Skip to main content

Fritz Van Helsing obituary

Writer, Musician, Promoter
Born - July 2nd 1960; Died – February 15th 2012


Without Fritz Van Helsing, who has died aged fifty-one following a
prolonged battle with hepatitis C, Edinburgh's nascent 1977 punk scene
would have been a very different place. Whether as the precocious
brains behind the Wrong Image fanzine, scribbling out early paeans to
Edinburgh's first wave of punk and post-punk acts of his generation
such as Scars and TV 21 – both recently reformed to reclaim the spoils
that should've been theirs – or else playing mine host at various
incarnations of his all too appropriately named Full Moon Club, Van
Helsing was at the heart of a boisterous scene that remained truly
underground in the best sense of the word.

As some of the posts make clear on the Scraps, rags, factions,
splinters and glitz Facebook page, set up to document the crucial years
between 1977 to 1982, when a fast-changing Edinburgh music scene seemed
to promise the world, Van Helsing was at the epicentre of a very
special social circle who, inspired by punk's unleashing of new
freedoms, were determined to do things on their own terms. While every
town probably had a similar gang of misfits, in the case of Van Helsing
and co, the endless round of gigs in long-gone venues and parties in
his East Claremont Street flat carved out a rites of passage for a now
scattered community whose lives were changed forever.

Born in Inverness, Van Helsing studied at Milburn Secondary School (now
Milburn Academy), before moving to Edinburgh in 1976 aged sixteen.
Flushed with the sense of year zero reinvention the punk era inspired,
the highland teenager took his diabolic nom de plume from Dracula's
vampire-slaying nemesis usually played by Peter Cushing in Hammer's
increasingly camp restyling of Bram Stoker's original gothic novel. Van
Helsing took on the very of-its-time pen-name of Lou Kemia for his
excitable scrawls in Wrong Time, but kept the eventually legally
acquired Van Helsing name to the end, his former pre-teen identity a
closely guarded secret.

Where others of his generation moved on to more respectable outlets,
Van Helsing kept the faith throughout the next two decades, be it
through his zines Asylum and Full Moon, or playing drums in equally
wilful bands including FRAK and Nicotine Fingers. In 2000, with two
friends Van Helsing began the Full Moon Club in the suitably
labyrinthine confines of Bannerman's, the former folk pub in
Edinburgh's Cowgate. For seven years on the last Thursday of each
month, the Full Moon operated an anything-goes speakeasy policy that
could see solo troubadours on the same bill as stand-up poets and punk
guitar duos in an off-radar cabaret that attracted a loyal fan-base
without ever attempting to curry favour with the rest of the city's
music scene.

When the Full Moon moved to a Sunday afternoon slot at the infinitely
different vibe of the Three Tuns bar on Hanover Street, there were some
who thought the club wouldn't work. The child-friendly licence held by
the establishment, however, actually helped the atmosphere, according
to some. When the venue closed, Van Helsing effectively retired, his
hard living past having had a detrimental effect on his health. He was
told by doctors that he was unlikely to live past 2009, but proved them
wrong, his lust for life getting the better of his illness, even though
growing old gracefully was never going to be an option.

In 2006 Van Helsing started a relationship with Mary, and enjoyed the
next few years with her and his daughter Jet from a previous relationship. He and Mary were
engaged in 2008, and married on Halloween 2011. At his funeral,
the humanist service opened with the demented pseudo-goth of Release
The Bats, performed on record with self-destructive verve by Nick
Cave's first band, The Birthday Party. After thirty-five years at the
frontline of an equally messy musical community, it was the perfect way
to go out. A tribute gig to Van Helsing will take place at Bannerman's
on April 15th. Mary and Jet survive him.

The Herald, March 3rd 2012
ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL