Vort'n Vis in the 90s
Posts about Tribe 8 written by smurfpunx
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Vort'n Vis in the 90s
Dieter R. (who did the poster) didn’t listen very carefully when he heard the name ‘Tribe 8 ‘… ;-)

Quite a while after their 1st appearance in Belgium (1982, supporting the ‘Dead Kennedys’ in Mechelen) this one, but in the meantime Smurfpunx (90-09-14), Hageland Hardocre (87-11-22) and a bunch of others had hosted them more than a few times already. Time for a show at the Vort’n Vis!

In the band (residing in San Francisco) at that time were: Erica Liss (bass; replacing Matt Freeman), Al Schultz ‘AlShvitz’ (drums), Dave Dictor (vocals) and Chris Wilder (guitar; ex ‘Stikky’; replacing Bill Collins). Later during this tour they became the first HC band to play in Russia (see MRR #117). At the end of that year they recorded the Thanks For Giving Me What I Didn’t Want… 7” that was released by New Red Archives in 1993. The next album Shades Of Brown (We Bite recs ’93) was with the same line-up and contains quite a few written and/or composed by Chris (e.g. the hip-hop vegetarian song Real Food, Real People, Real Bullets or Hail Satan; witty but clever).

The band still exists and did its 1st Australian tour Summer 2013.

‘M.D.C.’ photos kindly donated by Eric ‘React’ W.

‘That’s It’ (Los Angeles) had played the V.V. earlier that year (92-01-12; with guitarist/vocalist Shawn Stern, bassist Greta Brinkman, guitarist Mark Phillips and Tom(my) ‘Stupid’ Withers on drums). Tommy left the band halfway their tour so Chris took over on drums (David Andler played on the 7”). I can’t remember the others who were in the guestbook – A.J. (A.J. Ness did the artwork for the 7”), Ricky A.

Bettina who did a guestbook-entry is – as far as I can recall – Bettina Geile, a nice girl from Bremen who drove bands around in her van. Someone with a heart-warming smile and outgoing personality!… Nowadays she works for Schlachthof (a venue where a lot of HC/punk bands played at that time).

‘No More’, from Luxembourg (the country, not the Belgian province) were: Claude ‘Pattex’ Werer (guitar), Fränz Laureys (bass), Steve ‘Diff’ Differding (vocals) & Mike ‘Schof’ (drums). This was their 1st appearance here (they would be back – 92-09-05 & 93-03-28). In 1991 they’d released a split-12” (All Life is Equal) together with another band from Luxembourg (‘Subway Arts’) on Markus Haas’ Per Koro recs. Their 7” How Much is Enough – with one track recorded live at the 500 Years Of Genocide show at the Kulturfabrik in Esch, 92-10-25 – was put out by Peacy recs (Diff and Simone Winandy).

‘No More’ photos kindly donated by Eric ‘React’ W.

‘Tribe 8’ was an all-women outspoken dyke punk band from San Francisco. Considered one of the first queer-core groups. ‘Tribe Eight’ is a play on the word tribade, which was once used to refer to a lesbian.

At the time of touring they had a 7” out, called Pig Bitch (HARP recs, 1992) and split-7”s with ‘Blatz’ (Bitches’n’Brew‎ & Stranger Fruit, both on Lickout! – spoof on LookOut!- recs, 1992). Their LP By The Time We Get To Colorado (1993) came out on Outpunk recs (who also released a 7” for ‘Pansy Division’). A lot more followed…

The line-up on the Pig Bitch 7” was ‘Mahia Kobayashi’ (bass; later Lynn Payne), Silas ‘Flipper’ Howard (guitar), Leslie Mah (guitar), Lynn Breedlove (vocals) and Kat Buell (drums; later Slade Bellum) so I guess that’s who was on the tour. They played guitar-driven punk’n’roll and singer Lynn Breedlove (who became an author) delivered controversial lyrics dealing with subjects such as SM, nudity, fellatio and trans-gender issues. Some will only remember them for performing bare-breasted or wearing a strap-on dildo but the band’s message sure came across to those who really listened…

Read more about the band on tribe8.com. From (the book) Cinderella’s Big Score – Women Of The Punk And Indie Underground: “Lynn Breedlove ran Lickety Split All-Girl Courier, an all-female bike-messenger service which employed more than 100 women. […] Leslie Mah works as a tattoo-artist at the woman-owned and -operated Black & Blue Tattoo since ’96. […] Silas Howard co-wrote/-produced the film By Hook Or By Crook.” Silas is a writer, producer and director. You can read about Lynn’s projects on lynnbreedlove.com.

Brob

‘Mahia Kobayashi’ was the bass-player for a minute (also ‘92); she left in a huff early on… Leslie and Silas were the guitar-players…

Lynn Breedlove, ‘Tribe 8’ singer

‘S.O.T.W.’ was called ‘PositiveYouth’ at first and I did the vocals then. A while later I took up second guitar and Jan (brother of Maarten Beckers who was the drummer in the band) started singing. Those 2 later founded bands such as ‘Kindred’ and ‘Enemy Of The Sun’. ‘Positive Youth’/’Strength Of The Will’ were from the Tongeren area (except for myself). They were just guys who were in their last year of secondary school, who liked the ‘Exhaustless Revolt’ [Filip’s 1st band] tapes, heard that we’d stopped and called me one day asking to sing for them. :-) Crazy, actually… I didn’t know any of them but took the train tot the other side of Belgium (which I already had gotten used to, travelling to HC concerts; even if we had to play ourselves we went by train) and we started a band. Can’t remember very well how long it lasted, I estimate a year or two… Then the whole thing faded out: things weren’t that easy because of the distance, we rehearsed very little… A bit later ‘Kindred’ started. ‘S.O.T.W.’ played a few times at the V.V. [see 92-09-06], on one occasion with ‘Wheel Of Progress’, a precursor of ‘Congress’, I think.

Filip Staes

I visited the old V.V. between 1994 and ‘98, the first time I went there was this ‘M.D.C.’ / ‘Tribe 8’ gig, I think. I used to make a zine/newsletter called Carry On Screaming in the 90s, which later became Scream zine. Maybe that rings a bell? I believe we wrote each other a few times and definitely met at the V.V. I probably went to the V.V. 5 or 6 times (Leed festivals, etc.). I also went to a couple of summer festivals when it took place in a school-yard (late ‘90s/early ‘00s) but that was nowhere near as inspiring as the old V.V.

Luc Ardilouze, France (nowadays drummer for ‘Gasmask Terrör’)

One day, the promoter of the show or maybe the club-owner was trying to screw the bands around for money and the manager, a real crazy guy named Syd [Migx; vocalist for ‘Cheetah Chrome Motherfucker’ and doing tours – Big Flash at 6 – with his partner Lorelei], said he was going to get a baseball-bat, wrap it in barbed wire, shove it up his ass and wave him around like a flag. That may not have been in Belgium… I was six so its all very blurry. But I do definitely remember that happening somewhere. Haha… Syd was really funny and great. He has come up a lot when we’ve talked about the tour and always good/funny things are said about him by everyone. His friends from Italy called me ‘Satanino’. Little satan… I’ve always thought that was pretty cool.

Bri, Al Schultz’s son

Chris Wilder & I were the fresh young members and Dave & Al were the originals. ‘M.D.C.’ had always been heroes of mine. I saw them on the Rock Against Reagan tour in the early 80s. I played with Al in a San Francisco band called ‘Gecko Velour’ – after Matt Freeman of ‘Operation Ivy’ (and currently in ‘Rancid’) left the band they ushered me in – I played with them from ‘92-‘95, doing several world-tours, recording Shades Of Brown and several split-singles (one with ‘Capitalist Casualties’).

‘Tribe 8’ had a separate van from us though I rode with those fun troublemaking dykes as often as possible :0). Kat was the original drummer. Slade was the drummer in my very first band in 1987: ‘Industrial Rainforest’. We also played together in ‘Thursdays Child’. The San Francisco scene was pretty small and incestuous!

Erica Liss; ‘M.D.C.’ bassist

‘M.D.C.’ has played Belgium quite often and it’s tough keeping it straight … May ‘92 was our 4 month tour in Europe where we eventually played Russia. Erica Liss on bass, Chris Wilder on guitar, Alschvitz on drums and myself on vocals. We felt very proud touring with ‘Tribe 8’.

David Dictor

We had a blast and as my first tour of Europe, I was constantly surprised at how nice and welcoming everyone was… Even though America had (and still has) a lousy reputation in so much of the more progressive world.

Chris Wilder; ‘M.D.C.’ guitarist

Bettina was with us although she wasn’t really our driver. Chris Lagerborg was the drummer, he died maybe 10-12 years ago from a bad heart I believe. AJ was playing with ‘Throw Rag’ for a while but I don’t think he’s playing music for some years now. Ricky lives in Forida.

Yeah, AJ did some artwork on a 7” I believe… Can’t remember. AJ, Ricky and Greta were all fill-ins after the initial band members left the band. Tommy Stupid bailed the band in DC; a week before we were going to Europe without bothering to tell anyone. He basically used the ‘tour’ across the US to get to his drunk fat girlfriend that he met at one of our first shows in L.A. to the East-Coast. So the bassplayer left (he was brought into the band only a week or 2 before the tour when Tommy decided ‘we’, meaning me, had to fire the bassplayer we had (who was a nice guy but not the best bass player), and Mark Phillips & I had to find a drummer and bassist in a week in DC. We found David Andler and Greta. They did the first European tour with us, Greta broke her arm near the end of the tour. The 2nd European tour was with AJ, Ricky and Chris.

Shawn Stern; ‘Youth Brigade’, Better Youth Organization, ‘That’s It’

I was in the band for the winter tour but this one in May of 1992 I was not there. I don’t know who replaced me; on drums was my old friend Chris Lagerborg who I was later in ‘Joykiller’ and ‘Cheater’ with and he was in ‘Down By Law’ after me. He died in about 2002, he was a roadie for ‘Slayer’. I remember something about a guy named A.J. who was a big black guy with a mohawk (from Long Beach) that played bass but I don’t know if that’s the same guy. Ricky…I’m not sure at all.

Mark Phillips, ex ‘That’s It’ guitarist

‘M.D.C.’ was the main reason to be present. The head-liners that visited the Vort’n Vis in the period from ‘91 to ‘95 were more than the motivating factor to go see great touring foreign hardcore bands. I’d seen ‘M.D.C.’ already a few times in the 80s and each time they turned out to be a guarantee for an intense hardcore/punk party. And on top of that built by a band with brains and an absurd form of (self)irony. Here they brought along the fairly militant ladies of ‘Tribe 8’, who managed to reduce the machismo of many to realistic proportions – or to an non-existent level – with their ‘dyke’-core. ‘M.D.C.’ produced a spectacular show (this time in the ‘barn’ at the back of the ‘old V.V.’.. A place that proved to be the ideal setting for this kind of show: a high ‘squat-content’ with minimal, D.I.Y. accommodation. The ultimate image, to me, remains the circle-pit ‘pur sang’, lead by ‘M.D.C.’s frontman Dave Dictor: circling around a loose fluorescence-lamp that kept lightening the vortex in front of the stage with its last flashes. The ideal way to let a more then succesful show resonate.

Dirk ‘Bowy’ Bauwens

excerpts from the V.V. guestbook: