N°100 T.C. MATIC - OH LA LA LA

T.C. Matic is a band which existed between 1980 and 1986 and is a Belgian rock band which produced quite a few hits. The best known founder of the band is Arnaud ‘Arno’ Hintjens who produced numerous albums with bands such as T.C. Matic, Tjens Couter, Freckleface and under his stage name Arno. He and Jean-Marie Aerts composed most of the T.C. Matic’s songs which was a bit normal since they continued from their former band Tjens Couter. 

Tjens Couter stood for Tjens from hinTJENS and Couter from Paul DeCOUTERe, a two man band from Ostend who continued the very first band both played in: Freckleface. But since the two of them didn’t get along very well over the years the Couter part of the band left and Jean-Marie Aerts joined in Tjens Couter, later reformed to T.C. Matic. They decided to use the initials of their old band’s name and add Matic to it so they could make a clean restart. Matic is for a mutual interest in the Serbian poet Doosan Matic. Three more musicians completed the setup: Serge Feys, Ferre Baelen and Rudy Cloet.

At the time in the early eighties T.C. Matic was mainly influenced by new wave and rock and the lyrics varied from the local Ostend dialect to the global English and French. They were a unique band with a unique style and a unique frontman and in six years’ time they produced four studio albums starting with T.C. Matic in 1981 (hit: Oh La La La), ‘lApache in 1982, Choco in 1983 (hit: Putain Putain and If You Wanna Dance, Dance, If You Don’t, Don’t) and Yé Yé in 1985. Although having a pretty strong live reputation it seized to exist after a final tour with Simple Minds in 1986. After T.C. Matic, Arno chose a successful solo career. He still performs the old T.C. Matic hits on all his shows. I believe his fans would be mad at him if he didn’t.

I’ve seen him live once at Werchter Rock festival in 2004 and at the time I wasn’t fond of the performer Arno Hintjens but I can remember that he ruled the crowd. Unfortunately for him he was warming up for the final act of that night: Metallica. And I’m a huge Metallica fan and it would be my first show of them so did I care about Arno? Nope. Next time I’ll pay more attention and enjoy more. That’s a promise.

Oh the link with Shakira is a personal one. I still remember me and Jim, a friend of mine, standing in a video rental store and watching one of Shakira's first music video's on one of the tv screens hanging there. We looked at each other and both thought the same: 'Oh la la la, she's yummie'