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NEWSARCHIVE

Period : December 12-21, 1999
In this issue : Groep Jezus, Brel, Jan Leyers, Eden, Miel Cools, Wim Mertens, De Nachten, Raymond van het Groenewoud, Lunascape, Atomic, K's Choice, New Beat, Ann Christy, Gorki.

December 21, 1999

JEZUS SUPPORTS KISS MY JAZZ
Groep Jezus, see our demo-section for an introduction of the band, will be releasing a promo-single "My Alarm Goes Off When You Cry". This song is yet again a production by Rudy Trouvé (see dEUS, Dead Man Ray ...), who keeps supporting the band to the full, since he is taking the startup band with him on the Kiss My Jazz tour of next month and has offered them a place on the Heaven Hotel label.
Groep Jezus have a website of their own, at www.groepjezus.org.

JAN LEYERS KNOWS HOW TO SPELL "WATJEKOUW"
Jan Leyers
, of Soulsister & My Velma-fame, stunned the Low Countries by finishing 4th in the yearly "Groot Dictee der Nederlandse Taal" (a dictation-contests in the Dutch parliament in which the Netherlands & Flanders try to write correctly, not an easy task to accomplish). He had only 11 mistakes in his text, whereas the average was 33 (in 8 sentences!). This made him the first of the VIP's competing. Marcel Vanthilt, another singer now turned tv-personality, also among the leading group of the VIPS. Among the words they had to spell right where things like "millennium", and "fin-de-siècle".

BREL AT N° 1 in BRITAIN
The race in Britain for the honour of being #1 in the UK Charts around the last Christmas of the new millennium (that's two times "l", two times "n", or so I learnt watching the previous item) has been won by a Belgian song (sort of). Neither Cliff Richard's "Millennium anthem", nor the re-release of John Lennon's "Imagine" snatched it, but boysband Westlife with "Seasons in the Sun", a song by Jacques Brel (original is "Le Moribond", which already was recorded once in English - with lyrics by Rod McKuen - by Canadian Terry Jacks, who took it to #1 in the States in 1974).

EDEN POSTPONE JANUARY TOURDATES
Eden
, are having yet more troubles. They already had cancelled a number of shows in the past months, and postponed them to January & February. Due to health problems (something wrong with the vocal chords of Sofie), these new shows sadly also had to be cancelled.
All plans (new single, new video, tour) will probably have to be postponed another three months into the new millennium.

MIEL COOLS SAYS NOT TO BE AFRAID
Now that the frenzy of last-Christmas-of-the-millennium-shopping is at its peak, very few new releases to announce, but just at this moment comes the news that Miel Cools is releasing a new album. "Niet Bang Zijn" (Don't be afraid) is the title, and "durf te leven!" (dare to live) is the message of the old bard (64 nowadays) from Hasselt. His hopes are not extremely high, but "I have my audience and that will buy this cd. But inundate Flanders, I don't think so". Miel Cools is currently also touring with a programma that is a mix of old an new songs.

WE WILL BURY YOU ...
Phoenix, the rock-pages of newspaper Het Belang van Limburg, have buried Belgian rock anno 1999. Not so much out of the conviction that "rock is dead", but just out of millennium-madness. They did it by collecting all kinds of "memorabila" which have something to do with Belgian rockers, put them in a wardrobe, and bury that in a secret place in Limburg.
Things that future generations of archeologists might encounter include the gall-stones of Stijn Meuris, singer of Noordkaap, the first guitar-case of K's Choice, a thermos-flask of Soulwax and an electric guitar of Praga Khan (never played on before, i guess).

December 16, 1999

WIM MERTENS RELEASES A NEW "CYCLE"
Wim Mertens, the very talented & very productive minimal composer from Belgium, has just released a batch of new CD's on the Les Disques Du Crépuscule label.
The cycle is called "Kere Weerom", and consists of 7 CD's, totalling no less than 83 tracks:
- Poema (2CD), with pieces that carry english titles (such as "As a rule", "Blank Verses", "Leap in the dark", "Relatively Spoken" ...)
- Kere Weerom (3CD), with tracks that have dutch titles (such as "Van hot naar haar", "Wederom verdwenen", "Dat schelden", "Amper beschut", "Achter me niets", "In U", "Onderlinge onmin", "Van eeee", "En aaaaa" and my favourite title "Maak dat de kat wijs".
- Decorum (2CD) with songs that have Latin or French titles (such as "Aneantir", "Cadastrer", "Galoper", "Kss! Kss!", "Oremus" en "Questionner".
Each of the parts sits in its own box.
Buy it at Proxis

NOG 1 MAAND WACHTEN OP ... DE NACHTEN

Howie B presents the Pussyfoot Revue
Bonjour Micro (Kamagurka & co.)
Ben Christophers
Deep Danny
Doughty (Soul Coughing)
Hermes Ensemble
Mouse Analyse
Orange Black
Mauro Pawlowski
Pinback
David Shea
Solid vs. Green
The The
Think of One (with Megafanfare)
Tin Foil Star
Vive La Fête (cd-presentation)

9mm Crew
Bar8
Consolidated
Stephen Duncan
JF Muck
Tom Lanoye & Paul Mennes (de Nichten)
Thé Lau
My Morning Jacket
Neotropic vs Flash Didact
Mauro Pawlowski
An Pierlé
Soulwax (special set)
Daan Stuyven & Herman Gillis
El Tattoo del Tigre
Thou & John Parish
Visual Kitchen

are just some of the names that will be appearing at the festival "De Nachten", at the Antwerp cultural shrine "De Singel", on Friday January 28 and Saturday January 29, 2000. This festival mixes "literati" (eg. Tom Lanoye, Paul Mennes ...) and "culturally approved" rock.
Tickets online at http://www.desingel.be

RAYMOND HITS 50
Raymond van het Groenewoud, fine purveyor of slows to royalty since 1999, will be hitting the halfway mark on Valentines Day next year. To celebrate the fact that he will see Abraham that day, he and his record company EMI throw a party at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on February 16, 2000.
It wasn't yet disclosed what will happen exactly, but you can expect an extensive concert, lots of musical friends & instruments, a number of surprises, gifts, confetti ... and beer (I hope).
Tickets are 500,-, for sale at the AB-site.

December 14, 1999

FREE CD WITH HUMO ...
Pleasant surprise in the weekly magazine Humo this week, since record company Double T cd has put a cd with five of their artists in the package.
The tracks are of great quality :
- Noordkaap has put on a version of their current single "Goed Nieuws voor slechte mensen", with lyrics. Funny is also how singer Stijn Meuris is used in the radio-clip of this Humo (audio-file on the Humo-site)
- Arid with the great song "Soirée" (previously unreleased, but it will feature on the American version of "Little Things of Venom" which will be called "Arid" in the States).
- Metal Molly with "Hopelessness" (a brand new song, which will feature on their album "The Golden Country", to be released early in the year 2000)
- "Saving Up Skin for the Summer" of Ozark Henry (again, a completely new track. These days, you can also hear Piet Godaer on the radio quite often on a song called "If this is love" a band called "Latchak", a side-project of Front 242's Richard 23).
- "Lane Navachi" by the new band Lunascape (that's a triphopband featuring Kyoko Baertsoen - for a short while singer with Hooverphonic - and pianist Walter Hilhorst).
More info : http://www.humo.be or http://www.double-t-music.com

DJ 4T4 becomes ATOMIC
DJT 4T4, aka de beatmaster van 't Hof Van Commerce, aka Magik Ballet Ensemble, aka Kristof Michiels, aka Cosmic Relief, is now also known as Atomic.
In this new project - an EP "Atomic" has been released on Kinky Star - he takes on the form of a mysterious and funky superhero from outter space. "His music suffered from arduous space travelling adventures, affecting his concept of various time eras, thus mixing up the pop and hip hop of the 80's, the intergalactic funk of the 70's, and the cheesy psychedelica of the 60's, producing a cocktail well into the 90's !!!" says the bio.
More info : Kinky Star.

K'S CHOICE HAS HIT THE STUDIO
K's Choice have gone into the studio, starting the recordings of what should become their fourth album. After a number of try-outs and a intensive rehearsal-period in November, Sarah & Gert have elected to have the album produced by "Bird & Bush", a duo from New-Zealand whose biggest release so far is "Cocktails & Performance" by the British indie-rockers Sterophonics.
For the moment, the release date of the project is scheduled in and about April/May 2000.

December 12, 1999

THE RETURN OF THE FAT BELGIAN BASTARDS
That was a 1988 headling in the English New Musical Express on top of a piece about the Belgian New Beat explosion. A few of those Fat Bastards (borrowed from a Monty Python-sketch) have teamed together to put together an album with the best of that period.
Roland Beelen, Jo Casters en Patrick De Meyer introduced the cd (out on Antler/PIAS) in the Boccacio, at the time one of the "temples" of the dark dance craze. On the double-CD "Rock To The Beat, The Ultimate Collection" you can find mostly Belgian material from the period 1988-1990, from the A Split Second-song "Flesh" (which was the "historic" cause of the trend when it was played at 33 rpm) to a rarity such as Arbeid Adelt's NB-version of the PIL-song "Death Disco", and everything inbetween (Erotic Dissidents, Snowy Red, Taste of Sugar, Nux Nemo, Jade 4 U, Amnesia, Confetti's, 101, Lords of Acid, Code 61 etc ...

NEW OLD ANN CHRISTY SINGLE
"Waarom" was a single at the time in 1984 when Ann Christy, the sweet singer of the seventies, died. The (stupid disco-)single was rapidly pulled from the shelves, to make way for something that was more approriate for the occasion ("Ik leef voor jou"). But now there's "Waarom 2000" a re-mastered version of the same song.
In january there will be a full-cd release of previously unpublished material of the dead singer (eg. "Blue Moon", "The Rose" in an English version...), and a exhibition of her favourite clothes desinger An Saelens.
The proceedings of this release - a production of VRT-Radio 2 producers Gery Cabeke & Edwin Ysebaert - will partly go to an "Ann Christy Fund", which will serve as a financial aid for re-releasing old recordings of "forgotten" flemish artists and new talent.

SHORT MESSAGES WITH NOTHING BUT GOOD NEWS
- Rival has released a single of his mighty rap-solo-debut "Rival".
- Soulwax has recorded a violin-supported version of the song "When Logics Die"which will be released as a single in the Benelux only.
- Gorki have finished recording a completely new album, which will carry the name "Eindelijk Vakantie" (The holidays, finally) and should be released in and about February 2000. Showcase in de AB op 9 november.
- Olla Vogola, who have just released their second cd "Gnanamo" on the brand new Belgian EMI-sublabel ZOKU, will present this cd on Thursday December 16 in the "Blauwe Zaal" of the Vooruit in Ghent, in a duo-concert with the weird jazz-band AKA Moon.

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