95-02-11 Health Hazard – D’Rotzbouwen – Noise Reduction – Hiatus – Gluebag – Vomit Yourself

‘D’Rotzbouwen’, from Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg (where quite some bands played at the Kulturfabrik) were described as crust-core à la ‘Hiatus’ by some, while others compared their angry polit-core to ‘Born Against’ or ‘Rorschach’ (which I think is closer). They had songs in English, Italian, German and Letzeburgs. A political HC band with members of ‘Subway Arts’ and ‘No More’: Fränz Laureys (bass), Thierry Thill (drums), Sabrina D’Aurelio (vocals), ‘Gull’ Alain Gouleven (guitar/vocals) & Claude ‘Pattex’ Werer (guitar). It seems (see pic) they still had their first singer, Ronnie Riot (later in ‘Bakunin’s Children’), here too… They did a 7” on Skunk recs (the label of Diff of ‘No More’, ‘Subway Arts’, etc.), a split-7” with the Japanses ‘F.I.O.M.’ (on the German label Anomie recs) and a 10” called Aspirine. Thierry & Fränz later formed ‘Lecter MD’…

‘Health Hazard’ had been here a few times before. This time Sned (drums), Alec Mac (guitar) & Gazza (bass) were accompanied by Max (of ‘Headache’) on vocals (in stead of Mandy). “Jap-trash from Bradford”, it said on the flyer ;-)…

When Phil stopped playing guitar for ‘Hiatus’ (somewhere in ’94), he started playing punk à la ‘Disorder’ with Willy and Jonas (also ‘Hiatus’) in a band they called ‘Gluebag’… But that didn’t last very long…

Who was in ‘Hiatus’ at that time then? If you look on the photo, you see Wills (vocals), Jonas (bass), Phil (guitar) and Azill (guitar)… Ben (drums) is hidden… Someone in France put out a tape called Don’t Think With Your Dick… with live tracks of ‘Hiatus’ & ‘Health Hazard’; so it was ‘one big happy family again’…

‘Noise Reduction’ (from Edegem, near Antwerp) played crust-core. They were Kurt van den Eynden (vocals), Stefaan Simons (guitar), Tim Wouters (bass) and Rudy Verhelst (drums). They did a demo and in 1995 they had a split-7” (with ‘Deadlock’) out on a Japanese label.

‘Vomit Yourself’ (from the Toulouse area, I think) were P.P. (vocals), Fred (drums; later ‘Disbeer’) & Pit (bass/guitar/vocals). Their ‘tunes’ were fast, short outbreaks of grind. They did a split-LP with ‘Enola Gay’ (also from France) entitled Exempted Authority / Nihilism… on Panx prods in 1995.

Brob

The were loads of people that evening. Personally I thought it was one of the best concerts I saw there (and there were many) and not just because my band played… ‘Vomit Yourself’ was incredible (they were added to the bill last minute). ‘Health Hazard’ was super too, they are one of my favourite bands. After the gigs all the beer was gone but there were still so many people and no-one wanted to go asleep; they all wanted to party on. Bruno said they were going to close and that they couldn’t give any more booze. Everyone protested and Bruno had to give in: some people went to get drinks in the night-shop and the night could linger on, very cosy…

After ‘Noise Redcution’ we formed ‘Karma’; with Tom Torfs (later in ‘Visions Of War’) on bass, Anja Hermans on vocals, myself on drums/vocals and Tim guitar.

Kurt van den Eynden

The ‘Hazard into Suffer’ tour. We missed Mandy but Max fuckin’ rocked! It was sad for us as ‘Health Hazard’ was a totally fucking great to be part of on all sorts of levels it just worked + was 100% genuinely who we were. Morphing into ‘Suffer’ was tough but this tour was the start of that. Max was great to go on tour with, always had tons of respect for him as a shouty spitting microphonist + human being. Playing the V.V. is always like coming home + meeting a load of friends, strengthening bonds, swapping boxes of records + zines, + making with the party. Seem to remember there being loads of folk to catch up with that night. Don’t remember any of the bands being anything but great. Always loved Hiatus live. Never saw them to a bad gig.

Alec Mac

Super gig! One of many… Pity that ‘Health Hazard’s singer decided to quit right before that tour… :-( [Mandy was still on the split-7” with ‘Sawn Off’ that got out in 1997. These tracks were recorded in ‘95 (3 months after the split)…]

Steve, ‘Insane Youth’ singer

Oooooh, ‘Health Hazard’ were such a powerful band! I don’t remember much of the rest; except for ‘Gluebag’ – I’m sure we did play that day. It was one of our only 2 gigs. I was really surprised when Edward from ‘Nations On Fire’ and someone from ‘Shortsight’ (I think), told us they really liked it. It was a side-project to ‘Hiatus’ with Phil on drums, Jonas on guitar and myself on bass & vocals. We wanted to be worse than ‘Disorder’, and just sing about drugs and booze, shoplifting, etc.

Willy ‘Hiatus’

an ecstatic ‘Health Hazard’… (picture by Wim DL)

Alec Mac (‘Health Hazard’) – pic by Piero Majocchi

Ben & Willy (‘Hiatus’) – pic by Piero Majocchi

More pictures (courtesy of Kurt van den Eynden):

‘Health Hazard’

‘D’Rotzbouwen’

‘Hiatus’

‘Vomit Yourself’ (‘Doomy’ & Bruno VdV minding other business…with Bart ‘Palfest’ Palmans (R.I.P.) and Marc Janssens)

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

the ‘Hiatus’ & ‘Gluebag’ chaos front ;-)

additions wellcome!…

94-04-02 Subcaos – Subway Arts – Oi Polloi – Quite Fresh Phobia – Kulturalis Szemle – Systemphobia

Don’t find the flyer anymore… The newsletter of that time mentioned “7 bands, 7 nationalities” and also announced ‘Apathia’ from Poland and the Belgian ‘Systemphobia’… Can’t remember if these showed up (Mario & Kristof of the latter commented that they did play…).

The Scots of ‘Oi Polloi’ played at the V.V. so many times… Not sure what the line-up was here; I guess Calum MacKenzie (bass), Murray Briggs (drums) – they’re in the guestbook – Deek Allen (vocals) and Matt Finch (guitar) … & Colin Douglas (the driver). The band has had many different configurations: in my friend Michèle’s zine Persons Unknown it’s mentioned that on the tour with ‘Inkisiçao’ & ‘X-Acto’ (a few months after this, Sep ‘94) it was Deek & Matt, and Chris ‘Wheelie’ Willsher (drums) & ‘Clive’ (Calum Mackenzie, bass), and Al was the driver… An interview in Fifi #1 mentions Brian [Tipa] playing guitar…

‘Subcaos’ from Lisbon were Diogo (Tovar) Carvalho (vocals; also did Recognize No Authority zine, and distributed mine), Xico (or Chico or FJ; vocals), João Abrantes (guitar), João Barrelas (guitar; also in ‘X-Acto’), To-Pê (bass) & David (drums). They put out a demo (Genocidio, “chaotic crustcore”) in ’92 and tracks for the split-7” with Hiatus (on Slime recs) were just recorded (raging HC)… Slime recs (which existed since 1989) changed it’s name to Ataque Sonoro around 1994/95 (ataquesonoro.blogspot) and released their split-album with ‘Genital Deformities’ in ’94. Fast crusty HC! ‘Subcaos’ had been here before… (93-08-01)

‘Subway Arts’ were a political hardcore/punk band from Luxembourg. In 1991 the Band released a split-12” titled All Life is Equal together with their mates of ‘No More’ on Markus Haas’ Per Koro recs (actually he ran it together with Tanja Maier). Two years later they released a 12” titled “Una Definizione Perveresa Della Pace” (‘93) – a collaboration of Genet recs and PeaCy recs (ran by Diff and Simone Winandy). They were: Claude ‘Bourano’ Bour (drums; Mike played on the split-LP but left also soon after), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Sabrina D’Aurelio (vocals; David on the split-LP) and Xavier (guitar).

‘Quite Fresh Phobia’ from Eindhoven consisted of Skip Kort (drums), Sander (vocals), Antoine (bass) & Roland ‘Rolansky’ Molegraaf (guitar; ex ‘Incertitude’ & ‘Hund Als Waffe’). They had a track on the Bits Of Noise CD, a compilation of Ducth bands on WRF recs. Roland also booked bands (@ Burgers) and sometimes set up tours… They had been here before (93-03-14)…

‘Kulturalis Szemle’ (“Cultural Review”), a band from Orosháza, South-Eastern Hungary, were: Eörsi (guitar), Kicsi (drums/vocals) & Csiri (bass/vocals). They did two mini-tours in France & Belgium with the French band ‘Constant Summer’ (Don’t think they played this one…). The band had a total of six demos (downloadable via their website kulturalisszemle.mindenkilapja.hu) out. They played punk-rock, “mixed with alternative and indie influences”. Most songs had Hungarian lyrics.

Brob

We were touring with our friends form ‘Subway Arts’ when we arrive at beautiful Ieper. I can remember the church near the V.V. and specially the V.V. bar. In Portugal back in the 90s we used to play for 300/400 people, numbers that are rarely seen nowadays over here. At this gig I remember that Bruno (who organised our Euro tours) talked about +/-1000 people at the festival. Our show was huge. [The bands played in big ‘barn’, not the pub.]

We were touring with an old drummer that learned the songs while driving from Portugal to central Europe and so we couldn’t play many new songs that we had. David was replaced by Hugo Begucho (he was our first drummer and recorded the Genocidio demos back in 1992. He also played for the great Portuguese HC band called ‘Alcoore’.) on this tour. We also did an (self-titled) EP in 1994 on Rage recs with the new songs that we couldn´t play live because our drummer left us one day after we left Portugal to the Euro tour… I still remember that the Belgians really liked us.

I recall that the guitarist of ‘Hiatus’ was chewing my guitar-strings and falling over the drum-kit. The crowd was insane and really liked our heavy sound. Unfortunately our crew didn’t record our show (drunk bastards) but I filmed the entire ‘Oi Polloi’ show. I still have it on 8mm and VHS and I will try to convert it digital. I can only remember the ‘Subway Arts’ gig and ‘Oi Polloi’…the rest of the time I think I spent it drinking beers outside. ;-)

After this crazy show I remember talking and drinking with Wills and the rest of ‘Hiatus’; it was a great great day. The next day we played in Orléans (France) and some French and Belgian guys came with us for that show. Super.

João Pedro of Slime recs also came on tour with us. So were Miguel Crespo and his brother Samuel [Brob: Isn’t this supposed to be his friend Samuel Melro?]. You were asking/searching for Miguel Crespo & Guilherme. João ‘Jonhie Simbiose’ was a close friend of Miguel…

Also some others of us still play and you can check for these bands: vocalist Francisco [FJ] Dias is in ‘Dawnrider’ and sometimes ‘Subcaos’, guitarist João Barrelas played in ‘Danwrider’ and I played for ‘Rolls-Rockers’ and nowadays [2013] for ‘15Freaks’. I still play live (I was 18 at the time) but it was perhaps my best gig ever. Nowadays I’m more into punk rock’n’roll like ‘Supersuckers’, ‘Gluecifer’, ‘Turbonegro’; I really don’t like the new punk-bands but there are some good like ‘Mr. Myagi’ (Check out about the punk-scene on billy-news.blogspot.com). So the ex ‘Subacaos’ members are all active except David, Diogo Tovar (living in Amsterdam) and To-Pê (haven’t heard again from him)…

João (Pedro) Abrantes, guitarist of ‘Subcaos’

Miguel Crespo is not dead, he is very much alive and has been living in Amsterdam for 15 years…

João ‘Jonhie Simbiose’

I was indeed one of the singers from ‘Subcaos’… My memories from those days are not very good, maybe a side-effect from the countless cartons of cheap red wine that we brought with us from Portugal. But I definitely remember that we had a great time and you guys really made us feel at home.

I’m now [2013] living in London but met Miguel frequently when I was in A’dam. I believe Guilherme’s living in Brasil now. He was our driver when we played the V.V. for the 2^nd time. I remember now that there were five of us inside his tiny Renault 5 and we took no instruments with us at all, our only baggage was just this shit-load of cheap red wine. Not very professional I guess… ;-)

Diogo (Tovar)

Our band quit in 1998 but we are still good friends, and meet frequently and talk about the ‘good old times’ then. There’s a special place in our memory about touring with the band and the gigs we played. We got to the V.V. with the help of Manu of ‘Constant Summer’ who organised some other gigs for us in France and Belgium. We were really satisfied about the technical equipment and the stuff at the V.V. The audience was great too, we met a lot of communicative, open-minded people there. We had a nice time.

‘Kulturalis Szemle’

Second gig of ‘Quite Fresh Phobia’ here. Different singer this time: Sander. Maarten had left the band the year before. It was packed, so lucky we played in the hall in the back instead of the tiny pub. Just before we had to play I heard two punks talking that it would be a good time to get food ‘cause the next band (us) was a non-grinding one. True, ‘Q.F.P.’ made punk-rock with some hardcore influences. Anyway there where still a lot of people in front of the stage and they really made this gig one to remember. Very cozy, lot’s of fun & partying with them. The drums where put on the side of the stage so I had good contact with the band as with the public, nice. When ‘Oi Polloi’ started it got really frenzy. The two P.A. speaker-towers where moving (did’nt tip over) and punks hanging in the roof-beams. Great atmosphere that day, had lots of good talks and fun with more than 7 nationalities…

After ‘Quite Fresh Phobia’ split up I went on playing in different bands (‘Bek Hauwe Speule!’, ‘Toad’, ‘Hagridden”). Today still going strong with ‘Kort Door De Bocht’…

Skip Kort, ‘Q.F.P.’ drummer

Now I remember which ‘Oi Polloi’ gig I saw at the barn. It was this one with ‘Subcaos’ in 1994. (I had been on tour with ‘Subcaos’ in the summer of 93 aswell.)

Carsten Pötter, Frankfurt

‘Subcaos’ * João B./ Diogo / To-Pê / Xico / João A. (photo by Michael Maes)

‘Subcaos’ (pictured by Wim DL)

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Samuel ‘Ratanza’ / Claudio ‘Simbiose’ / João Pedro (Slime recs)

additions wellcome!…

Republiek the Vort’n Vis

This is one of the many Vort’n Vis membership-cards I had over the years. Each attended gig was marked and a full card meant certain benefits/bonusses…

The Vort’n Vis was also a self-proclaimed ‘republic’, stating it’s independency of the state of Belgium… We also had our own money:

The bills state “National Bank of the Republic the Vort’n Vis * The counterfeiter will be punished with severe penal servitude (cleaning toilets, cellar, etc.)”…