Marc Nierhaus, a correspondent from Germany set up this tour for ‘Decadence Within’ & ‘Shutdown’ but he couldn’t travel with them. I couldn’t help ‘D.W.’ out this time because I was already too busy with helping other bands. One of them was ‘Active Minds’… I’d invited ‘D.W.’ a few times to play for Smurfpunx (88-08-13, 89-03-19 & 90-03-31) and did an interview in my zine (Tilt! #6); they’d also played in Poperingen on a gig co-organised by the V.V. (90-04-08) so they were not unknown over here… In the band at that time were: Richard ‘Rid’ White (vocals), Ian ‘Slug’ Glasper (bass), Antony ‘Mobs’ Mowbray (drums) and Keith ‘Joey’ Blueman. A bit before this tour they had been recording for the Reality Wake-Up Call CD, a fine sample of their progressive metal-core/crossover. A few months later (Jan ’94) M.C.R. released a split-7” with ‘Fearless Vampire Killers’ (from Japan).
‘Shutdown’ were a melodic HC band from Tewkesbury. Good friends with ‘Decadence Within’. Neil is in a band with ‘Slug’ nowadays. They did a demo (’91) and had a record out on the Swiss label Off The Disk recs (ran by ‘Fear Of God’s singer Erich Keller) – I helped distributing that… The band was: Neil Cox (vocals/guitar), Chris(tian) Burton (bass), Rob(ert) PD Chumbley (guitar) and Danny (drums). Their name was taken from a ‘Project X’ song but their music was not exactly NY SxE HC; references were made to ‘Can’t Decide’, ‘Samiam’, ‘Leatherface’, ‘Snuff’, etc. “with a strong DC influence”…
‘Active Minds’ are 2 brothers (Dixon): Simon ‘Set’ (drums) and Jonathan ‘Bobs’ (guitar & vocals) – from Scarborough (ex ‘S.A.S.’ – also with Stu & Ade of ‘Satanic Malfunctions’). The latter had become a pen-pal because I’d started taking interest in their label Loony Tunes recs and their project of getting out compilation-albums where the bands payed upfront for a part of the impression. For some punx ‘A.M.’ sounded too metal, for metals too noisy. What mattered to me is that they were true representatives of D.I.Y. not-for-profit ethic, sincere activists and critical. Just like myself… They also didn’t drink/smoke/do drugs without labeling themselves as SxE… They released tons of vinyl. I think this gig was around the time the Behind The Mask 7” was released.
The music of ‘Jughead’s Revenge’ (Los Angeles) could be described as straightforward HC-punk. On the 1993 tour the were Joe Doherty (vocals), Joe Rimicci (guitar), Brian Preiss (bass), Nenus Givargus (drums; replacing Kevin Heller) and George Snow (2nd guitar). Their 2nd LP It’s Lonely at the Bottom (produced by ‘Poison Idea’s ‘Slayer Hippie’) was released in ’92 as a CD on Cash Money recs in the U.S. and pressed on twelve-inch vinyl on Do It! recs in Germany (re-released on BYO in ’95). After this tour George Snow would go on to play in the ‘Bad Samaritans’ full-time.
‘18th Dye’, from Berlin, played indie/noise-rock – they’ve been compared to ‘Sonic Youth’, ‘Pixies’ and ‘Nirvana’ – and consisted of Sebastian Büttrich (vocals & guitar), Heike Marie Rädeker (vocals & bass) & Dane Piet Bendtsen (drums). The latter 2 with Danish roots…
Brob
‘Active Minds’ were very nice people but I didn’t like their music very much. Too noise and generic for me. I didn’t like the German band very much either, although they were very powerful and bit different. ‘Jughead’s Revenge were ok as people and OK as a band – nothing too special or exciting! Of all the bands we played with that day, I think I enjoyed ‘Shutdown’ the best; but maybe I’m a bit biased as they are close friends… They are a great band…
Ian ‘Slug’ Glasper, personal communication ‘93
It was the last date of our first and only European tour which had also brought us to Holland and Germany. I remember chatting with the singer/guitarist out of ‘Active Minds’ [Bobs] who also played and discussing the talent of the ‘Life But How To Live It’ guitarist. We weren’t sure whether there was going to be a slot to play but thankfully there was once we got there. 20 years of kids, work and beer have addled my brain so I don’t recall the bands too well apart from our friends ‘Decadence Within’ and ‘Active Minds’. I remember ‘18th Dye’ having a ‘Sonic Youth’ feel and ‘Jughead’s Revenge’ being a bit of ‘Poison Idea’ influenced Fat Wreck band. The main think I remember was a carrier-back of bread and vegan spread in the back of ‘Active Minds’ car, sweating in the sun :-)
Nowadays, I’m in a band with ‘Slug’ and ‘Mobs’ from ‘Decadence Within’ called ‘36 Strategies’… And I have another band with Chris & Rob called ‘Transmissions’, kind of like ‘Hoover’, post HC…
Neil Cox, ‘Shutdown’
To be honest, it was a long time ago and I can’t really remember much about it. We’ve done a lot of touring since then… I don’t remember us ever playing there again though. I seem to recall being impressed by ‘Shutdown’ and I think it may have been the first time I heard them. ‘Decadence Within’ had gone a bit to “chugga metal” for my taste by that time.
My main recollection was of going for a walk in the town and seeing the war memorial with the names of the British soldiers who died during the First World War. Many of them had two surnames listed – their real one and the fake one that they enlisted with because they were underage. That memory has stuck with me – the naive idealism of the youth of the time and the tragic waste of so many young lives that is spelled out so clearly on that memorial.
Bobs, ‘Active Minds’ guitarist/vocalist
We had a reunion in 2005, playing Germany, Denmark and the US. Releasing one more record called Amorine Queen. Broke up again 2009. Now I play in a duo with Piet, the drummer… We’re called ‘Metal Ghost’.
Anthony Palmer (editor of zines like ‘Dingo Baby’, ‘Duhhh’,…) wrote me in June ’95: “The ‘Manfat’ Euro tour fell through. ‘Kito’ wanna tour with ‘Baby Harp Seal’ instead.” But they played at the V.V. anyway… Michael J. Gilliam explains below…
Steve Buxton (Ripping Thrash zine) did a ‘Decadence Within’ / ‘Manfat’ split-tape (benefit for hunt-sabs in 1995. It contained the 5 tracks of their Live Like A Dog demo and 2 of their 7”. The line-up of ‘Manfat’ (from Middlesbrough) here was: Bri(an) Puplett (vocals; ex ‘Catharsis’, ‘Embittered’ and later ‘John Holmes’), Dale Tomlinson (guitar; ex ‘Catharsis’, later ‘John Holmes’), Michael Gillham (drums; played in a wide range of bands) and ‘Dr Bennett’ (bass). On the self-titled 7” (sometimes referred to as Endless Daze) on A-Wat recs (1994) there was a drum-machine and Matt(hew) Burke played the bass. They had also recorded for another demo (Pigfood) in the spring of this year. Their music was described as “pissed-off, dark, malevolent and very thick sounding hardcore”.
Matt Woodward (drummer of ‘Kito’) has photos of the ‘Kito’ (with Stu Smith) & ‘Baby Harp Seal’ (with Andrew Raine) & ‘Manfat’ tour in 1995. Here’s one from Vienna…
You can read about the reason why only ‘Manfat’ made it to the V.V. below…
Brob
‘Manfat’ toured Europe twice, once with ‘Kito’ & ‘Baby Harp Seal’ and another time (maybe 1996) with ‘Hard To Swallow’ [26 oct ’96 (‘La Zone, Liège’): Virtual Reality (UK), Headache (UK), Drop Dead (USA), Manfat (UK)]. I wasn’t in ‘Manfat’ however and wasn’t on those tours.
Anthony Palmer, ‘Embittered’ vocalist
‘Manfat’ toured one time with a band called ‘Rated R’, and one time with ‘Hard To Swallow’… By then I was in Berlin, so don’t know if ‘Baby Harp Seal’ actually played; one tour I only joined them when they got to Germany…
Tom Chapman, ex ‘Baby Harp Seal’ guitarist
I only played in the second version of ‘Baby Harp Seal’, replacing Tom when he moved to Berlin so I played on that tour in ’95. I think they played the V.V. before I joined [94-07-10] but I’m certain we didn’t play at the Vort’n Vis. The tour was us, ‘Kito’ and ‘Manfat’ though… Puzzling… I know I’ve never been to the V.V. because it was considered THE place to play at the time and I was always a bit gutted that I never made it there…
Andrew Raine, ‘B.H.S.’
I’ve been in ‘Manfat’ but only played the Vort’n Vis with ‘Kito’ [94-07-10], I think…
Matt Burke
I don’t really care for ‘Voorhees’ anymore. I care for ‘Manfat’ more than ever. The reason why you never heard about a ‘Manfat’ gig at the V.V. before is because we just turned up and played. The guy at the bar (Peter [Vanthuyne]) was very helpful, actually he was fucking amazing…
Michael John Gillham, ‘Manfat’ drummer; personal communication January ‘96
The gig with ‘Manfat’ was unannounced. We needed somewhere to go for a day and just turned up and played and stopped there one night also. Which was great! ‘Kito’ and ‘Baby Harp Seal’ had already been in Europe for about a week and we met them in Münster, Germany. I’m not sure they played the Vort’n Vis that year themselves, in fact I don’t think they did.
The line-up of ‘Manfat’ at the time was indeed: Bri (vocals), Dale (guitar), Ian a.k.a. ‘Bennett’ (bass; ‘Bennett’ was a sort of joke nick-name because of a funny misunderstanding about something, his real surname is Roberts!) and Michael (drums).
The previous year ‘Kito’ and ‘Baby Harp Seal’ had toured Europe for the first time together and they planned on doing the same again that year (1995), so a tour was arranged for 3 weeks; but for some reason ‘Baby Harp Seal’ could only do the first half, so ‘Kito’ asked us, ‘Manfat’, to do the second half. There were 3 dates (Münster, Mannheim, Homburg) where it over-lapped and there was all 3 bands.
I don’t know where the tour had took ‘Kito’ and ‘B/H.S.’ before we joined them but I think it had mainly been dates in Belgium and Germany. the dates ‘Manfat’ did that I can remember are as follows. A couple of gigs got cancelled too and so we had to stop more than one night at a couple of places (Mannheim and, I think, Bratislava)… Ieper (‘Manfat’ only), Münster (the 3 bands [were planned but didn’t all play]), Mannheim (the 3 bands), Homburg (the 3 bands plus UK garage-punk band ‘Spectreman’ feat. members of ‘Headbutt’), Vienna (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’), Bratislava (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’) & Prague (‘Manfat’ & ‘Kito’). The picture was taken by Matt outside the bar we played of a massive outdoor arena venue; in fact the venue was called Arena. I certainly do remember the killer drive back from Prague: everyone started loosing their minds! Haha. No-one hardly had any money left so no-one was eating; all we had was lots of rolling tobacco!
In the months before we were due to go, Bri decided instead of going on tour with us, he’d rather go America to travel around on tour with ‘Dystopia’, which of course was up to him, but we were quite disappointed and it left us in the bad position of “Do we still do the tour, and if so, how?”. Of course we still wanted to do the tour so we had the following options – do it as an instrumental 3 piece or find a replacement for Bri, but we couldn’t find anyone suitable and it didn’t seem like a good idea to do it instrumentally. But as we knew another drummer (Trav) who could do it, we decided that he would take my place and I would sing; so that’s what we did. We rehearsed intensively in the weeks before but the change affected the overall sound/performance because I’m not a very good front-man and the drummer wasn’t a punk drummer, but we did our best with it, and had a great time on tour, so…
Michael, the driver, is Michael Baines (from local Middlesbrough band ‘Spit The Pips’). At the time he also worked at Studio 64 recording-studio and recorded some records on Flat Earth (‘One By One’, ‘Sedition’, etc) and Meantime (‘Sofa Head’, etc). Trav who stood-in on drums was the drummer in Michael’s band, as Michael was driving us on the tour, that’s how we got Trav to drum for us. [Guestbook: ‘Tomato Crab’ drum stand-in, ‘Bennett’ (bass), Michael (full time drummer, part-time singer), Dale T. (guitar), Michael (driver)]
We went to the Vort’n Vis because we had a spare day as a gig had been cancelled or something, so when we got off the ferry in Belgium everyone was saying “Well where shall we go?!” and I said the best option (and probably our only option really) was to go to the V.V. and ask to stay there and if possible play there, so we did!
Michael John Gillham, ‘Manfat’ drummer
Peter Vanthuyne at the V.V. was great. Even though we just turned up, he kept apologizing saying he couldn’t pay us and giving us a beer whenever we ran out. I seem to remember we all went to the outdoor swimming-baths as well.
All three bands did not play in Münster. We met there but there was a clash with (I think) a ‘Madball’ gig and so not enough cash to pay everyone. Of course they bumped us (who had travelled miles out of our way and missed a Eugene Chadbourne gig to get there) and I think ‘B.H.S.’ from the bill and let the local bands play instead. Less than impressed. I remember Rob (‘B.H.S.’) told the promoter in Mannheim he was looking forward to his holiday. The guy took it literally and thought we didn’t want paying and so spent all our money on a PA instead.
‘Four Walls Falling’ was a political (SxE) HC band from Richmond, Virginia. The day of this concert Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers (together with Kurt & David, her fellow band-members in ‘Shortsight’ at that time) interviewed them in a rehearsal-room of the V.V.
Taylor Steele (vocals) was on tour with his brother Robert ‘Bo’ Steele (guitar), John H. White (guitar), William ‘Bill’ Thideman (bass; Greta Brinkman, one of their first bassplayers, didn’t tour with ‘4WF’ in Europe but DID tour with ‘That’s It’) and Tommy Anthony (temporary drummer, was in ‘Ipecac’; replacing Jared Srsic). By this time they’d done 3 7”s: a self-tiled one on Axtion Packed recs (89), Burn It / Happy Face / Temple on Redemption recs (92) and an European release on Understand recs (1993); and the Culture Shock LP on Jade Tree (91).
The day before my pal Joeri H. had already organised a concert in Brugge (@ De Kelk) for them, together with ‘Sofa Head’ (UK), ‘Blindfold’, ‘Feeding The Fire’, ‘Nations On Fire’ & ‘Glue’ (UK). ‘Four Walls Falling’ played last … After the second song they were forced to stop playing because people were complaining…
This was a few months after the ‘Shortsight’/’Blindfold’ summer-tour (mostly Germany) and a couple of months before ‘Shortsight’ made a little trip to Spain for some gigs during the X-mas holidays. Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers (guitar) was still in the band; together with David (guitar), Kurt Deprez (bass), Björn Lescouhier (drums) and Saskia Verbeke (vocals). See also 91-10-12, 91-12-21, 92-06-27, 92-09-05, 92-10-10, 93-02-21, etc.
‘Blindfold’s original line-up would record (Cats studio) for the split-7” with ‘Encounter’ the next month. Hans released it on SoberMind recs. A similar trajectory through the V.V.’s history: 91-12-21, 91-12-31, 92-02-22, 92-03-29, 92-08-09, 92-09-05, 92-10-10, 93-02-21, etc.
Some stuff on the ‘Shortdight/Blindfold’ summer-tour here…
The line-up of ‘Dawson’ (from Glasgow) here was: Jer Reid (guitar/vocals), Robbie McKendrick (drums), Ali Begbie (bass/vocals) and Carig ‘Brycey’ Bryce (percussion/vocals),. They toured in Billy Steele’s van; the driver was IB (‘Disaffect’ drummer), I think…
Their first release was a tape they’d recorded (Sep. ’88), followed by a 7” (Romping Egos) on Jer’s label Gruff Wit recs (recorded Apr ‘89). In 1991 Jer released 2 LPs (Barf Market: You’re Ontae Plums & How To Follow So That Others Will Willingly Lead). Brycey appeared on the Oct 1993 released split-EP with the Japanese band ‘Ruins’. In 1994 they did an LP entitled Terminal Island and a 7” entitled Small Eared Rank Outsider Earth Summit… By 1994 ‘Sedition’ had split up (because of personal differences and commitments) and Brycey went on to play percussion with ‘Dawson’ until they disbanded.
The music was complex avant-gardesque hardcore/punk with an angular jangly dissonance (with references to ‘The Ex’) sometimes described as ‘frenetic’ or ‘jazz-punk’. “Political lyrics sung over intricate bass-lines and metallic screeching guitars.”.
Mark Greenwell took the guitar-position (replacing Vic ‘Croll’ Timoveric and numerous others) in ‘Concrete Sox’ as the group signed to Lost And Found for the ‘No World Order’ LP (‘93). The band undertook a tour of Japan and issued a split-EP with ‘Nightmare’ (with Lloyd Simms singing and Ian Halpin on guitar) on MCR Company, who also released the Japan Tour ‘92 LP. Drummer at this time was Andy Sewell, bassist Les Duly and vocalist Sean Cook.
Brob
I left the band in the summer of 1992, so I missed the European tours. My time with the band went from 1989-1992. It was a lot of fun & I could tell you all sorts of crap from those years but never made it across the water with ‘4WF’…
Mickey Scheer, 1st bassplayer of ‘Four Walls Falling’
I finally found a few shots and our tour-schedule. Just had to dig through and try to remember everything. It ended up being a long enjoyable walk down memory lane. I had almost forgotten some of this. Thanks for making me have to look through all of this.
[Bill is a (tattoo-)artist in Denver nowadays; have a look at his work: - thidemann.com]
William Thidemann
The Vort’n Vis was the place with the awesome boxed vegan pudding. We played there with ‘Shortsight’. Another time with ‘Avail’ [95-06-18]…
We didn’t play with ‘Concrete Sox’ in Belgium but did play with them in Prague. They were awesome!
Funny story: the first show we ever played in Belgium [Brugge], a bunch of people came over from England to see it. We met this one guy who was older, about 28 at the time, who was a SxE squatter. He had both Anarchist & SxE tattoos. A different sort of cat, so we got along great. Anyway, he had hitched a ride over with a bunch of SxE teenagers and told us that when we went on, they were all bummed and one of them said “I thought they were SxE but they look like a bunch of punks”. Hahaha.
Taylor Steele
I was in school at VCU [Virginia Commonwealth University] at the time. My father was paying and made it impossible to leave for a semester for a tour. Tommy Anthony filled in during that tour and played a few stateside shows to prepare for the ’93 tour…
Jared Srsic
Touring with ‘4WF’ was some of the best times of my life.
Tommy Anthony
‘Concrete Sox ‘did not play then…think their van broke down… [Newsletter 93-10: ‘Concrete Sox’ didn’t show up (no warning, no info)]
Michael Maes
>> The first weekend in October saw Jase Fox, Nick Royles, Ian and I travel to Belgium for the ‘Four Walls Falling’ tour-dates in Brugge and Ieper, meeting up once again with the lovely Sharon and other friends from London. The two gigs were brilliant and I remember Sharon and I withstanding the good natured total melee at the front of the Brugge gig as we surged for the mic for the singing of ‘Four Wall’s anthemic line “culture……SHOCK!” Meeting up again with friends at the Vort’n Vis in Ieper was as lovely as always with much news, ideas and gossip shared! […] I think the person standing above the crowd [2nd ‘F.W.F.’ pic above] on the right just might be Ian [Simpson; of Subjugation recs]! << (From Helene Keller’s blog (subjugationrecords.wordpress.com)
‘Spitboy’ was an all-female political HC band from the San Francisco Bay Area. The band consisted of Adrienne Droogas (vocals; she also did a zine called Too Far that I distributed – later she was also in ‘Aus-Rotten’), Karin Gembus (guitar; helped out at M.R.R. & Lookout! recs), Paula Hibbs-Rines (bass; later replaced by Dominique ‘Nikki’ Davison) and Michelle ‘Todd’ Gonzales (drums; played guitar for ‘Kamala & The Karnivores’ end of the ‘80s).
At the time of touring they had a self-titled 7” out on Lawrence Livermore’s Lookout! Recs (’92) and an LP (True Self Revealed) on Kent McClard’s Ebullition recs (’93). The last recording with Paula on bass was June 1994, for the Mi Cuerpo Es Mio 7” on Allied recs. In August ’94 they recorded the Rasana 7” with Nikki (also out on Ebullition). Their last vinyl was the split-LP with ‘Los Crudos’ (Viviendo Asperamente – Roughly Living) on Ebullition Recs (1995).
I recall I intended to do an interview with them for my zine but for some reason that went wrong; Vique ‘Simba’ Martin did one before this tour (read); ‘Hazel’ Lepers in her zine Superfluous #2 and Nathalie Depuydt for Tom De Pauw’s Holy Hardcore #2…
‘Bugeyed’ (from Leeds) played (as described in Tilt! #7) “Noisy and heavy HC loaded with angry power.”. I also wrote: “Devilish! It brings out the bad in people.”. For those who want comparisons; I read somewhere: “‘Venom’ meets ‘Black Flag’; down-tuned, sloppy, negative punk rock”. They were: Andrew ‘Monkey’ Clark-Monks (guitar), Paul ‘Pig Havoc/Havok’ Clarke (vocals) – both ex ‘Pleasant Valley Children’ (see 90-06-24), Sarah Smith (bass; ex ‘Generic’) and Brian Talbot (drums; also ‘Doom’). Eric ‘Rich’ Rucker (2nd guitar on the album) wasn’t in the band anymore… Karl Horton released the Monsters Rule My World LP on his label Words Of Warning around that time. My pen-pal Steve Buxton (Ripping Thrash zine) also released some live tracks on a benefit-tape (for hunt-sabs; together with ‘Concrete Sox’) and Bri tells me there was a demo too…
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.‘Bugeyed’ – early line-up; somewhere in the UK (courtesy of Brian Talbot): Andrew – Bri – ‘Pig’ – ‘Rich’ – Sarah
The 2nd gig of ‘Sedition’ here (see 92-08-29). Glaswegians – or should I say Caledonians? – Angus ‘Gus’ Quinn (vocals), (Gill)Martin Mann (drums), Billy Steele (guitar) and Craig ‘Brycey’ Bryce (bass) came over again to give us a taste of their ‘pagan HC’. After their earlier material, that year (‘93) they did the Earth Beat LP (the one in the cloth bag) and the split-7” with ‘Disaffect’ on Sned’s Flat Earth recs. After they split up Craig went on to play with ‘Dawson’ (93-10-03), Billy played second guitar in Disaffect (94-05-22) and Angus and some mates formed ‘Scatha’…
‘One By One’ had been playing here before aswell (91-08-18, 92-03-08 & 92-08-29) and it wouldn’t be the last time either (94-08-06). Almost like family (from ‘up North’ – Newcastle), these people: ‘uncle’s Sned & Alec bringing us prezzies, and ‘cousin’ Karen and her boyfriend Micky… The Fight 7” (first release with Karin on vocals) was recorded Oct. 10th 1992. Later that year (Nov. 1993) they recorded a few tracks for the Atrapados En El Fascista Planeta Tierra (Caught On Fascist Planet Earth) 7” (the B-side was recorded live – Sned tells me in Leeds, at their 100th gig, supporting ‘Neurosis’).
Here’s some photos on the 93-05-15 concert they did in Lumigny, France…
It was only a few weeks earlier (93-04-04) that ‘Dirt’ had been here (with ‘Hellkrusher’)… The line-up was the one of the Feast Or Famine demo (1993) with Deno on vocals, Gary ‘Gaz’ Buckley doing guitar, Karen on lead-guitar, bassist Mick and drummer Stef…
The day after this one they played @ Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp (with ‘Spitboy’, ‘Instigators’ and some others) so the ‘Baddies’ were already here to pick ‘em up and start the party. Deno mentions meeting ‘Instigators’ (but that must’ve been in Antwerp).
‘Ivich’ came over for the 2 nd time aswell (see 92-07-25). This was around the time they released the Chacun Sa Vérité 7” (on Pikaϊa): “fast and fiery emotional HC, chunky mosh-metal and odd, free-form undistorted pauses”. Eric, Yann, Yves & Cedric also brought their trumpet-player…
I remember trying to crash out upstairs while there was a techno-party going on after the gig with ‘Bugeyed’. I also have an image of Alec of ‘One By One’ dancing rave-style, possibly even DJ-ing? That time I drove so was probably knackered. We were only in Europe for a week or so I remember we played Hamburg and the last gig was in Amsterdam followed by a mad dash to the ferry.
I found the last ‘Bugeyed’ recording on a cassette which I’d forgotten existed. 10 tracks which I think are the best thing we did. It was supposed to be an EP but never went any further as I went travelling and everything just ground to a halt. I have put one ‘Bugeyed’ track (Breakout At The Science Lab) on-line. I do a bit of computer-music nowadays and mess about with new software (‘Monobrow The Biped‘)…
Andrew ‘Monkey’ Clark-Monks , ‘Bugeyed’ guitarist
Sorry, no recollections…
Rich was part of ‘Disney Corpse Graphics’ with Ash and ‘Pig’… They did cover-art for ‘Sore Throat’s Disgrace To The Corpse Of Sid & ‘Doom’s Greatest Invention…
Bri Talbot
I wasn’t in ‘Bugeyed’ anymore at that point, in fact I think I would have already been living in Italy! Not that anybody cares but I wasn’t part of ‘Disney Corpse Graphics’ who did the cover-art for ‘Sore Throat’s Disgrace To The Corpse Of Sid, that was just Ash and ‘Pig’. Ash, ‘Pig’ and me had a different thing called Secret Devil that did the cover for Doom’s Greatest Invention. Secret Devil did – if I remember properly – a booklet of poems by Syd Migx from ‘Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers’, a booklet of stuff by ‘Pig’, one of drawings by Ash and some other stuff, as well as three copies of a fanzine called Clowns Killing People. And a ‘Sore Throat’ single-cover, now I come to think about it. Also, I was in ‘P.V.C.’ too – it’s me playing on the Fuck Kill Destroy album, I joined after Percy left (Or whatever happened, I was too young and stupid to ask!). Like I say, of no possible interest to anyone but just for the sake of exactness!
Eric ‘Rich’ Rucker (2nd guitar on the album)
Paula was our first bass-player – she left the band and Dominique joined for the last couple of years. Paula toured Europe with us – Dominique was with us on one US tour and when we toured Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Top: Michelle ‘Todd’ Gonzales, Paula Hibbs-Rines, Pete the roadie; Middle: Jon Hiltz, Nolde, Erich (merch and drivers); Bottom: Karin Gembus & Adrienne Droogas
Michelle Gonzales, ‘Spitboy’ drummer
We had my birthday-party after the Vort n Vis gig (May 1st) we’d played next door… Got dragged off the dance-floor by ‘open-minded’ punks who couldn’t understand how we could play like ‘Sedition’ but like gabbers as well! [for some pics scroll down here]
This gig turned into a big dance-party afterwards; the ‘Sedition’ lot liked a bit of techno to be sure.
Sned, ‘One By One’ drummer
Another great gig, loads of good people about + proper good party afterwards. Think it was Bricey’s birthday, there are probably pictures of us dancing badly which are best kept in darkened rooms [Brob: already posted ;-); see link above…]. All the bands were good. ‘Spitboy’ were great. ‘One By One’s last gig at the V.V. [Brob: last one for '1x1' was 94-08-06; see above] but a good one to go out on. This was one of the rare times we weren’t rushing off to catch a ferry so was great to hang out + catch up with folk. Thanks to everyone who turned up + helped out; and to Brob for reminding me of some great times.
‘Bakunin’s Children’ were Steve Differding (guitar; also in various other bands from Luxemburg), Thierry Thill (drums; ex ‘Because’ & ‘D’Rotzbouwen’), Frank Villanueva (bass; later ‘Petrograd’), Marek (vocals) and Ronnie ‘Riot’ (vocals; also ‘D’Rotzbouwen’; Skunk recs). The music was raw, fast HC. They did the Amerikkka Loves Us split-7” (with ‘No More’) on Ronnie’s label Skunk recs and also had a track on the benefit compilation Amore & Anarchia (on the same label).
‘Tuomiopäivän Lapset’ (‘doomsday children’) from Tornio were (at that time) Sanna Ylimäinen (vocals; but not on this tour), Mikko Hietanen (guitar), Kake (bass) and Altse (drums; Ari ‘Altse’ Alatalo, graphic artist: arialatalo.net). They did a whole bunch of 7”s, one of which was a split with ‘Disrupt’ on Ecocentric recs. Right after this tour they recorded (Saatanan Murhaajat, on the Austrian label Fallen recs) with Weke as vocalist. Their music was fast and pissed scandi-thrash: “dis-core with angry shouting vocals singing in Finish, D-beat feeling and bashing drums”: Two of them (Sanna & Mikko) have a new band called ‘Bad Jesus Experience’.
‘Substandard’ (a band from Nottingham playing fast and furious HC) were Andrew ‘Andy’ Hennessey (guitar/vocals), Jason Wilson (drums; later replaced by Keith), Jules Lowery (vocals), Pat O’Keefe (guitar) and Sean Oxborough (bass later replaced by ‘Goz’). Eddie Greenaway & ‘Pug’ (‘Slum Gang’ drummer) also stood in for ‘Substandard’ but not on this one… They did 4 7”s: a split with Leicester band ‘Nerves’ (in ’94 on Inflammable Material – the label created by ‘Substandard’s singer Jules and Mike Clarke from ‘Decadent Few’), and another 2 with ‘Pink Flamingos’ entitled Germania Meets Britannica (recorded Dec ’96) and one with ‘Detestation’ – USA Meets UK – (both on Wicked Witch recs, ’97). Then Consuming Need… …Consuming Greed (Inflammable Material, ’99). Jules distributed their stuff through his distro (Missing The Point distro). Here in Belgium Gert ‘Gonzo’ Hermans (‘Honey Honey’) helped them out… Jules had been visiting the V.V. before (see: 92-02-09)
‘Marker’ (from Nottingham) were Marcus Jones (guitar), Pete (guitar), Noël (bass), Doug (drums) and Matt (vocals). They had a 7”, We Love Pop Punk, out on Easel recs (‘96). I distributed it back then and reviewed it in Tilt! #9: >>Fast, raging HC cut up with ‘emo’ breaks. Enraged singing. Calling them “another emo band” would be underrating them…<<
‘Grover’, from Manchester, were Steveland Minta (guitar/vocals, also ‘Kitchener’ [94-03-05]), Ryland Minta (drums) and Stephen ‘Ducky’ (also ‘Whiplash’) Duckworth (bass). Their 7” Trials And Tribulations was due on Clandestine Surprise (recorded a little while before this). They had to cancel this show here…
‘Anomie’, from the Orléans area, played melodic emo-inspired HC with screamed (female) vocals. They were Johnny Vellaine (guitar & vocals), Rémi Chaumet (drums; who was still a teenager then), Kathleen Simonneau (vocals) and Gilles Auvinet (bass & vocals). Kathleen & Gilles (very nice people and intelligent people) ran the label Ape recs and they ran a studio (where a lot of bands from that era – e.g. ‘Undone’, ‘Fingerprint’, ‘Unhinged’, ‘Öpstand’, ‘Alcatraz’ etc. – recorded) if I remember well. They played here already on 95-07-23… They did a demo in ’94. The next year they did a split-LP with the German band ‘Peace Of Mind’ (see: 94-11-05) and a 7” together with ‘Peu Être’ (emo band from Niort, France). Their last release was a self-titled LP in ’97; they also had some tracks on the Food Not Bombs benefit-compilation… Yann Boislève released their discography in 2001.
‘Totuus’ (meaning ‘truth’), were a band from Oulu/Tampere that played crusty HC/punk. I think they were Miikka Timonen (drums), Vesku (guitar; later replaced by Mika Piipponen), Raffe (bass, R.I.P.; later replaced by Tommy Kangosjärvi) & Tomppa (vocals). They recorded for a split-7” with ‘Hiastus’ in February and in November of that same year they would register the tracks for the split-7” with ‘Aparat’ (from Sweden).
Brob
I played in ‘Totuus’ from 2000 on, in the nineties they had the original bassist.
Tommy Olavi Kangosjärvi
I didn’t play in ‘Totuus’ in 90’s. I played bass just for their (one-off) re-union gig in May 2013. Miikka Timonen plays drums for ‘Vivisektio’ nowdays.
Pentti ‘Pena’ Kaulanen
We (singer Tomppa & myself, drummer Miikka) tried to remember something about that gig, but no results. We are still living in Oulu. Our bass-player Raffe is dead. I think our guitar-player Vesku is living in Helsinki… Some history about the band: The first name was ‘Hässäkkä’ [hassle]. We did a 7” Totaalinen Vitun (in 1995) with myself on drums, Tomi doing vocals, Raffe on bass and Vesku playing guitar. In ‘96 we played the first gig under the name ‘Totuus’ (same members). In 1997 Mika Piipponen took over guitar and I think in 2000 Tommy took up the bass.
Miikka Timonen, ‘Totuus’
Great gig! I travelled with ‘Tuomiopäivän Lapset’ to their gig in Neerpelt the next day!
Erik Minnen
I guess ‘Totuus’ (Finland) were also on the line-up? [Brob: Had forgotten about that but yes…]
Jim Faes
I’m good friends with ‘Marker’, the founder member [Marcus Jones] now does a band called ‘ASBO Peepshow’.
Eddie Greenaway, ‘Slum Gang’ (Nottingham)
We never played this gig. We were meant to be doing a tour with ‘Marker’ but something happened and it fell through. We did a small tour of Belgium with a band called ‘Honey Honey’ but never played the V.V.
Steveland Minta, ‘Grover’
I didn’t play on this tour. Jason did. I played with ‘Substandard’ for a while on a German tour. Jules Lowery (the singer) sings in our new band ‘Constant State Of Terror’.
Sonny Tyler, ‘Substandard’ stand-in drummer
I was already familiar with the Vort’n Vis venue as I had been too a Punk/Hardcore festival in 1994. I met Gert [Hermans] there and he kept in touch and he helped set us up with the tour with ‘Anomie’ and his band ‘Honey Honey’ who joined us for about 4 dates out of the 7 we actually ended up playing. We played in Lille, Rouen, Dunkerque, Bordeaux & Paris. The gig in Dunkerque was the only licensed premises we played in France the rest of the gigs were all in squats. The night before the tour we played in Nottingham with ‘Police Bastard’ & ‘Combat Shock’ which I absolutely loved playing with; all bands played blinding sets. The main memory of the tour was having a real laugh, drinking a lot (every venue sorted you out with a crate of beer) and being looked after and fed and accommodated.
The main thing I remember about Vort’n Vis was that I just liked the venue, and it seemed well run and organised. It was also great to see ‘Substandard’ (also from Nottingham) on the bill. I rated them highly then and still do. Matt our singer had to help ‘Anomie’ out with vocals as Kathleen’s voice was gone. She had an incredible voice… I also remember laughing when I found out that a local had said that ‘Marker’ looked more like tourists than a band. We weren’t that bothered about image as some other bands might have been! We managed to sell quite a few copies of our single I Love/Hate Pop Punk. That was a piss-take of me as I have always liked punk with melodic leanings! I hated being called an emo band! Doug and Matt liked that scene so we inevitably had a slight influence because of their input.
The other bands on the bill on the day were all quite standard punk of the time. I remembered being intrigued about the band from Luxemburg. I have looked at the Vort’n Vis flyer and unfortunately ‘Grover’ from Manchester couldn’t make it in the end because of work-commitments.
We played our last gig the day after, at Neerpelt I recall that was a bad gig for us; we didn’t play that well. After returning from tour we played 3 more gigs in England, I think, before we broke up. No falling out I just think it had run its course…
Marcus Jones, ‘Marker’
Nowadays I’m in a band with one of the ‘Substandard’ guitarists [‘Constant State Of Terror’]. Yeah I did M.T.P. distro and still do in a small way; also some stuff with the record label Inflammable Material.
Jules Lowery, ‘Substandard’ vocalist
Yeah I played the Vort’n Vis on that tour but not a lot to say really as I only played half the gig. It was a sunday matinee and the last gig of the tour and I had to get back to England desperately so half way through the set I said goodbye to everyone and rushed off to the train-station to get a boat back. The rest of the band had to stay a few days, I think, waiting for our van and driver which had broken down and was stuck in Leipzig. People were friendly but I was disappointed with my 3 little bottles of pissy beer… If I remember we got three little bottles of shit lager each, might as well have said we were straight-edge!!! …I’m saying this in a humorous way don’t take offence…
Andrew Hennessey, ‘Substandard’ guitarist
If I remember correct the tour was organised by the person called Uli, who lived at Zoro squat, which was located in Leipzig, Germany. It was his suggestion to share the gigs with ‘Substandard’ from the UK. Gigs in Belgium were the last ones on the tour and we were mentally pretty tired of everything at that point. The tour lasted for 3 weeks. When we played at Vort’n Vis I had been drinking all night on the bus and therefore I wasn’t in the best possible condition for that gig. I suppose not much people bothered to show up for the gig that night.
We came from Finland with ‘Totuus’ and played all the gigs together. On that tour we were: Kojo (of ‘Hylkiö’ and some other crust bands…can’t remember) doing vocals, Mikko on guitar, Kake on bass and me on drums. I think Sanna was in the band at that time but she wasn’t able to join the tour. Before the tour we lived together in the same house (kind of a squat.): myself, Mikko and Sanna. They became a couple and moved to Helsinki just before the tour. She got a summer job in Helsinki and didn’t want to come on that tour. Weke was never in the band except for the vocals in the studio for the Saatanan Murhaajat 7” studio-sessions. He played in ‘Genocide’ but not in ‘Tuomiopäivän Lapset’. Kojo was only a replacement for Sanna on this tour. We only practised with him a few times for the tour. After the tour Sanna was in the band until the final gig in Finland in 1997.
Altse Alatalo, drummer of ‘Tuomiopäivän Lapset’
‘Bakunin’s Children’ was not active that very long, I guess not even a year. After that Diff started a more melodic project, ‘Petrograd’. Both singers of ‘Bakunin’s Children’ disappeared, I think one of them went to Berlin…
‘Ironside’ were a vegan sXe metalcore outfit from Bradford. Nick Royles (drums; ex ‘Sore Throat’ & ‘No Way Out’ 90-08-25) was in the band; along with Andrew Wright (guitar; later in ‘Unborn’ & ‘Voorhees’; R.I.P.), Doug(las) Dalziel (bass), Tom Chapman (guitar; later in ‘Kito’, ‘Baby Harp Seal’, etc.) and Richard ‘Rich’ Armitage (vocals; later in ‘Voorhees’). They had just recorded for the Neutered Innocence tape that Nick released on his label, Sure Hand recs, and they were about to put out the Fragments Of The Last Judgement 7” (on Ian Simpson/ Helene Keller’s Subjugation recs; 1993). Rich Armitage (somewhere on the internet) wrote: “We played in Belgium in ‘92 and blew away all the ‘88 straight-edge kids there, which laid the foundation for the H8000 thing. No one was doing slow, chugging metal with deep vocals and no recognizable straight-edge lyrics at the time, except ‘Ironside’.”…
Not really sure but I think ‘Strong Event’ (from Mulheim in the Ruhrpott area) was the band of drummer René Natzel (who was also in ‘Inner Circle’ and ‘Feeding The Fire’ – see 92-10-10 – and did Common Goal zine) before he started ‘Spawn’…
I think this was the 1st time ‘Shortsight’ performed with Saskia singing. Can ‘t recall if guitarist Françoise ‘Hazel’ Lepers was in the band then; the rest was David ‘Mong’ Dumont (guitar), Björn Lescouhier (drums) & Kurt Deprez (bass). There was an incident with smokers when they played… (Dutch-speaking people can read about it on the excerpt from Edward’s zine Dorst #1, below)
‘Blindfold’ had just come back from a tour with ‘Onward’ (see 92-08-09)… Their Sober Mind Meditation 7” was recorded right after this fest and was to be released on Warehouse recs (that Edward Verhaeghe did together with Jeroen Lauwers). The band had a steady line-up with Jan Maelfait on bass (meaning he had to perform twice that day)…
With ‘Spirit Of Youth’ playing aswell, there was a total of 4 (more or less) local SxE bands… The month after this, they recorded the 7” The Abyss (released by Crucial Response recs). The line-up (see also 92-08-09) that day was: Jan Maelfait (vocals), Dominiek Denolf (guitar), Frederik Denolf (drums) and Ignace Demeyer (bass).
‘No More’ had already played here (92-05-24). They were from Luxembourg (the country, not the Belgian province). A political HC band consisting of Claude ‘Pattex’ Werer (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (vocals) & Mike ‘Schof’ (93) (drums). See also 93-03-28.
‘Feeding The Fire’: Not the first time, nor the last time they were here: 91-12-21, 92-04-18, 92-10-10, 93-05-22, 94-08-21 & 96-05-12. Emphasizing the strong connection between some people…
Brob
That day I met most of the Bradford guys, like Nick [Royles] and Tom [Chapman], etc. for the first time. ‘Ironside’ were hard as fuck. Their singer looked like a psycho. Turned out to be a real nice guy . They made quite an impression. Heyday of the first generation H8000 scene.
Rob Franssen, ‘Feeding The Fire’ singer
I visited again [92-07-25 & 92-08-09] for the Ieperfest. (Wasn’t that the very first time that fest took place…?) At least for the Saturday: I had school on Monday and couldn’t stay for the Sunday. The feeling on the first day of school after that summer was incredible. I actually just started in fall 1992 with my English lessons and picked up so fast, but not because of the teacher or the lessons but because of what I’d learned reading in lyrics and fanzines, and writing letters. Brob and me kept a somewhat regular correspondence since then until the summer of 1995. We met again for the fest in the summer of 1996, but the atmosphere at the fest was different and I was aswell; that was my last visit to the V.V. I visited the place (which was a pub) in early spring 2008 and early summer 2009 during field-trips with students of the University of Essen & the University of Siegen, respectively. I never saw the new V.V.
Jörg Jacoby, visitor from Saarbrücken
A couple of quick facts… ‘Ironside’ were never explicitly “vegan straight-edge” and certainly not metalcore. ‘Ironside’ was a straight-edge band. I really enjoyed that trip to Ieper, as I knew I was gonna be living in Lille in France in the near future. I was really keen on the whole Euro music scene and so for me it was great to meet people from ‘Nations On Fire’, ‘Spirit Of Youth’, ‘Feeding The Fire’, Jean-Paul [Frijns] from Value of Strength zine, some of the Lille people, etc. The scene was so much bigger than in the UK it seemed although in the UK the straight-edge scene was much smaller and less insular. We had a great time, going to the swimming-pool, watching a lot of bands that weekend…
In 1992 I lived in Lille, France for one year as part of my studies. I spent a lot of time travelling to Belgium, staying with the ‘Spirit Of Youth’ guys, hanging out with Ed, Bruno, Jeroen, UJ, Hans, etc. Also some of the Lille/ Roubaix/ Mouscron guys like Pierre ‘Six Feet Over’, etc.
As I commented [see link on top] I am sure there were plenty of people there whose intentions were misguided – whether it was just to make as much money, or young kids who were full on straight-edge vegan one weekend and turned back to a conservative lifestyle the next, and obviously didn’t look beyond the surface of what was going on…
Tom Chapman, ‘Ironside’ guitarist
>> With my twenty-first birthday looming in September 1992, I was where I always had been: restless and skint, devoid of potential fellow voyagers and lacking the guts and information to go it alone. But then there was Belgium – how hard could it be to travel there, to go to the first hardcore festival in Ieper? Was I just going to give in to my mates who didn’t want to go to it, or in fact go anywhere beyond their crap summer-jobs. So Belgium wasn’t Bolivia but it was a start, and it was a music festival and how cool would it be that I had been while other guys hung about the UK that summer? So I bit the bullet and got in touch with a guy called Jase [‘Step One’ Fox] from Manchester who was going too and together we headed over to Belgium. He had sorted staying with friends in Ieper so I managed to blag myself on to that ticket and got to stay with some lovely people in Belgium who were part of the beating heart of the hardcore scene there.
It is difficult to convey now how boundary-breaking it felt to travel abroad on my own – well at least emotionally on my own, not knowing my travelling companion very well. It all seems a bit silly now what with books and internet resources so readily available, but at the time I didn’t know that things like the Lonely Planet guides existed, which would tell how you how to get to a place and find somewhere cheap to stay. As far as I was concerned you had to buy a ticket for somewhere and hope for the best that you could figure it all out when you got there in your best pigeon version of the local language. All that to me – and to others where I came from – seemed a bit scary in the early nineties. I guess some of us just weren’t destined to be the world’s greatest (budget) explorers! At the time of my little jaunt to Belgium, it was quite a talking-point for the neighbours back home that I had just swanned off to the ‘continent’ on my own when most of us didn’t go much further than Bournemouth or if we did, it was just a touch of Spain on a package!
The Ieperfest was fab. The sun shone, there were loads of new people, bands, distros from right across Europe and of course many records to absorb and vegan food to devour – spaghetti I recall. There we go again, I can remember what I ate nineteen years ago but I’ll struggle to remember which bands played. ‘Shortsight’, ‘Feeding the Fire’, ‘Blindfold’, ‘Ironside’, ‘Spirit Of Youth’, that’s the best I can do! I don’t know if it was in part a consequence of the sun shining, compared to a dour and sour Yorkshire, and there being lots of people from around Europe having lots of super friendly conversations, but the whole event and the community gathered there seemed to simply ooze positivity.
Maybe it was just because it was all new to me but things seemed definitely different to back in the UK. For one thing – and this really stood out for me – there was a mini manifesto on the gig-flyer [perhaps this: Fast music doesn’t mean violent dancing] about violence and violent dancing not being tolerated, and this was something that the guys there really held fast on. I had never been to a gig like this where was so much good natured dancing going on, where everyone felt safe and looked out for with zero posturing. A couple of hundred people were crammed into the café, watching the bands and there was lots of fun stage-diving going on and people hoisting others into the air to surf the crowd. Secondly, the pleasure and openness with which people met each other for the first time, and the thirst for conversation, information-sharing and political discourse. It felt like everyone was bursting with ideas and political perspectives they wanted to share. I met some really brilliant people there, from which I took much inspiration home with me. Also just as exciting was the recurring references by the bands to the tediousness of sexism in life but also closer to home in the scene. But best of all was seeing some of the coolest girls rock out in the bands, and even better was to come in that I would eventually have the privilege of releasing some of their work on the next Subjugation record.
But back to 1992. It was a bit scary being there on my own, a kind of strange British waif and stray amongst large groups of friends who rubbed along with an easy and gentle bonhomie. I am not very good at being the kind of creature who finds it easy to impose themselves upon someone and their circle of friends. I really didn’t know Jase, who I travelled over with, very well and was keen not to be a social burden to him. At this time I didn’t really know the guys from ‘Ironside’ and they always looked a bit scary to me so I was way too shy to barge my way into their gang and they didn’t exactly rush my way either to save me from being the lonesome British girl there! So I just had to get on with it, trying to look nonchalantly cool and OK about being totally on my own, reading zines and killing loads of time between bands while being completely out of my social depth!!
Zines being sold at gigs…to me that was one of the best things ever and probably not for the reasons you think. They saved my social dignity on many occasions! In the early days there weren’t too many girls at gigs and I think most of us felt pretty awkward being a minority – an alien being on the landscape, often finding ourselves behaving like wall-flowers on the periphery of the gathering – even if this was contrary to our ‘normal’ personalities. We often failed to reach out to each other while an easy bonhomie flourished between the boys, powered it seemed to me by talk of record-collecting and being in bands! The boys didn’t seem to want to engage with us very much at gigs. On a lot of occasions the most I could get out of them was a “Hello, how are you…”, without much enthusiasm for any further follow-up and inclusion! My favourite scenario was when I used to go up to a group of guys who weren’t complete strangers to me and say the usual “Hello, how’s it going?…” hoping to join in and hang out and they would all go quiet and look awkward… I can laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible. It was like always being the new kid at school that people are polite to but you can’t be arsed to try with and let into your gang! It meant that there was often a lot of time to be killed on your own and so you needed strategies to help you stop you looking like a total pariah. This is where zines came in and saved me! So three cheers for zine-writers – the unsung heroes and heroines of the socially excluded at gigs!! On several occasions over the years I have tried to fathom why I wasn’t allowed to hang out with the same ease as those guys who were new to our local scene or visiting. The answers generally fell into two categories. Firstly I was someone’s girlfriend and that made people feel weird about approaching and including me. The second category is that they were frightened of me. This was nicely summed up some years ago by one member of ‘Bob Tilton’, confessing that he only had the guts to speak to me freely when he was drunk. There is a possible third category – that is I am tedious, but my friends promise me that I am not and just maybe they are right, as they have at least stuck with me for a decade or two.
Once again, back to 1992….so I probably did a lot of zine-reading at the Ieper festival but I could couldn’t hide away forever. I now ran a record-label and responsibilities to face up to, like shifting the 500 ‘Strength Alone’ records sat in Ian’s house in Darlington and more immediately the ones I had with me. I had to be brave and bold, and try and trade or sell them to the distros at the festival. I dread to think what they thought of this timid little thing trying to thrust my meagre offering on them. I also remember sitting there on my own with my little box of records, next to the big distros trying to sell them… Ah bless me. I totally thought the guys from ‘Ironside’ must be so laughing at me. I felt very small but nothing ventured nothing gained…for me the fight back against the under-valued and minority-status of women in hardcore-punk had to begin with trying to sell 50 ‘Strength Alone’ 7”s! And you know what…I did it, I got rid of them and came back with contacts for the major distributors in Europe. If first base is pressing a record, then second base is working with European distributors and I was on my way.
The Ieper festival was an opportunity to see ‘Shortsight’ and ‘Feeding the Fire’ play, both of which had female members in the band – Saskia, the vocalist in ‘Shortsight’ and Ilona, the bass-player [guitar actually] in ‘Feeding the Fire’. They seemed like warrior-queens, leaders of a tribe that were out numbered twenty to one, shouting “bring it fucking on”. I was in awe, not only of them but the friends they had that had the where with all to help them take their place centre stage. Being in Ieper was also an opportunity to meet Hazel, who was way ahead of the rest of us in breaking the mould, having played bass in the Belgian straight-edge band ‘Nations On Fire’. I also met up with a really cool woman over from Canada called Mel who wrote a straight-edge fanzine. It was pretty exciting to be, for the first time, around other women who were trying to make their presence felt in the straight-edge/hardcore scene and start to share experiences and find common cause. It is very liberating to come to the realisation that what you considered to be personal deficiencies are in fact systemic: you are not totally crap, the environment you are in skews your chances significantly in favour of being perceived as crap! The rush of oxygen to the brain when you finally work this out is quite something. It doesn’t make walking up to a group of guys to try and trade records any less daunting but at least you haven’t beat your self up too much before you try!!
With Jase I was staying at Hans’ house, who was the guitarist in ‘Blindfold’ and ran P.M.A. recs. For those of you that like your band-member facts, he eventually went on to be in ‘Liar’. Also staying over at the house was the ‘Feeding the Fire’ crew (Rob the singer went on to be in ‘Born From Pain’). I remember hanging out with them after the night ‘Ironside’ had played the festival, laughing at the impressions we were all doing of Arm’s, (the singer of ‘Ironside’), slightly scary stage-persona.
I was also probably trying to impress them with my world-domination plans for Subjugation, which frankly boiled down to trying to put together an Animal Rights benefit compilation 7”. We had been in touch with various bands over the summer and it was pretty much coming together. Signed up were ‘Feeding the Fire’ from Holland, ‘Shortsight’ from Belgium and ‘Struggle’ from San Diego, who had just released the most amazing 7” on Ebullition recs, and a track on the compilation 12” Give Me Back which was a benefit for Women’s support-groups. To get them on board was totally brilliant. Again for those of you who like band-member facts, ‘Struggle’ included Justin Pearson who went on to be in ‘Swing Kids’ and ‘The Locust’. […]
Feeling buoyed up and a bit giddy by what I achieved at the Ieperfest I made my way back to the UK. ‘Ironside’ were on the same ferry crossing as me. I said “Hello” without sounding too squeaky and secretly hoped that they would kind of indicate that it was cool for me to hang out with them for the four hour crossing, but sadly they didn’t, so I did my best impression of cool independence and sauntered off to get coffee, hiding my disappointment that I wasn’t getting the chance to hang out with the über-cool Nick Royles, the drummer of ‘Ironside’. Ian Leck (the singer of ‘Steadfast’/’Voorhees’) did find me later in the café and joined me for some chit-chat, which was a welcomed charitable act that I have clearly remembered for the last twenty years! The initial tepid relations between myself and Bradford boys was later in part explained by the unearthing of a snake in our midst’s! Someone was peddling tales and creating general mistrust been the Leeds and Bradford posses. In the following months the perpetrator was unmasked and confronted and the outcome of this was to be some cool collaborations between us all on gigs and record releases, general good times and an enduring friendship between Nick and I. It is shame that the petty power-games of this one individual prevented the cool stuff happening all the sooner, but I guess such games are all part of the rich pageant that is human relationships… <<
Helene Keller, Subjugation recs (subjugationrecords.wordpress.com)
The best ‘N.O.F.’ line-up here: Jaak De Cock (drums; ex ‘C.P.D. & ‘Disorder’), David Dutriaux (vocals; also ‘Scraps’), Jeroen Lauwers (bass) and Ed(ward) Verhaeghe (guitar; ex ‘Midnight Man’ & ‘Rise Above’). Their album Strike The Match was out for a while. Recordings for the Burn Again double-7” were ongoing. Same for the Non Smokers 7”… Actually Jaak played his last show with ‘Nations On Fire’ in Brugge, October 17th 1992 (a benefit for G.A.I.A.). He was a fervent promoter of veganism (the Belgian Vegan Society and the likes) and would start a vegan/healthfood shop in his hometown Hamme…
‘Abolition’ (at the very beginning named ‘Violent Arrest’) played power-trash from Ludwigshafen and were: Bernd ‘Mr Intolerance’ Bohrmann (vocals; used to do Confrontation zine), Corey ‘The Cat’ Von Villiez (bass), Jens ‘Violent’ Wagner (guitar) and Andreas ‘Huy’ Huyhammer (drums). At that time they had the Jesus Was A Fuckin’ Dick 7” out (a co-release on Bernd & Corey’s Equality recs and Jens’ Homemade recs).
Corey was a pen-pal. We shared a clinical chemistry training and the fact that we were both rather critical towards consumerist attitudes in the HardCore scene. I admired her political stance and intelligent writing. She obtained a PhD in Political Science & Philosophy eventually…
The LP Complaceny (with Miguel Andrade on 2nd guitar) was recorded end ’93 and got out in 1994… Thesir raging hardcore fitted well with Bernd’s anger and critical attitude. The lyrics were very political (and elaborated into pamphlets that came with their releases). If you wanna know how they sounded, have a look here…: Abolition live @ Nagold (Germany) 1992.
Corey and Bernd formed ‘Stack’, Jens & Huy went on to play with ‘Nothing Remains’ (their bassist Frank Henkelmann actually ran Homemade recs together with Jens) and we’ld see Miguel back with ‘Age’ & ‘Rusty James’…
‘Inner Circle’, from Germany would play here again on 92-10-10. ‘Inner Circle’ They were to become ‘Spawn’ later…
Mike Briggs of ‘Agent 86’ contacted me to help find some gigs for his band ‘Agent 86’ (their tour was mainly arranged by their French label New Wave recs). I quite liked their music, political lyrics and DIY attitude…so I tried to help where I could. Their tour was a bit messy so I believe they played where/when it was possible and I think they ended up at the Vort’n Vis a few times (Perhaps they played the 19th? Definitely Oct 4th) On the tour-poster it’s indicated this day they were due in Ieper (they’re also mentioned in concert-review in Holy Hardcore #2 below)…
‘Agent 86’ played punk-rock, sometimes flavoured with a bit of reggae, and had an LP out that year called Just Say No. The line-up on that record was bassist Michelle Orgill, drummers Billy Ropple & Wes Hambright, and Mike Briggs (guitar & vocals). The drummer on the tour was Robert Perry. Before that they’d already done a whole bunch of 7”s, e.g. Vietnam Generation (also on New Wave recs).
Kjell E. Moberg, the guitarist of the Norwegian band ‘Punishment Park’ (a band from Bergen that played punk-rock, here with a female vocalist, Anja) had asked my help before but for some reason they couldn’t convince me that they had the true D.I.Y. punk spirit so I said no. They eventually ended up touring with ‘Agent 86’ and did turn up to play here… In my review of their CD for Tilt! #7 I wrote “Melodic uptempo punkrock with a touch of reggae sometimes. Good but nothing too special…”
Brob
‘S.O.T.W.’ was called ‘PositiveYouth’ at first and I did the vocals then. I think we might’ve played with ‘Sedition’ at one time. A while later I took up second guitar and Jan (brother of Maarten Beckers who was the drummer in the band) started singing. Those 2 later founded bands such as ‘Kindred’ and ‘Enemy Of The Sun’. ‘Positive Youth’ / ‘Strength Of The Will’ were from the Tongeren area (except for myself [from Antwerp]). They were just guys who were in their last year of secondary school, who liked the ‘Exhaustless Revolt’ [Filip’s 1st band; see 90-10-06, 91-05-03 & 91-11-23] tapes, heard that we’d stopped and called me one day asking to sing for them. :-) Crazy, actually… I didn’t know any of them but took the train tot the other side of Belgium (which I already had gotten used to, travelling to HC concerts; even if we had to play ourselves we went by train) and we started a band. Can’t remember very well how long it lasted, I estimate a year or two… Then the whole thing faded out: things weren’t that easy because of the distance, we rehearsed very little… A bit later ‘Kindred’ started. ‘S.O.T.W.’ played a few times at the V.V., on one occasion with ‘Wheel Of Progress’, a precursor of ‘Congress’, I think.
Somewhere in the 90s I played in another band called ‘Braveyard’ (a mix of hardcore/metal with hiphop/rap) but we didn’t release anything officially. (There was one song on a promo CD of Good Life recs.) Music was more a way to let of steam.
Filip Staes (ex ‘Exhaustless Revolt’)
Ieperfest [It wasn’t called like that yet back then…] September 1992. ‘Strength Of The Will’ opened in the pub. 3 and a half hours on the train (Tongeren – Ieper), saw 2 bands and had to leave early to get home… Didn’t get to see ‘Nations On Fire’ that time.
Koen Stassen
I can remember that I took some photos of this two day-festival we played… I also have a T-shirt that lists all the bands. I recall meeting a lot of nice and cool people there. And I have recollections of almost having an accident on the way home because I was soooo tired driving…
We played a ‘Negative Approach’ cover and the singer of ‘Voorhees’ (Ian Leck) went nuts…
Bernd Bohrmann, vocalist for ‘Abolition’
‘InnerXCircle’ was Patrick Uhlemann on second guitar and myself on bass. The guy that replaced me later was Dirk Zeiser [later ‘Spawn’].
Holger Andt
I think we played twice at the V.V. and might have been scheduled to play that third time with ‘Jawbreaker’ (we did play with them in Lyon on the same tour)…but it was one of several shows I think that fell through… The Vort’n Vis was a favourite just because it was so wellcoming, and fun. Looking over the show-list on your site was amazing; we played with so many bands in that time-period (since we were there that 2nd time for over 4 months)…
I stay in contact with a lot of my old punk-rock pals, especially Dario Adamic, who has become a cherished friend, which is pretty amazing given all the drama at the time. [Brob: For history’s sake: Dario Adamic (Zips & Chains zine, Rome) had a lot of stories to tell about touring with ‘Agent 86’: according to him they were not DIY, dishonest, sexist, etc. He wrote letters to Maximum Rock’n’Roll about that…]
Michelle Orgill, ‘Agent 86’ bassist
We played in September 1992, I think it was a small festival. We just turned up after a messed up week in Germany as far as I can remember. We came there with ‘Agent 86’ (we were touring together that fall) and we got to play a few songs each. Most likely it was September 6th since we started the tour late in August that year.
Kjell E. Moberg, ‘Punishment Park’
I want to apologize for letting ‘Punishment Park’ infiltrate in the underground scene. They have nothing to do with the ideas and values of the squats. They buy Shell gas, eat at McDonalds and want to be on MTV.
Mike Briggs, personal communication 1993
My wife, our bass-player at that time, Michelle Orgill and I moved back to the West Coast (Eugene, Oregon) as soon as we got home from the 1992 tour. ‘Agent 86’ is still a thriving entity (www.reverbnation.com/agent86), approaching 30 years. We play mostly in Las Vegas but did our first tour in 17 years in March 2010 – L.A. to Seattle and back. My current wife, Jill, is the bass-player and we have 5 drummers that all know our set that we use. I book, run the door and do sound for shows on Friday-nights at a local bar (Boomers).
Mike Briggs, ‘Agent 86’ guitarist
I played for ‘Agent 86’ for a few years. I joined in ‘91 after the last drummer quit. My roommate was friends with them and hooked us up. I am still in contact with them. I only played on the Riot Girl EP and there is a live record out there somewhere from a show we did in Serbia.
Charles Maggio, ‘Rorschach’s vocalist and owner of Gern Blandsten, at one point wrote: “Brob, I’ld like you to be my exclusive distributor for my label in Belgium.”. That was probably after the Fuse fiasco (a trial to merge 3 local distros – my own Tilt!, Bruno’s and Joeri’s) but I it didn’t actually happen (I wanted to keep things manageable)… A few years before I’d met Charles live when he was touring. Also in the band were Thomas ‘Tommy’ Rusnak (bass, replacing first bassist: Chris Laucella; later in ‘Ambush’ [95-01-29]), Andrew Gormley (drums; later in ‘Shai Hulud’ [99-06-27]) & ‘Bhakta’ Keith Huckins & Nick Forté (guitar). Their driver was Tobias Werner from ‘Ambush’ (van owned by Peter Carstens)… I’d gotten to know of the band through my correspondents Sam McPheeters (‘Born Against’ singer) – who released their LP Remain Sedate (on his label Vermiform) and the split 7” (with ‘Neanderthal’; came with Sam’s zine Dear Jesus) – and Freddy Alva – who put out the Needlepack 7” on Wardance (out 1991). This was before the Protestant LP (which would appear after this tour, I think). There’s also a tape, called Close Your Eyes And See Death…, of their show in Firenze during that tour (92-06-18). The music of ‘Rorschach’ (who were from New Jersey) was compared once with a bone-marrow biopsy; hard, brutal, painful,… It was also angry, intimidating and energetic. Here’s ‘Rorschach’ playing My War @ the 1in12 (Bradford, UK) on the 1992 tour.
The day after (92-06-28) ‘Rorschach’ played at La Zone in Liège with ’6 Feet Over’… Tobias was driving Peter Carsten’s van (that broke down in France).
The band still exist today… But some of them are in other bands. The projects of Nick (who married Stacy Wakefield – of Evil Twin publications) are summarized on nickforte.eviltwinpublications.com
‘Blurred Vision’ were Marko (bass), Niklas (drums), Oliver ‘Olli’ (vocals) and Richard (guitar). In ‘94 Boezie released a split-7” (with ‘Jobbykrust’) on his Grinding Madness label but they’d already split up in Nov ‘93). They played “screamed emotional slow/mid-paced abrasive crust-core”.
‘Shortsight’ had played here a couple times (91-10-12, 91-12-21) but were still on their way to a steady line-up. Saskia wasn’t in the band yet…
I’ve no idea anymore who ‘Planet Coldox’ were (announced in the newsletter) or if I saw them actually play… I read somewhere Micha (bass), Emma (drums), Christoph(er) Nobis (guitar) & Heiko (2nd guitar; later replaced by Ingo) were from Manheim.
Brob
I have to admit that show has become a bit of a blur to me. What I do remember was sleeping in the van that night and being woken up by what I thought were jet-engines. After about 10 minutes of constant noise I got dressed and wandered out of the alley where the van was parked and almost got run over by a rally-car. I heard what sounded like a crowd so I started to follow the noise and ended up where I think was the finish of a rally-race. It was one of the most surreal things I have ever experienced. I know it’s not really show- or HC-related but that is what I really remember from that night. [Brob Indeed there’s the annual Ypres Rally end of June. The Vort’n Vis has always protested against it.]
Keith Huckins, ‘Rorschach’ guitarist
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.‘Rorschach’ & friend: (L => R) Nick Forte – Charles Maggio – Keith Huckins - Will Tarrant (Chainsaw Safety recs from NYC) * photo taken at the beginning of the European tour
Quite a while after their 1st appearance in Belgium (1982, supporting the ‘Dead Kennedys’ in Mechelen) this one, but in the meantime Smurfpunx (90-09-14), Hageland Hardocre (87-11-22) and a bunch of others had hosted them more than a few times already. Time for a show at the Vort’n Vis!
In the band (residing in San Francisco) at that time were: Erica Liss (bass; replacing Matt Freeman), Al Schultz ‘AlShvitz’ (drums), Dave Dictor (vocals) and Chris Wilder (guitar; ex ‘Stikky’; replacing Bill Collins). Later during this tour they became the first HC band to play in Russia (see MRR #117). At the end of that year they recorded the Thanks For Giving Me What I Didn’t Want… 7” that was released by New Red Archives in 1993. The next album Shades Of Brown (We Bite recs ’93) was with the same line-up and contains quite a few written and/or composed by Chris (e.g. the hip-hop vegetarian song Real Food, Real People, Real Bullets or Hail Satan; witty but clever).
The band still exists and did its 1st Australian tour Summer 2013.
‘That’s It’ (Los Angeles) had played the V.V. earlier that year (92-01-12; with guitarist/vocalist Shawn Stern, bassist Greta Brinkman, guitarist Mark Phillips and Tom(my) ‘Stupid’ Withers on drums). Tommy left the band halfway their tour so Chris took over on drums (David Andler played on the 7”). I can’t remember the others who were in the guestbook – A.J. (A.J. Ness did the artwork for the 7”), Ricky A.
Bettina who did a guestbook-entry is – as far as I can recall – Bettina Geile, a nice girl from Bremen who drove bands around in her van. Someone with a heart-warming smile and outgoing personality!… Nowadays she works for Schlachthof (a venue where a lot of HC/punk bands played at that time).
‘No More’, from Luxembourg (the country, not the Belgian province) were: Claude ‘Pattex’ Werer (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (vocals) & Mike ‘Schof’ (drums). This was their 1st appearance here (they would be back – 92-09-05 & 93-03-28). In 1991 they’d released a split-12” (All Life is Equal) together with another band from Luxembourg (‘Subway Arts’) on Markus Haas’ Per Koro recs. Their 7” How Much is Enough – with one track recorded live at the 500 Years Of Genocide show at the Kulturfabrik in Esch, 92-10-25 – was put out by Peacy recs (Diff and Simone Winandy).
‘Tribe 8’ was an all-women outspoken dyke punk band from San Francisco. Considered one of the first queer-core groups. ‘Tribe Eight’ is a play on the word tribade, which was once used to refer to a lesbian.
At the time of touring they had a 7” out, called Pig Bitch (HARP recs, 1992) and split-7”s with ‘Blatz’ (Bitches’n’Brew & Stranger Fruit, both on Lickout! – spoof on LookOut!- recs, 1992). Their LP By The Time We Get To Colorado (1993) came out on Outpunk recs (who also released a 7” for ‘Pansy Division’). A lot more followed…
The line-up on the Pig Bitch 7” was ‘Mahia Kobayashi’ (bass; later Lynn Payne), Silas ‘Flipper’ Howard (guitar), Leslie Mah (guitar), Lynn Breedlove (vocals) and Kat Buell (drums; later Slade Bellum) so I guess that’s who was on the tour. They played guitar-driven punk’n’roll and singer Lynn Breedlove (who became an author) delivered controversial lyrics dealing with subjects such as SM, nudity, fellatio and trans-gender issues. Some will only remember them for performing bare-breasted or wearing a strap-on dildo but the band’s message sure came across to those who really listened…
Read more about the band on tribe8.com. From (the book) Cinderella’s Big Score – Women Of The Punk And Indie Underground: “Lynn Breedlove ran Lickety Split All-Girl Courier, an all-female bike-messenger service which employed more than 100 women. […] Leslie Mah works as a tattoo-artist at the woman-owned and -operated Black & Blue Tattoo since ’96. […] Silas Howard co-wrote/-produced the film By Hook Or By Crook.” Silas is a writer, producer and director. You can read about Lynn’s projects on lynnbreedlove.com.
Brob
‘Mahia Kobayashi’ was the bass-player for a minute (also ‘92); she left in a huff early on… Leslie and Silas were the guitar-players…
Lynn Breedlove, ‘Tribe 8’ singer
‘S.O.T.W.’ was called ‘PositiveYouth’ at first and I did the vocals then. A while later I took up second guitar and Jan (brother of Maarten Beckers who was the drummer in the band) started singing. Those 2 later founded bands such as ‘Kindred’ and ‘Enemy Of The Sun’. ‘Positive Youth’/’Strength Of The Will’ were from the Tongeren area (except for myself). They were just guys who were in their last year of secondary school, who liked the ‘Exhaustless Revolt’ [Filip’s 1st band] tapes, heard that we’d stopped and called me one day asking to sing for them. :-) Crazy, actually… I didn’t know any of them but took the train tot the other side of Belgium (which I already had gotten used to, travelling to HC concerts; even if we had to play ourselves we went by train) and we started a band. Can’t remember very well how long it lasted, I estimate a year or two… Then the whole thing faded out: things weren’t that easy because of the distance, we rehearsed very little… A bit later ‘Kindred’ started. ‘S.O.T.W.’ played a few times at the V.V. [see 92-09-06], on one occasion with ‘Wheel Of Progress’, a precursor of ‘Congress’, I think.
Filip Staes
I visited the old V.V. between 1994 and ‘98, the first time I went there was this ‘M.D.C.’ / ‘Tribe 8’ gig, I think. I used to make a zine/newsletter called Carry On Screaming in the 90s, which later became Scream zine. Maybe that rings a bell? I believe we wrote each other a few times and definitely met at the V.V. I probably went to the V.V. 5 or 6 times (Leed festivals, etc.). I also went to a couple of summer festivals when it took place in a school-yard (late ‘90s/early ‘00s) but that was nowhere near as inspiring as the old V.V.
Luc Ardilouze, France (nowadays drummer for ‘Gasmask Terror’)
One day, the promoter of the show or maybe the club-owner was trying to screw the bands around for money and the manager, a real crazy guy named Syd [Migx; vocalist for ‘Cheetah Chrome Motherfucker’ and doing tours - Big Flash at 6 - with his partner Lorelei], said he was going to get a baseball-bat, wrap it in barbed wire, shove it up his ass and wave him around like a flag. That may not have been in Belgium… I was six so its all very blurry. But I do definitely remember that happening somewhere. Haha… Syd was really funny and great. He has come up a lot when we’ve talked about the tour and always good/funny things are said about him by everyone. His friends from Italy called me ‘Satanino’. Little satan… I’ve always thought that was pretty cool.
Bri, Al Schultz’s son
Chris Wilder & I were the fresh young members and Dave & Al were the originals. ‘M.D.C.’ had always been heroes of mine. I saw them on the Rock Against Reagan tour in the early 80s. I played with Al in a San Francisco band called ‘Gecko Velour’ – after Matt Freeman of ‘Operation Ivy’ (and currently in ‘Rancid’) left the band they ushered me in – I played with them from ‘92-‘95, doing several world-tours, recording Shades Of Brown and several split-singles (one with ‘Capitalist Casualties’).
‘Tribe 8’ had a separate van from us though I rode with those fun troublemaking dykes as often as possible :0). Kat was the original drummer. Slade was the drummer in my very first band in 1987: ‘Industrial Rainforest’. We also played together in ‘Thursdays Child’. The San Francisco scene was pretty small and incestuous!
Erica Liss; ‘M.D.C.’ bassist
‘M.D.C.’ has played Belgium quite often and it’s tough keeping it straight … May ‘92 was our 4 month tour in Europe where we eventually played Russia. Erica Liss on bass, Chris Wilder on guitar, Alschvitz on drums and myself on vocals. We felt very proud touring with ‘Tribe 8’.
David Dictor
We had a blast and as my first tour of Europe, I was constantly surprised at how nice and welcoming everyone was… Even though America had (and still has) a lousy reputation in so much of the more progressive world.
Chris Wilder; ‘M.D.C.’ guitarist
Bettina was with us although she wasn’t really our driver. Chris Lagerborg was the drummer, he died maybe 10-12 years ago from a bad heart I believe. AJ was playing with ‘Throw Rag’ for a while but I don’t think he’s playing music for some years now. Ricky lives in Forida.
Yeah, AJ did some artwork on a 7” I believe… Can’t remember. AJ, Ricky and Greta were all fill-ins after the initial band members left the band. Tommy Stupid bailed the band in DC; a week before we were going to Europe without bothering to tell anyone. He basically used the ‘tour’ across the US to get to his drunk fat girlfriend that he met at one of our first shows in L.A. to the East-Coast. So the bassplayer left (he was brought into the band only a week or 2 before the tour when Tommy decided ‘we’, meaning me, had to fire the bassplayer we had (who was a nice guy but not the best bass player), and Mark Phillips & I had to find a drummer and bassist in a week in DC. We found David Andler and Greta. They did the first European tour with us, Greta broke her arm near the end of the tour. The 2nd European tour was with AJ, Ricky and Chris.
I was in the band for the winter tour but this one in May of 1992 I was not there. I don’t know who replaced me; on drums was my old friend Chris Lagerborg who I was later in ‘Joykiller’ and ‘Cheater’ with and he was in ‘Down By Law’ after me. He died in about 2002, he was a roadie for ‘Slayer’. I remember something about a guy named A.J. who was a big black guy with a mohawk (from Long Beach) that played bass but I don’t know if that’s the same guy. Ricky…I’m not sure at all.
The first gig of ‘Sedition’ (from Glasgow) here. On their 1st tour with ‘One By One… I’d probably already heard them on tape. Later I helped distribute the LP over here. I’d exchanged some notes before with ‘Brycey’ about his on Reel To Real tape-label but I didn’t realize it was the same guy who played with them. The band was: Angus ‘Gus’ Quinn (vocals; later ‘Scatha’), Martin Mann (drums; just joined before this tour, replacing Jamie Usher – who later also played in ‘Quarantine’ for a while), Billy Steele (guitar; ex ‘Disturbed’ – he replaced the original guitarist Davie Thompson after the 1st 7”; also ‘Disaffect’ & ‘Scatha’) and Craig ‘Brycey’ Bryce (bass; later in ‘Dawson’ – see 93-10-03). They played raging political hardcore/ peace-punk. Their music was also often described as ‘Celt-core’ because of their love for the tribal societies of Ireland/Scotland (hence the kilts by times)… Their 1st releases were the Dealing With Clichés 7” (1989) and a split with ‘Pink Turds In Space’ (the latter on Reel To Real recs, 1990 – re-issued in 1994 on Flat Earth recs). Later came the Earth Beat LP and the split-7” with ‘Disaffect’ on Sned’s Flat Earth recs (‘93).
‘One By One’ had been here before (91-08-18 & 92-03-08)… Karin joined the lads (Sned, Mac & Micky) early ’92 (after the World On Fire 7” and the LP on Words Of Warning). The first ‘One By One’ release with Karin on vocals was the Fight 7” (recorded Oct ’92). There was also the Atrapad@s En El Fascista Planeta Tierra 7” on the Spanish label Víctimas Del Progreso and the Les 40 Ans Du Vieux 7” (with one ‘Sedition’ track) – recorded at a farmhouse somewhere near Tours, France, both in 1994.
For info on the starting ‘Dreft’ see: 89-07-09. I think by then they had already evolved from grind to death-metal… Can’t remember if U.J. was in the band at that time…
Brob
I was at the old V.V. when ‘One By One’ and ‘Sedition’ toured. And later at one or two festivals?! Sascha [May] and Gregor [Kanitz] went as well as, with some other people from Düsseldorf. Only thing I recall at once is the long yet comfortable train-trip with them cheap Belgian 6-trips group-tickets for the local/short-distance trains. Dead cheap really. The lot of us were still pupils/students and could ride free to the border.
Roland, autonomous centre Mülheim (Germany)
I have some video of ‘Sedition’ playing at the V.V. I think (an old Hi 8 tape that I am in the process of getting put onto DVD). It was our first escapade into Europe and I can remember it was nothing like we had experienced before, then we got woken in the night with cops with guns demanding our passports and lots of craziness that followed. I will get the whole story of the night and get it posted!!! [C’mon Billy!!!]
Billy Steele
Me and Jane [Graham; Shag Stamp zine & ‘Witchknot’] were together for 4 years from about 1990, we came over with ‘Sedition’/‘One By One’ and they played Ieper, Hasselt, Liège and probably some other places. We also stayed in Liège and Gent (with Leffe) while the bands went on to Germany.
Russ Snell, ‘Stalingrad’ guitarist
This was the first time the bands toured together, so it must have been the one with ‘Sedition’ in a crazy bus called Amyerbus, driven by Angus Buchan [The guestbook mentions ‘Fazzy’…]. They got refused entry to Switzerland, Arjen [van der Meulen; Groninger who organised quite a few tours] got arrested (that happened a few times back then ) and … I got other memories but we toured a few times in a short time and I get them mixed up…
Sned
I’m the Angus that used to be in the band ‘Glue’ and also drove for ‘Quarantine’ / ‘Scatha’ a few times. We have indeed met more than once and also had some correspondence. [Brob: I’d mixed the 2 Angus-es …]
Angus McPhee
We had a nice dinner with the blokes of ‘Sedition’ & ‘One By One’ upstairs at the old Vort’n. Our line-up was probably still the one from the demo with myself on vocals, Erwin & Sammy on guitars & Narre on drums.
Kris ‘Mosh’, ‘Dreft’
This was the day before they played in Hasselt [92-08-30 @‘De Hazelaar’] and a week later they were in Liège [92-09-11]…
Besides the bands that actually played (can’t remember if ‘Punishment Park’ were there aswell; I think they abondoned touring with ‘Agent 86’ by then) also ‘Jawbreaker’ was announced (see poster). Can ‘t recall why exactly they didn’t show up (the UK part of the tour was cancelled) but they played here a couple of years later (94-10-01) though… This day was part of a ‘B.L.O.’ weekend (can ‘t remember what that meant) and ‘Naked Lunch’ performed the day before…
This was the first time ‘Disaffact’ played here. They would be back 93-07-04 and 94-05-22. As everyone knows, ‘Disaffect’ (a political HC/punk band from Glasgow) was Andy Irvine (bass; later ‘Scatha’, ‘Debris’, etc.), Lynne Entwistle (vocals), ‘Joe Fear’ (Jock Deacons; vocals; nowadays in ‘Constant Fear’), ‘IB’ Iain Blue (a.k.a. Debo Williamson; drums, later bass in ‘Scatha’) and Brian Curran (guitar; later ‘Quarantine’, ‘Debris’, etc.). Billy Steele (‘Sedition’) played second guitar only the last time they were here… They must have had their 7” An Injury To One Is An Injury To All out (on Flat Earth & Nabate) at that time… Martin Mann (drummer of ‘Sedition’) did the cover. Marc Papito, ‘Agent 86’s driver filmed ‘Disaffect’ live and you can see the video here (It was ‘92 not ’91, as is stated).
‘Agent 86’ were touring but since a few gigs fell through the tour was a bit messy: they’d played here already but not on 92-09-06 as was mentioned on the tour-schedule. Mike Briggs (guitar & vocals), Michelle Orgill (bass) and Rob(ert) Perry (drums)…
‘Downcast’, a political band from Santa Barbara, played metallic hardcore. They were known for their “anti-dancing” stance: an effort to rid the pits of the ‘tough guy’ attitude and allow all women in the hardcore-scene to return to their rightful place up-front or in the crowd (instead of in the back). The band consisted of Brent Stephens (guitar; co-founder of Ebullition), Kevin Doss (vocals; also helping out Kent McClard with distribution of Ebullition releases) and Dave McClure (bass). They had different drummers on their recordings (Lance York, Javier Vasquez & Chris Hervey – RIP 1996). Don’t remember who did the tour… They released a tape by themselves in 1990 and Kent McClard (whom I’d met in San Francisco a few years before and toured with ‘Downcast’) put out a 7” and an LP (both self-titled, ’90 & ‘91) on his label Ebullition recs. ‘Downcast’ broke up after the tour. Kent reminded me (personal communication ’93) that Sonia Skindrud (Exedra zine and Kent’s partner in Ebullition ) started singing for ‘Not For the Lack Of Trying’ (with Kevin & Dave of ‘Downcast’)…
‘Farside’, a Californian band playing melodic HC (reminiscent of ‘Dag Nasty’, consisted of (during this tour): Michael ‘Popeye’ Vogelsang (vocals), Kevin Murphy (guitar; ex ‘Headfirst’ & ‘411’; he replaced Rob(ert) ‘Cubby’ Haworth who went on to play with ‘State Of The Nation’), Bryan Chu (bass) and Robert (Bob) ‘Violence’ Beshear (drums). Zack De La Rocha (‘Inside Out’ & ‘Rage Against the Machine’) had been in the band shortly but left before this tour. Around that time they releases the Rochambeau LP on the straight-edge label Revelation recs. I wonder if ‘Farside’ actually did play? I have no recollection of them. They were announced on 92-11-22 aswell but cancelled that one for sure… ‘Supertouch’ played with ‘Farside’ at the 1 in 12 in Bradford (92-12-19) but they didn’t tour together, they, sort of linked up in the UK.
‘Fireside’, from the Kortrijk area preceded ‘Faroutski’ – see 95-06-18) with guitarist Piet Geldhof (I think). The others were Barney Blomme (drums) and Rine Amelynck (bass). They were part of to the scene around the indie club The Pits in Kortrijk.
Zine-editor (and mate of mine) Ben ‘Sicko’ of Raising Hell (or was it You’re So Hideous by then already?) visited that day. Can ‘t remember if he was travelling around on his own or toured with ‘Disaffect’…
Brob
‘B.L.O.’ was the ‘Bond der Langharige Onderdrukten’ [League of Longhaired Suppressed]. Peter Vanthuyne [one of the V.V.’s collaborators] met them on the-university-campus in Brussels. (‘Frank & Freddy’s Fietsenfabriek’ [bicycle-factory] was the sequel.) They did somewhat playful, student-like actions. And they needed a benefit from time to time, it seemed. ‘Naked Lunch’ was a band from Brussels with people from Limburg; if I remember correctly they did a ‘Metallica’-cover and some songs resembling the ‘Butthole Surfers’. They might have become ‘Crossfader’ later on…? I think Peter did the poster…
David Stubbe
‘Downcast’ wasn’t anti-dancing. They were anti-hurting people. They were fine with people dancing but not violent dancing that hurt people. There is a big difference… Sean Sellers was the drummer of ‘Downcast’ on the European tour. No one else was travelling with us. We had some people with us for a few days at a time but it was just ‘Downcast’ and I for most of the trip. I don’t believe ‘Farside played’ here…
Kent McClard
I remember on that tour looking forward to playing at Vort’n Vis due to its cooperative, DIY approach. It had a great reputation and people I had spoken with mentioned the club along with 1 in 12 as their “home away from home”. I sincerely remember feeling the same there. Sean Sellers played drums for us on this tour and he went on to play with ‘Crack’, ‘Manumission’, ‘Shelter’, ‘Good Riddance’, ‘Real Mckenzies’, ‘Authority Zero’, ‘Blink 182’ and ‘The Transplants’. ‘Jawbreaker’ and ‘Farside’ were not there. I remember the ‘Disaffect’ people sharing their food and tales of Glasgow with me. I also vividly remember meeting Mike and Michelle from ‘Agent 86’ (I think we did 2 or 3 shows with them), liking their band instantly and sitting in their van hearing their tour-stories of Yugoslavia (!), cancelled shows, broke and hungry and not knowing how or when they were even getting home. [Mike wrote about all of that in Tremontane #1] ‘Downcast’ was going through our own emotional insecurity issues and I asked to join ‘Agent 86’. They politely declined and kicked me out of their van…
The ‘Downcast’ gig @ Vort’n Vis! Could hardly stand upright…
Vik Bulik
I recall playing with ‘Downcast’ at that gig aswell as ‘Agent 86’ (definitely) but I also know I didn’t play with ‘Jawbreaker’. I’m pretty certain ‘Jawbreaker’ were on the flyer but never played – I‘d been looking forward to seeing them but they had cancelled, I got to see ‘em in Glasgow eventually… :-) We played in Liège the night before [92-10-03 @ La Zone: ‘Disaffect’, ‘Seein’Red’ & ‘Hiatus’]. Joe might have a flyer… I tried fruit-beer for the first time here (and the last time as it happens)…
Brian Curran, ‘Disaffect’ guitarist
The tour was worth it for the experience and the fun. It was good to meet your good self at the Vort’n Vis and I enjoyed our chat. It was a really good gig although a little strange to be playing in the afternoon!
Andy Irvine, ‘Disaffect’ bassplayer; personal communication oct ‘92
I do remember you, Brob, and the Vort’n Vis fondly. I have at least one flyer from the show we played there with ‘Downcast’. I do have some memories from that awesome spot – it was one of my very favourites, you guys did a fantastic job there. One of the best organizations we worked with on either of our tours over there.
I wasn’t especially happy with our set on the day we played with ‘Downcast’ & ‘Disaffect’. We played with ‘Jawbreaker’ in Lyon about a week later – but I have no notes about why they didn’t make it to the Ieper show (I suspect it was Blake’s throat-illness, which I believe he ended up having surgery for). I traded ‘Agent 86’ records (with possibly Kent, or Kevin?) for a ‘Downcast’ LP, and made a note that there were “so many people stuffed in that little showroom” that I spent most of the evening outside! I also remember being struck by how many of the guys at the show were “All X’d up”, referring to the omnipresent straight-edge symbol on their hands, and that they slowly filed out during our set (we had driven from mid-France that day and were, admittedly, flagging in energy by that point of a really chaotic and emotionally draining tour). While I didn’t get a lot of time to talk to ‘Disaffect’ on the night of the show, we did spend the next morning chatting and I do recall our drummer Rob getting on quite well with them – both they and ‘Downcast’ blew the doors off the night in terms of performances. I was, as always, impressed with the organization and what appeared to be cooperation with everyone at the Vort’n Vis, and we stayed/’played almost exclusively at squats all over Europe that tour – so we were experiencing all varieties of squats (and ended up travelling to Serbia as well). I am amused to see the note I left in the guest-book (cannot believe I used the term ‘uberstud’ – apologies to Bruno!) but we did have a nice time there.
The only other real note from that show is that we got a speeding-ticket on our way back to France and ended up spending what little money we had made at the V.V. on that. When the French cop pulled us over telling us we were speeding even though there were no signs to let us know the legal limit, he told us (via Sonja, the girlfriend of our pal Marc): “The speed is 50 km in the city – éveryone knows that.” and it became a talking point for days.
Michelle Orgill, ‘Agent 86’ bassist
The one memory that sticks out is lending my snare-drum to ‘Downcast’ and having it returned covered in the drummer’s blood. That was also the first time I had ever heard ‘Disaffect’. They were amazing!
Robert Perry, ‘Agent 86’ drummer
In reaction to the remarks (by Dario Adamic): How can we be sexist when we’ve had a woman in the band 30 of the 32 years of our existence!? And letters to MRR? Never saw ‘em, never published? If you have copies I’ld like to see… Not DIY? That’s why we’ve never signed a corporate deal and last year self (that’s DIY) -released our 22nd?, 23rd? 12”/CD….I’ve lived DIY my entire adult life… And dishonest? This from a guy who demanded to be paid every day he’d travelled with us, even though he knew we didn’t have money to feed ourselves. My Dad ended up footing the bill to rent the van he so comfortably travelled around Italy in… Amazing….
Mike Briggs, ‘Agent 86’
Guitarist of ‘Fireside’ was indeed Piet Geldhof. The band recorded a double live 7” at Democrazy in Gent. ‘Faroutski’ was the same line-up without Piet (who moved to France). ‘Faroutski’ did 2 7”s (1994 Faroutski, 1995 Funarchy) and 3 CDs (1997 Mars, 1999 V8 Powered Punk’n Roll, 2001 Farout Chicken Ride). The rhythm-section continues as ‘Unwanted Tattoo’… I attended this gig. Piet had already left: it was the second gig ever by ‘Faroutski’. It was Barney on drums, Rine on bass and Johan on guitar. Later they had a second guitarist Dominiek.
Joost Dierick, BZN productions
According the ‘Faroutski’ website it should not have been ‘Fireside’ but ‘Faroutski’ who played here. I suspect that it was ‘Fireside’ however. [They signed as ‘Faroutski’ in the guestbook.] That band was an intermediate between ‘Roadtrain’ and ‘Faroutski’; the core was: Barney (drums); Johan (2nd guitar) and Rine (bass). In ‘Fireside’ Piet G. (lead-guitar) and Nathalie (vocals) invigorated the heavy guitar-rock with influences of US bands from the pre-grunge era (‘Green River’, ‘U-Men’, early ‘Melvins’). In the brief span (1991-’92) that ‘Firside’ was active they release a double split-7” with ‘Party @ Vanzettis’ on their own Rock Labyrinth recs. At the end only the rhythm-section and the rhythm-guitarist remained: they chose the direction of melodic punkrock (‘Leatherface’, ‘D.O.A.’, ‘Snuff’, ‘Bad Religion’) and name was changed to ‘Faroutski’; they played “V8 powered Rock’n’Roll” as they called it themselves.
Dirk ‘Bowy’ Bauwens
Kevin Murphy from ‘Farside’ tells about their 1992 European tour in an interview:
>>It was the first time any of us had been to Europe and the entire thing was a disaster. This guy was tagged with booking it and about 3 weeks before we were supposed to leave he contacted Revelation and announced that he had not booked a single date and was not going to. Now, being dirt broke, we had purchased non-refundable tickets to and from Germany, so we were going, tour or not. Jordan knew this great guy in Bradford, England named Ian [Leck] who had booked some shows for some other touring Rev band before. Ian sang for the HC band called ‘Voorhees’. He agreed to book this tour for us and we left the U.S. without having more than 3 or 4 shows booked. So we’d finish playing in a squat in Freiberg, Germany, go to the pay-phone and call Ian and he’d tell us we were scheduled to play in Italy the next night. It was crazy. I also blew my amp the first night which meant I had to borrow equipment every night of the tour. Plus, we were all cramped inside of this tiny VW Euro van along with all of our gear and merchandise – it was just horrible. And somehow, we walked away from it, after losing tons of money, having had an amazing time. At the time, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be a permanent member of the band but I couldn’t leave after that. It sounds cheesy but it really was a make or break moment for us and it made us. We felt extremely “punk.<<
This is a precursory page to the posts on the 5th Leed-festival. There was quite some commotion and it led to a substantial evaluation of the Vort’n Vis’ policies…
Accounts of the actual festival will be posted later:
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 (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 1st 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 1st 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)…
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...]
New year’s eve in the Vort’n Vis? Of course! When there’s a band of intelligent people playing great music. ‘Infezione’ were a great HC/punk band with an anarchist message from Modena (Italy): Enrico Manicardi (guitar & vocals), Barbara (bass & vocals), Lory (drums) and Chicco (vocals). They did a demo called Oppressione Quotidiana (Daily Oppression; re-released as a benefit for the political prisoners of the Genua G8) and 2 LPs entitled Chiediti El Perche (Ask Yourself Why) & Religione Oppio Dei Popoli (Religion Opium For The People) – both with extensive booklets.
The gig was only announced a week before so it was a real surprise! I gave them a bunch of questions for an interview in my zine Tilt! They didn’t want to do it on tape ‘cause they thought their English was too poor… It should’ve been in published but the disk crashed and I lost everything… Later I was told they’d split up and did their last concert at the El Paso squat in Torino in May ’93 (after being together for 10 years).
Nowadays Enrico is a lawyer and author (enricomanicardi.it) but apparently still doesn’t speak any English… ;-)
‘Systemphobia’ were from Riemst (Limburg): Mario Liesens (vocals), Kristof Moors (guitar), Erik (bass), Stefan Claesen (drums) and Geert (guitar; later replaced Sam Liesens). Their music was crunchyHC/punk-rock with political lyrics (see their presentation in my zine Tilt!). As far as I can remember they didn’t put out any vinyl. They did a reunion-show in the noughties (check out the vids on the internet). Did they also play the Vort’n Vis on 94-12-10 or was it just 94-04-02 as Mario & Krstof commented?
I read somewhere Kristof also was in an “emo-crust” band with someone of ‘Agathocles’, named ‘Drawback’. Mario also did a blog with his rants for a while (systemphobia.blogspot.be)…
From the same area came ‘Acoustic Grinder’, a grind-/noise-core band. Playing for them were Raf ‘Stevie’ Vandeweyer (vocals; later drummer of ‘Spliff’), Jan ‘Gore’ Beckers (guitar; later ‘Kindred’, etc.), ‘Putrid’ Peter Peumans a.ka. ‘Slebber’ (bass) & Joost Peumans (drums). They’ld play at the V.V again on 93-02-27. They did a demo entitled demo De Pruimen Zijn Rot (The Plums Are Rotten). Eric ‘React’ recorded this gig here and put it out as a split-tape. A Slovenian label did another one with ‘Extinction Of Mankind’. Later there were some split-7”s (with ‘Entrails Massacre’, the Turkish ‘Turmoil’ and ‘Agathocles’) and a solo 7” (Can’t Ignore This Fucking War).
Brob
I have no memories of that show. I think ‘Oi Polloi’ was there [Brob: In '91 they were touring with ‘One By One’ and played here a month later…] (what a surprise). One of the people in another band couldn’t understand why we covered ‘Youth Of Today’ but drank beer. I feel that straight-edge sounds at its best when you’re drunk out of your mind…:-)
First evening of the ‘Ceaseless Suffocation’ festival – no idea why Bruno made up this name – which was first intended as a one-day-er… This Friday evening in the pub was kind of a ‘preparation’ for the next day…
Lots of bands had been announced in previous newsletters: ‘Propagandhi’ (Can), ‘U.F.D.’ (Ger), ‘Los Sommros’ (Cze), ‘Porcos Sujos’ (Por), ‘Zemezluc’ (Cze), ‘Acme’ … No idea what kept them away…
Brob
‘Acme’ definitely didn’t play this one….
Bart Jansen, ‘Deconsume’ guitarist
We didn’t play that gig…it was planned, but did not realize.
‘Soty’, ‘Zemezluc’s bassist/vocalist
‘Stack’ (from Ludwigshafen/Kaiserslautern) was formed Dec 1993 when Corey and Bernd (a couple a that time) wanted to do something different from ‘Abolition’ (92-09-06) music-wise. The line-up here was: Bernd Bohrmann (screams), Ralf ‘Flowerviolence’ Bock (drums), Chris(tophe) Klimmer (guitar; ex ‘Nyctophobic’), Marcel ‘Croissant’ Hanneman (guitar) and Corey von Villiez (bass; replaced by a guy for 5 months, a bit later by Michael ‘Bpunk’ Bergweiler). In May ’94 they recorded a demo (white box with a red dot on the back – a ‘slight’ hint to their love for Jap-thrash). For those who don’t have the tape, check it out. Their music would be described as Power-violence. From the review of this in my zine Tilt! #8 “Once in a while a person needs a brutalisation of the senses like this, to be able to feel human.”; the conclusion: “Essential material!”. A bit after this gig they did recordings for the split-7”s with ‘Seein’Red’ (called Backbone) and ‘Capitalist Casualties’ (both on Equality recs, Corey & Bernd’s label). After the recording of this Corey left the band (which was in the Summer of ‘95) …
‘Seein’Red’ was on the We’re Punks Not Crusties tour together with ‘Stack’ (see pic that was on the split-7”). We’d seen the ‘brothers’ at various places place but as far as I can remember this was only their 2nd passage in the V.V. Off course everyone knows their vast discography but just to give an indication; they had just recorded for the Trefwoord Punk 7” (with the Ducth lyrics) and Wicked Witch recs put out the More Of The Same 7” that was recorded late ’94…
‘Gluebag’ (Liège) had played here already on 95-02-11. It was a ‘project that Phil, Willy and Jonas (who were or had been in ‘Hiatus’) did: playing punk à la ‘Disorder’… But it didn’t last very long… Wills had joined ‘Unhinged’ in the mean time, Jonas spent time with his mates of the Groninger squat-scene and Phil… Well don’t know what he was up to ;-)
I’ve no recollections of this gig myself. I used to work weekend-/night-shifts in a hospital during that period: perhaps I wasn’t even there…
Brob
I found the master-tape of the ‘Seein’Red’ concert at the V.V. from 1995 (which Gregor [Kanitz] and me later put out as a benefit-tape)…
Sascha May (Evlispeak zine)
————————-
‘Zemezluc’ (from the Brno area) played tuneful hardcore/ punk. They have a immense discography and the line-up changed quite a few times. At that time were (I think) ‘Soty’ Pavel Zachoval (bass/vocals), ‘Ruda’ Rudolf Pospíšil (drums) and ‘Eda’ Karel Florián (guitar/vocals). Most of their tapes/records are self-released. Since ’97 Pavel Friml released their material on his label Papagájuv Hlastel recs (www.phr.cz). Apparently the bands still plays (zemezluc.net)…
‘Propagandhi’ had already been announced 95-03-05. I explained why they didn’t tour…
‘Los Sommros’ was an anarchist HC-punk band from Brno, Czechoslovakia.
‘Porcos Sujos’ (“Dirty Pigs”; orginially ‘PSP’ or ‘Porcos Sujos Punk’), from Portugal, arose after the split of ‘Subcaos’. They were said to be influenced by Scandinavian HC.
Around the same time of the conception of the Vort’n Vis, an ‘indie’ pub was set up in Kortrijk: The Pits (Actually it’s The Pit’s). People that frequented it and the bands that they invited were not necessarily hardcore/punk but there was an overlap…
From their history-writing: >> November 1st 1988 Het Rond Vierkant [a local pub/hang-out] was officially buried but some of the loyal customers united in a non-profit organisation called Bang Zoom Noise (B.Z.N.) and opened their own pub, The Pits. The first intention was to organise concerts.<<
After cooperations with the local Limelight and De Kreun (commercial concert-places), and the 4AD in Diksmuide, B.Z.N. found themselves forced to organise their own space. This continues, even today… Check ‘m out on the www!
Some people that were active in and around the non-profit organisation that was the foundation for The Pits were also doin’ other sub-cultural stuff. On the local Radio Solar there was e.g. a 3h program called Blitzkrieg Bop (hosted by Joost Dierick, I believe) that highlighted mainly “alternative music” (info, theme-programs, ‘specials’) and lasted until it got banned (early 90s). They also did a free monthly newsletter that would evolve (I think) into the Pitstop (that you got free with a membership).
Within the boundaries of B.B. a man named Peter Arthur Caesens (“the local buffoon and author of bestsellers”; as Edward Verhaeghe described him in the 1st issue of his zine Do It) was given the opportunity to do a 1h guest-appearance that he filled with “ranting and blustering”…
P.A.C. was a bit of a cult-figure in the Kortrijk area. He also performed at the Vort’n Vis a few times… On his website he calls himself an artist, poet, dancer, composer and performer.
Joost Dierick told me he had already been on stage with P.A.C.’s choir ‘Consortium Musicae Perversae’ at a gig with ‘Chronic Disease’ (90-02-24). ‘Bowy’ (Dirk Bauwens, one of the founding-fathers of The Pits) described these once as “the Dadaist realisation of the combined wet dreams of P.A.C. & Sid Veritas”…
Brob
I did 3 appearances, I think… Once I did a solo-act where I danced to the music of Bartok’s first concerto for piano, if I remember well… It was on a kind of international festival on a Sunday-afternoon; I believe it was a Straight-Edge concert [96-08-18; see guestbook-entry].
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“On behalf of the institute for ponamology and as commander of the underground Revolutionary Military Forces for the promotion of Artisitc Muzak” [PONAM = Permanent ONterecht Afgewezen Minnaar; Permanantly Unfairly Rejected Lover]
But most legendary were the 2 performances with the vocal ensemble ‘Consortium Musicae Perversae’ (that originated at The Pits); under my direction. The first time there were a lot of people and they were stage-diving. The second time there was hardly no audience and one of my singers (‘Herr Brunkel’) was pretty drunk. He tumbled of the stage with a full glass of Duvel. The Consortium could’ve become a hype, if only the singers would have persevered a bit. The composition changed many times – upto 4 times over the years. ‘Sid Veritas’ (Thierry Meerschman), ‘Herr Brunkel’ (Christoph Bruneel); also Dirk ‘Bowy Bauwens in the beginning… We sang (a capella) our own kooky adaptations of a diversity of things (the midieval Carmina Burana, Bach, Boyce, folk-tunes and pure improvisation)…
Here’s a quote of my friend Herr Brunkel (February 2014): “Gig of the Consortium @ Vort’n Vis: full moon, poor organisation because unannounced concert, resulting in = public nihil. The singing incredibly out of tune, like a cat (not bad with a rotten fish – Vort’n Vis – dish) with a full moon of Duvels for ‘Brunkel’ and ‘blue clouds’ for Sid Veritas’…”
‘Ugly Papas’? I toured 2 years with them… Perhaps I played with them in the Vort’n Vis?
It was my idea to invite P.A.C. He also read from his own work, I believe. Happened at a few fests that I was involved with…
Edward Verhaeghe
The ‘Ugly Papas’ (also from the Kortrijk area) were in the final of Humo’s Rock Rally in 1990. They played “non-conventional, decadent but tight blues-rock with humour”. The band consisted of Dick Descamps (bass), Dr. Dekerpel (guitar), Luc Dufourmont (vocals; ex ‘Two Russian Cowboys’ – these had already performed at a Smurfpunx-gig: 88-10-23) and Eric ‘Rik’ Debruyne (drums). Did they perform here or just visit?
Some people might not realize that besides the regular hardcore/punk shows there was a hell of a lot more going on at the Vort’n Vis. When there were no gigs, the bar was also open for the local ‘alternative’ crowd. And sometimes people (punx or other) who were travelling through Europe ended up there because they wanted to check out the place (not necessarily to see bands). They’d heard about it by hearsay or read about in publications like e.g. Book Your Own Fucking Life…
Brob
I stayed at the Vort’n Vis in 1996 on a bike-trip across Europe with a friend. We had only been biking for a few weeks at that point. A short stay in heaven! We were the only ones staying there at the time; there were dry beds (vs. rain), we ate hot food and met really generous/ cool/ interesting people. There was a radio powered by an onion and someone there [Jan Claus] worked at an observatory and took us at night to look through telescopes. I thought the horrible mattress someone mentioned earlier were great… and so was pretty much everything about the people and place.
I was just looking through an old sketchbook/ journal and read some things I wrote about my stay there…which was amazing. My friend knew of the space – I can’t remember how – we didn’t get to see anyone play.
My travel-partner was Adam. I knew him from Boston, where I lived at the time. But he was from Poland. We’re both from the punk-scene, I grew up in the punk-scene in Memphis (Tennessee). Nowadays I organise a small show-space (called Lalaland) in Fayetteville (Arkansas) where I live. I’m a painter…
Stephanie Pierce (stephanie-pierce.com)
This was a benefit for ‘Het Krakend Gewricht’ (‘the squeaky joint’; ‘kraken’ is also Dutch for squatting), a squatted housing-complex & anarchist infoshop in Gent (Slinkemolenstraat). There were people’s kitchens taking place and there was a “creative space” night. The people living there collectively wanted to gather some funding for their bike-repair- and other workshops, a music-/theatre-/dance-room, meeting-corner, etc.
I remember Pascal Benoot and Gratiën Versypt both lived there. I got to know them when they were just teens and needed a ride home after Smurfpunx-concerts. Later Pascal would set up performances and organise people’s kitchens at the ‘3 Charels’, another Gent squat. Gratiën went on to sing for ‘Katastrophobia’…
There was performance & slide-show planned during this “booze-benefit” but I can’t recall any of that…
‘Xinix’ was a hardcore-punk band from the Dendermonde area: Bart ‘José’ Van Malderen (vocals), Jan ‘Bosse’ Bosteels (guitar), Hans Verheyden (bass) and Philip De Landtsheer (drums). Bart was studying in Gent and became a friend; I took him to concerts and stuff. He also organised some shows (in their local youth-centre) for bands I booked. Also set up a short tour for them (somewhere in ’92, together with ‘P.J.D.’). Can’t recall them releasing anything… They did a gig for Smurfpunx though: 91-03-23
The steady line-up of ‘4 Minute Warning’ (Gent) became Fred ‘Fré’ De Vos (vocals), Leffe (guitar, ex ‘Chronic Disease’), Tom Van Hauwaert (drums) and Gratiën Versypt (bass). There were also some extra vocalists (Bart/Marleen) at a certain timepoint, if I remember well… Marleen dated singer Fré. She’s pictured in In and around the Vort’n Vis. According to Tom they were “very much into the ‘Antischism’ dual-vox vibe”…
‘Subway Arts’ were a hardcore/punk band from Luxembourg. In 1991 the band released a split 12” titled All Life is Equal together with their mates of ‘No More’ on Markus Haas’ Per Koro recs (actually he ran it together with Tanja Maier). Two years later they released a 12” titled “Una Definizione Perveresa Della Pace” (‘93) – a collaboration of Genet recs and PeaCy recs (ran by Diff and Simone Winandy). They were: Claude ‘Bourano’ Bour (drums; Mike played on the split-lp but left also soon after), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Sabrina D’Aurelio (vocals; David on the split-lp) and Xavier (guitar). They’d played here before (92-12-20) and would visit a few times more (93-07-04, 93-08-01, 94-04-02, …).
‘Fleas & Lice’ (Groningen, The Netherlands) played noisy crust-punk and consisted of former ‘Extreme Noise Error’ / ‘Mushroom Attack’ (91-07-07 & 91-09-21) members Piet/Pierre Erickson (guitar), Robbie Tempel (vocals) and Maynard Schut (drums). They teamed up with Joshua Lagerwerf (bass) so this must’ve been one of their very first gigs. In March they toured Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands (with ‘Disorder’ and ‘Husker Ikke’). In April 1993 Esther (vocals) joined. Right before summer they recorded for the Parasites 7” released on Kleister’s label Skuld Releases in 1993). A bit later they recorded live (Brno, Czech Republic, 93-06-20) for a split-7” (entitled Polish Bastards; with ‘Hiatus’ released on Pawel’s Scream recs. They would come back twice (94-03-19 & 94-03-19).
Brob
I have vague recollections of this benefit… According to my notes our 1st gig was at Democrazy (Gent) 93-12-03 with ‘Deflower’ but perhaps this one with here, in the V.V. pub, with ‘Fleas and Lice’ was… We’d nagged Bruno for ages to play and when we were finally asked our guitarist at that time, Djenko, didn’t show up. So no guitarist; Gratiën applied his heaviest effect on his bass and we played all 3 of our songs (maximum 4 haha) like this, I think… After Djenko had abandoned us, we contacted Leffe, together with this guy Curdt Deganck (who’d played in a punk-band from the area of Zelzate/Assenede). Those first songs and rehearsals (and even recordings in a cellar) were with Djenko. So I guess this was our infamous trio-moment then, where Yannick became fan for life, I believe… So, at Democrazy (an event called ‘Oppureepatattenfuif’…hahah), Leffe played already with us: Djenko never did a show with the band… So yes, the one at the V.V. would’ve been the first, we only just existed for a few weeks/months… Our other shows: with ‘Hiatus’ & ‘Unhinged’ @ La Zone (Liège 93-12-11), with ‘Legal Suffering’ & ‘Oi Polloi’ @ Alhambra (Oldenburg 93-12-17) and in 94 here with ‘Varukers’…
Everyone knows ‘F&L’ of course, my mind is blank regarding ‘Subway Arts’ and ‘Xinix’ was with Bart from the Dendermonde area; he dropped by at the squat regularly and I wouldn’t be surprised he rehearsed with us at one timepoint. I’m 100% sure he has a video-recording of our show at the Democrazy…
Tom Van Hauwaert
Can’t remember much about this gig. I played with ‘4MW’ at the Vort’n Vis once. [94-02-05] It was our worst one and also our last one. We only did 3. Our line-up for this was: Fré (vocals), Marleen (vocals), Gratiën (bass), Leffe (guitar) and Tom (drums).
‘Het Krakend Gewricht’ was one of the first squats in Gent. A few members of ‘4 Minute Warning’ lived there at the time.
Leffe
The night before there was an info-night with slides and video about the Slinkemolenstraat. I believe my dad still has the video. I don’t remember anything of the concerts. I think I was on stage that night with someone of ‘Xinix’ together with Diego [Doodt Illegaal zine] en Ludo [Averechts zine]. Someone of ‘Xinix’ didn’t show up… We got on stage with a bunch of people who were unrelated to the band … ‘Fleas and Lice’ played aswell…
Pascal Benoot [one of the Slinkemolenstraat squatters at that time]
I can remember this concert. Though I can ‘t recall if ‘4 Minute Warning’ or ‘P.J.D.’ played. What I do know is that we left with Leffe & co from Gent in a van. ‘Fleas & Lice’ was very hot then; crusty punk-HC from Groningen and very sympathetic people. They even offered us to come over to play together in the Netherlands with ‘Disorder’. We were all very enthusiastic about that but it never happened…because our drummer’s parents wouldn’t let him…
Bart Van Malderen
‘P.J.D.’ didn’t pay here. I was in Gent where I had a chat with ‘Deflower’ (a band from Limburg with a member of ‘Moral Demolition’). Can’t recall much otherwise because of the boozing at that time.
Koen ‘Siesele’, ‘Private Jesus Detector’ bassist
I can ’t remember anything of that evening. Only that Fré and myself kicked one of the urinals to pieces… Jimmy Anti was watching us…
‘Decadence Within’: Joey, Mobs, Slug & Rid
‘Shutdown’ promo
Image may be NSFW.
‘Jughead’s Revenge’
Image may be NSFW.
‘Active Minds’
Image may be NSFW.
Image may be NSFW.
‘Decadence Within’ & ‘Shutdown’
‘18th Dye’
visiters from France… (the band ‘Constant Summer’ ?)
Image may be NSFW.
