90-09-28 Dreft – C.O.D.A. – K.U.N.T.

An almost forgotten gig with local ‘bands’…

The second gig of ‘Dreft’ here (a year after 89-07-09) – from the Izegem-Kortrijk area. Here in their grindcore phase (they started in ’85 but things got ‘serious’ in around ’88); with Dominik ‘Nolf’ Denolf (vocals), Pascal ‘Scalle’ Desplancke (vocals), Sammy Windels (guitar), Kris ‘Mosh(terd)’ Maes (bass) & Bernard ‘Narre’ Demeulenaere (drums). The death-metal sound came later when Erwin De Vriendt took over the guitar (without ‘Nolf’ & ‘Scalle’; ’88-’92), and in an even later stage ‘U.J.’ played bass and ‘Josh’ guitar ’92-’93?). Their demo Butchered was recorded September 1991 with Kris doing vocals…

‘C.O.D.A.’ (‘Co-operation Of Death Alcoholics’) was the band of Andy ‘Wanky’ Debaere (growls). There were two vocalists (Benny & Swatn/Swab), a drummer (another Andy/ ‘Anti’ Vandendriessche) and a bassist, Patrick Foré – no guitarist. They were from the Roeselare/Torhout area and surroundings. There’s a demo from 1989 entitled Growing A Moustache Isn’t Hardcore!? with 30+ tracks (labeled “noise-thrash”).

Brob

K.U.N.T. (‘Krisis Und Neurosis Theater’) was a figment of Dieter [Roelstraete]. He had lyrics and wanted to do something in the vein of ‘ Einsturzende Neubauten’, proto-noise with costumes and tribal drums. If I remember well ‘K.U.N.T.’ was myself, Fabrice Baclet, Dieter Roelstraete, Jeroen Vanhandsame and Philippe Dassonville [‘Fluppe the Hardrocker’]. We performed once together with a little project that Jeroen ‘nationsonfire’ [Lauwers] had: “The Jeroen Machine” – a benefit for god-kows-what. One hand-written poster, nothing more. Just a racket: everyone ‘played’ a character from Dieter’s lyrics; the idea of what later would become ‘Anus Mundi’ – Dieter’s little artist-club in Gent.

David Stubbe

We only did 2 gigs with ‘K.U.N.T.’, At First I was bassist, then drummer… We didn’t have songs; we did pure jam-sessions. Rather wild parties…

Philippe Dassonville

I think David Stubbe made a few too many wrong combinations of alcohol, mushrooms and other chemical substances in his life…

Jeroen Lauwers

‘K.U.N.T.’, ai, that was for fun really, just as that tape with 1001 ‘songs’ that David and I made under the moniker ‘Anal Disobedience’. Can’t believe we ever played live…

Dieter Roelstraete

‘C.O.D.A.’ was called ‘Chronic Death’ at first and had a guitarist.

Ben Adams

Benny was thrown of the band because of fascist ideas. Then I joined… I don’t have any recollections of this gig but I might’ve been there…

Andy Debaere

additions wellcome!…

90-12-31 Mushrooms – Sloth

‘(The) Mushrooms’ (photo from their split-7″)

(The) Mushrooms – Steve Erauw (vocals/guitar), Chris(tophe) Calmeyn (bass) & Patrick ‘Schimmel’ Gyde (drums) – were a street-punk band from Brugge/Bruges. Thy recorded a rehearsal (demo) tape in their rehearsal-room, at the end of the eighties or beginning of nineties… Probably one of the only excisting recordings of their whole setlist. In 1991 the Belgian punk-label Unity recs released their 7” (entitled Youth Of Today). Later there was a split-7” with Belgian Oi! Band ‘The Pride’ (with ‘Mushroom’-members)…

‘(The) Mushrooms’ (pic courtesy of Leslie Delacauw)

That night they started playing at midnight to make the bridge from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day. They probably weren’t the only band that night.

Apparently ‘Sloth’ (see also 91-02-08 & 91-10-05) – a local grindcore band with Dieter ‘Lord Moloch’ Roelstraete doing vocals, David ‘Spans Hrac’ Stubbe (guitar; later drums for ‘Neuthrone’, etc.), Fabrice Baclet (bass) & Jeroen Vanhandsame (drums) – played aswell.

Brob

Ha! My very first performance. First time stoned too, I guess. And I had the flu! Add some booze to that and a bunch of nerves (and the fact that I actually didn’t know how to play the drums)… and that makes a beautiful cocktail ;-). I was unstoppable that night. Usually the others had to turn down their amps to hear me but that night I went full speed ahead. I didn’t even stop in-between songs a few times (the rhythm stayed the same for the biggest part anyway :-). I think there must be a recording of it somwhere. I even know it circulated. Haven’t owned it or lost it afterwards… Would be fun to hear that back…without an audience because it must’ve been terrible!

Very vague memories: crazy enough music was just a side-issue. To me the distributions were very important! [Jeroen later started Tegenstroom (‘counter-current’) in Leuven; together with his brother Stijn & Filip Vandenberghe.] Much more than the music. Looking backwards: I should’ve enjoyed it more. And work harder. Because the music kept attracting. But I never got to it. Pity! The other guys did have a lot of patience with me. Always great meeting up with David… Fabrice was a great guy. Fantastic bassist. Missed him often. His clever humor. His smile.

Don’t have more memories. I do recall a gig later with ‘Sore Threat’ in the 4AD [venue in Diksmuide] ( I think). But that was our last ‘achievement’ if I remember well. The other guys were much better and cooler than me… They were better of without me. Dieter was already living in Ghent, had ‘grown up’ and started his ‘Anus Mundi’, etc. Too much doom/goth for me…

Jeroen Vanhandsame

additions wellcome!…

90-02-24 Scraps – Ear Damage – Toespieze – Just Us

Joost Dierick (The Pits / Bang Zoom Noise productions) wrote me ‘Toespieze’ played at the Vort’n Vis on 90-03-10 but the gig-review in Pyrobolum #3 tells another story…

‘Scraps’ had cancelled for 89-09-16 but they made up for that here. It was the start of a whole series of gigs. Later that year they would also play for Smurfpunx (90-10-06). The members at that time were David Dutriaux (vocals) Tomoy (bass), Xavier (drums) and Raphael Dutriaux (guitar). They had abandonned their rather nihilist 80s drunk-punk image and became a more politically aware ans positive combo. That year the album Wrapped Up In This Society was released on Be Yourself recs (Carl Levecke & Ghilain Vermeersch). They came back to the V.V. later that year (90-09-15) and a few times more…

I’d seen ‘Ear Damage’ quite a few times already. Bassist Marc (Verbeeck) and drummer ‘Bie’ (Robin Puttemans) were friends since the ‘Zyklome-A’ days and I knew guitarist Dirk (Ceustermans) from gigs in Leuven and from D.R.O.L. zine. They’d played 3 times for Smurfpunx already too… (86-09-07, 87-06-27 & 89-02-25). This gig here was about a year after their second LP (The Hangover Of Loneliness) was finished. Summer of ’89 they had done a small tour in the Basque Country (with ‘Heibel’) and the summer after this gig they travelled to Poland for a bunch of shows (together with the Reynders brothers’ new band ‘Triptych’). They played another Vort’n Vis show in Poperinge (90-04-08) and as far as I know their last Belgian gig ever was in Leuven, 90-07-11.

‘Toespieze’ from the are around Bruges started in May ’87. When the original drummer left Steve ‘Sling’ Slingeneyer of ‘Chronic Disease’ joined; the others were ‘Meyer’ Peter Demeyer (guitar, also ‘Chronic Disease’), Jeroen ‘Jerre’ Callewaert (vocals and guitar) & Rik De Jaegher (bass). ‘Leffe’ describes their music as “rock”. There was a demo with 5 songs by them and 18 songs by ‘Chronic Disease’.

No idea anymore who or what ‘Just Us’ was…

Brob

‘Roxy’ sang for a while when ‘Jerre’ got tired of that in the end.

Rik De Jaegher, ‘Toespieze’

Was ‘Just Us’ a band??? Definitely not from Bruges… ‘Toespieze’ was also not really a punk-band. I was at their first gig in the theatre-room of a school in Bruges in 1987. I hung out with ‘Roxy’ (vocals) well into the 90s.

Koen ‘Siesele’ Lammens

additions wellcome!…

90-10-13 Trottel – After All – Pietje Roze Konin… – Greenhorns

It was way back in the early 90s when I first came to the Vort’n Vis for the concert of ‘Trottel’, ‘Greenhorns’ (a local rock-band that played in a country-rock style à la Neil Young / ‘Green On Red’); ‘After All’ (which I don’t remember any more)…and ‘Pietje Roze Konin’ (also no remembrance..)

Henk Loobuyck

‘Pietje Roze Konin’ en de Zeven Gèssprietjes’ (Pete the Pink Rabbit & the Seven Grass-blades), from Menen (between Kortrijk en Ieper) were a bunch of lads who just picked up some instruments to make “a mess”: Vincent Windels (drums), Rudy Denis & later Karel Lauwers (guitar), Kurt Deprez (bass), Jeroen Lauwers (screams; later replaced by Wim Vandekerckhove & Sacha Baelen). Some of them would later end up in ‘Shortsight’ and ‘Blindfold’. There’s an interview with them in Jimyh Anti’s zine in the post about their earlier performance (89-07-09).

According to Bruno’s description on the flyer, the ‘Greenhorns’ were “local rock-out blokes in it to break major rock business”… They were Alex(ander) Brackx (guitar/vocals), Carl Vansuyt (bass) & Guido Dieusaert (drums).

‘After All’ were a trash-metal band (The flyer says: “now with a new & extremely expensive drum-riser”) from Brugge, (they were the follow-up to ‘At Last’ that played at the V.V. 90-01-20). Playing in the band: Dries Van Damme (guitar), Christophe Depree (guitar), Chris ‘Hazy’ De Neve (drums), Peter De Meyer (bass on the 7”; also ‘Chronic Disease’ – Yannic Kermarrec did a short stint in the band in ‘92) and ‘Zoef’ Wijnand Desreveaux (vocals). Their first 7” (Dusk) got out in 1992 (recorded in autumn ’91). As of today these still exist (see afterall.be)…

‘After All’ (L => R: ‘Hazy’, Christophe, Dries, ‘Zoef’, Peter)

‘Trottel’ (or ‘Die Trottel’; German for ‘idiots’) was announced as “Hungaria’s punkrocknoise – No shit!”… Others used the words ‘indefinable’ and ‘psychedelic’, ‘spacey’ to describe them. Their lyrics were socio-critical; female vocals. The band at that time consisted of Tamás Rupaszov (bass), Ildi(ko) Asztalos (vocals), Kakuszi ’Kaktusz’ György (guitar) and Péter ‘Garfield’ Nagy (drums; or was it Sándor Orosz?). After some demos in the late 80s, their tape Borderline Syndrome was also released by a French label in 1989. In 1990 Armin Hofmann also put out their Your Sincere Innocence tape out as a 12” EP on X-Mist. They came back 91-10-12. For more info: trottel.hu

Brob

I can only recall that we played that night because ‘Trottel’ used my guitar-amp. Well, it was more like a cage used to breed guinea-pigs. As a naive youngster, I had bought the amplifier from a crook. ‘Trottel’ had a lot of trouble producing a decent sound during the sound-check. the Hungarians did play a tight, convincing set that night. One of my favourite concerts at the Vort’n.

Karel Lauwers

My legendary memory isn’t so legendary anymore. I only remember a Sunday morning when we got locked in at the sleeping-place. Finally I climbed out of the window… and found myself in the streets of Ieper and saw people going to the church… It’s a cloudy picture in my head…don’t even know which year this was. I did over the 1,5 million kilometres since the beginning of the 90s so my brain is quite full I guess :-).

Tamás Rupaszov, ‘Trottel’ bassist

Reading this, I remember the town and the situation – ‘locked in the house’. After climbing down from the first floor, a guy who also slept there came and he let us out. We thought we were alone at the place.

Ildi Asztalos , ‘Trottel’ singer

[continued from 90-01-20] We returned to the Vort’n Vis for our 10^th gig. By that time, we had changed our name from ‘At Last’… to ‘After All’. In fact, that was our first show we played under the new name. Other bands on the bill were ‘Pietje Roze Konin’, ‘The Greenhorns’ and ‘Die Trottel’ from the Czech Republic [Hungaria actually]. I remember ‘The Greenhorns’ put on a ‘professional’ rock show, which was not really the thing to do at the Vort’n Vis. We liked ‘Die Trottel’ a lot. I remember ‘Zoef’ bought the album they sold at the show. I dubbed it on tape. Yes I know, hometaping was already killing music back then… Don’t remember the set we played but I’m quite sure we played Surf Nicaragua by ‘Sacred Reich’ that night. I also remember that the end of the night ended with a huge food-fight backstage [Leffe mentions it 90-01-20].

A quarter of a century, gone in the blink of an eye, or so it seems. The band always persevered, although only Christophe and myself are left from the very first line-up that played those shows in 1990. From those very humble beginnings at the Vort’n to touring Europe, playing Graspop or opening for ‘Judas Priest’ at the Lotto Arena is quite a stretch – but we wouldn’t want to have missed it for all the money in the world!

Dries Van Damme, ‘After All’ guitarist

pics (courtesy of Dries Van Damme):

Wijnand Desreveaux / Chris De Neve / Dries Van Damme

Peter Demeyer / Wijnand Desreveaux (and Vrokker ‘Chronic Disease’ sitting on stage)

Danny Borny (who was with the band as roadie, stage tech & merch guy from 1989 until 2012) / Christophe Depree

additions wellcome!…

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!…

90-04-22 Memento Mori – Oerboere – Chaotic Contrast

Gig-review in Pyrobolum #3 (by Dieter Roelstraete)

‘Chaotic Contrast’ (Torhout/Brugge area, Belgium) were originally a ‘project’ of Kris ‘Kid’ Verhelst (guitar & vocals) and a changing group of people. They recorded the ‘You’ve got a Brain so Use It’ demo (May ‘89). In June ‘89 Joeri Vleurick joined on bass and they recorded a tape -’It’s the individual that Makes the Change’ – that contained 158 (!) ‘songs’. Then they met up with Elke (vocals & guitar) and Steve ‘Sling’ Slingeneyer (drums; also ‘Chronic Disease’ & ‘Rise Above’) – don’t know if these were on the ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ demo but they played the V.V. ‘Kid’ was quite creative and always full of plans… He also organised gigs (in Eernegem’s B52) and tried to set up a tape-label/-exchange…

‘Memento Mori’ were a German metal-influenced hardcore-punk band from Neuhofen (near Ludwigshafen, Germany). At the time they had just recorded an LP (The Cultural Value Of Fear, Distrust & Hypochondria) that was released on my friend Frank Babel’s label Blasting Youth recs. At that time ‘M.M.’ were: Thomas (bass), Mich(a)el Volkmer (drums), Sacha (guitar) and Jochen ‘Delle’ Dell (vocals; ex ‘Die Perversen Weihnachtsmänner’).

‘Oerboere’ were squatters from the W.N.C. (Wolters Noordhof Complex) in Groningen (North of the NL). “Import Groningers!”, Maynard Schut informs me: “They’ve never been in any other bands but one of them is now playing in a klezmer band from Amsterdam. At every gig they did, there were riots with the police… Rather militant squatters-band it was.”. They had a changing line-up: Cor ‘Roc’ Weiss, Mauro, Dirk, Roland Hurrelbrinck, … They had a track on the Als Je Haar Maar Goed Zat ‎compilation-LP (WRF recs, ’92), entitled Juppies.

Brob

At the time I was singing for ‘Oerboere’ (89 & 90), we never played in Ieper. This one must’ve been after I quit. The band was: Janfie van Strien (drums), Mauro (guitar) & Cor (vocals).

Roland Hurrelbrinck

‘Oerboere’ started at the W.N.C., where we lived from 1986 until 1990. The poet Bart Droog had joined us that weekend. He’s extremely interessted in World War 1 & 2, and wanted tot take the opportunity to visit the war-cemeteries…

Janfie van Strien

Personally, I have hardly any recollections of this gig. Believe it was only the 3^rd as ‘Chaotic Contrast’. [Brob: they played probably their last on 90-11-02 with ‘Crowd Of Isolated’ & ‘Scum’ in Gent] Crazy times, chaotic indeed. No idea why anyone thought of us as a band from Roeselare. More like an Eernegem, Torhout, Stalhille, Gent experimental collective. ‘Chaotic Contrast’ was mainly a project that Joeri and me tinkered on: trying things out, some of it sounded rather bizarre. And from time to time we tried to bring things live, with 1 or 2 persond extra. One of them was Elke Robaerts (who also studied law when I got to know her). She joined in on some of our sound-/song-experiments, and this one concert. I believe we only played live 4 times with ‘Chaotic Contrast’. It was indeed mostly chaotic because we had no live experience. We did 2 tapes, I think; the 2^nd got pretty positively reviewed in MRR (comparisons with ‘Crass’ and ‘The Ex’ if I remember correctly. After that we did ‘Daydream’ for a while – a bit more melodic – with ‘Sling’ on drums. But that also just lasted a year or so (2 gigs, I believe, and 1 tape with 7 songs). Didn’t get of the ground because of other things to do (studying, women, etc.).

Kris ‘Kid’ Verhelst

Some pics (courtesy of Janfie van Strien):

‘Oerboere’ L => R: Mauro Farigu (‘Mao’), Janfie van Strien, Cor Weiss.

Johan Dewancker (V.V. ‘shitworker’ at the time), enjoying a beer and the band

‘Memento Mori’ (Dieter Roelstraete sporting his ‘Doom’ T-shirt)

additions wellcome!…

90-09-15 Scraps – Seein’Red – Trespassers W – Hiatus – Exhaustless Revolt

This was the 2^nd Vort’n Vis Leed festival

“The 5^th band is a surprise!”… The Vort’n Vis notes mention ‘Exhaustless Revolt’. This young posi band from Antwerp – Filip Staes (guitar & vocals), Sven Bossant (drums) & Ivan Marien (bass & vocals) – came back to play on 91-05-03. They recorded their Think Now tape around that time…

‘Exhaustless Revolt’ (courtesy of Filip Staes)

I believe this was the first time my buddies Paul, Olav & Jos (Amersfoort) played at the V.V. but I had arranged gigs for them already with the Smurfpunx collective (89-04-16 & 90-02-17). Their first, self-titled 7” (with the guitar on T-shirt cover) had been recorded Aug/Sep ’89 and their first album (hands tied together with barbed wire on the cover) in June ’90 so I guess they played material from these. I can still imagine me shouting along: … “Shell! Send ‘em to hell”, “We flourish under oppression”, etc. I’m pretty sure their ‘crew’ (driver Emily, photographer Theun Koelemij and allround-nice-bloke Marcel Palijama) came along aswell…

‘Seein’Red’; picture taken by Ben ‘Sicko’ Cooper

‘Trespassers W’ (Rotterdam, NL) were an avant-garde/arty band that consisted then of Ronnie Krepel (bass), Peter Bos (drums), Lukas Simonis (guitar; also ‘Dull Schicksal’, ‘Morzelpronk’, etc.), Frank Van Den Bos (keyboards) and Cor Gout (vocals). Around the end of the 80s I got a few records sent by the Amsterdam label ADM (A Deaf Mute) recs for review. One of which was their LP Potemkin. Here’s what I wrote about it in Tilt! #5: >> Unpredictable is and adjective that fits their music. Both sides also differ quite a bit. Side 1 has 5 songs with still traditional song-patterns but also an unusual use of rhythms and instruments (violin/organ/…). Side 2 tells the story of Sovjet battleship [in their own words: “musically recreating Eisenstein’s classic film”] and is quite experimental … << The record came out in 1989 and was produced by Dolf Planteijdt (‘Morzelpronk’ & Joke’s Koeienverhuur studio). Around the same time they did a 7” entitled Macht Kaputt and in 1990 a French label put out their tape Aimez-Vous Trespassers W? …

‘Scraps’ (Lille, France) had been at the V.V. already eralier that year (90-02-24). The line-up at that time was David & Raph(ael) Dutriaux (vocals & guitar), Xavier (drums) and Tomoy (bass). They had abandonned the nihilistic drunk-punk for a more political/posutive attitude. They were gaining a lot of popularity in our area. The release of their Wrapped Up In This Society LP on Be Yourself recs (ran by 2 local scenesters Carl Levecke and Ghilain Vermeersch) certainly helped with that. The recordings took place a few months before this (May ’90). Lots of ‘locals’ did backing-vocals (most of them present here too, I think): Carl & Ghilain, Ed ‘N.O.F.’, Hans & Hazel (‘Rise Above’), UxJx, Leffe & Vrokker (‘Chronic Disease’), Spatje & Siesele (‘P.J.D.’), etc. The record came with loads of anti-fascist info. As a reaction against the raising fascism (the extreme right ‘Vlaams Blok’ in Belgium – see 91-03-03) and Le Pen and his Front National in France, anti-fascists started to get organised again in various groups. ‘Scraps’ were supporting the SCALP (Section Carrément Anti Le Pen). David & their friend ‘Kalimero’ (Stéphane Ll.) also addressed all this on their radio-show (Écrasons La Vermine; ‘let’s crush the vermin’) on the student-radio (Radio Campus) in their area.

‘Scraps’; photographed by Ben ‘Sicko’ Cooper

 

‘Hiatus’ (photos by Ben ‘Sicko’ Cooper)

The Liège bunch ‘Hiatus’ also performed here for the first time but I’d seen them play already in their hometown with ‘Sore Throat’ (90-05-06). Their demos (The Frightening Men’s Story; and In My Mind…) were recorded Aug ’89 and Apr ’90 (with Phill – Phil – Ben – Raf). Their untitled 7” (blindfolded man on the cover) that was released in 1990 by the French label Urban Alert recs (recorded Aug ’90) would be re-released as I Don’t Scare Easily But… on Nabate in 1991. The line up here would have been Phil (guitar/vocals), Ben Féry (drums), Azill (guitar/vocals; or was it still the other Phill?), Willy Nollomont (bass) and Raf (vocals). Raf disappeared soon after and Willy started doing vocals aswell.

Brob

I’m almost certain I was at this concert but I have no recollections of it… :-/ You mention Écrasons La Vermine – thanks for the compliment – but don’t forget to also mention the programme that David (‘Tonton Charogne’) did himself: Raw Power! The show lasted until ’92 I believe.

Stéphane Ll.

I can ’t recall anything about this. You should ask Cor Gout. Perhaps I wasn’t in the band anymore… However… There are some vague memories…

Lukas Simonis, ‘Trespassers W’

In 1990 I did play for ‘Trespassers W’ but my agenda says I was in Voorburg with my other band that day. No recollections. Cor Gout knows everything!

Frank van den Bos, ‘Trespassers W’

I know we played in a small pub. A street outside the centre? There was no P.A. but a vocal amp, which was sufficient for that space. The audience (twenty people ?) reacted quit well to our music. One individual knew some of our songs and was asking for them. Of the other bands, I only remember ‘Seein’Red’ from Amersfoort. I knew their single and was aware they played pretty fat-sounding anarcho-punk. I thought they were very good in their genre. Later (in 1991) I invited them for a session that we (3 members of ‘Trespassers W’) did for Lokatel in The Hague. I believe we received fl. 350 [€ 175] for the gig at the Vort’n Vis, what isn’t very much for such a long drive, but looking back we didn’t have any regrets to have come over. The atmosphere and welcome were good. And that’s what we were doing it for.

The Potemkin LP & the Aimez-Vous cassette have been released as double-CD (with extra songs) in the re-issue series of Megapop in France. The band stopped now [September ‘14]. Most of us make music with smaller bands. We just released our ‘swansong’ One-Sided Love Affair: 7 new songs on one side and none on the other (written for a concert at the Volkspaleis in The Hague, a year ago).

Cor Gout, ‘Trespassers W’

[They delivered their “swan-song” record autum 2014]

‘Scraps’ pictures; courtesy of Jurgen ‘Spatje’ Fiems [1/5], Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers [2/4] & Grégory Smets [3]:

‘Spatje’ quitely at the bar for a moment…

Jeroen Lauwers sporting his ‘Conflict’ T-shirt

crowd (with Edward+Hans ‘Rise Above’, Dirk ‘Scum’ & Leffe+Spatje ‘P.J.D.’) @ Scraps

crowd (with Jeroen+Edward & Pette ‘P.J.D.’, Chatn? shoutin’ loud & Lord Moloch in the back) @ Scraps

“la jeuness dorée” from Liège: Manu & Alain (Nabate) (caught on film by Ben ‘Sicko’)

[There are some photos of ‘Seein’Red’ in Reminder #1, the zine that Wim & Chatn ‘Blindfold’ did, but the resolution is not good enough to put them up here…]

additions wellcome!…

90-10-27 Zygote – Bad Influence – Private Jesus Detector

poster kindly provided by ‘Leffe’

I wasn’t at this gig ‘cause the same day ‘Life But How To Live It’ were playing at the O.H.K. in Oostende… A show I had arranged for them…

‘Amebix’ was announced somewhere but by then ‘Zygote’ had risen from it’s ashes and they came over (and they would be back…91-04-21). They formed after ‘Amebix’ split up in the late 80s and consisted of ‘Spider’ (Robert Richards; drums), ‘Smutpig’ (George Fletcher; vocals/guitar) & ‘Stig’ (Chris Miller; vocals/guitar) (all 3 ex ‘Amebix’) with the addition of bassist Tim ‘Crow’ Shapland (ex ‘Smartpils’; later also in ‘Bad Influence’ for a while). The band was short-lived and only released one full-length album: Mike Foster released it on his label MCR that year (Wind Of Knives – Skuld releases compiled this and their demo a few years later…), making the Bath connection complete.

‘Bad Influence’ was about to record the New Age Witch Hunt LP (released by the German labels 42 recs & Skuld releases) so I guess the line-up here was ‘Holy’ Herwin De Winter (vocals) & Joris Rombouts (drums) – as usual, and Patrick ‘Labie’ Delabie (ex ‘Scoundrels’) on bass and Thomas Noppe on guitar (also @ Smurfpunx: 88-05-13). ‘Zygote’s Tim would join them later (and played on the split 7” with ‘Sharon Tate’s Children’ and on the Afterbirth 10”).

‘Private Jesus Detector’ were back too after only a couple of months (their first gig was 90-08-25): Spatje & Vrokker (vocals), Pette (guitar), Siesele (bass) and Leffe (drums)…

Brob

In 1990 ‘Amebix’ would have been disbanded. Maybe it meant ex-‘Amebix’. I remember (vaguely) playing there with ‘Zygote’ and ‘Bad influence’… ‘Amebix’ was over by 1987; the guys and me did ‘Zygote’ to keep doing something and so that we could abuse our way across Europe… And we did so successfully that I can’t really recall very much at all. Good vague times…

Christian Miller, ‘Amebix’/’Zygote’

The 2^nd gig of ‘P.J.D.’ at the Vort’n Vis, I’m 100% certain that we did this one!…because it’s in the notebook with all our concerts that I kept over the years…and according to me ‘Hiatus’ didn’t play that day. [According to Leffe ‘Amebix’ didn’t play but Hiatus did… But maybe he’s mixing things up with the other ‘Zygote’ gig]. We played because we were all there anyway and ‘Amebix’ had cancelled or something… Although ‘Zygote’ = ‘Amebix’…

Siesele, ‘P.J.D.’ bassplayer

As far as I can recall this was the first time of many times to come over the following years. That we headed to the Vort’Vis. The name had a certain smell to it…we had heard about the place and getting into that little bar – with quite some house-rules, we would find out. One way or the other it directly felt like home. Memories from that night are vague en blurry. I remember ‘Stig’ (of the mighty ‘Zygote’) set the tone directly by dropping one of his pills in a beer, resulting in bubbling brew straight out of a ancient horror-movie. Not really well appreciated by the bar-staff. A colourful bunch we were in those days, us Baddies. Mr Thomas [Noppe, guitarist] – cowboy-boots, a blue or purple scarf (mostly worn in his hair) – immediately got a ‘Guns & Roses’ tag. Myself, I was completely in the biker-look, so leather-pants could have been part of the deal, as well as bondage-cuffs – directly a great topic for discussion. Same as the ‘Zygote’ crew. None of us looked punk by the book during those days, guess. We also were all in to wearing top-hats that ‘Ben’ [Herwin’s partner at that time…] made herself. George and Rupert (‘Zygote’) were real mad hatters. The crowd that night – big or small in numbers, I can’t really remember, as we played actually a lot of shows on tour with ‘Zygote’ – was “just we for them and they for us”. I guess punk wasn’t ready yet for these pagan sounds but I can remember that we did quite some new stuff that ended up on the New Age Witch Hunt LP. Two years later (to be honest, I found a set-list) we already had Thomas playing guitar with us alongside to Bart [Belmans, original guitarist] (but my brain fails me I think: Bart had left by then with Chris [original singer] – though the set-list says no). Some of the new stuff had this haunting phaser psychedelic twist to it… Songs like 3B, Unchained and of course Heavy World were still in their jam-phase then. We also played some stuff from the Together We Are demo and songs like The Innocent, The World Is Getting Dirtier, that never ever made it to vinyl or even on tape. My little scrabble-book of those days tells me we got the crowd moving to our unpredictable mix of old straight-forward Baddies punk from the 80s and our new premature New Age Witch Hunt sounds kinda paralysed them all in all. I think they liked us as we got a few times more invited to the Vort’n Vis.

What ‘Zygote’ did that night, I can’t remember but I’m quite sure they shredded the place to pieces. ‘Amebix’ definitely didn’t play! Who put that on the poster must have had a big fantasy or wishful thinking. The only ‘Amebix’ tune ‘Zygote’ ever played was Ride To Ride, which ‘Zygote’ changed into Man In The Crowd; a steady song in their set and I must say better then the ‘Amebix’ jam.

‘Private Jesus Detector’ – always loved the name – were fast and furious. Vrokker played for them in those days; they had two vocalist, I believe.

As usual the night ended in a drinking-session but someone must have driven us home… Hail to the freak behind the steering-wheel. Luckily I have a better memory of other V.V. passages. 2 things I’m sure of… Brob was dancing behind his table, selling zines & records. [That must’ve been another day ‘cause I was in Ostend with ‘Life But How To Live It’…] And we probably met Bruno their for the first time; first of many encounters to come as Bruno set up a lot of shows for us from then on and even co released the Afterbirth CD in 1995.

Holy Herwin a.k.a. Hellwin – as Brob invented so nicely :-)

About that whole ‘Amebix’ thing on the poster: I made it and it clearly states featuring EX ‘Amebix’ members. I remember Herwin looking at it and giving it his approval. If I find it I’ll post it straight away! Siesele might still have a copy I suppose… Anyway I also remember that Munpie (‘Dona Nobis Pacem’) did some poetry during the Baddies’ set, which was really good by the way! Quite a statement if you know they’re from Antwerp haha… They were really good that night!!!

The one thing I don’t remember is ‘Private Jesus Detector’ playing but we must have one way or another, blurry haze that one!

Tim (ex ‘Smartpills’) revealed that their drummer Richard Chadwick was moving over to the ‘Hawkwind’ camp where he still is. Also me and ‘Spider’ had a great time. ‘Zygote’ were brilliant that day. I went to see ‘em again in London with the ‘Subhumans’ head-lining. Ah good times; people; good times…

Spatje ‘P.J.D.’

A month and a half after our Germany/Poland tour, the lads from Bath came back to do some gigs together. I don’t remember where we all played but of course the V.V. was always a highlight in a kind of way. The nicest thing about V.V. was that you could park the van on the premises next to the venue, so we always had our ‘backstage’. At that time we always used my van, I was probably that drunken driver that Herwin mentioned earlier. I have to admit that I do not remember anything about ‘Private Jesus Detector’ playing then, but as most of the time, I was probably talking to other people outside (sorry guys). The times we spend with ‘Zygote’ on the road were mostly associated with a lot of blond beverages and other substances. Probably the reason why not everybody remembers everything from those days. I do recall we did a good gig but completely forgot about Munpie doing poetry before or in between. After reading it, I remember that he also did this at the other gigs in Germany. I think I enjoyed every ‘Zygote’ gig I’ve seen, so for sure they were good that night. The rest of the evening probably ended up like most of these evenings, drinking beer with my mate ‘Spider’ and the others. It’s sad to say but as Rob Miller from ‘Amebix’ said: “These days will never come again.”.

Joris, ‘Bad Influence’ drummer

the ‘Baddies’ as pictured on the New Age Witch Hunt LP:

additions wellcome!…

90-11-01 [Extreme Noise Terror – Filthkick – Private Jesus Detector – Sloth]

Letter in Raising Hell zine (#23; Spring ‘91):

>>I’m writing this letter to tell what happened here with ‘E.N.T.’, so that perhaps you could put this in your zine and they might have the chance to answer… Beginning of November some bloke from South Germany phoned asking whether ‘E.N.T.’ could play on the 18^th of November. We said “Yes, sure.”. On the 14^th we got a call they were playing in Leiden (Nl) on the 18^th so we phoned this organiser and he said “Yes there’s this French guy planning some gigs too but ‘E.N.T.’ don’t know anything about these.”. It was the same wanker who was (not) doing the ‘Chumbawamba’/’Karma Sutra’ tour. So we were told our gig on the 18^th was OK. On the 17^th we got a call saying the band was playing in Marl (Ger) and they had a lot of trouble there, so they decided not to come. We tried to reach Musgub (organiser) but couldn’t reach him. On the 18^th we opened our venue. People were coming but ‘E.N.T’ didn’t. (…) The next day some blokes phoned us saying ‘E.N.T.’ had played a benefit in Enschede (Nl). (…) We are thinking this was some kind of rip-off. We also heard that after the gig Enschede, ‘E.N.T.’ drove to Amsterdam for another gig. Stars or what?<<

Guhli, AK 47, Kiefernstrasse, Düsseldorf, Germany

That puts things a bit in perspective about why there were rumours of ‘E.N.T.’ playing at the V.V. but the gig eventually not taking place…

The French guy that is mentioned above is Nicolas from Maubeuge. The bit about the ‘Chumbawamba’/’Karma Sutra’ tour is correct… Read my experience (from the Smurfpunx days) with him: 90-09-02…

‘E.N.T.’ were of course the legendary grind/crust/noise-outfit from Ipswich. “The line-up of Dean Jones (vocals), Phil Vane (vocals; R.I.P.), Pete(r) Hurley (guitar), Tony ‘Stick’ Dickens (drums; also ‘Doom’) & Mark Bailey (bass; also ‘Filthkick’) proved the most stable in the bands volatile history.”…

‘Filthkick’ was the band that Jim Whiteley (bass; ex ‘Napalm Death‘ & ex ‘Ripcord‘) played in, together with Ben Mochrie (drums), Mark Bailey (guitar) & ‘Leggo’ Julian Kilsby (vocals; ‘Deviated Instinct’)…

‘Private Jesus Detector’ was announced as well… Jurgen ‘Spatje’ Fiems & ‘Vrokker’ Alain De Bock (vocals), Koen ‘Siesele’ Lammens (bass), ‘Pette’ Peter Roose (guitar) & ‘Leffe’ Vincent L. (drums) were mates from Brugge that had a done a few shows here already: 90-08-25 & 90-10-27.

‘Sloth’ were locals – Dieter ‘Lord Moloch’ Roelstraete doing vocals (Pyrobolum editor), David ‘Spans Hrac’ Stubbe (guitar; later drums for ‘Neuthrone’, etc.), Fabrice Baclet (bass) & Jeroen Vanhandsame (drums).

Brob

Late 1990… I’m not sure but I would guess that it was Dean, Phil, Pete, myself & Mark from the Phonophobia line-up. Yeah, I recall some of the above but no real details. Days before internet & shit got confusing real easy. Was something with ‘Fleas & Lice’ people…

Stick

90-03-17 Aphrodite’s Lawyer – Rothead – [C.O.T.] – [Scoundrels] – [Zero Positives]

As you can read in the concert-review Bruno wrote in his zine Pyrobolum this was a bit of a disaster-gig… Let’s classify this as a youthly endeavour of which was to be learnt for the future of the Vort’n Vis… We would never have dreamt to have bouncers at the Vort’n Vis but I guess that was imposed by the owners of this (rather mainstream) venue in Bruno’s hometown…

‘Zero Positives’ couldn’t play because of a drummer-issue. The car of ‘Cry Of Terror’ (they did a memorable show for Smurfpunx 88-01-30) broke down and ‘Scoundrels’ (also played for Smurfpunx a couple of times: 87-12-12 & 88-04-02) didn’t show up…

A replacement was found in the band ‘C.O.D.A.’ (not the faintest idea anymore who they were).

I recall ‘Aphrodite’s Lawyer’ very well. This band from Alphen aan de Rijn (near Rotterdam) played complex, technical, inventive, arty stuff. I used to correspond with Daan, a nice and clever lad, and still have their demo… Daan/Daniel ‘Beef’ van der Velden did vocals & played guitar, Jeff was the drummer and Jao ‘Dealer’ Van de Langemaat plucked the bass.

pic from the booklet of the Als Je Haar Maar Goed Zat compilation (’92)

‘Rothead’ were Bruno Vandevyvere (vocals), Klaas Hardeman (bass), David Stubbe (drums) and Peter Vanthuyne (guitar). These guys were all in one way or another involved with the Vort’n Vis (early days). They only did 2 gigs though… They were heavily influenced by ‘Ripcord’. Read more on this in Klaas’ piece Bird Of Passage…

Brob

Ah yes, I remember this. The venue, the people, … Our demo brought us to Brob and Bruno. It was a wonderful time, a lot evolved around camarderie and a strong underground network. There was a downside but that’s part of the deal…  The bands that did actually show up, did a great job. I remember Bruno doing the best he could to make this thing work out. He had a tough job there. I had a great day, played a good show and loved the town also!

Jeff , ‘Aphrodite’s Lawyer’s drummer

 

(Pyrobolum #3)

additions wellcome!…