90-01-20 Chronic Disease – At Last – Gnuft – Damage Done

A concert, in the very beginning of the Vort’n Vis, illustrating the strong connection between punx from Brugge and seminal Vort’n Vis bands… A non-SxE 8000 connection long before the name H8000 crew surfaced… ;-)

By that time ‘Chronic Disease’ didn’t need an introduction anymore. We had offered them a chance to play already at Smurfpunx shows; first in Netwerk (Aalst) with ‘R.K.L’ but they’d had to cancel that; then (which they did play) in Eeklo with ‘Rose Rose’ (88-11-11). They’d already performed at the V.V. aswell (89-09-16) and they would be back a couple of times more. Bruno (His Master’s Noise; later Genet recs) had helped them release their demo – Trapped Again – ‎in ’89. A few months after this gig (March ’90), they (Leffe, Vrokker, Peter & Sling) went into the studio to record for their 7” (Born To Live In Chains, out on Kurt Horeman’s labele Innerforce).

‘Gnuft’ (actually ‘Gnuft v.z.w.’, the latter being the Belgian term for ‘non-profit organisaton’) were locals David Stubbe (later the drummer for a variety of bands) & Dieter Roelstraete sharing vocals, Wouter playing guitar, Fabrice Baclet (also in ‘Silly Old Fart’, later ‘Neuthrone’) plucking his bass and Pascal “smashing” the drums. I saw them a few months later at the gig with ‘Sore Throat’ (90-05-27); all I can remember was ‘noise’ ;-)

‘At Last’, from Brugge, were: Dries Van Damme (guitar), Christophe Depree (guitar), Chris ‘Hazy’ De Neve (drums), Peter De Meyer (bass; guitarist of ‘Chronic Disease’) and ‘Zoef’ Wijnand Desreveaux (vocals) played fast trash-metal. The demo that Dieter is referring to (in the review) was called Peace On Earth. Later that year the band changed it’s name to ‘After All’ (played at the V.V. as such: 90-10-13) and as of today these still exist…

‘Damage Done’…can’t remember I ever heard/saw them… “Batrock à la ‘Sisters Of Mercy’…”, as Dieter described them.

concert-review by Dieter Roelstraete in his zine Pyrobolum #2

Brob

I was on stage myself that day, with ‘Concortium Musica Perverza’, a choir. We performed right before ‘Chronic Disease’. [Brob: ‘C.M.P.’ also performed during the SxE fest August ’96] Peter Arthur Caesens also did his ‘dance-routine’ that day…

Joost Dierick, BZN productions

Twenty-five odd years ago – 25! – we started gigging in the local hardcore/crossover scene. We had started as ‘At Last’… in the fall of 1988. [line-up above] We rehearsed at an old school-building in the small village of Stalhille (Jabbeke). We shared the rehearsal-space with bands such as ‘Chronic Disease’ and ‘Toespieze’, and later on ‘Private Jesus Detector’ and ‘Rise Above’. We played our first live shows in 1989 and recorded a demo in the summer.

I believe it was our connection with ‘Chronic Disease’ that got us in touch with Bruno Vandevyvere of Genet recs, and he got us this show at the Vort’n Vis. To give an idea of how young and unexperienced we were: I had just turned 17 and it was our 5^th gig. Other bands on the bill were : ‘Chronic Disease’, ‘Gnuft Inc.’, ‘Damage Done’, ‘W.C.P.’ (“speed-trash”) and ‘Masturbating Kangaroes’. [Brob: The latter 2 aren’t mentioned in Dieter’s gig-review. I can ‘t recall them either…]. From what I remember, they were all straightforward hardcore bands, with the exception maybe of ‘Chronic Disease’. That was a truly awesome band. Always thought it was a shame they only did that one EP on Genet.

I remember we got along well with the bands in the scene at the time, although we were definitely a different kind of ‘animal’. In the eyes of the ‘hardcore kid’, we were ‘a metal band’. At that time being called ‘a metal band’ wasn’t exactly cool. Not that we cared: we were wearing our ‘Metallica’ shirts with pride, had guitar-solos in our songs, drank beer, smoked cigarettes and generally didn’t care much about anything, haha. We were totally into the crossover idea. We listened to ‘D.R.I.’, ‘Heresy’ and ‘Doom’, but also ‘Morbid Angel’ and ‘Death’, and more traditional heavy metal like ‘Iron Maiden’, ‘Dio’ and ‘King Diamond’. Not all hardcore kids thought along those same lines. I remember ‘Nuclear Assault’ was labeled ‘satanic’ because of some of the lyrics on their first album. And obviously ‘Slayer’ was seen as downright fascist because of the lyrics on Reign In Blood. A couple of years later, it was rather amusing to see how the H8000 scene that emerged from the Vort’n Vis was based almost exclusively on ‘Slayer’ riffs – but that’s a different story.

To be quite honest, I don’t remember much of that first gig at the Vort’n Vis. I guess we played most of the songs of the demo and – I think – a cover version of ‘Metallica’s The Four Horsemen. Maybe a song by ‘Doom’ also, or one by ‘Terrorizer’. Don’t know why, but I do remember the smoke in the room. From the back of the room, you hardly could see the stage.

[continued on 90-10-13]

Dries Van Damme, ‘At Last’ guitarist

additions wellcome!…