95-09-15 Undone – Suffer – Carol

1^st day of the 7^th Leed festival

‘Undone’ had been in the studio for the Dark Future LP in April that year. It was the 4^th time at the V.V. (after 94-04-23, 94-08-21 & 94-10-01) for the Parisian emo band and they would be back a couple of times more… Great friends – especially drummer Christophe Mora (Stonehenge recs & distro) and guitarist Stéphane ‘Scholl’ Brochier (also did Kleines Mädchen distro & Infest zine) – so I tried to see them as much as possible.

‘Undone’ photo by Albert Cheong

‘Undone’ pictured by Sned

When Mandy left, the Bradford-based ‘Health Hazard’ reformed into ‘Suffer’ (see 95-04-29): Alec Mac doing guitar & vocals, Chris ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne playing bass and ‘Sned’ on drums. They did 3 7”s on Flat Earth recs (Mac and Sned’s label), one of which was a self-titled one recorded a few months after this tour. The night after this they played in Liège with ‘Extinction Of Mankind’ and ‘Unhinged’. (More pics on the introduction-page)

‘Suffer’ photo by Albert Cheong

‘Suffer’ pic by Kerim Gönencer

‘Carol’ from Bremen played brutal, energetic screamo hardcore with a crusty edge…influenced by ‘Acme’. The guys in the band were (I think) Andy Lehmann (guitar), Björn Schmidt (vocals; later in ‘Mörser’ & ‘Systral’), ‘Hajo’ André Wendelken (guitar), Matthias ‘Matze’ Trenne (bass; also ‘Mörser’), ‘Acme’s bassist Sönke Gabriel did drums. That year (January) they had recorded the Prefabricated 7” (Philipp Styra ‘Queerfish’ was the drummer on the 1^st one) that came out on Markus Haas’ label Per Koro. The next year they came back (96-03-24) and then recorded (summer of ’96 with André or ‘Shitman’ – also in ‘Mörser’ – on drums) a track for the split 7” with ‘Stack’ that was released on the label my mate Holger Ohst’s (Summersault mailorder) did.

‘Carol’ photographed by Sned

Brob

Think this was the 1^st full ‘Suffer’ tour after ‘Health Hazard’ with Max singing 1/2 the set. We’d been touring quite a lot and were in full anti-authoritarian moustache mode, had been having lots of near misses with headline/ body-lice and were finding our feet playing as a 3-piece. Always great to spend time with the ‘Undone’, ‘Carol’, ‘Anarcrust’, ‘Acme’, ‘Systral’ comrades. Lots of great intense, emotional HC that night and lots of cool chats. Proper empowering gig. I seem to remember ‘D.D.I.’ being around  but we played with them a few times so I could be getting confused. [Brob: They played the next day but where there already…] Definitely remember feeling how recharging it was that folks from all over could come together and make something great happen, especially at places like the V.V. which were where the tribes would meet and we’d meet up with the Belgian family.

‘Suffer’s Alec Mac

That weekend was great fun!

Sas (‘Anarcrust’, Kbaal distribution)

It was nice when I was there with ‘Carol’. I think they played in the smaller room, and exciting when we played on some other date with ‘Systral’ but that was on a quite big stage in front of a big audience. Exciting, but a bit weird too, since we liked it better when we could play in small steamy venues that were more personal. [Brob: the first evening of his fest took indeed place in the pub. The next days the concerts happened in the ‘barn’ so ‘Carol’ played in the (smaller) pub and ‘Systral’ in the bigger room the next day…]

Dirk Kusche, ‘Systral’ bassist & Kuschelrock studio

I was in Ieper several times. The first time with ‘Acme’ [94-04-09] (but I didn’t play in ‘Acme’). I played at the Vort’n Vis more than once (with ‘Carol’ in ’95, also with ‘Systral’). I think we also played there once together with ‘International Noise Conspiracy’. [Brob: That must’ve after the turn of the century…]).

Andy Lehmann

‘Shitman’ was drumming in ‘Mörser’. Maybe also in ‘Carol’…

Gregor Iwanoff; drummer for ‘Acme’

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…