This was a benefit for Dirk Van Alboom (guitarist of ‘Time Out’)’s wife and kid.. He died on stage of the Vort’n Vis during their gig on 97-09-19 (28 years old; °69-02-07). There was a similar event @ Sojo in Leuven on 98-03-14.
‘Katastrophobia’ (“Nihilist Punx Against Better Propsects”) were mates from the Gent squat-scene: ‘Leffe’ (guitar; ex ‘Chronic Disease’, ‘P.J.D.’), Stef ‘Irritant’ Heeren (drums; also ‘Counter-Attack), Gratiën Versypt (vocals) and Nico Van Der Eeken (bass). Leffe’ & Gratiën were also in ‘4 Minute Warning’ before. ‘Kata’ had played the V.V. before (97-02-28). In the summer of ’97 they recorded (at Patrick Delabie’s 195 studio) for a 7” that came out on Nabate. Their next 7” (Homo Morticinus) was released by Morning Star and their LP (Age Of Aqvarius) by both labels.
‘Insane Youth’, a crust-core band from Sint-Niklaas, were: Jan ‘Fons’ Wuytack (drums) [originally a guy named ‘Smet’], Tim De Baere (guitar) (briefly also Stef De Leersnijder), Thomas ‘Tomaz’ Van Rumst (bass) and Steve ‘Stiv’ Descamps (vocals). Vanessa Hoskens was the 2nd vocalist for a while. They did an auto-produced split-7″ (with the Dutch ‘Boycot’) in 1997. Nice guys with their hearts on the right place. I remember doing an interview for Profane Existence #35 with them in Tomaz’ room in Gent – great afternoon. They played the V.V. a bunch of times: 94-09-16, 94-10-22,95-09-16, 96-05-19, 97-10-28, …
‘Charlie Don’t Surf’ came from Leuven and surroundings. The band consisted of Kurt De Bont (drums), Roberto Gasparini (bass; also did some zines), Gert Goris (vocals), Kurt Van Asselberghs (guitar) and Philippe Anthonis (guitar). They played melodic HC/punk-rock. Their 7” Six Songs To Die For was released by Funtime recs, Kurt DB’s own Hageland Strikes Back and Tim Leten’s Filth-Ear distribution (in ‘98). In 1999 they did a split-CD with ‘End Of Ernie’ (on Funtime recs & Hageland Strikes Back). They played again at the Leed festival (98-09-18).
‘The End Of Ernie’ (Heist-Op-Den-Berg) play(ed) up-tempo, “in-your-face” HC/punk (Some Dutchies described them once as “Flemish frites-punk, fast, hard and not very gentle”.); the band still exists but there were quite a few line-up changes. They had a demo and besides the split-CD mentioned above (‘EO.E.’s line-up on that was: ‘Web’ & Geert – guitar, Johan – drums, Werner – bass), they also had some tracks on a split-7” with ‘D.D.I.’ & some others in 1999, and on the ALF-benefit compilation Hitters And Runners (2002). Their vocalist is Luc Ceulemans (owner of record-store Lost Culture Records).
The (garage-punk band from Aarschot) ‘Bruce’ – with Bart Jozef Robeyns (bass), Wim Asselberghs (guitar/vocals) & Peter Tielemans (drums) – released their first album The Vaticano Trail in 1997. I believe Kurt De Bont invited them because one of the other bands couldn’t make it. On the alternative flyer ‘The End Of Ernie’ is replaced by locals ‘Lifecycle’ but there’s no mentioning of them in the V.V. notes… ‘Bruce’ is still doing concerts nowadays…
Brob
‘Insane Youth’ started out in Sint-Niklaas around 1992-1993 (lo-o-ong ago) with Tomaz (bass), Tim (guitar), Smet (drums) and me (vocals); later ‘Fons’ joined on drums, learning the songs in a few sessions before doing his first gig. Then Vanessa joined briefly on vocals too and Stef on guitar (ex ’Corpus Christi’, now still ‘Visions Of War’, ‘Chaka’). He started ‘Visions Of War’ and I joined him, not leaving ‘Insane Youth’. After 7 years of touring, gigs they called it quits. Releases were the split 7” with ‘Boycot’ and a song on the compilation-LP Europe In Decline’ (Six Week recs).
Steve Descamps
Strange incidences occur and it’s always interesting to notice how different paths of people can cross and intertwine over time. It was actually quite a long time before I spoke with Dirk, although we met regularly. We were from the same area at the time (which is Lochristi, Beervelde…a region not far from Ghent where I grew up and where I “discovered” punk). We had some mutual friends and acquaintances, of course, since the scene is really small. We saw each other from time to time at the local youth-centre where I used to hang out and where they only organised stupid rock-contests for dumb, empty bands who wanted ‘to make it’. But it was a place to hang out, nevertheless; as I was too young to venture too far into the ‘big, unknown city’. So, we met and said “hello”. We kept bumping into each other from time to time and said “hello” again and time went on.
Then I was living in Ghent where we – a group of people – occupied a rather big squatted furniture-factory which had a lot of place [Brob: the Hogepont squat occupied by the Schelderatten]. We started organising gigs and such because the place was massive and open, not too far from the city-centre but nevertheless pretty isolated and because, basically, that’s what we wanted to do for a long time as we felt big, beautiful Ghent was seriously lacking a place where like-minded people could get together, organise themselves on a grass-roots level without the commercial bullshit and state-control and -interference that was going on. We tried to provide people with a place and platform to do things themselves and for others: organising gigs, performances, doing expositions of their art as a means of independent expression and non-mainstream creativity which was much-needed (then and now, of course). Also, a place to relax (as I said, we were pretty isolated, i.e. the premise was fairly big, surrounded by walls, pretty ‘green’ and somehow it breathed an atmosphere of necessary tranquillity). Every week we organised a ‘people’s kitchen’ where we (or others) made cheap, affordable meals. Over time; lotsa people started showing up so we had to move to another part of the building, which, for some reason we always overlooked but was actually fitted quite well as a (small) restaurant/concert-place for smaller gigs.
After a while, Dirk and his family started showing up. I guess he/they met some people from our squat and got invited or they visited us with some friends and decided to come back. I remember him as a really cool guy, a thing I didn’t quite expected him to be as I was pretty apprehensive about meeting people at the time. He was a little bit older than me and I regarded him as somewhat more “serious”, i.e. someone who almost found his place in life and knew what he wanted out of it. I respected that a lot and although we weren’t really into the same kind of music and learned to know him as an intelligent, caring human being. To me, definitely an asset. I wondered why we never talked before. I learned about his band, which was a different style than ours, and I remember seeing them a couple of times. I think they even played at our place [Brob: 97-09-18 ‘Time Out’ & ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’; the day before Dirk died during their gig at the V.V.]. They were fairly ‘new’ but they were making good progress and got appreciated. He told me about the gig they were doing at Vort’n Vis. I couldn’t make it the first day (I guess we had something planned at our place as well… [See above: ‘Time Out’ played…]) but I was planning on going the second day. I can’t remember who broke the news about the tragedy that happened but of course we were all shocked. Really weird when you start to think of how things went: somebody you actually ‘knew’ for some time but never had the time or the balls or the interest to actually talk to and by the time you discover how such a nice person he was, it’s over. ‘Stunned’ is a good word to describe how we all felt at the time. We all felt pretty mortal….
So we got asked to play [this benefit] with ‘Katastrophobia’ of which I don’t remember all that much. Typical…But I seem to remember that it wasn’t the average ‘all-feel-good-gig atmosphere’ and I wasn’t really in the mood either. We, as a band, weren’t exactly celebrating ‘life’ either and most of our songs and attitude was pretty negative and deconstructive (especially mine) so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to ask us. It wàs all death and destruction at the time (hence the ‘Nihilist Punx Against Better Prospects’-slogan, which sounded cool but wasn’t maybe all too appropriate for such an occasion). Maybe it was because Dirk visited our house a lot in the end and participated quite heavily in social activities in and around Ghent, which often originated from the Ghent-based punk-scene. But I guess he always did, I just didn’t notice it before and it’s strange that you tend to remember people and how they were by the tragedies that befall them…
Gratiën V., ‘Katastrophobia’ vocalist
We still have the same line-up as back then. I remember it was a benefit was for the family of a musician that died during a concert. A few weeks before we had played together with ‘Charlie Don’t surf’ during a festival in Haacht organised by Kurt De Bont.
‘Bruce’
excerpts from the V.V. guestbook:
additions wellcome!…
Vort'n Vis in the 90s 