April 10, 2000

JAUNE TOUJOURS PRESENTS NEW CD
Jaune Toujours, the accordeon band from Brussels with a music in between Les Négresses Vertes & Goran Bregovic, will be presenting their second CD "Brusk", coming Friday April 14th at 20:30 in La Tentation, Brussels.
The band consists of Piet Maris, Bert Bernaerts, Theo Raballand, Bart Maris (X-Legged Sally, Think of One, dEUS ...) and Christophe Morisset. On the new cd, there were also guest appearances of Vera Coomans (Rum, Madou, solo), Wouter Vandenabeele (Ambrozijn, Olla Vogola) & Mattias Laga. About a year and a half after the mini-cd "O" (which included the typical track "Accordéon"), the group has now struck a deal with the folklabel Wild Boar Music of Kadril's Erwin Libbrecht & Alea (with the tiny dice in the CD-box).
More info : La Tentation (info about the free CD-presentation) or Atrecordings (with more Realaudio of "O").

April 9, 2000

KLOOT PER W IN A BOX
20 years ago, people in the music business were talking about a revolution in the music business : artists recording their own music, without a record company, putting it on casette, distributing it themselves, while other were more worried about how "hometaping was killing music" ... much like the talk of the town these days is MP3 and the consequences that will have on the music bizz. Needless to say that the scale of the upset is not quite the same for these two events, but the K7-movement had it's importance also.
One of the artists who "pioneered" this movement in our country in the early eighties was Kloot Per W (see The Misters, Employees, de Kreuners, Stricktly Rockers, himself, ...).
Twenty years after his first release, he has now come up with the idea to re-release the three first K7's he did ("Music for girls", "Sex wars", and "Murder Music") on a triple CD. The box will contain 50 songs, some unique photographs, a bio and discography-booklet, as well as a painting by Kloot Per W himself that will be unique in each copy. You can pre-order this collector's item through his website at klootperw.com (2000 fr, about 50$).
Fans of Kloot have more to look forward to, as HKM is planning on re-releasing three LP's which involved him : "Change Partners" of The Misters (1978), the first vinly album of Kloot Per W (1987) and the first album of The Employees (1982).

DEBUUTROCK 2000
On April 22, the 8 laureates of Debuutrock 2000 will showcase their talents at the Vooruit in Ghent, but now they already had the chance to record a track in for the cd "Debuutrock 2000", out now on Sony. Debuutrock is a talent contest for Flemish bands, but not one that searches óne winner. The selection is done by demo-tapes, a visit to the rehearsal-rooms of the most interesting, and then by appointment of the partners in Debuutrock (Rifraf, Stage, Studio Brussel, Mindview, Plastiks). The eight bands that made the cut this year were :
- Loner (stonemetal)
- Crosseyed Monkey (rock & soul)
- Mr. Wiggly (explosive pop)
- Gloin (A countryband in disguise)
- Shue (garageblues)
- Humb (jazzy hip-hop)
- Admiral Freebee (brown music)
- Higgin's (technopop).
The album is prized as "the only full-cd at the prize of a maxi single". Buy the cd online at Frontstage.

5 april 2000

ARID ... EXCLUSIVE !!
Hectic times for Jasper Steverlinck and his band Arid : the band has just finished touring with Adam Duritz & his Counting Crows, "Me & My Melody" tantalizingly close to the n°1 spot in De Afrekening, America still waiting, and now they're performing in a 3D-movie.
For the film "The Haunted Castle", there will be a song of Arid taped at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, and the band is now looking for a public to cheer them on during that song. Since they are charging 400 fr. for it, the record company throws in the offer the handing out of a gold album for "Little Things of Venom" and a "mini-concert". Tickets for this "exclusive event" on April 13th can be ordered "exclusively" through the AB-site.
Other Arid-related things to check out this week : the second part of the "exclusive Arid-tourdiary" in weekly Humo, an "exclusive tour-report" in monthly Teek, "exclusive live pictures" of that same tour at Humo's The Wild Site (10 new pics each day of this week), and two "exclusive videotaped live tracks" at the website of their record company Double T.

4 april 2000

MINTZKOV LUNA WINS ROCKRALLY Y2K
Last sunday saw the 'denouement' of the thriller that was this years Rock Rally (a bi-annual talent contest, the most prestigious of its kind here, organized by weekly Humo). Again, the 10 finalists proved to be a fine sample of local talent, and again the ultimate decision of the jury (that included Tom Barman and others) didn't remain undisputed.
The winning trio:
1. Mintzkov Luna (very young band from Lier, sound very much like dEUS - mainly by the voice of singer Filip Bosschaerts) received the first prize, worth 400.000 Bef (about 10,000$).
2. Admiral Freebee (Pre-final favourite, and managed to live up to those expectations (almost) totally during the final. Fine act by singer Tom van Laere and his musicians). Apart from the second prize (worth 250.000) they also received the public choice award, which earned them 300.000 fr. for the shooting of a videoclip.
3. Venus in Flames (solo singer-songwriter, in the city hall known as Jan De Campenaere). He gets 150.000 and, if it was up to us, a record contract. Soon.
Of course, there was lots of applause also for Das Pop (who played a short set as winners of the penultimate edition) and for the gold album that Novastar's Joost Zweegers had the honour of receiving.
Images of the final can be seen this Thursday (TMF, 21u.), and normally the traditional Rock Rally CD, with 1 song of each finalist (recorded during the semi-finals) should hit the stores any minute now.

SOULWAX NOW IN ALL OF EUROPE
Finally - a mere sixteen months after the release of this cd here in the Benelux - the fine album "Much Against Everyone's Advice" of the Ghent-based band Soulwax is getting a release in the rest of Europe (including the UK & Ireland). Expectations are high.
At this moment, the boys (& girls) are finishing their last concerts in the tour with the Wannadies, and in May they'll hop over to the UK once again to perform some smaller - standalone - gigs. In the summer, they will perform at a number of large-scale festivals, which should include "Rock Am Ring", "Werchter" en "Glastonbury" already.
To celebrate (and promote) all this, the Soulwax-site at www.soulwax.com has gotten a complete (& flashy) redesign.

2 april 2000

AFSCHEID VAN NOORDKAAP
Flemish rock as one of the headlines in the tv-news-bulletin : the last time that happened was probably with the split of The Scabs.
Last Friday and Saturday Noordkaap played to a sold-out Ancienne Belgique twice, the last shows of the band ever. It took the band 2,5 hours and three rounds of "encores" before the emotional crowd managed to say goodbye to the band. Guests included Joost Zweegers (with whose band Novastar the guitarplayer of Noordkaap, Lars van Bambost, will start playing now. He handed a golden microphone to Stijn Meuris) and Will Tura (whose song "Arme Joe" they covered exactly 10 years ago - the start of the group - and who came on stage now to "reclaim his song now").
Meanwhile, it also was said that the new band of Noordkaap's singer Stijn Meuris wil neither be called Narvik, nor Belmondo, and that is will thus be impossible to debut at Nekka in a few weeks time. The new band apparently is formed by now, but it is now forseen that they will come out of the rehearsal room only by the Fall.

FENCE WINT DÉ PRIJS
During the celebration of the 17th birthday of radio station Studio Brussel in the program "Club Brussel" of last Saturday, the band Fence was proclaimed the winner of their annual cover-contest. Their harmonized & cheerful version of the Red Zebra punk classic "I can't live in a living room" was found better than the contributions of Kolk, Pat Verelst, Orange Black, Atomic en Janez Detd.
The guys from Fence promised that their version will be released on the cd they will issue in a couple of week. That cd will include, apart from the new single (Always Ultra?) and "Living Room", also 3 track that were recorded live in the Paradiso in Amsterdam. For the first time, there will also be a Fence-video.

GOLD RECORD FOR BLUES IN WALLOON
More than three years after the release-date, bluesman William Dunker has received a golden album for his cd "Trop Tchaud" (too hot). Not only is this a fine result for a Belgian bluesrecord, it is also the first time ever than these kind of sales figures went to a record with lyrics in the dialect of Wallonia.
On the cd-booklet, there are both the Walloon and the French lyrics. That this is usefull, is witnessed by the example of "Toudi sul'voye"(toujours sur la route - always on the move) : "Dj' voureu bén daller aux U.S.E. - l'paraît drola tout est toui bén - Mais mi dji'm pôse un' biyesse question - Est-c'-qu'à Nou York i pâlent Walon". is in French : "Je voudrais bien aller aux U.S.A. Il paraît que là-bas, tout est toujours bien Mai moi je me pose une bête question, Est-ce qu'à New-York on parle Wallon?"
In the years that followed "Trop Tchaud", Dunker has moved a bit more towards rock music, and has become member of a Canadian band named "Les Fabuleux élégants" (with Patrick Norman, Jeff Smallwood, Bourbon Gautier), who have a debut-cd out that is compared most of to The Travelling Willbury's.
Buy "Trop Tchaud" at Frontstage.