The Apemen live with American all-girl surfband The Neptunas in Leefdaal, Brussels, Belgium, 6 November 1999. Click the pictures to see them full-size

Ska music and old cheese!
Well, the 6th of November was indeed a special day for the Apemen because Mike Fuckema, now known as Joe Cosmo, the king of reggae, joined the Apemen once again for a little reunion concert. It wasn’t really meant to be one,but Johnny Mambo had a double booked gig with his other band Batmobile in Berlin, Germany so he couldn’t join us on our gig in Leefdaal,Brussels in Belgium. It is always a pleasure to play in Belgium so we didn’t cancel the gig but instead asked Mike if he would join us for one show. Mike immediately agreed because he often said that he regretted leaving the Apemen. This was his chance to experience that magic again. We did some rehearsals (3 to be precise) but they turned out be more of a get together and an excuse to drink a lot, so there wasn’t much rehearsing going on.
But considering the fact that Mike hadn’t touched a drumkit in 3 years the gig went quite well. It wasn’t up to the standards where we are now with The Apemen, but it sounded decent enough to upstage The Neptunas with whom we played. But hey, if we couldn’t upstage The Neptunas i would probably hurt myself with a blunt instrument. Fuck man, what is it with these girl groups!? I mean if they were 3 ugly guys, they would be booed off stage EVERY night! But the fact that they are 3 women makes up for the fact that they can’t really play well. That alone wouldn’t be a reason to slag the Neptunas but it’s just the fact that these girl groups act like 12 year old girls.
I mean, when the Neptunas were playing as our support the guitarist broke a string. Total panic off course! She didn’t bring an extra set off strings with her! So she went to the microphone and asked, in a way a little girl would do, does somebody have a guitarstring?!” Well how many of you out there visit concerts with spare strings in your back pocket? When this fact was thought through she got the brilliant idea of shouting “Hey, can we lend a guitar from the Apemen?!” Off course we replied with a big no-no. Not that we didn’t want to lend our stuff (the drummer had already lend mike’s drumkit) but it’s just the fact that i’m lefthanded and it wouldn’t be of any use for her to play. The Apemen always have trouble with American bands. I remember us playing with the Huevos Rancheros in Amsterdam in 1996. Man, were they scared! I must admit that even for Apemen standards we were out of our minds. The main reason was the fact that the owner of the place wouldn't let certain people, who we brought with us, into the place. Also the soundguys were giving us a hard time and the food they promised stank. So the evening ended in thrashing the dressing room and destroying the gate to the parking lot. we were asked kindly if we wanted to wait because they had called the police. I don't have to tell you that we drove off in a hurry.
Also Jon & the Nightriders didn't want to have much to do with us. Except for their drummer Dusty Watson who is a cool guy and a talented drummer. I guess it's just that as we are together there is a sort of chemistry going on that very few people understand. But hey, let's get back to the Neptunas. You know, i don't want to put those girls down but i just hate it when these girl groups get judged by their appearance instead of their musical qualities. Guys like Phil Dirt keep on giving them good reviews because they are so cute and it sounds all so fragile and helpless. Meanwhile, bands that sound exactly like the Neptunas get bad reviews because of bad playing or recording. I think the standard should be as high as any male-band. Anyway, back to the concert. We arrived at 6 o'clock which was actually on-time. I think that was the first time in 3 years that we arrived at a venue on time. We didn't play until 22.30 hours or something so when we started were quite drunk and ready to go. We played for about an hour and 15 minutes and played two new songs which are going to be on our new album. The songs were "El Ritmo Paramaribo" and "Theme from Motörhead". I was good to play the new songs and see what the reaction was from the crowd. It wasn't the wildest crowd in years but the people seemed to dig it. Like i said, it wasn't the best show we ever did but we still could upstage every other band within the next 500 km. Playing in Belgium is always a pleasure because of the relaxed atmosphere and friendly people. And nice women i should say. People seem to have a little bit more sense of style. We should know off course because we lack ANY kind of style or sophistication. We had a little problem with the guy who promoted the gig because we we throwing around with some food before the gig and he threatened not to pay us if we didn't clean the mess up. As you can see from the photo's at the bottom of the page we chose for the money! Well kiddies, what have learned today? 1. The Apemen are still going strong 2. Belgium rules 3. The Apemen are still a bunch of ill-mannered pigs 4. The women have a Betty Page fetish and the fifth and last thing, and perhaps the most important; The Apemen love You! All right, keep in touch with your favourite band and watch out for the new record in the year 2000, it's going to be a killer! (at least that's what we think).Take care and god bless!
Yours truly, Jeroen