94-04-09 Acme – Scraps – State Of Grace

from Marco Walzel’s zine (Speak So That I May See You #3); 94-05-14 Zwijnzicht Ultimate Punk Festival (NL)

This was a benefit for the Anne Frank Foundation. I believe it was organised by Saskia Verbeke, Kurt Deprez and David ‘Mong’ Dumont of ‘Shortsight’; but Wim & Chatn ‘Blindfold’ and myself helped out aswell.

The night before ‘Acme’ had played at De Gilde in Moorsele (the pub owned by Nathalie D.’s parents) – together with ‘Shortsight’. Since that is close to Ypres/Ieper, I took care of (some of) the ‘Acme’ transportation… The band (from Bremen) played metal-core with ‘screamo’ vocals with references to ‘Born Against’ & ‘Rorschach’. Heavy stuff! Hannes Stang did the vocals, Gregor Iwanoff drummed, Sönke played bass (he also hit the drums for ‘Systral’ and was in ‘Mörser’ for a while) and Sven Thora was the guitarist. They had a demo out (Menschenmaschine) and ‘Goofy’ Jeroen Lauwers was about to release a 7” on his label Machination recs (hence the invation for these shows). They also came over to play on the fest in August that year.

‘Scraps’ hopped across the border from Lille again. They’ve been at the Vort’n Vis many times, as a band and as visiters… Who was in the band at that times? The brothers David (vocals) & Raphael (guitar) Dutriaux, for sure… This was around the time they recorded their LP Dismantle The Machine One Cog At A Time (X-Mist recs), so Pierre was the drummer and Tomoy played the bass. They played inspiring angry, political HC… Their cover of ‘Pink Floyd’s The Wall was sung along by all!

‘State Of Grace’ (Kempen area) were Jeroen Vanlaer (guitar), Tom Gabriels (guitar), David Heylen (drums), Gaby (guitar), Jan ‘Jakke’ Geeraerts (bass) and Sven De Backer (vocals). Later Bart Verelst (ex ‘Hopeman Path’) joined on bass and ‘Jakke’ played guitar; then they became ‘Sheen’ (who were planned to play the V.V. 95-11-11 with ‘Starkweather’ but the latter had difficulties with thei tour-booker)… ‘S.O.G.’ put together a reharsal-tape around that time. When playing locally, they were announced as playing “fierce jumpcore”.

Brob

‘Abyss’ never played the V.V., unfortunately. But I was on tour with ‘Acme’ when they played there. Such a legendary place back then. I wish we could have played there.

Sven von Thülen, ‘Abyss’

I have very little recollections of that gig. I do remember that the guys of ‘Acme’ wanted to borrow our instruments. We did so (reluctantly) but they were broken when we got them back: a dent in my bassdrum-skin and the neck of the bassguitar broken… And we didn’t get compensated. I also remember buying a ‘Bloodline’ t-shirt there…

David Heylen

I remember going to the Vort’n Vis – I was there when my friends ‘Acme’ played. I am still in loose touch with some of the guys from Bremen (e.g. Holger Ohst’s brother Rainer) and most of the crew from back then lives in Berlin today.

Franziska ‘Franzi’ von Hasselbach

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Saskia’s call for attention for gender-roles (supported by Tom DP & Vik B.; unfortunately one dickhead had to flaunt his stupidity)

additions wellcome!…