90-10-27 Zygote – Bad Influence – Private Jesus Detector

poster kindly provided by ‘Leffe’

I wasn’t at this gig ‘cause the same day ‘Life But How To Live It’ were playing at the O.H.K. in Oostende… A show I had arranged for them…

‘Amebix’ was announced somewhere but by then ‘Zygote’ had risen from it’s ashes and they came over (and they would be back…91-04-21). They formed after ‘Amebix’ split up in the late 80s and consisted of ‘Spider’ (Robert Richards; drums), ‘Smutpig’ (George Fletcher; vocals/guitar) & ‘Stig’ (Chris Miller; vocals/guitar) (all 3 ex ‘Amebix’) with the addition of bassist Tim ‘Crow’ Shapland (ex ‘Smartpils’; later also in ‘Bad Influence’ for a while). The band was short-lived and only released one full-length album: Mike Foster released it on his label MCR that year (Wind Of Knives – Skuld releases compiled this and their demo a few years later…), making the Bath connection complete.

‘Bad Influence’ was about to record the New Age Witch Hunt LP (released by the German labels 42 recs & Skuld releases) so I guess the line-up here was ‘Holy’ Herwin De Winter (vocals) & Joris Rombouts (drums) – as usual, and Patrick ‘Labie’ Delabie (ex ‘Scoundrels’) on bass and Thomas Noppe on guitar (also @ Smurfpunx: 88-05-13). ‘Zygote’s Tim would join them later (and played on the split 7” with ‘Sharon Tate’s Children’ and on the Afterbirth 10”).

‘Private Jesus Detector’ were back too after only a couple of months (their first gig was 90-08-25): Spatje & Vrokker (vocals), Pette (guitar), Siesele (bass) and Leffe (drums)…

Brob

In 1990 ‘Amebix’ would have been disbanded. Maybe it meant ex-‘Amebix’. I remember (vaguely) playing there with ‘Zygote’ and ‘Bad influence’… ‘Amebix’ was over by 1987; the guys and me did ‘Zygote’ to keep doing something and so that we could abuse our way across Europe… And we did so successfully that I can’t really recall very much at all. Good vague times…

Christian Miller, ‘Amebix’/’Zygote’

The 2^nd gig of ‘P.J.D.’ at the Vort’n Vis, I’m 100% certain that we did this one!…because it’s in the notebook with all our concerts that I kept over the years…and according to me ‘Hiatus’ didn’t play that day. [According to Leffe ‘Amebix’ didn’t play but Hiatus did… But maybe he’s mixing things up with the other ‘Zygote’ gig]. We played because we were all there anyway and ‘Amebix’ had cancelled or something… Although ‘Zygote’ = ‘Amebix’…

Siesele, ‘P.J.D.’ bassplayer

As far as I can recall this was the first time of many times to come over the following years. That we headed to the Vort’Vis. The name had a certain smell to it…we had heard about the place and getting into that little bar – with quite some house-rules, we would find out. One way or the other it directly felt like home. Memories from that night are vague en blurry. I remember ‘Stig’ (of the mighty ‘Zygote’) set the tone directly by dropping one of his pills in a beer, resulting in bubbling brew straight out of a ancient horror-movie. Not really well appreciated by the bar-staff. A colourful bunch we were in those days, us Baddies. Mr Thomas [Noppe, guitarist] – cowboy-boots, a blue or purple scarf (mostly worn in his hair) – immediately got a ‘Guns & Roses’ tag. Myself, I was completely in the biker-look, so leather-pants could have been part of the deal, as well as bondage-cuffs – directly a great topic for discussion. Same as the ‘Zygote’ crew. None of us looked punk by the book during those days, guess. We also were all in to wearing top-hats that ‘Ben’ [Herwin’s partner at that time…] made herself. George and Rupert (‘Zygote’) were real mad hatters. The crowd that night – big or small in numbers, I can’t really remember, as we played actually a lot of shows on tour with ‘Zygote’ – was “just we for them and they for us”. I guess punk wasn’t ready yet for these pagan sounds but I can remember that we did quite some new stuff that ended up on the New Age Witch Hunt LP. Two years later (to be honest, I found a set-list) we already had Thomas playing guitar with us alongside to Bart [Belmans, original guitarist] (but my brain fails me I think: Bart had left by then with Chris [original singer] – though the set-list says no). Some of the new stuff had this haunting phaser psychedelic twist to it… Songs like 3B, Unchained and of course Heavy World were still in their jam-phase then. We also played some stuff from the Together We Are demo and songs like The Innocent, The World Is Getting Dirtier, that never ever made it to vinyl or even on tape. My little scrabble-book of those days tells me we got the crowd moving to our unpredictable mix of old straight-forward Baddies punk from the 80s and our new premature New Age Witch Hunt sounds kinda paralysed them all in all. I think they liked us as we got a few times more invited to the Vort’n Vis.

What ‘Zygote’ did that night, I can’t remember but I’m quite sure they shredded the place to pieces. ‘Amebix’ definitely didn’t play! Who put that on the poster must have had a big fantasy or wishful thinking. The only ‘Amebix’ tune ‘Zygote’ ever played was Ride To Ride, which ‘Zygote’ changed into Man In The Crowd; a steady song in their set and I must say better then the ‘Amebix’ jam.

‘Private Jesus Detector’ – always loved the name – were fast and furious. Vrokker played for them in those days; they had two vocalist, I believe.

As usual the night ended in a drinking-session but someone must have driven us home… Hail to the freak behind the steering-wheel. Luckily I have a better memory of other V.V. passages. 2 things I’m sure of… Brob was dancing behind his table, selling zines & records. [That must’ve been another day ‘cause I was in Ostend with ‘Life But How To Live It’…] And we probably met Bruno their for the first time; first of many encounters to come as Bruno set up a lot of shows for us from then on and even co released the Afterbirth CD in 1995.

Holy Herwin a.k.a. Hellwin – as Brob invented so nicely :-)

About that whole ‘Amebix’ thing on the poster: I made it and it clearly states featuring EX ‘Amebix’ members. I remember Herwin looking at it and giving it his approval. If I find it I’ll post it straight away! Siesele might still have a copy I suppose… Anyway I also remember that Munpie (‘Dona Nobis Pacem’) did some poetry during the Baddies’ set, which was really good by the way! Quite a statement if you know they’re from Antwerp haha… They were really good that night!!!

The one thing I don’t remember is ‘Private Jesus Detector’ playing but we must have one way or another, blurry haze that one!

Tim (ex ‘Smartpills’) revealed that their drummer Richard Chadwick was moving over to the ‘Hawkwind’ camp where he still is. Also me and ‘Spider’ had a great time. ‘Zygote’ were brilliant that day. I went to see ‘em again in London with the ‘Subhumans’ head-lining. Ah good times; people; good times…

Spatje ‘P.J.D.’

A month and a half after our Germany/Poland tour, the lads from Bath came back to do some gigs together. I don’t remember where we all played but of course the V.V. was always a highlight in a kind of way. The nicest thing about V.V. was that you could park the van on the premises next to the venue, so we always had our ‘backstage’. At that time we always used my van, I was probably that drunken driver that Herwin mentioned earlier. I have to admit that I do not remember anything about ‘Private Jesus Detector’ playing then, but as most of the time, I was probably talking to other people outside (sorry guys). The times we spend with ‘Zygote’ on the road were mostly associated with a lot of blond beverages and other substances. Probably the reason why not everybody remembers everything from those days. I do recall we did a good gig but completely forgot about Munpie doing poetry before or in between. After reading it, I remember that he also did this at the other gigs in Germany. I think I enjoyed every ‘Zygote’ gig I’ve seen, so for sure they were good that night. The rest of the evening probably ended up like most of these evenings, drinking beer with my mate ‘Spider’ and the others. It’s sad to say but as Rob Miller from ‘Amebix’ said: “These days will never come again.”.

Joris, ‘Bad Influence’ drummer

the ‘Baddies’ as pictured on the New Age Witch Hunt LP:

additions wellcome!…