About Us
Studiomuscle is a belgian platform (how about that huh!) for music, movies, gigs and general sillyness. Since 1992 its motto has been Don’t take anything too seriously, thus connecting with the ninities generation for which irony is the prime form of communication. Studiomuscle has never really departed from that credo, the only thing we take serious is death and chocolates with funny form factors.
Studiomuscle is a collaboration between Wio D’hespeel, Hans Gruyaert, Jürgen de blonde, Bert Lafontaine and Hendrik Dacquin. The first four gents make splendid pop cluster bombs with de portables, the latter shoots and mixes videos that go well with de portables dreaded stage performances.
Occasionally studiomuscle organizes some very entertaining gigs in Belgium and come together to make movies about death, chocolates and star wars. We are all very good friends looking for a reason to have fun together.
History of studiomuscle
Studiomuscle was founded in 1992 by Wio D’hespeel’s bedroom in Bruges. Inspired by tape-labels such as Rotten Windmill, Schrimper and Blackbean and Placenta, Wio unleashed an unacounted number of lo-fi gems on a the world.
With an unseen bewildering passion Wio drew the covers, mastered all the songs on a 1GB SCSI harddisk, dubbed the tapes in his bedroom, copied the covers on his dad copier and forgot to mail them to the few people who ordered them.
The first tape was a noisy, chaotic compilation of low fun and other sentimental artforms, a semi-legendary band, descended from the weirdnolandbouwers, a truly legendary band which line-up included members of de portables and Köhn. The tape also included the anouncement for a Michael Jackson tribute tape. Although today expectations still raise high about the craftmenschip and sheer brilliance of this Michael jackson compilation tape, it still hasn’t been released.
Figure: The evolution of pop lo-fi in Bruges.
What followed were tapes by wio himself (26 songs), Wio’s sister Lobke (Gush), Jürgen Deblonde aka Köhn aka Ed Nölbed (the legendary very rare Ajjenol Tape) and a Europe vs. North America tape compilation, a collaboration with Cactus Gum Recordings, now better know as Foxy Digitalis.
Figure: Studiomuscle tape catalogue Autumn 1996. Click on the image for full size. There’s lotsof details, including the anouncement of the Michael Jackson tribute tape!
Figure: Cover of the legendary and very rare yet brilliant Ed Nolbed Ajjenol tape.
This tape was the last studiomuscle would release out or rather not release: due to a hardware failure, the 1GB harddisk died and it took the first incarnation of studiomuscle down with his fall.
Reincanarie (song for the dead birds)
After a well-deserved break wio found new energy, revitalized passion and together with Hans, Hendrik and Jürgen he started getting studiomuscle together again. After several brainstorms, mesmerizing the lost harddisk, studiomuscle decided to go multimedia: a website, movie productions, small cd-r releases and gatherings in Bruges, aptly called studiomuscle Soupers.
That was two years and a half of great fun to see so many good bands play live, the special acts (from circus clowns over priests, hookers and a giant mussel called Olivier) and self-made amateur star wars parodies. Köhn, wio, kleine wöhnen, autopilot (played 3 times!), benjamin franklin, jullander and even the legendary Daniel Johnston: they all came to Bruges to play in a very cozy theatre for three men and a horsehead.
During that very productive time, studiomuscle also released the very first tape of de portables (zon i bos), which wasn’t all too surprising since studiomuscle basically was de portables including Hendrik.
When Bert later joined de portables, it was a package deal with studiomuscle, so from then on Bert joined the studiomuscle ranks.
Anno 2005
With all members of studiomuscle working and getting children , activities declined but never ceased to exist. At the end of 2004 studiomuscle organized a very successful studiomuscle souper, dedicated to terrorism. A sold-out Frontline hosted upcoming talents Tomàn, Kapotski and the three blind terrorists from Palestina. They also made a 20 minute long epic story about Jack De Bouwer, fighting belgian suicide bombers. We are currently preparing for another studiomuscle souper and have several plans for new movies in our sick heads. We also decided to reanimate the website, after holding the world record for "Longest Time Under Construction Website in the Western Hemisphere". Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsfeeds 
