NIEUWSARCHIEF

Periode : 5-11 april 2001
In dit deel : Debuutrock, Concours Circuit, Wizards of Ooze, Johan Verminnen, Milk Inc., Viva Velinx, D.A.A.U.

April 11, 2001

Debuutrock
This weekend it's also the time of the year for the presentation of the "laureates" of Debuutrock 2001, a contest for beginning bands which are selected by StuBru, Debuutrock, Plastiks, Mindview, Stage & Rif-Raf. On April 14, the 8 winners will do a showcase in De Vooruit in Ghent, presented by Jan Hautekiet.
They are:
- Scarrots, who combine ska, punk & college rock
- Creams & Spices, poprock
- Sioen - singer-songwriter on piano
- Tim's Favourite Band - atmospheric metal
- Assunto Mano - acoustic mixture of jazz, bossa & pop
- Marylinstar - collegerock
- Buffoon - fun rock
- Propulsion - beats & melodies
Dijenik, winner of the "Oost-Vlaams RockConcours" last weekend does not appear on the CD, but will open the showcases on stage.
They have all recorded one track for the debuutrock 2001 CD, which you get for free if you go to the Vooruit on Saturday. More info about the event at Mandala Productions.

Concours Circuit
The previous message reminded me of the fact that I still haven't mentioned the results of Concourt Circuit in these pages, despite the fact that this is thé most important talent contest from the French-speaking part of Belgium and had its finals well over a month ago. Well better later than never (I hope):
- the winner of 2001, in succession to Sharko & Vanilla Coke, was Arolde. This is the band of Zoé, the female ex-singer of the rather underrated electropopduo Les Brochettes. As with Les Brochettes, Arolde makes "électropop décalée" (sample: ). Arolde received a prize of 100.000 fr from the French-speaking Community, and also has got a spot at this year's Dour Festival.
Other bands that got prizes where Sweek, Pink Sattelite, Da Familia & Sweek.

Wizards of Ooze bye bye tour
As announced here earlier on this year, the Wizards of Ooze have decided to call it a day and stop being Wizards of Ooze. This weekend, the farewell tour for Belgium's most funky band (and one of the most brilliant bands around tout court) is beginning to unfold.
April 14 : De Kreun - Kortrijk, April 19: Wollewei - Turnhout, April 21: JOC Ieper, April 25/04: Stuc - Leuven, April 26: Vooruit - Gent, April 27: Muziek-O-Droom - Hasselt, May 3rd : Ab-Club Brussels (sold out) and finally May 6th at the Monty in Antwerp. And then it's all over. Sniff.

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April 10, 2001

Johan Verminnen Limited
Johan Verminnen is about halfway trough his current little tour "Luistervinken", in which he sings/croons songs with nothing but the accomanpaniment of pianoplayer Michel Bisceglia.
During this, Johan has assembled a CD, which has been published independently and pressed on only 1000 copies. The CD counts 16 tracks and features a number of his own songs (dertien stielen, een fles in de zee, Brussel, Vierhoog in de wolken ...) and a few covers ("My funny Valentine", Brel's "Ne me Quitte Pas" & "Quand on a que l'amour", Ramses Shaffy's "Sammy").s
Johan's plans for the next season are totally different than this intimate project, as he is planning on doing a series of concerts in "swing style", featuring a real big-band. There will also be a cd for this new project (working title "Swingen tot morgenvroeg"), which will be released on September 20.
The show "Luistervinken" still continues until the end of May. More info at Hint.

Milk Inc. Unlimited
Milk Inc. have collected yet another TMF-award last weekend. A rather nice feature of the award in question is that the dance project was awarded by TMF-Holland, and in the category "Dance - International".

April 9, 2001

VIVA VELINX (pataaten en saucissen)
This weekend, it's Easter. The time of the year for Viva Velinx, the little cosy festival that is the highlight of musical programming in Tongeren. Their line-up for this year is very interesting, as always:
- Sharko (b) (btw : Sharko has been trying to sign a deal in France - which didn't work out so Bang will be distributing the album by itself - an has re-recorded the entire Meeus album. It will soon be released as "Meeus 2", with some new songs on it as well ...). And "I went down" is a single now)
- Bob Log III (guitarlickin’, drumbangin’ weirdo from the US)
- Millionaire : the much anticipated band of Tim Vanhamel (Evil Superstars and temping in on the last dEUS tour). The comments on an appearance at "Motal Mozaïque" in Holland last week ranged from "waaay too loud" to "evil" to "great". Seems to have inherited the weird part of the , while the melodic part has gone to the next in the line-up:
- Mauro : album seems to be going well. Residing at n° 14 in the sales charts already
- Tom Helsen Still "doing great" apparently
- Wicona Airbag, the new band of Harald Vanherf (Hoodoo Club)
and headliners
- Swell neo-psychedelica in the slipstream of Sonic Youth.
- Tom McRae fine singer-songwriter from Engeland.
Date : April 15. Starting time : 18:20. More info: De Velinx

COTTON CANDY
And while you're in the Velinx, you might as well head on downstairs, where there's an interesting exposition: Carl Govaerts from the little company EMC has put together an exhibition with the name "Cotton Candy" and the subtitle "Belgian rockmerchandising, 1980-2000".
This former roadie of the Neon Judgement has been travelling along with Belgian rock bands for all these years, selling t-shirts and other goodies on the way.
Over 150 t-shirts, loads of posters, plenty of rarities, you can see it for free until April 22nd at the same venue.

April 5, 2001

DIE ANARCHISTISCHE LIFE TRANSMISSION
D.A.A.U. is certainly thé release of the week (and listening to it for the 4th time or so right now, quite possibly one of thé releases of the year) with their third album "Life Transmission".
After they concluded that the previous album "We Need New Animals" - out on the prestigious Sony Classical - was not really the way the band wanted to go, the Anarchists have changed course yet again: on "Life Transmission", every track is an adventure in itself, with the unifying thing being that it's instrumental music now usually backed up by beats & percussion and with a "dub feel" to it.
A month or so ago the band already released the dancy "Voodoo Sim" as a promo, and the same track is now also featured on the B-side of the first real single from the album "Mary Go Round", a catchy tune that's characterised by the vocals of Ya Kid K (once with Technotronic & Hi Tek 3).
The band have started an extensive tour at the Domino festival last week, and now go on tour in Belgium and Holland. Dates are at the official site daau.com.
Save 206 fr on your purchase of this album in Shop.

THE BEST BELGIAN GUITARIST IS ...
Musicians mag "Total Guitar", recently printed a batch of top 10's of "Best guitarplayer" in a number of genres (clapton, hendrix ...). Entertainment site Fun2go was indignated by the lack of Belgians in any of the mentioned genres, they are organizing a contest of their own: Send in your top 10 of best Belgian guitarists to dick@exposure.be.
When you're done filling your list with the usual Jean-Marie's, Philippe's, Django's, Geoffrey's, Larsen, Tim's, Fred's, Rudy's and other guitar wonders, you might still have some room for some of Belgium's most neglected guitar players :
- Firmin "rock" Bijnens, who plays guitar so loud, he usually gets arrested after the soundcheck. Has a hardcore following among the deaf.
- Tjenne Berghmans: this was once was a decent young man, until he met the evil twins Koen & Kris Wauters, who turned him into a wild rock'n'roll animal, sucked the living energy out of him and then dumped poor Tjenne in the gutter, only to replace him with Eric Melaerts (we all know how that ended ...).
- Jos Vanoverslagmulder from Genoelselderen is one of the very few who can say he has played with Prince. Although the facts happened in 1962, the guitar had no real strings but just 4 or 5 coloured buttons and it all happened in the children's pen in the Airport of Seattle, there's no denying that Jos hàs played with Prince once. Photo's prove it.
- Franky VanderElst, not only was he a multiple international soccer player for our country and is he a succesful trainer of a 1st class squad now, few people know that Franky is also one of the most underrated guitarists of the western hemisphere in secret. The style! The notes! The solo's!
More info at Fun2Go.

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