Note: this piece was originally written for a different website, so the date reflects its original publication date (which is relevant, because Geese have since become very successful).
The last time I was in Brussels I had spent a couple of hours wandering around the narrow streets of the old centre, exploring different record shops, hoping to pick up an original vinyl copy of something.
I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted, but then I am never sure when it comes to buying things I don’t need, and I certainly don’t need any more records.
It’s another entirely unnecessary object to cram into my house, and so to justify the purchase, I need a good reason that will stand up in court, like a souvenir with a local link, or that physical version has something special about it like it’s signed or a limited edition – it’s not just about the accumulation of stuff for stuff’s sake.
I was in Belgium and so I wanted something by dEUS or one of the various offshoot bands like Magnus or Taxiwars or Zita Swoon or Stef Kamil Carlens or Dead Man Ray or The Love Substitutes, but despite that long list of options, I kept hitting a blank.
The dEUS family might be cool for me, a middle-aged Englishman still obsessed with guitar-based nineties indie alternative rock, but I was starting to realise that to modern Belgians, a band like dEUS are ancient history.
On that previous visit I had got chatting to the owner of Doctor Vinyl (a charmingly haphazard store that specialises in electronic music) who claimed to know Tom Barman personally. His advice was to head to [CHEZ PIAS] because he thought it would be more up my street: “They’re a record company too, and they stock everything they’ve ever released, so you’ll definitely find something there,” he had said, easily convincing me.
I did some research, and found that not only are they ([PIAS] Group) a Label Group, they are also an Artist and Label Service Company, their in-house labels include Play It Again Sam which is the source of the PIAS acronym, and with a mission like this, what’s not to like:
[PIAS] champions and supports the best independent music across an unrivalled international marketing and distribution network
The [CHEZ PIAS] store was attached to the Brussels HQ offices and not only had a record store but also a live music venue and bar (called Humphrey). It sold itself as “a meeting point centred around music, discoveries, food, experiences and art.”
I loved the idea and I decided that when I got back to Brussels, I’d be heading down to [CHEZ PIAS] and it would immediately become my favourite place in the city, especially as unknown (to me) Brooklyn indie-rockers Geese were playing the same week I was there!
Last week I made it back and headed over to my new spiritual home. The location, near the Bank of Belgium in a street of office buildings, isn’t exactly pretty – and isn’t exactly rock’n’roll – but it is a smart move if you want a lot of space:
I wandered in, past the poster advertising Geese’s latest album Projector, oddly the upcoming gig wasn’t mentioned.
The Humphrey Bar was to the right, the store to the left – I regret not checking out the bar now, it would have been good to have soaked up some more of the atmosphere, but it being still too early for dinner, I didn’t think of it and instead headed straight to the vinyl collection.
The store occupies a large space with two separate wings; one with the record collection, and the other largely empty (apart from the art on the walls and a grand piano) – a waste not to have more stock and related merch and, being a proper record company, I’d have hoped for more memorabilia too, like a Hard Rock Café … and, while I’m on a roll, if they aim to create a space for music lovers to hang out, I’d go with more places to sit down and maybe a coffee machine. It was starting to feel a bit sterile, the lack of atmosphere compounded by the lack of music … no, wait, there was music, I just didn’t hear it at first, it was very faint in the background, like muzak in a lift, playing a wishy-washy version of Twist of Shout, hardly the cutting-edge Belgian indie I expected – surely an opportunity to showcase their artists and promote their stuff?
My goodwill was clinging on, but I was disappointed … the vibe was more corporate than rock’n’roll … but it was friendly and despite the fairly limited stock I managed to find the complete works of Balthazar and a few limited edition King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard albums (as well as a few artists I knew less well like Editors and Oscar and the Wolf). There was no dEUS-related stuff at all, which surprised me, and so my plan to get Zita Swoon’s Live at Jet Studio Brussels spluttered to a halt.
I found a little sofa to sit and do some research on some of the bands I’d found but didn’t know so well (Oscar and the Wolf, for example) and a couple of other customers came in. I listened but it was too electronic to overrule Balthazar or King Gizzard in the short time available, and anyway I couldn’t get the Australian sextet’s half-dozen albums out my head, each in a brown paper outer sleeve explaining the carbon-neutral limited nature of the edition. KGATLW’s eccentric rock explorations have been some of my favourite musical moments in recent years, and I knew whatever process I forced myself to do, however many Oscar and the Wolf albums I whizzed through, I was going home with one these lovely limited editions … so yes, I bought Quarters. It’s not a great album, I prefer their more recent work, but it felt a more substantial purchase than a standard shrink-wrapped Balthazar album I could buy anywhere.
I forgot to go to the bar on the way out too. I wandered away, clutching my new record in its lovely [PIAS] carrier bag, looking forward to coming back on Thursday to see Geese.
{CHEZ PIAS] is a great idea, and if it showcased its own music at an audible volume and made better use of the excellent space (more stock, more merch and relevant books, some memorabilia on display) and perhaps had a few more seats and a coffee machine, it’d be one of my favourite spots in the city.
Update (Mar 2023): since writing this, I went back to see dEUS showcase their How to Replace It album, and the Chez PIAS store has been transformed with the large empty spaces now filled with books, CDs and records, and the overall design much more conducive to spending time there – so please disregard everything above.
Update (2024): I went back again on a different visit that I think was in 2024, but I may be mistaken. I wandered nonchalantly in and started browsing, thinking I might get something by J Bernardt, and failed to spot they were in the middle of packing up, the whole store in the midst of closure, its stock being shipped to a record store in Gent … so disregard everything above, including the 2023 update – all good things come to an end, especially if they’re not profitable.
Geese (the band)
I got back to [CHEZ PIAS] early on the Thursday because I like to get near the front and take time to check out the venue. I left my coat on the hangers upstairs, there was no formal cloakroom, so you take your chances, but I decided to embrace the risk because my old parka had seen better days anyway.
There was a small merch stall that had vinyl copies of their debut album Projector (a decent debut album definitely worth checking out) but it was not signed and it was €25 so I thought I’d wait to see if they appeared at the end of the gig to sign stuff, which seemed possible for a band so early in their career, presumably keen to embed these flickers of nascent interest from us potential fans.
The venue was downstairs and round the corner where there was a small bar and a few comfy sofas. I checked out the empty hall first, it was an intimate space, with a capacity around 120 I would guess (Fact check: capacity is 80), and it was a good simple shape and looked like the acoustics would be fairly good if the high ceiling didn’t cause a problem (it didn’t, the sound was great).
I waited for a while, wandered in and out, sat on the sofa for a bit, then back into the hall to decide where to stand. My usual position is on the left as you look at the stage which worked because it was near the door (so cooler and easier to get out) and in front of the bass player.
It was empty for a long time and I worried it was going to be a disaster, I didn’t want to have to carry the responsibility for being the audience on my own! Concert-goers in Belgium are cool and understated, they don’t get there early to get to the front like I do, so it sparse for quite a while before people slowly drifted in – mostly older and mostly male which is probably not the ideal demographic for this very young band, but probably reflects who goes to this sort of gig rather than who listens to this sort of music.
After some mucking about with a malfunctioning bass, the band came on around 8:30 to a flutter of Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping before launching in to a song I didn’t know called 2122.
From my spot, I couldn’t really see the drummer (Max Bassin) or keyboard player/guitarist (Foster Hudson), they were lost in the darkness at the back, but I could clearly see the bass player (Dominic diGesu), singer (Cameron Winter) and lead guitarist (Gus Green) – I think I’ve correctly connected the individuals to their instruments, but I may be in error.
They can certainly play, and Cameron Winter is an excellent singer – he also has a lot of charisma (I could barely take my eyes off him), and he did well in what can be a bit of an awkward situation where the audience want to show their appreciation but don’t really know the music or the band members – it’s not like when bands are famous and there’s a clear relationship, the status of band versus audience clearly established; when the band are not well-known and are much younger than the vast majority of the audience, there’s a different dynamic that’s harder to crack in such an intimate setting.
They sound like a less poppy, more indie-rocky, version of The Strokes with a fair dash of the Arctic Monkeys thrown in. A lot of their songs end in distorted fuzz suggesting they might explore more proggy ideas in the future. Cameron Winter’s voice is strong – either straight or in falsetto – Max Bassin’s energetic drumming is wonderful, and … well, they’re all good really, so I won’t go on about it.
I was surprised they played so little from their album (only 4 songs) and played for such a short amount of time (less than an hour), and this felt like they were missing a trick to make a bigger impact on an appreciative crowd that wanted the band to do well.
Here’s the setlist (with guitar notations):
That photo is from before the gig. I thought about seeing if I could take a setlist at the end, maybe I could tape it to the inner sleeve of the vinyl record sitting upstairs on the merch staff. A setlist would add that “something different” angle and snaffle a bit of rock’n’roll memorabilia to add further to the objects in my house, but oddly they had all been torn, presumably deliberately by the band themselves, which I struggled to understand because it seemed unnecessarily mean-spirited.
They didn’t do a curtain call either, just rushing off after the main show and again after the encore, so I never got to properly see Max or Foster. I suppose this is what cool people do, but if I were handing out unwanted advice, I’d suggest they take every opportunity to connect with the audience – especially this audience who will act as multipliers – and just give us a few seconds to take a bow and show your appreciation.
I waited for most people to leave, checked out the torn setlists and headed upstairs to see if they were signing stuff. Unfortunately not, at least not while I was there, and so I retrieved my parka from its hanger and sloped off for an early night, happy to have discovered a new band that will definitely be worth watching over the next few years.
MrJohn 