93-05-01 Spitboy – Ivich – One By One – Bugeyed – Dirt – Sedition

Extra photos of ‘Spitboy’ & ‘Dirt’

‘Spitboy’ was an all-female political HC band from the San Francisco Bay Area. The band consisted of Adrienne Droogas (vocals; she also did a zine called Too Far that I distributed – later she was also in ‘Aus-Rotten’), Karin Gembus (guitar; helped out at M.R.R. & Lookout! recs), Paula Hibbs-Rines (bass; later replaced by Dominique ‘Nikki’ Davison) and Michelle ‘Todd’ Gonzales (drums; played guitar for ‘Kamala & The Karnivores’ end of the ‘80s).

At the time of touring they had a self-titled 7” out on Lawrence Livermore’s Lookout! Recs (’92) and an LP (True Self Revealed) on Kent McClard’s Ebullition recs (’93). The last recording with Paula on bass was June 1994, for the Mi Cuerpo Es Mio 7” on Allied recs. In August ’94 they recorded the Rasana 7” with Nikki (also out on Ebullition). Their last vinyl was the split-LP with ‘Los Crudos’ (Viviendo Asperamente – Roughly Living) on Ebullition Recs (1995).

I recall I intended to do an interview with them for my zine but for some reason that went wrong; Vique ‘Simba’ Martin did one before this tour (read); ‘Hazel’ Lepers in her zine Superfluous #2 and Nathalie D. for Tom De Pauw’s Holy Hardcore #2…

‘Spitboy’s performance at the Vort’n Vis was video-taped.

‘Bugeyed’ (from Leeds) played (as described in Tilt! #7) “Noisy and heavy HC loaded with angry power.”. I also wrote: “Devilish! It brings out the bad in people.”. For those who want comparisons; I read somewhere: “‘Venom’ meets ‘Black Flag’; down-tuned, sloppy, negative punk rock”. They were: Andrew ‘Monkey’ Clark-Monks (guitar), Paul ‘Pig Havoc/Havok’ Clarke (vocals) – both ex ‘Pleasant Valley Children’ (see 90-06-24), Sarah Smith (bass; ex ‘Generic’) and Brian Talbot (drums; also ‘Doom’). Eric ‘Rich’ Rucker (2^nd guitar on the album) wasn’t in the band anymore… Karl Horton released the Monsters Rule My World LP on his label Words Of Warning around that time. My pen-pal Steve Buxton (Ripping Thrash zine) also released some live tracks on a benefit-tape (for hunt-sabs; together with ‘Concrete Sox’) and Bri tells me there was a demo too…

‘Bugeyed’ – early line-up; (92-07-01) Duchess Of York, Leeds, UK (courtesy of Brian Talbot): Andrew – Bri – ‘Pig’ – ‘Rich’ – Sarah

The 2^nd gig of ‘Sedition’ here (see 92-08-29). Glaswegians – or should I say Caledonians? – Angus ‘Gus’ Quinn (vocals), (Gill)Martin Mann (drums), Billy Steele (guitar) and Craig ‘Brycey’ Bryce (bass) came over again to give us a taste of their ‘pagan HC’. After their earlier material, that year (‘93) they did the Earth Beat LP (the one in the cloth bag) and the split-7” with ‘Disaffect’ on Sned’s Flat Earth recs. After they split up Craig went on to play with ‘Dawson’ (93-10-03), Billy played second guitar in Disaffect (94-05-22) and Angus and some mates formed ‘Scatha’…

‘Sedition’ (photo by Karl Penando)

‘One By One’ had been playing here before aswell (91-08-18, 92-03-08 & 92-08-29) and it wouldn’t be the last time either (94-08-06). Almost like family (from ‘up North’ – Newcastle), these people: ‘uncle’s Sned & Alec bringing us prezzies, and ‘cousin’ Karen and her boyfriend Micky… The Fight 7” (first release with Karin on vocals) was recorded Oct. 10^th 1992. Later that year (Nov. 1993) they recorded a few tracks for the Atrapados En El Fascista Planeta Tierra (Caught On Fascist Planet Earth) 7” (the B-side was recorded live – Sned tells me in Leeds, at their 100^th gig, supporting ‘Neurosis’).

Here’s some photos on the 93-05-15 concert they did in Lumigny, France…

‘One By One’ (photo by Karl Penando)

It was only a few weeks earlier (93-04-04) that ‘Dirt’ had been here (with ‘Hellkrusher’)… The line-up was the one of the Feast Or Famine demo (1993) with Deno on vocals, Gary ‘Gaz’ Buckley doing guitar, Karen on lead-guitar, bassist Mick and drummer Stef…

The day after this one they played @ Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp (with ‘Spitboy’, ‘Instigators’ and some others) so the ‘Baddies’ were already here to pick ‘em up and start the party. Deno mentions meeting ‘Instigators’ (but that must’ve been in Antwerp).

From Deno ‘Dirt’s diary (thank you!):

[Jimyh Anti (with bandana) – Holy Herwin & redhead friend]

‘Ivich’ came over for the 2 ^nd  time aswell (see 92-07-25). This was around the time they released the Chacun Sa Vérité 7” (on Pikaϊa): “fast and fiery emotional HC, chunky mosh-metal and odd, free-form undistorted pauses”. Eric, Yann, Yves & Cedric also brought their trumpet-player…

‘Ivich’ (photo by Karl Penando)

Brob

I remember trying to crash out upstairs while there was a techno-party going on after the gig with ‘Bugeyed’. I also have an image of Alec of ‘One By One’ dancing rave-style, possibly even DJ-ing? That time I drove so was probably knackered. We were only in Europe for a week or so I remember we played Hamburg and the last gig was in Amsterdam followed by a mad dash to the ferry.

I found the last ‘Bugeyed’ recording on a cassette which I’d forgotten existed. 10 tracks which I think are the best thing we did. It was supposed to be an EP but never went any further as I went travelling and everything just ground to a halt. I have put one ‘Bugeyed’ track (Breakout At The Science Lab) on-line. I do a bit of computer-music nowadays and mess about with new software (‘Monobrow The Biped‘)…

Andrew ‘Monkey’ Clark-Monks , ‘Bugeyed’ guitarist

Sorry, no recollections…

Rich was part of ‘Disney Corpse Graphics’ with Ash and ‘Pig’… They did cover-art for ‘Sore Throat’s Disgrace To The Corpse Of Sid & ‘Doom’s Greatest Invention…

Bri Talbot

I wasn’t in ‘Bugeyed’ anymore at that point, in fact I think I would have already been living in Italy! Not that anybody cares but I wasn’t part of ‘Disney Corpse Graphics’ who did the cover-art for ‘Sore Throat’s Disgrace To The Corpse Of Sid, that was just Ash and ‘Pig’. Ash, ‘Pig’ and me had a different thing called Secret Devil that did the cover for Doom’s Greatest Invention. Secret Devil did – if I remember properly – a booklet of poems by Syd Migx from ‘Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers’, a booklet of stuff by ‘Pig’, one of drawings by Ash and some other stuff, as well as three copies of a fanzine called Clowns Killing People. And a ‘Sore Throat’ single-cover, now I come to think about it. Also, I was in ‘P.V.C.’ too – it’s me playing on the Fuck Kill Destroy album, I joined after Percy left (Or whatever happened, I was too young and stupid to ask!). Like I say, of no possible interest to anyone but just for the sake of exactness!

Eric ‘Rich’ Rucker (2^nd guitar on the album)

Paula was our first bass-player – she left the band and Dominique joined for the last couple of years. Paula toured Europe with us – Dominique was with us on one US tour and when we toured Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

There’s some pieces on my blog about ‘Spitboy’ (The Riot Grrrl Controversy) and touring (The Spitboy Rule: Part I & Part II)

Top: Michelle ‘Todd’ Gonzales, Paula Hibbs-Rines, Pete the roadie; Middle: Jon Hiltz, Nolde, Erich (merch and drivers); Bottom: Karin Gembus & Adrienne Droogas

Michelle Gonzales, ‘Spitboy’ drummer

We had my birthday-party after the Vort n Vis gig (May 1^st) we’d played next door… Got dragged off the dance-floor by ‘open-minded’ punks who couldn’t understand how we could play like ‘Sedition’ but like gabbers as well! [for some pics scroll down here]

‘Brycey’, ‘Sedition’ bassist

‘Brycey’ (pic donated by Billy Steele)

This gig turned into a big dance-party afterwards; the ‘Sedition’ lot liked a bit of techno to be sure.

Sned, ‘One By One’ drummer

Another great gig, loads of good people about + proper good party afterwards. Think it was Bricey’s birthday, there are probably pictures of us dancing badly which are best kept in darkened rooms [Brob: already posted ;-); see link above…]. All the bands were good. ‘Spitboy’ were great. ‘One By One’s last gig at the V.V. [Brob: last one for ‘1×1’ was 94-08-06; see above] but a good one to go out on. This was one of the rare times we weren’t rushing off to catch a ferry so was great to hang out + catch up with folk. Thanks to everyone who turned up + helped out; and to Brob for reminding me of some great times.

Alec Mac, ‘One By One’ bassplayer

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Adrienne ?

additions wellcome!…

93-05-01 Spitboy – Dirt (photos)

All about this concert: 93-05-01 Spitboy – Ivich – One By One – Bugeyed – Dirt – Sedition

‘Spitboy’ (photos [1-2-3] by Martin Vantomme, [4] by Karl Penando); below ‘Hazel’ Lepers in the background taking pics

‘Spitboy’ (Adrienne – Karen – ‘Todd’) from ‘Hazel’ Lepers’ zine Superfluous #2

Spitboy collage (Ras L’Bol #3)

‘Dirt’: Deno – Gaz – Karen (photos by Martin Vantomme ?)

Blindfold & Shortsight summer-tour 1993

tour-pass (kindly donated by Chat’n)

tour-schedule; from Superfluous #1

drawing; from Superfluous #1 (zine done by Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers, ‘Shortsight’ guitarist):

Wim Vandekerckhove – David ‘Mong’ Dumont, Kurt Deprez, Hans Verbeke, Sacha ‘Chatn’ Baelen, Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers, Saskia Verbeke, Bjorn Lescouhier, Jan ‘Harai’ Maelfait

collage from Sweet Me #1 (zine done by Saskia Verbeke, ‘Shortsight’ singer)

[tour-report available for those involved…]

This was a few months before they played at the Vort’n Vis with ‘Four Walls Falling’ (93-10-03)…

93-10-03 Four Walls Falling – Dawson – Blindfold – Shortsight – [Concrete Sox]

‘Four Walls Falling’ was a political (SxE) HC band from Richmond, Virginia. The day of this concert Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers (together with Kurt & David, her fellow band-members in ‘Shortsight’ at that time) interviewed them in a rehearsal-room of the V.V.

Taylor Steele (vocals) was on tour with his brother Robert ‘Bo’ Steele (guitar), John Peters (guitar), William ‘Bill’ Thideman (bass; Greta Brinkman, one of their first bassplayers, didn’t tour with ‘4WF’ in Europe but DID tour with ‘That’s It’) and Tommy Anthony (temporary drummer, was in ‘Ipecac’; replacing Jared Srsic). By this time they’d done 3 7”s: a self-tiled one on Axtion Packed recs (89), Burn It / Happy Face / Temple on Redemption recs (92) and an European release on Understand recs (1993); and the Culture Shock LP on Jade Tree (91).

The day before my pal Joeri H. had already organised a concert in Brugge (@ De Kelk) for them, together with ‘Sofa Head’ (UK), ‘Blindfold’, ‘Feeding The Fire’, ‘Nations On Fire’ & ‘Glue’ (UK). ‘Four Walls Falling’ played last … After the second song they were forced to stop playing because people were complaining…

‘Four Walls Falling’ pics provided by Bill Thidemann (2^nd pic, on the left, at the window: Ian Simpson – Subjugation recs, René Natzel & Roger ‘F.T.F.’ enjoying the show)

In front of the old Vort’n Vis (Kiekenmarkt 7, Ieper/Ypres): guitarist John Peters & Willy the driver.

This was a few months after the ‘Shortsight’/’Blindfold’ summer-tour (mostly Germany) and a couple of months before ‘Shortsight’ made a little trip to Spain for some gigs during the X-mas holidays. Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers (guitar) was still in the band; together with David (guitar), Kurt Deprez (bass), Björn Lescouhier (drums) and Saskia Verbeke (vocals). See also 91-10-12, 91-12-21, 92-06-27, 92-09-05, 92-10-10, 93-02-21, etc.

‘Blindfold’s original line-up would record (Cats studio) for the split-7” with ‘Encounter’ the next month. Hans released it on SoberMind recs. A similar trajectory through the V.V.’s history: 91-12-21, 91-12-31, 92-02-22, 92-03-29, 92-08-09, 92-09-05, 92-10-10, 93-02-21, etc.

Some stuff on the ‘Shortdight/Blindfold’ summer-tour here…

The line-up of ‘Dawson’ (from Glasgow) here was: Jer Reid (guitar/vocals), Robbie McKendrick (drums), Ali Begbie (bass/vocals) and Carig ‘Brycey’ Bryce (percussion/vocals). They toured in Billy Steele’s van; the driver was ‘I.B.’ (‘Disaffect’ drummer), I think…

Their first release was a tape they’d recorded (Sep. ’88), followed by a 7” (Romping Egos) on Jer’s label Gruff Wit recs (recorded Apr ‘89). In 1991 Jer released 2 LPs (Barf Market: You’re Ontae Plums & How To Follow So That Others Will Willingly Lead). Brycey appeared on the Oct 1993 released split-EP with the Japanese band ‘Ruins’. In 1994 they did an LP entitled Terminal Island and a 7” entitled Small Eared Rank Outsider Earth Summit… By 1994 ‘Sedition’ had split up (because of personal differences and commitments) and Brycey went on to play percussion with ‘Dawson’ until they disbanded.

‘Dawson’ (upper 2 photos courtesy of Karl Penando): [1] Robbie & Ali, [2] Ali & Jer, [3] Brycey & Jer

The music was complex avant-gardesque hardcore/punk with an angular jangly dissonance (with references to ‘The Ex’) sometimes described as ‘frenetic’ or ‘jazz-punk’. “Political lyrics sung over intricate bass-lines and metallic screeching guitars.”.

Mark Greenwell took the guitar-position (replacing Vic ‘Croll’ Timoveric and numerous others) in ‘Concrete Sox’ as the group signed to Lost And Found for the ‘No World Order’ LP (‘93). The band undertook a tour of Japan and issued a split-EP with ‘Nightmare’ (with Lloyd Simms singing and Ian Halpin on guitar) on MCR Company, who also released the Japan Tour ‘92 LP. Drummer at this time was Andy Sewell, bassist Les Duly and vocalist Sean Cook.

Brob

I left the band in the summer of 1992, so I missed the European tours. My time with the band went from 1989-1992. It was a lot of fun & I could tell you all sorts of crap from those years but never made it across the water with ‘4WF’…

Mickey Scheer, 1^st bassplayer of ‘Four Walls Falling’

I finally found a few shots and our tour-schedule. Just had to dig through and try to remember everything. It ended up  being a long enjoyable walk down memory lane. I had almost forgotten some of this. Thanks for making me have to look through all of this.

[Bill is a (tattoo-)artist in Denver nowadays; have a look at his work: – thidemann.com]

William Thidemann

The Vort’n Vis was the place with the awesome boxed vegan pudding. We played there with ‘Shortsight’. Another time with ‘Avail’ [95-06-18]…

We didn’t play with ‘Concrete Sox’ in Belgium but did play with them in Prague. They were awesome!

Funny story: the first show we ever played in Belgium [Brugge], a bunch of people came over from England to see it. We met this one guy who was older, about 28 at the time, who was a SxE squatter. He had both Anarchist & SxE tattoos. A different sort of cat, so we got along great. Anyway, he had hitched a ride over with a bunch of SxE teenagers and told us that when we went on, they were all bummed and one of them said “I thought they were SxE but they look like a bunch of punks”. Hahaha.

Taylor Steele

I was in school at VCU [Virginia Commonwealth University] at the time. My father was paying and made it impossible to leave for a semester for a tour. Tommy Anthony filled in during that tour and played a few stateside shows to prepare for the ’93 tour…

Jared Srsic

Touring with ‘4WF’ was some of the best times of my life.

Tommy Anthony

‘Concrete Sox ‘did not play then…think their van broke down… [Newsletter 93-10: ‘Concrete Sox’ didn’t show up (no warning, no info)]

Michael Maes

>> The first weekend in October saw Jase Fox, Nick Royles, Ian and I travel to Belgium for the ‘Four Walls Falling’ tour-dates in Brugge and Ieper, meeting up once again with the lovely Sharon and other friends from London. The two gigs were brilliant and I remember Sharon and I withstanding the good natured total melee at the front of the Brugge gig as we surged for the mic for the singing of ‘Four Wall’s anthemic line “culture……SHOCK!” Meeting up again with friends at the Vort’n Vis in Ieper was as lovely as always with much news, ideas and gossip shared! […] I think the person standing above the crowd [2^nd ‘F.W.F.’ pic above] on the right just might be Ian [Simpson; of Subjugation recs]! << (From Helene Keller’s blog (subjugationrecords.wordpress.com)

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

‘Four Walls Falling’

‘Dawson’ & co (Driver I.B. & Brian ‘Disaffect’ Curran)

I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t back then. I was just at the gig, whilst visiting friends in Liège…

Brian Curran

additions wellcome!…

95-07-14 Manfat – [Kito] – [Baby Harp Seal]

Anthony Palmer (editor of the zines Dingo Baby, Duhhh,…) wrote me in June ’95: “The ‘Manfat’ Euro tour fell through. ‘Kito’ wanna tour with ‘Baby Harp Seal’ instead.” But they played at the V.V. anyway… Michael J. Gilliam explains below…

Steve Buxton (Ripping Thrash zine) did a ‘Decadence Within’ / ‘Manfat’ split-tape (benefit for hunt-sabs in 1995. It contained the 5 tracks of their Live Like A Dog demo and 2 of their 7”. The line-up of ‘Manfat’ (from Middlesbrough) here was: Bri(an) Puplett (vocals; ex ‘Catharsis’, ‘Embittered’ and later ‘John Holmes’), Dale Tomlinson (guitar; ex ‘Catharsis’, later ‘John Holmes’), Michael Gillham (drums; played in a wide range of bands) and ‘Dr Bennett’ (bass). On the self-titled 7” (sometimes referred to as Endless Daze) on A-Wat recs (1994) there was a drum-machine and Matt(hew) Burke played the bass. They had also recorded for another demo (Pigfood) in the spring of this year. Their music was described as “pissed-off, dark, malevolent and very thick sounding hardcore”.

Matt Woodward (drummer of ‘Kito’) has photos of the ‘Kito’ (with Stu Smith) & ‘Baby Harp Seal’ (with Andrew Raine) & ‘Manfat’ tour in 1995. Here’s one from Vienna…

Trav – Michael Gillham – Dale Tomlinson – Ian ‘Bennett’ Roberts

You can read about the reason why only ‘Manfat’ made it to the V.V. below…

Brob

‘Manfat’ toured Europe twice, once with ‘Kito’ & ‘Baby Harp Seal’ and another time (maybe 1996) with ‘Hard To Swallow’ [26 oct ’96 (‘La Zone, Liège’): Virtual Reality (UK), Drop Dead (USA), Manfat (UK)]. I wasn’t in ‘Manfat’ however and wasn’t on those tours.

Anthony Palmer, ‘Embittered’ vocalist

‘Manfat’ toured one time with a band called ‘Rated R’, and one time with ‘Hard To Swallow’… By then I was in Berlin, so don’t know if ‘Baby Harp Seal’ actually played; one tour I only joined them when they got to Germany…

Tom Chapman, ex ‘Baby Harp Seal’ guitarist

I only played in the second version of ‘Baby Harp Seal’, replacing Tom when he moved to Berlin so I played on that tour in ’95. I think they played the V.V. before I joined [94-07-10] but I’m certain we didn’t play at the Vort’n Vis. The tour was us, ‘Kito’ and ‘Manfat’ though… Puzzling… I know I’ve never been to the V.V. because it was considered THE place to play at the time and I was always a bit gutted that I never made it there…

Andrew Raine, ‘B.H.S.’

I’ve been in ‘Manfat’ but only played the Vort’n Vis with ‘Kito’ [94-07-10], I think…

Matt Burke

I don’t really care for ‘Voorhees’ anymore. I care for ‘Manfat’ more than ever. The reason why you never heard about a ‘Manfat’ gig at the V.V. before is because we just turned up and played. The guy at the bar (Peter [Vanthuyne]) was very helpful, actually he was fucking amazing…

Michael John Gillham, ‘Manfat’ drummer; personal communication January ‘96

The gig with ‘Manfat’ was unannounced. We needed somewhere to go for a day and just turned up and played and stopped there one night also. Which was great! ‘Kito’ and ‘Baby Harp Seal’ had already been in Europe for about a week and we met them in Münster, Germany. I’m not sure they played the Vort’n Vis that year themselves, in fact I don’t think they did.

The line-up of ‘Manfat’ at the time was indeed: Bri (vocals), Dale (guitar), Ian a.k.a. ‘Bennett’ (bass; ‘Bennett’ was a sort of joke nick-name because of a funny misunderstanding about something, his real surname is Roberts!) and Michael (drums).

The previous year ‘Kito’ and ‘Baby Harp Seal’ had toured Europe for the first time together and they planned on doing the same again that year (1995), so a tour was arranged for 3 weeks; but for some reason ‘Baby Harp Seal’ could only do the first half, so ‘Kito’ asked us, ‘Manfat’, to do the second half. There were 3 dates (Münster, Mannheim, Homburg) where it over-lapped and there was all 3 bands.

I don’t know where the tour had took ‘Kito’ and ‘B.H.S.’ before we joined them but I think it had mainly been dates in Belgium and Germany. the dates ‘Manfat’ did that I can remember are as follows. A couple of gigs got cancelled too and so we had to stop more than one night at a couple of places (Mannheim and, I think, Bratislava)… Ieper (‘Manfat’ only), Münster (the 3 bands [were planned but didn’t all play]), Mannheim (the 3 bands), Homburg (the 3 bands plus UK garage-punk band ‘Spectreman’ feat. members of ‘Headbutt’), Vienna (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’), Bratislava (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’) & Prague (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’). The picture was taken by Matt outside the bar we played of a massive outdoor arena venue; in fact the venue was called Arena. I certainly do remember the killer drive back from Prague: everyone started loosing their minds! Haha. No-one hardly had any money left so no-one was eating; all we had was lots of rolling tobacco!

In the months before we were due to go, Bri decided instead of going on tour with us, he’d rather go America to travel around on tour with ‘Dystopia’, which of course was up to him, but we were quite disappointed and it left us in the bad position of “Do we still do the tour, and if so, how?”. Of course we still wanted to do the tour so we had the following options – do it as an instrumental 3 piece or find a replacement for Bri, but we couldn’t find anyone suitable and it didn’t seem like a good idea to do it instrumentally. But as we knew another drummer (Trav) who could do it, we decided that he would take my place and I would sing; so that’s what we did. We rehearsed intensively in the weeks before but the change affected the overall sound/performance because I’m not a very good front-man and the drummer wasn’t a punk drummer, but we did our best with it, and had a great time on tour, so…

Michael, the driver, is Michael Baines (from local Middlesbrough band ‘Spit The Pips’). At the time he also worked at Studio 64 recording-studio and recorded some records on Flat Earth (‘One By One’, ‘Sedition’, etc) and Meantime (‘Sofa Head’, etc). Trav who stood-in on drums was the drummer in Michael’s band, as Michael was driving us on the tour, that’s how we got Trav to drum for us. [Guestbook: ‘Tomato Crab’ drum stand-in, ‘Bennett’ (bass), Michael (full time drummer, part-time singer), Dale T. (guitar), Michael (driver)]

We went to the Vort’n Vis because we had a spare day as a gig had been cancelled or something, so when we got off the ferry in Belgium everyone was saying “Well where shall we go?!” and I said the best option (and probably our only option really) was to go to the V.V. and ask to stay there and if possible play there, so we did!

Michael John Gillham, ‘Manfat’ drummer

Peter Vanthuyne at the V.V. was great. Even though we just turned up, he kept apologizing saying he couldn’t pay us and giving us a beer whenever we ran out. I seem to remember we all went to the outdoor swimming-baths as well.

All three bands did not play in Münster. We met there but there was a clash with (I think) a ‘Madball’ gig and so not enough cash to pay everyone. Of course they bumped us (who had travelled miles out of our way and missed a Eugene Chadbourne gig to get there) and I think ‘B.H.S.’ from the bill and let the local bands play instead. Less than impressed. I remember Rob (‘B.H.S.’) told the promoter in Mannheim he was looking forward to his holiday. The guy took it literally and thought we didn’t want paying and so spent all our money on a PA instead.

I don’t remember my feet stinking that badly…

Ian Roberts, ‘Manfat’ bassist

excerpt from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…