Saint Rose Records

Pleased to announce that DAVID J (BAUHAUS / LOVE AND ROCKETS / THE JAZZ BUTCHER) be releasing a limited edition record on St. Rose Records this fall!! More info to follow soon… in the meantime, check out David’s Mailing list HERE

May 28th, 2010
Categories: Saint Rose Releases . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

EJW has a fantastic new record out on MILAN records, and you should buy it from her at one of these upcoming gigs! Of course, you can always pick up your copy of Emily’s first album DARK UNDERCOAT on LP or CASSETTE in our St Rose STORE

May 25th, 2010
Categories: Tour Dates . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

the conclusion!  Thanks again to Tim for letting us post this!

And, ahem, make  sure to pick up White Bread Blues HERE.

And now the last 4 days…..

We failed to get a Scorpions song together at soundcheck in Hannover. Whatever. The show tonite is at a small punk club and we are not sure what kind of turnout there will be as this show and the next show were both booked fairly last minute. The owner is very cool and says he is very happy to have us and had a really great meal prepared for us. Just as we are finishing eating in the dressing room, our good friend Mike Branum shows up with 2 of his friends. Mike is an old bay area friend of ours who used to drum in a few punk bands that played with VF now and again and he met a girl from Bremen and they married and he decided to move there. He was at the show in Amsterdam but since he lives only 80km from Hannover, he came tonite as well and the 2 dudes with him are the guys in his new band. As fortune has it, the planned opening act for us tonite cancelled due to one of the members being sick. Hey guys, guess what? You are our new opening band! The guys all laugh and say they have only been a band for 2 weeks and only have 3 songs loosely written and still have not even named the band. So. Your are still the opening band for VF tonite! They agree to play on our gear and we all try to find a name for them. Let’s see…. Muslim Fever? Creamy Powder? Dopey and the Shoot Em’ Ups? Ralph has come up with the one that they ended up using which is Yankee Sandwich! 2 Germans and 1 American make a Yankee Sandwich. You get it.
They go on and play their 3 songs and we all get right in front and hoot and holler for them and they are actually really good! Mike is playing bass too which I have never seen and totally rocks! After they are done we all give them a big congratulatory hug and scream Yankee Sandwich until we start our set.
Once again we blast through the same set of everything we know and at the end, we find that this set that took us almost 2 hours to play is now reduced to an hour and a half by way of not stopping between most of the songs! I suppose we might have to learn 10 more songs! Haha! The crowd was about 100 people and everyone seemed to enjoy it and there is the usual bunch of people freaking out. After the insane night in Amsterdam, it takes me till about the 6th song to start feeling in the groove.
After the show we are asked by the club owner to do a ceremonial shot of German liquor. Larry and I partake and it is some little bottle of a Jagermeister style liquor. But, there is a routine that we must follow to do the shot. First, we roll the bottle in our hands to give it warmth. Then, with the label facing out, we remove the little cap and attempt to throw it in the mouth of the promoter and he does his cap to one of us. We all miss. Then, with the label out, we hold the bottles up and clink them together in a toast and make yodel like noises and put the bottle in our mouths and tip our heads back and drink the shot without the use of our hands which must be out from our sides like wings. Once the shot is drunken the bottle is placed on the table laying on it’s side with the label up. Ok! We all have a fun last hang with Mike and his band and after a few beers it’s time to grab our bags and walk down the street to a small apartment the club owner has for bands to sleep in. It has 2 rooms with lots of bunk beds and is very comfortable. We finish the last few beers and finally get to sleep.

The next morning Ralph and I were suddenly awoken to a mighty crash as Robert was attempting to get down from the top bunk he was sleeping in, but the ladder was not secured to the bed frame and being that he is a big dude, the ladder slipped out from under him from his weight and he smashed on the floor next to my bed! He says he is fine and goes to the bathroom. When he returns I get up and use the toilet and when I return Ralph and him are laughing because apparently when he tried to climb back up to the bunk it happened again! Once we all showered we follow the same routine of returning to the venue to grab our gear and head to Berlin. Before we leave we all get online one last time and Larry pulled out his digital camera and looks through his photos. He discovers that he somehow has an amazing few photos of me face down in the street in Amsterdam when I fell off Jerome’s bike! Haha! We all laugh out loud and Larry says he doesn’t remember taking them! Yes, I will post it when I get it from him next week….
In the van on the motorway, Yana asks Robert where he came up with the name ‘Gate To Hell’ for his gear rental company. His story went something like this:
He acquired his first van back in the early 90’s and it was a shitty beat up van that was not registered and was due for a mandatory smog inspection which he knew it would not pass. So he took a hair dryer to another vehicles’ license plate and removed both the registration and smog pass stickers and glued them on his newly acquired shitty vans’ license plate and sent it out on punk tours. At one point he rented the van to an American band and he went along as the driver and roadie for a 4 week tour of Europe. The bass player is a girl who has the idea that you will not get sick on tour if you eat garlic every day and wash it down with Vodka. So all the time she is buying and ingesting said garlic and vodka. 3 weeks into the tour, which is in August and the weather is boiling hot, they decide to stop at some monument of sorts in Germany on a short drive to their next gig. They get out of the van and the girl grabs some garlic, which, currently, is whole cloves in garlic oil in a glass jar. She eats a few cloves and puts the jar on the vans’ bench seat and swills some Vodka then throws the vodka bottle in and slams the door. They walk to the monument which Robert says takes up about 3 hours of their time. They return to the van, which Robert says is painted black(which he did himself with house paint and a roller brush) and most certainly is at the approximate temperature of a sauna. They open the door to find the vodka bottle had smashed the garlic jar when the girl threw it in and for 3 hours the garlic oil has been cooking into the cloth of the bench seat! The smell was so bad he said it was like a yellow cloud of nerve gas was in the van and even with all the windows down your eyes would water and the smell would not go away! The third day of this the girl was getting in the van knowing the awful scenario they all were about to have to endure again and she said to Robert “We have surely entered the Gate To Hell!”

After a few stops searching for food on the freeway which on European van tours is called a “Knife and Fork” stop or as I call it the ‘Fork and Spoon” stop. This is because the gas stations along the freeways most times have a restaurant and the sign on the freeway to indicate this is simply a picture of a knife and fork crossed.
We arrive at the gig and it is a tiny punk rock club. And I do mean tiny! The promoter says he expect a full house tonight at a peak capacity of 150 people.
The opening band is a super fast hardcore band called Scheisse Minelli. Scheisse translates to ’shit’ in English. They are really cool dudes and the singer is actually from Oakland and his brother was at our show in San Francisco last month. They sound like a cross between D.R.I., RKL, and old Suicidal Tendencies. The drummer was insane and played a million miles an hour. We went to the tiny dressing room in the back of the club and there was a case of beer in the fridge and some home cooked food that did not look like something that would satisfy my hunger pang. As it turns out, I’m glad I did not attempted to eat it because Larry did and he said it was old and turning! Yuck! We took our bags to the apartment we were staying in later and went to a restaurant that was down the street called Tiki Heart. It’s a really cool rock n roll tiki place next to another punk club. I ordered the Lemmy burger which was about as I was expecting a European burger to be, over cooked and meatloafy.
We return to the gig to find it full of people and extremely smoky. Scheisse Minelli is now on and in full speed punk mode. They were really good and I dug them! We squeezed back to the little room to put an hour setlist together as that is all the time we were allowed to play and I opened the fridge to look for a water and to my surprise there is only 1 beer left. Those guys drank a whole case of beer in about 40 minutes before they played and are playing music twice as fast as us! Haha! Wow. I can’t do a VF set if I drink one beer before.
We get our stuff set up and get started just after 11 and have be done at 12, no exceptions. Once again, we all give the ‘no stopping’ high sign and get started. By the time we get to the end, which this set has 31 songs on it not including the 4 times we played the speed punk song at the end, we managed to only stop 3 times the entire set! By the 4th Stupid Hardcore Song the monitor dude turned us off and turned the house music on. Gig over. We pack up the gear and have the standard hang and chat with the fans, say goodbye to the Sheisse Minelli dudes, and head over to the apartment and go to bed.

In the morning we returned to Tiki Heart for a rock n roll breakfast then set off for Poland. I have not been back to Poland since the very first VF Europe tour 21 years earlier. Being that my great grandfather and great grandmother on my fathers side are from Poland, it’s cool to know I will be in the land of my peoples again! It will be cool to see how it has changed after all these years as when we were there in 1989, the Berlin Wall was still up and we had to basically lie at the border and sneak in pretending to be on holiday. On holiday? To Poland?? In 1989??? Right. They let us in and VF played a crazy crowded show where the kids got let in early and were starting to mosh and were stage diving while we were setting up and sound checking! It was extremely crowded and nutty and there was a great deal of paid attendees but we were not able to keep the money because in 1989 Polish money was not exchangeable into any other currency. We tried to go the next morning to spend it on anything but everything was closed as it was a Sunday. We asked if we could buy some beer and/or some Polish vodka as a souvenir but there was no alcohol to be sold this day, which you normally could do on a Sunday, except this particular Sunday was the eve of a big political election and the government refused alcohol for sale to be sure everyone was as sober as possible when they voted the next morning! So we all grabbed a few of the lower denomination bills as souvenirs and handed the giant stack of cash to the show promoter. He will be at the show tonight so it will also be cool to see him as well.
As we approached the border to Poland, we all got our passports out as we were not sure what to expect at the crossing. There was no need to stop as the crossing gates were defunct and closed. As soon as we passed this, the road immediately became 10 times worse and the van was bouncing us all over. Very funny but not very comfortable!
We arrive at the gig and it is a squat. Meaning the building was abandoned and the inhabitants are living there rent free. These are cool because the people who run them are punk DIY minded and they turn these abandoned buildings into community center type places with a concert venue, sleeping quarters, a restaurant and bar, band rehearsal spaces, etc.
We are very thankful to CRK for giving us the opportunity to play to say the least as this show was a last minute booking as well. We set up in the concert hall, which is a long, small, concrete room and do a soundcheck which is very trying due to the fact that VF is an extremely loud band to begin with, coupled with a concrete tube of a room and a PA system to make it even louder. In these situations we try to mostly make sure Ralph can hear himself sing so he doesn’t blow out his already blown out voice. After an hour of getting through this process, we decide it’s as good as it’s going to get and finish the soundcheck. The promoter dude says “ok, so you start in 5 minutes, ok?”. Ok. About 40 or so people are let in and we start playing at a deafening level.There are some ecstatic fans and we roll on through the set. By the end there are probably only 10 people left watching and I completely understand why because I myself would not be able to stand in this room and watch a band play as loud and furious as we do!
We pack up al the gear and hang out in the courtyard and have beers and talk with some of the people. I am amazed at how well everyone speaks english.Robert and I found a bench and sat and laughed and talked until it was getting on towards 4am. The evening ends with me and Yana talking drunkenly over our last beer and we decide we must get to sleep. Yana disappears and to where I am not sure. I suddenly realize I need to find the room with the sleeping accommodations but I can’t seem to locate it. I go to the floor of the building where i remember seeing it but the door is closed and there is a padlock on it. I open a few other doors but they are all peoples living quarters so I eventually find a blanket and flop down on the couch in the kitchen area on the 3rd floor. I am woken by one of the girls from the squat who informs me she is about to lay out a breakfast for everyone and I cannot sleep there anymore. No problem. I get up and return to said padlocked door because I am certain that is the sleeping room and sure enough, it is. The padlock on the door is locked to the latch, not locking the door shut! So I lie down on a bed and sleep a few hours more. When I awake, Robert is next to me and he tells me that Yana had tried to climb out of the bunk above us last night and fell off the ladder and crashed to the floor! WTF! It is becoming a trend to fall off things on this tour!
We all meet in the kitchen area and have some food and coffee then we pile in the van and head out for Tabor in the Czech Republic for the last show which is with Nomeansno at our friend Chris’ place for his birthday party.

We make our way past Prague and down the windy roads to Tabor. When we arrive at the gig we are a bit late but Nomeansno are still sound checking. We say hi to Hillary, who is the drummer in Sabot which is also Chris birthday boy’s band and we set up for our soundcheck. There has been an email sent out by Chris to us and to NMN with a few of his favorite song requests and one of the songs that is on both emails is Manic Depression by Jimi Hendrix. NMN actually have a recorded version of this song on one of their early albums and we used to play it when I first joined the band. One time when we played with NMN in Guerneville, CA, they started their encore with it and we came on stage and kicked them off their gear mid song and proceeded to finish it! We failed to try to play it this week but are asked by Hillary if all the bands can do a ’super jam’ with everyone at the end of the show for Chris. Heck yes we can! No brainer is for us and NMN to play Manic Depression with the other 2 bands joining in however they would like. The first band to play tonight is a band from Japan called Le*silo. They are a 3 piece band with a girl who plays piano and sings and makes noises with her voice. They also have a drummer and a guitar player. They are absolutely incredible. Total mash of all kinds of music ala advant guard and direction changes at every moment. I am particularly stoked to meet and talk with them after their performance as you all know my obsession with Japan.
The line up order has been modified and we are on next and we make plans to leave my drums set up with mics and our amps pulled to the side but not removed for the surprise ending jam. I have a copy of the blistering set list from Berlin and we decide to play that as it was pretty spot on 1 hour long which is the amount of time we are allotted to play. Away we go! 34 songs and we only stopped once. No joke! It was amazing. The best part about it is that 3 of the super fans that were at the show in Paris, have driven 10 hours today to see us play! Talk about a moment of redemption! We dry off in the dressing room after and then head back downstairs to see the next band which is called Freewomension from Cuba. They are a kooky mix of dudes led by a poet singer who ‘orchestrates’ the “music” as he recites poetry. The main and only instruments they play is a table that has 4 beat up typewriters that have mics on them and a dude that generates sounds from a pedalboard of guitar effect boxes. Le*silo sits in with them and are part of the show. The singer is very tall and comes on stage wearing speedo underwear and a t shirt! It is complete organic made up on the spot mayhem! One of the typewriter dudes has been, and is always wearing a soup pot on his head! It is indescribable what the sound was they were creating.
Up next is Nomeansno and they waste no time tearing through their set and rocking the packed room of around 600 people. I stood by the t shirt table for a bit and chatted with a few fans and all of them were sure to comment on how we did not stop during our set and how incredible we were. Also at the gig is our old friend Dr. Marcel who was our tour manager on every Europe tour we did. He and his wife are on holiday in Prague to coincide with coming to see us and it is so great to see him again! We all make our way to the side of the stage for the end jam and as I sit down on my drums, I notice they have removed all the micas and there is no monitor for me to hear whats going on. NMN count in and start Manic but I can’t hear anything with all the different people playing and simply give up and hand my drums over to Le*silo’s drummer. I bonked on a cowbell with Miyako as she banged on my backup snare drum then made my way to Johns kit and we both melted the song into a drum jam. Too much fun! After it’s all over we all retreat upstairs to the dressing rooms and talk and have a wonderful time hanging. Robert and Ralph took it upon themselves to pack up all the gear and load it in the van and then it’s time to head to Chris and Hillary’s house for the night. We arrive at Cesta and sit with NMN and all the people and bands and friends and drink beer and talk. I eventually made my way down to the kitchen and have a great talk of old times with Hillary then realize the sun is up and it’s 6:30am by now! Off to bed!

I wake up around 1 and we make a plan to walk to the town square of Tabor for food. We meet Marcel and Andrea there and have a much needed Italian lunch of pizza and Procciutto. We have plans to stay one more night at Cesta before I need to be at the airport so we head back after lunch. NMN are leaving so we say our goodbyes and trade VF vinyl for NMN t shirts and away they went. They will be playing gigs in Europe until the end of May.
Hillary gives the remaining 3 bands a tour of Cesta to show us how they have fixed the place up the last 20 years. It is super cool. Very old Czech farmhouse with lots of rooms and functional areas.
Robert and I started to hang back a bit as I was getting very tired and we were having a laugh about some daily reoccurring sayings we have been involved in. One is a line from Jerry Rigg that is going to be a JR T shirt eventually called “Drunken Retard Action Figures, Collect All 6!!” The other is the one Robert said after telling the story of the naming of Gate To Hell that is “You Cannot Make This Stuff Up, It Really Happened!” which is a good one because it pretty much sums up this tours daily happenings.
It’s getting close to 5pm and I retreat to my bed and take a nap until about 8pm. I totally missed the dinner Chris made but fortunately I planned ahead thinking this would be the case and devour the second half of my pizza from lunch. Again I have missed my chance to call home with the time difference being a total burden on me talking to home this trip. I take a shower and we all get our bags and things together for our 6am departure in the morning. I am toast! Thoroughly drained and ready for bed again, we say good bye to the Le*silo band and the Freewomension dudes and have a long goodbye with Hillary as Chris is already asleep. She informs us that the show was filmed with 3 cameras and recorded in HD and that they are going to release it once it’s edited. Wow! I cannot wait to get that and play it for everyone.
Robert and I scheme on starting our own ‘Drunken Retard Action Figure” website and it is time to try to sleep for 5 hours.

My alarm went off after what seemed like 2 minutes of sleep and we all get our stuff to the van where we meet Chris and say goodbye. He unlocks the gate and we race off for the Airport in Prague. Of course, as we all expected, we got stuck in the gnarly Monday morning traffic to the airport and I made it there just in time. My flight plans have been altered as I now need to travel straight to LA for work for 8 days. My 3rd flight to Sacramento is still booked so the airline dude has to jump through a bunch of hoops to cancel it and eventually hand writes my baggage tags to fly to Chicago. This I am a bit scared about. My oldest and my newest Joe Montineri snare drums are one of my checked bags! I have a 2 hour lay over to get it all sorted out so we shall see once I get to Chicago.
I arrive at the gate 2 minutes before boarding and only had time to grab a water and a bag of Haribo Gummi Bears and it was off to Frankfurt. Once we landed I walked as brisk as I do for about 3 miles throughout the airport and made it to the gate and walked right onto the plane as it was already boarding! 9 hours to Chicago.
Once I arrived in LA I grabbed my bags which made it fine and off to work.

It has been an incredible 2 weeks! Thanks to Yana, Robert, Chris and Hillary and Cesta, Torben, Cathrine, JW, Nomeansno, Yankee Sandwich, all the bands we played with, all the fans we got to hang with, all the awesome clubs and club owners who were more than hospitable, Gate to Hell, Fahrtwind Vans, and mostly to Ralph and Larry for rocking their asses off with me! We hope to get back again soon.

soya

May 5th, 2010
Categories: Tour Dates . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

Thanks to Tim Solyan for letting us post this here.

Stay tuned for part 2….and in the meantime, pick up Victims Family’s WHITE BREAD BLUES LP in the St Rose STORE

It doesn’t seem like it was such a long time ago, but it was indeed 15 years ago I swore an eternal oath to myself. After the most heinous tour as a tour manager in a van with a teenage Emo band, I set in stone to myself that I would NEVER tour in a van again unless I was playing the drums. I have successfully stuck to my plan and it has been an amazing career the last 15 years touring in busses and on planes.
Flash forward to today and here I am, in a van, in Europe, on tour. But most importantly, I am the drummer!! Yes! Victims Family have been offered a gig in Czech Republic to play a birthday party for an old friend of ours from San Francisco who is turning 50 on the 1st of May. The gig included free airfare for us to get there! So, being that we have been casually gigging again, we went ahead and booked a mini tour to go with it. Unfortunately, due to my pressing work schedule, I was only able to afford a 2 week gap of time to do this. Regardless of it being brief, the fact remains that we are going to be doing the first VF tour in Europe with me on drums in 16 years! Wow. Has it really been that long? Yes, it has. 1994 was the last tour I did with this band on the Headache Remedy 2nd Europe leg.
Once we got the confirmation in place, the tour began to be booked. And in true VF fashion, there were no days off in the schedule. 9 shows in 9 days. The first show being on the day after we arrive. There was even talk of playing the very evening we stepped off the plane but that is just a bit too insane. To get ourselves ready for this, we squeezed in a few shows in the bay area.
We played an amazing show with Nomeansno in Petaluma and an insanely amazing show with Alice Donut and Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Things were coming together! We were sounding as good as ever in my book! The feedback from gig attendees was all amazing and positive! I think that knowing we had a new tour booked on the horizon, it was time to shift past the ‘reunion’ attitude gear and into the ‘were a band and were here to kick ass’ gear.
Also at this moment, we are re-releasing our 3rd record on vinyl with the help of our good friend Gerry from The Last Record store and his own label Saint Rose Records.
White Bread Blues 20th Anniversary Edition. Wow!
We booked a gig in SF at the Bottom of the Hill to celebrate the release. The show was packed and we put together a setlist of almost 40 songs. It was amazing! The crowd was stoked, we were rocking better than ever, and we had the new WBB in blue vinyl again! By the end, we played 42 songs in all. Jello came to me after to say hi and his quote was “I find it very hard to believe that you guys have only rehearsed a few times for this”. Haha! It’s true. I think we only managed 2 rehearsals that week and had not played at all the previous 2 months.
We did one more gig before the tour in Sacramento just before our departure date and it was equally as rad! I made the mistake of posting a joke stating we would be doing 50 songs for this gig. Of course everyone took the pleasure in demanding it to be fulfilled. With no rehearsals to be had, we ended up kicking out 47 songs that evening. It went close to the 2 hour range and was a true test to both the band and the fans.

April 21st. The day has arrived. Only one problem, the Volcano that has been erupting in Iceland. All air travel to England and Europe has been 100% shut down due to the cloud of ash that supposedly is blanketing the skies. This went on for the 5 days before our departure date and we were not sure we were going to even get there! Fortunately, the day before we were to leave, the airports began opening up again. My flight was never cancelled or re booked so I was very hopeful I would make it. Ralph, Larry, and Yana(Larry’s girlfriend who will be coming along to hang and sell merchandise at the gigs) all had a different flight than mine out of SFO the same day. I got on my flight and made it to Chicago for my connection to Frankfurt. I called both Ralph and Larry to let them know I was all good to make it. They had not yet left for the airport as their flight was still a few hours away. “See you in Germany!” Off I went, not a problem to report of ash in the engines.
After getting my bags I exited customs and was pretty vague on who was going to meet me to take me to our friend Roberts place. No punker was there, no dude with a sign with my name on it, no one. Ok, no big deal. I had Roberts phone number so I signed on to the internet to Skype call him. Of course i had to do a few more important stops on the cyber highway before I phoned. Well one stop, to my Facebook account! Not really. It is the page that comes up when I open my browser. Before Skype opened up I notice that Larry had made a recent post. Hmmmm. That’s strange. They should be in the air flying to Paris at that moment. His post read that Ralph had made the flight but him and Yana were turned away and hoping to get the next flight. Uh oh! I immediately called Larry and he said that SFO was complete chaos and extremely crowded. They all waited in a huge line for 2 hours and right when they got to the front of the line, they announced they will only check in people who pre checked in online and had a print out. She then announced for said passengers to go “over here”. He said all of a sudden panic ensued and everyone dropped the ropes to hold line order and rushed for the counter the woman pointed to. It was now an angry, unorganized, shouting mob of people yelling and waving their prebook sheets in the air! Ralph had pre booked and had a sheet, but Larry had troubles with his computer and printer and he and Yana did not. Ralph got on the flight but Larry and Yana would have to wait until the next day to get on a flight at 12:15am and would arrive in Paris around 8:15pm, just in time to get to the first gig! Fingers crossed, I went on about my business at hand and trying to figure out where I was going and how was I getting there. I phoned Robert and woke him and his wife up as it was 6am in the morning. He told me he didn’t know I was coming in on a different flight and he lives 2 hours from Frankfurt in Dortmund. A taxi would cost €300($500!) and the train would be half that and take 4 hours. My best bet was to rent a car with a GPS and drive myself to his house. Oh, and that being the case, I could now stop by the t-shirt printing shop and pick up the VF t-shirts that were ready. Great. Now my expense for a car is a VF business venture meaning reimbursement on the cost.
Nothing like a little adventure to start off a VF tour! I procured my rental car and punched in the address of the printing shop and headed out. Having never used a GPS I was pretty excited to check it out and get rolling. It was amazing! The car was a cool new Mercedes and the GPS talked to me and gave me directions in a woman’s voice. If I did not have it, I would never in a million years with all the directions available made it to this printing shop! It was an insane route of twists and turns and u-turns to get there. But I did get there! And of course, the t-shirts were not even started yet and the guy at the shop said he was planning on them being done the next day, which was the day of our first show, in Paris! Out of my hands at this point. So I hopped back in the car and set sail for Dortmund on the Autobahn. Awesome! I had not driven in Europe since the 1994 tours. 2 and a half hours of racing along at around 90 miles an hour, which was slow compared to the cars that were speeding by me, and I arrived at Roberts house. He was not there but his wife Cathrine was. I had a very great mellow day hanging with her and their dog Kirkwood while Robert headed off to get Ralph and the t-shirts.
Once they returned, Cathrine laid out a very tasty meal for us all and it was time to get some sleep.

In the morning, Ralph, Robert, and I went down the street to where the rental equipment was. Robert owns the company and rents gear to bands all year all over Europe. Once in order, Torben showed up with our van and we loaded it all up and headed to Paris. 4 Hours drive and we arrived at the venue. A community center kind of place with a club in the back. We got there a bit late around 7pm. The opening band had all their gear set up on the stage. Ralph and I knew we had a lot of work to do with setting up our gear which we had not yet even seen outside the cases yet and get the merchandise table set up etc. We told the club guys to clear the opening bands stuff because we HAD to get the gear in order and try to do a quick soundcheck. They reluctantly did and we set about getting set up. As I was just getting the drums together, I kicked the kick drum a few times and was immediately shushed by the sound guy. He said there is to be absolutely NO noise until the show starts because of a dance studio upstairs that was in session. Uh, excuse me? Your kidding right? Nope. I got the drums half ass set up and wasn’t able to hit anything and we got the amps set up but couldn’t turn them on above whisper. Hopefully everything will be good. It was by now past 8pm and the show was starting at 9. Ralph and I got our laptops out and tried to find some Air France flight status info to see that Larry & Yana would be arriving on time. No luck. Could’t find an update page. Oh boy. Keep calm. A French friend of Ralph’s called the airline and found out the flight was delayed to land at around 8:40 and then he and Torben departed for the airport. We wrote a set list of about 35 songs and kept trying to check on Larry’s flight. 9pm, the show starts. The first band(which was a one man band) played and finished and our good friends from Marseille, Ed Mudshi(a two piece band), got started next. We were scheduled to start playing at 10, it was now 9:30 and still no Larry. At about 10 minutes to 10, Larry and Yana arrived! YEAH! Ed Mudshi finished their set just before 10. We hurriedly started setting up to try to make order of the gear and were informed we needed to get started asap as the live music needs to be done by 11pm. WHAT??? Nobody said that to us today. Great. By the time we were ready to start it was 10:15. Here we go, Europe tour starts… NOW! The monitors for us to hear ourselves were so bad we had to stop after the first song and try to communicate with the sound guy to get them more listenable. Larry’s amp was sounding extremely crappy and loudly distorted but not loud. The drums were a trick as I kept having to make micro adjustments at every moment and by the 5th song, Ralph’s amp started dying. We had a spare so he swapped them out. Finally back on track we rolled through about 4-5 more songs and almost felt like we were gonna get through the gig fine. Then the sound guy announces through the PA between the next songs “Last Song Merci”. You have got to be kidding me! Here we were in Paris for the first time in years and we barely have played 10 songs and were being told to end the set. So what do we do? In true VF antics, we tried to play as many songs as possible without stopping as a ‘last’ song. This is usually a great effective moment that we love to pull off but for some reason, the monitors and Larry’s amp became a wash of white noise for me. We would start a song and I had no idea where we were as the sound on the stage for me sounded like the TV on channel zero. Combined with jetlag, stressing on Larry arriving, broken equipment, and a shit monitor mix, we started falling apart at the seams. We barely got through a few more song with total stops and restarts before the PA got shut off and we were told ’shows over’. What a bummer. There was a great group of VF super fans that were going crazy through all the madness and they all hugged us and thanked us and said it was an amazing show. Wow. I was questioning my ability to to pull this tour off at that moment with the performance I had just given.
No use crying over spilled milk. We did have a few good moments that we felt were the saving grace. Time for a beer and some hang time with the friends and fans who came to see us. It is such an amazing feeling to be in other parts of the world and people come to see you play. And even more amazing is how insane some people are for you and your band. We could of played one song and walked off and these people would of thought it was the greatest thing ever! I kinda felt like thats what they got.
We set out after packing up the gear to the hotel we had for the night. A tiny little touristy place down the street. We checked in and a bunch of our friends came with us to a bar a few doors away. They were only opened in time for 1 beer so we had that and headed back to the hotel to get some of the beers we had from the gig. Being that the rooms were too small for 1 person to be in, we just hung out on the sidewalk and talked and laughed and had a few more beers. At one point two men came running around the corner towards us at an urgent pace. One of them came right up to our group and as we split for him to pass he very politely said “Merci”. Him and his buddy took a quick turn down an alley just as 2 policeman came running around the corner after them! We pointed to the alley and as they darted down it after the men, about 6 unmarked and marked police cars came screaming and skidding to a halt from all directions at the mouth of the alley. Cops bounded out of all the cars with radios in hand and flashlights shining as they all raced down the alley. We all stood there with beers in our hands speechless! The 2 dudes must have eluded the gang of cops cuz they eventually all came out of the alley with their tails between their legs and got back in their cars and left the scene. Alright, enough excitement for one day, it was time to get to bed. We had to get up kinda early to get to the airport to get to Barcelona in the morning. Goodnight Paris!

The next morning we loaded up the gear and Torben drove us to the airport. We managed to get stuck in a snails pace traffic jam the whole way there. We made it in time, said bye to Torben, checked in, and boarded the plane with just a few guitars, snare drums, and a bag of t-shirts to sell. A quick hour and a half flight and we landed in Barcelona! Hello Spain! We were met by a dude named David(pronounced Da-veed) and away we went. We passed right by the city of Barcelona and by the most insane grave area I have ever seen called ‘The City of the Dead” that was all along a rocky cliff. We soon arrived at David’s house which was in the northern suburb area called Badalona. His place was right on the beach front and was very beautiful! We went down the street and had some mexican food of all things which actually was the best mexican food we had all had in Europe.
Wow how things have changed!
David took us down to the gig, which he owned. A cool little punk rock kinda bar in a warehouse/bar district. Once again we had to get aquatinted with a fresh batch of rental gear and do a sound check. The drums were pretty trashed and the guitar amp wasn’t there yet and the power transformer for Ralph’s pedal board wasn’t working. Please, not again! I got the drums in order and did a line check. Sounded great! And, the monitors were kickin’! Larry’s amp worked and sounded like a bass amp this time. Ralph’s amp showed up just as the power transformer got fixed. Things were looking up! The soundcheck was great, the monitors were great, and we all were feeling like the gig was gonna be great! We all got together on the level that we needed to redeem ourselves as a band and rock the shit out of this place tonight. 2 bands opened. We all shared a little dressing room in the back where there was an insane layout of packaged sliced meats and salami and cheese and stuff.
Larry and I set about to get the setlist started and amongst the piles of all of ours and the other bands stuff in the little room, we searched for some paper or a flyer or whatnot to write said list. Larry said “here’s a piece” as he grabbed for an old flyer behind an amp and some jackets on the little table in the room. Just as he did it became apparent that there was a bunch of cocaine on and under the sheet but it was too late, most of it spilled on the floor and some on the table and the amp! HA! This explains why the two people I saw standing there earlier were acting kinda strange and mischievous when I entered the room! Larry placed the piece of paper back over the scattered remains of the blow and I went out to find other paper. When I returned with some, Larry was laughing and told me after I left, two of the opening band dudes came in and one of them snuck back to the table and found the displaced cocaine. He signaled his buddy to look too and they left the room. I told Larry he should of made a sniffling sound and rubbed his nose when they were walking out! It was also just then that Larry noticed some funny graffiti on the wall from a previous band that said “Surprise niggas, COLD CUTS!” Haha!!!
The first band was actually pretty good! They rocked their set then an all girl band played who also were rad! It’s very humbling on this tour and on previous tours that all the opening bands we play with all tell us how nervous and excited they are to be playing a show with us. Another indescribable feeling. We set up our gear and got started. There was a great feel in the air in the club as it was fairly full and right out of the gate the crowd was extremely excited and jumping up and down. We rolled on through as many songs as possible without stopping between them. Sometimes playing 5-6 songs connected. It was awesome! We did our new standard of about 40+ songs and I for one felt fully redeemed from the Paris gig. After the last song we gathered in the dressing room and all simultaneously blurted out a giant sig of relief and agreed “It wasn’t us in Paris, it was technical difficulties!”. We spent a good hour after hanging with the crowd and getting our pictures taken with everyone. It was textbook VF in Europe stuff!
By the time we got back to Davids to sleep, it was pushing 5:30am. We had to be up at 8:30 to get to the airport to fly back to Germany for the gig in Bochum. Ugghhh.. 3 hours sleep, onto a plane, van to the gig. We were all beat.
We stopped at Roberts equipment shop to exchange a few things and get a few things then set out to the Zwischenfell club in Bochum. I think we have played there at least 2 other times that I can remember. We set up for soundcheck and I was amazed at how killer my monitor sounded! Nothing helps you play a good gig like a kick ass monitor with the kick drum thumping your melon!
We all lazily laid around until it was time to play. There was another great small crowd with a lot of ecstatic fans. We rocked the same set from Badalona and fired right through it. The stage sound was great and the crowd was great. Another super fun night. We grabbed a few beers from the bar and headed to the hotel and it was time to finally catch up on some much needed sleep. Thankfully, the drive to Belgium the next day was only 2 hours so we didn’t have to leave the hotel until 1! Zzzzzzzzz……….

Finally a good night of rest. Today is the first day of the tour we are to set out on our own without a foreign handler or tour manager if you will. Just the 3 of us and Yana and our GPS device. We entered in the street for the venue in Antwerp, Belgium and headed to the motorway. We have great hopes for the show tonite as Belgium is in league with Holland as a VF fanatic zone. On our info sheet for the gig the promoter has informed us that because of the 2 day punk festival that was over the weekend, he does not expect the crowd to be very big but would be happy if it was. The venue has a big room which can be curtained off to make it a bit smaller, and they can even curtain the entire room closed and have us play in the tiny bar area. When we arrived, the house dude points us to the big room and says “ticket sales were good!” Cool!
After the soundcheck we had a home cooked meal in the dressing room and listened to the opening band soundcheck. When they were done they joined us in the dressing room. They all gushed to us at how unbelievable it was to be honored to play with VF and how they grew up listening to our records. Awesome! The guitar player
had a guitar just like Ralph’s only red and he went on to explain that the reason he plays guitar is because of Ralph and that after seeing us for the first time, he promptly went out and bought the same guitar Ralph played!! This kind of stuff is really amazing to hear and especially when it’s about us.
Once again we wrote a setlist that included all the songs we are able to play and hit the stage. The place was full of people and from the moment we started there were about 5 or 6 people in the front going absolute bonkers! One dude kept diving onto the stage on his back and doing a frantic squirm dance. It was great! We played everything we knew and even played our little 10 second punk song called “Stupid Hardcore Song” 8 times! That brought the total for the evenings song list to 53 songs. Punk rock!
After we packed up we went to the bar to hang with the fans. A bunch of them were friends of Larry and Ralph’s from a previous trip to Europe and were all super cool and funny and fun to hang with. There was also a few friends of ours from a club we use to play called the Lint Fabriek. Always great to see old friends. Everyone could not stop telling us how happy they were that we were playing again. It was cool!
We headed out to the hotel and Ralph and I stayed up for a bit and talked about everything and how stoked we were at how much fun we are all having and started to concider trying to come back later this year to do another run of gigs. We’ll see. My schedule is so unpredictable…

So this brings us to today. The day we return to Amsterdam. As you all might know, Holland was our home away from home in Europe and is where we had our biggest success back in the day. Not only that, we will be playing with Nomeansno. This is huge people! The gig is at the Melkweg and a sellout is expected.
We spooled our way into town and arrived at the gig and reunited with our old pals NMN and set up for the soundcheck. Because we got added to this show late, we had to play first before Pack A.D.(a 2 piece girl band on tour with NMN) and NMN. We thought we would only get a 45 minute set but were told we could play an hour. Ok!
We are to play from 8-9pm and it was now 7. We all ran out with our pal JW to get some food. Out of the Melkweg is a famous square called The Leidseplein. As we walked across it, on the other side sits the Paradiso which is an amazing old church that is a venue for concerts and holds 1200 people. We use to play there and sell it out!
Also in the square is a giant neon sign of 2 Heineken glasses that tip and spill their beer and they sit atop the building with the world famous Bulldog Cafe where you can legally buy marijuana.
We grabbed a seat at an italian joint down the street and quickly ordered and ate and rushed back to the venue. We only had about 20 minutes now to get a setlist together and get ready to play. As Larry and I were scrambling to get the list together, the house manager came in and said we could go on 15 minutes past 8 as there were still people coming in. Whew! Ok. We wrote out a list of 25 songs and put 4 more at the bottom in case our time calculations were off. We all huddled and agreed, no stopping between songs unless it’s absolutely necessary. Off we went! I sat down on the drums and looked up at the crowd. It was packed like a sardine can with people!
The capacity for the room is about 600 and I would say there were at least 600 people! Ralph stepped up to the mic and says “Were Back!!!” Bam! We start and just unleashed song after song and not stopping. It was rad!
I was actually a bit nervous for the first time on the tour and made a few mistakes. We got about 2 thirds the way down the set and Larry had to replace his bass cable as his was not working properly. I looked at my watch and we had only been playing for 30 minutes! So we played the set and all the songs added at the end and it was right on 1 hour! When we finished the last song and I stood up to wave and the crowd erupted! Incredible!
After breaking the gear down we had a great hang with some old friends who came down and had a moment with the NMN gang which included their original guitar player Andy Kerr who lives in Amsterdam now. I grabbed a few beers and squeezed my way through the crowd to get to the t-shirt booth to talk with people. I had to shake almost everyones hand as I was squeezing through. Larry was already at the booth with a crowd of people surrounding him. We talked with everyone we could and shook endless amounts of hands and Yana was selling shirts and records like hotcakes! It was good to be back and to receive all the accolades I must say. There were people we talked to who had come from all over Holland to see us and even a bunch of people who said they came only to see us and were leaving before NMN even played!
Of course NMN were amazing and rocked the shit out of the packed house as they usually do. When the show was finally over, Larry, Yana, and I headed out to go to our other home away from home, The Minds Cafe. This is the famous little hole in the wall punk rock bar we and many other bands always go to when in Amsterdam.
There was a bunch of our friends already there and we all had a great reunion at our old haunt. Andre the bartender who owns the place was not there as it was his night off but our other friend Joeri was tending. He was a guitar player in a band that opened for us on an entire Europe tour and he refused to take money from me for beer.
Ralph showed up and everyone was having a great time. Joeri stopped pouring beer at one point and said “bar is closed”. He gave a wink and told the few people in the bar we didn’t know it was time to leave. They exited and Joeri locked the door behind them and it was now an open bar private party just for us and our friends! Amazing!
God knows what time it was and we had leave eventually. We walked out with our good Friend Jerome and he grabbed his bike to roll with us back towards the hotel.
After a long goodbye, we stumbled to the hotel and went to sleep. What a night!

The next morning we got the van and went to the Melkweg to get the gear. We loaded it up an set out for Dortmund to get Robert as he will be joining us for the last 4 shows. Sitting in the front seat, I felt a pain in my side. After inspection, I found a bruise and a very sore area around it. Hmmm?? Not sure where that came from. I told everyone I have found a U.D.I., which stands for Unidentified Drunken Injury. Larry laughed and said “you don’t remember falling off Jerome’s bike?” Oh shit! I do!!
All the bikes in Holland have the flat rack thing over the back tire and it is common to have someone sit side saddle and get a ride. Jerome asked me if I wanted a ride and I said ’sure!’. With my backpack on and very drunk, I sat on the back of the bike and as soon as Jerome started riding, I lost all sense of balance and flipped backwards off the bike and smashed on the ground! Haha!! I now have what is known as a I.D.I., an Identified Drunken Injury!
We made it to Dortmund and met Robert at Gate To Hell, his rental gear shop and headed out to Hannover. Robert is now in the van with us and is right in line with us about having a good time. He is very funny and we all find humor in anything as it is, so the drive is extra fun.
THE SCORPIONS ARE FROM HANNOVER!!!!!
One of my favorite quotes! Were planning on trying to figure out to play ‘Falling In Love’ from Animal Magnetism to add to the set tonite!

May 3rd, 2010
Categories: Tour Dates . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

LIMITED TO 100 COPIES WORDWIDE!

FULL LENGTH CASSETTE VERSION OF EMILY JANE WHITE’S “DARK UNDERCOAT”

$6.50 ~ ADD TO CART

March 29th, 2010
Categories: Saint Rose Releases . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

for those who don’t love the superior vinyl format, you can now purchase the high quality remastered WHITE BREAD BLUES by the Victims Family on some of yr favorite legit & legal download sites. Do your MP3 player a favor and feed it some tater tots.

DOWNLOAD WHITE BREAD BLUES FROM:

CD BABY

EMUSIC

ITUNES

AMAZON

March 27th, 2010
Categories: Saint Rose Releases . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

head on over to the victims Family TOUR page for some updated tour dates for 2010. Also, if you head on over to VICTIMSFAMILY.COM, they have some bad ass new t-shirts for sale.

And of course, head on over to the slowly being redesigned Saint Rose STORE to pick up yr copy of WHITE BREAD BLUES.

March 26th, 2010
Categories: Tour Dates . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

White Bread Blues LP + CD is HERE! the records showed up today. THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of you who pre-ordered the LP. We’re boxing them up and all orders are shipping NOW.

IN STOCK AND SHIPPING!!!!!!
VICTIMS FAMILY ~ WHITE BREAD BLUES ~ 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
BLUE / WHITE MARBLE COLORED VINYL + CD OF THE ENTIRE ALBUM!
DELUXE BOOKLET AND THE BONUS TRACK “SINATRA MANTRA”
REMASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL ANALOG TAPES
ORDER NOW IN THE ST ROSE STORE

Here’s some photos (Better pictures coming soon…)

March 5th, 2010
Categories: Saint Rose Releases, Victims Family . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments

It’s true. Victims Family have booked a handful of dates for 2010, starting with a record release party EXTRAVAGANZA for the new repressing of White Bread Blues on March 18 at The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco. The new pressing should be in our hands and shipping within a few weeks. Thanks for the patience of all who pre-ordered it. If you can’t make it to San Francisco on the 18th, you can still order the LP online HERE

VICTIMS FAMILY TOUR DATES (So Far…..more info and dates to come)

Mar 18 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ Bottom Of The Hill SF ~ White Bread Blues Reissue Record Release Party!

Apr 16 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ The Blue Lamp Sacramento, California

Apr 25 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY w/ Leatherface @ Zwischenfall Bochum, Germany

Apr 26 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ Trix Antwerpen, Belgium

Apr 27 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ Melkweg Amsterdam, Netherlands

Apr 30 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ TBA, Brno Brno, Czech Republic

May 1 2010 VICTIMS FAMILY @ Cesta Tabor, Czech Republic

February 14th, 2010
Categories: Tour Dates . Author: gerry . Comments: 2 Comments

Saint Rose is all sorts of exited about 2010. One of the things I’m most looking forward to is the 7″ we’re putting out by Seattle’s LEVATOR. I saw this trio perform live last year and I was immediately stricken. swirling, noisy guitar dreampop with an killer drummer, saxophone blasts, and gorgeous, otherworldly vocals.

The band is currently in the studio working on the track for the as yet to be named 7″, but in the meantime pick up their 2 most recent CD’s here in the St Rose STORE.  2006’s JACKSON HWY, BARNES DRIVE and 2009’s sublime THE BIGGEST WAVES COME AT NIGHT.

January 8th, 2010
Categories: Levator, Saint Rose Releases . Author: gerry . Comments: No Comments