Our friends from KRAAK  received some bad news from the government over there. KRAAK as a concert promotor might stop to exist. Please find more info here.

some words from Ronnie in the name of Datashock, Phantom Limbo and Meudiademorte:

As a child I once visited Belgium together with my family, spending holidays at a Centerpark. I don’t remember details but I guess it was fun: holidays, swimming-pools, giant slide,…

That’s twenty years ago… I never knew anything else about Belgium: Centerparks and Marc Dutroux, of course.

10 years ago, when I started to play music together with a couple of friends (we all lived in a small german town called Saarlouis at that time), we were wondering about the fact, that so many bands we were interested in, did play in Belgium…: „What’s going on there?”, “Why is everyone playing in Belgium?” We found out later that the main reason simply was and is the dedication of a couple of guys, working under the name „KRAAK“.
Maybe you can`t understand their work, when you are not a part of it. And maybe you are not interested to invest in someone’s work if you don’t really get what they’re doing. But whoever might read these words: think of something you love, something you are burning for, something you are obsessed with… that’s why these guys worked for years. For me it always was a breathless try to push ideas, aesthetics, expressions and creativity besides mainstream culture and cost-benefit calculations. And besides all virtual self-expression and egocentric individualism in the so called World Wide Web, which is becoming more and more typical for our times, they always took care for reality. For so many artists KRAAK was and still is about finding some real places to perform in front of real people. And for lovers KRAAK’s providing possibilities to feel the music. It was and is about meeting each other, talk to each other, listening to music together and sharing experience. Well, I don’t need any facebook friends! I need a place where I can go to! I don’t need to know everyone personally who stands beside me, but it’s great to see and feel there is someone. The end of KRAAK would put all this to an end. I’d miss future friendships and I will lose a longtime friend in Belgium.

Ronnie Oliveras (Cologne )