93-02-06 Subway Arts – Fleas & Lice – Xinix – 4 Minute Warning

This was a benefit for ‘Het Krakend Gewricht’ (‘the squeaky joint’; ‘kraken’ is also Dutch for squatting), a squatted housing-complex & anarchist infoshop in Gent (Slinkemolenstraat). There were people’s kitchens taking place and there was a “creative space” night. The people living there collectively wanted to gather some funding for their bike-repair- and other workshops, a music-/theatre-/dance-room, meeting-corner, etc.

I remember Pascal Benoot and Gratiën Versypt both lived there. I got to know them when they were just teens and needed a ride home after Smurfpunx-concerts. Later Pascal would set up performances and organise people’s kitchens at the ‘3 Charels’, another Gent squat. Gratiën went on to sing for ‘Katastrophobia’…

There was performance & slide-show planned during this “booze-benefit” but I can’t recall any of that…

‘Xinix’ was a hardcore-punk band from the Dendermonde area: Bart ‘José’ Van Malderen (vocals), Jan ‘Bosse’ Bosteels (guitar), Hans Verheyden (bass) and Philip De Landtsheer (drums). Bart was studying in Gent and became a friend; I took him to concerts and stuff. He also organised some shows (in their local youth-centre) for bands I booked. Also set up a short tour for them (somewhere in ’92, together with ‘P.J.D.’). Can’t recall them releasing anything… They did a gig for Smurfpunx though: 91-03-23

The steady line-up of ‘4 Minute Warning’ (Gent) became Fred ‘Fré’ De Vos (vocals), Leffe (guitar, ex ‘Chronic Disease’), Tom Van Hauwaert (drums) and Gratiën Versypt (bass). There were also some extra vocalists (Bart/Marleen) at a certain timepoint, if I remember well… Marleen dated singer Fré. She’s pictured in In and around the Vort’n Vis. According to Tom they were “very much into the ‘Antischism’ dual-vox vibe”…

‘Subway Arts’ were a 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). They’d played here before (92-12-20) and would visit a few times more (93-07-04, 93-08-01, 94-04-02, …).

‘Fleas & Lice’ (Groningen, The Netherlands) played noisy crust-punk and consisted of former ‘Extreme Noise Error’ / ‘Mushroom Attack’ (91-07-07 & 91-09-21) members Piet/Pierre Erickson (guitar), Robbie Tempel (vocals) and Maynard Schut (drums). They teamed up with Joshua Lagerwerf (bass) so this must’ve been one of their very first gigs. In March they toured Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands (with ‘Disorder’ and ‘Husker Ikke’). In April 1993 Esther (vocals) joined. Right before summer they recorded for the Parasites 7” released on ‘Kleister’s label Skuld Releases in 1993). A bit later they recorded live (Brno, Czech Republic, 93-06-20) for a split-7” (entitled Polish Bastards; with ‘Hiatus’ released on Pawel’s Scream recs. They would come back twice (94-03-19 & 95-07-09).

Brob

‘Fleas & Lice’ (photos from Ludovic Hache’s zine Ras l’Bol)

I have vague recollections of this benefit… According to my notes our 1^st gig was at Democrazy (Gent) 93-12-03 with ‘Deflower’ but perhaps this one with here, in the V.V. pub, with ‘Fleas and Lice’ was… We’d nagged Bruno for ages to play and when we were finally asked our guitarist at that time, Djenko, didn’t show up. So no guitarist; Gratiën applied his heaviest effect on his bass and we played all 3 of our songs (maximum 4 haha) like this, I think… After Djenko had abandoned us, we contacted Leffe, together with this guy Curdt Deganck (who’d played in a punk-band from the area of Zelzate/Assenede) – the latter never joined us, he was just a mate of Djenko with whom he’d been in a band. Those first songs and rehearsals (and even recordings in a cellar) were with Djenko. So I guess this was our infamous trio-moment then, where Yannick became fan for life, I believe… So, at Democrazy (an event called ‘Oppureepatattenfuif’…hahah), Leffe played already with us: Djenko never did a show with the band… The “dual-vox ‘Antischism’ vibe” only applied to the collaboration with Marleen, a try-out – we were never a match to ‘Antischism’. When me and Fré started we just had old ‘Disorder’/’Chaos UK’ punk in mind. When Leffe & Gratiën joined things go a bit more ‘versatile’.

So yes, the one at the V.V. would’ve been the first, we only just existed for a few weeks/months… Our other shows: with ‘Hiatus’ & ‘Unhinged’ @ La Zone (Liège  93-12-11), with ‘Legal Suffering’ & ‘Oi Polloi’ @ Alhambra (Oldenburg 93-12-17) and in 94 here with ‘Varukers’…

Everyone knows ‘F&L’ of course, my mind is blank regarding ‘Subway Arts’ and ‘Xinix’ was with Bart from the Dendermonde area; he dropped by at the squat regularly and I wouldn’t be surprised he rehearsed with us at one timepoint. I’m 100% sure he has a video-recording of our show at the Democrazy…

Tom Van Hauwaert

Can’t remember much about this gig. I played with ‘4MW’ at the Vort’n Vis once. [94-02-05] It was our worst one and also our last one. We only did 3. Our line-up for this was: Fré (vocals), Marleen (vocals), Gratiën (bass), Leffe (guitar) and Tom (drums).

‘Het Krakend Gewricht’ was one of the first squats in Gent. A few members of ‘4 Minute Warning’ lived there at the time.

Leffe

The night before there was an info-night with slides and video about the Slinkemolenstraat. I believe my dad still has the video. I don’t remember anything of the concerts. I think I was on stage that night with someone of ‘Xinix’ together with Diego [Doodt Illegaal zine] en Ludo [Averechts zine]. Someone of ‘Xinix’ didn’t show up… We got on stage with a bunch of people who were unrelated to the band … ‘Fleas and Lice’ played aswell…

Pascal Benoot [one of the Slinkemolenstraat squatters at that time]

I can remember this concert. Though I can ‘t recall if ‘4 Minute Warning’ or ‘P.J.D.’ played. What I do know is that we left with Leffe & co from Gent in a van. ‘Fleas & Lice’ was very hot then; crusty punk-HC from Groningen and very sympathetic people. They even offered us to come over to play together in the Netherlands with ‘Disorder’. We were all very enthusiastic about that but it never happened…because our drummer’s parents wouldn’t let him…

Bart Van Malderen

‘P.J.D.’ didn’t play here… I was in Gent where I had a chat with ‘Deflower’ (a band from Turnhout with a member of ‘Moral Demolition’). Can’t recall much otherwise because of the boozing at that time.

Koen ‘Siesele’, ‘Private Jesus Detector’ bassist

I can ’t remember anything of that evening. Only that Fré and myself kicked one of the urinals to pieces… Jimmy Anti was watching us…

Gratiën Versypt

It was the very first concert of ‘Fleas & Lice’. We had contacted ‘Mushroom Attack’ to play the benefit but they had just split up. At that time that was a bummer for us hahaha but in the end we were very happy because it was a fucking good concert of ‘Fleas & Lice’. Outside some people of our squat did a performance with a lot of noise coming from scrap-metal (pieces of washing-machines and other old metal). There also was an electric guitar…

Paolo M.

additions wellcome!…