91-07-21 Systemphobia – Acoustic Grinder

The day before there was a punx picnic. The poster reads “Picknick in the open nature around Ieper. Bring your own gear (tent, food, booze, common sense, guitar, amp, socks, …). We meet up at Ieper railway station at 2.30 pm. In the evening there will be a party at the Vort’n Vis. Of course everybody can sleep over and attend the gig on Sunday.”.

‘Systemphobia’ were from Riemst (Limburg): Mario Liesens (vocals), Kristof Moors (guitar), Erik (bass), Stefan Claesen (drums) and Geert (guitar; later replaced Sam Liesens). Their music was crunchy HC/punk-rock with political lyrics (see their presentation in my zine Tilt!). As far as I can remember they didn’t put out any vinyl. They did a reunion-show in the noughties (check out the vids on the internet). Did they also play the Vort’n Vis on 94-12-10 or was it just 94-04-02 as Mario & Krstof commented?

I read somewhere Kristof also was in an “emo-crust” band with someone of ‘Agathocles’, named ‘Drawback’. Mario also did a blog with his rants for a while (systemphobia.blogspot.be)…

From the same area came ‘Acoustic Grinder’, a grind-/noise-core band. Playing for them were Raf ‘Stevie’ Vandeweyer (vocals; later drummer of ‘Spliff’), Jan ‘Gore’ Beckers (guitar; later ‘Kindred’, etc.), ‘Putrid’ Peter Peumans a.ka. ‘Slebber’ (bass) & Joost Peumans (drums). They’ld play at the V.V again on 93-02-27. They did a demo entitled demo De Pruimen Zijn Rot (The Plums Are Rotten). Eric ‘React’ recorded this gig here and put it out as a split-tape. A Slovenian label did another one with ‘Extinction Of Mankind’. Later there were some split-7”s (with ‘Entrails Massacre’, the Turkish ‘Turmoil’ and ‘Agathocles’) and a solo 7” (Can’t Ignore This Fucking War).

The flyer also mentions the British bands ‘Disaster’ & ‘Thrashed’… No idea who they were or if they turned up…

Brob

I have no memories of that show. I think ‘Oi Polloi’ was there [Brob: In ’91 they were touring with ‘One By One’ and played here a month later…] (what a surprise). One of the people in another band couldn’t understand why we covered ‘Youth Of Today’ but drank beer. I feel that straight-edge sounds at its best when you’re drunk out of your mind…:-)

Mario Liesens, ‘Systemphobia’ singer

I ripped the tape with the live recordings of ‘Acoustic Grinder’ and ‘Systemphobia’ [‘Zyklome-A’ cover!]

Eric ‘React’ Wawr

cover of the split-tape

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

92-12-31 Infezione

New year’s eve in the Vort’n Vis? Of course! When there’s a band of intelligent people playing great music. ‘Infezione’ were a great HC/punk band with an anarchist message, from Modena (Italy): Enrico Manicardi (guitar & vocals), Barbara (bass & vocals), Lory (drums) and Chicco (vocals). They did a demo called Oppressione Quotidiana (Daily Oppression; re-released as a benefit for the political prisoners of the Genua G8) and 2 LPs entitled Chiediti El Perche (Ask Yourself Why) & Religione Oppio Dei Popoli (Religion Opium For The People) – both with extensive booklets.

The gig was only announced a week before so it was a real surprise! I gave them a bunch of questions for an interview in my zine Tilt! They didn’t want to do it on tape ‘cause they thought their English was too poor… It should’ve been in published but the disk crashed and I lost everything… Later I was told they’d split up and did their last concert at the El Paso squat in Torino in May ’93 (after being together for 10 years).

Nowadays Enrico is a lawyer and author (enricomanicardi.it) but apparently still doesn’t speak any English… ;-)

Brob

excerpt from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

93-09-17&18&19 5th Leed-festival (Intro & Incident)

This is a precursory page to the posts on the 5^th Leed-festival. There was quite some commotion and it led to a substantial evaluation of the Vort’n Vis’ policies…

from the preceding V.V. newsletter

 Accounts of the actual festival will be posted later:

17 sep ’93: Fingerprint (Fra), De Kift (Nl), Beerepoot Brothers (Nl)

18 sep ’93: Health Hazard (UK), Bambix (Nl), Witchknot (UK), Doom (UK), 6 Feet Over (Fra), Because (Lux), As Usual (Bel), Plum (Bel)

19 sep ’93: Nations On Fire (Bel), Strength Of The Will (Bel), Eversor (Ita), Hiatus (Bel)

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I don’t think ‘Viktor’s Hofnarren’ actually played… It’s the evening that Hans [Verbeke] needed to be rescued by ‘Doom’!

Bruno Vandevyvere

‘Viktor’s Hofnarren’, squatters (autonomous centre Schrottbar) from Biel/Bienne (Switzerland) played anarchopunk with a crusty edge. (Later on they did a split-LP together with ‘Jobbykrust’ from Belfast out on Maximum Voice.) They were: Steph(ane) Guillet (bass/vocals; Panikeshi zine & distro), Niggu Rimann (drums), Bänz (guitar), Annette Wagener/Suri Dawicki (vocals) and Tez (vocals). Annette later joined the Groninger band ‘P.C.P.’. Steph & Annette were also running Panik Bourgeoise (concerts, zine).

They’d come all the way from their hometown for the fest together with a whole bunch of friends. After all this time it isn’t clear anymore whether they were invited to play or just wanted to see the bands. I guess ‘V.H.’ and their mates got rather drunk pretty fast (or they arrived drunk/stoned). Their friends also didn’t feel like they had to pay entrance… This attitude certainly annoyed most of the V.V. collaborators. There was some friction between them and SxE people (to say the least) but the way I remember it is that the main issue was that they didn’t feel like contributing their share to the organisation of the event and the fees of the bands. The fact they were so wasted and behaving irresponsibly amplified everything…

At some timepoint V.V. collaborator Hans (perhaps provoked by the animosity) supposedly (tried to) hit someone with a baseball-bat (actually it was a table-leg; I didn’t see it happen with my own eyes) for attempting to sneak in for free… He was “physically attacked from various sides”. Things were threatening to go out of control and it was decided it was best for him to leave in order to remove the fuse from the powder-keg… He had to be more or less secretly evacuated from the V.V. premises and was driven out of town in the van of the band ‘Doom’…

The whole incident drove some of the collaborators to tears for realising there were people who didn’t value their hard work and that some (who came from far away) couldn’t care less that there was a huge risk the autonomous centre could collapse (organisationally or as a result of being shut down by the authorities). Personally, I was disappointed and angry because I had already seen it happen when the 1^st venue where I organised – in my hometown (De Marbel) – got shut down…

All this (together with previous) lead to the V.V. ‘shit-workers’ making up some sort of pamphlet calling for mutual respect, and listing some ‘rules’…which on it’s turn raised some questions with certain factions of not being ‘anarchist’ enough, etc.

Some people (squatters) from Gent and Liège even thought they were going to be refused entrance (Willy of ‘Hiatus/‘Unhinged’ wrote me that at that time). Of course that wasn’t the case… The 1^st issue of Fifi (Vort’n Vis zine), May ‘94, states: “The Swiss assholes of Zürich (…) are no longer allowed in the Vort’n Vis. Reason: violence, intimidation and a broken window.”

Brob

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Quite a lot has been published on the matter. Here’s a few bits – not to stir things up after all these years but for history’s sake (so that perhaps a younger generation will learn of it)…

This excerpt from the Swiss zine No Sanctuary #22 gives a rather detailed account …

This is the initial bit by Steph of ‘V.H.’ in No Sanctuary #21.

Another bit from No Sanctuary #22 shows that ‘V.H.’ had caused similar problems in Germany.

Pamphlet issued by the V.V. collaborators after this event.

Letter by Willy ‘Hiatus’ & response by Vort’n Jan

Willy’s intro to his zine Rabougri (March ’94)

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Niggu (‘V.H.’ drummer) sings for ‘Unhaim’ nowadays. They released an excellent LP… [Brob: I tried hard to get in touch with anyone of V.H.’ but didn’t succeed…]

Pablo, Resistance prods, Biel

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Despite all the commotion, numerous people enjoyed themselves (crowd-shot by Karl Penando); in the foreground: Kurt Deprez (‘Shortsight’), Bruno Vandevyvere (Genet recs), Pierre Anne (‘6 Feet Over’) – in the back: Rudy Penando