Rock 'n' Roll Kamikaze

Evert Wilbrink faintly remembers an essay he wrote at 10 being made into a radio play. He left the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1966, because he wanted to work for Bob Dylan. Ever since he’s divvied up his time between records and writing. At the same time he edited the biggest Dutch weekly, Radio Veronica magazine, he worked on records of Bob Marley, Bad Company and Blondie. When his boss asked him in February ’67 to pick up The Kinks from the airport, he had never seen a plane from close up and went on his mission hitch-hiking without a penny in his pocket. That ignorant kid got BMG to buy Arista Records in the late 70’s and celebrated with bringing “Lola” by The Kinks back to the top of the Dutch charts a second time. Twenty years later he made it to helming King Biscuit Flower Hour in New York. In 2005 Evert Wilbrink settled in Nashville and became managing partner in Teye Guitars, who are rumored to have made the best electric guitars ever – at least that’s what we heard from Mike of The Waterboys and Rich of The Black Crowes. Not everybody takes Covid seriously, but Teye Guitars didn’t survive it. When the guitar company closed Evert and his writer and musician wife Deborah started traveling and eventually settled in Barcelona, Spain. In October Wilbrink launches his memoir “Rock ‘n’ Roll Kamikaze” in Nashville at Grimey’s and Tone Central Station. The book will shine a light on his youth in the Netherlands, shares deep thoughts about the music he loves, and, features a lot of, what Wilbrink calls, horror stories from his rock ‘n’ roll past. “So put another dime in the jukebox, baby!”