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GreazeFest Friday nite
The Fishbowl was
packed with wall to wall rockabilly fans all partying to the fantastic
line up of bands. Every band on the bill put in brilliant performances.
The Tractor Jacks kicked off the weekend on Friday nite with a superb
set of mid fifties rockabilly. Sydney’s Satellite V had the dance
floor jammed with jivers shaking it to their addictive hillbilly bop
beat.
 The
ultra-special-guest from the USA, Deke Dickerson launched into in a
killer set on his twin neck Mosrite guitar. Backed by the Down
Under Ecco-Fonics [Jon Flynn on slap, Coojee Timms on skins], Deke
treated the crowd to collection of his best tracks including ‘Hot Rod
Queen’; ‘Mexicali Rose’, ‘Sparkin’ and the Link Wray inspired
instrumental ‘TJ Tuck & Roll’. With The Planet
Rockers in the building, some guest jamming was expected and we weren’t
disappointed. Eddie Angel and Sonny George joined Deke for the
encores. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, Deke
spotted visiting UK Polecat Boz Boorer in the audience and invited him
on stage. Boz knocked us all over with an all star version of
‘Rockabilly Guy’. The crowd was squealing with delight!
GreazeFest Rat-a-Rama
Saturday’s events
rolled around quickly and the Rat-a-Rama hot rod show started to fill
early with rats, rods, sleds, vintage bikes, custom cycles and lots of
greazers. The Vintage Vendors added to the scene with a cool range of
merchandise from traditional fifties bric-a-brac to modern kustom
kulture fashion.
The Flamin’ Locos put
in a fabulous set of hootin’ and hollerin’ countrybilly to a very
enthusiastic crowd. When the Throttle Zombies hit the Rat-a-Rama stage
they turned up the volume and caused a visit from the Redcliffe Police.
I’m sure the cops just dug your music Zombies – they didn’t really want
you to turn it down.
A big thank you to
Gary ‘Johnny Chopper’ Winmill, who lent his metal work talents
to carving out the GreazeFest custom crown trophies from a 3” tail
pipe. Greazers that took home a Rat-a-Rama custom crown are as
follows.
 King Rod
– 1946 Ford Business
Coupe from Gray Linfoot.
King Kustom
– 1954 Ford Victoria
from Brian Lembruggen.
Cool Cycle
– Hellraiser chopper
cycle from Jamie Williams.
King Rat
– 1936 Plymouth from
The Demons. This is the rattiest car I’ve walked around since Green
Bay. It came complete with barbed wire grill and petrol leaking out of
the tank. Well done Demons, you guys are king greazers.
King Kroozer
– Harley Davidson
Heritage Soft Tail from Warren from Geelong.
GreazeFest Lowbrow Art Show
 The GreazeFest Lowbrow
Art Show was an outstanding success with dozens of items going on show
such as tikis, oil paintings, hot rod art, car part robots, slot
machines and who knows what else. A big THANK YOU goes to Paul Mortimer
who organised the whole art shebang, along with Rob Walker & Jay
Bryant. Well done dudes. And thanks to all the artists who submitted
work including Paul Mortimer, Rob Walker, Jay Bryant, Clayton Sullivan,
Darren Mortimer, Steve Martinez, Pete Walker, Marcus Thorn, Eric Billington, Sandy Wilson, Woz, Tim Dunn, Bob Lawson, Scotty Makin,
Quentin Hall, Rene Muir plus any I’ve missed. I know that a few of the
art show pieces have now been given a permanent home at the Fishbowl.
Thanks also to Rob and
Jay for brushing the killer custom chrysler pin stripe on the back of my
Dodge. I
GreazeFest Saturday nite
Saturday’s crowd was
getting greased and gassed all day – so when Saturday nite rolled
around, the room was well primed for some hot rockabilly. Teresa and
The Starlite Ramblers kicked off the nite with a ranch style set of
fillybilly bop featuring some fine guitar picking from Ramblin’ Daniel
Nosovich. Toowoomba’s mountain men, West Texas Crude, put in a dynamite
set of chunky rockabilly and had the room pumpin’. GreazeFest dj
extraordinaire, Mike da Moocha kept the discs spinning all weekend and
kept the energy up before the Planet Rockers set.
 The
Planet Rockers hit the stage at midnight and launched straight into
‘Trouble Up The Road’ followed by tracks from their first albums
including ‘Thunder Road’, ‘Big Wheel’, ‘King Fool’ and Eddie’s Angel’s
signature instrumental ‘Rampage’. Lead man Sonny George was dressed
from hat to toe in black leather, tattoos and a big black guitar with
white inlays. Stage left was guitar legend Eddie Angel who proceeded to
stun the crowd with his hot rock’n’roll guitar style. Stage right was
none other than Deke Dickerson, who proved he can cut it as much on slap
bass as he can on guitar. And for another nite on the skins was
Brisbane’s own Coojee ‘Thunder’ Timms, who put in two great nites of
killer drumming. Thanks COOJEE! You are a legend!
The Planet Rockers
kept the dance floor jumpin’ into the wee hours – for their second
encore Jon Flynn took over on bass duties, and Deke Dickerson picked up
his twin neck and whipped up some serious jammin’ with Eddie Angel.
GreazeFest Sunday
The weekend wasn’t
over yet. An intimate crowd of 70 or so greazers spent Sunday morning
coming down at the Vintage Video morning in Fifi’s cocktail bar. Thanks
to Gerald Kosler who provided an unbelievable video tape of back to back
b’n’w tracks from the likes of Gene, Eddie,
 Johnny Cash, The Collins
Kids and Wanda Jackson to name a few. It was a chilled out way to cruize into the day, lounging around on 50’s vinyl lounge chairs and
sofas, sipping on light beer, eating potato wedges and checking out the
tunes. And no, I wasn’t asleep on that front couch – I was just
resting my eyes.
The GreazeFest All
Star Rockabilly Jam was a perfect way to wrap up a great weekend of
rockabilly. Kicking off the jam was Brisbane’s Shakin’ Quavers, who
reunited for a special once off show. The Quavers put in a cool set of
rockabilly and got the crowd ready to party all over again. Eddie Angel
was first on stage for the jam, picking up Rupert’s guitar and knocking
out The Shadows instrumental ‘Apache’, followed by ‘Promised Land’.
Deke also rocked up to the stage for a few numbers and jammed with
Brisbane’s Daniel Nosovich. Deke was heard to say to Dan, ‘man, you
sure are one hot picker’. Thanks to all the muso’s who played at
the jam, including The Crude, The Ramblers, The Jacks, The Quavers, The
Blue Link Trio and anyone I may have missed.
I heard from many a
person who said they have just witnessed three great days and nites of
rockabilly history and I gotta agree. The GreazeFest was an
extraordinary weekend.
Thanks!
Thanks to everyone who
attended the GreazeFest weekend, especially the folks who came from
interstate and overseas. A big THANK YOU to
the all the team at the Fishbowl. They once again opened up their arms
and their fantastic hotel to all the greazers and partied right along
with us for the entire weekend. Thanks also to Peter Martini who
kept the GreazeFest weekend in full swing as Master of Ceremonies on the
microphone. And a special thanks
to the talented Eric Billington who created a stunning GreazeFest stage
backdrop and lent his time and resources for the art show. Thanks also to
GreazeFest photographer Rod Wallwork from Wallworx Studios, who spent
the GreazeFest weekend snapping up a storm of photos. Thanks to dj’s Josh
from the UK, Greg, Jimbo and Louis who wanted to spin some discs at the
GreazeFest but were unable to due to circumstances.
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