91-06-08 Go! – N.O.F. – 6 Feet Over – S.O.Y.

My mate Esneider (of the NYC band ‘Huasipungo’ and a volunteer at ABC No Rio) had already informed me that the band ‘Go!’ of his friends from the ABC No Rio scene were going to tour (see: Go! tour 1991 infosheet)… The band consisted of Mike ‘Bullshit’ Bromberg (vocals, ex ‘S.F.A.’, also did a zine called Bullshit Monthly), Aaron Kaufman (guitar, also shortly in ‘S.F.A.’ and later on the ‘Hell No’ Euro tour), James ‘Jimmy’ Paradise (drums; also in ‘Hell No’) & Stephen Gardner (bass). They definitely were not a typical NYC HC band but had pro-gay and -lesbian, feminist, anti-racism and -violence lyrics.

Read more about ‘Go!’ here…

Because First Strike records from the UK released some material by ‘Go!’, I think Alan Woods sent ‘Decline’ along to tour with them… I think they had a demo out at the time and a 7” called Blind (recorded in November ’90 with Ju(lian) doing guitars & vocals, ‘Cyb’ on drums, ‘Stey’ on 2^nd guitar and ‘Fletch’ on bass). The band came from the Manchester area and played melodic HC.

‘6FO’ were Fred (bass), Pierre Anne (drums), Karl Penando (guitar – ‘petit nain’ or ‘little dwarf’ as we lovingly called him), Stéphane Cormary (vocals), a bunch of lads from the Dunkerque area that visited the V.V. regularly. They usually came down with a whole bunch: Karl’s girlfriend Agnès, his brother Rudee, etc. were ‘regulars’. I had been corresponding with Stéphane (originally from the region of Toulouse), who had been doing a zine called ‘God Bless Cheese Steaks’… This was their 1^st gig…

Of course everyone knew ‘Nations On Fire’ by now… ‘Spirit Of Youth’ was a starting band with 2 young brothers (guitarist Dominiek ‘Dompi’ & bassist Frederik Denolf; in their very early teens), Jan Maelfait (vocals) who would later play the bass for ‘Blindfold’ and Hans Verbeke (ex ‘Rise Above’, later ‘Blindfold’, ‘Liar’) on drums. This was probably their very first gig aswell…

Brob

‘Decline’ were from the UK, Alan from First Strike recs arranged that. Great guys – really got along well with them. They also has a van and equipment we could use.

Mike ‘Bullshit’ Bromberg

I moved to Toulouse. Steph and me did a new band a few years ago called ‘Mediocratie’. Later he played in ‘Dissiped’ and I’m still in ‘Tol Eressëa’… The most important things to all these concerts wasn’t just the music! That period didn’t change my life but just consolidated the political and ethical opinions I already had! I still see Steph (we share a rehearsal-space). Fred: nobody knows what became of him. Pierre is still a good friend which I see when I go up North, he plays surf-rock since no less than 10 years! His band ‘Les Chefs’ released an lp.

Karl Penando, ‘6FO’ guitarist

We exchanged records and zines, I got a bunch of Tilt!s and tried to distro it here, a place where people cared little about non-USA punk. We have never met person to person: I was illegal in the USA for many years meaning I never could travel and my band could never really tour anywhere but here. I finally got documents and so has the rest of the band slowly so now we are planning to tour somewhere soon.

Esneider

‘S.O.Y.’ started out with Jan singing and Hans drumming. When Hans left, my brother started drumming, Ignace De Meyer took over the bass (Ward Verhaeghe sang also for a while, some time later Hans played the bass again); that was the period of The Abyss 7” (Crucial Response recs). ‘S.O.Y.’ became ‘Love, Truth and Honesty’:-) and afterwards started ‘Solid’ (myself on guitar, my bro drumming, Sid on vocals & Kris Kasier on bass. After that we re-started, putting out unreleased ‘S.O.Y.’ songs (with Vincent Merveillie singing, Vincent Theeten on 2^nd guitar & Sim Meerseman on bass): 3 CDs – Source on Genet recs, the split with ‘One King Down’ (USA) on GoodLife recs & the Colours That Bleed full-length on GoodLife recs. After the split ‘S.O.Y.’ became a phenomenon upto Japan :-)…

Dominiek Denolf

‘Decline’ were Paul ‘Cyb’ Lewis (drums), Graham (bass), Julian [Parkinson] (guitar & vocals) at that time. We were playing a sort of HC type music à la ‘Prong’. I remember the show, the stage was made up from crates and boards, it was hot and there was a great HC crowd. I remember before the Vort’n Vis show we went for vegan food at a house with some really nice people, the guys who put the show on were great people. We played another show in Belgium in a very small café [the Pits in Kortrijk] as well….

Paul ‘Cyb’ Lewis, ‘Decline’ drummer

some photos from Karl Penando’s archives (Muchos gracias!):

‘Six Feet Over’

gentil p’tit nain Karl Penando

‘Go!’ (in the audience Bruno VdV & ‘Scraps’ Raph exchanging appreciation)

Mike Bullshit addressing his public (a certain zine-editor listening attentively)…

‘Nations On Fire’: Ed – Jaak – David – Jeroen

‘Decline’

Dompi – Fré – Hans – Jan (‘Spirit Of Youth’)

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Hans Verbeke, at that time drummer for ‘S.O.Y.’

Jeroen Lauwers, ‘N.O.F.’ bassplayer

Yep, I had  a great time too…

Nick Zimmer, visitor & gig-promoter in Mons: “Vort’n Vis; hope for a united and positive scene! Very good atmosphere.”

additions wellcome!…

91-05-03 Majority Of One – Exhaustless Revolt

This one was right before the last Smurfpunx-concert [Peanuts, Lede, 4 may 91 (Flag Of Democracy)]. ‘Majority Of One’ (from Toledo, Ohio) was doing a tour organised by the rather commercial First Strike recs. Todd Swangstu, bassplayer of ‘M.O.O.’ quit the band because he did not want to go on that tour. Ali Moazed played guitar, Eric Lemle the drums. Vocalist was Dirk Hemsath (owner of Doghouse recs – now in New York City – and also bassist for ‘Transcend’). Doug Walker (actually the drummer of ‘Transcend’) played bass on this tour; and Chad Scouten (also ‘Transcend’) played guitar aswell. Some called their music sXe skincore, others emo post-HC (while referring to ‘Dag nasty’)…

‘Exhaustless Revolt’ was a young but promising band from Antwerp: Filip Staes (guitar & vocals), Sven Bossant (drums), Ivan Marien (bass & vocals). Their big example seemed to be ‘Seein’Red’: Filip also emphasized socialism and communism in his lyrics…

Brob

‘Majority Of One’ was clean straight-edge sounding by the numbers, with Dirk who would later take over Lumberjack and Mordam, and tear them to pieces. Driving for ‘M.O.O.’ was Whitey (connected to First Strike) who played for ‘Electro Hippies’ in the end and was a really nice funny guy, he ended up touring with us on the ‘N.O.F.’ tour in 1993 and we spent a lot of time together. Can’t remember ‘M.O.O.’ at the V.V. but dó recall Lede, and they also played at the B52 [Eernegem]. Whitey also drove for ‘Go!’ and in ’93 he came along on tour with ‘N.O.F.’ when Jamie Owen (‘Jailcell Recipes’) drummed for us (well, 2/3 of the tour: the last bit we had we Andy of ‘Skeezicks’ [Marbel, Tielt, 2 may 87 (Negazione)] as drummer).

‘Touch My Heart Crew’ was another marketing stunt by Edward; everything had to be ‘crew’ or ‘posse’, with a rehearsed handshake to go…. A year later, under the metal influence of ‘Congress’, it became theH8000 crew (Hate 8000, never understood why the hate had to be included). I think Ebullition naming their local scene after a zip-code (the ‘Downcast’ interview in No Answers zine started that if I’m correct) had something to do with aswell. Marketing is one of Edward’s major contributions to the scene.

Jeroen Lauwers, ‘N.O.F.’ bassplayer

The ‘Touch My Heart Crew’ was an invention of mine, didn’t really exits. I guess I made the flyer. I took these Americans to go and visit Bruges before the show.

Edward Verhaeghe, ‘N.O.F.’ guitarist

Sven & Ivan (‘Exhaustless Revolt’), courtesy of Ivan M.

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Dirk Hemsath expresses his ‘appreciation’ for Jospeh Smith (founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?)…

“super-aunty” Anneke, “the female Brob”…???

Apparently Dirk Scum (‘Zero Positives’) was there too. I guess he was sober, yeah… ;-)

additions wellcome!…

91-04-21 Zygote – Hiatus – (Dirt)

extra poster (made by Jurgen ‘Spatje’ Fiems):

I organised 2 shows for ‘Zygote’ at the V.V. Herwin of ‘Bad Influence’ asked me to set these up. Financial disasters! I didn’t arrange any concerts ever again. This time ‘Dirt’ was gonna come along but they didn’t show up…

Leffe

‘Zygote’ from Bath, the “descendents” of ‘Amebix’, consisted of Chris(tian) ‘Stig (da Pig)’ Miller (vocals/guitar), George ‘Smutpig’ Fletcher (vocals/guitar), Tim ‘Crow’ Shapland (bass, ex ‘Smartpils’) and Robert ‘Spider’ Richards (drums). They came over for the second time. People described them as “crusty ‘Amebix’ with influences of ‘Motorhead’ and ‘Killing Joke’…”. This was right before the recording of A Wind Of Knives (released on MCR UK recs), so perhaps Mike Foster was there too?

Older and younger bands were combined as usual… ‘Hiatus’ was off course not brand-new – they already did a show for Smurfpunx e.g. (91-03-23) – but they didn’t have the track-record (yet) the British lads had. ‘Daydream’ was the band that evolved from ‘Chaotic Contrast’ with Kris ‘Kid’ Verhelst (guitar & vocals), Joeri Vleurick (bass) and Sling (drums, also of ‘Chronic Disease’). Kind of local…

It’s very well possible that I met the guy from Skuld releases (‘Kleister’, Oliver Schmid) there for the 1^st time. He released vinyl of ‘Zygote’ and ‘Bad Influence’…

Brob

This was one of the few gigs we did (maybe 3, 4 in total). We didn’t rehearse enough (as always). I recall that we had to start one song 4-5 times over again ‘cause we kept playing out of tune…

Kris ‘Kid’ Verhelst, ‘Daydream’ guitarist

I just remember enjoying the bands and being surprised to see punks with long hair and leather pants, metal-head style… I still had the ‘punk-rocker style’ stereotype in my head, silly prejudice… I woke up in the middle of the venue, totally covered with benches, chairs and other stuff. British humour…

Willy ‘Hiatus’

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

On top, Kid writes: “We like the Vort’n Vis alot; it’s awesome here. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to play (even though it wasn’t an immense success, better next time).” At the bottom, some words by Leffe: “Muchos Gracia to the VV for putting on this gig.”

Apparently Joris De Buysser (Bonds of Friendship zine; later Conspiracy recs) was there too: “Finally a fun little pub in Belgium. Ha! I’m the first SxE in this guestbook. Anarchy and stuff.” (with some of his Greek friends?).  And Herwin gives some compliments aswell… ;-)

And Vrokker (‘Chronic Disease’ bassist) attended aswell: “This is some totally different than going to work.”

additions wellcome!…

91-04-28 Nausea – Chronic Disease

extra poster with great artwork by Sling (‘Chronic Disease’)

a series of pictures (by Klaas Hardeman): 91-04-28 Nausea – Chronic Disease (photos)

This bunch of New Yorkers, ‘Nausea’ was brought to us by Lorelei & Syd… If I remember well Syd was thinking of moving to NYC because he was invited by a band from over there to join them. Some people in Europe started to have doubts about their sincerity concerning booking tours… Looking back: I’m sure there was a reasonable explanation for their choices but at that time we were left with question-marks. ‘Nausea’ was related to Profane Existence (the Twin Cities’ answer to Maximum Rock’n’Roll) and we knew Dan (Siskind, one of their shitworkers) was gonna travel with them (‘Nausea’s lp Extinction was out on P.E.); this together with their furious sound (dual vocals) and great recordings was more than enough reason to get them to play here… ‘Nausea’ were vocalists Al Long & Amy Keim (at that time married to ‘Agnostic Front’s singer Roger Miret), bassist John ‘John Jesse’ Guzman, guitarist Vic(tor) ‘Venom’ Dominicis (ex-‘Reagan Youth’) and drummer Roy Mayorga. Marketeer Bruno announced them as “New York Mega Crust” (smile) but what was more interesting was that they were anarcho-punk squatters and political (activists) from the Tompkins Square scene…

Al Long / Amy Keim & Vic(tor) ‘Venom’ Dominicis (by U.J.)

‘Chronic Disease’ (Bruno promotes them on the flyer as “legendary Belgian thrash”) were indeed in their heydays but remained the same dedicated, down-to-earth guys I’d gotten to know 3-4 years before… Great lyrics, decent attitude. The music Leffe (vocals), Sling (drums), Meyer (guitar) and Vrokker (bass) produced was (to me) more grindy than thrashy but the important thing was they moved/affected people…

On the back of the flyers Bruno wrote “Also ‘Holy Guns’, wild Italian HC”… I can ‘t remember them playing but they did… (‘Holy Guns Inc.’ were guitarist Massimo Sartor & bassist/vocalist Pierpaolo Capovilla.) A 2^nd passage of ‘Turtle Terror’ (‘E.N.T.’ style grindcore?) didn’t leave any marks in my brain either… I do remember that after the concert, and long-awaited talks and chats with friends (in bands and others), I crammed several boxes of records and zines (Bruno’s and my distro-stuff) into my tiny R4’s little trunk, and took 3-4 extra people (Bruno, Kathy,…) to Gent at a snail’s pace…

Brob

I have some scans of this ‘Nausea’ gig from the Czech zine (done by the ‘Holy Guns Inc’ tour-manager) Black Hand [Petr Bergmann] but it’s in Czech. It’s part of a tour-report and there’s some photos of the V.V. ‘Holy Guns Inc’ was an Italian 3-piece in the vein of ‘Big Black’, with a drum-machine.

Filip Fuchs

Syd & Lorelei ripped off and lied to ‘Nausea’ at every turn. In the beginning I didn’t notice anything going on but by mid-way through the tour I figured out what was going on. Lorelei made the mistake of thinking I was working for some big record-label that doesn’t give a fuck about the band and actually told me a lot of her ways “to rip-off bands” and so on. Disgusting.

Dan (Profane Existence), personal communication ’91

‘Nausea’s roadie Jim Martin published his tour-diary in Profane Existence #49… I actually did make it to the Vort’n Vis on three different occasions. The first was with ‘Nausea’ in 1991, the second time was with ‘Pissed’ in 1993 and the third was with ‘Extinction of Mankind’ and ‘Misery’ in 1996.

Dan Siskind

We toured Europe three times, focusing on shows in squatted houses and put on by collectives like Smurfpunx. By our third tour, we were playing to pretty large audiences of around 800 to 1200 people and it was still very important to us to play the squats and collectives. Luckily, our road-managers Lorelei Rahnefeld and Syd Migx (from the great Italian hardcore band ‘C.C.M.’) were also very committed to the squats and supported our decision. [Brob: they ran their booking ‘Big White Flash at Six’ from the famous Van Hall squat, where they lived – see Smurfpunx @ Van Hall, Amsterdam]

Debra Adele, ‘False Prophets’ guitarist

The people of ‘Nausea’ were glad they could play with us because they kinda liked our music. I remember not so many people showed up. [Brob: In my mind the V.V. was packed and sweaty; an intense evening…] The ‘Hiatus’ crew did….

Leffe, ‘Chronic Disease’ vocalist

It’s one of the rare concerts where I was straight-edgers & crust-punks have a good time together! I think because of ‘Nausea’s song on the NYHC compilation… The SxE where jumping about when they played!

Karl Penando, ‘6 Feet Over’ guitarist

This was an example of a day where the ‘scene’ worked at its best. The Vort’n Vis had a nice atmosphere and there was a real camaraderie between everybody. ‘Nausea’ were humble and friendly and seemed genuinely grateful to get a decent veggie meal (and decent Belgian beers!). Musically they were very inspiring at the time… Isn’t their drummer in some big band now? Anyway, thanks and respect go out to the Vort’n Vis is crew and ye old punks…

Steve ‘Sling’ Slingeneyer, drummer ‘Chronic Disease’

We really loved ‘Nausea’… Only half of ‘Hiatus’ were there but the Americans insisted that we’ld play a few songs. We were drunk as fuck but tried…with the help of Vrokker & Leffe, I think. I remember hangin’ out upstairs with all of them after the gig. I was laughin’ like hell with Amy, and at some point trying a bit too hard to get ‘involved’ with her. When we later met her in the street in NYC (first ‘Hiatus’ US tour, Aug/Sep’91), I started to blush and wanted to bury my head in the ground like an ostrich.

Willy ‘Hiatus’

The V.V. was a wonderful place for us to play and I wish there were more like it everywhere. We had so much fun at the show. The place was great, the people were wonderful.

The banner for ‘Nausea’s European tour [see pictures] was painted by Seth David Tobocman [Brob: Who did the book You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive]… It meant a lot to me. I saw it as a crossover of everything that was happening politically in NYC and in particular the Lower East Side at that point in history. Two years down from the riots and everything was still smoldering. Seth did a fantastic job. And I think at some of the larger squat venues we played, the people felt a real kindred spirit with Seth. It was a centerpiece.

Al(an) Long, ‘Nausea’ vocalist

I remember we forgot the ‘Nausea’ banner in Copenhagen (The paint was so thick and rubber-like. It was pretty dense and heavy when it was folded up.) and it came back to us on the tour later down the road. I was impressed by the networking and communication all the squats in Europe had. I kept some tour-diaries. I wrote an article about those times for Profane Existence (issue #50/51) several years ago.

Jim Martin, ‘Nausea’ roadie

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

“Horrible beer prices! Cheers mate” (Sti, Olli, Kurt, ‘Turtle Terror’)

“Thanks a lot – Bye” (Pierpaolo ‘Holy Guns Inc’)

mutual admiration… ;-)

additions wellcome!…