Check out Hawaiian Chopper Magazine:
Some of the cool people we met and their affiliations:
AND thx to everyone at KPOI 105.9FM:
And thx for the shirts:
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MV IN HAWAII
This page is still evolving.
Check back for more links to builders, sponsors, and other cool people and companies.
Lots more pix and video coming too!!!
SO CHECK BACK, OK???
would like to thank Steve Kalnasy and everyone at
for bringing the band over to headline the Motorhead Classic (04/12/2008).
We had a blast and made so many cool new friends.
You guys are the best!!!
The band with Steve Kalnasy of Hawaiian Chopper Magazine
Click here to check out J of MEAN VENUS' interview with KPOI DJ, Michelle Shockley
(Make sure and stop the music first ;)
J's Hawaii Blog
AMERICAN AIRLINES SUCKS
Day One (4-9-2008)
24 Hours of travel. First flight from Newark to Dallas was cancelled. Not cool. American Airlines sucks really bad. Thought it was a blessing in disguise cuz the Dallas flight would have had us waking up at 3:30 a.m. Instead of being on a 6:40 a.m. flight to Dallas we ended up on a 9:15 a.m. flight to LA. Gave us three extra hours to sleep. Good fortune huh? Well no not really cuz we ended up having to sit around and wait for the LA to Honolulu flight for about 8 hours. We got there 12:15 and Honolulu flight was supposed to leave around 3 but didnt take off til 8PM! I am actually on that flight right now somewhere over Pacific Ocean. 6 hours from LA to Honolulu so we will arrive around 10:20 PM Hawaii time. This is 4 a.m. in NJ. By the time we gather up all our luggage, rent van, and get to hotel it will easily be midnite Hawaii time... 6 a.m. NJ time...24 hours door to door. Brutal. High Point: Ran into Chong and Keanu Reeves in LAX. Pretty cool. Chong is pretty frickin cool ;)
We were planning on getting to Honolulu around 6Pm and be in our room by 8 or so. Was hoping to then get dinner and scope the surroundings out...get acclimated. Not gonna happen tonite. Already pretty exhausted. Supposedly there is a storm over the island right now but I am sure that that will clear with our arrival ;) Very psyched about next few days. Switched rehearsal studio we had booked for Friday 5-9 to two 2 hour sessions: one Thursday and one Friday...5-7. Needed to free up Friday nite. Steve--the owner (I believe) of the entertainment company and magazine (Hawaiian Chopper) hosting the Motorhead Classic--is throwing a VIP party Friday nite for the sponsors of the event. Cant miss that ;) Also Friday morning we are going to be on radio and TV. Dont know the specifics but this is what I am told. Interviewed about the event we've come here for. Letcha know more as I know.
Have had a fun time today overall. A bit frustrating but in really good company so making the best of everything. Really great spending time with Marc and Chris. Never travelled this far with em so it is a bit of an adventure. The next few days should be quite an experience. More when I get a chance. Aloha ;)
First Full Day In Hawaii
(4-10-2008)
COULD NOT SLEEP! Got about 6 hours but should've probably gotten about 12 after the American Airlines fiasco yesterday. How can you sleep here though? Marc couldnt sleep either so we were up and out early looking for some place to eat. Saw a sign at a neighboring hotel for b-fast buffet and ventured in. Guess it was a Japanese hotel. Everyone was Japanese and the food was some weird Japanese-American hybrid. No coffee. Just tea. Rice and lo-mein and eggs (powdered?). Interesting meal. Wont be returning there for more though ;)
Got in too late last nite to get rental car. Steve (from Hawaiian Chopper Magazine) had his assistant (Renise) pick us up at the airport and bring us to hotel and everything. Renise is the coolest. Totally a godsend. After spending the morning and early afternoon scoping out Waikiki--the shops, the beautiful beaches, etc--Renise picked us up and brought us to get rental. This place is really paradise. Little drizzly but still gorgeous. Hotel is awesome too. Called the Wyland. Owned by this artist who is famous for airbrushing these huge marine scenes on buildings. I mean frickin huge works of art. Google him or something. After we got the rental we were off to our first rehearsal. Marc is really a human GPS. Dude just has like a sixth sense when it comes to finding places. Got us to the studio no problem. Place called Vibe Asylum. Cool studio. Great vibe. We were tired but really pumped up and really nailed set. Still tinkering with order of tunes in setlist as 1/3 of material is brand new. Trying to figure out where to add new tunes. Liked setlist we did today but still needs work. Will tinker a bit more tomorrow with it and fine-tune for Saturday's big event. Me and Marc are real sick too. My voice is feeling ok though. HIs is in pretty bad shape. Fingers crossed for Saturday.
Today was all about getting settled in. Nothing "required" of us. Barmaid suggested this awesome place to eat. Called Chuck's. Outstanding in everyway. Nice mellow cover band doing the Eagles and such and a perfect steak and the people were super cool. Gave em some cds and stuff. Everyone here is really laid back and nice. Very genuinely welcoming. Could get used to that ;) Was great to sit down and relax with the guys finally, no rushing, and just soak in the moment. Was thinking this would all feel really surreal but it just kind of felt good. Not dream-like or anything. Thought it would seem strange but just feels right.
Full day. Exhausted. Jet lag. Must sleep. Radio station, rehearsal, VIP party tomorrow...
Second Full Day: KPOI Interview and VIP Party
(4-11-2008)
Oh yeah forgot to mention that yesterday right after getting rental car we heard an ad for the event on the radio..."Let the Feelings Go" was playing in the background and it said something to the effect of "And performing live NJ rock sensation MEAN VENUS"...how cool? happened to be videotaping at the time and caught the whole thing on tape. Gonna be real cool footage for our dvd...
Went to KPOI (105.9 FM) bright and early today to do radio interview. Was asked to give a ride to one of the chopper builders who was put up in the same hotel as us. Name's Hank Young. Out of Atlanta. Real cool dude. At the radio station we finally met the owner of Hawaiian Chopper Magazine and the organizer of all this mayhem--Steve Kalnasy. Been talking to him via email and phone forever so was cool to finally meet face-to-face. Coolest dude. Not much time to socialize though. Right into interview. Steve had some of the other chopper builders with him and we all crowded into the dj's booth. Was really anarchy in there. I believe DJ's name was Mars. Hafta find out for sure. Super cool dude too. Real funny and got a kick outta reading my blog (this blog!) so he is cool in my book ;) Anyway there musta been at least ten of us in there. I got to plug the site on the air which was real cool and gave cds out to the staff at the station. Cant beat that ;) The dj--Michelle Shockley--who interviewed me a while ago via phone wasnt there. Was hoping to meet her face-to-face too and thank her. Been hearing that she has been playing excerpts of the interview all week. Went to breakfast with everyone after interview and finally got to bullshit with everyone. What a great group of people. And real eggs this time!!! Thanks for breakfast Big Mike ;)
Got back to hotel early enough to get to the beach for a bit and got lotsa photos taken. We have millions already. And I video taped us at each leg of the journey here...Newark, LA, Honolulu airports...gonna do the same thing on return trip (Honolulu, Dallas, Newark). I want to edit this footage in between songs on the dvd we put out. Got some pretty funny stuff so far. Had lunch with Chris' parents at their hotel. They actually flew out for this. How cool is that? This band has the most incredible support. It is truly amazing. Another example: talked to my Mom and stepdad (George) and they are planning on meeting with Suzi (the wonderful person behind much of our photography and flyers and all kinds of other marketing and promotion we do) this weekend and hiring her to really get her hands dirty with the MEAN VENUS stuff. Getting our press kit to beyond-pro standards, web stuff, print ads, video, etc. They have huge faith in me and the band and want to help financially make some cool stuff happen for us. Cant believe the kindness and generosity actually. Feels really great to be love that deeply. Thanks guys! Looking forward to seeing you upon our return and telling you about everything.
Back to Vibe Asylum for another rehearsal. Different room but still great vibe ;) Loud as hell tonite. Tweaked setlist some more. Getting closer. Final setlist will be in an order we have never performed. That should make things even MORE interesting tomorrow at the festival. Marc has NO voice whatsoever. That should make it even MORE interesting. My voice feels great compared to how it has felt past week or so. Screamed head off. Jumped around like a looney. Very ready. New tunes are incredible. Really. As good or better than anything off of PCP. Next album is gonna be incredible. The two covers we threw together for this sound awesome too. Really have made them our own. Really running on empty at this point though. No energy. Still sick. After rehearsal drove half hour or so to VIP party. We were asked to play a tune or two for all the people there...mostly sponsors of the event and the various builders who have been flown in. On fumes, we plow through four tunes. Dont know how we made it through. Were only supposed to do one or two but kept getting asked to play "one more". Did brand new tune "Change Your Mind", "Happy Here", Steve requested "Invisible" and then we closed with another new one "Next Time Around". Not thrilled with performance but it was all we could muster...sick, jet-lagged, exhausted, burnt-out. Got back to hotel pretty late. Couldnt sleep. Four hours and then: WIDE AWAKE. Blue skies calling outside my window. Today's the day...
D-Day
(4-12-2008)
Gonna be a tough day to blog about. Really a blur and so much happened in such a short piece of time. Here goes:
Kind of snuck out of my room on my own this morning early. Couldn't sleep. Needed a REAL beach day before leaving. Have done a lot of walking on beach but havent really gotten to soak up the sun and swim and everything. Feel like it would be a real sin to not immerse myself at least one day in the sun, sand, and sea. Rest of band arent really "beach people"...that is the real sin ;) but to each their own. Got breakfast and sat with an older Australian gentleman named Peter. Cool dude. Was nice to get mind off of everything going on and just listen to him talk about his life and his wife and his son and his history. Good way to start the day ;) Then to beach. Gorgeous day. Had been a little fear that it would rain the day of the event. It being outdoors, that would've been truly disastrous. BUT no such misfortune. Couldnt ask for better weather. I swam a bit and laid out a few hours. Bought a towel with a big mermaid on it and "HAWAII" scrawled across it. It would later blow off my balcony, gone forever. Anyway, did a bunch of shopping on the way "home". Lotsa of trinkets for everyone back in NJ. Been doing lotsa such shopping here and there. Got daughter the cutest red and black Hawaiian style dress. She is gonna look adorable in it. Got her some shell necklaces and t-shirts and a Cindarella hair brush too. My little crazy-haired monkey. Found out we need to be at Aloha Tower (the venue for the big event) at about 2:30 PM for our sound check. Feeling a bit hoarse. Uh-oh. Overdone things as usual?
Met back up with the band and loaded up van with all our gear and merchandise. Hawaiian Chopper has been gracious enough to supply us with a merchandise table at the event beside all the other bike vendors and their wares. We brought 400 cds, a shitload of shirts, stickers, buttons, flyers, etc. We come ready. Got a little lost on way to venue but pretty much made it on time. Late enough where we had to waste no time getting right up on stage and setting up for sound check. Hardly got to take in surroundings. Beautiful place. Right on water. Huge boats in the background. Sun glistening on water. Custom choppers lining the area, vintage cars...most outrageous vehicles. Finally a little bit of that surreal feeling I had expected ;) Stage was pretty damn big too. Not like in a bar or even a club. Two custom choppers on either side in front. Everything was totally pro. Pleased to see that everything we requested in our rider was sitting there on stage. Nice Galien Krueger bass rig for me. Marc was happy to see a Marshall half stack (at one point we found out that the sound company only had a Fender Twin! Hardly a hard rock guitarists dream) and a maple Masters Series (?) Pearl kit for Chris. Great sound crew. Very pro. Thx Tim. Thx Walter. Very helpful. Very into making everything as successful as possible. We got everything ready--tuned, etc. And ran thru "Let The Feelings Go". Sounded awesome. Huge. I love playing outdoors. Great sound system. We need big stage and big sound. Need to be loud! We were all really happy with sound in minutes. Did about half of "Next Time Around" and decided we were ready to go. Six hours to showtime.
Doors opened at 4 and we really had the whole day to just hang out and schmooze and take pictures and stuff. Hawaiian Chopper had their photographers there of course and we took a million pics too ;) We're told there is gonna be a lot of MEAN VENUS stuff in upcoming edition(s). Cant wait to see that stuff. Hafta definitely get it all scanned and uploaded so you guys can check out--or go buy a copy if you can!!! Met so many cool people. Many had been at party the night before and came up to let us know they dug what we do. Very cool. Swapped t-shirts and stickers with the various manufacturers and such. Lotsa models, burlesque dancers, and bikini contest contestants walking around adding to the surreal atmosphere ;) Finally got to meet KPOI dj, Michelle Shockley. She was one of the mcs for the evening and I cant say enough good things about her. Just truly cool and had nothing but the most flattering things to say to us. Thanks so much Michelle for making the experience that much cooler. Two bands before us. The first one was like a Japanese rockabilly group...with the hair piled high and all that. Damn good. Great stage presence. Gotta find out their name. The next band was a hard working local group called the 8250s, I believe. Great rock sound. Super tight and they were actually off to do ANOTHER gig right after the festival. DAMN! Finally we got our chance to play. Wrapping things up in the headlining slot. Night had settled in nicely...
Got things off as we always do with "Let the Feelings Go". Very excited. I could tell we were gonna have a good nite immediately. Marc and Chris were both right on the money with everything. My voice was feeling a bit fatigued. Been singing way more than usual of late and with the lack of sleep, jet lag, flu and everything else going on I must say I was not 100% confident we would be 100%. But adrenaline always takes over and pushes you that extra bit and everything just went great. And we got the whole thing recorded on Chris' new high def video camera YEAH!!!
We did the first of the covers next: "Born to Be Wild". What a trip. "Get your motor running...headout on the highway..." What could be more appropriate? The song selection was well received. Good choice ;) Basically played the rest of the first half of our normal set at that point ("Happy Here","Invisible","Midlife Crisis","Thank Me"), then we started mixing it up a bit. I believe we did "Change Your Mind" next. Then "Desperation" and then "Next Time Around". I think "A Little Peace" was next and then the second cover: a super heavy version of "Keep On Rockin In the Free World" by Neil Young. Marc's idea. That went over well too. The we did "A Vision" and "Cant Let You In" back-to-back as we always do and closed with the newest tune of them all "Are You Feeling It?" What a great closer it is. None of you (other than those at festival) have heard it yet. Cant wait to play for you. Think it is gonna be our new closing tune--instead of "Wouldnt it Be Good?" Just really builds and builds and crescendos until the climax. Aroused? I am ;) Come hear it at Kennys Castaways in NYC April 25th ;)
I must say that as we hit the last G chord I felt a bit of relief. This whole thing had been quite a long time in the making. So much preparation and promotion and everything. Putting new songs together for it, etc. Then getting so sick right at the eleventh hour...there was definitely a feeling of relief more than anything when the set was done. And definitely a feeling of accomplishment. Of setting out to do something big and making it happen no matter what obstacles are set before you. Totally, totally wiped out at this point. Depleted. Drained. A sweaty nasty mess. Throat raw and thrashed. YEAH!!! People really seemed to dig what we do. Thank God. Dont wanna travel 5000 (10,000 round trip) miles for nothing. Hung around for a bit and packed everything up and said a lot of thank yous and good-byes. Grabbed a late, late dinner and passed out...
Final Day in Hawaii :(
(4-13-2008)
You would think we'd sleep the day away. BUT 4 hours and wide awake again. Another beautiful morning. Marc was up too. Both all sick, we embark on final day in Hawaii. Nice breakfast and some more shopping. Decided to splurge and get this cool ass belt and shirt I saw in a rock boutique. They really had the coolest stuff. I think it was Lucky Jeans or some shit like that. Figure I wont have another chance to get the items anytime soon so...
Day of winding down but cool with it. Only 4 days or so on the island but so packed that I am ready to get back to "normal" life again. Missing daughter immensely and cant wait to get one of those tiny hugs she gives so well ;) Looking forward to seeing her face when I give her all her presents. She is always so thankful for every little thing. Have a big lunch and check out. Have a few hours to kill before returning rental van and lugging our ton of shit to the airport. Ironically meet first true asshole as we get to airport. This baggage bitch at American Airlines. Such a ball buster. Charges Marc 50 dollars to check one of his bags. One of the same bags he'd just checked-in 4 days earlier on American Airlines for free. Her name is Tish. That is all she would tell me. "There is only one Tish here" she said as I demanded more information. Name badge said Patricia. Real bitch. Didnt want to get arrested so let it go. American Airlines really, really sucks. Will never fly them again if I have a choice. They just shit on customer as much as possible it seems. Felt like they had a lot of power over me and that they abused the shit out of that power every chance they got. Basically saying "Well you are shit out of luck cuz you are in LA" or wherever and totally at our mercy. Then to slap us in the face for that extra 50 dollars after cancelling flight and delaying second flight for hours and hours. F*%k them.
Made it home in one piece with no further delays and got the final video footage I wanted at each leg of return trip. Gonna be a great dvd. Have to get it all edited up and want to get sound mixed/mastered so that audio rivals that of pro-dvd releases. MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII on hi-def dvd YEAH!!! We left 7PM Sunday and got back 2PM Monday...had to give back those 6 hours we gained upon arriving in Honolulu. Bet I am gonna feel that for a coupla days. Anyway. Thanks so much to Steve Kalnasy and everybody at Hawaiian Chopper Magazine for everything. We had a great time and made a lot of great new friends. Look forward to working with everybody again sometime in the hopefully not-to-distant future. You guys really know how to throw an event!!! And thx to all the great chopper builders and hotrod and motorcycle fans. You guys are the coolest. And thx so much to everybody back home who wished us well and who continually phoned, texted, and emailed. You guys are the best too and we really look forward to hooking up with you all and showing you all the video and pics and playing you the new music. THANKS TO ALL!!!
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS OUTSIDE VENUE (ALOHA TOWER) (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS OUTSIDE VENUE (ALOHA TOWER) (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
MEAN VENUS LIVE IN HAWAII (04/12/2008)
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