Sunday, December 6, 2009

The Rock'N'Roll Boat & Trailer Show




















Al from the Von Zippers/Roto-Flex records put together this 3 day fest of primitivo garage and related forms of trashy rock'n'roll back in 1997. I made it out to Calgary for the show and they paid me for the poster art with free beer all weekend. Hilites were seeing The Spaceshits again a few months after their Winnipeg show, the always cool and creepy Forbidden Dimension, the best Gas Huffer show I ever saw and diggin' The Von Zippers motorvatin' though their own set then backing the totally crazed, sweat-soaked Pokemonojeff Connolly on a batch of Lyres classics. To top it all off, when I walked outta The Night Gallery after the last show there was a guy walkin' across the street stark naked and he asked me what the hell was I lookin' at? Another highlight of this trip was opening the bathroom cabinet in the hotel we were stayin' at and finding a big chunk of human hair under there. Seems like someone needed to change their appearance in a hurry and had just chopped their long hair off in one big hunk and dumped it there. Pretty mysterious. Anyhow the poster was kind of a takeoff on the one my friend TOMB had done for the previous year's show (see page 267 of that jumbo Art Of Modern Rock book for TOMB's wicked effort). This was originally supposed to be printed in full color but the posters ended up being black and white. I recently learned that there were T-shirts made using this artwork as well. I didn't get one. Anyhow, my recreation of the original color version makes its grand debut here. This is the original version of the poster with The Fiends included in the lineup. They weren't able to make the show (The Brewtals from Edmonton filled their spot if I remember rightly), but it's a good chance to remember Fiends singer Greg Johnson who passed away a couple of days back. I have a bunch of Fiends art that I'll post up here later. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!

2 comments:

  1. I have a tape somewhere a friend broughtme back from the BT SHow. She taped The Von Zippers and the Mants for me. i Really wanted to go!

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  2. It was a lotta fun! I'm pretty sure I woulda had a good time even without all the free beer...

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