95-09-08 Brawl – Tim De Graeve

After 93-09-04 & 94-03-19 ‘Brawl’ were here for the 3^rd time. Their first release was on Bruno’s Genet recs but they were about to release an ‎EP (Thalidomide) on John Yates’ Allied recs (1996). The band’s vocalist Murt Flynn remained and guitarist was Greg O’Brien. I believe the drummer was named Keri Jones. Don’t know who played bass at thet time (a guy named Dave signed the guestbook). Their music was described as “post-punk-core”.

‘Brawl’; photographed by Henk Loobuyck

Tim De Graeve goes under the moniker ‘Tiny Legs Tim’ (tinylegstim.com) nowadays. He was born in 1978 in the quiet, rural area of the West-Flemish ‘Heuvelland’ (Westouter & Poperinge). “As a kid he listened to Bob Dylan and old blues-maestros. He took lessons classical guitar but quickly started experimenting with the music of his favourites and developped his own style.” — “Back home we didn’t have TV. I played outside a lot with my brother, read books, listened tot the radio and records. I went to music-school. As a little boy I found and old guitar from the 30s in my grandpa’s attic. I got into my dad’s music: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the blues- & country-grandmasters. The First CD I bought myself (age 11) by John Lee Hooker.” Tim lives in Gent nowadays… The city of Gent promotes his ‘One Man Blues Band’: “own blues-songs inspirered by the old Delta Blues – uptempo with a lot of slide guitar and a foottap-board”.

There’s also an entry of a metal band (in German) in the guestbook… No idea who that was…

Brob

That’s the later line-up without me. I don’t know the name of the drummer or bass-player off hand. It was still Greg on guitar and Murt on vocals. It’s not me or Crispo in the photos, that’s for sure.

Tommy, ‘Brawl’ bassist in ‘93 & ‘94

1995 must’ve been my early days. I was a teenager then… My entry in the guestbook says it was my second time at the Vort’n Vis so I must’ve been there before…? Later I played there with ‘The Heartfakers’ and also with the ‘Greenhorns’ [played at the V.V. before: 90-10-13 & 91-09-21] – the band of Alex Brackx.

It also says “Anti-Rally-Aktie”. The ‘Ieper Rally’ was always in June but apparantly we also did things in September… I recall recordings once for a radioshow called ‘Piazza’ (with Friedl Lesage on Radio 1). And there’s also been a docu on the ‘Rally’ on the radio where they played one of my songs in the background. That was recorded at the Vort’n Vis.

Tim De Graeve

We’ve done something with ARK [Anti Rally Komitee/Koepel] in September once; that could’ve been ‘95. Three of us skipped a wedding-party because we thought our actions were more important… It was a reaction to the death of a little child during the Rally… We made flyers and probably cycled the the trail of the Rally, ending at the Vort’n Vis. ARK was a group of organisations and individuals that commited to opposing the ‘24 hours of Ieper’. We agitated many years (and were each time administratively arrested and as a group put in jail) against the Rally. We often congregated at the Vort’n Vis.

Mien De Graeve

Tim probably played solo here but I played bass with him as ‘The Heartfakers’ the second time at the Vort’n Vis (no idea about the date, we might have even played twice). It was a funny, sunny lazy sunday-afternoon. Our friend Peter Vanthuyne was the bartender and probably booked us too. He made a last-minute flyer with a bloody ‘Heartfakers’ logo and told us we could play as loud as we want while he was leaving the front-door open. It was the last day of the rally and of course a few rallyfans entered the pub (we were playing some sort of psychedelic blues rock) while Tim played with his ARK stickers on his guitar. To us it was quite amusing.

Korneel Barbry

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

real or spoof?

additions wellcome!…