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The Inspector Cluzo are
"The French Bastards"
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FUCK THE BASS PLAYER
Regulary, The Inspector Cluzo interviews a famous bass player about what's wrong with him...
COMING SOON !!!

FRENCH BASTARDS TOUR PART II
EPISODE 8
Date : June 2011
Location : France
Mode : Bastards

Once again, here are some TIC tour reports, we do our best to keep this section very up to date every time we come back home... Pictures, ITW's, live captation, all that you might have missed and that you won't have to misse the next time!

28/05 Clermont-Ferrand (Fr) "Europavox Festival"
Go Stade Toulousain, the come back of live play-back !

04/06 Juvigny "Moissons Rock"
Longest sound-check world championship

10/06 Saint-Brieuc “Art Rock”
The Tramway complex or the « l’anti-Foncia » festival

24/06 Evreux "Le Rock Dans Tout Ses Etats"
Blow the Racecourse up and build up a rugby field.

 

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28/05 Clermont-Ferrand (Fr) "Europavox Festival"
Go Stade Toulousain, the come back of live play-back !

Europavox is The Inspector Cluzo 1st summer festival, organised by Didier Veillault. The only issue is that we got there the day after the defeat of ASM (Clermont Ferrand Rugby team who was Champion last year) vs Stade Toulousain. We promised not talking about that during the show. We like teasing people but here we respect this land of rugby. Besides, on TIC guitar amp lies a rugby ball dedicated by Olivier Merles (famous french player)... respect !

According to Didier Veillault « you don't have to miss that special band: TIC ». Which make people think that we're going to arrive at the gig with our Helicopter. We look at the billing, all is ok, we'll play in between Aaron and Ben l'Oncle Soul, cool no need to bring the Helicopter.

Local newspaper said


Just before Barca-Manchester, Tom Pope interviews us, we talk rugby, we don't give a shit about music, it's less interesting than rugby (ASM lost vs Mont de Marsan 3 years ago as they'd been to cool) … Tom Pope remained silent about it. Tom Pope is cool, we recommend you his ITW's in a « so British » style, look at Cali's one, you'll laugh out loud, besides Tom's band is very good: The Elderberries.



On the music side, we'd been surprised by weird guys, one tennis-man dressed like Bjorn Borg the other one almost naked displaying his muscles insanely drumming. The venue is packed. We come from the side and could believe our ears: no sound coming from the stage. Weird as the guys seem playing and the audience is really into it, the sound is massive.

What is the trick? The Inspector Clouseau (the original one, not the rockers) got the trick. The band is using « Pro Tools » which is like TIC bass player: a ghost musician. Pro tools is a software playing back pre recorded tracks during the show making people think that a lot of musicians are playing. This cheating method is becoming more and more common in the live scene. You just dress a fancy way to catch people's attention so that they don't realize what's really going on. We are not totally against this method but when it is just to cheat people and not just add a touch to the music, we think that is too much. (like in bands such The Do, Ting Tings, The Kills). At a moment musicians have to learn how to play their instrument and not just faking on stage. Like in a rugby match, at a moment you have to tackle and not just run with the ball.

Anyway, we thank Didier Veillault for his welcoming and his good festival showing that it is possible to combine big commercial bands and new bands.

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04/06 Juvigny "Moissons Rock"
Longest sound-check world championship

Chapter 1
New world longest sound-check record: Luke!

Congratulation to Luke who took 4 hours to sound-check being the new French record so the world record as only French bands are doing very long sound-checks. We've been impressed. A very nice show especially appreciated by the Bobos. If you have the opportunity to see it: go!



What takes 4 hours to check? Well, all is about bothering everybody, proving you exist and not saying hello to everyone. The purpose is to impress people.
How can you do? Easy. You just take your time setting up, polishing your instrument then you take a lunch break (you loose 1 hour) then you call the musician individually, 1 by 1 and if you are a guitar player it takes even more time as you have effect pedals. Indeed, depending on the temperature and moisture of the hall, you need to check and check again all pedal, etc. Then you're ready to play a hazardous Hendrix cover to show people you can do it especially when you play some kind of cool french rock later at night. Then comes the lead singer who dares to say « let's check the lead vocal now, that's the most important, isn't it? ». So impressive, smart way of doing sound-check. Congratulation to Luke then for this long sound-check. Ah, French Rock!!!


TIC gigs are not boring...

Chapter 2:
Les Fatal Picards are like the French Bastards (which means nice)

Although they played 1, 2 songs with tracks (they apologized for that), this band is good. You would like it or not but they are good musicians and one of the rare French band singing French songs and being popular without behaving like rock stars. They take care of their business themselves, are very good in after show parties. Go and check them as soon as you can...

here is Gascony flag...

Chapter 3
The « Champenois » hospitality.

Those guys have been friends for 15 / 20 years and decided to organise a festival with the experience of touring so they know how to welcome a band on tour.
We had lunch under the trees, We played ping-pong and lost vs a young local champion girl. We met a guy looking like Frank Zappa, wearing a Stade Français rugby (team from Paris) Tee shirt. Hopefully he's nice. Food is very good, home made (check the TIC/Maïté guide) and Champagne is for everyone (we are in the region of the Champagne). It’s good to see that such festivals still exist next to big commercial ones.

Thank you Laurent and your team, we won't forget !

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10/06 Saint-Brieuc “Art Rock”
The Tramway Complex or the « l’anti-Foncia » Festival

You can hardly find festivals taking place in the center of towns. Don't bother Bobos. It's better to build tramways everywhere and to narrow roads to prevent people from driving down town, replacing small shops by banks or insurance companies. That's the English/us way of doing, town centers become clean museums. Architects sell the project to mayors, all is the same from Berlin to Barcelona, everybody feels like at home then. Snow, sun are not under control yet but soon be using a non-polluting AC. In such cities you'll be able to eat ripe tomatoes in January, you'll chat on Facebook with your new friends who had a success story as the rest of people would have been thrown out from the center, rents being too expensive. This make people loan money from banks for 25, 30 years to buy very low quality houses which start cracking 10 years later. At the end, who wins? You have a beautiful town center only for Bobos with nice tramways whereas people lives outside.



Hopefully in Saint-Brieuc, the festival takes place in the center as streets are too small to build tramways. This makes the town center live at least once a year, it's nice, stages are right in the center, that is a big party like at « Fêtes de la Madeleine » (Mont-de-Marsan party happening mid July). That's why we call it « l'anti-Foncia » festival. We wish les « Transmusicales » could take place back in the town center as it used to be and so many more festivals. That would make live town centers again hence be good for its economy.

Art Rock is an urban festival, Saint-Brieuc is not far from Paris so you can find there a lot of Bobos there for the weekend. In the club we play, you can find a sample of the french population: Bobos at the balcony drinking champagne, some music businessmen drunk, tired trying to criticize all bands and be respected to the others, and some 30 years old rockers in the mosh pit ready to rock.



The 1st band is the Raveonettes, a giant Danish woman who only laughs when she gets her finger burnt with very good looking Danish musicians, very nice tight hair cut, long pointed shoes. They behaved like rock stars not saying hello to anyone and using our friend: Pro tools (you know the playback) on stage. You'd feel like at a Chanel fashion show. The journalist from « Liberation » will write that they burnt the stage and be far better than the other bands he probably was not at the same gig-. This guy should be one of those who had been said being not a true journalist at Europavox writing bullshit.



The next band was Is Tropical, another band playing with tracks behind, always good looking guys followed by his audience deeply into it with similar weird hair cut ;-) We could see Arno from Run Ar Puns being bored by the band may that's because of the Armagnac?

We understood that it will be hard to touch all the audience so we did the show not softly insulting Bobos at the balcony drowning into the Champagne. We read funny Bobo remarks of the gig the next day. We posted some on our Facebook, well appreciated by our fans...



End of the gig at 4am, the production office calls us saying that Brian Ferry bass player really dug the show... Waouw, hard time if a bass player likes our music
;-)

Thank you Art Rock, we had good fun, but stop booking bands playing with play-backs, the journalist from « Liberation » will start loving your festival so will the Bobo which is not good for a festival. Mission complete: no tramways in Saint-Brieuc.

Little video by Le Télégramme de Brest

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24/06 Evreux "Le Rock Dans Tout Ses Etats"
Blow the Racecourse up and build up a rugby field

Two years ago, the audience in Evreux showed us that is was worth pushing more the French market. It was so special that at the end, some fans brought some local cheese to taste! So we decided this time to make it special too and bring the Mates (horns, keyboard and percussions) like we did last December at Transmusicales.


Cheese plate after the gig!

Let's go back to the previous week. The horns section arrived on the Monday to work on the new TIC album and record some parts. We welcome them with Magrets de canards (duck breast), some St Mont, Madiran red wine and obviously l'Armagnac. They took 2 more kilos in 1 week
;-)

Then comes Mr Stephan Kraemer (TIC album mixer and producer) who sometimes plays the Keyboard live with the Mates, just for fun. He's Belgio-German, so got all qualities of Germans (efficiency in studio, squared) and the way of thinking of the Belgians full of sarcastic intellectual humour. Belgium makes us think about the French College education where all need to be intellectually argued. So if Belgium was a part of France, we would have to let Belgians work in our school and college...

Comes Mr Chausson, the most Parisian of the Mates who will get very quickly used to the Gascony values: eating well, drinking well only good quality products. We even spend some times at « le Cafe Music) to rehearse a little bit. It's weird to have some guys playing in your back.


So the Mates are all here wearing a Stade Montois beret!

Lunch are at « le Festin de Pierre » in Mont de Marsan, very good little restaurant, lunch only for 10 euros all included (glass of wine, cafe and a delicious dish). In Mont-de-Marsan you can find restaurants like this one: Humble, good, cheap.



As says Michel (Michael) Lacrouts, Malcolm's father « if you eat bad in Mont-de-Marsan, that means you're an asshole ». Music is getting together quickly as the Mates are good musicians, not like us so we can finish the day « à l'apéro » followed by a good diners.

Back to Evreux
The gig was very good, we dedicated some moments to the Evreux rugby team and helped them saying to the crowd to blow the racecourse(the venue) up to build a rugby field. We thank Evreux audience who supported us a lot making Razorlight feeling weak. Hedi, stop bringing bands like that, they are expensive, not that good and far from Muse or Radiohead. You can find bands as good in other countries than England. We see you soon Evreux, we really appreciated this independent festival (one of the French biggest).


Stade Montois meets lAC Rugby Team of Evreux !


We had an ITW with OUI FM (big French radio station, coming soon), and another one with the Ferarock (French indie radio association)... nice !

Lastly, here what people thought about Razorlight? :-)