99-09-10 Phobia – Yacøpsae

Start of the 1999 Leed festival – “a meeting of grind, HC, punk, crust & noise” – organised by Frederic Driessens.

Playing here in ‘Phobia’, at that time a grindcore band from Mission Viejo, Orange County, California – a “crust whirlwind” – were (I believe) Shane McLachlan (vocals; also ‘Final Conflict’), Steve Burda (guitar), John Anthony Haddad (drums; Dino Sommese of ‘Dystopia’ during one recording-session) and Bruce Reeves (bass – originally guitar). Earlier that year they had recorded for the Destroying The Masses 10”…

‘Phobia’, courtesy of Erik Minnen

‘Yacøpsae’, a noisecore/power-violence (the announcement says “highspeed grind”) outfit from Hamburg, were Stefan ‘Stoffel’ Jenkel (guitar/vocals), Frank Venet (bass; replaced by Ramiro later on) and ‘Emu’ Oliver Ebeling (drums). They had done several split-EPs (e.g. with ‘Active Minds’), appeared on a buch of compilations (e.g. Chards Of Civilisation 7” on Grinding Madness recs) and done some tapes (e.g. a split-tape with ‘Selfish’ & ‘Mrtvá Budoucnost’ with tracks recorded live in the practice-room of ‘Völkermord’ and ‘Impftest’ – Düsseldorf, 98-05-17). You can watch them play this gig here (part 1 & part 2).

The next day LoggerHead (a band that was due here) turned up. Also played: ‘Distress’ (Nl), ‘Disbeer’ (Fra), ‘Insult’ (Nl), ‘Suppository’ (Nl), ‘Bloodsuckers’ (Bel), ‘Sickness’ (Fra). More on that: 99-09-11. On ‘Yacøpsae’s website it’s mentioned that ‘Container Crusties From Hell’ played but Dave ‘Opoespook’ (their drummer) assures me they never played the V.V. It was also announced that on Sunday there were a bunch of SxE bands playing but I find no track of these…

Brob

Me and Shane were in ‘Final Conflict’ together. We met on that tour. I think I joined ‘Phobia’ in 2008 or 2009. I’m still in the band. Bruce is back in the band right now [Oct 2016]; he’s playing guitar while Cece [‘CC Grind’ Loessin] takes some time off: she’s opening her own vegan bakery in Austin, Tx.

Calum Mackenzie, ex ‘Oi Polloi’

I know I had a blast playing everywhere we went in Europe. Hard to sift through all the memories exactly per show to be honest. I do recall though the show in Belgium being a great one. Lots of support from the fans, and great food and hospitality.

John Anthony Haddad, ‘Phobia’ drummer

I’m a painstaking archivist of our band’s chronology and so I list àll our shows (incl. the other bands of the bill). To be correct, here’s the precise list of that weekend. It was a two-day-event. September 10^th 1999: ‘Yacøpsae’ & ‘Phobia’; September 11^th 1999: ‘LoggerHead’, ‘Container Crusties From Hell’, ‘Bloodsuckers’, ‘Disbeer’, ‘Distress’, ‘Suppository’ & ‘Insult’. The first day ‘LoggerHead’ was supposed to play too but someone told me that they couldn’t make it, so they would catch up their gig the following day. Our show here was taped on video.

We didn’t tour with ‘Phobia’. We were booked for the V.V. show on the first day. The next day, we played in Mülheim (Germany) on another 2-day event. As far as I remember, we hung around with some of the ‘Phobia’ members the other day. It was sunny and we stayed outside. Our drummer got very drunk and kept sleeping in the attic. Our bass-player Frank and I went downtown for a while.

‘Stoffel’, ‘Yacøpsae’ guitarist

For me it was a really good concert and there were very nice people there. I liked the place and the people, and I remember we got a little bit drunk… Our dummer ‘Emu’ tasted all beers he could get. I sat on stage after the concert with some guy and saw Sonia for the first time (one of the biggest fans of ‘Yacøpsae’)… Some French guys slept there in tents on the first floor.

Frank Venet, ‘Yacøpsae’ bassist

excerpt from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…