About Me
This is a little history. Some history about my former bands..
Hi, I'm Rémi, a guitar player, singer/ songwriter from the Netherlands. I decided to create this site for the ones who like to know, see and hear something more from my musical past.
I was born on a cold november morning 1968. My mother was a teacher on a primary school and my father a musician. They both made music, mostly classical stuff. Maby that's why I started as a 7-year old kid with the violin. Two years later in 1977 I saw the movie "The girl can't help it" (1957) and "Rock allround the Clock" (1956) on television. Stars from the past like Gene Vincent, Eddy Cochran and Bill Haley in these movies had a very big impact on me. Like I found "something to believe in". ROCK and ROLL! So, I switched-over to guitar after another year playing uckelele. First on the uck I played in a schoolband "The Checkers". we did some covers like Be Bop a Lula, but I also started to write my first own work like "Suzy"and "My Rock and Roll Baby" Starting with my first acoustic guitar I formed a new band called "The Rocking Hepcats" in 1982. We had two guitarists, drums, clarinet and piano in this setting. Hmm, strage combination, but we managed it up to a televisiongig when I was 13 years for the Dutch NCRV television in 1983!
We did a small interview and two acoustic songs during the program.Somebody who saw these two songs was Jacco, my later double bass player of "The Crazy Tones". I met him on a concert of The Keytones in 1985. He knew a drummer, "Beerke", and we started our first rehearsal on a hot summerday in 1985 in a dusty barn in company of some cold beers.. After sometime and a small repetoire we did some gigs on my school, later on in bars en on festifals. On a julyweekend in 1986 we recorded in a small studio in Venlo our first demo's "Gene's gone" and "I feel the blues" (on profile!). A year later after donig a lot of gigs together with The Keytones, The Chevy Cats, Restless etc. We recorded "Rockabilly Party" and "Let's make some love" for Disky-records under supervision of Boz Boorer of The Polecats. It was on a compilation album with 6 other Rockabilly bands from the Netherlands. The release and presentation was at the Paradiso, Amsterdam. Great time!
After Beerke left the band in 1988 I had to do my militairy duty, but kept on Rockin'on with The Crazy Tones. Ritchie Adams was our new member on drums. In 1989 we recorded for Tombstone records our first own album. It was "She's got what it takes". (There is also a re-release on CD from 2000 on rarity- records+ extra bonustracks). This album resulted in a lot of gigs arround Holland, Germany and Belgium. We also won the contest "the small-price of Utrecht" in 1990. The price: a track on a CD on the culty Kelt-records company. It was "If you wanna be the 1-4-me". The Crazy Tones splitted-up in 1992 after a Good-bye-party at The Paradox, Boxtel, the Netherlands..I kept playing a lot with Jacco, who had become a special friend to me. But also with The Red Shots from Utrecht, together with the Nelemans-brothers.
1993 was my "black-year". After recovering from a badly accident, (I broke my back on 7 places), still in a wheelchair, I was back on stage again with the Red Shots. We were asked for Tombstone-records to form a combo for a special Rockabilly CD, together with a lot of other Dutch Rock'n'Roll musicians. The result was "Back to the Filthies", with The Wild Bunch. We recorded a new version of "Rockabilly Party" and 13 other tracks.
The basic line-up was: Jacco Buchholz; doublebass/vocals, Hans Nelemans; guitar/ vocals, Harrie Spies; drums and Rémi Groot; guitar/ vocals.But this was just a project. It was Harrie on drums who asked Jacco and me to start a new band. The Meadowhawks". First started as a trio, but a year later as a quarted, as Vera (vocals) joined the band. Invited by Hans van Haarlem from Rarity-Records we recorded a CD album titled "Stop! Look & Listen" in 1995..21 tracks...in two days, my god! But we had a lot of good reviews and a lot of nice gigs including a German/ Italian tour after it. We played together with Linda Gail Lewis, Chan Romero, but also were the backingband of Wee Willy Harris at the great Rock'nRollfestifal Munich, summer 1996. In 1997 we recorded a nice live-registration, but sadly it had never come to a new album. (some tracks on profile!) We splitt-up later that year.I tried something new in a pop & rockband called "Blue Sun", but this was not my thing. At our last concert in the W2, Denbosch, when I broke accidently(?) one of my guitars by smashing it to the ground, I met a fellow named Rogier Weenen. He was an electric bassplayer. He said: "Good show, but please drop-out your bassplayer and start a new band with somebody like me". That happened. We found a steady man on drums; Bertwin van Avezaath and formed Planet Creep. Planet Creep was more a surf, scy-fi and garage-oriënted trio. We recorded a 5 track demo in the summer of 2001 and a full-custom CD album in 2003 "Self Service". It was really a good band with super enthousiastic bandmembers, but I think a lot of people never understood our music. Maby Planet Creep was a band for producing movie-themes and things like that. However, we had a lot very nice gigs with Planet Creep in the Netherlands and Belgium. Early 2007 we recorded a test-album with brand new songs like "Demolition Derby" (on profile!), but it just had no sin to release this one because we decided to quit a few months later... Today I play on jam and studio sessions, guitarbattles, now and then with former bandmembers and new people. I hope to start a brand-new Rock-a-billy trio soon.. Wait, listen and see..I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)
