NIEUWSARCHIEF

Periode : 29 november - 5 december 1999
In dit deel : Groep Jezus, Brel, Jan Leyers, Eden, Miel Cools, Wim Mertens, De Nachten, Raymond van het Groenewoud, Lunascape, Latchack, 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 "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 hight, 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).

16 december 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 "Anéantir", "Cadastrer", "Galoper", "Kss! Kss!", "Oremus" en "Questionner".
Each of the parts sits in its own box.
Already for sale at Frontstage(free shipping to the Benelux in December !)

NOG 1 MAAND WACHTEN OP ... DE NACHTEN

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.

14 december 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 German 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.

12 december 1999

THE RETURN OF THE FAT BELGIAN BASTARDS
Dat was in 1988 een kop die in de NME stond boven een stuk over de Belgische New Beat. Enkele van deze Fat Belgian Bastards (een parafrase op een Monty Python-sketch btw) hebben de koppen bij elkaar gestoken om het beste uit die periode op een verzamelaar onder de kerstbomen te mikken.
Roland Beelen, Jo Casters en Patrick De Meyer stelden de CD (uit op Antler/PIAS) voor in de Boccacio, destijds ook een "tempel" van de New Beat rage. Op de dubbelcd staat voornamelijk Belgisch werk uit de periode 1988-1990, vanaf de A Split Second-song "Flesh" (die historisch gezien aan de basis lag van de stroming toen hij op 33 toeren werd gedraaid) tot een rariteit als Arbeid Adelt's NB-versie van de PIL-song "Death Disco", met alles daartussen (Erotic Dissidents, Snowy Red, Taste of Sugar, Nux Nemo, Jade 4 U, Amnesia, Confetti's, 101, Lords of Acid, Code 61 etc ...

NIEUWE OUDE ANN CHRISTY SINGLE
"Waarom", was in 1984 de single op het ogenblik dat Ann Christy, de lieve Vlaamse zangeres uit in de jaren zeventig stierf. Destijds werd de (platte disco-)single toen snel uit de handel genomen, om plaats te maken voor voor iets dat beter paste bij de gelegenheid (Ik leef voor jou). "Waarom 2000" is nu een ge-remasterde versie van de song.
In januari wordt er bovendien een full-cd uitgebracht, met daarop ook nooit eerder gereleased materiaal uit de archiefkast (vb. "Blue Moon", "The Rose" in een Engelse versie ...), gekoppeld ook aan een tentoonstelling van het werk van modeontwerpster An Saelens. Er wordt aan de release ook de oprichting van een "Ann Christy Fonds" gekoppeld. Dit zal zich - onder de hoede van Gery Cabeke en Edwin Ysebaert - gaan bezighouden met oude opnames van "vergeten artiesten" op te sporen en heruit te brengen.

BIJZONDER KORTE BERICHTEN, MET NIKS DAN GOED NIEUWS
- Rival heeft een single gereleased uit zijn machtige solo-debuutcd, "Rival".
- Soulwax heeft een geheel uit violen bestaande versie van "When Logics Die"opgenomen en (in België) op single geslingerd.
- Gorki is klaar met het opnemen van een geheel nieuwe CD, die "Eindelijk Vakantie" zal gaan heten, en zo rond februari 2000 op de nietsvermoedende mensheid zal worden losgelaten. Showcase in de AB op 9 november.
- Olla Vogola, net hun tweede cd uit op het gloednieuwe EMI-sublabel ZOKU, stelt deze donderdag deze cd voor in de "Blauwe Zaal" van de Vooruit, samen met de weirde jazz-groep AKA Moon.

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