Black Vampire

  Netherlands - Maastricht

                                                                    Band History written  Wicked Leon

Unfortunately there’s not that much I can tell you about this band except for the fact I found these recordings [labeled as a demo] on a very old tape that was in one of the boxes in our ‘rubbish room’. They hailed from Maastricht, in the south of the Netherlands where not that much seemed to happen back in the eighties. Ofcourse Maastricht had ‘Mort Subite’ [anyone who has their split ep for sale, send me an email please!] in the late seventies and in the nineties, Maastricht had the M-Town Rebels, responsible for the whole Eurocore thing.

I met the drummer for Black Vampire a while back in Amsterdam, he was quite surprised people knew about that band.

Apparently they reformed [without him] and I discovered a myspace site which has the following biography:

Welcome to the dark world of Black Vampire, a speedpunkband that was formed in the early eighties. With the intension to kick some ass and play music that sound loud as fuck, bass player Elvis and singer/guitarist Billy started meeting each other more and more to play their brains out and give the local scene what it was looking for. Although their sound was very raw, Black Vampire soon started to get the attention of a small group of believers. The crowd seems to like it because they finally found a way to express their feelings and share their opinion. Billy & Elvis also felt good about it; playing for a free beer or two and a rush of adrenaline seemed to be the ideal way to spend their time. The band appeared on a few compilation-tapes and managed to write a number of songs that was best discribed as a brutal mix of complaints about personal struggles and the heaviest and fastest guitar riffs you had ever heard. The word spread fast and Black Vampire slowly started to become a well known punk-machine within the local scene. After a few line-up changes with several drummers who couldn't manage to play in such a fast speed, the band decided to shut down their engines. A few years would pass... Just before the end of the century the two original members decided to pick up their guitars again. After several rehearsals they soon discovered that they still got the same vibe and after a short quest for a new drummer they teamed up with Mark ( ex Sons Of The Rain). This guy already earned his credits in his previous bands and seemed to be the perfect guy to fill in the empty spot. What never seemed to work in the past finally did; a fanatic drummer that could keep up with the enormous speed had finally joined the band. In this brand new line-up the band recorded their first demo-disc ever which was titled 'Fuck' and woke the whole dying punk-breed in the near surroundings. Punk was back in town! The band started touring again and today they've already played a lot of gigs, for example with punk heroes Total Chaos and a lot of local punk and hardcore bands. Need I say more? In the beginning of October their first full-length cd 'Fastfood for the Undead' hit the steets. The album is a mix off all kinds of musical styles. Speedpunk will meet oi-punk in a metallic kind of way. You will be amazed how fast you'll be fucked this time.... Luckily they did a killer demo tape in the eighties, I find it hard to take a band seriously that does a hardcore version of Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’.