trower et Ball étaient nettement quelques coudées plus haut. Le groupe doit d'ailleurs être conscient de cette insuffisance car l'on entend finalement assez peu le sieur Grabham sur le dernier album, et personne n'a à s'en plaindre.

However one will regret the extreme dullness of Grabham, is undoubtedly the least good guitar player that Procol ever had. Trower and Ball were largely a few rungs above. The group must realize this, because, finally, one does not hear much Mister Grabham on the last album, and nobody should complain.

Mais Procol reste Procol car il est plus une âme, une facon de dire et de ressentir qu'un art d'enluminures où la virtuosité serait alors essentielle. Car ce ne sont pas des virtuoses que ces hommes-là. Brooker fut loin d'être infaillible sur le morceau de Strauss et sur 'Grand Hotel', mais le piano classique réclame une toute autre discipline que le bastringue du vieux rock. Mais qu'importe ces taches. Chez Procol, cela ne prête pas à conséquence, parce que cela rentre naturellement dans l'ambiance fanée de leur monde alcoolique.

But Procol remains Procol because they are more a soul, a way of telling and feeling, than an illuminating art where virtuosity would be imperative. For they are no virtuosos, these men. Brooker was far from infallible on the Strauss piece and on Grand Hotel, but then, classical piano requires a completely different discipline from that ol' functional rock and roll. But these imperfections don't matter. With Procol, it is of no consequence, because they naturally integrate into the faded atmosphere of their alcoholic world.

Avez-vous remarqué qu'il n'y a rien de plus beau que la flamme d'un oeil derrière l'écran doré d'un verre de vieux bourbon ? C'est ça, Procol Harum. Son oeuvre pourra aussi s'intituler 'Alcools', et elle vaudra bien l'autre.

Have you ever noticed the unsurpassable sparkle of an eye behind the golden screen of a glass of old bourbon? It is that, Procol Harum. Their work could also be named 'Alcohols'. It would be as good as any other.

Thanks, Malène, transcriber and translator 

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