94-09-18 Rain Like The Sound Of Trains – Ivich – X-Acto – Oi Polloi

Intro: 94-09-16&17&18 6^th Leed festival

There was record/literature fair going in the Vort’n Vis yard. I believe this is where I met Jon Elliott (Active distribution, London) for the first time. Concerts were in the barn…

‘Oi Polloi’ (Matt – Chris – Calum) closely watched by Stef De Leersnijder (pic courtesy Michael Maes)

According to Michael Maes this was the gig ‘Oi Polloi’s Deek had lost his voice… (Their guestbook-entry hints drummer Chris took over.) The other guys that played in the band that day were guitarist Matt(hew) Finch ‘Finchy’ (a.k.a. Keith Chugwin), bassist Calum Mackenzie (nowadays in ‘Phobia’ & ‘Final Conflict’) and drummer Chris ‘Wheelie’ Willsher. In the Luxemburg zine Persons Unknown ‘Oi Polloi’s bassist was referred to as ‘Clive’… After having played with the Portugese ‘Subcaos’ earlier that year (see 94-04-02), they were now on the road with ‘Inkisiçao’ & ‘X-Acto’ (This Is Not Amerikka tour). A guy named Al was their driver.

‘X-Acto’ (from Lisbon) was a vegan straight-edge HC band at the beginning but left the SxE label when a new guitarist joined. João Pedro (guitar), Pedro Mateus (bass), Diogo Mateus (drums), Pedro ‘Dentes’ (vocals; replaced by Rodrigo Barradas -R.I.P.- here?), João Barrelas ‘Libelinha’ (guitar; also in ‘Subcaos’); guitarist Paulo Segadães joined in 1995, later also Ricardo Avelino. In 1992 They appeared on the split-tape Juntos Contra A Tourada (with ‘Inkisição’, ‘Mentes Podres’ & ‘Subcaos’) and in ’93 on Change Now!, a compilation (on Slime recs) with ‘Subcaos’, ‘Corrosão Caótica’, Inkisição’ & ‘Alcoore’. Slime recs (the later Ataque Sonoro) also released their split-CD with ‘Inkisição’ in ’93. The year of this gig they had a 7” (Somos Uma Só Voz; recorded Sept. ‘93) out on Rage Productions (Portugese label from Cacem). The CD Harmony As One (with guitarists ‘Sega’ & ‘Libelinha’ and vocalist Rodrigo) on Ataque Sonoro came out Oct. ’95 and was distributed by Active. They also started S.E.L.F. to organise concerts/benefits…

‘Rain Like The Sound Of Trains’, from Washington DC, (with records out on Dischord) were Bobby Sullivan (vocals, ex ‘Soulside’), Pete Chramaiec (guitar, ex ‘Verbal Assault’), Douglas ‘Dug’ Birdzell (a.k.a. Dug E. Bird, ex ‘Beefeater’ & ‘Fidelity Jones’; bass) and Joshua LaRue (a.k.a. Josh Payne; drums). They played quirky, rhythmic, funky, jazzy “post hardcore”. Their tour was organised by X-Mist…

‘Ivich’ (the Paris suburbs) [interview] played here a couple of times before (92-07-25 & 93-05-01). A correspondent of mine, Eric Mirguet, sang for them. The others were the bros Yves (drums) & Yann (guitar) Maisonneuve (both were in ‘Vanilla’ later on); and Cédric (bass). Their trumpetist named Thierry was also joining them on stage from time to time. They were dubbed ‘emo’ but they were so much more than that. (As they wrote in the guestbook: “A bit of poetry in a world of brutes”.) I mentioned their earlier releases in the other posts. Their album La Mort Heureuse (“noisy, messy and unpredictable, but equally riveting, passionate and sincere”) was released by my mates Olivier Lépine and Nicolas Fisseau on their label La Libre Expression in ‘94.

Brob

I was driving ‘R.L.T.S.O.T.’ but since I was touring constantly back then I can’t recall anything specific… There was Joshua on drums. He was my first connection to the band. Dug on bass. I loved his cooking-style: vegetables, salt and pepper; that’s it. Anything else would kill the taste. I still do it the Dug way… The guys bought a bike in Amsterdam at the tour-start. So we toured with a bike on board through Europe. Funny tour! Armin [Hofmann; X-Mist] booked the tour, my friend drove them around for a week or so and I accompanied them some days. The first half of the tour I was the driver. I picked them up in Amsterdam.

Ma Raab

I was there when ‘Rain Like The Sound Of Trains’ played. I was in Ieper while riding with my bike to France (was wandering Germany and stopped there before I went to the UK).

Phil Jahnke

I played guitar with ‘Oi Polloi’ 1994-1997. I think I played 3 gigs at the Vort’n Vis. First was on the tour with ‘Subcaos’ [94-04-02] / ‘X-Acto’ [here]. Played a couple of all-day events there… Pretty crust they were; ‘Extinction Of Mankind’ [7th Leed festival, 1995] & ‘Bad Influence’ spring to mind. We probably played on Saturday… [The newsletter and the guestbook say Sunday.]

Matt Finch

Don’t think I drove ‘Oi Polloi’ that time; it looks like a guy called Al Shackelton drove that time (he’s no longer with us). My memories are a bit hazy. Can’t really remember watching the bands. I hung out with some people from Portugal who were friends of ‘Subcaos’. 2 Finnish guys got pissed on KillU…

Col(in) Douglas

The members of ‘X-Acto’ are into electronic music nowadays, the same for the ‘Alcoore’ guys; ‘Simbiose’ are still active and they are going to play soon with ‘Ratos de Porão’ [2013]. ‘Corrosao Caótica’ are over but played a reunion-show in 2012, ‘Tropa Morta’ & ‘Fart’ are ‘dead’ and the vocalist of ‘Censurados’ has a successful melodic/pop-punk band named ‘Tara Perdida’.

João (Pedro) Abrantes, guitarist of ‘Subcaos’

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

Chris Willsher: “Deek’s guestbook entry says I did ‘a Josef Porta’ (singer/drummer with ‘Blyth Power’, and ex-drummer with ‘The Mob’ and ‘Zounds’) – as in drumming and singing. Nice of him to do such a flattering drawing of me too!”

Brob: “The Slovenian mentioned was most probably Tomaz Trplan (editor of Papermouth zine).” * Chris Willsher: “No, it was a guy called Enzo Giurgevich, who was roadie for ‘Inkisiçao’. He’s in a band called ‘No Limits’ these days…”

additions wellcome!…

97-09-12 Ebola – Link

According to the ‘Link’ website they supposedly did a show on 97-06-03 but that was a Tuesday. So I’m pretty sure this here was their first gig at the Vort’n Vis (see guestbook). ‘Ebola’ is mentioned in the V.V. notes and also played at Kompas in Sint-Niklaas with ‘Quarantine’ and ‘Unhinged’ the day after this… ‘Link’ (from the outskirts of Ypres) at that time was Michael Maes (guitar), his partner Inge Cappoen (vocals) – both had been in ‘Carcer Molochi’ – and the French-men Greg ‘Briko’ on bass and a ‘Juju’ Julien De Jonckheere on drums. At first they played crust-core-punk. Since their start they did a series of demo-tapes, CDs and a split-7” with ‘Raised By Drunks’ (from Sweden). Their 1^st CD The Last Sacrifice (recorded in 2000, with a drum-computer and Geoffrey Geeraert on bass) was released in 2000. The music: “brutal metallic HC with a serious crust-punk edge & raging female vocals”. One reviewer actually believed Inge was really from Sweden… The band still exists – (although with a different line-up, Inge left) today with, besides Michael, Geoffrey Geeraert (bass; he returned after Björn Denys; Laurent ‘Lampe’ Lampaert, etc. – see Mike’s history below) and Jens Hoornaert (drums) – and they bring “melancholic atmospheres, heavy tunes, dark lyrics, fast riffs and slow epic parts”.

‘Ebola’ had been at the V.V. already (96-05-19). Karin R. (vocals), Micky McGuinness (guitar, ex ‘Generic’, ‘One By One’), Chris Patterson (drums) and Andrew Nolan (bass; later in ‘Shank’) from Benwell (Newcastle area) were presenting their new singer (replacing Jonathan Shaw) Nick Loaring (vocals; Enslaved recs). By this time their Imprecation 7” (intense, fast, powerful HC) was out (recorded Feb. ’97). Later they also did a split-7” with ‘Servitude’ (’98) – re-issued in 2000 on Enslaved recs as single-sided 7” – and in 2000 they recorded for a split-LP with ‘Jinn’ (that was to come out in 2003) with Andy Irvine from ‘Disaffect’ on guitar and Set Dixon from ‘Active Minds’ on drums.

In the V.V. notes it’s mentioned that ‘Lifecycle’ also got some drink-tickets that they but no other clues if they played or not… Perhaps some of them just helped out.

Brob

I don’t think we’ve ever played together with ‘Link’, I’m pretty sure of that…

Karel Deweerdt, ‘Lifecyle’ guitarist

I was the second vocalist – Jonny [Jonathan] would have been in ‘Ebola’ at the first gig, as I didn’t play my first gig with ‘Ebola’ until Autumn 1996.

Nick Loaring

Princess Di had had died [97-08-31] and every UK band on tour in Europe had stories of American tourists coming up to them in the street and offering them their condolences… I think we got paid partially in out-of-date chocolate soy-milk at this show.

I think we were supposed to tour with ‘U.Y.S.’ [‘Use Your Strength’] from Germany. André [Sieg], who ran Maximum Voice Production, was trying to set that up but for some reason it didn’t happen. I don’t know the details there. I would have liked to have seen that band, they were a weird droning hardcore band, quite unlike anything else at the time. We played a show with ‘Hellkrusher’ somewhere in Europe, Sned was most likely leaving a message for them to see when they got to the Vort’n Vis [97-10-28]. At the time both myself and Chris Patterson were in ‘Sawn Off’ ànd ‘Ebola’. ‘Sawn Off’ pre-dated ‘Ebola’ but wasn’t as productive in terms of releasing records and playing shows outside of our local scene at that point…

Andrew Nolan, ‘Ebola’ bassist (survivalist-deathcult.blogspot)

‘Juju’ and me played for ‘Link’ already. We both left the band together in 2004 [???; see Geoffrey Geeraert’s comment]…

Greg ‘Briko’

‘Link’ did indeed start in ‘97 after ‘Carcer Molochi’ quit. The first line-up was ‘Juju’ (drums), Greg (bass), Inge (vocals) and myself (guitar & backings) – we recorded a few demos and there were plans for a tour with ‘Unhinged’ but that didn’t work out. After some time Greg & ‘Juju’ left because the distance was getting a problem. They were replaced by Geoffrey (bass) & Michiel (drums), who both played in ‘Abrogate’. Michiel left the band already after a few months. We chose er to continue with a drum-computer because of the fact there were few drummers or musicians available in the Ypres’ scène. We recorded the CD The Last Sacrefice and toured Europe for the First time. Then we took a break and somewhere around 2005-2006 we started to make new songs, released a demo-CD uitgebracht and toured England (2007). After that tour we started searching for a drummer again and since 2008 Jens became our drummer. A little bit later Geoffrey quit and became the guitarist of ‘Möse’ (with David Stubbe on drums & Karel Busschop on bass/vocals). Laurent ‘Lampe’ joined ‘Link’ on bass. In this line-up we recorded the split-7” (with ‘Raised By Drunks from Sweden) and then the 12” Chapter 1 (2010). After 12 years ‘faithful service’ Inge left band and we continued as a trio with myself taking up vocal duties. The 12” Chapter 2 was released in 2011. In 2013 ‘Lampe’ quit and was replaced by Björn Denys with whom we recorded the split-12” with ‘Absolutist’ (from Scotland). By the end of 2014 Björn quit and Geoffrey rejoined as bassist. Chapter 4 was recorded by the end of 2014 and released in 2015. [‘Link’s story continues…]

Michael Maes

Myself & Michiel joined ‘Link’ beginning 2000 and not 2004… I quit ‘Link’ in 2008 and was played for ‘Möse’ since 2004…

Geoffrey Geeraert

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…