Introducing the band
Who are these people parading around as Go Van Gogh? Some say they are other worldly creatures marooned here with a strange broken vehicle. Others claim they must have wandered in from the Mojave Desert after too many days out [+]Introducing the band
Who are these people parading around as Go Van Gogh? Some say they are other worldly creatures marooned here with a strange broken vehicle. Others claim they must have wandered in from the Mojave Desert after too many days out in the sun. The real story is even more fantastic.
We start with their fearless leader, Connie Walkershaw. Not only does she play alto and soprano saxophones (along with slide whistles, Chinese funeral horns, and what have you) through her Line 6 delay and WH1 Whammy pedal, she is also the primary writer and architect of the group.
Ms. Walkershaw got her start in a far off land in a time long ago backing belly dancers in her father's troupe of hippies and road gypsies. Taking her various talents (she also made outfits for the prostitutes of a well know sea side city) with her to early punk rock San Francisco, she was soon on the front line of cutting edge all (almost) girl band Jungle Dinner, taking a stripped down version to Europe in the mid eighties.
Returning to the states, Connie put together the ground breaking Comic Book Opera, launching San Francisco's new Jazz movement a full four years before The Up and Down Club or Elbo Room were even imagined.
Soon a true bi-coastal career was underway, with Walkershaw designing coats for New York boutiques and playing at the renowned Knitting Factory one year, gracing the stage at the Fillmore while manufacturing fashion forward outfits for Union Street clothiers the next. The birth of her daughter, and the need to record the debut album for her (then) Sextet Go Van Gogh, gave Connie the impetus to stay put for a spell. Connie takes inspiration from John Coltrane, Donovan, Yorgas Mangas, and The Velvety Ones.
Brad Bechtel has perhaps the most lap steels of anyone in the Bay Area. He is in a 12-step program for musicians who just can't stop buying equipment (eBay anonymous).
His passion for the lovely little guitar that could came to him one day when the Southern California punk band he played with was booked into an odd show sharing the bill with a honky-tonk country band. He liked the way "their fellow played that plank", and he bought his first lap steel guitar from a woman named Opal, along with a matching bowling ball blue amplifier. Many
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