The Story of New Beat
From the DJ History archives: The rise and fall of Belgium’s infamous 1980s dancefloor movement, as told by those who helped to shape the sound
In the late 1980s, electronic music was going through a period of unprecedented change, from the burgeoning creativity of the Chicago and Detroit scenes, to their transatlantic love children of acid house and breakbeat hardcore.
\n\nDespite the pivotal role it played, one country, however, is frequently written out of these pages of club culture’s history. Across a tight-knit network of clubs in cities such as Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp, the small and unassuming nation of Belgium moved to a rhythm all of its own.
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Known as new beat, this genre fused electro-pop, industrial music, EBM and the nascent gurgles of acid in surprising ways, drastically slowing down records and seamlessly blending styles into detached and crepuscular dancefloor magic. What’s more, new beat’s legacy is still clearly audible in contemporary European house and techno.
\n\nIn these archival interviews from 2005, Bill Brewster talks to the people who were there: DJs Eric “Eric B” Beysens and Geert “Dr. Vinyl” Sermon; Frie Verhelst and Koenie van Immerseel from USA Import, the movement’s record store of choice; and Mo Becha and David Fouquaert of the Glimmers – artists who continued to be inspired by new beat long after its heyday.
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Eric Beysens & Geert Sermon
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did you start getting into music?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nVery early – when I was about 13. I started DJing by accident. I played with a few punk groups and somebody said to me, “Hey, you play the records.” That was in 1979.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo around the time of Gang of Four and A Certain Ratio?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYes, A Certain Ratio was my favorite group. Then I started listening to James White & The Blacks, digging into the funky accent of the music and discovering James Brown. I liked to mix the punk with the funky music in my sets. Then I discovered electronic music.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhich groups?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nParade Ground, 23 Skidoo, Cabaret Voltaire.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nA lot of things on Factory.
ERIC BEYSENS
\n\nMany things on Factory. We had a pub here in Brussels called Interferences… It was a pub of one of the bosses of Factory [Benelux]. Also, one of my best friends at this time was Stephen Brown from Tuxedomoon. Steve helped me discover many groups, like Crash Course In Science, Throbbing Gristle. Then I began to play in clubs – first in pubs in Brussels, [then in places] like Théâtre de la Gaîté, which was one of the first clubs mixing music. At that time, everything in the clubs was funky and disco. We played a mix of punk, funk and electronic music. Then I went to Knokke, on the coast, where there is a small club called Blitz.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nIsn’t Knokke where Marvin Gaye lived?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes. It’s more or less [that everything is] linked. You’ve got that guy that Marvin Gaye lived with… In Belgium [there is] a style of music called popcorn, which is a little like northern soul. A lot of the people who were involved in the first discotheques got involved in the later music.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nI know the guy who brought Marvin Gaye [to Belgium]. He [was the owner of] a small hotel. He came to where I played and brought Marvin all the time.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nBefore new beat started happening, what was being played in clubs? We had a huge soul thing in the UK, so what was happening here?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYou had the commercial side of things and on the other side you had popcorn. It was more or less the same things as Keb Darge [plays] and then weird electronic things like “Telstar,” speedy music. They danced in a weird way, very local to here. We took whatever, put it into a shaker and it came out Belgian.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nMelting pop!
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes, it was literally that, because in the ’80s we had a whole lot of groups who were based on things from the UK and US. But they sounded not like something from the UK, not like the US, not like Germany.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThere was a club called Klacyk. They organised all the first concert of the groups who were getting big over here, like Fad Gadget. The mix of groups was very strange. For example, they’d take a group like Heaven 17 and on the same night you have Fad Gadget. Or Grace Jones and Athletico Spizz 80. In England, it’s very difficult to do a concert with two kinds of music, but in Belgium it’s really much more in style.
GEERT SERMON
\n\nIn the ’70s and ’80s a whole lot of labels were a testing ground.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\n“We got some weird shit... Send it over. If it works over there, that means it will work somewhere else.”
\n\nI know people who worked for big record labels at the time and they were like, “OK, let’s shift it over there.” That’s why Factory Benelux released all the difficult–
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYou know that guy Phil Perry? He was working for AM/PM. He came all the time to the Boccaccio [club, near Ghent]. He wanted to see the reaction on the dancefloor, because Belgium is really good tester. I played a dub from Sounds of Blackness in my set–
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nThat changed the atmosphere of it all, because that Sounds of Blackness [tune] was basically aimed at the soulie clubs in the UK. Eric put it in his sets here and it sounded major!
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow did you come to work at Boccaccio?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThere was a guy I knew who worked there, called Olivier Pieters. He played more of the Belgian new beat sound.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nFront 242-type stuff?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nNo, it’s already into the Antler-Subway stuff.
ERIC BEYSENS
\n\nHe played many things, like the Pool’s “Jamaica Running.” The boss and his wife came one time to the 55 [in Ghent], which was a really dark club, but really good, and I played there on a Thursday. It was a really strange club. I mixed house music with some Prince, Nitzer Ebb. He said, “Wow, it’s really fun here. Come to the Boccaccio on Sunday night.” Boccaccio was the biggest club in Belgium. He told me I was playing at 4 AM. I played totally different music, but people liked it.
\n\nAt that time, I had a friend, Jean-Claude Maury. Jean-Claude was the original of this type of music. He was really incredible: He played Kowalski in the club, he played stuff like Ministry and Grace Jones. Ronny Harmsen [AKA DJ Fat Ronny from the Ancienne Belgique club in Antwerp] picked up many things from him. Jean-Claude, for me, was the first guy who played that kind of stuff.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nIs he still around?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nNo, he’s dead. He smoked very much, like me.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nLung cancer.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere did he play?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nMirano. He came from the south of France, but moved when he was 20. He was part of the punk movement and played in a small club, mixing between punk, funk and really eccentric fashionable music. The Mirano [where he ended up playing] was one of the first big clubs in Belgium.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere was it?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nBrussels.
The first time I went to Boccaccio was like, “Holy shit, I’m in Close Encounters of the Third Kind!” Life was never the same afterwards.
GEERT SERMON
\n\nIt still exists. It’s having a second life now, but in the ’70s and ’80s, it was the place to be.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nSerge Gainsbourg hung out there, Grace Jones hung out there.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt was the Studio 54 of Brussels: very hi-tech, fashionable and up-market.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nJean-Claude played music that nobody played in other clubs. Everybody tried to copy him. There was only one inconvenience about him – he couldn’t mix. He was a maniac about the sound. He wouldn’t use Technics because he said it sounded really horrible. He used Revox [equipment] and he was the first person to change pitch, too. He was the person who pitched down “Flesh” by A Split Second from 45 to 33-plus-eight.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nEveryone says it was Marc Grouls who did that.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nNo, Marc was later. It was already being played that way in Brussels.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas Fat Ronny from Brussels or Antwerp?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nAntwerp. When Jean-Claude played, the DJ was not important. When Ronny played, they were more important. If Jean-Claude played now, he would be very big.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo, you played with Olivier [Pieters] at Boccaccio. Describe it to me.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nI think it’s the first time that a club in Belgium had the dancefloor so central. It was constructed like a stadium, with people around it.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nAnd where was the DJ?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThe DJ was on the side, you had people in front of the DJ and all around, and you had a second floor with a balcony.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYou went in at ground level, but the DJ was situated like a Roman stadium – like an amphitheater. I’ve lived in the UK, and in the early ’90s I’d never actually seen a club there that had that impact. The first time I went to Boccaccio was like, “Holy shit, I’m in Close Encounters of the Third Kind!” You had lasers everywhere… you were in the light and in the sound. Life was never the same afterwards. I’m now 31 years old. I’ve seen the world since and I’ve never had that impression again. Perhaps it was because I was only 14-and-a-half then.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow did you manage to get in?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nI had friends!
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nCisco Ferreira [from the Advent] went there and he said he’d never seen anything like it. When you played anything there it sounded bigger. It was really incredible because it had Klipschorn speakers
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the clientele like? It was quite well dressed, wasn’t it?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nNo. At the beginning, it was a really horrible clientele, but the people changed with the music. There was no selection at the door, the selection was done with the music, so in six months it was totally different.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen was this?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nLate ’87. The opening was in June ’87, I think. The club before was a popcorn place, but it was small.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt was one of the first mega-clubs in mainland Europe. It was specifically built for a weird kind of music and weird people. It was on a Sunday and every independent store is closed on Monday, so they wanted to go out. You had mechanics, hairdressers… They wanted to leave all their worries behind, and they did it with this kind of music. After six months, it was so big that you had people from all over.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThere were people who came clothed especially for Boccaccio. They invented fashions – they took the VW sign from cars and put it on their vests; crosses on their hats.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nYou said the crowd changed. What did it go from and to?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nThose people [who came to the club at the beginning, the hairdressers and mechanics] stayed and were changed by the whole thing… It was a natural selection. They loved being there. Between ’88 and ’91, Belgium more or less invented the heavy side of dance music. People were waiting for the next weird or hard thing. They tested a lot of things on DAT there. R&S had a studio nearby and there was also Music Man.
We’ve always been into darker, moodier stuff than the UK. Over here, people liked new wave and heavy shit.
ERIC BEYSENS
\n\nWhat we did with Renaat [Vandepapeliere, co-founder of R&S], he bought a DAT machine specially to put in the Boccaccio. He’d come directly from the studio at four o’clock and test things. If it sounded not so good, back to the studio. Then he’d come back three or four hours later and test it again! CJ Bolland did that all the time.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nThe thing is, if a record worked there, it worked everywhere. I don’t know if you know the history of R&S, but they had a side branch in the UK called Outer Rhythm. The first 20 records they released all went Top 50. They sold by the shitload and it was because they tested them in there. They were so self-confident that if people liked it in Boccaccio, then it was good.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat kind of records were you playing there when you first started?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYou know “Suicide Commando” by No More? German new wave, but [something] that sold maybe 500 copies.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nPlayed at the right speed?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nA Split Second’s “Flesh,” Nitzer Ebb’s “The Alarm,” but that one at the wrong speed.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt’s weird because there was some sort of rhythmic feeling that this created. It’s like a certain drum pattern... a kick on the first and then a snare and again a kick: boom-tchka-boom-tchka.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhy did they like this slow music, what drugs were they doing?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nIt was ecstasy.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did that arrive in Belgium?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nQuite early. It was already there in ’87 in Boccaccio.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nThere were Belgian DJs in Ibiza, weren’t there?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes, but the link does not come from there. It comes from clubs like the Mirano. They had big stars who were doing this stuff and they brought it over. It came from the States.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nMirano was druggy. It was cocaine and then ecstasy.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt was very decadent.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nIf they liked ecstasy, why was the music different to the UK, do you think?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYou’ve got the continental Europe thing here. We’ve always been into darker, moodier and heavier stuff than the UK. Acid house took the things with acid in them and immediately put some voices on them. They made it immediately more marketable. Over here, it was always underground, and they liked new wave and heavy shit. Belgium isn’t a nice place to live. It’s grey, it’s drizzly, so we like it eeeeughhh! We are not looking for some girl singing on top of [our music]. We don’t give a shit about that.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nWhen I go in England I hear all the [dub mixes] that I play, only with voices on them.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nEven now, people play the dubs here, never the full-on vocal stuff. [If] English is your mother tongue, an English girl singing sounds good; a girl singing in English here does not sound good.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow influential was early house to Boccaccio?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt was played, but people considered it as new beat.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYeah. The moment I started at Boccaccio was also [when I] discovered Larry Heard. That was ’86. I put that in my set, but for other people this was new beat. New beat changed little by little to house. In England, it changed overnight. Here we played house, the Cramps, James Brown...
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow long did you continue mixing it like that until it became only house?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nUntil about 1990.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nUntil the moment you can more or less mark Belgian rave. The “Dominator”-type stuff. Also, the Belgian-New York connection with Joey Beltram and R&S.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nThe most interesting period of any musical style in dance music is often the period immediately before the first record is actually made.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nThis also happened here. It happened with the Ancienne Belgique style of things. That was not new beat. It was a precursor.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThe style of Fat Ronny.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat’s the difference between what Fat Ronny played and what you played at Boccaccio?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nHe played things like Sly Fox.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\n“Let’s Go All The Way”?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYes. I played more industrial. He played more poppy stuff like Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle.” Me and Jean-Claude played more industrial. He mixed in more funk and I played more electronic and more dubby stuff – I think new beat is more the dubby stuff.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIf you hear tapes, it goes through an evening and a whole lot of the first 45 minutes you can consider pop music. But at the time, it was cutting-edge pop music, and he played the 12\" versions. After a while, he started deviating and this became the AB style. I never went to the AB, though, so I can only guess.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nI played there three times.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the difference between them?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThe people were not the same. Antwerp is more jetset, the liberal professions.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nVery yuppie.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo is Ghent more industrial?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nNo, it’s student-y.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYou also have to remember that Belgium isn’t big. You get in the car from Brussels and you’re in Ghent in 25 minutes – the same with Antwerp, so you don’t have to be in Ghent to influence anything. But R&S was in Ghent and Music Man was in Ghent, so they started to build around that.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nI think Ghent is the city where things melt together more. If you see a festival in Ghent, it’s incredible.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat would you consider the new beat classics? Stuff like “Jamaica Running” is not new beat, but it was played, right?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nThat comes from AB.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt’s like all scenes, you take influences from other scenes, then you make them your own. And that’s what we did with a whole lot of things that in the UK are not necessarily considered new beat. Like, “Jamaica Running” is an electro-poppy tune, but for us new beat is… Well, you’ve got the Antler-Subway catalogue but… Snowy Red…
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nSnowy Red’s “Euroshima” is the anthem of the new beat!
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas there another “Hiroshima” by Nex Nemo?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes, but that charted.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nIt was by the Technotronic guy wasn’t it?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes. That was already the commercial downfall, though.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nTo you, is the essence of new beat found in the records that were played before those kinds of tunes arrived?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nNot necessarily. You’ve got some really nice things that were made for the dancefloor then. Here in Belgium, after the UK, we were probably the first to make chart [dance] hits in our own country.
We had a hit with Erotic Dissidents’ “Move Your Ass And Feel The Beat.” It was #1 for eight weeks. They would say on the radio, “Now it’s the Erotic Dissidents with ‘Move Your Ass And Feel The Beat,’ but we’re not gonna play it!” They refused to play it, but it was #1! It sold 60,000 copies in a week. So, we made some more of these and after a while we crowded the whole chart with it in 1989, 1990 and 1991. 2 Unlimited recorded their stuff here.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen they started making tunes specifically for the scene, how did that change things?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt attracted more people into the more obvious side of things.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nIn Belgium, we like big, cold sounds, like Beltram and Frankie Bones.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nFrankie Bones is a die-hard fan of the Belgian sound and you’ve got all those kinds of people that started the Storm Raves in New York – it was all based on that Belgian sound. They added a breakbeat to those sounds, then the UK took those two elements and made some genius from it.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nNew beat was all about cliché: clichéd sounds, clichéd samples.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nAnd there was Frank De Wulf with his B-Sides series, which was big in New York.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was it like to DJ at Boccaccio?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nIt was the first time I had played in such a big club. I arrived with two flight cases and it was like, “Whoa!” I came from an underground club with really underground people, but I’d never seen such a big place, with such a big sound. And there was no monitor. The first record I played, I thought, “Shit, I can’t mix here, I have to do it in my headphones.” It was August 15th... I’ll remember this all my life. I came back from London, where I’d bought a few records.
\n\nThere were over 5,000 people there. There was a queue of cars from the club to the motorway. The cars parked on the motorway and people jumped over the motorway barriers and came to the club. It was 1988. It was really mad. There were so many people that the windows in the entrance smashed. I put on D-Mob and there were 3,500 people with their arms in the air. Renaat was there with Cisco and they were like, “What the fuck is going on?”
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nThe difference from the UK is that it was immediately indoors.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat about the radio show Liaisons Dangereuses?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYes, very good. They later formed Liaisons D. They did quite some damage.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat about guys like Maurice Engelen [AKA Praga Khan]?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYes... We’ve forgotten Olivier Abbeloos, who made the biggest new beat hits [as part of] T-99. He also did Quadrophonia [with Lucien Foort].
GEERT SERMON
\n\nYou probably remember Neon’s “Don’t Mess With This Beat” because 2 Bad Mice and Psychotropic [who both sampled it]. So that [famous rave riff] comes from a Belgian new beat record. The first time I heard it, I thought, “Oh no, this is the end of the world.”
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere were you buying records from, before new beat?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nUSA Import in Brussels. There was also a store in Brussels that sold disco, new wave and movie music. We played John Carpenter’s The End, Carlos Perón’s Die Schwarze Spinne. He was the original guy from Yello. There was an exchange with Germany because we had the same influences – they were busy with EBM.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was EBM, was it Front 242, Nitzer Ebb?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nYeah.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo, is it what we’d call industrial?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt’s the danceable side of that. Industrial for us is more immediately linked to a wall of sound. Not everything by Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb we would consider EBM.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nIs it the stuff that you’d play in a club, then?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nSPK…
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nStuff like the Clinic – you should listen to them.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nPsyche.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWho?
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nA Canadian electronic outfit from the early ’80s.
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nPeter Godwin.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\n“Emotional Disguise”?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nYeah, but we play the French version [“French Emotions”].
GEERT SERMON
\n\nIt’s more profound in French than in English.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat English records did you play?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nSavage Progress’s Heart Begins To Beat,” many things on Ten, many good dubs. C Cat Trance’s “Shake The Mind.”
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nDid you play these at 45?
\n\nERIC BEYSENS
\n\nAt the right speed. Fad Gadget! Fad Gadget was really big, bigger than in England.
\n\nGEERT SERMON
\n\nIt’s like the [René Magritte] painting Ceci n’est pas une pipe… This is the Belgian twisted mind. You have to go beyond the canvas. It’s typical of over here, in literature, in music, in everything. No one likes the Belgians. The French don’t like the French-speakers; the Dutch don’t like the Flemish. Once you get used to it, it’s a nice place to live, but it’s an acquired taste, like Cherry Coke.
The Glimmers
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere do you fit into the new beat story? I know you played at 55. When did you start DJing?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nWe really started DJing together. We met before we started DJing. We’re both music freaks and bought our music together. We started to buying records and playing them together, so we had one big collection.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nThat was in 1985 or 1984. Really, we started in 1986, in a bar, but we couldn’t mix that well. We got a job in the bar next to our school, where we DJed between 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning and then during our lunch break.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWho would be there at 7:30?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nOur classmates. Before they went to school, being there, chasing girls, that sort of stuff. We had to learn our skills while we were DJing.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHad you ever seen other DJs playing?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nWe had a friend who is quite big, but he was more into hip-hop. We were starting in hip-hop, but soon we discovered all the classics, like Barry White.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nAnd the new wave stuff, the pre-new-beat stuff.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen I was talking to Eric [Beysens], he talked about new beat as though he meant records that weren’t exactly new beat at all, if you know what I mean. When did you start at 55?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nNovember 1987. We played Emerson, Lake & Palmer, going into Fad Gadget, going into the Rolling Stones – really a mixture of rock and pop stuff, Simple Minds, stuff like that. There wasn’t that much electronic stuff there yet, we still had to discover that.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nYou had Front 242 because they were Belgian and they were quite big over here. If it was electronic, it was more the EBM stuff.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas that generally big here in Belgium?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nIn Ghent it was, because we had Boccaccio just a 20 minute ride from here. Before Boccaccio, we had Carrera, which was just next to Boccaccio.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nOn Sunday night, my sister took us both [to Carrera]. We were suddenly in a strange atmosphere and that music had a big effect on what we still do now. The guy was playing everything from ’60s psych-rock to Sven Vath [as OFF and 16 Bit]. That was the pre-new-beat stuff, really, but already you had that slow character… People used to dress up in quite a strange way. Extreme characters, very gay – not the normal club you would walk into, and especially for me as I was just 16. We’d been to some other, more commercial clubs, but this was something else.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWho was the DJ?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nTC.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nAs in the initials?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nYes. He made records. Olivier Pieters [from Boccaccio] got a lot from TC. TC was the groundbreaking guy, who had a really stunning selection of music. We were inspired by him. Every week, when we went to Carrera, we saw Boccaccio being built until finally it opened and then Carrera stopped immediately.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nWe played every week in 55, but we went every Sunday to Boccaccio… “Yeah, we know that, we know that, oh… what’s this one?” Then we’d go to the DJ booth and there was a sticker [on the record] and you asked the DJ and he’d say, “I don’t know.” We’d always discover it later on, of course. They played Nitzer Ebb on 33, Severed Heads on 33, all those records.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nDid both Olivier and Eric cover up their records?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nNo, it was Olivier. We played in 55 on Saturdays, but we played on Thursdays as well because Eric was going to the army, so he had to go at 5 AM in the morning to take to cab to Brussels to get to the [barracks]. Then we filled in until 8 AM. Eric brought all the first Chicago tracks in there. First time I heard Steve Poindexter’s “Computer Madness” or Master C&J. Olivier was playing [at Boccaccio] every week and it was getting a bit stale.
It was a big scene on the industrial side. A few on the more dance side got inspired by this stuff. Front 242 was very militant – they didn’t care about clubs.
MO BECHA
\n\nHe was stuck.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow old was he when house arrived?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nHe was 23 – not old. But he got a lot of these new beat producers in there every Sunday pushing to play their crappy records. And the club was always full, so nobody minded really. But all the house–
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nAnd Balearic–
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nThey didn’t absorb any of it. At this time, in 55, we had a bigger freedom.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nIt’s the difference between a club for 200 people and a club for 2,000 people!
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas Olivier playing stuff on 33?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nYes.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nEric told me he got that from a French DJ in Brussels called Jean-Claude Maury.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nA lot of people will tell you different things. In Antwerp, they will tell you it came from the AB. They called it AB Music. People were experimenting with music.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nBefore new beat existed, what music was being played in clubs here? You don’t have the same black music traditions that we do in the UK, do you?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nNot at all.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nIt was always dark, electronic and strange.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nAt that time, it wasn’t difficult to have a dark feeling. It was a big scene on the industrial side. A few on the more dance side got inspired by this stuff and started to make more discotheque-y music. Front 242 was very militant – they didn’t care about clubs.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nAlso, in Belgium, we had new-wave producers like Snowy Red, who made “Euroshima” in ’85 or ’86, which was a very big anthem; then you had Front 242’s “New Judgement” as well. So everything was very ravey, but then when the acid house came here, it all mixed up nicely, and before you knew where you were, you were four years further into the house scene. It all went so easily and so smoothly with the other records that you didn’t notice. They played Adonis’s “Acid Poke” between new beat records. It was 120 BPM, but they pitched it down.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nDid you go and watch Eric play?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nWhen we went to Boccaccio, it was always Olivier Pieters playing all night long. Boccaccio was Sunday, not Saturday. There were new influences – house and even things like Soul II Soul and De La Soul – but Olivier didn’t play [any of that]. People were pushing the promoters saying, “Hey, there’s more music being played at 55.” So, then they attracted Eric. He was supposed to start at five or six in the morning [and] finish the night off, [but he started later and kept going until] noon or 1 PM.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas the club allowed to stay open okay?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nYes. At a certain point people started to arrive at 5 AM. It was full at 1 AM, but it was not the regulars. The regulars arrived at 5 or 6 AM.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere were they coming from?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nHome, private parties or whatever else was happening that day. La Rocka was just starting in Antwerp and Eric also played there – a more trance-y approach to that new beat, house-y stuff. Everybody gathered at Boccaccio at about 5 or 6 AM, then they stayed.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow did Eric and Olivier differ?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\n[Eric was] more house-y and a bit more like “Big Fun” by Inner City, early Derrick May stuff.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat about the new beat sound?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nNot really – they brought him from 55 because he was playing that 55 music, so that’s what he did.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nAt first it was a bit strange, because there was this competition, and Olivier didn’t like it at all.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nHe couldn’t keep it out, though. I remember being there at 8 AM. People were still dancing and [Olivier] was already reading his paper while playing records. He was a very sober guy, a bit nerdish. Eric was full of power.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nHe revitalized it.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas there a lot of drugs around or alcohol?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nBoth. It was drug-fueled.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did E come in?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nEarly, a bit before Boccaccio. When it started, it was there already. But before it was speed, LSD, cocaine.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat do you think of the actual new beat productions?
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\n[They came in around] ’87, ’88. But [they were] all rip-offs. “Move Your Ass And Feel The Beat” by Erotic Dissidents was a pure rip-off of “Bostich” by Yello. Even “French Kiss” got covered.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nThey made a cover version of it [which went Top 10 in Belgium].
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nThey did it with a lot of tracks.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\n“Rock To The Beat” by Reese, as well… 2manydjs put that version on their compilation.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nBut you know most of the house records were rip-offs, too!
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nYes, I know, but come on...
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nWe always played the original version.
MO BECHA
\n\n“Pump Up the Jam” [by Technotronic] – if you listen to the first notes on it, it’s a Farley “Jackmaster” Funk record that came out six months before... “The Acid Life,” on a mini-album called No Vocals Necessary.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat influence do you think the Belgian sound had? The Americans were influenced by Belgium. “Energy Flash” came out on a Belgian label.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nIt was actually originally on an American label, though. It was licensed very early on.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nThe R&S years were very important for England.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nCJ Bolland was fooling around with his synthesizers, creating that “Dominator” sound.
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nAlso, Frank De Wulf, he was from the Music Man axis, a generation older than us. They really made successful careers and put Belgium on the map, but it wasn’t new beat any more.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhere did new beat finish and house start?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\n“Groove Is In The Heart” was a very big club track at Boccaccio. So, in-between all this heaviness they dropped this and everyone went mad.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nIt was nicer to have it the way we had it here, more slowly, and it was very inspiring for us. The stranger the music, the better.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nBut then didn’t they refuse to play new beat records on the radio?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nWell, I have a tape from 1986 or ’87 where they are playing all the pre-new-beat classics one after the other… “Circus Of Death” by Human League.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat epitomizes the classic new beat records?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nDepeche Mode on 33 – “Never Let Me Down” on orange vinyl – Psyche’s “The Saint Became A Lush.” The rest of the [Psyche] album was very rocky, but that had a very steady 4/4 beat underneath.
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nYeah, the Stooges’ “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
\n\nDAVID FOUQUAERT
\n\nThat was a big track at 55.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat do you think the legacy of new beat has been on international music?
\n\nMO BECHA
\n\nIt’s nice to see it has its own place within electronic music in Europe. This type of music did not happen anywhere else, it was unique. You read about things happening in Chicago or Detroit, so it’s nice to have a reference point for something here. Whether it’s good or bad, it created something new. The fusion was there. People were really looking for strange music then.
Koenie van Immerseel
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow did you get into music?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nBy accident, listening to radio programs on Dutch radio, where they were playing all these disco things. I started with a little cassette, taping things.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow did you discover dance music?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nI was working in a record shop, USA Imports, here in Antwerp. They specialized in US pressings... They specialized in disco. Then we had some clubs that specialized in playing disco or new wave, film music, and playing new wave on 33-plus-8 instead of 45 RPM.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat year did you start working at USA Import?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nI was 16 or 17 years old. It was 21 years ago.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did you notice people playing records at the wrong speed?
Ancienne Belgique was a little bit stiff, but after 3 AM, the people went more and more crazy.
KOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nThere was a club called Scandals in Antwerp and this guy’s name was Ronny. And he was looking for special records, listening to film soundtracks, searching for things to play. I think it’s because of him that everything started.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nDid you go to Scandals?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nNo, I was too young. I had the period after, Ancienne Belgique. I learned everything at AB.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did Ronny start at AB?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nI went there at 16 and it was 22 years ago, something like that. There was another club called OK Club and they were also doing those things. There was another guy doing this, Patrick Geypen, Then there was another club Cinderella, where they played new wave, things like Fad Gadget.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nThere doesn’t seem to be a soul music tradition in Belgium like in the UK. Was that the case in Antwerp?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nThere was one club playing disco – the Funk You – but it was more European. It was more new wave.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas the popcorn scene quite big in Antwerp?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nI think so. There was a discotheque called De Molen… popcorn was very big there. And there was another shop here – The Collector – that guy had all those rare 7\" singles.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nTell me about Ancienne Belgique. What was it like, what did it look like?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nYou had the entrance, directly you had cloakroom and then inside there was a round dancefloor. It’s now a clothes shop. It had balconies, so you could watch from there. They always had one DJ who played from 11 PM to 7 or 8 AM.
\n\nYou heard the same records all the time, of course, because it was not easy to find those things, but there were some … Max Berlin’s “Elle et Moi” – that was one of the big records of Belgium, I think. The people came specially to hear that one record because you could not find it anywhere.
Then you had Dave Pike’s “Mathar,” that was also one of the big records in AB. Section 25 “Looking From A Hilltop,” Arbaedt Adelt “Death Disco.”
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was it the atmosphere like the first time you went?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nIt was for trendy people and it was very difficult to get in also.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nIt had a door policy?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nYeah, very heavy. I got in because I was working in a record shop.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the atmosphere like?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nHow I can describe it? A little bit stiff. And more as it got towards the end, it loosened, but at the beginning of the night, it was a place to be seen. After 3 AM, the people went more and more crazy.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo, did the crowd change during the night?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nYes. Many of the people went first to Scandals and the OK Club. At the start, it was almost too full, so you could almost not get in. Almost 2,000 people, something like that.
Sven van Hees’ Liaisons Dangereuses radio program was really influential. Because of his program, we sold more and more of this music in USA Import.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was Fat Ronny like as a DJ?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nI never heard him play. I saw John, who took over from him.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo, when did the first new beat stuff come in?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nAround the same time as the first Chicago records.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWho played those Chicago records here?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nEric. He was playing in a club in Ghent called 55 and he played a lot of acid and Chicago house. Here in Antwerp, we were playing Chicago music with AB music still. “Acid Tracks,” Master C&J, Steve Hurley, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWho played them?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nSven van Hees.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHe was also a club DJ?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nHe started his program on the radio, Liaisons Dangereuses, for five years or so, and then he moved to Ibiza and played there.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nAt the beginning of house music. He played there every day for one year in the season, then he came back here and he played at AB. His program was really influential. Because of his program, we sold more and more of this music in USA Import. He was also inventing this 33 and 45 thing.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat sorts of records?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nLos Niños Del Parque, Jansen / Barbieri… Carlos Perón’s “Die Schwarze Spinne”…
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat influence did that have on things? Did it influence people to come to the clubs?
\n\nKOENIE VAN IMMERSEEL
\n\nFor sure. And buying more records – it was not only DJs who were buying these records. People wanted to have the music they heard, because you never heard it anywhere else.
Frie Verhelst
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen did you start [USA Imports]?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nWe started the shop in December 1973.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the reason for starting it? It must have been quite unusual at the time.
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nIt was quite unusual. I was teaching at a Flemish school, and my husband [José Pascual] is from the French-speaking part of Belgium. He wanted to come to Antwerp to live with me, so he was looking for something he could do over here and that came in mind. He knew someone in Liege who had a shop, who imported every week from the USA, especially soundtracks. He thought, “Why can’t I import dance music here in Antwerp?” So, we rented a shop and I continued teaching for maybe two years.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWas there much of a black music culture in Belgium at the time?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nWell, we were really into that popcorn music, which was all sorts of [older] black music.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo when popcorn did begin? Was the Groove in Ostend the first place in the late ’60s?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nThe Groove, yes, that was the club for that kind of music. They played Marvin Gaye and that kind of stuff, and danced the slow bop. It was really beautiful to see those people dancing to this music. It was old music and there were a lot of instrumentals that they played [slowed down].
\n\nThey had this slow, rock-bop dancing. That started in the Groove in Ostend with [the DJ] Freddy Cousaert.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nTell me about Jean-Claude Maury.
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nHe was the DJ from the Mirano in Brussels. He was famous, as famous as Ronny in Antwerp. I’m not sure of the name of the other club now... I was there in 78, and he played the Human League’s “Being Boiled” and Bill Withers’ “You Got The Stuff.” He just pushed them and they weren’t getting played anywhere else. Everybody went to see him because he was such a good DJ and he played different music than anyone was used to hearing in the clubs.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the Mirano like?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nIt was in an old theatre. Brussels has always been completely different to Antwerp. We also had a branch of USA Import in Brussels and we sold completely different records there to what we did in Antwerp. Brussels is French-speaking, so they weren’t that big on English-speaking records. I never really liked Mirano. The people in Brussels are different from Antwerp, they are more serious.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWasn’t Mirano supposed to be a sort of Studio 54-type club?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nI never saw it like that. It was very well known in the whole country, but to say it was like Studio 54… We had some clients who were really into Studio 54, who took the plane and went over for the weekend [to New York]. They didn’t go to Brussels. Maybe some people who went there saw it that way, but I don’t.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\n[It seems that] Jean-Claude is the accidental godfather of new beat, maybe, because he influenced Ronny, and then Ronny influenced the others.
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nBut Ronny didn’t play new beat. They played records that nobody else played, but I don’t think Jean-Claude can be called the father of new beat. No, I think he would never have played new beat.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nI guess what I’m talking about is that there are two scenes, the one that didn’t play new beat because it didn’t exist, but acted as the precursor and then the scene once new beat arrived.
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nYeah, that’s like Ancienne Belgique, here in Antwerp. Well, I think that started at AB.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nSo did you see Fat Ronny at Scandals, and if so what was it like?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nHe had an original style. He played PiL’s “Death Disco” – that was one of his strongest records. He played a lot of African music like Manu Dibango… That was the beginning of new beat. He continued playing these records in AB and also in new beat clubs, like Prestige. Marc [Grouls] also played these records. He played Unknown Cases’ “Masimbabele.” Scandals was Human League, Manu Dibango, Sisters Of Mercy, PiL, Snowy Red, which he continued playing in AB.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the difference between Scandals and AB? Was it a different clientele?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nNo, no. Nice people, but drugs were already coming into it at Scandals… just smoking. AB was a converted theatre – a really nice place. The people who opened it spent a lot of money on installations, nice sound. So, the DJ was up and people were down in the pit downstairs and he was like a god upstairs. He was surrounded by all the other DJs, who came to hear him, like Olivier Pieters from Boccaccio. Ronny, when he wanted to go and smoke a bit, somebody would take over. It was an honor to play there, I think.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\n[I’ve heard about] a guy called John, who played after Ronny. What was he like?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nHe played the same style as Ronny, but Ronny was more original. When he came here [USA Imports] I could tell him, “John, you have to play that – I think it’s good,” and he would. He was a good DJ, but he didn’t go to other stores to listen to records. Ronny went everywhere looking for records – Paris and other places. He was more into it. He found original records that nobody else had.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen he started playing records, would you get people coming into the store and asking for them?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nYeah, yeah. Sometimes it was quite hard to find the records, but sometimes he played records that we had anyway. Max Berlin was one of the biggest, already at Scandals. Pierre Henry, the one with the bells [“Psyché Rock”], “Die Schwarze Spinne” by Carlos Perón.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nFor the Pierre Henry, didn’t you go [directly] to EMI?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nWhen I found out it was on EMI, I contacted them and they found some stock in the basement and we sold them all. They then repressed it just for us to sell.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nHow many did you sell?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nHundreds! Five hundred, a thousand.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhen was the first time you heard a record played at the wrong speed?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nPopcorn music! We sold a lot of popcorn music that was played slowed down. The Lenco turntable, you could slow it down. So, it was happening [in the popcorn era]. When they started to do it in new beat, we said, “We did this already!’
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nTell me about Liaisons Dangereuses.
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nIt was a radio program on SIS on Antwerp. They started that program before new beat, because they played AB music. Sven searched for the music and he came in the shop, so we worked together. A lot of people listened to this show and they came here to buy the records, so that’s why we started to play our little game. Thursday night was the top three, which we gave for the three best records of each week. We started to give false titles, and then on Friday everybody would come in with pieces of paper and all the titles would be wrong. That’s how we knew how popular it was! It was a nice time.
\n\nBILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat would you say is the first new beat record?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nMaybe “Flesh” by A Split Second, then the Weathermen’s “Poison.”
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nWhat was the record that killed it all, because it was so successful?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nConfetti’s “The Sound Of C. ” You don’t know this? It was played in Boccaccio. The DJ who made it, and his friend... It was the beginning of the home stuff, so you didn’t need to go into the professional studio anymore. He took the cassette to the Boccaccio to try it out and from the first time he played it, it was a big success. We sold 300,000 copies – it came out on the USA Import label.
BILL BREWSTER
\n\nBut you think it killed the scene, because it was so successful?
\n\nFRIE VERHELST
\n\nYeah, it was so successful that the record companies wanted an album and it was all the same, because the track was so simple. It was too commercial. The origins of new beat were killed by that. Then there were hundreds coming up, and it was just too much.
\n\n
\nThese interviews were conducted in March 2005 in Belgium. © DJ History