| Recent Gigs 2 June 2007, ANU Canberra w/ Bladder Spasms
& others TBA CRACK
US ANOTHA! CD Lauch dates: 1 April 2006, The Greenroom, Melbourne w/ Jed Whitey 21 April 2006, Pot Belly, Canberra w/ Lumber 22
April 2006, Oxford
Tavern, Wollongong w/ Pink Fits & Lumber Recent Debacles: 28 January 2006, Belco Bowl Jam, Canberra w/ Johnno & the Trannies & LOG. What a cracka. 16 December 2005, ANU, Canberra w/ 10 band metal fest 10 December 2005, Oxford Tavern, Wollongong w/ The Chargers, Jed Whitey and The Exploders 3 December 2005, The Alpine Hotel, Cooma (race day after party) 9 September, Church Bar, Canberra w/ Johnno & the Trannies 23 March 2005, ANU Bar Canberra w/ The Cops 2 March 2005, Excelsior Tavern, Sydney w/ Jed Whitey & guests 3 March 2005, Palm Court Hotel, Wollongong w/ Jed Whitey & guests 4 March 2005, Oxford Tavern, Wollongong w/ Jed Whitey & Turbo Degenerate 5 March 2005, The ANU Bar, Canberra w/ Jed Whitey, Pod People, LOG & more.... 15 January 2005, Oxford Tavern Wollongong w/ Monstrous Blues & Fireflies Welcome to the Vee Bees gibberish, masquerading as news, April 2007 In
unrelated news, the total combined effort of the boys in the last
few months has included the ongoing building, refurb, and extension
of four houses, two blokes becoming parents, one getting married,
a written off car, and hurting stuff expeditions in the Northern
Territory and a South American love fest. I wouldn’t usually
mention this except it makes a great excuse why the band has been
on the quiet lately. Whats
more poxy than your local clap clinic? Apart from that we've had a couple of road trips to Melbourne/Geelong a while back which went down pretty well, and we had a bloody good time, Those road trips are bluddy boring though aren’t they? Nothing like sitting in a car for a whole day to make you talk bullshit. About the old days, about back when you used to drive road trains for a livin’, back when you had a root in every town, back when the missus pissed off to New Zealand with that bloke from Queensland and left you with the truck to run and you had to take over the running of the Big Pavlova too. Bitch! Then the bikies left town and the go-ey supply dried up and Johnos fuck stop truck stop burnt down and the bluddy dog died. Kennies mate. Kennies. Fuck the Macks, fuck the Volvos. Real blokes drive Kennies. Where would Australia be without them? Up the shit mate. That’s where. Bluddy retrofittedjizzmastaspoontareceptaclemate. North Qld spoonta run mate, they were the glory days. Back when there was a quid in drivin’ bluddy trucks. Not like these days. Glad I got outta drivin’ trucks when I did. Tell ya what. And that. That
reminds me. We are now referring to the new album ‘Crack us
Anotha’ as the Truck Drivin’ Album and the previous
album ‘Get It In Ya’ is the Ute Drivin’ Album.
Make sure you get it right. Otherwise you might end up backing the
ute into a really tight alleyway that it barely fits into while
your mate is out in the road holding up a queue of traffic for 25
minutes while you do it. Or you might end up trying to drive the
ute 800 clicks with 600 head of cattle on the back. Any
how before we left for Mexico, Norro was packin’ the car and
realised that the Lagerphone wasn’t gunna fit so he had to
cut 4 inches off the bastard just to fit it in the car. So the poor
buggers in Melbourne see us for the first time with a sawn off Lagerphone
which stuffed up the whole aesthetics of the stage show which is
something the we pride ourselves on. You will have noticed this
if you’ve seen us live. Showbiz is a hard task master and
when you’re slaving every spare hour you’ve got for
years to make sure that on the night the whole show runs as smoothly
as a ’64 Z series Cummins powered intercooled Kennie straight
out of the showroom, a shortened Lagerphone is like a con-rod through
the block half way between Bourke and Wilcania on the back road
and you’re outta beer and ciggarettes. Just up the road from Fyshwick is 'The Kingo' pub. An institution 'round these parts. (In an ideal world you would be able to see the Big Cock And Balls from here). We spent a day at the Kingo and the next in Thommo's back yard having a good time recording a fillum clip for the song 'Drive Thru Bottlo'. Many thanks go out to the afore mentioned and especially to Andy Hogan who fillumed the fillum clip and did all the technical shit that was required to get it looking as good as it does which is bluddy bluddy bluddy bluddy good. Cheers to our mates who showed up to feature in the little bugger too. Now, you really need to see this fine piece of Aussie cultural cinematography. We doubt that it will make it ont mainstream media but you can view it at www.youtube.com. Be warned that the quality isn't as good as the original but you will get the general idea and you should get a good laugh out of it. We will try and load it onto our website and as many others as we can or if you want the real thing we are selling copies at gigs and through mail order. A bonus is that this version has added footage that didn't make it onto the clip. Any way we're leaving the best and most exciting news 'til last and theres two items on the agenda today: The first is that we've managed to score ourselves some distribution in Europe through Undertow Records and Sonic Rendezvous Distribution in The Netherlands. Undertow carries a lot of Aussie stuff but we bet they haven't quite got anything as Aussie as The Vee Bees ay? Thanks to Sicco at Undertow!! Contact Undertow Records at www.undertow-recordings.com Secondly, things are still in the planning stage at the moment, but it looks like The Vee Bees will be playing a few shows at next years Summernats Car Festival which is held in Canberra in early Jan every year. This is Australia's biggest street car festival and we're pretty bluddy happy to be part of it. Cars, beers, burn-outs, and The Vee Bees. What a top combination!!! See you there. A song or two of ours should also be appearing on the Summernats DVD, 'Brute Horsepower 20' which should hit the shelves in the coming months. Check out Summernats at www.summernats.com.au
Yeah, well talk about getting sidetracked before you even get started.
This was supposed to be the Vee Bee’s update on what we’ve
been up to in the last six months and it has turned out looking
more like a drinking manual. The reason that the drinking manual happened is that we just rediscovered
the wonderful art of beer bonging last night and we’re on
a high especially as it coincided with our first gig in months,
which we don’t really need to go into but we will because
it was such a top night of beer fuelled chaotic idiocy. And it is also a good case study into the amazing versatility of
the beer bong, and how it can be adapted to fit into almost any
situation that may arise in life.
click on pics below for a larger view
GET ON IT TOUR 2005 WITH JED WHITEY & THE VEEBEES Wednesday 2 March 2005, Excelsior Hotel, Sydney Nothin’ like a bit of pre gig relaxation and there’s nothin’ like drivin’ through the city of Sydney in peak hour for just that. We all arrived from various parts of the country to Surry Hills within minutes of each other, road raged and parched, dry as a pommies towel. The timing was no coincidence, just living proof these Aussie blokes are tuned into the beer clock like a bloody sundial……. Met the Jed Whitey fellas (only Glenno and Eshie knew each other previously) and hit it off straight away. There was some sort of weird telepathy thing goin’ on…coz first things first...everyone headed straight to the bar for a cold schooner. Moths to a friggin’ light bulb. Tommo breaks out with his first ‘How good’s Ostraya!’ and it’s on. What is it with sound blokes in pubs being jaded old pricks just whingin’ and whingin’ the whole time and ‘oh that was done back in 1974’ and ‘you shouldn’t put that amp there it’s gotta go 6 inches to the left you idiot’ and ‘as if you don’t use a stomp-box, pfffft’. Well the Excelsior got yer classic case straight outta Spinal Tap, no shit, go and check it out sometime, take some photos. So we ignored him, told him the gig’s starting half and hour late and let him chuck a tantrum while we went up the road for a $4 steak. Fuckin’ tops. So the rooms pretty empty but we get up and do our stuff anyway, steak burpin’ and beer swillin’. The set went down alright with the small crowd and afterwards met a few local celebrities (no name droppin’ here) and Davo and Glenno head upstairs for an ‘after dinner mint’. Got back down to watch Stereo City and found Tommo had devoured the entire first round of drinks (everyone’s) and was dancing by himself. It should be noted now that nobody had to drive tonight - we were all staying at the pub - and this is a very very dangerous situation. By the time Jed Whitey hit the stage the 50 or so people in the room were pretty well lubricated. From the first song ‘Are you ready to hate us’ we were all huge fans, and proceeded to take the piss out of them (as a gesture of respect of course, veebees style) and dance and backwards-head-bang (Norro’s patented move) all at the same time. Buckets of beer and loud marshalls and drums and twin guitars beltin’ out full pelt down-stroke riffs Johhny Ramone style does strange things to the senses. Like making someone think running up and down Foveaux St with nothin’ but an Aussie flag around ‘em seem like a good idea……….at the time. And exposing themselves indecently at their mates, ’Look at thisss!’. Thanks Tommo. Good first night. So it‘s no bloody surprise is it when we arise pretty rotten the next morning with a vb headache and flea bites from the crusty back packers bunks. And probably got fuckin’ foot cancer or something from the showers too. Feral. Glenno had a cold shower coz he couldn’t figure out that maybe the hot is on the right instead of the left. Aint no brain surgeon. Medium Luke from JW shared the room and looked a bit sludge-brained too, pleased to meet ya. Thursday 3 March, Palm Court Hotel, Corrimal Here we go again, back at the pub again for a re-tox. No beer rider again of course. Treated like fuckin’ royalty, we are. No $4 steak either but there is a Thai restarant in the building and that’ll do. And a topless beer waitress in the TAB and Tommo says ‘how good’s Ostraya, ya can’t do this in fuckin’ Egypt’. When ya got a place that’s locally known as ‘The Zoo’ you expect some action, a bit of biffo, but nah….nothing. Bit of loud rock’n’roll though and how good is it? Better crowd than last night. ‘Gong legends Turbo Degenerate opened for what was meant to be their last gig but turned out to be their second last. The high point was their last song/health warning ‘Eat it and Die’ about the local kebab joint. Bloody great fun. We road tested a new song ‘Up the Shit’ and showed how a half decent song soon becomes up the shit with a hangover and a coupla beers. Norro advertised for a new drummer while onstage after Tommo spontaneously improvised a brand new start to Malua Bay, a five year old song (that information musta fallen out last night). The classy and professional backdrop banner fell down. So thanks to the existence of beer so people can enjoy these kind of moments anyway. Sold some shirts and cd’s to some bearded old bikie who dubbed the VeeBees Australia’s Motorhead. Bloody champion. So with all this lowering of iq with sleep deprivation and coffee and after dinner mints and beer and rock’n‘roll and hittin’ things and shoutin’………. and pondering on the fact that both bands have 4 members, touring for 4 nights, bass guitars having four strings, six packs in a case, speakers in a quad box, tequilas before the show, cans short of a six pack, beers on stage…………it’s no surprise that by the second night the chorus chant of Jed Whitey’s cover of Bathory’s ‘War’ had degenerated to FOUR! along with the clever genius of thrusting four fingers in the air at the same time, bangin’ up the front. Bloody genius, it is. Try it for yourself sometime. Better than backwards headbangin’. Jed Whitey deliver the goods, every night. Friday 4 March 2005 Oxford Tavern, Wollongong The VeeBees spent the day wisely post/pre gig hangin’ out at Port Kembla, Wentworth St burek eatin‘, prossie peepin’, junkie watchin’, thrash metal bangin’, MM Beach surfin’ and RSL schooner havin’. And a coupla after dinner mints which goes without saying really. So it’s the same line up as last night now, Pink Fits had to cancel unfortunately. Turbo Degenerate (named after a dog that was named after Turbo Negro!) got up and did their heavy yobbo rock for the official last time. Damn shame coz it was fuckin’ gold up there with Rusty in his metal-god gear, the Bulli Rapist on drums and legendary songs like ‘Hitchin’ on the Hume’ and ‘Eat it and Die’. Good on ya fellas. Looks like just about everyone from the night before turned up, as well as lots more. Now, after the word got around that the reason the VeeBees couldn’t get a show at the Oxford Tavern (for 3 years) was coz they were, quote, ‘Too offensive for the Oxford Tavern’, unquote, the obvious decision was to open with C’mon Cunt! What else? Eshie kept getting’ up and fuckin’ with Tommo’s drums stool (??!!). Rusty got up and did ‘Whaddya reckon about me ute’ with us, Norro had the now full Oxford Tavern turned born again piss tanks, Glenno had garlic breath from Hell and shared it with everyone and Davo flogged the piss out of that SG like he caught it with his girlfriend. Wollongong goes off like a cracker, what a heap of rock’n’roll freaks. Jed Whitey did it again, it’s a full house, and everyone from last night (those in the know!) are up the front ready to cop the full brunt of the Jeddies, the Jay Dubbleya’s, the Whities, at face value, full volume. And another rippin set yet again, flat out, balls out rock, who doesn’t love this shit??? Hands up….right.. we’re gonna bash ya. Saturday 5 March 2005 ANU Bar, Canberra Hey hey hey here we go again. (hitchin on the hume baby hitchin on the hume). Eshie passed Glenno on the Hume and gave the FOUR! with the right hand out the window. Glenno passed Louis and Big Luke at Hungry Jacks on the Hume and gave the FOUR! (at four’o’clock, too, hey is this the devil at work?) Flag number four on Tommo’s drums, one per night of rock. This is night number 4 after all, and we are expecting the Devil himself to be turning up tonight. He’s on the guest list so he might at least pop in for a chat. Hell?…well we weren’t far off. 6:30 pm ANU Bar, Canberra: black metal fans everywhere and the bar is closed! HHHEEEEELLLLLLLL!!! (with reverb) This was a living hell for twenty minutes then Satan decided he was a beer man and opened the bar. Glenno’s Venom Black Metal glow in the dark shirt had to have helped get the Dark Lord on side. But Still no beer rider….. But hey this ones a benefit show for Tsunami victims, all for charity and no rider is expected of course. But maybe one day…..somewhere……? Many bands played and it’s all a blurr, but stand outs definitely LOG with new vocalist Foetus, and Pod People as well as Rock Lords Jed Whitey, who went down exceptionally well with the dark and morbid and evil punters. Bass player/vocalist Loius belts out rock tunes with a face like he’s coppin’ favours from someone in the front row, Eshie pounds skins while looking’ straight through ya while Big Luke and Medium Luke thrash out right and left handed guitars respectively! Fucking gold. But the Bathory cover (FOUR!) went unnoticed……too old for the young anorexic smelly pale faced greasy black haired gothic black metallists. No sense of humour these cunts, anyway. VeeBees get the big rock god stage tonight. High enough off the ground to inspire water tight rock musicianship, pick thowing and C’mon Canberra yelling, but no, not tonight. Instead we deliver a beered-up loose set of garbled rock noise, thong kicking, beer spraying , guest lagerphone playing (onya Eshie and mystery sheila!), band heckling, crowd abusing and other dubious shenanigans. Paul from the legendary Space Juniors asked Glenno after the show: ‘So did that suck for you?’ ……… Tommo stuck the set list on the meathead bouncers back unnoticed (playin’ with fire Tommo, playin’ with fire!), we left Jed Whitey’s signed snare skin behind (not the first time to leave stuff behind at the ANU) and it’s a pissed finale with a handful of us asked to leave the bar several times before adjourning to the car park for another hour or two of drunken garble, blah blah blah. Rock’n’roll touring just the way ya want it!!!!!!!
THE LATEST VEE BEE’S
NEWS It’s been a
tumultuous year for The VeeBees, especially for long time and under
endowed members Tommo (drumming) and Glenno (bassing). Legend guitaring/singing
Simo left in late 2003 to pursue a career of “bashin’
tha fuck outta people.” I’m serious. This left a big
hole in the line-up and the blokes had a big problem. “At
least mine’s thick at the base” said Tommo. A pity it
tapers to point comical conical cockerel. And still the hole had
to be filled. As mentioned earlier
these two aren’t the brightest and have had a hard time learning
the VB anthems. The problem is largely mathematical. Some songs
get counted in 1-2-3-4 and others 1-2-3-4-5-6!!! How confusing is
that? Some have 2 riffs with 3 chords in each riff and 57 words,
some3 chords in one, 4 in the other, 94 words, some words almost
as long as wheelbarrow, 4 chords, 2 riffs, 30 can block, 24 words,
666, 3 cones, 72riffs and a partridge in a pear tree. You get the
general idea. Glenno and Tommo haven’t escaped lightly either.
“There used to be 3 of us and now there’s 4” said
a confused Glenno. The boys have even managed to fit a couple of gigs into their hectic schedule, the most notable being a night in Canbeera with Wollongongonianish bands Rockafella and Hy-test where a couple of new songs were belted out to the general public. Yeah, the lads haven’t just been practicing their beer drinking, TV throwing, Gay barbequing and bullshit artistry skills down the retreats. They’ve been writing new songs too! Accidentally most of them ended up being about beer drinking, notably: Drinking Problem (2 cans, 2 hands, only 1 mouth), Piss Tank (At the bar drinkin’…) and the soon to be smash shit “Lucky I Brought The You Beaut Ute ‘cos The Hatch Back Jap Crap Has Too Small A Boot For The Drive Thru Bottl’o” (This may have to be shortened to just plain old “Drive Thru Bottl’o” at a later date just to please the record industry) There’ also the ocker rocker songs “No Worries” and “Up The S**t” and in keeping with the VB’s policy of: “We’re not gunna sing about nothin’ we don’t know about” a song about everybody’s favourite pastime, wanking. The song: “Bashing The Bishop”. A sure crowd pleaser. In the near future this fine body of men are hoping to record some of these new songs (it’s just a matter of finding the tape recorder) and release them on CD, shift enough units to be able to retire into a drug fucked delirium which hopefully involves loss of bowel function, drinkin’ piss an’ talkin’ shit. Keep your eye out for that. The CD that is. Playing some gigs would be good too. Although the VB’s could organise a piss up in a brewery, they haven’t yet, organising gigs is stretching the limit. If you could stretch the limit by helping us out with gigs get in contact and we’ll cut you in on some loss of bowel function. That’s about
it for now. Just remember: Beer. |
||||||||||||||||
