January 28, 2006

I know, I haven’t sent in an update for AGES! And I am really SORRY, but here it is: My Monster Update with tons of show reviews and pictures! Hope you enjoy the read!

Dwarves + Electric Eel Shock, Backstage, Munich (GER)

What can I say? Two of the craziest bands EVER invaded Munich on a Wednesday night. Electric Eel Shock played all their good songs and a lot more from their recent record, ‘Beat Me,’ like “Scream for me – I am the answer” (which is all crazy in a very Japanese way). If you don’t know Electric Eel Shock yet, you might have seen them in the latest Bloodhound Gang video. Just watch out for three crazy Japanese guys in the men’s room. Their drummer wore nothing but one baseball sock on his wiener, as usual. I wonder if he ever washes that sock at all... or maybe I don’t even want to know.... but anyway, EES are a great power/ rock n roll/ metal band, and it’s always a real pleasure to see one of their energetic performances.

The next band up was the Dwarves. Yeah, you might have guessed it: more naked flesh. “HeWhoCannotBeNamed” wore nothing but his mask. Also, as usual, The Dwarves are one of those bands that I don’t want to see in the first row... The show started when “HeWho” threw a chair from the backstage balcony into the crowd below and yeah, they already had all the love and hate of the audience on their side with that action. The Dwarves had a special guest with them, Nick Olivieri (Ex-Queens Of The Stone Age). He was the second man on the mic. And what a cool show! They played all their classics, and they played for almost a whole hour! I mean, that’s EPIC length for a Dwarves show.

The real party started actually AFTER the show. All the bands took off to the Kings’n’Queens bar in Munich right after the show. The Backyard Babies were already there and even some of the Social Distortion guys showed up. They had the day off before their show in Munich the next day, so they decided to do a little pre-show party there. So, there was actually a Dwarves-after-show and a Social-Distortion-pre-show-party at the same club. Dregen of the ByBs was Djing, and as you can imagine, the whole thing ran out of control. Take 4 bands from 3 different continents and add lots of alcohol, and you can imagine the trouble. But that was probably the best party of 2005, and everyone who was there will have to agree with me. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. (The pics are courtesy of kingsandqueens-online.de)

Social Distortion + Backyard Babies, Elserhalle, Munich (GER)

The next day, I went to the Social Distortion + Backyard Babies show. That was kind of weird, since we were just hanging out with those guys at a really small bar in Munich. There were about 30-40 people there, and it felt like hanging out with some of my buddies, and then the next day you see them at a show with lots of security guys around them, and fans who have been waiting in front of the entrance for hours and hours. Katrin, the Backyard Babies tour manager, got me backstage, and we walked by Mike Ness and the other guys who were just having lunch. I met with the Babies in their backstage room, and we were talking about last night before we did the interview. The interview went really smoothly, and after that, I went into the venue. It was all packed with punks, rockabillys, and all types of underground scum. A very mixed audience, also age-wise, but way cool. I met lots of people I knew who were all excited that they were just about to see one of their all time favourite bands perform in Germany for the first time in 9 years. I wasn’t that excited, as I had already seen them the year before in California, and that was such a fantastic show that I was sure it couldn’t get any better than this tonight.

The first band up were Cooper but I have to admit that I didn’t watch their set, as I was having a couple of drinks with some of my friends at the bar instead.

The next band up was the Backyard Babies. Sweden’s finest played a fabulous show again with lots of energy, sweat, and rock’n’roll! Hell yeah! They played a lot of old songs from Total 13 and Making Enemies Is Good but also a lot of new songs from Stockholm Syndrome. It was a wild mix from ‘Look At You’ to ‘Making Enemies is Good’ to ‘A Song For The Outcast.’ It was a really good show, and everyone enjoyed it.

Finally, the band everyone had been waiting for went up on stage-- Social Distortion. The audience had great expectations, and the SD guys totally fulfilled them. They have a new bass player now by the way. His name is Brett Harding. He is the guy who also plays in Mike Ness’ solo project. Mike was all bad ass as usual, chewing bubble gum all the time and posing in his usual rock star manner. Hehe. But hey, we all loved it. That’s why we went to see them, and that’s why we like SD… it’s just big and bad, and rock n roll. The set list included all types of songs. From new stuff like ‘Highway 101,’ ‘Reach For The Sky,’ ‘Don’t Take Me For Granted,’ ‘Footprints On My Ceiling,’ to good old stuff like ‘PRISON BOUND,’ (which is my favourite song), ‘Story Of My Life,’ ‘Sick Boy,’ ‘Under My Thumb,’ and even, ‘Send Her Back’ from Mike’s solo record “Cheating At Solitaire.” It was a wild show, and the crowd went even wilder. They totally loved it, and everyone really hopes that SD will make it back to Europe for another fantastic night like that in 2006. We all went home with big smiles on our faces. Especially those people who were hanging out the night before with those guys just to see them play the next day. Two crazy and great days! Yeah!

Lonely Kings, Backstage, Munich (GER)

The Lonely Kings are one of my all time favourite bands. I love all their records. I can listen to them without having to skip one single track. They are just such a fantastic band and I really don’t understand why they are not popular. They are awesome! Their sound is somewhere between AFI and Hot Water Music. And their singer Jake has a really charismatic voice, so it’s always a real pleasure to see them live. I could watch them every day. Seriously.

Unfortunately the line up that night was really bitter. They were the first band up, and the next two bands on stage were German MTV-casting- bands: Die Killerpilze and Revolverheld. So the audience consisted of 14-year-old girls who had no idea about good music. But my friend Ursi and I really enjoyed it. Actually, we enjoyed it so much that Ursi invited the guys to stay at her place, along with another great band from Germany by the name of Ira. The party basically went on until 7am, and we had lots of fun.

Gluecifer, Backstage, Munich (GER)

I just can’t believe it, or maybe I just DON’T WANT TO believe it: The amazing, the incredible, the one and only, Gluecifer from Norway have decided to call it quits. They split up last year, but they also decided to do one last tour before that. So, of course, I had to be there! They played an amazing set in Munich. First, some sort of white screen was set up in front of the stage and lost of pics of all their shows and records were shown on it while some Rod Steward tune was playing, which was a little too much for my taste, because Gluecifer are a punk n roll band, and not Queen or something. Whatever. Then the screen/curtain came down and they started playing all (and I mean ALL) their good songs. Everything from ‘Rockthrone,’ to ‘Black Book Lodge,’ to ‘Automatic Thrill,’ well, everything basically. I think they must have played for almost 2 hours, and after the show, they walked around so all their fans could talk to them for one last time, which was really nice. And then they got hammered! Haha, those Norwegians... But that was such a great show, and I’m really sad that it’s all over now. Captain Poon told me that he was already rehearsing with a new band, so I hope through him Gluecifer’s heritage will somehow live on. I will really miss them. I still think “Automatic Thrill” is one of the best rock albums ever recorded. I wish you guys all the best! Hope to see you again one day!

Other Great Shows I saw last year:

Mad Sin + Turbo Acs, The Hellacopters + The Doits, Adam West, The Boonaraaas!,

The Bones, The Horrorpops, ...

I don’t want to bore you with more show reviews, so I decided to let the pictures speak for themselves because, you know; a picture says more than a thousand words, and I guess those pics would fill a whole book. Hehe.

It’s already 2006, and I’m sure that this is going to be another great year packed with good shows and skateboard action!! Hope you’ll all have a rawkin’ 2006!

-Sabine Schenk

Spring is finally back. We had a very long and very, very cold winter here in Germany and now everyone is totally happy that it’s getting warmer every day. The beginning of this year was packed with good shows and interesting events such as Flyswatter, Zeke, Million Dollar Marxists, The Art of Modern Rock and The Lawrence Arms. So have fun reading!

It’s a shame! I am friends with the Flyswatter guys for many, many years and I have never mentioned them in an update before. Flyswatter is probably the best band in town. They are my homies so to say. They also participate in the so-called Jägermeister Rockliga. Which means various bands join something similar to a football league. Every band represents its hometown , so Flyswatter represent Munich in this case, and they play against all the other bands, which again represent their hometowns. There are home matches and out of town matches. The bands can score goals in the categories best outfit, best show, most applaus and so on. Flywatter won all the matches so far and 4Lyn from Hamburg did as well. So it was a match between the two most successful bands inside the Rockliga. The winner would get 15.000 so both bands tried to show their best.

Flyswatter were on stage first. A lot of fans from Munich were in the audience who wanted their homies to win. The atmosphere was pretty heated up and everyone was having a great time. The fans made a lot of noise so we would score high this time.

Next up were 4Lyn. They are sort of a new metal band which isn’t really my taste in music. They are also pretty popular here in Germany and their fans were mainly 15 year old girls. Unfortunately most of them have probably never been to a punk show before in their lives as they were protesting after the show that they got kicked and pushed and stuff. They said the Flyswatter fans had been unfair and rude. Well, girls, it’s a PUNK show. You know, pogo dancing and stuff. If you don‘t want to be right inside of a mosh pit, you shouldn’t go right in front of the stage... ok, well, whatever. The singer of 4Lyn also put on a uhmm.. kind of.. a different show. He picked one of the girls in the first row and took her on stage. Then he danced and sang around her and in the end he poured a bottle of apple juice over her body. I’m sorry, but I was laughing the whole time. It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea. But it’s not what I had expected to happen at a punk show... reminded me too much on the Chippendales or something. Hehe.

Anyway, Flyswatter won in the end! Yeah! I screamed my lungs out for them and after that we partied until 4 am with free Jaeger! Congrats Flo, Gudz, Lirkos, Kryshi and Phillip!

Oh yeah! ZEKE!! One of the best rock bands in the world. They have a new guitar player and sound even more powerful now. It was one of the best Zeke shows I have seen so far. Probably because I was all sober and the audience was kicking ass. Zeke also must have felt really comfortable on stage as they played 3 encores. They played like every Zeke song there is and even some cover songs from Lynyrd Skynyrd and stuff. It was such a great show!

The opening act was the Million Dollar Marxists from Ottawa, CAN. Another absolutely great band on Gearhead records. Have I mentioned before that I just love Gearhead?! Ok, I think this was more or less a rhethoric question... Their singer, Luke, got totally wild on stage. Screaming, dancing, dangling from the ceiling, jumping from the boxes and yelling at the crowd. In many ways this reminded me on a New Bomb Turks show. Musically and artistically. After the show I sat down with Luke for an interview. So here it is:

Interview w/ Luke of Million Dollar Marxists

Hello, can you introduce yourself a little bit?

Yes, my name is Luke and I sing and dance in a band called Million Dollar Marxists. We come from Ottawa, Canada, North America, Planet Earth.

OK, what are your musical influences?

That’s actually a really hard question. Because I think it’s kinda all over the place. I think our biggest influences are New Bomb Turks, Rocket From The Crypt, Stooges, Dead Boys, but there are lots of other ones.

Is Gearhead the ultimate record label for you to sign with?

Yeah, oh yeah, totally. There could not have been a better record label for us. In North America Gearhead is like THE rock’n’roll record label. And we are a rock’n’roll band so who else could we do a record with?!

How’s touring with Zeke?

For us it’s great. Because in Europe no one has heard of us but everybody knows Zeke.

You have a great presence on stage and you do a great show and all. Do you always get that crazy on stage?

I can’t say if it’s always one kind of craze because I’m not seeing it. We try to go as crazy as we can. I try to go as crazy as I possibly can. Because I like playing music and I like dancing and jumping around. I like being an idiot.

Why do you call yourselves Million Dollar Marxists?

Million Dollar Marxists is a play on the idea of Marxism because only rich people can really be Marxists. Because it’s an idea. It’s a philosophy. In practice it doesn’t really, it’s not practical. Everybody has to be equal. Nobody rises to the top. In socialism everybody is the same. But at the same time nobody is the same. To ignore the individual is impossible. Just look at animals. Even they are not equal. I do believe in a certain level of equality so everybody can be happy to a certain level. Where we’re from in Ottawa, Canada there are no repercussions. You can be whatever you want. You can be a socialist, you can be a conservative, you can be a democrat in Canada and no one’s going to say anything. You can call yourself that but that doesn’t mean that you be (sic!) that. There are no repercussions. In North America it’s just not good to say you’re a communist. In Cuba you can’t call yourself a capitalist. You’ll go to jail if you do that. In Germany you can’t certainly say you’re a nazi because you’ll get fucked up. But in Canada you can call yourself whatever you want. It has more to do with the fact that there are a lot of people in Canada that call themselves socialists or communists but in reality these people are just rich and they don’t really care about the rest of the world. They don’t care about the common man or whatever. If you are rich and you live in a rich country you can be or call yourself whatever you want.

So would you call yourselves a political band?

Uhm... no. Not exactly. Politics are an interest of the band most of us are fairly aware of what’s going on in the world but it’s not a driving force for the band. For the most part the band and the band name has more to do with irony and hypocrisy. I personally believe that you can’t just be one or the other. There’s no such thing as good or evil, right or wrong, capitalism or communism. You will always be somewhere in the middle. You just can’t be something because you’re a human being. I don’t know if that’s exactly the answer to the question you asked?

No, but it’s interesting. What are you’re plans for the near future?

I don’t know. We have lots of touring to do and stuff like that.

Ok, thank you for your time!

And another great show! The Lawrence Arms are one of my favourite bands and I was happy to see them again. They put on a great show and played all my favourite songs like Porno and Snuff films plus some new songs from the Rock Against Bush sampler and so on. The audience really liked them, too and I was screaming with the other kids in the first row. Hehe.

Next up were the headliner Millencolin from Sweden. This band has been around for quite a while. They were one of the first so-called skate-punk bands. I used to listen to their songs like Mister Clean or Bullion when I was 15 years old. This is ten years ago. Damn it, I’m getting really old. So I wasn’t really excited to see them again but it had an nostalgic touch to it. But apparently the band had evolved a lot. They played a lot of really nice rock’n’roll type songs like Man Or Mouse and I found myself having fun at the show. But the strange thing was that the audience was very young. I wonder why?! They also played some old songs and everyone was singing along and I was thinking like, these kids were like 14, where have you been in ’95?? Listening to Millencolin in elementary school?? Anyway, everyone was having fun and I had a great time!

Thanks a lot to Frieder, the Lawrence Arms tourmanager and Wiebke of FatWreck Europe for making this possible!

So, hello again! We haven’t seen each other for about a year now. How have you been?

Brendan: It’s been good. We did a little bit of touring and took a little bit of time off. We went on a trip to Australia but besides that we are just getting back into doing this again.

B.: It’s awesome! It’s going great. Lots of kids. And Millencolin are super nice guys.

Chris.: It’s going really good. I mean, we played a show last night in front of 4.000 kids, which is probably the biggest show we ever played.

Your new record is called ‘Cocktails and Dreams’. Can you tell me a little bit about it?

B.: It’s actually a b-sides compilation. It’s got one new song on it and we re-recorded two old songs. It’s coming out on Asian Man and not on FatWreck Chords.

B.: There is a few reasons why it is called ‘Cocktails and Dreams’. The big one being that’s this bar we were getting drunk at in Australia. But it’s also the name of Tom Cruise’s dream bar in that movie called ‘Cocktail’. We’re huge Tom Cruise fans. And it’s the fuel. That’s why are out here and playing shows. It’s all for the cocktails and dreams. It’s coming out June 21^st in the States.

I know that you contributed a song to the ‘Rock against Bush’ compilation. Now that Bush got reelected are there any ambitions in doing something like this again?

B.: Of course, you have to stay active somehow but now it’s kind of a fucking drag. Especially over here. It’s really embarrassing.

C.: As important as it is talking out against him, you know, it’s like a big hangover from the election. It’s really depressing to imagine that he is charge of our country for the next four years again.

C.: I think he won this time. He didn’t win the election before. But I think this time he convinced the people, you know. I would not say that he won the election in 2000.

What’s your motivation to write songs at the moment? What do you generally write about?

B.: Hmm.. how can I put this... here, people are saying things like back in the day the punk scene was great. And I have been writing a lot of songs that go like, you know, old man, fuck you. It was not better back then. It’s just fine now.

B.: We’re doing it all for the cocktails and dreams, really. The reason actually why I thought that progressive rock music was something that I wanted to do was general frustration. That’s the emotion that drives pretty much all the songs I write. Frustration with myself, with this country, with other people, I don’t know. All that kind of stuff.

Neil: We are all going to go back home. Then we’ll do a US tour. Kind of as a support for the b-sides record. Then we need to work on the new record.

C.: Then we’ll stay home for a while and when the thing comes out we gotta go on tour again. That’s the general scheme. But I’m sure some other things will happen besides that.

Now THAT was a cool vernissage! It took place in a really nice house and the had screenprint posters of all the great rock’n’roll artists there like Firehouse, Derek Hess, Jay Ryan and Lindsay Kuhn. All the artists were there, too and you could talk to them and get some tips, that’s what I did. The posters which I liked best were designed by a girl called Tara McPherson. She has such a great style! I wish she would design one of our CG skateboards. Hehe. Unfortunately she wasn’t around I would have really liked talking to her. Besides the exhibition there has been a big BBQ and a nice Tiki Bar outside plus live country music. It was really great night out and the beer was only 1.60 hehehe.

That was it for my spring update! Yesterday I interviewed Agent M of Tsunami Bomb so you can already look forward to my next update. Hope you are all having a good time, take care everyone!

I think you all know that I met the infamous rawker Texas Terri during my stay in California. She is sooo cool. And just a couple of weeks after we hung out at a Denny’s in Hollywood, I met her in a little club on the other side of the ocean. I had the pleasure to see her performing live in my hometown Munich, Germany. This was the first time that I ever saw her performing, and all I can say is it was awesome, but also hard to describe. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many kids at the show, but it was fun anyway. Terri emailed me to show up early so we could do an interview. And here it is. I guess it is the easiest interview I ever did cause I hardly asked anything and Terri just kept on talking and talking about Europe, Sweden, and why she hates Gene Simmons. Enjoy!

The tour is going great. The last time I had been to Europe was in 2000. I was very excited about going to Europe. That was in my wilder days when I was wearing TxT tape across my boobs. I was so excited because there’s no censorship here. People in clubs thought that it was really funny that I wore that TxT tape they said ‘ you don’t need to wear that here’ and I said ‘yeah, but I love the way it looks’. And they would go like: ‘no, no, no, let me peel it off!’ and I just went like ‘whatever’. I was very excited that I went on my Europeean tour. And I peed everywhere. I have it all on video. And all that stuff. It was fun. ...

This time, many people... in Belgium for instance, there was this girl and she walked up to me: ‘I heard that you take your shirt off.’ And I said: ‘I don’t do that anymore.’ And she said: ‘ooh! Will you show me anyway?’ And I’m like: ‘maybe later...’ It was just so funny. One year ago I just stopped doing it. It just didn’t feel right anymore. I don’t do that TxT tape anymore because I think, well ok, that faze is finished. But it’s really funny because in the US they don’t even think about it if I take my shirt off or not. But in Europe people are still excited about that. That’s kinda cool because I forgot about that transition because I already went through it in the US. But it was really great with all that censorship thing. But what are you gonna do after that?! Then you have to outdo yourself and outdo yourself,.. I was just tired of it.

A lot of people who went to your shows in 2000 probably came to your shows this time, as well.

Yeah, which is kinda cool. But it seems to me that I have a new face anyway. I have a new band... For 6 years I had Demon Boy as my songwriting partner and everything. He was involved in the first record ‘Eat Shit!’ I am with this new band for about 3 years now. It’s become more about me and evolution and everything. I changed so much within these last 3 years. I’m really a square. All I want to do is write my songs and do my music. I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs. If other people do it I don’t care because it’s still their business. I still love drugs and alcohol I just can’t do it anymore. My life has changed and the biggest problem I have at the moment is money. If I had enough money to pay people I could be more specific. It’s kinda like you are able to buy what you want. But my musicians are always great. I always have great musicians and they just keep getting better and better and better. More responsible which is good. Uhmm.. see.. there’s is so much I can’t tell you. Usually I am just open and honest about everything but this time I cannot be completely open and honest because if the wrong person reads what I have to say...well, it’s no big secret but I just don’t want everyone to know what I’m thinking. It’s very, very strange. I am, in my opinion, not very popular. Maybe I am in the punk scene, but that’s really it.

Let me tell you this story when we were in Chicago, because I don’t care if that band reads it or not. There was this opening, opening band and we barely made it to our show in time because shit happened on the freeway and it was a long ass drive. And the singer of the first band got really angry with me because I missed his band. And I'm like shaking her head, so there’s this person writing on my yahoo Texas Terri digest list this whole long thing but it was really funny to watch the other people on the list responding to it, you know. They were like: You’re just expecting so much from her. I’m just trying to go out and see and do what I do. That’s my whole thing. That’s all I care about, you know. All I care about is.. I mean, it would be nice if I could make enough money just to stay on the road. That’s all I wanna do. I have a regular job like most musicians. Unless you meet the right person in the right time. I got a regular job and save all my money while I’m working on the band. This tour is insane. I’m about a year behind in what I have hoped to accomplish. But I’m having a blast.

I am able to go to Italy this time. I have never been to Italy. And I can tour Slovenia. And I gotta go to Prague. And I have never been here in Munich before. If you’re on tour so much, it’s kinda cool to go back home because there are new adventures to come there. This time I’ll go to Sweden for the first time, which is exciting. And I went to the UK, which gave me the opportunity to perform at the Wasted Festival in July. It was simply insane because I used a different band. I just couldn’t afford to fly my whole band over. So I flew over and hooked up with this pal in Birmingham. He said he would put a band together for me. We rehearsed like twice. We went on a train with all that shit to that festival. And it was really great! But I felt bad because I couldn’t pay the musicians. I mean, I paid for the train and the accommodations but nobody is crazy enough to just fly over to Europe to meet these 3 guys who you have never met in your life before, and to play a show with them. But they said: ‘We want you to look good!’ And a friend made these posters for us and flyers to pass out. It was just cool how much time and effort they spent on all that. We had the opening slot but we were lucky enough to play the opening night party that put a gig under our belts as a band. And on Saturday morning, well, it felt like morning because we were the first band on stage at 12.30. And everybody had been up all night on Friday night but we were constantly passing out flyers and posters and we were like: Ok, we did everything we can. And when the doors opened all these people came in. They were like, gosh, we were so hung over but we wanted to come and see you. That was one of the best feelings I ever had playing live with a band because I thought there would only be 20 people there, but instead it was like 500. Mission accomplished. It was kinda cool because we opened the main stage that day and the Addicts closed it. And almost every band on stage that day was just great. I don crazy things like that and the next thing I want to accomplish is going to Japan. That’s what I’ll plan as soon as I get home.

Let’s just talk about the new record a little bit because there are just so many people on it. The hall of fame of rock’n’roll seems to be on that record. I also heard that you wanted a song with Lemmy on that record?

There are a few people that weren’t able to be on the record. There was Lemmy of Motörhead but everytime I meet this guy he goes like ‘damn! I should have been on it! I’ll be on your next one, love, I promise!’ I am like ok, but I always tell people that there might be no next one. Maybe the world will blow up! Or maybe I’ll decide to live on Mars. You never know. I always think now, now, now, now, now! People think I’m crazy.

It’s like that thing with my booker. I told him, I have to go to Sweden. I have to! And I have to go to Italy! But they were like, well, Sweden is so expensive and dadada. But I was like, you know, I will lose my ass on this tour anyway, but let me lose it the way I want it. So they got me a few shows in Sweden, but I am still a little disappointed because I wanted to play Kopenhagen and Oslo because there live Turbonegro but at least we have two shows in Sweden, which is fine. Going back to I have to do things now. If our booking agent had not booked me for Sweden, I would be going around Europe with this thought in the back of my mind ‘here I am in fucking Europe and I am not able to go to fucking Sweden’. The first time we came over in 2000, the Berlin show got cancelled, and I got crazy. Because I told our booker, (a different booker), to book a show for us at Wild At Heart. And he said no because they won’t give you accomodation and dadada. I said, I don’t care. We’ll find places to stay, but I want to play Wild At Heart. So, of course, he booked us somewhere else. But the night before we were supposed to be there, or maybe 2 nights before, this other club got closed down because of noise complaints in the neighborhood. And my heart was broken during that tour because I didn’t go to Berlin. I went to Berlin after that on my own but not to play there. I went to the Wild At Heart just to see it. I went on a dead night but it was great anyway.

I went crazy on that tour because all I said the whole time was I didn’t get to go to Berlin, I didn’t get to go to Berlin,... and our booker said: next time and I said: THERE MIGHT BE NO NEXT TIME! That’s what I told Lemmy, but I have a promise from Lemmy to work with me on my next record. I was thinking about doing a 7inch just to get it done. And then Slash was the other guy who wasn’t able to be on the record. I told him to that this might be my last record and he said, don’t say that! But I said, dude, you just don’t know! Everyday of my life I’m one inch close to quitting playing punk rock because it’s such a pain in the ass, it really is. But on this record, Cherie Currie is on it. And we did the Rocker together, which is on that record but we also did a cover of Rock’n’Roll All Night by Kiss. See, I hate Gene Simmons. Because he’s a pig. YES YOU ARE! You know that record you did, Gene, called Asshole, I always thought that just other people call you an asshole but now you call yourself an asshole. Anyway, you’re an asshole, asshole! There’s a story to all that.

I was on flight to Cleveland, Ohio because there was a Dead Boys tribute show for the rock’n’roll hall of fame and it was a tribute to Stiv Bators and on the last minute I decided to go. And it was really worth it. I met Stiv’s parents. They autographed this Dead Boys picture for me. The show was great. Cheetah did a lot of singing. But just to hear that fucking band play together was unbelievable. So on the flight, I had to fly to Las Vegas and took a connecting flight to Ohio, and Gene Simmons was on the plane and I’m just like ‘Hello!’ And he looked at me like he knew me, well, he met me several times. Well, usually people do remember me.. well, I’m just not like the other girls he usually meets. But I thought that this was really funny because he’s so ugly. If you see him without the make-up you would never believe that a girl would get in bed with him. But anyway, I really shot myself in the foot because I should have released (Terri is coughing and I just don’t know what she said) but I have this phone message from Slash. It says, well, he couldn’t be on the record because that was during the time when he was recording with Ray Charles, which is really amazing. I never heard that, but I would love to hear it. Usually Slash is really professional when you call him he just goes like oh, I’m too busy. I’m recording here with Ray but on that message he is like ‘ This is a real challenge because I’m here with Ray Charles and I have to learn all these charts and I have never played that kinda music before in my life.’ And I thought that this was kinda cool that he was talking about all that. Anyway, Slash is really busy. But he’s really cool. He’s always leaving me phone messages and there is one that says ‘This is Slash and I really don’t think that I’m gonna have time but for what I hear your record has turned out great and you don’t need me to be on it anyway.’ I thought about taking that message and putting it at the beginning of the record. So I could have at least said, you see, Slash is on my new record! And then I thought about putting Rock’n’Roll All Night on that record. But this is where my resentments block me from my businesses. And at that moment, when my record was coming out, the idea of putting rock’n’roll all night on it was no option because I hated Gene Simmons so much. But it’s actually out on the vinyl in America. But if I would have been smart I would have put in on the CD also. Because all the Kiss fans and Cherie Currie fans would love to hear that. So if I reissue that record, which I probably will, there will be the Slash message on and that song. It’s a good song. And it was fun to do.

You told me before that the last part of your CD when a girl goes like ‘Terri, it’s ok, it’s ok’ that Cherrie Currie.

TURN THAT MOTHERFUCKER OFF! Yeah, that’s from that song! Hehe! Cherie Currie thought that I was serious. At the end of r’n’r all night I started screaming turn it off! Turn it off! And my bass player knows how much I hate Gene Simmons. So he was just smiling while I was freaking out. But Cherrie, she was just standing there like ‘T, T! It’s ok! It’s ok!’ I really thought she was gonna slap me. She thought I was hysterical. So that’s where it comes from. So then there is Duane Kramer on my record for instance and Marc Diamond from the Dwarves and the list goes on and on.

Eastpak Resistance Tour: Maroon, Walls of Jericho, The Bones, 7 Seconds, Sick of it all, Löwensaal, Nürnberg, Germany.

The resistance tour took place at the Löwensaal in Nürnberg- probably one of the coolest locations I have ever been at. Löwensaal means literary translated, ‘lion’s hall.’ And it actually was a lion’s hall. It was in the center of the big zoo in Nürnberg, and the Löwensaal was the place where the lions used to be caged in this zoo. Of course, there were no lions on stage but a lot of punkrockers and HC kids… decide for yourself what’s more dangerous.

The first band on stage were real newcomers called Maroon from Germany. Unfortunately, I missed almost the whole set and just heard the last song. But from what I heard, they were pretty good!

The next band on stage was my favourite band this evening, and the real reason why I drove all the way to Nürnberg: Walls of Jericho! The leadsinger is called Candice and that girl can ROAR! She did such a great performance and she has got an amazing voice! One of the few hardcore bands I know that has a female lead singer… and a really good one. After the show we talked a bit about skateboarding, boys and tattoos. She is really nice and really funny.

Ok, what do I need to say about the next band??? Probably nothing since I mention them in almost every update: The Bones. They did a great performance as usual, and there is not much new to tell you about them. But don’t you think it’s funny that greaser-rock’n’roll-punks are in the middle of a lineup full of hardcore bands??! Well, you could tell who went to the Resistance Tour for the Bones pretty easily... kinda funny.

The next band up were 7 Seconds! I think this was their first tour in Germany ever. These guys are probably the founding fathers of hardcore along with Minor Threat and Gorilla Biscuits. Actually, I don’t know, although they are real heroes. I didn’t like their performance that much. But I am sure that a lot of hardcore veterans were really happy about their show. They played all the classic hits like „Not just girl’s fun" and „Young till I die". They also played a cover song of the Nena’s hit „99 red balloons" Probably because they somehow wanted to sympathize with their Germany fans ;-)

The last band up were the infamous Sick Of It All!! WOOAAH! I love those guys. Although I have seen them many times, it’s still a lot of fun to watch them full of energy and power!

Well, there is not much else to say about that night, except that I hope the Resistance Tour will be that cool again in 2005!

Of course, these weren’t the only two shows I went to this winter but due to too many rum&cokes and other reasons, I can’t remember too much about the other shows I went to, but at least I want to mention some of the fun stuff I did. I hung out with Jake Starr of Adam West. His band really kicked ass that night, and we talked a bit after the show. I saw the Sewergrooves from Sweden, whose tour manager and bus driver got busted by the police the same night, and the band probably paid all the money they earned that night to get him out on bail. haha. The roadies‘ name was Dave and all of you who know him can imagine the chaos which happened. hahahaha. More Swedish fun: I went to the Tinnitus Sound System Tour. Dregen of the Backyard Babies is on DJ tour all over Europe and he D-jayed in the Kings’n’Queens Club in Munich. It was a lot of fun, and it was good to see him again. I think you all remember the cool interview I did with the Backyard Babies in LA. Dregen is now a huge fan of Coolgrrrls.com. I also went to see the Spermbirds, Flyswatter and a lot more but I am little lazy (or probably too busy) and won’t write it all down, sorry. My next update will be more complex, I promise!

Frank and I went down to the beach to watch the XGames of surfing. A lot of the pro riders such as Pam Anderson’s on and off boyfriend Kelly Slater and Rob Machado showed up. They had two teams who were surfing in four heats against each other – East Coast vs. West Coast. Unfortunately the East Coast Team (feat. Kelly) won just like the year before. And the waves weren’t as good as they usually are in HB, but it was cool to see those surfers giving their best.

Right after watching the surf contest we hopped into Frank’s truck and drove up to LA to witness the X-Games of skateboarding live. I don’t want to go into detail here... but it is really easy to sneak into the X-Games... hahaha. And guess who was the first person I saw? My old buddy Tony Hawk skating Danny Way’s big jump ramp. As you all know, Tony doesn’t compete in contests anymore but he still loves to skate and he probably couldn’t resist the temptation of riding this brand new type of ramp. Danny Way is the godfather of big airs so guess what the ramp looked like: It had two roll-ins (one high and the other one very, very high), a sort of bank/funbox in the middle and a HUGE quarter pipe right behind that. That means: You drop in on the mega roll in, you will probably be speeding towards the first obstacle, so you have to jump over the funbox without losing speed, then you will head towards the HUGE quarter pipe that will kick you out as high as you have never been before. That’s exactly what Tony did. He took the very, very high roll in (of course!), did a 540 over the box and then pulled off a HUGE air on the quarter (unfortunately I was sooo close the quarter pipe that I don’t know what kind of air he did. I guess, he did a lien air but I really don’t know). Except for him Omar Hassan was the only guy during the practice session who made it to pull off another air on the quarter pipe. After their practice session, I had the chance to talk a little bit with Tony but unfortunately he was too busy to spend more time with me. Anyway, after that Frank and I went inside the Staples Center to witness the all-girl bowl contest. Lyn-Z Adams won, as she did a lot of clean airs and lip tricks, but she also made it to throw down a kickflip indy grab. The FIRST kickflip indy ever done by a female in a competition! Cara-Beth Burnside also skated hard and fast as she always does but the judges clearly wanted Lyn-Z to win. I wrote more about it on our Cool Girl Skateboards page in the news section.

Right after that, the men’s best trick vert contest took place. Sandro pulled off a 9 bs grab! So Tony lost his monopoly on that trick. Pierre-Luc Gagnon did a kickflip varial mctwist and Danny Mayer pulled off a kickflip mctwist! UNBELIEVABLE! I was just screaming my lungs out the whole time! The last time I was at a big sk8 contest is a couple of years ago and I just could not believe how much skateboarding has improved! If someone had told me that PLG is able to pull off a kickflip AND varial mctwist I would have probably said that he must have played too much THPS on his playstation. Jake Brown also tried some 9s but Sandro was the only one to throw one down. So the results had to be:

Yeah, yeah, yeah! That’s all I can say! "Men what do rock, baby!" I interviewed Nicke and Dregen right next to the Troubadour. You can read all about it in our outrageous interviews section. I LOVE those guys!

This skatepark is so awesome! I wish we something like that in Germany. Two concrete pools, a very, very nice halfpipe, and a huge street parcours. For the first time in years I did some skateboarding myself, and it felt a little bit awkward at first but I had a lot of fun that day. Also because of Frank’s cool nephew Shayne who shared his helmet with me. And just as I wanted to leave, Texas’ Mike Crum showed up. We talked a little bit and he is still one of the nicest and weirdest guys in the skate biz. It was really a cool day.

This was our first tradeshow with Cool Girl Skateboards and the response to our products was overwhelming. People loved our pink&punk style and someone even wanted to buy our kat girl booth decoration. We gave away tons of free CDs, stickers, buttons and candy.

All the big names in the sport, fashion and cosmetic industry had a booth there, such as: DC, Tony & Tina, Pussy Deluxe, Girl Powder, Dirty Diamonds, Beauty Natzi, Monson Boards, Lip Service, Grind Queen, Concrete Jungle and many, many more! But, of course, our booth was the coolest!

There were a lot of events going on during the tradeshow such as yoga seminars, fashion shows, live concerts by bands like Mudbath and a skateboard contest. The Venice Skateboard Association organized a high-jump contest and several other contests which all had the format of sk8 sessions. A lot of girl skaters showed up such as pro Sasha LaRochelle, Liz Brandenburg, a sk8 girl pro team from Phoenix and the VSA riders. Those girls kicked ass!!! They fully utilized the super park course and the miniramp. The youngest girl skater who showed up was 8 years old and the oldest one was probably Skatemom who must be in her 40ies. It was so good to see all these girls having a good time and ripping it up! They all loved Cool Girl Skateboards and plastered our stickers all over the place.

We met so many cool people at this year’s Action Girl Tradeshow that I just want to mention some of them who help to push girl skateboarding into the limelight: www.actiongirl.com
Heidi of VSA, the LaRochelle family, Skatemom, the whole Girl Powder team, Kazusa and Jamie of Action Girl, HB Wahine and the one and only Tammy of Wicked Wahine!

Oh my God! This was the best show of my life! I am so grateful that Frank drove all the way up to Ventura so I could witness Social D at least once in my lifetime. Thank you so much! Read all about it on our bands we like page.

Thanks to Billy, James, Kevin and Sean of the Skulls my 24^th b-day was a blast! Read all about it on our outrageous interviews page.

Oh what a night! Frank’s brother Charlie decided to spend the night at the Coolgrrrls Headquarters. First we took him out to dinner at Zubie’s where they serve big pizzas and cheap beer. After a couple of beers, we all got a little silly and Frank said he just wanted to pass out some flyers for our CGs party at Fitzgerald’s which was right around the corner. So we all went inside and stayed for some more hours and some more beers watching Firecracker 500 and the old school punks the Vibrators. Pete Vibrator played pool against me first and then against Charlie. I am probably the worst pool player ever and I lost twice! Charlie was better than me but he lost either way against Pete. The show was pretty good although my memory is a little blurry.. but we definitely had a lot of fun that night.

Cool Girls Nite Out #4 – Cool Girl Skateboards Launch Party @ Fitzgerald’s, Huntington Beach

Another fun night at Fitzgerald’s. I already wrote a special feature on it so you should check it out. Especially the pics are really great!

When the air smells like diesel and testosterone you can bet that the high octane driven balls out in your face rockers Zeke play a show near you. Zeke actually were just about to go on tour with Motörhead (finally!!) when Lemmy cancelled the tour because of his health. Bummer! But nevertheless, those tough guys from Seattle played a solo show at Alex’s Bar and it was awesome! Alex’s Bar is a really cool place. It reminds me a lot on the infamous Wild At Heart in Berlin. It’s just a little cleaner and they don’t serve ‘Mexikaner’ there. But it is a really cool rock club. Zeke played their asses off just as always. I had the pleasure to see them live before at the Rheinkultur festival in Bonn so we talked a little bit about their European tour before they went on stage. Actually they are really nice guys since they are all sobered up now. Whoowoahh... Zeke sound like a roaring hotrod mixed with a AK 47 and lots of rock’n’roll. I just love that band! But again, they didn’t play my favourite song ‘Live Wire’.

What a bummer! One of the best bands ever split up after 13 years! But Frank and I had the chance to watch the amazing Dragons playing their last show in their hometown. It was a very emotional evening but also one hell of a rock show. We also interviewed Steve Dragon and this is probably one of the very last interviews of the Dragons you will ever be able to read. Check it out!

After a short nap, Frank and I drove all the way from San Diego to Glendale in the early morning. We set up our tent at the sk8 park at about 10am and then I met two girls from Germany who came all the way from Münster and Bremen to participate in the sk8 contest. Actually Chrissie is a friend of mine and we had met at various sk8 contests in Germany before. Karen was a friend of hers and she was going to participate in the Vans Triple Crown of Skateboarding in HB the following weekend. I was stoked to see those girls! We had a lot of fun. Frank and I also decided to make Karen part of our skate team since she is a terrific street skater. This was also the first time that I ever saw my favourite girl skater in person, Heidi Fitzgerald from Texas. She is the raddest skater chick ever. No one grinds pools faster and gnarlier than her. And no other sk8 girl has more tattoos than her. She also loves rock music and so we ended up talking about music and the early days when there was no such thing as girl contests and how much the situation has improved for girl skaters all over the world. Heidi also loved our skateboards and we gave her the Kat Girl deck. After a while Cool Grrrl Alisha showed up and it is always fun to meet another CG in person. She also started talking with Heidi and they both realized that they are both from Texas and even have the same tattoo artist. As we say in Germany: The world is one small village! Alisha is way cool and she looks so much prettier in person than on the pictures of her column. She ran the booth with me and we talked a lot that day.

The sk8 contest was pretty cool. They had a grom section for the really young kids. The grom contest was won by the youngest and cutest participant, Lexi Barlcay- who is also a Cool Girl team rider now. She is so tiny, and she ripped so hard! Big airs and grinds! Yee-haw! Then the AM contest took place which was won by the amazing, AMAZING Apryl Woodcock! 12years old and pure TNT on wheels. Grinds and slides in the over vert corner, blunt feeble to fakie,... I have never seen a girl ripping a pool harder than she did! She is amazing. We also interviewed her for our Skateboard site. She is the future of skateboarding! So keep an eye on her! The pro contest was spiked with names that sound like the creme of the crop of girl skateboarding: Holly Lyons, Jewels, Nicole Zuck, Heidi Fitzgerald,.... Mimi Knoop was unbeatable that day and showed a lot of stylish tricks such as fs inverts. Heidi was hurt and could not give a 100% but she still skated fast, loud and gnarly and therefor placed second. The best trick competition followed and who else but Apryl Woodcock won it doing a "slide’n’roll" in the over vert corner. The contest was way cool and Tammy BamBam Tangalin and her team did a great job! Thanks to those guys for everything. Although the contest had been awesome, I was so glad when it was over since I was really, really, really tired. We didn’t go to the after contest party, but from what I’ve heard it was a blast. www.wahineskate.com

I slept in that day. The Wicked Wahine contest still stuck in my bones when I hopped into the shower to prepare for my Rockstar Sunday. First I had a date with Texas Terri for lunch on Sunset Boulevard, and then a date with Billy Bones and his lovely wife Christina for dinner. Both Terri and Billy had called the house earlier that week to set up a meeting. I had never met Terri before in person and I was pretty nervous when we drove up to Hollywood to meet her. She sounded very, very nice on the phone and we talked for hours but still, everyone told me she was scary and I felt really nervous when I sat down in the restaurant waiting for her. Finally she came and we had lunch. What can I say?! Terri does look and act like Iggy Pop but she is also one of the nicest people I have ever met, because she is real. She is not faking anything. Terri was born a rockstar and doesn’t need to act like that. She is plain honest which felt pretty good since I am from Germany and Germans tend to be plain honest the whole time no matter what the consequences might be. We talked a lot about music, Scandinavia, men, and Terri’s upcoming European tour. Actually I interviewed her a couple of weeks later at a tour stop in Munich, Germany. You will be able to read it soon. Terri was also pretty tired because she had just come back from a Dead Boys show with a tribute to Stiv Bators, so she was swallowing down liters of black coffee while we were talking. She told us all about that and about her strange encounter with Gene Simmons. Terri is a walking rock’n’roll bible because she knows everyone and has more than a 1000 good stories to tell. We ended up talking for 3 (!!!!!!) hours in the restaurant. Terri is still on tour in Europe and Scandinavia, so if you get the chance, you should really try to go to one of her shows because she RAWKS!

Just after that, Frank and I went to Amoeba record store, which is the perfect place to waste your time looking through thousands and thousands of records. We did that before we met up with Billy Bones of the Skulls. I bought Frank Social Distortion’s Another State Of Mind DVD and then we walked to the Cat and Fiddle (I think that was the name of the Irish Pub) where we met Billy and Christina. They were both soooo nice! Billy showed me a picture of him with Joey Ramone and probably Marky Ramone (I can’t quite remember right now..) back in the 70s, when punkrock was dangerous. It was a really cool picture. He also gave me a Skulls sk8board, a rare copy of Therapy For The Shy on vinyl, and their new single on 7inch. He showed me a lot of photo albums with pictures of their various tours. And there was also a picture of me and Jessica in it!!! I cannot even remember that they took a picture but that’s was very funny to see a picture of yourself in some rockstar’s picture book. Then we talked about politics and to me it is really unbelievable that GW got voted again... sad but true.... I just watched Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 and now I am even sadder. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should really watch it since it is another eye opener. But it’s too late now anyway... oh well! Anyway, we also talked about the Silverlake Film Festival and the Green Day show Billy and Christina just went to. We talked and talked and talked and this whole Sunday I had one big smile on my face. I think that was the BEST SUNDAY OF MY LIFE! Thank you so much Frank, Billy, Terri and Christina!!

This was also a very, very funny night out. The Supersuckers played their country set and their rock set in one big show. I also interviewed Eddie Spaghetti for our outrageous interviews page!

Thanks to Billy, we got VIP access to the whole festival where they showed such great movies as the Yes Man. But we had not come there for the films, but for the punk bands who also played that night. BTW: this was also my official good bye party since it was only 3 more days before I had to say bye bye and fly back home. The first band on stage were Kevin Preston’s Prima Donna who sound like the New York Dolls, but who look a lot better! Hehe! Kevin is a gifted guitar player and they sound so much better live than on their record that I have recently reviewed them for our page. I am sure they will get a lot bigger within the next few years. The next band up were Egor Spectre, but I have to admit that I did not watch them because I had just found out that drinks and food were for free; so couldn’t help myself and I took advantage of that. Hehe. Then the Stitches entered the stage! What a cool band! Their singer somehow reminds me of the guy from the New Bomb Turks. The atmosphere was really good already, which was probably due to both the Stitches and the free drinks. Then after a short break, the legendary Skulls went on stage and the crowd went ballistic! They played hit after hit from Aye, Aye, Aye to the Random’s cover I Hate New York. Everyone sang along and it was just the purrfect good bye party for me. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH GUYS!!!

Those were probably the highlights of my California dreams. It still feels like a dream and very unreal. I spent two months in Huntington Beach and saw and met every band I ever wanted to see. I went to all the big skate contests and we have our own line of skateboards now. This all feels very unreal. But I know that it is all true, which feels really good. Of course, I did more within those two months than I mentioned here in my short wrap. So I want to use this opportunity to thank a lot of people who made my stay so unforgettable. Thanks so much to: David, Tammy, Todd, Liz, Diane & Gary, Charlie & Kelly, Shayne , Haley, Marcia, Tony, Jordan, Jen, Chrissie, Karen, Jen Malone, Kelly of the Marketing Factory, Mel @ Finger, Nancy of Nitro Records, Matt Moffert, Steve, Jason, Billy, James, Christina, Kasey, Kat, Kevin, the Stifle guys, TxT, HB Wahine, all the awesome bands, all the skate shops who support us and everyone I met! I didn’t have one bad day during my stay in HB. Thank you all so much. It really was the summer of my life!