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Saturday April 9th, I went to my first real van show, it was put on by Ryan and Matt at Rolling Heavy. 2 months ago, they asked if we’d want to be the sponsor for the RidingEasy “Van Jams” contest at their upcoming Desert Generator party with bands and vans, needless to say the answer was YES! The concept of the “Van Jam” is simple and based upon 3 factors.
1. Best Sounding Van
2. Song Choice
3. Overall hang – i.e. is it comfortable to hang out in, is there cold beer and weed, are they cool, etc.
Every van had amazing charm, cool people, and great music, and overall all solid. I’d be stoked to own any one of the ones we got to hang out in and enjoyed my time with each individual owner. Everyone knows the party isn’t the venue, its the people! What a great crew of judges we had to make sure that the winner of the van Jam was legit!
Our Judges for the Contest were
Brant Bjork
John Sherman (Red Fang)
David Sullivan (Red Fang)
Deano “Stoner Rock Guy” Robertson aka the opposite of Sober Rock Guy
Daniel Hall (RidingEasy Records aka Me the guy writing this post)
Setting the scene for Desert Generator…11:30am showed up to Pappy and Harriets, walked onto the lot and there was already over 100 vans there. People barbecuing, DJ playing Judas Priest on loud P.A. speaker, 60s and 70s vans all in line. The smell of pot, tobacco,with the sounds of cans opening was looking like this is the worlds greatest parking lot party, but in the Desert! I finally got a chance to hang out with Deano “Stoner Rock Guy” Robertson, he was even kind enough to cook me a hot dog. This being my first proper van hang, I was really please to see that ALL vans are welcome, it’s not a bunch of vans that are like museum pieces, there are some that are tricked out all the way, but most are actually used for hanging out and chilling out with friends. I didn’t get the vibe of elitism at all, it was very open and seemed people all there for the right reasons, TO HAVE FUN. Most of the vans I saw
are actually used for what they were intended for, HAVING FUN. Pappy & Harriets is an old abandoned western town in Yucaipa which is basically the middle of no where and out close by Joshua Tree, it was the perfect setting for the day. If you ever see a band that you like playing at Pappy’s go. It’s worth the 3 hour drive from Los Angeles.
I personally did not stay for the bands, it was quite a long day and left after the van show portion. The bands that did play were Red Fang, Brant Bjork (Low Desert Punks), Acid King, Golden Void, and Ecstatic Vision and judging from the instagram, tweets, and snap chats I got it was a fucking rager!
Here are some pictures I took during my day there. Rolling Heavy and all involved you did a great job with this fest, thank you for putting it on. Congrats to Ricki The Dude who’s van “Chester” was the winning hang. He got a box of LPs and some other goodies from RidingEasy. Let me tell you, it was really tough for us to figure out who the winner was because EVERY SINGLE ONE was totally sick.
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