People keep asking about other fests from this era that were not organised by our Smurfpunx collective… So let’s try to incorporate some of them here then. Counting on anyone for help/contributions again!
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‘De Finkel’
85-02-02: Scoundrels (Nl), X-Creta (Bel) [flyer: Dirty Scums (Bel)], Wulpse Varkens (Bel), Zyklome-A (Bel)
86-05-17: M.O.G. (Nl), Ear Damage (Bel)
86-11-86: Kina (Ita), Hate Crew (Bel), Repulsives (Bel)
86-12-08: Senza Sterzo (Ita) – Manimal (Ita) – Deviant Gedrag (Bel) – Brain Disorder (Bel)
87-04-12: W.C.F. (Nl), Cry Of Terror (Nl), Hate Crew (Bel), Taartje Aardbei (Bel)
87-05-03: S.C.A. (Nl), Vortex (Bel), Deviant Gedrag (Bel), Indirekt (Nl), Vernon Walters (Nl) ???
88-07-31: 5Les (Bel), Deviated Instinct (UK), [split] => Mind Exit (Bel), Dawn Of Liberty (Bel)
88-04-09: Mental Disturbance (Bel), Violent Mosquitos (Bel), Disgorge (Bel)
88-08-28: Negazione (Ita), Political Asylum (UK), Lethal Gospel (USA), Cry Of Terror (Nl), Dirty Scums (Bel)
88-11-13: Bobwire (Nl), Mental Disturbance (Bel), …
88-12-18: S.N.F.U. (Can) – The Ewings (Ger) – Dr Rat (Ger) – Mental Disturbance (Bel) [organised by Smurfpunx]
89-01-27: Flitox (Fra), Bad Influence (Bel)
89-02-18: M.S.T. (Fra), Smegmatics (Fra)
89-03-29: Concrete Sox (UK), Doom (UK), Chronic Disease (Bel)
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De Finkel was the youthcentre for young people in Jette from the mid ’70s to the beginning of the ’90s.
As in other youthcentres in the Brussels area during that period, the initiative to start up a meetingplace for youngsters arose in a ‘bottom up’ manner. There was no low-treshold meetingspace for the baby-boomers – young people of 20 in the ’70s – in Jette during that period, except for the pubs or ‘taverns’ in the municipality (that were heavily frequented after school-time an/or on Sunday-afternoons after activities of the youth-movements). In the light of all this De Finkel was born.
By the end of its existence as youthecentre, the relation with the local administration would certainly become often ‘problematic’. Not in the least because De Finkel got associated with the Dutch-speaking, Flemish youth of Jette and the northeast of Brussels, while during the ’70s Jette was a municipality with a mainly French-speaking population, which was reflected in its administration, and hence the youth-policy. The aim of the younthcentre’s activists was nevertheless always opening up towards all languages and cultures. In the end De Finkel was a meetingplace for the metropolitan youth, with music being a binding factor. The location where the youthcentre was started, couldn’t have been a better one: an abandoned brewery: a big, industrial, concrete building adjacent of the Garcet park, near the Jette railway-station.
From the mid ’70s on many concerts, parties and a pub got organised. The youngsters of Jette and surroundings reacted very positively to this new offer, what translated into e.g. huge memberships – some 300 – of young people that wanted to make use of De Finkel. A yearly acme for the activists during that period was the ‘Finkel Festival’, taking place the last weekend of August augustus and where a lot of the established values and pioneers of the Belgian pop- and rock-scene played: Raymond van het Groenewoud, ‘TC Matic’, ‘The Employees’, ‘Red Zebra’, etc.
From the middle of the ’80s on De Finkel ended up in difficult existential waters. Not just because of its ever strained relations with the local administrations, but also because of the changing public. The pioneers of the ’70s declutched and their place was taken by the often alternative new-wave and punk youngsters of Brussels. Their pick of meetingplaces and alternative music-venues in Brussels had gotten quite more extensive (DNA, the university’s Kultuurkaffee, Ancienne Belgique, …) in the meantime, what meant that De Finkel was less and less able to attract collaborators and volunteers.
Filip ‘Boulle’ Burgelman
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We [‘Indecency’, ‘5Les’] rehearsed there. On Sunday-mornings, with free Kriek [cherry-beer]. Our first rehearsal was legendary. We’d never played together and Chris had never held a microphone before. I was thinking: we’ll invite an audience. One of the first concerts I went to was at De Finkel (‘Zyklome-A’, ‘Wulpse Varkens’ & ‘Scoundrels’.
Onno Hesselink
gig- review in D.R.O.L. #10
‘Disorder’ (below ‘Bossche’ -L- & Werner E. -R- crowdsurfing) [1 by Serge Harvent, 2 courtesy of Dirk Ceustermans]
‘Indirekt’ (singer Anneke Knip, guitarist Ruud Sweering, drummer Niels de Wit, bassist Rick Blom) [1 by Serge Harvent, 2&3 courtesy of Dirk Ceustermans (taken by Fons Ceuppens)]
‘Ear Damage’ (below Marcel Kok, ‘Indirekt’s sound-engineer -R-) [1 by Serge Harvent, 2 by Onno Hesselink, 3&4 courtesy of Dirk Ceustermans]
‘Pigs In Blue Glue’ [courtesy of Dirk Ceustermans]
crowd during ‘P.I.B.G.’ live (Marc ‘Damage’, Werner E., Kockie, Ruud ‘Indirekt’, etc.) [by Bart Schoofs]
Smurfpunx 