FLESH & FELL

New-wave band from Brussels/Ostend from the middle of the eighties.

Flesh & Fell consisted initially of musician Pierre Goudesone and femme-fatale singer Cathérine Vanhoucke. The two of them moved from Ostend to Brussels and recorded a first demo - aided by Luc Van Acker - with which they started bombarding the record-firms. Despite being a new-wave band, they tried to gain some fame with a participation in the the Baccarabeker, but that dit no real good to neither the Baccarabeker nor to the group.

On one fine day, however, their demo landed in the hands of Jean-Marie Aerts (the guitar-player of TC Matic, and in those days producer of about everything that could handle a guitar in Belgium). JMX was so impressed with this demo that he opened some doors for the band (such as those of the ICP-studio in Brussels for the recording of a maxi, and those of Play It Again Sam for the distribution). The result of their cooperation was "The Hunger / Wind", a maxi with three songs.
"The Hunger" got a very warm welcome in the Belgian press : "disco hypnotique", "beat psychotique", "vocaux oppressés", "noisy big-city-music", "Belgien med öppna ögon". Reference points for the music were found in artists as diverse as Frank Tovey, Piaf and TC Matic (Humo reviewed them as a TC-Matic clone : "Jean-Marie has had a huge influence on the sound of the band. The singer imitates the phrasing of Arno Hintjens : power surges in the throath, dogbites in the lyrics. She even uses a sort of English that was invented by Arno, a sort of English that is completely original and will suprises many an Englishman." The English themselves did react somewhat lukewarm, because when the maxi was distributed in the UK, NME reacted with one lousy line : "good news for students! The Gang of Four are alive and well(ish) in Belgium".

The band was enlarged with Dutch guitarist Eddie Maust and drummer Michel de Greef, in order to translate the power of the record also on stage. This took the group to concerts with Luc Van Acker and The Sisters of Mercy, and on a clubtour "Harde Tijden" with bands such as . Aroma di Amore, The Whydads, Partisan, Men 2nd, Cas & His Organised Crime, Yasja and The Scabs. The set consisted mostly of self-written compositions, and a number of original cover-version of soul-songs such as "Dirty Old Man" of the Three Degrees, and "Emma" of Hot Chocolate as a highlight. The record firm of Erroll Brown even showed some interest in releasing their dark and agressive version of "Emma", but in the end this happened on a label somewhat closer to home (EMI Belgium, again a deal for 1 single). De platenfirma van deze laatste, het engelse RAK, betoonde zelfs interesse om de donkere en agressieve versie van Flesh & Fell uit te brengen, maar uiteindelijk gebeurde dit dichter bij huis op het EMI-label (opnieuw een deal voor één single). This great cover didn't really do much sales-wise, but it got on the radio quite often.

Plans for a mini-album of the band never left the stage of being a plan, and despite the ambition of the nucleus duo nothing much was heard after these first releases from Flesh & Fell. A few years after, the band made some sort of a comeback on the turntables of the New-Beat-discotheques, in which the heavy beat of F&F somehow fitted.
Jean-Pierre Goudesone is still very much active as a musician, especially with the project "Speaking T", a grooving band with the American Markest Tate, and as a producer (eg. Priba 2000 ...).

Band members :
- Cathérine Vanhoucke (synth, vocals)
- Jean-Pierre Goudesone (bass, vocals)
- Eddy Maust (gitaar)
- Michel De Greef (drums)

Albums :
- The Hunger (maxi, PIAS/Scarface)
- Emma / La-vi-va (single, EMI)

Websites :
- nothing found