98-04-11 Sorehead – Lifecycle – D.S.A. – Striker – Kalashnikov – Ignominy – Powers Of Discipline – Inside

The V.V. notes mentioned that ‘Lorre’ (Laurent Peene) & ‘Sientje’ (Nico Sinnaeve) were on bar-duties that day. The bands were mostly, if not all, locals. It probably wasn’t an announced gig (because there’s no other traces) but more like a get-together…

‘Lifecycle’ (‘new-school’ HC – H8000 but not with that typical sound, Ieper/Kortijk region) was one of the ‘house-bands’ of the V.V. in that periode (97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-08-17, may ’98-05-10). The line-up: Sofie Vantomme (vocals; co-founder Vincent Merveillie soon went on to sing for ‘Spirit Of Youth’), Karel Deweerdt (guitar), Steve Noyelle (guitar), Jan Volckaert (drummer of ‘Resist The Pain’; was stand-in a few times for Jan ‘Relle’ Verhelst ex ‘Convict’) and Jurgen Degryse (bass; later there were a few others). In a letter from May ’98, Sofie mentions that their bassist Jurgen Degryse had quit the band. His last show was in that month. He was replaced by Maarten Kinet (who later played for ‘AmenRa’)… Later the band had a few more changes…

‘Sorehead’ (from Ieper) played the V.V. a bunch of times (see: 97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-10-25, 97-12-26, 98-05-10). They did a 5-track demo in 1997. Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene did vocals; the others were Dries Verclyte (bass), Pieter Derycke (drums), Pieter Desmyter (guitar) and Jan Lazeure (guitar). ‘Lorre’ died in 2003.

‘D.S.A.’ (Ieper area) – old-school NY Hardcore – was the band of Nico ‘Sientje’ Sinnaeve (drums; later ‘Retaliate’), Frederik Vanhee (bass; later ‘Retaliate’), Davy Verhoye (R.I.P.)/Maarten Verschaeve (vocals) and a guy called Pieter-Jan (Vandenberghe?; guitar)… Have a look at 97-06-27, 97-07-12, 97-10-25, 97-12-26, 98-08-16 for their other V.V. shows

‘Striker’ (H8000 metalcore) was a band that Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene joined but he didn’t sing here fro them yet… The rest of the line-up: ‘Gerre’ Gerald Goedhart (guitar; later guitarist of ‘Core of Anger’), ‘Tomme’ Tom Bordeaux (guitar), PJ Vandamme (bass; later guitarist of ‘Retaliate’ & ‘Outcast’) & David ‘Terre’ Termote (drums). They released a demo entitled High Hopes For Nothing in 1999. Check also 99-11-27 & 2000-09-16.

‘Ignominy’ was a vegan straight-edge band; their guitarist Ward Dufraimont went on to play for ‘Firestone’. The others in the band were Ward Cecat (bass), Wouter Debonnet (drums; also ‘Rhymes Of Destruction’), ‘Jakke’ Jacob Vanluchene (guitar) & David Derammelaere (vocals). They recorded a demo (A Cry For Justice) early ’98.

‘Kalashnikov’ (metalcore from Diksmuide, so also H8000) would be back at the V.V. on 99-11-27 & 2000-09-16. The band was Thijs Plovie (guitar), Dave Willaert (bass), Tom Verheecke (vocals) & Bart Gouwy (drums).

‘Powers Of Discipline’ had the bassist of ‘Minotaur’ and ‘Archaï’ in their ranks.

‘Inside’ was an emo band linked with people from the first line-up of ‘Minotaur’

Brob

I can remember vaguely that we did this gig with the bands but nothing more…really.

Gerald Goedhart

I recall we did a ‘Merauder’ cover: the vocalist at the time sang the lyrics of the verse and chorus the other way round and people came up to me after the show saying that the new song resembled ‘Merauder’ a lot. (smile) It was the day we stole ‘Sorehead’s singer.  Before him we tried out some local guys: the first one was in ‘Evangelist’ [Frederik ‘Zwartn’ Deswarte], the second one couldn’t keep rhythm and became our roadie [Vincent Degryse]. ‘Lorre’ joined by the end of ’98: we played the old set a few times with him and then restarted with new tracks. He was one the demo.

PJ Vandamme

We always said ‘D.S.A.’ was short for ‘Download Society Agression’ but in fact it was more like ‘Dikke Stront Affaire’ [“a huge load of crap”] from the very beginning. ‘Sien’ and myself started ‘Edgecrusher’ to take a totally different direction (thrash-metal). ‘Retaliate was supposed to be a side-project; ‘Edgecrusher’ came earlier.

Freddy Vanhee

I only remember I liked ‘Striker’.

Wouter Debonnet

I remembered little of that show but a fellow band-member gave me some info. The bands were all just starting out; it was a matinee type of thing in the afternoon (so hardly any people whowed up – the same day there was a mega-cool show in Wevelgem with ‘Sektor’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Arkangel’, etc.), organised by ‘Schmitters’ [Stijn Desmyter], in the Vort’n Vis pub. We played with our original line-up: Wouter, Jacob, Ward, David & myself.

Ward Cecat

I set up a few gigs at the Vort’n Vis, often on request of the bands themselves… Most of them were Belgian. My principle was that we have some ‘home-grown’ gems that earn a stage and I wanted something other than ‘Madball’ clones with a fucked-up attitude. I booked bands that I could trust, knew and had seen live. I also always tried to mix styles to avoid monotonous shows.

Stijn Desmyter

‘Powers Of Discipline’ was Alexander Ronsse on guitar and some guy named Filiep or Philippe on drums. Helmert Decavele was also our bassist (‘Minotaur’ & ‘Archaï’). He replaced someone else, can ‘t remember his name. I might have rehearsed with ‘P.O.D.’ once. Long time ago…

Jeroen Algoet, ‘Minotaur’ & ‘Archaï’ drummer

Maarten Byttebier was the drummer for ‘Inside’. He was one of the vocalists of ‘Minotaur’ in the beginning…

Bram Algoet, guitarist of ‘Minotaur’, (occasionally) ‘Archaï’ & ‘The Curse’

‘Powers Of Discipline’ was me (bassist of ‘Archaï’ & ‘Minotaur’) as a singer, Alexander Ronsse on guitar, Jelle Vandepitte (bass) & Dimitri Dias (drums).

‘Inside’ was Maarten Byttebier (singer of ‘Minotaur’ in its early days), his brother Thomas Byttebier on bass, Dimitri Declerq and Bart Wattez on guitar. Natascha Jaumain & Amber Omez were singing.

Bram Algoet wasn’t part of ‘Archaï’ [he was an occasional stand-in: see 99-11-27]; that was Brecht Algoet (guitar), Jeroen Algoet (drums), Liesbeth Meyfroid (vocals), Helmert Decavele (bass) & Dimitri Declerq guitar.

Helmert Decavele

additions wellcome!…

2000-09-16 Kingpin – Outcast – Legacy – 187 – Striker – Kalashnikov – Retaliate

The flyer indicates this one was organised by Frederic Plets (guitarist of ‘Retaliate’) & Bert Hoofd (guitarist of ‘One Outta Six’, ‘All My Sins’, …)

‘Kingpin’ formed in the summer of 1998 when: Sim Meerseman (guitar; also ‘Spirit Of Youth’), ‘Vinnie’ Vincent Merveillie (drums; singer of ‘Spirit Of Youth), Clovis ‘Vez’ Segers (bass; ‘Natural Order’, ‘Congress’) & Pedro Fioen (guitar, ex ‘Spineless’) started jamming. Joost Noyelle (‘Congress’/ ‘Liar) joined the band, doing vocals. They played “groovy and catchy New York HC” (references to ‘Cro-Mags’, ‘Leeway’, etc.). In 2000 they recorded a 5-song demo. Their first gig was at the GoodLife Fest in July 2000. They also played at the IeperFest in 2001. Hans Verbeke released the Bad Habits Die Hard 10” on his label Pyrorex (2002).

‘187’ (or One Eight Seven; from Ingelmunster / Meulebeke) played “deathcore”. Kathy Verhelle (vocals; later replaced by a guy called Nico), Steve Vanhoutte (bass; later vocals for ‘All My Sins’), Wesley Gielen (drums), Steven De Backer (guitar) & ‘Rumme’ Rumminick Vanluchene (guitar). Some of their tracks were recorded live at the Animal Truth Benefit Festival in Eeklo (98-02-22). They did a demo in 1999. Some of them are currently still active in ‘Rock Stovrie’, a (hard) rock cover band, quite popular in Flanders. Kathy & ‘Lenny’ Wouter Cael (‘Sektor’) had a project going called ‘Edge Of Life’ for which they used a drum-computer. Kathy’s brother Geoffrey Verhelle (vocalist of ‘Retaliate’) was also involved.

‘Retaliate’ (from the Ieper area) started out early 2000 (first gig @ V.V. on 2000-08-17) and played brutal metal-core (“a mix of ‘Merauder’, ‘Hatebreed’ & ‘Bolt Thrower’). The members were: Frederik ‘Freddy’ Vanhee (bass; ex ‘D.S.A.’), Geoffrey Verhelle (vocals), Thomas Allegaert (vocals), Nico ‘Sientje’ Sinnaeve (drums; ex ‘D.S.A.’), Nick Rebry (guitar) & Frederik Plets (guitar). They released a demo-tape entitled W.A.R. in the summer of 2000. In 2002 they did a split with ‘Outcast’: Hate Injected (DHM recs).

‘Outcast’ (from Gullegem, the Kortrijk area) started out as “a heavy NY-styled mosh-band”. Later on they took a different singer and played death-metal; also dubbed as “deathcore” or “tuff guy hardcore death-metal mosh” (They “used to be an all straight-edge band”.). They played the V.V. already on 98-04-26. Around this time the people in the band were Tim Vanglabeke & Wesley Bral (guitar), Nick Vanglabeke (drums), Nico Degroote (bass) and ‘Gerre’ (vocals; quit halfway ’99; replaced by Pieter Vanham and Gerrit Van Horebeek who sang for the band briefly). They featured on a 3-way split, entitled Sweets For My Sweet: Chapter I (that was released on Lowlife recs in 2000). Their style “changed from NYHC to more death-metal influenced grind”.

‘Striker’ had aslo played the V.V. previously (98-04-11 & 99-11-27). They consisted of Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene (vocals; ex ‘Sorehead, R.I.P.), ‘Gerre’ Gerald Goedhart (guitar; later guitarist of ‘Core of Anger’), ‘Tomme’ Tom Bordeaux (guitar; later ‘One Outta Six’ & ‘The Boss’), PJ Vandamme (bass; later guitarist of ‘Retaliate’ & ‘Outcast’) & David ‘Terre’ Termote (drums). They released a demo entitled High Hopes For Nothing in 1999.

‘Kalashnikov’ was a “H8000 metalcore” band from Diksmuide. They had played at the V.V. before (99-11-27). Thijs Plovie played guitar, Dave Willaert was the bassist, Tom Verheecke sang and Bart Gouwy hit the drums.

No idea about ‘Legacy’…

Brob

‘Legacy’ [“Göteburg influenced metalcore”] were the band of mates of Thomas Allegaert; from Ledegem I believe…

Nico Sinnaeve, ‘Retaliate’ drummer

We played the V.V. a few times with ‘Outcast’ (in the barn – with a striptease – and in the pub). Also with ‘Whatever It Takes’ later on. And I set up a few gigs myself aswell.

Pieter Vanham, ‘Outcast’

We still have a video of us playing here… I remember that our vocalist at the time (Nico) had to perform a small bodyslam on a totally pissed guy (a Vort’n Vis regular) that was constantly annoying – wanted to grab the mike and that sort of stuff. A bit of a sad story. I believe he died shortly after…

Our first line-up was with Nico Degroote on bass (who later also played for ‘Whatever It Takes’). We switched vocalist and bassists a couple of times, also had a few second guitarists. Nico, Nick and myself were already doing things in ‘95 but the name ‘Outcast’ (We wanted to sound different from the H8000 bands.) came into existence in ‘97 when Nick bought his drumkit (before he was hitting pots & pans), then we started doing shows. We were the first to play slow beatdown in West-Flanders; because of the evolution of Nick’s drum-style we sounded more and more extreme, and the speed went up, the breakdowns stayed. We’ve never been an outspokenly SxE band – we wanted to be different from the rest of the scene – but we were for a while and then SoberMind wanted to release our material. All of a sudden there were Xs next to our name (not what we’d planned). Nico wrote some lyrics and one was about SxE but we’ve never been militant about it. But we’ve always been veggie.

Our first V.V. show was in ’97 (NOT 97-06-27), upstairs in the rehearsal-room with ‘D.S.A.’, ‘Spineless’ & ‘Firsetone’ – the complete Kortrijk ‘chapter’. I believe it was a Sunday in October ’97 for the birthday of ‘D.S.A.’s Freddy & Sientje; shortly after we became good friends with them (we did a show in Gullegem together)… We did a first demo in ’97, for Esophagus recs (Sven ‘Aborted’ [De Caluwe]). The second was is ’99 (who was planned to be released on SoberMind). Then Gerrit left and we got another singer (Nico Ruysbergh), what made us sound even more extreme. After we did that thing on Lowlife (2000) everybody but myself & Nick quit. Enter Pieter and Gerrit Van Horebeek. They both sounded good so we couldn’t choose. That’s when we did that ‘striptease’ show and after that Gerrit Van Hoorebeek left…

Interesting perhaps: the band ‘Retaliate’ from Ieper is named after our demo Total Retaliation…

Tim Vanglabeke, ‘Outcast’

About a year after our first appearance we played at the Vort’n Vis again. During our performance ‘Lorre’ set the place on fire and at one timepoint there were so many people on stage that we ended up playing in front of the stage.

Thijs Plovie, ‘Kalashnikov’ guitarist

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:

additions wellcome!…

99-11-27 Congress – Solid – Lifecycle – Striker – Kalashnikov – New Innocence – Archaï

2 more “brand-new” bands were announced. On the poster there were 3 extra. The person who organised this was ‘xSchmitterSx’ (Stijn Desmyter from Oostnieuwkerke).

H8000 metalcore band ‘Striker’ consisted of Laurent ‘Lorre’ Peene (vocals; ex ‘Sorehead, R.I.P.), ‘Gerre’ Gerald Goedhart (guitar; later ‘Core of Anger’), ‘Tomme’ Tom Bordeaux (guitar; later ‘One Outta Six’), PJ Vandamme (bass; later guitarist of ‘Retaliate’) & David ‘Terre’ Termote (drums). They released a demo entitled High Hopes For Nothing in 1999. I believe they had already played the V.V. on 98-04-11 and came over a few times more…

‘Solid’ had already played the V.V. 95-08-18 with Dominiek ‘Dompie’ Denolf (guitar) and Frederik Denolf (drums), Kris Casier (bass) and ‘Sid’ Giovanni Debruyne (vocals). Their CD Darkside Moments (released in ’97 by the Danish label Diehard Music Worldwide) was recorded with Jim (from Limburg) singing. It was described as death-metal. I believe at some point they also had ‘Wulf’, ‘Deformity’s bassist, doing vocals. ‘Sid’ returned to the band after the turn of the century…

Being a local band ‘Lifecycle’ played the V.V. quite a few times (97-06-27 / 98-05-10 /98-08 / 99-06-25 / 99-10-31). They had quite a few different drummers and bassists over the years. Sofie Vantomme was the steady vocalist by then and together with guitarists Karel Deweerdt & Steve Noyelle she formed the core of the band.

‘Congress’ recorded Angry With The Sun (released in ‘98) with Michael Pintelon as second guitarist. Stake Through The Heart (2000) was with Clovis ‘Vez’ Segers (bass; ‘Natural Order’), Pedro Fioen (2^nd guitar; ‘Spineless’) and Tom Claus (vocals; ‘Family Of Dog’ – he played the first time live with Congress on the GoodLife Fest in July 2000). The split-CD with ‘Mindsnare’ (99) featured the original line-up (UxJx – Ilja – ‘Josh’ – Pierre).

‘Kalashnikov’ was a “H8000 metalcore” band from Diksmuide.

All I know about ‘Archaï’ is that they were featured on the Overdrive 20 Year Tribute Compilation (Midas productions 2002). Metal, I guess… The poster mentions they were from the H8000 area.

‘New Innocence’… anyone?

Brob

Jim was the 2^nd singer of ‘Solid’. Actually not a story to be proud of… We got the offer from the guy of the studio where all H8000 bands were reording (Tony [De Block] of Midas studios). He asked us if we were interested in releasing our first full CD on a sub-label of Nuclear Blast called Diehard (from Denemark), who had already approached ‘Liar’ before (but they didn’t do it). When they did the proposal to us, we were promised a decent promotion, wide distribution, a big studio-budget, etc. so of course we were impressed. When the recordings were finished the boss of the label didn’t approve of the vocals: if we weren’t going to do anything about it, the CD wasn’t goinng to be released. Then we chose for Jim, a guy from the Limburg scene who was touring with ‘Shaft’ as a roadie. The vocals for all songs were re-recorded and the CD got released: Darkside Moments. Jim was studying psychology in Gent so we would rehearse in West-Flanders. When he his studies didn’t work out, it became impossible to rehearse (him living on the other side of the country). So that ended. We continued ‘Solid’ with ‘Deformity’s bassist ‘Wulf’ [Kristof Dewulf] doing vocals and a second full CD was recorded. The guy of Midas studios was gonna release it himself but he suddenly blew the deal and ‘Solid’ broke up. Later we re-started the band with our original singer Sid and released that CD Total Rush on a hardcore label (RPP, Released Power Productions, ran by Alain [Herszaft] (singer of ‘Out For Blood’ [and of ‘Mental Disturbance’ in the 80s] from Brussels). That CD has 5 new songs who sounded ‘stoner meets New York hardcore’. Quite a lot of gigs followed but we had to quit after a year (because of my hearing-problems after 15 years without earplugs in front of loud amps). When I got used to playing with professional earplugs, we started ‘Blood Redemption’…

Dominiek ‘Dompie’ Denolf

‘Kalashnikov’ was started around 1995 by 4 schoolmates (Thijs Plovie – guitar, Dave Willaert – bass, Bart Gouwy – drums, Tom Verheecke – vocals), influenced by H8000-bands. A few months later we did our first gig supporting ‘Jigsaw’ and ‘Congress’ at the 4AD (Diksmuide). The following years we played together with bands such as ‘Congress’, ‘Liar’, ‘Vitality’, ‘Solid’,’ Sektor’, etc. At the Langemark Hardcore event in 1998 we got to know ‘Lorre’ of ‘Sorehead’ and ended up at the Vort’n Vis. A small venue and a super-enthusiastic audience, that’s what we remember. ‘Lorre’ sang along during our cover of ‘Liar’s Blade and there was some serious mosging going on (on stage and in the pit). ‘Striker’, ‘Lifecycle’ and ‘Solid’ also played, but ‘Congress’ ruled that day! We returned to the V.V. 2000-09-16. because we were still young and didn’t have a driver’s licence, we never made it to the Vort’n Vis to see other bands.

Thijs Plovie

‘Archaï’ evolved from ‘Minotaur’ (which was actually started as a metalcore band but went on to play more ‘real’ metal). There was’t actually 100% agreement about that within the band and that resulted in a kind of lack of direction aan richting in the end we quit. Soon after we started ‘Archaï’: the drummer, guitarist & bassist of ‘Minotaur’, guitarist of ‘Inside’ and female vocals. Metalcore was the intention. ;-)

Jeroen Algoet, ‘Minotaur’ & ‘Archaï’ drummer

Thomas Maeseele was the bassist of ‘Archaï’. I sometimes replaced him but I never played the V.V. with them.

Bram Algoet, guitarist of ‘Minotaur’, (occasionally) ‘Archaï’ & ‘The Curse’

Bram Algoet wasn’t part of ‘Archaï’ [He says he was an occasional stand-in.]; that was Brecht Algoet (guitar), Jeroen Algoet (drums), Liesbeth Meyfroid (vocals), Helmert Decavele (bass) & Dimitri Declerq (guitar).

I believe Bram is mixing things up (possibly with ‘The Seven Ride’); there were a lot of side-projects going on. My dad was janitor at the local primary school and many a band used its old garage: ‘Archaï’, ‘Minotaur’, ‘Inside’, ‘Powers Of Discipline’, ‘The Seven Ride’, projects with ‘Ringo’ & ‘Herre’ (Christophe Herreman). I believe the basis of ‘Amen-Ra’ was also laid there…

Helmert Decavele

 additions wellcome!…