Dieter Roelstraete (‘Lord Moloch’) writes in his piece ‘Horrendous cut-throat system’: “I organized my first gig in 1989 (featuring Bradford’s crust-punk super-group ‘Warfear’, at the Vort’n Vis in Ieper)…” but he’s mistaken: it was 1990. And a couple of months before he also had invited ‘Sore Throat’ [90-05-27]… The ‘Pyrobolum Stenchcore Battalion’ (Dieter ‘Lord Moloch’, David, ‘Siesele’, ‘Leffe’, Billy, ‘Spatje’, ‘Pette’) had visited the 1 in 12 Club (Bradford) in July (and some people involved there) so this was kind of continuation of the fraternization.
‘Warfear’ was a crust band (influenced by ‘Discharge’ and Japanese stuff like ‘Gauze’ & ‘Outo’; “jap-thrash in the Totalitäaaargh vein” – as Lord Moloch used to call it) with members of ‘Doom’ & ‘Sore Throat’: Rich ‘Militia’ Walker doing the “Guitargghhh!” (as someone else described it), Chris ‘Gazza’ Gascoyne on bass, Brian Talbot hitting the drums and the vocalist was supposed to be Bridget Stark (the original one, James ‘Gibby’ Gibson, had quit) but the pictures show Rich taking the mike…
‘The Next World’, a duo from Bradford (also involved with the 1 in 12 there): ‘Steve ‘Butler on bass and Darron Ward (guitar & vocals), supported by a drum-machine; were planned to play but apparently didn’t… Perhaps because they had been here a couple of months earlier [see 90-05-01]?
‘No Way Out’ was then, the new band of Nick Royles (who’d left the initial line-up of ‘Sore Throat’ – Rich ‘Militia’ Walker (vocals), Brian Talbot (guitar), John ‘Doom’ Pickering (bass) – in ‘88). They were a straight-edge band, also from Bradford: Nick (drums), Percy (vocals), Andy/Andrew ‘Bez’ Berry (bass; later ‘Neckbrace’) & Russ Chowdhury (guitar)… Heath Crosby was the first singer (not here) and sang on the demo.
This was probably the 1st gig of ‘Private Jesus Detector’ at the V.V. Bruno announced them as “the brand new ‘Discard’ & ‘Mob 47’ offshoot from Brugge”… At that time still with ‘Chronic Disease’s bassplayer Vrokker sharing vocals with Spatje. Leffe was also in both bands [For some more info see: 91-03-16]. ‘Chronic Disease’ had already played there earlier that year and had been guests at Smurfpunx gigs aswell: 88-11-11 & 89-12-25]
Brob
I remember playing with ‘Warfear’. Me & Rich Militia had fallen out on tour. There used to be a joke-shop on the opposite side of the square by the cathedral, so I bought some bangers, the kind you put in cigarettes. I offered to make friends with Rich again and said I’d roll him a cigarette as a way to apologise. I must have put about 5 bangers in it; when he got half way down smoking, it blew up and nearly took his face off. He wasn’t happy…
Brian Talbot
Been struggling to remember anything about it. I knew Bridget came with us. For some reason my main memories are: Bridget and I being propositioned after one gig by two dodgy looking characters. One in a suit, the other had a shaved head. They wanted to prostitute us.
On the way back we had to push the van to start it. It began to move fast so we got in the van apart from a few ‘No Way Out’ guys. One of them lost his footing and we just felt the van go over something. Well, he was ok but was a bit worrying as we didn’t know what part of his body the van had gone over. [Brob: see Bri’s comment; the person hurting his leg was Percy but it wasn’t actually broken…]
Chris ‘Gazza’
A funny thing about our first time with ‘P.J.D.’ at the Vort’n Vis… We still had two vocalists then: myself and ‘Vrokker’. As you know, ‘Vrokker’ is quite an appearance on stage with his 1m 95 (!) and he always totally goes for it… So he takes the microphone for the first line of the first song, starts to ‘sing’ and hereby spits out his false teeth on stage! Hilarious!
Jurgen ‘Spatje’ Fiems, ‘Private Jesus Detector’ vocalist
Yep, our first performance here. We had been staying at Rich Militia’s place for a whole week, so we knew the ‘Warfear’ lads a bit and meeting them again in Belgium was fun. We held egg-carton fights and such in the room behind the bar… The trip to Bradford was ok, drinking pints at the 1in12 club every day, witnessed a rehearsal of ‘Disaster’ (and played some 5 songs for the guys and Rich. We also went to a pub in Huddersield to see an anarcho band with a female vocalist (was it ‘Naturecore’ or ‘F.UA.L.’ or ‘Sofa Head’?)…
‘The Next World’ didn’t play. ‘No Way Out’ did 2 ‘Zyklome-A’ covers. ‘Warfear’s Rich Militia was a nice guy, don’t know exactly what he’s upto now but it’s in the metal sector I think… [Brob: Rich Militia is still playing in ‘Solstice‘ and running ‘The Miskatonic Foundation‘.]
Koen ‘Siesele’ Lammens, ‘Private Jesus Detector’ bassplayer [Thanx for the poster!]
the young blond god Bri, ‘Warfear’ (pic by Dieter R.)
Rich Militia, ‘Warfear’ (photos by Jeroen L. & Dieter R.)
‘No Way Out’ (pics courtesey of Nick Royles)
‘Private Jesus Detector’ (kindly donated by Spatje, done by Dieter?):
L => R: Spatje (vocals), Pette (guitar), Leffe (hidden, drums), Vrokker (vocals), Siesele (bass)
Pette, Leffe (man at work!) & a concentrated Sies…
Sies, Spatje & Vrokker (Karin, later ‘One By One’ vocalist, in the audience * Klaas H. behind the bar…)
‘Chronic Disease’ (band-pic by Dieter, singles donated by Spatje, bottom 2 by Jeroen):
L => R: Meyer (guitar), Sling (drums), Leffe (vocals), Vrokker (bass)
additions wellcome!…
Vort'n Vis in the 90s 
Great to see these pics again… I recall this gig as one of ‘Chronic Disease’s best. I used to have a tape of this show, I remember this was shortly after we recorded our e.p., so it was exciting to play “newer” songs like Who Created Who, Illegitimis Non Carborundum’, etc. We’ve salvaged the recordings of this e.p. from a cassette, “remastering” this is on the list of things to do!
Sling (‘Chronic Disease’)
Love Sling’s ‘Nirvana’ shirt there Sling. I believe I went out and got myself one shortly afterwards. ‘Chronic Disease’ – what can I say? Classic mosh mayhem. Must’ve seen them a hundred times in the 1988-1991 period… One picture from the series appeared in a little zine Jeroen Lauwers did at the time… And Vrokker was an early pen-pal, featured in the first issue of the Pyrobolum fanzine I was publishing at the time. Golden Years!
For a band-presentation of ‘Chronic Disease’, go to: Chronic Disease (band-presentation Tilt! #4)
For an interview with ‘Chronic Disease’, go to Chronic Disease (Keep Laughing #2)
For a band-presentation by ‘Private Jesus Detector’ * ca. 1990 go to: Private Jesus Detector (band-presentation Tilt! #6)
On the way to the ferry we (‘Warfear’ & ‘No Way Out’) ran out of diesel on the hard shoulder. One of the straight-edgers thought it was funny to put his leg out and pretend to push the van as we rolled down the hill. Before I could shout “No!”, he slipped and we ran over his leg, breaking it. So we had to pay a visit to the hospital.
Nowadays (Peter De) ‘Meyer’ plays guitar in a band with Vrokker and in another one (jazz) with his brother Bert (who used to play in the HC-band ‘Crap Society’ from Brugge) and William the drummer of ‘Nahende Vernichtung’.
The trip to Bradford was the max but also heavy shit… As far as I can remember, we were supposed to have had a few gigs there with ‘P.J.D.’ – all arranged by Arjen – but once we got there nobody knew anything about that! Typically Arjen…great bloke but a bit (more than a bit) chaotic.
We first ended up at Rich Militia’s place, where we stayed, also at Bri’s. Later we ended up at the 1 in 12 club where we played over ‘Disfear’s gear, a performance for 4 men. ‘Disfear’ was funny shit!!!
Bradford by night is not the safest place to hang out, and since we did everything by foot and we looked rather sinister, we were an easy target for drunken yuppies. At a certain moment a car full of Pakistanis trying to hassle us pulled over but we made thém run! Shortly after the cops arrived and we were told to explain, but we pretended as if we didn’t speak a word English. They got frustrated and let us go…
Percy sang for ‘No Way Out’ and had the leg-injury. He went on to become a photographer for a snowboard-magazine and then edited the defunct but widely respected skate-mag called Document. I think he’s a cage-fighter now…
‘No Way Out’ Something Must Be Done (Antidote cover; 1989)
Bradford, June or July 1990 – amazing experience. Six people or so in all – Leffe, Spatje, Vrokker (?), David ‘Spans Hrac’ Stubbe, myself and someone I must’ve forgotten. I think we all stayed over at Rich Militia’s place. Much to my surprise, there was much metal to be had – I think we only listened to ‘Black Sabbath’ and Japanese proto-crust punk outfit ‘Confuse’, whose early 7 inches Rich had just released on his own label (forgot the name). Richard Walker – what a character, what a great guy. If I’m not mistaken he only had one chair in his house at the time, and he sat on it for most of our stay. We spent quite a bit of time at the 1 in 12 and went to Huddersfield. Grim West Yorkshire nights. A German girl whose name I never knew, got very frisky with me on the boat on the way over. Britain in the late eighties – it’s a different planet now. And ‘Warfear’, so emphatically Jap-trash-infused, wuz the shit…
Dieter, I remember the situation with that German girl. We almost lost you there. Vrokker wasn’t with us but Siesele and Billy were.
It was ‘Disaster’ not ‘Disfear’. All those bands with Dis-prefixes can be confusing… ‘Disaster’ put out a great 12″ back in those days. It has been re-issued this year so grab a copy!
I also remember that Rich took us to a pub called ‘The Fighting Cock’ were they sold some organic cider (not the commercial crap like Strongbow) called Thatchers Falling Down. Very strong stuff that got us very cloudy after one glass.
‘No Way Out’ interview (1990)