systemphobia

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It was the year of our lord 1990 and all was quiet on the shitty front. Little was going on in backward Tongeren, or at least nothing I was aware of. At that time a local collective was still organizing gigs at Diepenbeek and Hasselt but a generation gap and plain ignorance stood between me and a europunk scene in slow decline. The subcultural void I had to cope with was filled up with some one else’s tales of the days of yore and anything a popencyclopedia could offer me on punk. To put it simple, I was an ignorant outsider with nothing to look forward to.That same year however Acoustic Grinder, a grindcore band formed by some of my friends unleashed their epic demo ‘de pruimen zijn rot’ on an unexpecting world. Filled with a haunting barrage of uncompromising noize, it proved that even the most ill-talented kids could earn their space in life, armed with only an acoustic guitar and some metal buckets (hence the name). In their wake or coinciding, the brothers Bertolazzi decided to give it a go as well, forming their crusty punk band Flatus (no, not the American band). A new scene was slowly taking shape, at this point still isolated but nevertheless..Now I could see clearly, my whole life was suddenly pointed in one direction… There never has been a choice for me : I just had to start my own punk band. The only way to get out of the void was to start my own thing. There was no point in yearning for what was gone , '77 is a memory that wasn't mine. It was time to start a punkband here and now so at least one band in the neighbourhood played the kind of trash i liked. Dragged along by the excitement of an emerging scene i felt it as an obligation to do my part in the corruption of public taste.I managed to convince some friends to start a band with me and voila : Systemphobia was born. It goes without saying that we were aiming for a punky sound, but anyone familiar with the subculture knows more than one genre exists within its frames. Limited (or should i say 'lacking') musical skills combined with a need for speed pushed us into the hardcore direction. And when i say hardcore i do mean '82 retro style a la not so quite on the western front and not the macho bullshit that later took over the name but not the sound. Melody was the least of our concern. Combined with an unhealthy interest in anarchopunk but the inability to fit in the genre, crude songwriting backed up with a barrage of ultra political lyrix soon became our trademark.Somehow, with a couple of line up changes, we managed to live on for like 17 years (17 years in hell) releasing NOTHING whatsoever, gigging sporadically and rehearsing whenever we feel like. We've finally come to the point where we are about to release a demo AND call it a day. But all that crap can be read in the blog section to come.