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!…