02/01/2007

Mad Dog Loose


Going through my older records today, I stumbled across this nice Belgian band, Mad Dog Loose, which I bought two EP's from (back in 1996) : Take me down and Versa (which you'll find two songs of below).


Those were the days when dEUS was becoming really big and Stef Kamil Carlens, former dEUS member, had his own group, Moondog Jr. (now called Zita Swoon). Evil Superstars (with Mauro Pawlowski) rose to fame and Rudy Trouvé, another dEUS-member, started his own band Kiss My Jazz... Belgian rock was becoming really exciting again... !


Versa was the first single taken from their (only) album Material sunset and it featured the song by the same title (and also a demo-version of that same song) and four other songs, showing their country-side. On Versa Bernard Plouvier (drums & violins) even has his mother play some piano... !


Simple as the lyrics may be, the song captures you immediately... It has that Mercury Rev touch, with the piano and the violin making you dream of wide open fields, with big mountains in the background.


Being from Gent myself, I sorta felt very proud of them, as they rose to be a promising band, critically acclaimed by the music press in those days. However, soon nothing would be heard of them anymore, and they only left us one album and a couple of great songs...


Their bass player, Armand Bourgoignie, had already tasted some local success with his former band Milk The Bishop (which gave us nice poppy songs such as Malibu and Spinning around), which would also feature Joost Zweegers (Novastar) when performing live.

Songs to listen to :
Versa - Mad Dog Loose
She makes me feel free - Mad Dog Loose