On The Road With I’ll Eat Your Face: Part 1

Posted on 4th Jun 09 by Mike McGrath Bryan | 8

“WAHEY! Mike made it!” Some eight hours, two missed trains and an erroneous changeover later, Drop-d’s intrepid reporter set off on a mystical journey to the lowlands of Holland, to observe the road habits of Cork’s favourite pair of noisemongering eejits, I’ll Eat Your Face. Having torn up every stage unfortunate enough to cross their path over the course of the last three years with their overawing mix of grindcore, beer and bollocks, The Face set off to once again test the resolve of the Dutch, an excursion facilitated by Hilversum concert promoters Tsunami Fest, after a rapturously received first trip. Not that the Dutch seem to mind at all.

Cafe de Roozen, in Hilversum, is reminiscent of a slightly more roughshod Fred Zeppelin’s, a narrow venue with little room to manoeuvre. Furthermore, a wall divides the place in half, ruining the flow of it entirely. Not that any of this stops the boys. Drop-d is led to de Roozen just in the nick of time by some friendly metallers on its train. The crowd is beered up to the scut and good to go. As a matter of courtesy, Tsunami main man Bjorn Poort has moved the pit back to the small side room, where it tazzes on regardless.

“Hi, we’re I’ll Eat Your Face, and you’re all really sound! This song is about zombie, robotic fat women..”. So sayeth guitarist and vocalist extraordinaire THE BOY. Lurking behind him and to the left slightly at the drum kit is lightning-limbed BARRYTRON, and the gruesome twosome are tearing through material, new and old with gusto to an enthusiastic, if uninitiated crowd. Drop-d takes note of the new stuff. It’s very fuckin’ good. This is night one of a three-night tour, one of the first of its kind for the band, and important for Tsunami Fest to establish itself…

Enough bollocks about needing a singer or bassist: there’s clearly enough noise here for anyone

As the boys exit stage left for the night, the mood is good. Hilversum is a big town, but according to Bjorn, is merely classified as a village here. Fuckin’ hell. The streets here are alive, people emptying from clubs and cafes to take in the night air. Bikes weave in and out, stopping for no-one. Drop-d nearly finds itself on the business end of a motor scooter on several occasions.

Outside Cafe de Roozen, the Face are boozing and bollocks spews forth from their trenchant word-holes. Discussion ranges from travel, to personal lives, to our Irish orals. It isn’t long before we rejoin company and the foam begins to collect: conversation turns from Steve Albini’s Big Black. Drop-d, ever a smarmy-arsed collector, mentions it has Songs About Fucking on 12”. ‘Tron replies in a joking beat-this-asswipe manner that he “has it on 13”. To which Boy responds: “Aw, yeah? Well, I have it on hen-wing!” The two begin to bust their holes laughing at an obvious in-joke which leaves Drop-d confused but most amused. Oh, yes. And this penchant for the absurd and downright obscure penetrates the conversation for the entire trip, much as it does their music, which only serves to make it all the more entertaining to be around.

“What’s the hardest part of rollerblading? Telling your parents you’re gay.”

A lesser website than ourselves once stated that the Face are “not a rational band, more a force of nature”. This is true: the band take everything they have at their disposal – grind, samples, and the aforementioned intangibles – pare it down to a reed and then use it to whip pre-conceptions around. Enough bollocks about needing a singer or bassist: there’s clearly enough noise here for anyone. Grindcore was the child of hardcore and crust-punk, two abrasive and bowling-shoe ugly genres, usually of an archly serious nature, and an axe to be ground all day.

With the Internet and drum machines, so too came in a lot of humourous bullshit and such. To see such bands going live, however, is an oddity, which is another key to the Face’s popularity: there is nothing at all like them out there. Not bound with a serious message other than that of wasps and weed, they are a grind band everyone can enjoy. You don’t need to be versed in Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, et al to party with these two streaks, and conversely, they’re heavy and frantic enough for any metaller.

Our crash-pad tonight is Martijn’s house. An IT dude, the gaff is warm, spacious, and most importantly, housing a quality CD collection. “Annihilator!”, exclaims THE BOY, “I’ve never seen so much Annihilator in my life!”.

The two of ‘em are well-beered now, and the questions flow back and forth, as the twosome get used to having a relative stranger on tour with them. Does Drop-d actually like IEYF? Who would you rather have as a manager; the Polish national soccer team or a cheetah? Which videogame dinosaur do you prefer? The relentless randomness continues until BOY finally needs to reboot after 48 hours on the go. The pair take a mattress between the two of them, while Drop-d commandeers a couch. Nice.

Everyone goes to sleep, awaiting the next chapter in the epic journey of The Face in the Netherlands…

Part 2 next week

I’ll Eat Your Face release their new DVD  Clit 2: The Clitenning, June 5th, The Quad, Cork and the following night, June 6th in The Thomas House, Dublin.

I’ll Eat Your Face Myspace

Tags: annihilator, Barrytron, bjorn poort, clit 2: the clitenning, extreme noise terror, I'll Eat Your Face, naplam death, steve albini, The boy, the quad, thomas house, Tsunami Fest

About Mike McGrath Bryan

Drop-d's editor and news slave since November 2010, and a full-time freelance contributing journalist. Multimedia student, retro gamer and general speccy-four-eyes.

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