92-03-08 Born Against – One By One – Nations On Fire – Pertotal

The ‘N.O.F.’ lp got out with some delay (due to the accident Jaak had) in March 1992. There wasn’t a real ‘presentation’ as was intended at first (91-09-01). We went on a 10 day tour with ‘Born Against’. Ute [X-Mist] was driving and our leader Bruno VDV was the aid.

Jeroen Lauwers; ‘N.O.F.’ bassplayer

‘Born Against’ – on their ‘92 Euro tour – were vocalist Sam McPheeters (Dear Jesus zine, Vermiform recs, etc.), guitarist Adam Nathanson (zinester & ex ‘Life’s Blood’), bassist Bret Blue (nót Javier) and drummer Jo(h)n Hiltz. After the Euro tour Tonie Joy (ex ‘Moss Icon’) and Brooks Headly (‘Universal Order of Armageddon’) joined on bass and drums, respectively; the band moved from New York to Richmond. They broke up in the summer of 1993. I’d started a correspondence with Sam when I discovered and distributed his zine (Dear Jesus; and later records from his label Vermiform). I admire(d) his intelligent, provocative, thought-provoking, articulate, eloquent writing… Adam I’d gotten to know when Freddy Alva (I think) sent me a tape with music of Adam’s band ‘Life’s Blood’. It was real nice to be able to talk with them in person for a while. And they even came back a few weeks later (92-04-18)…

‘One By One’ members Sned, Micky; Alec had been here before (91-08-18). Karin joined the band in early 1992 but it wasn’t her first visit at the Vort’n Vis (in- or outside a band) ‘cause she’d visited (here e.g.: 90-08-25) already when she was still living in Brugge…

In 1993 ‘N.O.F.’ toured with Jamie Owen (from the UK band ‘Jailcell Recipes’) on drums but here Jaak was still in the band; David doing the vocals, Jeroen on bass and Ward playing guitar.

Brob

‘Born Against’ photos kindly donated by Jeroen L. (taken by Roger ‘F.T.F.’)

I have been the driver for ‘Nations On Fire’ on the tour with ‘Born Against’. I still have some memory of that: the somehow bizarre and uncomfortable feeling staying at the house of Edward’s parents: Getting excellent food in a sort of conservative and authoritarian family-atmosphere…

Tina? [see excerpts] We used to be friends with a girl named Tina from Tübingen [Brob: I think she was booking shows at Epplehaus there…]. She got into booking tours and driving bands when ‘Toxic Reasons’ got stranded for a few days on their first European tour and needed some help. Armin met them in Freiburg and told them to contact her, and then they stayed for a few days off on the tour at the squat where she was living. That’s when Tina and her friend got into this band-touring thing; I guess…?

Peter [Carstens, from Flensburg] was the driver of ‘Born Against’ and many other bands [tours organised by Steffen Rose – Navigator productions] during those days, since he owned a huge van. Nowadays he’s the drummer for the massively popular and mainstream-accepted punk-band ‘Turbostaat’.

Ute, X-Mist recs

I thought Tina was Adam’s girlfriend. I remember that ‘Born Against’ took of with a male driver that got replaced halfway by 1 or 2 female ‘roadies’…

I didn’t really like this show as it was too crowded and, as Sling states [below], the atmosphere was a little tense but from both sides. The Liège and Brugge ‘crust’ crew was as negative about the (socalled) SxE crew as they were about them, negative vibes came from both, a bunch of posers on both sides of the fence. I don’t remember ‘One By One’ playing as we came in late from a long drive from Bremen the day before. I liked this band, Sned was always a nice person and I get on well with Karin who I started talking to by accident when she was studying in Kortrijk shortly before.

Still the best ‘N.O.F.’ line-up in retrospect but already with crackles in the foundation. Ed and me couldn’t decide about doing the band fulltime or taking a job; Jaak was too busy doing his health-food store to be 100% in the band and David always gave this feeling of ‘N.O.F.’ being his second choice band to ‘Scraps’. It also didn’t help him moving to Germany shortly after and rarely coming over to rehearse or work on new stuff. When Burn Again came out a year later, with a long tour ahead the atmosphere really wasn’t that good.

Jeroen Lauwers; ‘N.O.F.’ bassplayer

‘N.O.F.’ ready to leave on tour (1993!). L=>R: Edward V. a.k.a. ‘Judge No One’, stand-in drummer Jamie, roadie Whitey, Goofy’s mom, David D., Jeroen ‘Goofy’ Lauwers. (pic by driver Willy)

I never visited the Vort’n Vis. I had already left ‘Born Against’ by that time so it was Bret Blue who was the bassist after me.

Javier Villegas, ex ‘Born Against’ bassist

I had returned from New-Zealand the day before, arrived in London and ‘One By One’ picked me up from a junction on the motorway and drove me to Ieper! Sling played drums, at least for some of the set…

Sned, ‘One By One’ drummer

This gig resulted in my exit from the HC scene. I recall pushing over the drum-kit because so many straight-edge kids were very negative about the non-sXe. bands… Bunch of posers… [Brob: according to Leffe, this happened during ‘Pertotal’s set, who played here aswell… – see comment.]

Sling

This gig with ‘Born Against’ was part of a mini-tour of Belgium to celebrate Sned’s return from New-Zealand: we picked him up somewhere in London and then drove down to Dover… We had to wait a couple of hours for the ferry in the cold rain on the sea-front for our early crossing. Can’t remember the exact course of events but Karin and I stopped at her parents in Oostkamp and Alec stopped with Spatje at his mums… Not sure where Sned went. We had a couple of practices in the back-room of the Tivoli [pub in Brugge] where ‘P.J.D.’ & ‘Chronic Disease’ rehearsed. Sned hadn’t drummed for over 6 months and I think Sling offered to help lighten the load by helping out. It soon became clear that he knew the songs better than we did!!! We played definitely played 2 gigs with Sling and Sned drumming parts of the set each… As well as the Vort’n Vis there was another at La Zone… [7 mar ’92 (‘La Zone’): One By One (UK), Private Jesus Detector (Bel), Pertotal (Bel)] Karin and I also think there might have been a 3^rd gig at the Democrazy in Gent with ‘Nation of Ulysses’… [Jeroen L.: ‘Nation Of Ulysses’ played the same day at Democrazy.] Karin is pretty certain that she wasn’t in the band at the time but she had certainly joined by the time we played with ‘Rorschach’ at the 1 in 12 in June 1992…

Micky McGuinness, ‘One By One’ guitarist

The Vort’n Vis was the perfect size to pack in a show; the walls and windows were sweating with condensation. The vibe was definitely good and D.I.Y. The moisture resulted in some electrical problems with the guitar-amp. I was excited to play with ‘One by One’ because they had a former member of ‘Ripcord’ or ‘Heresy’ (?). [Generic] ‘Nations on Fire’ made us feel right at home since it was their home-turf and we were doing the tour with them. Edward created these funny ‘Born Against’/’Nations on Fire’ all-access passes that said “sponsored by Stussy and Budweiser”. Bruno put us up in his little place in the beautiful city of Liège. [Bruno had a room in Gent at that time I think; definitely not Liège.] He had a pet mouse that he allowed to run free around the apartment, and it kept waking us up.

The crowd was full of U.S. straight-edge fashion. It made me wonder that day, and throughout the whole European tour, “Doesn’t anybody remember ‘B.G.K.’, ‘N.V. Le Anderen’, ‘Lärm’, ‘Pandemonium’, ‘Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers’, ‘Porno Patrol’, ‘Upright Citizens’, ‘Raw Power’, ‘Wretched’, ‘Scraps’, ‘Negazione’, etc., etc.?”.

Adam Nathanson; ‘Born Against’ guitarist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…