94-10-22 Hiatus – Insane Youth – Totaal Marginaal – Nahende Vernichtung – Skatta – Muffie Puffies – Convicts

Pure Chaos Tour (interview by Henk Loobuyck for Fifi #4)

The people who set this up called it the ‘Pure Kajos Tour’. It was meant to be a ‘benefit’ to gather some money for their ‘organisation’ to try and get an alternative for ‘t Clichée, a pub annex venue (where they’d done gigs for bands such as ‘Citizen Fish’, ‘Contropotere’, etc.) in Sint-Niklaas that got sold so they could no longer use it. The group was a loose collective mainly consisting of the people in the bands ‘Insane Youth’ & ‘Totaal Marginaal’. The bands playing here were all Belgian.

One of ‘Insane Youth’s many appearances at the V.V. First time was a month before at the Leed festival. Being from the Sint-Niklaas area and supporters of ‘t Clichée, they had to play here aswell, of course. The band consisted of Steve ‘Stiv’ Descamps (vocals), Thomas ‘Tomaz’ Van Rumst (bass), Jan ‘Fons’ Wuytack (drums; he replaced this guy named ‘Smet’) and Tim De Baere (guitar). Vanessa Hoskens was the 2^nd vocalist at some timepoint. Stef De Leersnijder (who’s in ‘Visions Of war’ with Steve nowadays) was briefly in the band aswell. Their music could be labeled as crust-core. At that moment they hadn’t released anything yet, I think. Nice guys with their hearts on the right place. Later they did a presentation in my zine Tilt! (#9) and I remember doing an interview for Profane Existence #35 with them…

‘Totaal Marginaal’ – another band from Sint-Niklaas – were Tim Audenaert (vocals), Wouter (guitar), Mieke (bass) and Pim (drums). They played punk-crust and did a tape entitled Abuse Of Music.

‘Nahende Vernichtung’ (“imminent destruction”; from Beernem) played “gruff, heavy, Swedish influenced; crust-core-punk”. Don’t know if the 1^st vocalist ‘Lazy’ was still in the band then. It might’ve been Rik & Paul singing. Second guitarist Wouter had left in ’92… I think the band here must’ve been Paul Lamont (bass, replaced Stefan; later ‘Hitch’, ‘Thee Plague Of Gentlemen’, ‘Waldorf’), Rik Vandenbruwaene (guitar) and William ‘Willie’ Maes (drums). In ’98 (after Paul quit) they recorded for a split-7” with ‘The Barjackers’. On the Vertigo 7” that Tim Leten put out on his label Filth Ear recs in the noughties, there was a new vocalist (Ward).

‘Muffie Puffies’ – from Lokeren – were the band of Christophe De Keukelaere (nowadays in an ambient duo ‘Tantrack’). He recalls: >> ‘Muffie Puffies’ were Klaas Arbyn (vocals); Joris de Fré (guitar); Michael Mauro (drums); Filip Van Pollaert (bass) and myself (guitar/vocals) offered own compositions such as Animals Have The Right To, Artificial World, Nuclear Waste, I’m Free… We also did Police State (a ‘Disorder’ cover). When we split up (around ’96), I started a solo-project – mainly crust/grindcore (some covers like Police Bastard by ‘Doom’ & Warsystem by ‘Anti-Cimex’. I still have rehearsal-recordings (tape) but the sound-quality is not that good… <<

‘Hiatus’ (Liège) line-up here was the one with Jonas on bass, besides Willy (vocals), Ben (drums), Phil (guitar) and Azill (guitar). The period before the release of the El Sueño De La Razon Produce Monstruos LP.

‘Hiatus’; photos by Wim De Leersnijder (1) & Piero Majocchi (2)

At that time ‘Skatta’ (from Antwerp) were Mukti Gabriels (guitar; later ‘Tachyon’, etc.), Zen Deklerk (bass), Mario ‘Junior’ Middendorp (vocals) and ‘Tile’ (bass). They played rough hardcore-punk with rather simple but direct lyrics (e.g. Bont Past Geen Mens; “Fur Doesn’t Fit Anybody”).

‘Skatta’; pics courtesy of Zen Deklerk

Around ’95 Zen & Mukti did a rap-project called ‘Antwerp Attitude’ (see tape-cover):

Can’t remember anymore who ‘Convicts’ were…

Brob

What I can remember from that concert is that we we were not too drunk and played a rather tight set. Later we played the Vort’n Vis on another occasion with ‘Hiatus’ and a band with a female singer (forgot the name, but I recall they did a cover of We’re The Kids In America [Brob: ???] …

Christophe De Keukelaere, ‘Muffie Puppies’

Pure chaos , that gig… Can ‘t remember much about the other bands. Some names sound very familiar though. I believe we regularly shared the stage with some of them. About our performance: that was in our ‘disguise’ period (haha) … Balaclavas and scarfs… Sweating like a horse!!! There was also some pretty ‘violent’ dancing going on… Gregor [‘Terror’ Engelen; plays in the ‘Antwerp Gipsy Ska Orkestra’ with Mukti nowadays] and Mad Fred [who used to be in ‘Brutal Society’, runs the autonomous centre Antifa-brick in Antwerp nowadays] were there, hehe, and that were their wild years! Anyway , we played damn hard and without compromise. The audience (the few that could handle it anyway) were merrily slamming into one and other, much to the dismay of the ‘nice’ fans. We just couldn’t be bothered then… Let’s say we held a pretty radical vision at that time… Perhaps still… ;-) Zen has great pics of ‘Skatta’ on stage (in full action and in full ‘regalia’)…

Mukti Gabriels, ‘Skatta’

I remember that period and that festival as being fantastic but to be honest nothing more than that. :-) Our demo was a DI.Y. release.

Tim Audenaert, ‘Totaal Marginaal’

The only thing I can remember is that we were pretty impressed by ‘Hiatus’, who played right after us. I left my distortion-pedal on stage then, so I think someone in ‘Hiatus’ went home happily. I believe we played in the pub, not in the ‘barn’ in the back. The gig went reasonably okay, even if I had to play on a hideously ugly white five-string bass because my own had gone to smithereens.

Paul Lamont, ‘Nahende Vernichtung’

‘Convicts’ were from Stekene, if I’m not mistaken… One thing I do know, is that Tim and I interviewed Willy ‘Hiatus’ upstairs (for the zine of an American friend of Tim), with wine and beer. Haaa the days ;-)

Steve, ‘Insane Youth’ vocalist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…