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My name is Jean-Charles Crave (or JC) and I'm the guitarist of Men from Mars.
I've been playing guitar since I was 12. I learned my first few chords at the Institut Terrefort and a year later when I moved to the "Foyer des Templiers" in Bordeaux, I met some very good musicians there, much older than I was and who taught me a lot. A very informal way to learn... Jimy Hendrix and Jimmy page were our gods as much as Carlos Santana & Pete Townshend, but also Django Reinhardt and Andrés Segovia...
I played with various bands since then. The first one being "Les Quidams" in the south of France in 1976/77. Amongst other things, we played at the Mont de Marsan Festival in 1977.
We opened the second day of the festival. After us, bands like the Damned, Clash, Doctor Feelgood, Eddy and the Hot Rods and even The Police played. In fact, as far as I know, it was the last time The Police played in public as a 4 piece band. Henry Padovani left them after that (or was he asked to leave?) and Andy Summers was the undisputed victor... Years later in London, I was working as a chef in a restaurant called "Le Cellier Du Midi" in Hampstead where Sting used to live. He was a regular of the restaurant and use to have dinner there regularly. It was something I always resented, after all in 1977 we played on the same stage at the same festival and now I was cooking for the man... Unfair or what?
Well, maybe not so unfair, after all he is a genius. A pain in the neck perhaps, but still a genius!
On the poster you can see, amongst other groups, that The Jam is listed. But those guys were so up themselves that they refused to play in the evening because they were scheduled before The Clash and they thought that they were bigger stars and they ought to play after The Clash! We were a few of the lucky ones who saw them rehearsing in the morning when each band (including us) had to do a sound check. I used to like them until then. Pretentious little shits...
This is a poster of the Festival
(Merci Rock en Stock!)
Then, years later I moved to Toulouse where I met some other unfortunate musicians from a band called "L'Aiguade". They were real Baba cool as we used to call them, not really my cup of tea! The band had already released an album, but continuous bickering got the better of them. I was glad to leave the sinking boat. Some of them were members of a weird  cult, they used to call themselves Elohim!!! They were waiting for some UFO to come back to earth or something. It makes me shiver just thinking that I was part of it for a short time!
An then I had to play "la Baloche". Terrible circuit of cover bands playing in small towns for hours on end every Saturday night, all the crap that the radio stations thought was worthy of the masses! It was the end of my stint as a musician in France. Now it was time to go and call it day... Hello England!
Chansons pour que fleurisse le geranium?
I rest my case...
When I moved to England, I thought that maybe in the country where every man and his dog was a muso, (or so I thought), I could meet other musicians easily and play good music. It wasn't to be! Maybe it was my accent, but at every audition I went to, I got the "Don't call us, we'll call you" treatment.
I'm not paranoid but after a while I started to think that I wasn't good enough and I'd better do something else. So I went into photography...
Mind you, it's because I was playing guitar that I met my first wife Kathy in London, but that's another story... worthy of a few sad songs!
So, eventually we moved to Australia, land of Men at Work. It had to be good! And it was... The first thing I did though, was to move to bass guitar. There is only a ratio of one bass player for every 20 guitarists, so I thought that it would help me find work, and it did! And as a bass player, I played in few bands in Sydney, most notably "Lighthouse" and "The Untouchables".
Lighthouse
Great fun, but little money. I suppose that if money is important, then music isn't an option (unless you're called Mick Jagger or Paul Mac something, but that's just jealousy on my part).
The Untouchables
And eventually I thought that the best way to be in the best possible band, was for me to be each member. Meaning that if I wanted to keep control of what was happening, I had to play bass, drums, guitar and keyboard. That's when, I met the almighty Macintosh... Future generation will no doubt rename the new age of the world as BC and AD (Before Computers and After Digital).
I finally found musicians who never said anything bad to each other, who always knew their stuff, were never drunk and always on time. I discovered Cubase...
And so in 1998, I released my first and only album called Colour. Created, produced and burned by me, me and only me!
 
I know it's far from perfect, but I'm still pretty proud of it...
There are a couple of songs you can listen to if you want, one (Orange) is from the CD Colour but due to the length of it, I only put the beginning of it here, the other one is new and is complete but a lot larger.
Orange (MP3) and Arrivée (MP3)
And the future? Well, I haven't done much the last 10 years. I tinkered a bit with Garage Band, but it's still playing with a machine and I had enough of that. And I've also switch back to the six string guitar, my first love.
I've joined the "Men From Mars" a few month ago and it's great fun...
My new baby, a Gibson 333
Never look for bargains on eBay,
ortherwise you might end up with a brand new guitar...
A Gibson Les Paul Studio for instance!
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