Le Franco Phoney

Okay, okay, so it might offend some people to put a drug-wrecked singer, who has probably hacked off his fellow/ex- band members from both Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver more than most singers, in the same category as someone as creative, innovative and talented as David Bowie. But to be honest, I think Scott Weiland has those same qualities and could be so much greater if he just laid off the drugs. And Bowie certainly has had his fair share in the past anyway. Weiland has sneak-previewed two of tracks from his up-coming second solo album and I just can’t help thinking of David Bowie when I listen to these two songs. I think it’s the combination of melody, chords and production, together with Weiland’s singing style in Paralysis more than in Missing Cleveland, that reminds me of Bowie.

Anyway, I know it’s completely off my usual topics, but it had to be said. Maybe the lovely people at RadioMeuh here in La Clusaz will start playing his stuff…

July 14 — Bastille Day — in France is just like Guy Fawkes day in the UK: it involves a ridiculous amount of fireworks, entertainment for the kids, a variety of home-fireworks-related injuries, and it has something to do with independence from the monarchy.

I headed down to Annecy early and managed to go wakeboarding before the festivities began. While we were on the lake, we saw a windsurfer: a rare sight on the calm Lake Annecy.

Before the fireworks began, the kids (including us big ones) were kept entertained with wandering minstrels playing various household items as drums and rollerbladers in crazy outfits, along with fire-throwing clowns and an Indian band with twinkling costumes. The fireworks were the typical mixture of some really brilliant or pretty explosions slotted in between a range of mediocre ones, which leads me to wonder why anyone bothers with the ’stocking filler’ standard fireworks when they could just do ten minutes of amazing stuff and save everyone about half an hour of staring at a sky filled with the same old same old.

When the fireworks finished, the ‘party’ began. This mostly involved teenagers trying not to take their eyes out while lighting bangers and other small fireworks in amongst a crowd of people watching a band on the makeshift stage in the park by the lake. I took a photo of the band. They sounded like a German Octoberfest band but they looked far cooler with their green laser lights. They even managed to attract some dolphin balloons along to watch. We went for ice cream instead.

This weekend marked the annual Fete de la Musique — a national day of music in France. I headed down to Annecy with my camera, ready to snap some of the lovely ambiance that’s so much easier to describe with pictures than of words. Alas, my camera battery had run out because I had been taking photos of the moon the night before (pictured - spooky!).

So, here’s a description in words instead. Annecy was packed with locals, tourists, and even a few hens’ nights (complete with sparkly hats/bunnies ears/t-shirts with names on them), and as the sun went down, the party atmosphere increased. There were 22 stages and some wandering minstrels. It was a hot night. I think the ice cream shops were busier than the pubs. My friend and I watched Spanish flamenco dancers dance to a band that really didn’t sound Spanish to me. We saw a teenage group that consisted of:

• a singer/guitarist who had the facial blankness of Marilyn Manson, the hairstyle of Russell Brand and a fair bit of talent on lead guitar and vocals;
• a girl bassist with an amazing voice and no specific ‘look’ apart from slightly nerdy in a bad way;
• a guitarist who wanted to be in a metal band but was not; and,
• the singer’s dad on keyboards — their drum machine.

Despite not having a real drummer and being forced to play music from the dad’s teenage years (’Stairway to Heaven’ era, apparently), they sounded professional. In fact, they sounded better than the metal band we saw on another stage.  They were alright, but the singer wanted to sing death metal while the others wanted to play hair metal. Not all was lost: four little girls — all under 10 years old — were standing at the side of the stage like groupies, watching the rather cute singer, and two of the girls had a go at headbanging. It was glorious! In fact, they seemed better at headbanging than one of the band members, who recovered his coolness by taking off his t-shirt to appease screaming teenagers in the mosh pit. The fact that a mosh pit was happening in the centre of Annecy was pretty surprising in itself, but hearing girls scream at the sight of a six-pack-hiding-underneath-the-layer-of-flab chest just topped it off.