VEEL "FRUSTRATED / MONEYGRUBBER" 7" (LIMBURG, BELGIUM-
MIT 01995, 1981)


BANDS-WHOSE-NAMES-BEGIN-WITH-THE-LETTER "V" SERIES: PART 3
I have coincidentally been posting records from bands whose names begin with the letter V. And my next few planned postings will be "V bands". Again, a total coincidence. But thinking about it a little deeper, bands whose names start with V sound real tough and in-your-face: Victims, Vultures, Violators, Vicious Visions (the rare double V!), Vamps, Vopos, Vacants, Valves, and the list goes on and on. I'm sure there is some deeper linguistic explanation other than "that band's name sounds cool", though.


Nice colorful rainbow on the labels, eh. The front
of the sleeve, which says "Het klinkt niet alleen
tegenstrijdig...Het is het ook!" translates into
English (according to Google Translator) as
"It not only sounds contradictory... It also is!".


Here is just the sleeve.  And here are the band credits:

Rudy Beyens = Bass
Harold Bochmans = Vocals
Johan Flebus = Guitar (and songwriter)
Theo Flebus = Drums
Ronny Swerts = Drums and Saxophone
Johan Van Den Broek = Trumpet

Produced and Mixed By Veel

Here is another cool record from Belgium, home of many cool records and bands in the late 70's and early 80's (see The Kids, Hubble Bubble, Raxola et al).  Belgium is not that big of a country, but they managed to- per capita- churn out many great records in the KBD years of roughly 1977 to 1982.  And let's not forget the infamous Plastic Bertrand aka Roger Jouret drummed for Hubble Bubble before the whole "Ca Plaine Pour Moi" debacle.

During the vinyl comp boom of the mid-to-late 90's the best songs from the old scene were documented on four different all-Belgian comps: the first (and best, I think) was the Bloody Belgium LP in 1996, followed by three separate Bloodstains Across Belgium volumes between '97 and '99.  And let's not forget that Belgian bands were "re-discovered" and placed onto very early KBD-type comps, starting with The Mad Virgins on 1989's Killed By Death #4 LP (which I still remember buying new at Pravda Records in Chicago when it came out from their "Import" racks, but that night is another story...)

Special thanks to whoever released the Bloody Belgium comp, because it helped bring the excellent Raxola LP to everyone's attention and dug rather deep into some very obscure singles.  Like Veel- this comp is where I (and I assume many others) first heard their great, bouncy, quirky song "Money Grubber".  It's melodic, extremely catchy, fast-paced and has some great sing-along, whistle-able "Whoa oh oh oh oh, whoa oh oh oh" parts mixed in as well.  As well as some well-placed saxophone (and apparently trumpet?!) playing- I say "well placed" because too many horns in a punk song usually makes me grit my teeth in pain.  But not here.  And it sounds like the band are playing at that type of energetic pace where they all racing each other to the end, and this is always a good thing for my ears.  The guitar strumming is so infectious too, especially at like the 1:23 mark.  I think it's a very orginal, unique-sounding song in general and I struggle to think of other songs on other KBD-ish comps that sound similar to it.  Which is a good thing of course.

I bought the Bloody Belgium comp when it came out in 1996 and many spins over the years of "Money Grubber" always made me curious to hear the other side of the Veel single.  But no one that I traded music with over all of these years seemed to have it and it's remained very elusive to me.  Until about a week ago!  Out of the blue I unexpectedly got an e-mail from the former singer of Veel, Harold Bochmans, who was kind enough to provide me an mp3 of "Frustrated" (and gave me permission to post the Veel single).  I have to admit that I felt a little nervous to finally hear "the other side", as "the other side" of a KBD single can mean pure pain and disappointment sometimes.  But not here!  I only feel happy, as "Frustrated" is just GREAT.  There is a totally different vibe and approach to it compared to the upbeat flipside- "Frustrated" is a rather tense affair, and played much more in-your-face but at a slower pace.  The guitar playing is great, as is the drumming and the singing style- just an all-around solid tune.  These guys could really play their instruments too.  And they totally sound frustrated!  So the song name matches their feelings.  Now that I've heard this song I wonder why it was never comped anywhere.  Really a shame that it has remained so obscure and unheard over the years.   Hopefully a fair number of people will visit this posting and help end that situation.


Frustrated.mp3
Money Grubber.mp3

Thanks again to former singer Harold for providing these rips and giving the green light to post this record!


ENDNOTES
COMING SOON!  I've got some more sidebar items related to Veel and Belgian punk but I don't want to hold up this posting anymore right now.  Stay tuned for more...

DRIVERS "JOHNNY'S DYING / I'M NO MORON" 7"
(SANTA CRUZ, CA- OVERDRIVE, 1980)




3D- whoa!  Er, this homemade sleeve looks pretty dated to me.  However,
I would still love to have a vinyl copy of this record for cheap
instead of this price point.  Both sides of this 7" were included on a
regional comp LP called Surf City Undergound, so the budget-minded can
hear them on vinyl that way.


I had heard of this record about a year ago but never actually heard what it sounded like until a few weeks ago, so many thanks to the blog commenter who provided these rips!

The oceanside cities outside of San Francisco, like Santa Cruz, are not really known for a lot of KBD-ish type over-the-top, frothing-mad records, save OF COURSE the snotty Insults who were from nearby Watsonville.  Perhaps the proximity to the beach and a mellow lifestyle but, more importantly, a hippie-friendly environment in Santa Cruz precluded this lean towards quirky new wave in other bands from the same area.  [For skate fans, of course there was/is Santa Cruz Skateboards which- from the late 70's through the early 90's- was branded as THE skate punk company.  The ubiquitous Santa Cruz red dot logo shirt can be seen in many a picture from early 80's punk shows.  But I won't get started on Santa Cruz the skate company and Steve Olson, Duane Peters, Jason Jessee, Tom Knox et al...]

Anyway, I think this Drivers 7" is very good- for me, the highlight is "Johnny's Dying". The guitar on it is very LOUD and in your face and begs to be cranked up.  The playing on it is very tight and "professional" like this trio really knew how to play their instruments- check out that tight, rapid-fire drumming too.  I have gotten so used to sloppy playing over the years on many of my favorite records, that bands like The Drivers almost sound TOO professional, too polished, too tight.  But they pull it off nicely, including that tinnitus guitar solo, and wrap things up before the 2:42 mark, only 6 seconds past the "no songs over 2:36" rule.  And it's got a rather tense quality underlying it which is always a good thing for me.  Had the Hyped To Death CD comp series way back when made it to a volume dedicated to the letter D then I could see "Johnny's Dying" fitting nicely on it.

The B-side is a little goofier with the vocals and less serious and leans towards "new wave punk", but has a nice, in-your-face guitar solo that jumps out at the 1:09 mark.  There is also some nice "chugga chugga" guitar in the beginning too.  And things are over by the 1:37 mark- now IF it had lingered on much longer than I might have filed it under "annoying B-sides".


Johnnys Dying.mp3
Im No Moron.mp3



Here is the band (l to r): Kevin Loose (guitar and vocals), Michael Litton (drums) and Dan Waller (bass).  According to this site, the drummer also joined the hardcore band Scapegoats in the Fall of '81.  Their song "Shitcan" appeared on MRR's iconic 1982's Not So Quiet on The Western Front double LP comp, and they also had a few songs on Version Sound's Meathouse cassette comp around that same time. But please know that Mr. Litton drummed for the Scapegoats AFTER their appearance on the MRR comp- thanks to the blog commenter who pointed this out.

CHICAGO SERIES, PART 4

RAZER "DON'T BE TAME / ANOTHER KIND OF MAN" 7" (CHICAGO, IL- SNAP CRACKLE & ROCK, 1978)




Sorry for the crappy .jpg, but no one has the sleeve
for this record! More on that later...



The label name "Snap Crackle and Rock" is so cornball to me.  It gets even worse when they put that "Just add milk" quote under it- good thing the music on the record makes up for this misstep.

Part of the songwriting credits are given to this guy whose last name is "Matthys".  My search for more info on who this was turned up nothing.

But we get the full name of Mark Durante, and some quick research on that name turns up this guy- wonder if this is the same Mark Durante from Chicago (?).  If it was, then he was also in a band called Public Enemy in 1978 and in the 80's went on to some bands like the The Slammin' Watusis ('member them?!) and others.


I know next to nothing about this band- you type "Razer" into Google and see what comes up!  The only thing I do know comes from the liner notes of 2000's Hyped To Death #1 comp which is where I first heard "Another Kind of Man".  Chuck Warner's very brief liner notes said that most copies came sleeveless but a few had an elaborate hand-made promo sleeve.  I assume the back of the sleeve (which I have never seen) had a Chicago address printed on it, and that's how Chuck knew the band was from there.  Anyone have any scans they'd like to share??

"Another Kind of Man" took me some to grow on me, as initially it sounded too "rock" to me and not punk enough.  But now I recognize it as an interesting, unique-sounding mixture of rock and punk.  But I don't consider it "punk n' roll", if you use something like the Nervous Eaters' Just Head or Corpsicles' Big Doings as a reference point like I do.  For the "Another Kind of Man" I am going to call it "punk friendly rock".  Perhaps an accident that this song appeals to punk fans, and not the intention of the band at all (?).  I wonder if they had any ties to the loosely-organized punk/"new wave" scene of late 70's Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.  Anyone have any old flyers to share?  Perhaps Razer were a studio-only project?  All speculation, as they are a mystery band to me.  There is nothing about them on the Chicago Punk Database, and I don't remember them being mentioned in the You Weren't There documentary.

The pace of some of the guitar riffs on "Another Kind of Man" and especially the sound of it sorta brings to mind the Plastic Idols' IUD.  Very hummable, or whistle-able.  The chugga chugga break at the 2:42 mark makes that part of the song sounds like it would fit nicely on the Victims' great Annette EP.  Weird coincidence.  The other tune, "Don't Be Tame", is a faster-paced, high energy tune that is essentially hard rock with some "gunka gunka" punk-ish guitar jabs here and there.  A metal guitar solo that starts at the 2:30 mark, though, does not appeal to me nor does the last 20 seconds of the song where they drift again into metal territory with their "outro".  But overall not a bad song.


Dont Be Tame.mp3 *
Another Kind of Man.mp3

* My above rip of "Don't Be Tame" is unfortunately missing the first few seconds of the song and cuts off at the end so if you have a full-length, high quality rip of this tune please let me know!