BIOGRAPHY:
VANGOUW was founded by ex-MARTYR vocalist Gerard Vergouw in the summer of 1988 and worked out a demo tape together with guitarist Gordon Groothedde. A two-track demo tape with two tracks: "Simonai" and "Need a Lot of Love". Gerard and Gordon by now had put a band together. This cooperation resulted in lots of tours and gigs. It's melodic rock songs they play with double vocal lines. And on stage Gerard shows he's a true entertainer with a great voice. Then Gerard sents the tape to Veronica (national TV station) for a TV program called 'Muziekland Sterrenjacht' (Star search). The band gets invited and they have to do audition with forty other bands. As they didn't have a bass player at the time, they ask Toine van der Linden to fill in. They end up in the final ten and are invited to play on the radio. The band wins that contest too and appeared soon after that on TV, winning the whole contest, which gained a lot of publicity for the band. A record deal would be really obvious now, but in the next two years no record company seems to show any interest. Finally in 1990, Red Bullet is showing interest. The band started to work on a demo with producer John Sonneveld (SLEEZE BEEZ, GOLDEN EARRING). It keeps the band busy for the years to come, but there's still not a trace of any CD single (which was the original plan) at all. Main reason is the musical direction the band will be heading to. The producer/label wanted to go in a more pop/rock direction, while the band wanted to stay on the heavy rock side. Finally, producer John Sonneveld chose three songs, but he wants to make a lot of changes. The band is not amused at all, which leads to even more frustrations and in 1992 they called it quits. Gerard joined the MARTYR reunion in 2001 and also played a few gigs with them. He moved to Colombia a while back, where he is a lawyer/attorney. Gordon is doing very well as a producer/songwriter.
(Text by: Stefan van Zijl and Toine van Poorten)
MEMBERS:
Gerard Vergouw - vocals (MARTYR)
Gordon Groothedde - guitar
Pascal Groenen - bass
Toine van der Linden - bass (MARTYR, JEWEL, HOT LEGS)
Ruud Schoof - keyboards
Han Neijenhuis - drums
DISCOGRAPHY:
*Simonai (Demo 1988)
*Passion Rules (CD 2010 - 500 copier)
*The Demo's 88-92 (2019)
MEMORABILIA:
