Bad Brains in the Lowlands is a new fanzine chronicling the influential band's touring in Belgium and The Netherlands from 1983-2007. Written and compiled by Nico Welmer and Robert Roenhorst, the 72-page collection features eyewitness reports by attendees, promoters, and artists, plus tons of flyers, posters, merch, setlists, and other ephemera from the various tours.
I spoke with Nico to gain some insight on why he decided to take on this huge project, what the Bad Brains means to him, and what other future zine plans he has up his sleeve.
I guess a good way to start would be asking how long have you been a Bad Brains fan, and what would you say is their finest work?
I think I foremost love the DC scene and by that extent also the Bad Brains.
When I discovered punk back in the mid-'90s, I sort of got sucked into hardcore due to a lot of bands getting great distribution due to labels such as Epitaph and Roadrunner. Bands like Shelter and Biohazard became easy accesible and soon enough you learn about the major influences for a lot of those bands; Bad Brains, Black Flag and Minor Threat.
Later in the '90s, I learned about a lot more DC bands, Void, Faith, Marginal Man, Scream, Red C, State of Alert, Embrace etc and ever since then that '80s DC scene has been my favorite and stuck around.
I do recall finding the ROIR Sessions on CD and being blown away by "Sailin’ On," "Banned in DC," and "Right Brigade," not sure what to think about the dub and reggae stuff. Soon after I found Rock For Light (Caroline Recordas version) as well and despite the overlap in songs, I enjoyed that one even more. The reggae stuff grew on me as it was a some kind way to take a breath between all the violence coming your way.
Before the internet became a thing to have all around you all the time, Rise and God of Love were also easy availible at record stores but it took me a two or three years to finally hear I Against I or Black Dots.
My favourite Bad Brains release is probably Rock For Light, I heard "Attitude" on the radio last week and as soon as the songs ended, I hear the drum roll of "Right Brigade" kick in, in my head. I think that album is imprinted in my brain.
Tell me the genesis story behind the zine. Who worked on it with you and how tough was it scoring all of the photos, setlists, and other ephermera included within it?
Back in the early ’00s, older people in the scene would tell about the Bad Brains show in Groningen (city in the north of the Netherlands) how they only played reggae songs due to it being a Sunday or the 7th day of the tour. Also the story about the show in in Eindhoven (city in the southern part of the country) where the riot police had to intervene is a well known story.
Back in early 2020, I thought it would be nice to dive into the Bad Brains and check out what shows they played in the Netherlands and also Belgium. Netherlands and Belgium are neighbouring countries and part of Belgium speaks the same language as each other, so there always has been a nice overlap in the scene and it made sense to include those shows as well.
I lowkey started to collect every scrap I could find online and compile together a list of the all shows done by the Bad Brains between 1983 and 2007 in the Netherlands and Belgium, thinking one day I would make a fanzine of a website about it. I managed to find an unpublished live recording one of the shows, that gave me a push to put more effort in.
A year later, Robert came aboard, I sort of asked him when he started to provide me with more and more stuff to add to the growing archive. He just became a dad and was awake a lot of times during the night, so he spent his time searching online between feeding the baby and I would see the results in the morning and archive it all.
A few months later, I came across someone selling a map of contracts and communication between bookers for the Dutch leg of the 1987 tour of the Bad Brains, that provided me with even more info and that made even more commit to contiue searching.
We initally wanted to finished the fanzine in 2023, but at last minute, Robert found a show we missed and I really wanted to do the layout myself, keeping true on the cut and past aspect of a fanzine but with a the help of a computer programme, so I was able to moves things around more easily and being able to correct mistakes.
So it took till late 2024 before it was acutally printed. Of course, within the first week of it being released, more people came forward with new information and stuff that really need to be in the fanzine.
I spend hours and hours looking for people on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and seeing if they could have been involved with booking a show, booking a tour or being at a Bad Brains shows back in the day. Often I would get referred to other people only to be reminded it was so long along they barely have a memory of it. So I encountered a lot of dead ends.
I emailed a lot of newspapers, city archives, a lot of venues or the successors of those venues to see if they have anything laying around. I also managed to buy a bunch of posters from other Bad Brains shows in Europe, so that was pretty cool.
But I am very happy with everyone I was able to speak to and could contribute how regardless how little it was, to create this fanzine.
From your standpoint in Europe, how much of an impact did those Bad Brains have on the punk/hardcore scene over there? What did you learn during the making of the zine?
I think in 1982, in the Netherlands two bands already dropped a 7” that is considered hardcore and that was influenced by American bands, rather than the first of second wave of UK punk bands.
From what I learned a lot of people learned about the Bad Brains due to the Let Them Eat Jelly Beans compilation, so hardcore was nothing new when the Bad Brains and Black Flag played their first shows in Europe in 1983. And to certain this also goes for Dead Kennedys in late 1982 as well.
Also, the ROIR tape was spread a round a lot, from what I could piece together around the same time the first Bad Brains tour, Rock For Light was released under license by a slew of different labels all over Europe.
But what really set Bad Brains apart from other bands was their live performances. A lot of people didn’t see such a fury and frenzy on stage before and also the reggae jams in between was somehting new for the punk crowd.
Funny enough, the Bad Brains also inspired a lot of none punk bands, such as the Dutch funk/rap rock band Urban Dance Squad, their singer still has high praise for the Bad Brains.
What's next for you? You mentioned you have another zine in the works?
Yes, currently I am working with Robert to figure out the shows that the original incarnation of Black Flag did in the Netherlands back in 1983 and 1984. They never played Belgium, sadly. I hope to put together a slightly less thick fanzine somewhere in the next few months, hopefully this won’t take years again.
We found some amazing recordings and some old posters and ticket stubs. Mix in some great stories about the bad performing and the people who went to the show and hopefully it will turn out in something that is equal entertaining.
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Bad Brains in the Lowlands is available at this link.
Tagged: bad brains, book
