LA CHEVRE FOLLE

Legendary cafés in Ostend? You could fill a book with them. And - not entirely unjustifiably - we often think of the Langestraat. But musical café history was also written in other places. A pioneer in combining music with other art was ‘La Chèvre Folle’, on the corner of Sint-Paulusstraat, Kerkstraat and Prins Boudewijnstraat. 














































 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Anyone entering the Leandre Vilain square near the ancient St Peter's Tower in Ostend from the Kerkstraat will see a pole on their left, topped by a sculpture representing a goat's head. A small house stood on this spot until a few years ago, which had always served as an inn. In the 1960s, it was home to a bustling, dynamic art pub that bore the playful name ‘La Chèvre folle’ (‘The crazy goat’). The idea for the Chèvre memorial came from local resident-in-residence sculptor Pierre Claes, the previous owner of Logies La Chèvre Folle and was adopted by the city council.
 
Discover Pierre's work in his ‘Cellar Birds’ concept via this link.






                         




         
                    Pierre Claes

 
Pub owner Alain Depière, himself a visual artist,
didn't just tap pints there between 1958 and 1969,
played hip jazz music such as Miles Davis
and John Coltrane or songs by Ferre Grignard,
but offered a lot of young artists the chance to present themselves to the public. They did not become grand exhibitions. The space and resources were lacking for that. But the ‘Chèvre Folle’ offered many a stepping stone to a slightly wider reputation. As a café, the ‘Chèvre’ was a dream meeting place for many young artists and ditto intelligentsia from home and abroad, where the spirit of ‘May “68” was already tangible years before: anti-authoritarianism and non-conformism were in the air. Artists and amateurs who experienced it up close still speak with great nostalgia about the ‘Chèvre Folle’, which operated as an exhibition venue from 1960 to 1969.



 





 
Photo left: Mayor Jan Piers (right) flanked by painter Maurice Boel at the Chèvre Folle.
Photo right: Hugo Claus at the piano
 
In the early 1960s, the free spirit of May ‘68 was still far away in Flanders. But Ostend is, how could it be otherwise, an exception in this respect, and the place where this is most evident is La Chèvre Folle. It is a café with a gallery. Or vice versa, it depends on how you look at it.
Ostend artists such as Willy Bosschem, Etienne Elias and Gustaaf Sorel are at home there. In the second half of the 1960s, the young Arno also liked going there to soak up the atmosphere. More than that: it is one of the first places he goes out. Music not only resounds from the record player, there are also live performances. Arno smokes his first joint there and meets debut Ghent singer and guitarist Roland. In this clip, Arno is having a chat, but I am posting it here because you can then clearly see the sculpture commemorating the café ‘La Chèvre folle’, behind Arno, at one point you can also see ‘the Peperbusse’, as Arno points out a remnant of the oldest Ostend church.By the way, our best-known Ostend performer also talks about La Chèvre Folle in his single Ostend Bonsoir. 
 
                                                                                                          Listen and watch

 
Moreover, behind the bar is one Françoise,
a Parisian Bohemienne with - again according to Arno -
‘the most beautiful breasts on the north-western front’.
For some, it is also a form of art
and it is especially good for the business.



 

Françoise, La Chèvre Folle...by Flor Vandekerckhove

 

Perhaps she is of the same birth year as Joan Baez, whom she resembles, at least in my memory. There, Françoise occupies a prominent place in the gallery of honour of unforgettable café bosses. In the 1960s, she was behind the bar of the Chèvre Folle in Ostend and then operated the Folk, short for Folk, Blues & Jazzhouse. Both establishments are described in the words of Armand: ‘You enter and you choke on smoke and everything smells musty.’ They are located in premises whose best days are in the distant past.

French-speaking Françoise is a descendant of the bohemia. She lives her life apart from social conventions and is surrounded by kindred souls of masculine ability. That these men are kindred souls can be seen this way. They have long, uncombed hair that turns into wild beards in indeterminate places and they are into art, at least in the sense that we regularly meet at vernissages, where the drinks are free. There is one exception: sometimes Françoise is accompanied by a gentleman who makes you think not at all of the long-haired Armand, but of Louis Davids' The Little Man: “Such a bourgeois with a ready-made suit an”. He doesn't fit into our company, but he does move upstairs with her. He never stays there long, but still long enough to make you wonder what's going on there. 

Suddenly, Françoise disappears from her pub and from my life. She has left the Folk. Rumour has it that she has become the secretary of a senior NATO official. Questions, questions, questions. That strange little man? A secretary? NATO?  They are questions that remain unanswered, also because there is no one left to ask them, Françoise's entourage having disappeared at the same time as her. 

I was reminded of these questions again recently. Tania and I had gone to see Puccini's La Bohème. You could see it happening there too, that the whole bohemian milieu suddenly answered the call of adulthood and fanned out. But Mimi, the heroine in Puccini's opera, did - noblesse oblige! - had to die of tering first. Françoise, on the other hand ... Bourgeois ... Secretary ... NATO ... I don't want to make it thicker than it is, but I did feel it as a betrayal.

 

In 1969, when the building was seriously dilapidated, La Chèvre Folle closed its doors and the whole scene, together with Françoise, moved to Brabantstraat. At house number 10, the Folk, Blues & Jazzhouse, better known as the Folk or the Folk & Blues, opens there.