Well, what do you know…it’s so fitting, Rock n' Roll Mama… it’s the eve of a New Moon, I’ve got a shot of whisky in front of me, a good old-fashioned Culloden parsnip, some sage, and our Punk Rock Love-Child album HOT BOX on rotation.

It’s the right night to do this:

For over 25 years, I have had the best seat in the house at the Gerry-Jenn Wilson Show. It’s a ticket reserved for a very privileged few. It is not for the faint of heart. There is zip for refunds - should you lack the insight to the extraordinary universal alchemy you were privy to - but you could never pay for this kind of experience, nor will you ever forget it.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was at a fork in the road - or maybe I was at The Crossroads – when I first met Gerry. It was while I was trying to figure it out when this impossibly perfect Rock n’ Roll Whirlwind ran past me and yelled, “No time to explain. Hold this bass guitar,” and away we went….

Gerry-Jenn was as subtle as a punch in the face, and THAT’S is if she LIKED you. I pity da fool that she DIDN’T. To love Gerry was to be terrified of her, and FOR her, and loving her anyway. Those who know her know that. But more on that later.

To see how one human being can have so much charisma that she could summon every set of eyes in the room to drop what they were doing and focus solely on her just by being Gerry - anywhere, anytime – well, it simply was quite something to witness. I have yet to see anything remotely like it anywhere. Ultimately, I love how much she has inspired others, and I can see a lot of Gerry everywhere in our scene. At her utmost roaring crest of the sweeping wave of Rock n’ Roll fame & notoriety, most of the women in this town wanted to be her, even for a just minute. I can say the same for some of the men, too, no doubt. You know who you are. From where I was standing – I could see that as clear as day. Believe me, it was quite the view.

We dames, in general, usually take lots of pride in letting everyone know we have each others’ backs - which Jenn and I really did - but the handy note-to-self, here, is that you better be capable of having your own back when it comes right down to it. Gerry won’t have time for that business. She’ll be too busy operating the mystery machine, and it’s better for everyone involved if you just don’t get in the way.

To be Gerry’s mate, you had to really know who you were and what you were made of because you could be roped into absolutely anything if you weren’t prepared. I would love to tell you even just one or two of the things I have personally witnessed if only for the sheer entertainment factor of watching your jaw hit the ground, but I’ll save that as future leverage for my retirement home 'Pudding Day Trades-ies' should I be so lucky.

The ‘Dollar Menu’ of the types of bona fide Gerry-Jenn escapades would go a little like: There was the time we crossed the border after she ‘accidentally’ cut through a 4-hour lineup on a long weekend by doing a u-turn right in front of the RCMP and immediately pulling up to a border booth with Mountain Berry Cider in her Starbucks cup; there was the time we accidentally sprayed down a packed house with a super soaker full of stale beer, stale pee and bleach – honest mistake, again – apologies to my boss at the time; there was the time Gerry snuck her two hungry pups into a pork chop taste-testing study I was running; there was the time she filled the speakers of a non-paying club with grenadine to balance the score; there was the time the back doors of our van busted open while we were cruising down the I-5 at top speed trying to make it to the next gig on our US tour almost costing us our gear, and quite possibly taking out anyone driving behind us… well okay, that one I can say went rather well despite its potential. In the end, we had to kick our roadie/videographer out in Tempe Arizona because we thought he was responsible for the situation, but not until after Gerry chased him around the parking lot trying to clobber him with a GIGANTIC rock (she needed both hands)! These two Mexican gentlemen popped the tops on their beers and sat back on the curb, laughing while they watched the whole thing unravelling like a Benny Hill outro. I’m so glad they didn’t have iPhones back then. We later discovered the latch just didn’t work right and that it wasn’t our roadie’s fault at all. AND, I just heard for the first time in 26 years about the time she maced the Railway Club - TWICE apparently. Well, she is known for spectacular exits. All of these stories have endings I can’t divulge, people I can’t compromise, and legalities that have yet to exceed their statute of limitations, ha-ha. There are hundreds more where they came from, and those are just the ones that I know…but what do you expect from a Bona Fide Rock Star.

One of the songs we wrote together was “Accident Prone” and you should listen to the lyrics. It’s probably the slowest song in her extensive amassment of all the songs she’s written in her life, other than “Blue”. You should definitely listen to those lyrics too. She knew who she was, even in her slowest songs there’s a depth that hits an unflinching truth. This is what I loved so much about Gerry – you knew exactly what you were getting. She was all authentic - all the time.

Her real-life was like David Lynch's version of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ meets ‘Trainspotting’, with maybe a dusting of ‘The Sopranos’ in there. You had to be truly prepared for your involvement in it. You had to know whether you were going to show up for it or not because likely the story was unfolding before you even woke up and hit the snooze button. You wouldn’t know it yet, but you could be asked to corroborate a story that may or may not have been anywhere close to the truth. To really sign up for it meant you were potentially always an accomplice in the making before you even opened your eyes to greet the day, and it was quite realistic that if you answered that Gerry-Jenn call - you could very well end the day incarcerated. If you didn’t know that about Gerry, you didn’t know her. The funny thing about all that is, Gerry was blessed with the luck of all the guardian angels combined because she would never be the one to be caught. No. It would definitely be you. I’ve never heard of Gerry getting busted for anything I know about, but I guarantee you it would be Y.O.U. if you signed up for the gig.

I have no problem saying, “Nope.” My greatest friends know that. She knew that, and respected me for it, and never once asked me for so much as even a nickel. However, I gave her every single thing I truly could for a very long time.

I told you about all that so I could tell you this: I knew all this about Gerry, and I still gladly stepped in behind her into a converted milk truck, buckled up to cross 2 countries multiple times, and face hundreds of miles of The True Rock n’ Roll Lifestyle together. Gerry absolutely changed the course of my whole entire life. There are places I’ve gone, things I’ve done, and experiences I have had that are beyond your wildest imagination… each one kicking open door after door, exponentially continuing like dominoes, unfolding into this entirely different galaxy than I had ever guessed was out there for me. There’s not one day that doesn’t go by that I am not abundantly grateful for that.

We spent her 50th birthday, just me and her, and rang up an almost $400 bill at The Sandbar. The waiters fell in love with her radiance that night. I believe we were there for almost 5 or so hours, clinking martini after martini, ordering whatever we wanted to eat, laughing, singing, gossiping, and closing down the joint. We were the very last to leave.

I have Gerry to thank for each and every leopard spot in my wardrobe (and I have millions of those), every one of my 40 wigs, each pair of 9-inch high, platform, Rock n’ Roll shoes, and every can of spray paint & stenciled $10 merch t-shirt. We were going to write a book together called “1001 Tips for Survival – 1001 Uses for Duct-Tape,” and I guarantee you could ALWAYS find a roll of duct tape and a sharpie in either of our bags at any time. We also flirted with starting hot sauce empire for all a hot minute.

Gerry carried a black can of mace when I first met her, and I got the impression right from the hop this was a kid who really felt the need to protect herself. Standing at 4’ something and change - without platform boots - she still seemed larger than life. However, she had big wild dogs that weren't afraid of biting people; she was surrounded by mates like James, me, and other big people around her who would actually step in to save her; ultimately being with Kevin for 20 years. She never had a small-sized band, ha-ha… you know - as in bandmates all her same size and height.

She maced a few people, I'm sure, but she is loved today by the very people she maced that were accidentally caught in the fray. Now THAT is the kind of love that is eternal. I’m grateful for my Rock n’ Toll sister, Lisa, for stepping up when she did… Gerry is a lot of woman even for a lot of woman, and we were at that part in our timeline where we were meant to go off and do other things. Although Gerry and I would continue to work together in the East Vamps, we also worked on a few movies - some of them mine, and some of them were director Vince D'Amato's horror films we did together, as well as music videos & photo shoots. A full epic soundtrack was co-written, produced and recorded by our bandmate Marc Floyd aka The Floydian Device; we also sang back up for Ginger Coyote’s band - The White Trash Debutantes in Seattle, and ended up touring again as JP5. We just kept doing art, art and more art. 20 years ago, she helped me run interviews with this VTV show I was working on, interviewing bands like The Real McKenzies. Even though we did our own thing, we were always close. She was also in excellent hands with Lisa, that’s for sure. Many people helped her shine as bright as she could along the way. One honestly can’t blame people for wanting to hitch their stars to hers. She made Rock n’ Roll look easy, which - as most of you know - it is not. She could do it in any state of mind and hitch a ride on that cosmic slip-stream to whatever David Bowie tapped into as well.

 

We made a movie shot on Super 8mm, had it processed and coloured in Seattle - frame by frame. In addition, Marc, Gerry, and I wrote and recorded 4 out of 5 songs and also recorded one seriously smokin’ Hawksley Workman cover. The music was mixed by Kurt Dahle & Stephen Hamm. The film was complex and beautiful, shot all over Vancouver in front of some of the most striking and temporary graffiti art, now long gone. We pulled every favour, self-funded it, and collected loads of super-cool props and costumes from all over our escapades across Canada and the US. We did a 1000-photo photo shoot for it - she was an amazing trooper as that alone took 14 hours. I wrote & directed it, and ultimately I had to fill in as her stand-in from the neck down as much as I could get away with when she stopped coming to some of the shoots. Eventually, at one point mid-shooting schedule, we didn’t hear from her for at least a month, and when she resurfaced on my radar, she said she’d been run over by a horse at the track and that was that. The movie called 'G' made it into the can and never onto the big screen, but who knows… who knows… years after, she wanted to attempt to finish it and we saved that for ‘down the road’.

Even at her most ‘roughest,’ her talent and real deal Rock n’ Roll soul effortlessly distinguished itself from the mass of sterilized, perfectly-branded, pop/punk, thoroughbred, plenty-somethings coming at you from the radio. At the very least, one would be treated to an immediate clarification of the difference between average and brilliant if they listened to even just one thing Gerry-Jenn Wilson recorded in her abundantly creative life. She was a genius. She was constantly working with the scene’s most in-demand and top-notch artists… the list of performers that have played or recorded with Gerry reads like the who’s who in iconic punk rock legendry. Everything she did smacked of ‘tasty’ from Hypnotic Wail to JP5, to The East Vamps, to our soundtracks, every single band in between, and finally to her latest passion project: Her Book.

And just so you know… she’s got something on each and every single one of us, and it’s hilarious. She didn’t really get a chance to pick up speed with it until she learned how to use the dictate feature on her phone, and there was nothing stopping her after that. If you have any doubt that it exists, you can check her comments and your inboxes here and there and you'll definitely see lengthy snippets of it, ha-ha… I love that girl, and her truth is definitely out there. It would be an absolute privilege for us to see it in print one day. Anyone who has ever listened to any one of her loads of songs knows she’s got the gift to marry double entendre with a bombastic description of fiction beyond Steven Tyler’s wildest of wet dreams.

The most bittersweet thing to see is the celebration of her life. She was not as celebrated towards the end, and it was clear that it wounded her deeply when it came to losing some of her most meaningful connections. She suffered several significant losses in the last few years - each one more crushing than the one that came before... and each one brought a heavier burden to an already impossible load. I have always stood up for Gerry, and while I may not have always been able to lighten her load… I was never going to add to it. I absolutely loved her. I wish more than anything she could have felt ALL of this love and respect that is so beautiful to see. It was all so complicated, and even in her death, it just isn’t any less so. She was a polarizing character - you would never be on the fence when it came to her.

The last photo is with our friend Gisele from Hissy Fit, who just ‘knew’ in her gut that it was time to see Gerry, and she flew over 6 provinces to see her. Gerry had a special ‘frequency’ that could only be received by those of us who loved her. To love Gerry was to follow your gut. This would not be the last time I saw Gerry, but it would be the last photo of us together ever again. The very last photo to bookend a jam-packed 26-year stretch of Sisterhood. The last time I did see her, I dropped off a big collection of frozen Shepherd’s Pie and promised more. The Plague would keep us from seeing each other ever again. One thing we should all know, though, is that she was the happiest she had been in almost her whole life over the last 5 weeks prior to her passing.

I met her at a certain juncture in life, and when I did, I gravitated to her irrepressible faith in herself. Something I had plenty of, too, but nothing compared to Gerry-Jenn, who came by it so naturally and abundantly. I can credit Gerry to the way my faith in myself has become as strong as it is today. I learned from the best. She had that kinetic energy - that purest form of ethereal magic and she strutted to the rhythm of the Great Big Universal Truth in all its’ honesty and rawness ... and she couldn’t stay a second longer. The cherry blossoms in Vancouver seem to be surrendering her super-sonic soul back to the Great Universe. The Rock n’ Roll Scene all around the world is mourning her loss, and even our city’s boulevards shed millions of pink petal tears during the last 2 weeks of her passing. I will never look at Gerry Blossoms the same again. They will forever hold a whole new meaning for me - the unbelievably heartbreaking last flourish of an exit of the indomitable Gerry-Jenn Wilson. Gerry-Jenn was the unmatched Queen of Exits, after all…

Gerry-Jenn, you can bet you'll be one of the very first faces I'll be looking for when I get to wherever we go after this. It just makes me so sad I won't be seeing your beautiful special soul for Goddess knows how long, and I'm having a brutal time with that. Our paths diverged. Sometimes we chose distance and then resumed seamless reconnection like magnetic buttons clicking back into place on a favorite old shirt.  Nothing ever changed this truly indescribable Sisterhood we felt. Nothing. The fact that two totally opposite people could fit so well together as artists and as sisters is just so incredibly rare. I know that.

It’s with a broken heart that I say goodbye to our beautiful Gerry-Jenn, in this life anyway, and I count the days until I get to see your special soul again. I’m following my gut when I say that I am certain that I will.

JP5 (the highest level of jet fuel) was the inspiration for Gerry-Jenn's beloved band and favourite martini. JP5 has been described as “Raw Powered, Fast, Flammable & Furious. Volatile, Explosive, and a rather tasty martini”. I pity da fool who tries to tell you otherwise.

Rest In Power, my beautiful friend. 

-by MS. Ligaya

I am really at a loss, in shock, hearing today that Legendary Punk Riot Grrl Goddess Veteran, Vocalist and Artist, fellow Winnipegger Turned Vancouverite, the One and Only Gerry-Jenn Wilson has met tragedy. Very very sad to learn of her passingMy heart goes out to her family and all her friends and fans. We are all incredibly sad. This is a picture of Gerry-Jenn and me, in Seattle in 1991, when our dreams were still bigger than the sky and we had our entire lives ahead of us. At the time, Gerry-Jenn was in the Cane Toads and I was in GorillaGorilla (and we were pretty excited to get our picture taken in front of this poster from the OK hotel gig where GorillaGorilla was on the bill opening for The Wongs and No Means No.) The Best of Times. We were always so excited about stuff when we were young, and Gerry-Jenn was a bright light in The Scene, and everyone knew her. She was in so many cool projects JP5, The Muscle Bitches, and dozens more ( including Suzi Quatro tributes!) and EVERYONE knew her. She was always so creative making all her own merch, posters and all her writing- lyrics, plays, movies, the works. Gerry-Jenn was a gifted performer and as unforgettable and iconic as they come. Funny as fuck and such a generous, affectionate girlShe had all the coolest friends and I was lucky enough to be roommates with her when I moved to Vancouver (and moved out of our GG band house which had the big kitchen, the mountains of Pilsner beer cans on the back porch, and all the wolf spiders that fell from the massive tree in the back yardon to our trusty Ford Van with the twice-blown engine) This picture, of me and @gerryjennwilson makes my heart happy. SO CAREFREE. We were just kids. Aspiring riot girls with open hearts and closed fists (punk rock was never for girls who took any guff) With pie-high-in-the-sky wishes, foul mouths, and lots and lots of heart. Rest In Peace and Power, Babe. You will always be The Queen of The Scene#gerryjenn #gerryjennwilson #punkrock #realdeal #restinpower #vancouvermusician #legend #unforgettable #love #restinpeace 

-by Bif Naked

Gerry-Jenn Wilson was a one-of-a-kind trash maven dynamo with the skeleton key to another universe. She lived on a wild creative plane that defied any logic and ALL the laws of gravity. Always in the moment... for better and for worse. She followed every idea and impulse as far as it could go… And then went just a little bit further. If you were hanging out with Gerry-Jenn, you had to be ready for anything:))

Playing in JP5 in Vancouver with Gerry-Jenn and watching her on stage with so many bands was always a reminder of what it’s like to be in the presence of real magic. We feel lucky when we get to see it once in a while when we’re on this planet. We feel even luckier when we get to be a part of it.

Gerry-Jenn had a talent and depth of feeling that comes from so deep down in the soul that it’s kind of scary… Talent that comes from a deep well of raw emotion mixed with otherworldly wisdom and a fearless, insatiable lust for life. She had a sense of humor that could brilliantly twist words and phrases like nobody else. Her lyrics were stories that meant a million different things on a million different levels. Even getting a voicemail or message from Gerry was worthy of a bag of popcorn, a shot of tequila, and definitely your full attention!@#

Watching Gerry-Jenn perform, it was pretty obvious that it was the thing she was put on this earth to do. Whether she was on stage in front of packed houses in Texas or Toronto or Reno... or busking with an acoustic guitar in front of a Vancouver liquor store… When she had a guitar and a microphone, you couldn’t take your eyes off her. You couldn’t not feel what she was feeling. For someone who’s life was often very chaotic, when she was making music, she was in complete control.

Gerry-Jenn was a comet that flew by us at the speed of light. A shooting star that only had time for a brief pit stop on this planet. While she lived the life of a thousand rock stars packed into a quick flash of light, she also had some really tough times and challenges in her last few years that she was here... Her life was real and raw. She took the ups with the downs. But still, when you would run into her, she was always looking for any reason to smile and laugh, and make you laugh with her. There was always another band in the works coming soon… always a new adventure around every corner. She had a heart that refused to ever give up.

I’m gonna miss you my sweet soul sister. There was no one like you and I don’t imagine there ever will be. God bless your great spirit. I hope you’re out there with the celestial Beer Drinkin’ Maneaters teaching the stars a few new tricks tonight.

-by The Floydian Device