93-09-19 Eversor – Hiatus – Nations On Fire – Strength Of The Will

See: 93-09-17&18&19 5th Leed-festival (Intro & Incident)

After the rave the night before the day started with a breakfast…

Liège crusties (including Willy ‘Hiatus’) & Italian HC/punks (‘Eversor’) sharing the goodies (photo by Massimo Moscarelli)

Then gradually the ‘market’ started…

Probably the very first time that Jon ‘Active’ Elliott came over… / Alain of Nabate looking for trades (pics by Massimo Moscarelli)

This edition of the Leed festival was totally fucked up, the only reason why ‘N.O.F.’ played on Sunday was because Françoise [‘Hazel’ Lepers] and Wim [Vandekerckhove] came to my house to drag me along: I had no intention to come. Apparently a bus-load of Swiss chaos-punks thought it was a good idea to come up to Ieper that weekend and demonstrate the ‘Exploited’ version of anarchy. The whole Saturday they had been nagging about having no money to pay the entrance and that punk had to be free. But they did find it OK to drive their bus-wreck all the way to Ieper at 30 litres per 100 km and buy beer in the grocery-store around the corner. Just say that paying the entrance is not a priority in stead of lying not to have any money. Whatever, each hour things were getting less and less pleasant and by the evening they had picked out a few ‘victims’ to let he whole thing explode… Unfortunately for them, they had chosen Hans Verbeke as their target. Lesson # 1: never choose someone who will fight back without a problem and grew up in the streets… The “punks” started to hassle Chantal (Hans’ girlfriend at that time) so Hans grabs his baseball-bat from UJ’s car and wacks one of those guys over the head. This, of course, sets the whole thing ablaze with all crust-punks hearing that straight-edgers are beating up poor beer-drinking punks: total chaos. Hans and some of us walk in to the pub and barricade the door while some 20 rampaging and drunk crusties shouting murder and fire, trying to break down the door. Luckily the lads of ‘Doom’ were still sober and smarter than their adherents and drove Hans off in their van. Eternal thanks for that because otherwise things could’ve gotten really out of hand. While all this was going most people were in the big hall in the back. What I always disliked about this episode is that Bruno and Jan called this a minor incident, something to forget fast. Apparently it wasn’t necessary to remove the Swiss assholes or address the guys from ‘Hiatus’ who were on their side. It’s all a long time ago but it remains one of the all time lows of all these years at the V.V.

Jeroen Lauwers (see also the interview he did with Willy ‘Hiatus’)

‘N.O.F.’ played in their new line-up (announced in the newsletter). From April 1993 on that was: Wim Vandekerckhove (guitar; also ‘Blindfold’ vocalist’), Filip Devolder (who did the ‘Silent Water’ project/band; drums), Ed(ward) Verhaeghe (vocals) and Jeroen ‘Goofy’ Lauwers (bass).

‘Nations On Fire’ (photo by Massimo Moscarelli)

‘Eversor’, a band from Pesaro, started out as as a thrash metal-band in 1985 but by then they played heartfelt, melodic HC (they were compared with bands such as ‘Sensefield’ and ‘Lifetime’): Marco Morosini (bass), Lele Morosini (guitar & vocals) and Federico Sarti had replaced Enrico ‘Eric Lumen’ Giampaoli (drums). Later the brothers continued to play together in ‘The Miles Apart’. Marco also did a distro, called Cataclysm. The band came over again to play on 96-09-20.

‘Strength Of The Will’ had played here already on 92-09-06. Filip Staes (ex ‘Exhaustless Revolt’) played guitar, Jan Beckers sang, his brother Maarten played the drums. The bros were from the Tongeren area and Filip resisided in Hoboken, near Anwterp. The band disappeared when ‘Kindred’ started. Filip believes ‘S.O.T.W.’ played also with ‘Wheel Of Progress’ at the V.V. but I’ve no memories/indications of that.

After a “makeshift” ‘Hiatus’ (93-07-04), we got the ‘full blast’ treatment again. The set was probably mainly from the LP From Resignation…To Revolt, that was recorded in March (at Cats studio in Brugge) with Azill (guitar), Wills (vocals), Ben (drums), Phil (guitar) and Fred Alabas (bass). I think around that time Eric ‘React’ had the live split-tape (together with ‘Doom’; recordings from the gig at ‘La Zone’ in Liège 93-02-26) available. That was a benefit for the Flamands Roses [LGBTQIF]. The tracks for their split-7” with ‘Subcaos’ were recorded live in Brno (Czech Republic) on 93-06-20. 4 songs from the same gig were used on the Polish Bastards split-7” with ‘Fleas & Lice’ (Polish nazi skinheads attacked the band in Gdansk in June ‘93.) Their gig in Auch (France) on 93-08-17 was also recorded: Fred Jourdan put it out on tape (with live tracks of ‘Health Hazard’) under the name Don’t Think With Your Dick… Around that time there was also the split-7” with ‘Doom’ (Flat Earth recs).

Brob

I was on tour with ‘Eversor’ (‘Lumen’ wasn’t in the band anymore at that time, it was the Morosini brothers -Marco and Lele- and Federico). A rented van was our house. The day before they played near Stuttgart, then we travelled all the night toward Belgium. It was the longest travel of my life, like a journey to the moon. Distances were longer in those times. So we arrived at the place, I changed my T-shirt with an X-Force one (the comic) because of the X (as for SxE). But no one noticed it. I was just a guy with a comic T-shirt in a punk place. Absolutely no memory about the concert. I only remember the breakfast in the morning and the van that took the road towards home…

Massimo Moscarelli (Rome)

Playing at that fest was a big honour for us… At the time we were on our very first small tour abroad and the night before we played in Stuttgart with ‘4 Walls Falling’ so we drove all night to Ieper to be there from the very beginning. I remember many people from all over Europe and we were a bit scared to play after ‘Nations On Fire’ and ‘Hiatus’… Both bands had a killer live reputation. We took the stage to a smaller audience but still “big” for us at the time, and played a very tight set. Very few people knew us, our music back in that days was still crossover/thrash but I was suprpised a couple of people who were coming to see us, approached us. Of course we met Bruno for the first time… He was super nice as usual. I asked if we were supposed to do a soundcheck; he smiled and said “No soundcheck, this is a punkrock fest.”… I still remember it!!!

Marco Morosini, ‘Eversor’

additions wellcome!…

96-09-20 D.D.I. – Boycot – Eversor

Intro: 96-09-20&21&22 8^th Leed festival

‘Eversor’, a band from Pesaro, played heartfelt, melodic HC (their music was described as a mix of bands such as ‘Sensefield’, ‘Lifetime’, ‘Farside’and ‘Dag Nasty’). The backbone of the band was Marco Morosini (bass) & his brother Lele Morosini (guitar & vocals). I think Federico Sarti who played the drums during their first visit (93-09-19) was replaced by Valentino Benvenuti by then: someone named ‘Vale’ signed the guestbook. Valentino was on the recordings of the 7”s World Of Illusions & Time Goes By (both Jan. ‘95) and also on the (June 1996) recordings of the September LP. Marco also did a distro, called Cataclysm. Later the brothers continued to play together in ‘The Miles Apart’.

‘D.D.I.’s second appearance at the Vort’n Vis (after 95-09-16). The band consisted of the 2 bassists – Edo(ardo) Puglisi & Daniele ‘Lele’ Malabarba, Alessandro ‘Gallo’ (guitar; nowadays ‘Gallo’ works for Twilight Tattoo), Dario Quatrini (guitar), Gianpiero ‘Mila’ Milani (vocals) and Gio(vanni) Lazzaroni (drums). Edo left later because of civil service and Lenin of ‘Los Crudos’ joined (read below). The recordings of their 10” Pazzi Da Asporto (finished spring ’96) feautured Edo, Lele, Gio, Mila, Dario & Gallo. It was co-released by a bunch of European D.I.Y. labels & distros (even Tilt! contributed some funding). The original cover was a screen-printed envelope that contained a huge booklet. Great political fast HC with a playful twist! Extremely inspiring and super-energetic!

‘Boycot’ (from Alkmaar) started in ’95 with Jeroen Maas (bass) Eric-Jan (guitar) & Taco Rietveld (drums). Billy Kuiper (later also drums for ‘Distress’ and vocals for ‘Betercore’) was asked to do vocals and Pim Bakker (vocals; ex ‘C.K.N.’) joined a bit later. Most of them were also active (one way or another) in the ‘punk’ venue Parkhof. By the end of 1995 they had released their 1^st 7” called Only Stupid Bastards Help Epitaph (on Axiome prods – review in Tilt! #9: “Superfast HCpunk with a slight metal edge and biting vocals.”). During the spring of ’96 Lennaert Roomer (who played drums in Rich Militia’s ‘Wartorn’ earlier and later bass in ‘Distress’) replaced Eric-Jan on guitar. A bunch of split-7”s would follow (e.g. with our mates of ‘Insane Youth’ in 1997). Pim left in ’98 for personal reasons.

Brob

I was in ‘D.D.I.’ from the start (1992) until 1998. I didn’t play on the last LP (though most of the songs on that album were mine). I played the V.V. in ’95. We always played with 2 basses from 1993 until the end (’99). We had 4 bassists over the years. Edo left the band at the end of ‘96 or in the early ‘97…after our tour in Germany tour. Lenin joined us after touring with ‘Los Crudos’. We were in Belgium two times in 1996 (04-30 [Brob: I invited them for a concert at the Hogepont squat in Gent.] to 05-01), and Sep. 18/19/20). The tour in Germany was in 1997. When Dario left ‘D.D.I.’ he continued to be the band’s grapic designer. All our flyers were done by Dario (and also the book Make Music Not Money – A few years ago we did a little tour around Italy in squatted houses to promote that, so we played again as in the 90s!). ‘Gallo’s real name is Alessandro; he was called ‘Gallo’ (rooster) because he was a psychobilly in the late 80s, his hair was styled like Elvis Presley!!!

Daniele ‘Lele’ Malabarba

Pics courtesy of Dario Quatrini (‘D.D.I.’): ‘Gallo’ (1) – ‘Lele’ (2) – ‘Mila’ (3) [Sascha ‘Evilspeak’ May going beserk next to Edo] – Edo & Dario (4)

I started playing with ‘D.D.I.’ in 1993, when I was 16 and in highschool. At the time I was in the ‘Astro Zombie’s anarcho-collective/distro, which produced the band first 7” Fanculo I Suoni Puliti (Clear Sounds Fuck Off). I joined as a second bassist; the band was already playing in squats around Italy, so it was really like joining in the middle of the action. Soon we recorded the album Pazzi Da Asporto and also started our first gigs outside Italy. It may be that the first time at the V.V. [the year before this; 95-09-16] was also our first gig abroad, but maybe not. We then did also a tour in Germany and one in Spain, which was also my last with the band. At the time I was at university and it had become difficult to have enough time for both things. I have great memories of the concert and festivals at the Vort’n Vis but I can’t exactly distinguish memories from the two times we played there. What I remember most was the courtyard in the middle, with the vans and the sofas and the distro. I also remember when we cooked and sold pasta to everybody (Damn Italian Pastards [see photos below]) and I’m pretty sure that one concert we did more than half of the set playing hardrock classics (‘Black Sabbath’, ‘Iron Maiden’, …). For me these gigs were a great example of the sense of solidarity, passion and community that we shared in many squats around Europe, and they’re among my best memories of life with ‘D.D.I.’. This experience was a great moment of formation for me and even now that I do different things, these ideals are still with me; and I try as much as possible to put them into action also in very different situations.

Edoardo Puglisi

‘D.D.I.’s drummer Gio advertising their pasta…

graffiti somewhere at the V.V.

I joined ‘D.D.I.’ in the last year of the band (97-98) and we always played with 2 bassists. If I’m not mistaken we played at the V.V. in the winter of ‘97… [Brob: I have no record of that…]. I played there with ‘Los Crudos’ in 96.

Lenin Montes De Oca

I visited various gigs at the V.V., also the Leed festival in Sep. ‘94 & Sep. ’95 but not at this one in ’96… Patty Cracolici was the female singer in ‘D.D.I.’ on the last album (split with ‘Stalker’, 1998), together with Dimitri (guitar), Carlo (guitar) & Gigi (bass). That was the last line-up of the band (with some original members – but I don’t remember exactly who, it changed every 2 months…)

Piero Majocchi

When we got to the V.V. ‘Terror Tom’ (from Gent; with a Riot in a Nike-logo tattoo on his head), was standing outside because they wouldn’t let him in. He asked us if we couldn’t put him on the guest-list… Which we did and what the people of the V.V. didn’t like. Within 10 minutes there was a big fist-fight with ‘Terror Tom’ as the centre-piece… Not very clever? At one timepoint the V.V. stage collapsed underneath me…but I don’t remember if it was that night.

Bill ‘Boycot’

[Early on it looked like ‘Frammenti’ (from Torino) would tour with ‘D.D.I.’] I was the guitar-player in ‘Frammenti’. We never played in Belgium, we’ve been in Switzerland twice, in Germany, in France and Spain. The rest was Italy only… I remember I heard ‘Mila’ and Irith from ‘D.D.I.’ talking about you, Brob. The ‘D.D.I.’ – ‘Frammenti’ tour you mentioned, was – I think – in Switzerland and Germany during April 1997. It was organised by the band ‘Peace Of Mind’ from Göttingen. I do remember ‘D.D.I.’ playing in Belgium but never with us.

Pietro Cardona

My memories about the show we played at this fest are pretty confused due to the fact that Bruno (Genet recs) booked us 2 shows the same day (we were supposed to play another city with ‘Blindfold’ the day before but show was cancelled just 10 days before we left for the tour), the first one in Ieper and the second one in Gent @ the Frontline so we couldn’t enjoy the atmosphere at the Vort’n Vis fest, we played late afternoon opening the shows and there were only a few people – including the guys of ‘D.D.I.’, that we never met before that occasion. As usual everyone was very gentle with us, we had meal and drinks, but right after we finished our set, we just had the time to sell a couple of 7”s, have a beer and drive to Gent (where we had a fantastic gig maybe one of the best of that tour). I play in ‘Mannaia’ nowadays…

Marco Morosini (marcomorosini.com), ‘Eversor’ bassist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

96-09-20&21&22 8th Leed festival

Accounts of the actual festival-days can be accessed by clicking on the links below… My descent into hell had commenced a bit before this, I don‘t think I attended this fest (or not all of it); so not really sure about the playing-order…:

96-09-20: D.D.I. (Ita), Boycot (Nl), Eversor (Ita)

96-09-21: P.A.I.N. (UK), Witchknot (UK), Quarantine (UK), Bad Influence (Bel), State Of Filth (UK), Kirous (Fin), Carcer Molochi (Bel)

– Clutch Assembly (Bel) was invited to set of a techno night/party

96-09-22: Strain (Can), Ananda (Fra), Systral (Ger), Elision (Ger), Sektor (Bel), Vitality (Bel), Family Of Dog (Bel)

‘Portobello Bones’ (from France) were announced at some timepoint but I think they didn’t come… There was a photo of the Berliner band ‘Y’ playing in the V.V. barn in Sascha May’s zine Evilspeak or was that from a gig earlier that year…?

Some pics courtesy of Dario Quatrini (‘D.D.I.’) – taken by the members of the band:

distro-stalls in the pub (first evening) – Joeri Hoste, Jeroen Lauwers, etc.

AZ distro from Pavia (with the charming Irith Davidzon on the left)

The ‘D.D.I.’ gang cooking dinner in the yard, DIY-style (L => R: Mila – Luca – Gio)

‘D.D.I.’s Gallo taking a break in front of the famous corner-shop…

93-09-17&18&19 5th Leed-festival (Intro & Incident)

This is a precursory page to the posts on the 5^th Leed-festival. There was quite some commotion and it led to a substantial evaluation of the Vort’n Vis’ policies…

from the preceding V.V. newsletter

 Accounts of the actual festival will be posted later:

17 sep ’93: Fingerprint (Fra), De Kift (Nl), Beerepoot Brothers (Nl)

18 sep ’93: Health Hazard (UK), Bambix (Nl), Witchknot (UK), Doom (UK), 6 Feet Over (Fra), Because (Lux), As Usual (Bel), Plum (Bel)

19 sep ’93: Nations On Fire (Bel), Strength Of The Will (Bel), Eversor (Ita), Hiatus (Bel)

————————-

I don’t think ‘Viktor’s Hofnarren’ actually played… It’s the evening that Hans [Verbeke] needed to be rescued by ‘Doom’!

Bruno Vandevyvere

‘Viktor’s Hofnarren’, squatters (autonomous centre Schrottbar) from Biel/Bienne (Switzerland) played anarchopunk with a crusty edge. (Later on they did a split-LP together with ‘Jobbykrust’ from Belfast out on Maximum Voice.) They were: Steph(ane) Guillet (bass/vocals; Panikeshi zine & distro), Niggu Rimann (drums), Bänz (guitar), Annette Wagener/Suri Dawicki (vocals) and Tez (vocals). Annette later joined the Groninger band ‘P.C.P.’. Steph & Annette were also running Panik Bourgeoise (concerts, zine).

They’d come all the way from their hometown for the fest together with a whole bunch of friends. After all this time it isn’t clear anymore whether they were invited to play or just wanted to see the bands. I guess ‘V.H.’ and their mates got rather drunk pretty fast (or they arrived drunk/stoned). Their friends also didn’t feel like they had to pay entrance… This attitude certainly annoyed most of the V.V. collaborators. There was some friction between them and SxE people (to say the least) but the way I remember it is that the main issue was that they didn’t feel like contributing their share to the organisation of the event and the fees of the bands. The fact they were so wasted and behaving irresponsibly amplified everything…

At some timepoint V.V. collaborator Hans (perhaps provoked by the animosity) supposedly (tried to) hit someone with a baseball-bat (actually it was a table-leg; I didn’t see it happen with my own eyes) for attempting to sneak in for free… He was “physically attacked from various sides”. Things were threatening to go out of control and it was decided it was best for him to leave in order to remove the fuse from the powder-keg… He had to be more or less secretly evacuated from the V.V. premises and was driven out of town in the van of the band ‘Doom’…

The whole incident drove some of the collaborators to tears for realising there were people who didn’t value their hard work and that some (who came from far away) couldn’t care less that there was a huge risk the autonomous centre could collapse (organisationally or as a result of being shut down by the authorities). Personally, I was disappointed and angry because I had already seen it happen when the 1^st venue where I organised – in my hometown (De Marbel) – got shut down…

All this (together with previous) lead to the V.V. ‘shit-workers’ making up some sort of pamphlet calling for mutual respect, and listing some ‘rules’…which on it’s turn raised some questions with certain factions of not being ‘anarchist’ enough, etc.

Some people (squatters) from Gent and Liège even thought they were going to be refused entrance (Willy of ‘Hiatus/‘Unhinged’ wrote me that at that time). Of course that wasn’t the case… The 1^st issue of Fifi (Vort’n Vis zine), May ‘94, states: “The Swiss assholes of Zürich (…) are no longer allowed in the Vort’n Vis. Reason: violence, intimidation and a broken window.”

Brob

————————-

Quite a lot has been published on the matter. Here’s a few bits – not to stir things up after all these years but for history’s sake (so that perhaps a younger generation will learn of it)…

This excerpt from the Swiss zine No Sanctuary #22 gives a rather detailed account …

This is the initial bit by Steph of ‘V.H.’ in No Sanctuary #21.

Another bit from No Sanctuary #22 shows that ‘V.H.’ had caused similar problems in Germany.

Pamphlet issued by the V.V. collaborators after this event.

Letter by Willy ‘Hiatus’ & response by Vort’n Jan

Willy’s intro to his zine Rabougri (March ’94)

————————-

Niggu (‘V.H.’ drummer) sings for ‘Unhaim’ nowadays. They released an excellent LP… [Brob: I tried hard to get in touch with anyone of V.H.’ but didn’t succeed…]

Pablo, Resistance prods, Biel

————————-

Despite all the commotion, numerous people enjoyed themselves (crowd-shot by Karl Penando); in the foreground: Kurt Deprez (‘Shortsight’), Bruno Vandevyvere (Genet recs), Pierre Anne (‘6 Feet Over’) – in the back: Rudy Penando