"She's a feverchild gathering flowers in the garden..." a post about SHORTSIGHT

Normally I don't put my iPod on shuffle. I like to be in control of most things in my life (call me a controlfreak), including the music I listen to. A couple of weeks ago I got on the train, turned on my iPod and had no idea what to listen to. The thing is packed with awesome music but after a busy and stressy day I felt restless and had no inspiration what to listen to. I put my iPod on shuffle and the first thing I heard were the opening notes of 'Feverchild', the first song on Shortsight's only full length album 'Cold wounds waking' on Goodlife Recordings. My day and mood instantly got better. It had been a while since I listened to this record so I immediately turned off the shuffle mode and listened to the rest of this album.

As I mentioned already a couple of times my favorite H8000 band has always been Blindfold. Second place has always been a tie between Nations On Fire and Shortsight. I love 'Cold wounds waking' and I especially love those first notes of the album. An album has to start good for me. A good intro or first song is very important and to me that's actually a craft that not every band masters. The kings of first songs is and has always been Fugazi. Every record starts with a banger.

But I'm getting off track here. Let's talk about Shortsight! They were actually a short lived H8000 band. They started in the early nineties with Hans Verbeke (Liar, Blindfold,...) on vocals. After the demo Hans' sister Saskia took over and they recorded a 7inch on Conquer The world Records and Machination Records called 'Why spend time learning...'. They also contributed a song to the infamous 'Regress no way' 7inch on Warehouse Records. In my mind this compilation is an as important document to the 8000 (and later H8000) scene as the 'Flex your head' LP is to the early DC hardcore scene.

The evolution of this band is pretty mind blowing. From the pretty basic but very good song 'On fire' on the 'Regress no way' 7inch to the four songs on the 'Why spend learning' 7inch to the fully grown and mature full length 'Cold wounds waking' cd on Goodlife Recordings (it's a pity I don't have the first demo). It's hard to describe the sound of Shortsight. The guitars are awesome. There's not a single bad riff on 'Cold wounds waking'. I still get amped when I hear the opening riff to 'Screaming trees' (which I first heard as a bonus track on the Green Leaf 'Best of Belgium' compilation). Josh Fury (of Congress, Liar and King Hiss) delivers an awesome acoustic instrumental track on 'Cold wounds waking' (something he continued to do on his own bands' records). Saskia's vocals are always on point and very catchy. I also love the drum sound on this record. Drummer Björn Lescouhier went on to play in Regression and became one of the best and most powerful drummers in the H8000 scene (he actually proved he still is very good on the Regression reunion shows a couple of weeks ago). The lyrics range frome very personal ones (like 'Father', written by Hans Verbeke) to environmental pollution ('Screaming Trees') to pretty original ones for a hardcore band ('Give him light' for example).

Inside of the 'Could Wounds Waking' cd. I have always been intrigued about the awesome show picture. Where was this? Looks like a bunker. Edit: I finally saw the extra's of the H8000 documentary dvd and know the story about this show. Check out the documentary!

Edward Verhaeghe (Goodlife Recordings, Nations On Fire) said it best in the H8000 documentary: Congress, Liar and Shortsight each delivered their 'magnum opus' in 1995 and kicked off a crazy period in Belgian hardcore history. Because 'Cold wounds waking' sure is a very good record. Too bad Shortsight quit so soon. I'm sure they could have done more great things in the H8000 scene. It was awesome to see Saskia sing along to a song during the Nations On Fire reunion show.

To end this I would like to point out that I think Hans and his crew who made the H8000 documentary feel the same as I do about the intro to 'Feverchild'. The documentary starts with the very same notes that gave me goosebumps on that train ride home from work and actually gave me goosebumps again while watching the premiere of the documentary in a packed De Kreun in Kortrijk a couple of weeks ago. I also love every minute in the documentary about Shortsight and the interviews with Saskia and Bjorn. Very interesting and often times funny stuff! I secretly hope a vinyl release of 'Cold Wounds Waking' might be one of the next projects for Hans' FX7 Records label!

Listen to the 'Cold Wounds Waking' record here:

RDS220 - Hell is truth seen too late chapters I - IV review

A couple of weeks ago I finally got my hands on these awesome looking tapeboxes by RDS220 on Svart Blod Records. Sadly my tapeplayer decided to start eating tapes instead of playing them so I had to listen the tracks on the RDS220 bandcamp page to review them.

Let's start with who is in this 'band'. It's actually a duo project featuring ex members (let's get this ex members thing over fast...) of Liar, Amenra, Hive Destruction, VVovnds, Black Haven,... Musical mastermind is Matthias who plays guitars and programs drums and he is joined by co-songwriter, bass player and visual mastermind Kristof. I've known these two for quite a while now so it came to me as no surprise they came up with something this good. Because it really ís good!

Chapters I-II

Chapters III-IV

Ever since I met Matthias more than fifteen years ago he was always busy with bands but also with homerecording, programming drums, puzzling songs together on his 8-track recorder or computer. I remember he singlehandedly pre-recorded the demo's for the Empathy record at home before entering the studio. Same thing for the Liar record 'Murder manifesto'. I always thought that was really cool and showed a damn hard work ethic. Same goes for Kristof. I've known him even longer and he has always been playing in bands or making really good looking and mind blowing art and graphics.

Let's talk about RDS220. It's more or less the same concept as the beginning years (and 2 demo's) of Hive Destruction. Matthias and Kristof record the songs at a home studio as a duo. Hive Destruction was instrumental but for RDS220 they handed over their songs to guest singers. In this case, chronologically from part I to IV, they worked with singers Jenci Vervaeke (VVovnds, Et Dure, Gagged), Hans Verbeke (Liar, Blindfold,..), Paulo Rui (Besta) and Dehn Sora (Throane).

They describe RDS220 as punk black metal and I can only agree with this description. It's fast and vicious. It's really a riff fest and non compromising. Harsh and rough music perfectly fitting to the sometimes harsh and hectic times we live in today but always with a hint of melody in the guitar department. There's also enough variation to keep things interesting. The guest singers do a really good job and add a lot to the brutality and the hateful atmosphere of the songs. My favorite tracks are the ones with Hans Verbeke (you can't go wrong with a title like "Triumphant on the ruins of the world"...) and Paulo Rui (who I hadn't heard of before but man, what a throat!).

The lay out of these two boxes is phenomenal! Kristof and the label Svart Blod Records did an awesome job!You get two booklets with collages that really add some more vitriol and harshness to the whole concept of RDS220. I have always been a fan of Kristof's visual work. He has his own style but always surprises with original and thought provoking lay outs or art. He really should do more printed stuff like the book he did a couple of years ago called 'A book about decay' together with Arne Wastyn.

Go listen and download on bandcamp.
And buy some stuff from RDS220 and Svart Blod Records.

The immortal emokid - the Genet/Pyrrhus records emo years...

When I was 16 years old I was, like a lot of other kids, trying to find my way musically. I was fully developing my tastes and discovering a lot of music and subcultures. I saw a Congress and Blindfold show (there's a picture of this show on the back cover of 'Blackened Persistance') when I was 11 but I mostly remembered the Congress singer being quite little but singing and skating like a madman. I was pretty impressed by Blindfold and listened to my sister's Blindfold tapes on my walkman a lot!
I got sidetracked into more alternative rock (which I still enjoy) but at age 15 I got into skateboarding myself and turned into a snotty skatepunk. I really got into Jane's Detd. and Goodlife Recording's sister label Green Leaf Records and the well known American bands.

This all changed when I found two compilation cd's in my local recordstore. I got Revelation Records' 'In flight program' and a Genet Records/Sobermind Records sampler.

Three bands immediately stood out for me on the Rev sampler: Sense Field, Farside and Texas Is The Reason. My aunt lived close to Ghent and I asked her to pick up a cd in the Pyrrhus record store as a christmas present. I got Sense Field's 'Building' cd. It didn't leave my stereo for several months and I still know every song and every word by heart. This record had a serious impact on my developing music taste.

My beat up copy of 'Building'

The Genet Records/Sobermind Records sampler was called 'hardcore knockout' and I loved pretty much every song on the sampler but again three of them stood out: Serene, Reiziger and Kosjer D. I listened to these three songs religiously. At the same time I discovered fanzines like Yoda Magazine which (starting from the eighth issue I think) started covering more emo bands instead of the usual H8000 bands. A little while later I got my own crappy turntable and I started buying vinyl. The first records I ordered were from the Pyrrhus distro. I got the Reiziger 'the kitten becomes a tiger' LP on yellow vinyl (numbered!), the Kosjer D 'true' 7inch and a Blindfold shirt.

My first Pyrrhus order. I regret not having the Blindfold shirt anymore....

It was finally time for a visit to the Pyrrhus recordstore on my own. I remember being really siked for this. I got the Leiah 'Mood shifting tones' mcd, the Reiziger 'don't bind my hands' 12inch and a couple of other records. Leiah were quite the revelation for me. I liked the fact that they didn't look like most other bands at the 1999 Ieperfest and of course they played beautiful music. This was the time I started calling myself the Immortal Emokid (after a Serene song) online. Pretty cheesy and kind of cringeworthy looking back but hey, I was still only 17 years old... I got Leiah's first full length 'The Tigra Songs' on beautiful blue vinyl (again... numbered!) and there was no looking back. I got into all the bigger American bands like The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, Braid, The Casket Lottery,...

'The Tigra Songs' by Leiah

The years passed and I bought a lot of great records in all kinds of different genres at the Pyrrhus Recordstore. I have really fond memories of buying records there and then looking at them on a bench next to the water nearby. The Reiziger/Bob Tilton split LP helped me getting into more complex or experimental music (the Bob Tilton side on the split caused that). I really got into the Deep Elm Records catalog. I played in an emo band called Wilson and we even opened up for Cursive and The Appleseed Cast. As Friends Rust and Saves The Day also became huge bands for me and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting some bands and records.

So thank you to Bruno and Kathy and Genet Records and Pyrrhus Records for helping me to find my way into music and for developing my taste. Leiah has reunited and released two new songs which I actually like. I saw a short rehearsal video on Instagram of them playing 'red star pilot' (my favorite Leiah song) and I got really nostalgic which could actually be the reason why I'm writing this. They also posted screen shots of an interview I did with them for my webzine when I was 18 years old.
I even bought a Kosjer D shirt on etsy last summer. How nineties is that! Some bands and records stood the test of time and some others didn't.

Let's listen to some of those records and prepare for 'The French Belgian Winter'!

 

What I'm currently spinning.

Things have been pretty hectic lately. But in between taking care of our one and a half year old son, house hunting and busy times at work I found some time to finally write a new post. These are the records that are currently on high rotation on my record player and I'll finish this post with two on-line gems
Let's go!

Devil Master - Manifestations - LP 

This must be the record I continually go back to the past few weeks. It got released at the beginning of this month on Relapse Records. It's actually not a new record but a compilation of two demo's that got released in 2016 and 2017. This is such an awesome band! Think of Japanese hardcore/punk mixed with the coldest black metal and some goulish death rock to finish this unique blend of dark music. The lay out of this beast is also great. It reminds me of the obscure lay outs of Les Légions Noirs bands but all finished in pink. My favorite song is 'Inhabit the corpse' The band is from Philadelphia and are releasing their debut full length on Relapse in 2019. I can't wait! They're playing in Baltimore in january with Integrity (DM's guitar player Francis Kano plays live bass in Integrity). Listen here or through YouTube:

The Frames - Longitude - Double LP

I got to know this Irish rock band through the legendary and greatly missed Belgian radioshow 'Duyster'. I already knew singer and guitarplayer Glen Hansard from his role in the movie 'The Commitments' from the beginning of the nineties. This double LP is sort of a best off and shows the variety of this band. Early songs have a slightly twisted side to them (kind of reminds me of early dEUS) and they grew to be a great indie rock band. My favorite song has always been 'What happens when the heart just stops' and I'm glad I finally have this song on vinyl. The artwork is a picture of a beautiful painting of Belgian artist Thierry De Cordier. I also learned from the liner notes that they recorded an album with Steve Albini. Didn't know that.

Shellac - At Action Park - LP

Which brings me to the next record: Steve Albini's Shellac! 'At Action Park' is probably the album with my favorite packaging in my collection. It's some awesome cardboard fold out package that's hard to describe or even take a picture of that does justice to this great record. Shellac is my favorite Albini band and this record is my favorite. It's from 1994 and you can clearly hear how influential they have been on a lot of bands. Albini is a great songwriter and the rhythm section of Bob Weston (bass and vocals) and Todd Trainer (drums and vocals) must be one of the tightest around. The overall sound of this album is so good. It sounds organic yet dry and heavy yet clear. Love this band and record!

La Muerte - Murder Machine - 12"

The last record I want to write about is a Belgian one. It's an EP released on Record Store Day in 2016 that I recently dug out of my collection again and listened to a lot because I want to see them live in january in Brussels. La Muerte is a legendary Belgian band. They describe their own music as 'Salvador Dali meets The Stooges'. They formed in Brussels in 1983 and released a couple of albums and EP's (and even a John Peel session!) before disbanding in 1994. They reunited with a new line-up (including Michel Kirby of Wolvennest, Length of Time and Arkangel, Christian Z of Length Of Time and Tino De Martino of Channel Zero) and original members Dee-J and Marc Du Marais in 2015. They play heavy rock/metal with awesome vocals. Marc Du Marais growls his way through the songs and performs live with a bag over his head. I really want to see this band live and have to get the old albums and EP's!
Je suis le destructeur!

To finish this off here are some things I really enjoyed online:

Integrity - Bark At The Moon

Integrity released this digital only single on Halloween. It's a cover of the classic Ozzy Osbourne song 'Bark at the moon'. Integrity proves again why they are the most interesting band in heavy music today, even after a career of over 20 years and Domenic Romeo proves why he is my favorite guitar shredder at the moment.

Joie De Vivre - April 2009 (Live at little elephant)

While talking on-line about the Mineral reunion with a friend and fellow emo-enthousiast he recommended me some newer bands I didn't know. One of them was Joie De Vivre. I don't like the band name but love their song 'April 2009'. It has everything a nineties emo lover wants. Glasses, checkered shirts, sweet riffs, slightly out of tune vocals,...

That's it for now! I plan on updating this thing more regular in the future so stay tuned!

Halloween and my refound love for all things horror.

I used to love horror movies. It all started with the 'Scream' movies when I was about 13 years old. I saw the first one in the movie theatre, got hooked and rented a whole lot of VHS tapes and later on dvd's. I saw a lot of great movies and a lot of bad ones. One of them that has always stuck with me was the original 'Halloween' movie by John Carpenter.

Fast forward to 2018. I haven't seen a horror movie in a while. I barely watch tv and go to movie theatres anymore. Besides that, my girlfriend isn't fond of horror movies. Being home alone and with some time to kill I watched 'Halloween' again. How I love and missed this! The suspense created by the genius that is John Carpenter, the young Jamie Lee Curtis, the awesome soundtrack,... I love it! Part of what moved me to watch this masterpiece again is the Instagram posts of Tim McMahon (singer of Search, Mouthpiece, Hands Tied,...). He recently posted some pictures of his visits to some of the original locations of the movie.  The Myers house, the Laurie Strode house, the sidewalks and streets where John Carpenter shot the movie, the gates to Smith's Grove Sanitarium that Mike Myers escaped,... Great pictures and it must have been great visiting these locations. Makes me a bit jealous.
I also found out he has an Instagram account dedicated to horror movies. Go look for 'Curatedhorror' on Instagram and enjoy all sorts of horror movie ephemera.

Being the nerd and art lover I am I also spotted the James Ensor (probably Belgian's most famous artist ever) poster in Laurie's bed room. Couldn't resist taking a screenshot.

I've got a lot of catching up and (re)watching to do. Maybe it's time to buy a second tv set and dvd player so I can enjoy some classics and new horror movies again. Get in touch if you got recommendations, although I think I'm all set for now with the Curated Horror page. And I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the 2018 Halloween movie in the theatre soon!

Lyle Preslar in Samhain / Eerie Von's 'Misery Obscura' book.

Last year I got Eerie Von's book 'Misery Obscura'. My local distro had a copy on the shelves of this book that was published in 2009. It's packed with awesome pictures and full of great stories. Eerie Von played in Samhain, Danzig and Rosemary's Babies and he took the very first Misfits pictures so you can imagine he has a lot to show and tell. From those first Misfits photo shoots to starting up Samhain to touring the world and recording with Rick Rubin with Danzig. This book is totally recommended!

One of my favorite stories of the book starts in one of the forewords. It's written by Lyle Preslar, legendary guitar player of Minor Threat and one of the original Samhain members. He writes about Samhain's first show. He took an Amtrack train from DC to New York City together with his girlfriend and Brian Baker to play this show. He was carrying his trusted Gibson Les Paul with him and had asked the venue (Rock Hotel) to provide a Marshall JCM stack. Upon arriving he found out they only had two Fender Twin Reverb amps. As guitarplayers probably know, these aren't exactly the same soundwise. Luckily he had brought a distortion pedal so he decided the Twin Reverbs would do and was planning on trying to make the best of the whole situation. Next to this Glenn Danzing turned up with a horrible cold, barely able to sing. After soundcheck Preslar went out to eat something together with his girlfriend and Brian Baker.
Here comes the funniest part of the story. Preslar had been told that Samhain wouldn't be a Misfits II. No makeup, no black armbands, no 'devilocks'. No sign of this during soundcheck so he was feeling comfortable wearing his grey Minor Threat sweatshirt (how much would this be going on Ebay for today...?), his regular attire during those days.

Lyle Preslar

Upon returning from his pre-show meal he was in shock. The whole band was in full on Misfits devilock mode. Eerie Von even had a homemade black spiderman outfit on and the whole dressing room was filled with hairspray and black make up. Luckily he was wearing black jeans and a black shirt underneath his Minor Threat sweatshirt but still he felt very out of place. Funny story and unfortunately there are no pictures of this show in the book. By then Eerie Von was holding a bass guitar instead of a camera. I looked for pictures on the internet but haven't found any. The Lyle Preslar/Samhain combination already is a strange one and this story only adds to this.

As said before: this book is awesome. Try to get a hold of a copy. You won't regret it! I flip through it regularly to check out the pictures but last week I took some time to read Eerie Von's stories and look at the pictures thoroughly while listening to my Misfits, Samhain and Danzig records. No need to tell you I had a great night! Below are some pictures of the book.

Kill The Man Who Questions - Sugar Industry LP and Union Fanzine.

Here's a short post about a record I completely forgot I owned.
While I was filing away a new addition to my Kiss records collection (how I love Kiss and the fact that my collection is expanding and expanding...) I browsed a bit through the 'K' section of my records (I'm a nerd and I keep my records alphabetically) and stumbled upon the 'Sugar Industry' LP by the band Kill The Man Who Questions.

I remember buying the record at the Pyrrhus record store in Ghent after I had read an interview with the band in the Union fanzine. Union fanzine was a great but short lived (I think only one issue?) fanzine with Rudee from France as the main man. He was also the main editor and graphic design wizzard of the first two 'The Paper' issues. And let's not forget about the awesome 'European Manhood' fanzine he did in the mid nineties. I loved those zines for the mix of bands they interviewed and the fact they were smart, funny and tongue in cheek all at the same time. Together with Yoda Fanzine (what's up Mondy?) these zines were my favorites as they focussed on a lot of different genres I was just getting into (emo, fastcore, powerviolence, sludgecore,...).

Union fanzine

Two issues of the European Manhood fanzine

The Kill The Man Who Questions record is awesome. Fast hardcore out of Philadelphia with both female and male vocals and interesting lyrics. The lay out is awesome and the booklet that comes with the record totally reminds me of the Ebullition record releases like the Reversal Of Man 'This is medicine' record. Smart lyrics with some extra explanations about politics, values, the lack of those in certain hardcore subgenres,... There's even some 'pro-life lyrics' and an awesome Negative Approach quote in the explanations of the lyrics. Those booklets were basically mini zines.

The booklet that came with the LP

The record is released by Coalition Records. The dutch label that was run by Jeroen (of Mainstrike, Das Oath,...) that released a lot of great records by Oil, Charles Bronson, Jr Ewing, Seein Red, Tear It Up, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Das Oath,...

Members of Kill The Man Who Questions went on to play in bands like Limp Wrist, Rambo,...
Listen to the record here and enjoy some late nineties and beginning of the noughties nostalgia with me:

I also found an old Angelfire website (remember these?). Click here