90-03-03 (Netwerk) Hell’s Kitchen – Militant Mothers – Dawn Of Liberty

The ad-flyer reads [No this is not the intro to a Star Trek episode ;-)…]:

“Smurfpunx…carry the internationalist spirit. Thé pre-eminent HC-collective has hosted bands from far beyond our borders since a long time. On March 3rd hardcore-freaks can enjoy themselves in Netwerk, listening to the music of…

‘Hell’s Kitchen’, a band from the San Francisco Bay Area with ex-members of ‘Attitude’, ‘Fang’, ‘Capitol Punishment’ and ‘Verbal Abuse’. Connaisseurs already know what this means: solid HC with thrash-influences, with brutal but ironic lyrics.

We’re also glad to be able to let you hear the best of our Eastern neighbours: ‘Militant Mothers’. After his activities in ‘Morbid Outburst’ and Hackfleisch fanzine, Karl Nagel launches an attack with this new band, where he is surrounded by excellent musicians from Hannover. There first album ‘Acid of Life’ was about the best from Germany in ’89. Musically they refer to ‘Bad Brains’: varied HC with power.

Of course also domestic bands get a chance. With their new guitarist, the Limburgers ‘Dawn Of Liberty’ are rising from their own little swamp, which they’ll prove to you. HC with a pinch of metal.”

Brob

All I can recall from that day is that people tried to steal our equipment… I remember being on the first floor of a building, looking down on the street where we parked our van. Someone saw some guys trying to break into it… Everyone started screaming downstairs. The thieves were surprised, got some kicks and then ran away.

The tour was organised by some guy…very unable to organize. We fired him in the middle and did the rest on our own. I don’t know his name anymore.

Karl Nagel (‘Militant Mothers’ vocalist)

L=>R: Mike (drums), Jimi (vox), Chuck (2^nd guitar), Troy (bass), Luke (lead guitar)

We lost about 20.000 BeF (€ 500,00) on this one ‘cause there were only 70 people! Luckily we were usually able to maintain a small financial reserve from when there were bigger turn-outs. Unfortunately things wouldn’t last… It kept us from taking more ‘chances’ in other venues and with exciting but lesser known bands (e.g. ‘President Fetch’ from Denmark). Anyway, the bands were excellent that day and those that didn’t show up were proven wrong! ‘Dawn Of Liberty’ existed 3-4 years – very intelligent people, playing HC with metal influences – but split up soon after this (leaving only one, but a very decent, 7” behind. ‘Militant Mothers’ played versatile HC with fast and slower (“more experimental”) parts. I found Karl, the singer (who has my age), to be a very gentle, intelligent and caring person. A pity I couldn’t spend more time talking to him.

Besides vocalist Karl Nagel (real name Peter Altenburger) & bassist Harvey ‘Hustler’ Quast – both ex ‘Morbid Outburst’ – ‘Militant Mothers’ were guitarist Eike (88-89)/ Olivié Wolf (90-92)/ ‘Chico’ Roland Wedig (91-92) & drummer Hilmar Vogt.

‘Hell’s Kitchen’ were a thrash band with powerful music and ironical lyrics.

Brob

gig-review from Pyrobolum #3

I was the singer for ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ during the European tours and on [the album] ‘Fistful of Chicken’. We played a couple of gigs for Smurfpunx [the 2nd: Roxy, Dendermonde, 14 sep 90 (M.D.C. & Spermbirds)]. My memories of the first time is blurred because the bassplayer (Troy, ex-‘Boneless Ones’) opened his wallet and noticed he had forgot to remove 2 hits of acid and in the true spirit of punk-rock we took them a hour before getting on the stage. So mostly Troy and I laughed the lyrics. We had a great time with the Smurfpunx-team after the gig, they took us to a great little pub and introduced us to Duvel and other very strong Belgian beers. I am still great friends with Ludwig, he still helps bands who need shows; my band ‘Strychnine’ has played in Belgium many times thanx to him and Mokka. These were great times and the friendship that we made has lasted, thanx to all the Smurfpunx. The MiMo’s were great too…

Karl fails to mention that he was the guy who saw those assholes trying to steal our gear and yelled “The vans are getting broke into; get them!”. Wé caught and fought ‘em, they were fast but we were faster…

The tour was booked by Tottie [Torsten ‘Toddi’ Mergell], a German dude but he quit half way through; guess he could not take our brand of humour. He told us the only reason he did our tour was for the fame of booking American bands…what a joke. We never let him forget that and made him teach us Traditional German cute songs that he changed the lyrics to make a joke on us but we sang the song with him and it made him so mad when we would sing it on stage and dedicate the song to him. He bailed on us in Italy and left our driver in charge. Ghert was the driver and booked the second tour for us…

Jimi ‘Haze’ Hayes

Loved ‘Dawn Of Liberty’ as far as I remember… ‘Militant Mothers’ were way too experimental for my (perhaps poor) taste, somehow funky and very melodic, not for me, not in a million years. ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ also featuring former members of some legendary Californian bands were OK, not so much musically, but tons of goofy American…uhmm…’comedy’ made it a fun to watch band.

Tom Van Hauwaert

Some pictures of ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ (shot by Ludde):

Jimi entertaining Smurfpunx’ Mokka, Pascal & Ine in Hengelo (Nl)

Jimi Haze (vocals; ex-‘Capitol Punishment’, now ‘Strychnine’ ) @ Netwerk

Mike Branum (drums; ex-‘Capitol Punishment’, ex-‘Fang’, now ‘The Hanson Brothers’) … Troy Takaki (bass; ex-‘Boneless Ones’;  film-editor in Hollywood) … Luke Skeels is the guitarist in the background (ex-‘Boneless Ones’, now ‘Verbal Abuse’)

89-12-25 (Netwerk) Spermbirds – Chronic Disease – Rise Above

One of my extensive flyers announcing a punky X-mas; it reads:

“The legend is back… The godfathers of German hardcore are together again and are doing a reunion-tour. Smurfpunx make sure that you can salute Lee, Beppo, Frank, Roger & Markus in Netwerk.

Smurfpunx: Why? * ‘Spermbirds’: We had the feeling that the problems/dissatisfactions from before the split weren’t there anymore and we longed to the positive vibrations of the band we were in. That’s why ‘Spermbirds’ are together again in the original line-up.

SP: How? * SB: The first concerts went well. Everyone had a great time. We, as a band, definitely but also the audience! We have a bunch of new songs and off course there’s also the older ones from the Something to Prove period. The expectations are high but we think that we can become of one the best hardcore-bands again.

SP: Who? * Besides ourselves we bring our palls and a promising German band along: ‘Test The Distort’. We once brought ‘L.W.S.’ (‘Leberwohlstand’) to Aalst and you appreciated them alot. We hope that it’ll be the same…

SP: And we take care of one of Belgium’s promising bands: ‘Chronic Disease’, also a legend by now…in Bruges and surroundings.

Oh Tannenbaum!”

Apparently someone else made a flyer too (our mate Duco used to that but when he quit, we had to manage that by ourselves)… Because ‘Test The Distort’ didn’t show up, ‘Rise Above’ played a short surprise-set (3-4 songs) on the instruments of ‘Chronic Disease’. Sling drummed for both bands… The rest ‘Rise Above’, who were only just starting out around that time were: Hans (singer; he used to play bass in my band ‘Yuppies’ Death’), the guy I’d gotten to know in early 80s as ‘Edward Cinq’ – guitarist Ed / Ward (later ‘N.O.F. & Good Life recs) and Hazel (Françoise) on bass (They had been in the rock band ‘Midnight Men’ together). The others in ‘Chronic Disease’ were Leffe (vocalist), Meyer on guitar and the bassist, Vrokker.

All of them and ‘Spermbirds’ made it a fantastic show which gave us courage/energy to plan more things. There was a wonderful atmosphere; 450 people attended. Part of the profits we made on this gig [€ 250,00] were donated to ‘Doctors Without Borders’ [who were sending chirurgical teams to Rumania at that time]. Smurfpunx also recovered a bit mentally but also financially: we made some money to make up for earlier losses and to forget the cancellations of the tours of ‘M.D.C.’ and ‘Dissent’ (planned on Nov 12 with the Swiss ‘Jay Walker’ but Reiner M. had to give up this tour)…

Brob

After a split of nearly a year, ‘Spermbirds’ are back together, ready to play live and hopefully have the same fun as before. The split was nót because there was trouble in the band, so there is no reason not to get back together and move on. We practised alot and got 12 new songs. We played a few gigs in Germany and they were fantastic. Nobody in the band thinks about splitting anymore and the way it looks now, ‘Spermbirds’ will stay together for a long long time. The coming tour we will play a mix of songs from our lp’s and new stuff. In February we’re going to record our 3rd album named Common Threat. Everybody can read in Zap that ‘Spermbirds’ is together with the old line-up: the fanzine comes with a X-mas present: a single including our song ‘Youth Of Today’ (about straight edge) and a cover of ‘Wire’s 12XU. Hope to see you all in Belgium.

Roger Ingenthron, ‘Spermbirds’ guitarist (personal communication ’89)

gig-review from Pyrobolum #2

What a way to celebrate my birthday (yep, the same day as my friend Jesus)!

Joris De Buysser (personal communication ’89)

‘Spermbirds’ were incredibly good! I’d heard ‘Chronic Disease’ before so that was no surprise: one of Belgium’s best bands. ‘Rise Above’ wasn’t bad either… I was standing at the back of the hall and saw you [Brob] on stage besides ‘Spermbirds’. Behind me I heard some ‘Cyclone’ band-members gossiping about you: obviously not the best of friends…

Roberto G. (personal communication ’90)

‘Spermbirds’ were wonderful in Aalst! It was a real party! Great sound and a very good band!

Ingo Meskens (personal communication ’90)

‘Spermbirds’ Lee (pic by ‘Kockie’)

  from the interview with ‘Spermbirds’ in Pyrobolum #2

89-01-14 (Netwerk) Profound – Bambix

This was a so-called ‘Doe-wat-dag’, a ‘Do-Something-day’ (“Meeting-day with all kinds of music, action and creativity”), where the aim was to bring more than ‘just’ bands. There was music, yes (also non-punk – the intention was also to broaden the horizon beyond just hardcore/ punk (industrial/ electronic?).) but we wanted to put the emphasis on political, socio-economic and lifestyle themes. We invited different organisations to do info-stalls, showed videos and invited speakers. No mentioning of Smurfpunx on the flyer. Michel DC wanted to do his own thing but had to rely on some of the other Smurfpunx for practical help…

So the Vandenberg bro’s (Paul & Olav ‘Lärm’, ‘Seein’Red’, ‘Man Lifting Banner’) lended their support again too. This time they were coming over with their friends of ‘Profound’ (“communist straight edge band”). So there were lots of friendly faces. The bass was in Burt’s hands but Jos (I think he did 2^nd guitar at some timepoint) was ill and couldn’t be there. ‘Profound’ were good: energetic music, decent ‘act’ and sensible lyrics. Opinions were divided though: some people were disappointed (for reasons they could not explain, perhaps their expectations were too high…), some thought (singer) Michiel was too extreme (because of the anti-smoking lyrics of course), others found this was definitely a band the HC-scene could use well. In any case people were talking about them…

‘Bambix’, 3 Dutch punk-rock chicks, also payed their second visit. Had a fun time with them in the evening/night (and they even came to Aalst when ‘Yeastie Girlz’ performed at ‘de Gele’ – Gele Limonade, Aalst, 21 jan 89 (Yeastie Girlz))…

Can ‘t remember anything from the other acts ‘Death Pact’ (Nl), ‘Peeters & Angst (Bel), ‘Vomito Negro’ (Bel).

Brob

‘Bambix’ (promo-pic of that era): Nathalie, Willia & Maniet

‘Profound’ (pic by Kockie): Burt, Michiel, Paul, Olav