Saturday, March 26, 2011

Chronic Disease - Who Will Pay The Price Of Our Disregard? Demo





I promised madmohawk (a good friend of mine) to post the 1st official Chronic Disease demo.
Well what to tell about them? Chronic Disease was the 1st HC band I used to be in. I did the vocals.
We started late '86 with a different line-up. It was Vrokker on bass, Sling on guitar, Wimpie on drums and me on vocals. We rehearsed in Wimpie's parent's garage. I remember the drums being a small jazz drumkit with no cymbals so we used sawblades instead! With this line-up we only did 3 gigs. The 1st one was at someone's father's garage working place with local speedmetal band Anti Dote and I think The Mushrooms played as well. The 2nd was at Sint-Laureins (Sentenaarke) were we managed to hunt the audience out of the room to go to the bar to listen to Metallica. You know this was in full metal cross-over period. 3rd and last was in Oostende opening for Capital Scum, a revised No Debt, Ear Damage and Bad Influence. Absolutely no response and also some skinheads looking for trouble didn't add for a joyful experience. Then Wimpie was forced to leave the band by his parents due to bad school results. We had another gig in front in Bredene with bands like Mad Noise, Crap Society & Disgorge. As we were playing quite fast stuff at the time, we asked the drummer of Disgorge to step in for this one as he was the fastest drummer we knew back then. actually he played way too fast for us!
Then Sling moved to play drums and we asked Meyer of local rockband Toespieze (of which Sling also played drums) to play with us. So we were settled with this line-up until the end of the band in 1992. We also started to make songs instead of noise. A tape with 2 live gigs (Oostende & Bredene) and some rehearsal recordings were made by us, mainly for our friends.
We went to do quite some gigs, even a few in Holland but never toured. Bands we played with: Hiatus, Vortex, Verdun, Membranes, ENT, Doom, Concrete Sox, Econochrist, Legal Suffering, Chronic Death, Mind Exit, Chaos UK, De Kift, Nausea, Rose Rose, Mental Disturbance, Spermbirds, Agathocles, Bambix, At Last (now After All), Scraps, Oi Polloi, ...
'Who Will Pay The Price Of Our Disregard?' isn't actually our 1st demo recordings.We recorded some songs in the Mol area, in some garage, but the tape got lost. Vrokker found a very lo-fi recording of this session on tape. Hell, I can't even remember the titles of some of those songs anymore.
This demo was recorded in Bruges with the help of Vanne on 4-track and was later re-released with a live recording (Bissegem) by Bruno (later of Genet Records) as a benefit for ALF-prisoners.
The tape came with an A4 xeroxed booklet with lyrics and artwork/collages. All our artwork was done by Sling. Can't find the booklet for the moment though...
We recorded a 7" for Innerforce (released in 1990) and also a mini-album, originally planned to be released on Genet Records but the DAT got lost. The song for the Profane Existence comp. came from that session as well.
Vrokker also played in the Wasted Bunnies, Pertotal, The Barjackers, Crapulius Ceasar and now Seized By Man.
Meyer didn't really have any band but as a schooled guitarplayer went to study jazzguitar. He joined Seized By Man recently to play guitar.
Sling played in Rise Above, Pertotal and now in Soulwax.
I played drums for Capital Offence, Private Jesus Detector, and guitar for 4 Minute Warning, Holefiller, Katastrophobia and now Ravaged.
Were we a political band? Yes we were but later on we tried to avoid the cheap sloganeering and simple views of most political bands.
Were we a positive band? In the early days, yes. This was the time of bands like Heresy and organizers like Smurfpunx who brought a really positive vibe into the punk scene. Later on it watered down, and with growing up, we had/have a more darker view on things. In the late 80's-early 90's, HC was more of a straight edge thing, while we felt we had more in common with bands like ENT or Nausea.
Were we a XXX band? No. Some members were straight, some for a short time. Later on we got more into drinking and smoking dope, except for Sling who stayed straight through the band's existence.

Band picture kindly donated by Dieter.

1. More Important
2. Selfdenial
3. Blood For Leeches
4. Nothing But Injustice
5. Armed With Truth
6. Nightmare Business
7. The Abuse Of Intelligence
8. Sacrilege
9. Dare To Face
10. Disturbed Nature
11. Easy Prey
12. Progress To Nowhere
13. Animal Massacre
14. Shocked?

Saturday, March 12, 2011

V/A Mentally Broken Vol. 1 Tape


Compilation tape released in France sometime in the late 80's. Don't know if there were other volumes released.
Quite some variety here.
Psycho Sin opens side A with 6 tracks of noisecore. Pretty infamous band from New Jersey.
Corrupted Morals follows with 3 tracks. One of the better late 80's USHC bands (from CA).
Next is Finnish punkband Sabotaasi. Sabotaasi released 3 7"s (of which 2 are 1-sided).
Re-Ignition came from Port Moody, BC, Canada. They deliver 2 metallic HC tracks.
Wretched have 1 track, the title track of their 2nd album.
More noisecore from Deathnoise of France. 3 tracks.
Side A ends with the great Infezione from Italy.
Side B starts with one of the better bands here and what a surprise! It's The Heretics from Wales. This band had members who would later form the Cowboy Killers.
More metallic HC from Sodomy Law (Delafield, WI) and Adversity (Delta, BC, Canada). The latter did an album on UK label Manic Ears.
2nd French band is Eat Yourself. Quite raw and primitive HC.
Next are Crucial Youth. No introduction necessary I guess. 4 tracks of hilarious and over-the-top SxE HC.
Last band is Extreme Noise Terror who deliver 3 tracks.
Who could think that one release could include both Crucial Youth and ENT?
Oh yeah, the tape has 37 tracks, not 38 as mentioned on the sleeve. No track is missing here.

Please remember that March the 15th it will be Phil ENT's funeral. I've seen him playing with ENT in the late 80's, and also with Optimum Wound Profile in the mid-90's. Didn't follow ENT anymore after Phonophobia to be honest. Really sad (and a bit creepy) to see people around my age die. My condolances to his friends and family.

Mentally Broken Vol. 1