Stinky Toys

1976 & the 100 Club

Elli: Ever since I was born, everyone said I sang terribly off-key, so I never sang. Then one day, Hermann (Metal Urbain) and I were really into the Shangri-Las, and we tried to cover Sophisticated Boom Boom. It was early ’76, and then one day, Jacno and I, over beers, said we’d start a rock band, and that’s how it all began! Punk Seventeen, Stephane Pietri & Alexis Quinlin, 1977

Denis Quillard, known as Jacno, first met Uruguayan-born Elli Medieros at a student demonstration in 1973 and became a couple. Elli had moved to France at 14 and quickly picked up the language. She

Jacno, a prolific chainsmaker, took his name from Marcel Jacno, the famous graphic designer who created the Gauloises cigarette logo. He was well known on the Paris rock scene, playing first with Bloodsucker, a Rolling Stones-sounding band with Eric Debris and Zip (later Metal Urbain) Rikky Darling (later Asphalt Jungle) Stinky Toys formed in April/May 1976.

Their first gig came in July 1976 at the Théâtre des Blancs-Manteaux, promoted through Rock News. They were present at the Sex Pistols’ Chalet Du Lac September shows and played there shortly afterwards, though disastrously, as the promoter threw them out on their second appearance for playing so badly. They headed shortly after to London after an invite from Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren for the 100 Club Punk Rock Festival, where their low-key performance somehow landed them on the cover of Melody Maker.

This is Elli’s tale of events from an unknown magazine page.

One day me and my bandmates in Stinky Toys were searching an open market in Paris for bootleg records and rock T-shirts. This was several months before the first 100 Club punk festival in 1976 and I was wearing my usual attire at the time, which included completely destroyed jeans, held together with safety pins. I had on a ragged old sweater full of holes, plus a pink coat from the 90s with stuff glued on it, playing cards, plastic eggs, spiders, that kind of thing.

This guy walks up to me and starts asking about my clothes. I tell him I think they’re beautiful and I don’t feel that anybody should dictate what is or isn’t beautiful. He asks what I do, and I realise that maybe he wants to hire me, so I tell him I sing in a band. He says, “I’m organising a punk festival in London, do you want to come?” I don’t know how it happened – did I give him my number? Anyway, somehow he calls us when it’s organised and we come over to London, writing songs on the train and ferry on the way.

We got to the club and saw the poster: “From France, The Stinky Toys” along with the Clash, Sex Pistols, Siouxsie, etc. We introduced ourselves and the guys from the 100 Club said “Where’s your equipment?” The Sex Pistols said there was no way we could use theirs. I think it was Joe Strummer from the Clash in the end who loaned us equipment. And voila!

We were there for two days but there was a lot of beer so it’s all a bit unclear. I remember my bandmate Bruno was making fun of Sid and in response Sid pulled out a switch blade that actually turned out to be a comb. Somehow we made it back to Paris, and then we were on the cover of Melody Maker and the French press went nuts. The guy who organised the festival was called Malcolm McLaren, though I had no idea who he was at the time. – Elli Medeiros

I think its safe to say they weren’t exactly well received, and people were probably puzzled at why they were even there. Mark Perry’s Sniffin’ Glue, the first punk fanzine and which was chronicling the emerging punk scene as it happened. This is the review of their performance.

The band was featured in Caroline Coon’s three-page feature in the major weekly music paper Melody Maker’s edition of 2.10.76. Like Sniffin’ Glue, it wasn’t positive, but it did mention Eli’s presence. To be fair to the band, it was their first gig on foreign soil, borrowed equipment, and an audience expecting something more.

Stinky Toys. Ellie (20), the Stinky Toys’ singer, has calmed down. The kies’ night before, when she realised there was no time for the band to play, she’d made a not-too-successful prima- donna exit – kick, push, tut-tut at the tables as she ran out into Oxford band Street where, it is said, she was saved from wounding herself under a bus.

Her band is very French, i.e. very, very serious. They’ve frowned for two days and they frown even more when, after three very short numbers, including Under My Thumb they get nil reaction from the crowd. There’s Bruno Carone (lead guitar), Jacno (rhythm), Oswald (bass), and Harve on drums. They play completely out of tune even though they spend minutes between numbers ‘tuning-up’.

Ellie’s voice, a high pitched whine, has 90% of the older male population diving back to the bar. And yet? Well, even though she sings in English and not one of the words from songs like Pe Pe Gestapo or Kill The Pain are intelligible, she has presence. You have to watch her. As the band liven-up with petulant anger at the impassive crowd, Ellie, frisking her blond hair out of beautiful blue eyes, does a frenzied dance before the mike. If only the rest of the band didn’t give the impression they want to get off the stage as fast as they can.Which singers, I ask Ellie, before she dashes off after the set to catch the last train to Paris, have influenced her most? ‘Brenda Lee,’ she says ‘and Glenda Jackson ‘Umm.

The beauty of Punk, though, is Stinky Toys will always be a part of this legendary event that brought the Clash, Damned and Sex Pistols together and kicked off Punk rock. It would also lead to Stinky Toys being signed and, in turn, whatever happened, good or bad, to those in the band afterwards. The Brenda Lee comment from Elli is interesting given what happened after Stinky Toys for her and Jacno.

1977-79

1977 starts full of hope for Stinky Toys, with major labels interested. One of them apparently was EMI, but an incident scuppers that.

Unfortunately for Stinky Toys, the CEO was EMI’s boss — the very man whose company was about to sign the band. EMI promptly pulled out of the deal after the incident. What couldn’t have helped would have been the incidents over the channel with the Sex Pistols’ outrageous behaviour and media coverage of punk, leading to their termination by the label.

Despite the setback in June 1977, ten months after forming, they became the first French new wave band signed to a major label, Polydor France. As an aside, Polydor UK had tried and failed to sign both The Sex Pistols and then The Clash. In the sleeve notes to a later single of demos, Elli would claim that Polydor France only signed the band because they appeared on the cover of England’s oldest music paper, Melody Maker, which would have been big news as it had never happened before. There was this panic at Polydor France, who no doubt wanted to claim the band before anyone else.

Their debut single, Boozy Creed/Driver Blues, followed in May, recorded in a 24-track Paris studio with an English engineer who had worked on Mick Ronson’s solo album.

The single sold reasonably well and a short London tour followed. Stinky Toys played the legendary Roxy and Vortex Clubs (ahead again of fellow French band Metal Urbain), but their polished, Stones/Bowie-influenced rock sound didn’t always go down well with the increasingly hard-edged British punk crowd. However, the notorious Sounds journalist Jane Suck gave Elli the thumbs up.

There’s definitely something about the couple that attracts people. It’s said that Blondie renamed their cover version of Randie and the Rainbows’ Denis because Debbie Harry had a major crush on Jacno after first meeting with the band in Paris. Andy Warhol was likewise infatuated; he sketched Jacno on a restaurant napkin and apparently wore a Jacno badge when he arrived at Paris’ airport. The fact that he then looked a lot like young David Bowie in his Man Who Fell to Earth period with blonde slicked-back hair probably helped.

That magnetism doesn’t come through in their music, though, and sales. Reaction to the single is muted, but an album is recorded in England but has a French-only release. The untitled album is sometimes referred to as the ‘Grey’ album, and later called Plastic Faces. Jacno will later quip it sells about as many as the Velvet Underground’s first album. That is the only similarity. Bizarrely, according to the later post-band demos single sleeve notes, the album was delayed while the label argued with the band over their choice of a grey cover! Seriously? Whatever the reason, the relationship is now broken.

The album is a blend of their influences – The Who, Rolling Stones, and the Velvet Underground plus their own souped-up New Wave influences. Elli writes and sings in English but without an accent.

However, their looks do get them onto TV and in French media fairly regularly

Driver Blues

They recorded some demos for Polydor, including a cover of The Who’s I Can’t Reach You that would appear on the second album. They would be the last recordings as they were dropped. The band then signed to the famous French label Disques Vogue to release their second self-titled studio album (sometimes referred to as the ‘yellow’ album), Stinky Toys, in 1979. The album was produced at Vogue’s famed Sydney Bechet Studios in Villetaneuse. From the cover to the sound, the band had moved on as you’d expect. It’s more refined, defiantly post-punk, and with a corresponding image to boot.

Shortly after its release, the band split after a fan was killed by the Hells Angels in a chaotic, final 1979 concert at Le Palais des Arts in France.

In the way these things work, Jacno would become influential in the French synth-pop scene that was developing and co-found the duo Elli & Jacno, who would find major success. So in the end, the pair made good.

Boozy Creed/Taxi Driver – Polydor July 1977

The song reminds me of Patti Smith and Subway Sect and, bizarrely, the chord pattern something Magazine would do later on around Second Hand Daylight. The lyrics are a great paean to youth and rock n roll, though I’m not sure the title works :). Taxi Driver is also a great song. The cover has them looking very serious, but isn’t there a member missing?

Hard to believe this would be their only single as a band. The single isn’t on streaming platforms, nor is the first album, so watch out, or you’ll get their discordant 55-second revisit of the track on their second album, which is still pretty good!

Plastic Faces

Another first as Stinky Toys became the first French new wave band to make it to an album. Released by Polydor at the end of 1977.

It’s again all sung in English and features both sides of their first single. It’s frenetic but just has something missing. Picks apart from the single are City Life and Pepe Gestapo.

1. Plastic Faces
2. You Close Your Eyes
3. City Life
4. Jack The Ripper
5. Driver Blues
6. Boozy Creed
7. More Than Me
8. Lonely Lovers
9. Sun Sick
10. Pepe Gestapo

Sales of the single weren’t great; France was never ready for new wave, and the album was only released there. That would explain why I never saw a review of the album or an advert for it. It’s not even available on Spotify, so play the video above and click next or back to cycle through the album.

A non-review of sorts appeared in San Francisco punk magazine Search & Destroy #5 in early 1978. In his Paris Street Report column, Bernie Rebel said.

The Stinky Toys are the best known French punk band, but they don’t deserve it. They’ve just released their first album but I’d rather not speak about it. They’re nice people though and they do have a style.

Pe Pe Gestapo

Stinky Toys – Vogue 1979

The album cover tells you all you need to know. The band has unsurprisingly moved on. The album has its moments, but not enough to save it. For You is the pick – sounding like Blondie & Patti Smith meets the Velvet Underground Loaded era. But Birthday Party also comes close, as does the revisiting of their debut 1977 single Boozy Creed. It’s all of 55 seconds long and turns into a curious lopsided affair, with both vocals and guitars hovering in and out of tune and wouldn’t have seemed out of place on a James Chance & the Contortions album.

Add in songs with the jingly jangly guitar of post-punk at times with shades of the Au Pairs or the Slits and an acoustic song, Uruguayan Dream, and it’s all… well full of ideas but just sounding disconnected.

I don’t ever recall seeing a review of it, and for the band, that was it.