Here at Crunchy Frog we have always regarded the Vibrafon label with
the utmost respect. These are the guys that release Eggstone, The
Mopeds, Dipper and many other great swedish bands. We got to know them
personally when THAU for the first time went to Tambourine Studios to
record their album ”Swish”. During the following years a mutual
fondness and friendship (and drukenness during the famous Tambourine
Parties) between the two labels has grown, and in many small ways we
have been able to help each other out or we have asked each other for
valuable advise. A lot of personal and musical friendships
between the danish and the swedish bands has developed as bands
(via the KUBI booking agency) has teamed up for touring in Denmark -
for instance: Tothe International + Dipper and Three Blind Mice +
Learning From Las Vegas.
All this goodwill had to amount to
something big - other than Vibrafon kindly adding the whole Crunchy
catalogue to their Vibrashop e-mail-order webshop. And it surely did.
One fine summer day during the Malmö
Festival
’99 the two soul mate record labels Crunchy Frog and Vibrafon Records
collaborated on a one day Grunge feast (haha, yes! Grunge is back,
kids...) featuring bands from both labels. Here is how it went seen
through the lenses of Rune Mielonen (bass player of Las Vegas) and
Jessica Tolf Vulpius (from KUBI).
After
a few semi-acoustic Malmö-acts, Learning From Las Vegas had the tough
job of being the first real Grunge band to enter the stage in broad
daylight. Against all these threatening odds they performed a truely
beautiful show. Everybody laid back in the grass and enjoyed the
weather and the high strung power-death-core punk of Las Vegas.
Superheroes
brought
their own fans from Denmark and gained even more during their sunny and
jolly koncert. Once again the 35cm tall and only 12 year old singer
Thomas, delivered a great performance of ”Jeg kan høre med mit øre” in
a special Grunge-version that took everybody by surprise. Yes, the
weather was fine, the music was sweet and the youth got drunk and it
was SO New Wave the whole thing.
Lead
singer Henrik from the Umeå Grunge-rock outfit Ray Wonder is a hard
core south paw and plays his left handed guitar better than most would.
Unfortunately the otherwise superb Wonder-gig was stopped for 5 minutes
as he broke a string, and they didn’t have a back up spazz guitar for
Henrik. So they played some bossa and everything was fine... ’cause
everybody loves bossa.
All during the day our two labels tried to sell all our beloved merchandise
to
the public. In this picture it seems like it is The Grunchy Booth -
serviced by Per from Vegas - that has the most attention. Probably
because of Per’s winning personality and great looks (no offense to
Lina from Vibrafon servicing the other booth). In the front left we see
the Vibrafon main man Martin Theander - also a very handsome man and a
snappy dresser, too.
At
dusk the insane boys from Düreforsög entered the stage. As usual they
were dressed in bizare outfits that left nothing to the imagination -
unless you’re Jean-Paul Gaultier. Their special brand of Grunge hit the
primarily swedish audience like a sledge hammer. The rain started to
fall, but everybody stayed. This picture shows old man Boriz gasping
for air (get in shape, boy!), Nis B equally struggling with his guitar
chords and his own hair do (get a freaking hair cut - and another
roadie, too). In the background Andreas is as always dead calm under
pressure.
First
Floor Power hasn’t got a label yet, but they sure are great! They got
it all: good songs, beautiful girls and a singer with a big moustache.
Who could ask for more? Oh, yeah - a Grunge trombone, maybe, but they
of course
thought of that already....
As
night began to fall, the rain fell even harder. As Tothe International
entered the stage the sky was clear, the crowd was nicely drunk and
everything was juuuust fine. Then Harri ”Grunge” Kolari of Dipper
joined the band (small photo) to do the finnish rap in ”Theme From
Token 
Negro”.
This was highly emblematic for the danish/swedish brotherhood but it
somehow disturbed some kinda weather god, and soon it was pouring down.
The larger photo is dedicated to THA Miko who played his last show with
Tothe. Here he is playing a peculiar plastic toy making a weird plastic
noise. We’ll miss that about you Miko. You always knew how to play
something silly and make it sound even sillier (if that’s even a
word...)
No!
Although this is absolutely a Grunge picture, Dipper did not play any
Mudhoney covers. As alwyas Dipper played the best koncert they ever
played and singer Joachim fucked himself even more thoroughly up than
ever before. During ”Rattlesnakes” he jumped out from the stage and
into 
a big pool of mud in front of the stage. During the rest of the show he was - as Per Sunding would say - ”All gahvered in shit!”
And the crowd loved it!!!
As
the icing on the cake - and as an excellent symbol of the love and
understanding of the swedes and the danes the danish/swedish garrage
surf band The Tremolo Beer Gut played as the last band. In this band
you find Per Sunding (from Eggstone) who is co-owner of Vibrafon and
Jesper Reginal (THAU & Tothe) who is co-owner of Crunchy. Tremolo
delivered a truly inebriated show
before a pretty wet audience. The show featured two outstanding guest
performances from Ander Reuss (from Naked) playing his Theremin and
Patrick Bartosch (from Eggstone) playing 
the organ. A fantastic end to a fantastic day. We gotta do this again.
