As-Tu Du Banane

Les Frères Pogo were a Montreal electronic-comedy group whose deliberately eccentric performances combined portable synthesizers, absurdist humour, theatrical staging and an enthusiasm for new consumer technology. Originally known as Ral’Bol – Fast-food Musique, the group emerged at the beginning of the 1980s with actor Jean Petitclerc and three former members of the folk group Demi-Heure: François Taschereau, Jacques Roy and André Ringuet.

Rather than performing as a conventional rock band, the four musicians gathered around an ironing board and played small, battery-powered synthesizers. Their performances were intentionally minimalist and playful, using inexpensive electronic instruments, visual comedy and exaggerated stage personalities to parody both popular music and the rapidly expanding world of electronic technology.

The group first performed under the name Ral’Bol – Fast-food Musique. It participated in the inaugural 1981–82 edition of CKOI-FM’s L’Empire des Futures Stars, where Ral’Bol was listed among the finalists. The competition became an important showcase for emerging Quebec artists and brought the group greater attention.

Radio personality Claude Rajotte subsequently encouraged the musicians to sharpen their presentation. They adopted the name Les Frères Pogo, often shortened simply to Pogo, developed a coordinated but deliberately outlandish visual style and assumed the stage names Djony, Ratz, Rina and Tonio Pogo.

The precise relationship between the aliases and the individual musicians is not identified in the surviving Nome Noma notes, so the stage names should not be assigned to specific members without further confirmation.

The group’s unusual use of portable electronic keyboards attracted the attention of Yamaha, which invited Les Frères Pogo to perform at demonstrations of its instruments. The arrangement was well suited to a band whose entire presentation revolved around compact Japanese synthesizers and the novelty of making electronic music without conventional guitars, drums or a large keyboard rig.

Les Frères Pogo later signed with Gamma Records and released the single ‘As-tu du banane’, backed with an instrumental version of the same song. The record was produced by Le Studio 1913 Inc.

The label credits the composition to J.F. Roy, J. Roy, François Taschereau, André Ringuet, N. Émond and Jean Petitclerc. The presence of both J.F. Roy and J. Roy as separate credits should be retained exactly as printed unless further documentation establishes that one is an error or alternate form.

Although the single is sometimes associated with the group’s early-1980s emergence, the record itself carries no printed release year. Gamma catalogue number AA 1743 immediately precedes AA 1744 and AA 1745, both documented as 1986 releases, and a period-record collector source also dates it approximately to 1986. The strongest available evidence therefore places ‘As-tu du banane’ around 1986, rather than 1982.

The song reportedly received substantial exposure on Montreal station CKOI-FM, whose support had already helped the group through L’Empire des Futures Stars. Its title, loose structure and nonsensical humour reflected the band’s approach: electronic pop treated less as a serious futuristic statement than as raw material for performance art and comedy.

Another surviving recording, ‘Le Japonais’, was recovered years later from a demo cassette. The instrumental track was minimalist and intentionally absurd, using a series of Japanese cultural references to reflect the musicians’ fascination with the Japanese electronic products flooding the North American market during the period.

‘Le Japonais’ remained unreleased during the group’s original career. It eventually appeared on the 2020 archival compilation Nome Noma – Québec Post-Punk et New Wave 1979–1987, where Les Frères Pogo were placed alongside other overlooked Quebec artists who experimented with synthesizers, new wave and electronic pop outside the conventional recording industry.

The group’s inclusion on Nome Noma highlights an important aspect of its history. Les Frères Pogo were not simply a novelty act with electronic instruments. Their use of miniature keyboards, pre-programmed sounds and theatrical identities reflected the same technological changes being explored by more serious new wave and synth-pop performers. Their distinction was that they approached those developments through parody, physical comedy and deliberate musical minimalism.

Les Frères Pogo never entirely disappeared. The musicians reunited for several performances in 2011, replacing their original portable synthesizers with iPads. The updated equipment preserved the original joke: a group once fascinated by compact Japanese keyboards now performed with the new generation of consumer electronic devices.

Plans were also discussed for an anthology of the group’s surviving recordings. Whether that proposed collection was completed is not established by the available liner notes or reliable public documentation.

Les Frères Pogo left behind a very small commercial catalogue, but their surviving work captures a distinctive corner of Montreal’s early electronic scene. Their performances brought together experimental pop, comedy, inexpensive technology and theatrical presentation at a time when portable synthesizers still appeared futuristic to many audiences.

From their beginnings as Ral’Bol – Fast-food Musique and their participation in L’Empire des Futures Stars to the Gamma single, the unreleased ‘Le Japonais’ and their later iPad performances, Les Frères Pogo treated technological change as both an instrument and a joke. Their music remains an unusually playful example of Quebec electronic pop during the 1980s.

-Robert Williston