and back to the real important stuff! I think the song whas called f*ck Fender, WE LOVE GRETSCHES!!!!!!

www.alohasluts.com
Aloha Sluts on BandCamp
www.arnyzona.com (my photography)
Aloha Fest on facebook

that's it...

www.alohasluts.com
Aloha Sluts on BandCamp
www.arnyzona.com (my photography)
Aloha Fest on facebook

Thanks so much Arny! You've done a great job.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

And this was yesterday, water spouse.... amazing reverb sound, even better than a surfy bear!

www.alohasluts.com
Aloha Sluts on BandCamp
www.arnyzona.com (my photography)
Aloha Fest on facebook

Great job Arny. Love your visionary angles. B&W captures a good vibe. Glad too see this wonderful event through your looking glass.

The mighty KAHUNATONES
Don't Fear the Reverb ! Grateful Surf ! SURFIN' Tiki Bandits !
I can be reached through the following or at don@donschott.com. :

www.donschott.com
www.eyerecords.com
www.dontfearreverb.com
www.kokopellistages.com

Jaque_Kilauea wrote:

Lorenzo and myself are sitting in his van and driving to Dresden tonite. He will attend the Boss Martians show there. Anybody else is going there?

The Boss Martians will play in Cologne tomorrow. I'll be there, can't wait to see them again

I am back from my first Surfer Joe Summer Festival, still a little exhausted, but I guess I have to write something while my memory is still fresh.

I have wanted to go to "the festival" (as I normally call it) for several years now, but I never could get myself to take time of my PhD work. But since I finished that in the beginning of the year and my new job doesn't start till July, chances were looking pretty good this time. Add a little pushing from my girlfriend and flights were booked.

Around March fellow forum member Igorilla asked me, whether I was interested in staying with his friends at a flat he had already rented. In the end we were eight people (four of them active surf musicians) staying in a nice flat near the Piazza della Repubblica, a manageable 30 minutes walk from the festival site. A few of these people I met already on the airport on Thursday morning, together with Ralf and Jacques Kilauea, while my girlfriend flew in from the Netherlands (where she had spent the last five months studying).

Coming from Berlin the heat and travelling immediatly forced me to take some rest and so I skipped the Cocktail Tasting and started the festival with the Dead Rocks, which proved to be a good opener: lots of energy, classy outfit and good sound. And they probably played the fastest version of Bumblebee Stomp, that I have heard so far (yes, faster than the Surf Coasters, but with a few less notes ). Shortly before and along the way I met some more people from Berlin, but also some fellow SG101 members like Birki or Jonpaul.
Then "the man himself" took the stage and by that time it started to dawn on me, that my idea of seeing every band of the festival was maybe a bit too optimistic, as I already started to get pretty tired. So I reluctantly decided to call it a night after the first couple of songs from Surfer Joe & Band to save some energy for the days ahead.

On Friday there was some time before the bands were sheduled , so there was the opportunity to take a look around in Livorno, visiting the fortresses and eating some local food. Since one of my friends actually drove down to Livorno in her beautiful 1967 Mercedes Benz 200 (white with red top!), we decided to go south along the coast to Castiglioncello and take a little swim. The beach actually wasn't that nice, but the car ride was really cool. (Later we heard that there was a nicer beach in the north, so we will have to check that out next year.)

We were back at the venue right in time to see Daikaiju. I had already seen them two times in Berlin, but these guys are still upping their game and for me it was great fun to see them again. Reactions however seem to have been quite mixed. When I talked to Sascha from Speedball Jr. after the gig he mentioned, that a lot of people were not as enthusiastic about them as me and him. Well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.

After that it was time for Los Coronas, whom to see I had been looking forward to for several reasons: They are, of course, a very entertaining band with their own style and interesting songs. But they also have a special significance for me, since I recently discovered, that me and my girlfriend had been at one of their concerts a few years before we conciously met for the first time. So seeing them again together with her was quite moving, apart from everything that went on musically. I briefly said hello to Ferenc and Karen after that, who were standing right next to us, and after a little dancing and drinking, I had enough for the day and went to sleep.

Saturday was the first of two days with events starting already in the afternoon. After a quick brunch I headed to the SG101 meet and greet and had interesting conversations about songwriting and performance with Djangodeadman and about the SoCal surf scene with Jonpaul. I also got mildly forced into a short NSSR appearance with el camello and shortly talked to some other members like ludobag and kick-the-reverb. I am probably forgetting some people here, but these are the guys, that I saw and/or talked to again and again over the weekenend.

By this time I started to feel hungry and decided to skip the reverb seminar (sacrilege, I know ) and shop for some grocerys for a late lunch and a little nap afterwards. After that it was time for the Sine Waves with their great retro sci fi sounds and outfits and some more high energy surf with Pirato Ketchup. Somewhere in between I grabbed a burger in the diner and talked some more with JP, and then the first highlight of the day for me arrived with the A-Phonics: trad surf sound, but with a disctintively spanish approach to it and with some pretty harmonized melodies played by the two guitarists. I can only recommend to everybody to check out their stuff. Unfortunately I had to skip the Urban Surf Kings, because my girlfriend felt really tired and we only had one key, but I was back right on time for the Kilaueas! And I must say they were on top of their game, some people later said the were the best band of the entire festival and I can definetly see why: I don't think there was another band that had the dynamic range and the diversity in songwriting that the Kilaueas brought on (without additional sounds or instruments!). In addition it seemed to me as if the concerts on the small stage were translating their energy much more directly to the audience.

Afterwards everyone hurried over to the main stage, where the Bambi Molesters were about to start their set. On my way I stubled into Surfing-Matze, another guy I have had friendly discussions with online for a few years now (mostly in the German surfmusic forum), without ever really meeting him. I know that the Bambi Molesters is of the bands, that especially the Americans in the audience looked forward to see and I think, they played beautifully, although I personally was not as impressed by them this time. But that was probably just due to fatigue on my side and annoyance by some people in the audience, who couldn't help bawling some of the melodies in the fashion of a football stadium choir.

Next on were the Boss Martians, who blew everyone away with their blast of pure power and charisma. Everybody was going crazy, so crazy in fact that I had to back off from the stage at a certain point, but fortunately the sound was so good, that you could also enjoy the concert from a little distance. They did about 40% vocals I think, which nobody seemed to mind, since they were sung (and played) extremely well.

Then on the main stage it was time for the final band of the evening: Satan's Pilgrims. I have been wanting to see them for a very long time and I had very high expectations. Unfortunately Rob Pilgrim couldn't make it to Livorno and Scott Pilgrim broke a string early in the set, which caused some delay. But the guy they brought on as a sub did a really nice job and even though the band was not playing as tight as I would have expected them to play, it was definetly nice to see them. And the space and simplicity of their songs was very welcome after the somewhat busy playing most of the other bands had shown throughout the day. As soon as the last chord of the encore was rung out I headed home to get some sleep and briefly talked to Ivan on the way, who was leaving with Dane Carter and John Blair. I was hoping to get the opportunity to talk to John too, but for reasons explained below I didn't feel up to it at this hour of the day.

Sunday started off with the Aqua Barons for me, who were much better than expected, and I got the chance to talk to SanchoPansen a little (again somebody I talk with a lot online but never saw before) and even play some cards with him (we both lost, my girlfriend won). Then the West Samoa Surfer League came on, this time featuring Matze Kilauea as the second guitarist and I must say, he added to the band in a very tasteful way. As the Biarritz Boys started their set I decided to take a short visit to the merch room to finally spent some money on surf stuff, which proved to be perfect timing as it provided the possibility to talk with John Blair for some minutes. I have said this a couple of times: Jon & the Nightriders' "Live at the Whiskey" was the album that made me want to learn the guitar and play in a surf band, so I am very thankful for the chance to meet John and his willingnis to take some time and answer some of my questions, even though I was propably behaving like a total geeky fanboy. In addition I also talked a bit with Evan Foster, who is as much a live wire off stage as on stage and totally enthusiastic and outspoken when it comes to playing guitar. Again I had only a brief chance to talk to Ivan since he was signing stuff and I had to get back to my people, but instead I got the chance to play his legendary fiesta red Strat!

Next on were the Taikonauts, whose performance I mostly heard from the ferris wheel. They finished their heavy sounding set by throwing and burning of bundles of cash! Well okay, fake cash with the musicians' faces on it, but a cool gimick none the less.

After that it was time for some Antonin Dvorak... as the intro for the Blair Pongracic Band's version of "Force of Gravity." There is only one word to describe what followed: epic! Songs from the 60s, some written by John or Ivan respectively, but also one by the Phantom Four (which was an extremly cool thing to do, I think). There have been many great musicians over the days, but here I actually felt completely blown away and I couldn't stop smiling throughout the whole set (and I really had to restrain my own movements not to unwillingly knock anybody's camera out of their hands while dancing). The band was just fantastic and personally my clear favorite of the whole festival.

Messer Chups followed on the main stage. I have seen them quite some times over the last years and I was very happily dancing a little bit away from the stage. After that however I started to get a headache and after the first few bars of Tremolo Beer Gut the festival was over for me. Others told me the band was really good and one of the nice things of the festival was definitely that you had the opportunity to immediately discuss all of the concerts with fellow surf music enthusiasts.

All I can say is: I am really glad that I finally got to Livorno. Lorenzo, thank you very much for everything!

Los Apollos - cinematic surf music trio (Berlin)
"Postcards from the Scrapyard" Vol. 1, 2 & 3 NOW available on various platforms!
"Chaos at the Lobster Lounge" available as LP and download on Surf Cookie Records!

Last edited: Jun 25, 2015 02:59:58

The first video must be this

Sorry if we let anybody down. We did the best we could in a last minute situation...
a huge THANK YOU of appreciation to everyone who contributed to us coming to SJF. We were honored to play with such great people and bands. And also THANK YOU to the devoted fans who came from all over the world to see us. Unbelievably emotional for us to remembered at all.
Lastly a HUGE THANK YOU to Lorenzo. Everything was top notch at the festival and on our tour.

http://www.satanspilgrims.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Satans-Pilgrims/8210228553
https://satanspilgrims.bandcamp.com/
http://www.surfyindustries.com

Last edited: Jun 24, 2015 01:09:54

spskins wrote:

Sorry if we let anybody down. We did the best we could in a last minute situation...

Ted,
I've seen pilgrims at least 10 times or more.
You guys were just awesome Dorthy is a long time fan,
But had never seen you guys. She had a ear to ear smile the
Whole set. Break a leg on the rest of your tour.

Jeff(bigtikidude)