The Neon Judgement

The Neon Judgement
Background information
Origin	Leuven, Belgium
Genres	New wave, industrial, synthpop, EBM
Years active	1981–present
Labels	DanceDelic D Le Son du Maquis Play It Again Sam
Members	Dirk Da Davo TB Frank
Website	[1]

The Neon Judgement is a Belgian new wave band, formed in Leuven in 1981 by Dirk Da Davo (keyboards/vocalist) and TB Frank (guitarist/vocalist). These Belgian musicians have often been considered the pioneers of electronic body music (EBM), together with another Belgian band, Front 242. EBM is a high-tech genre from the early '80s, combining industrial and electro music, from which later originated new beat and techno.

Dirk Da Davo and TB Frank veered between minimalistic industrial drones and odd, new wave synthpop and dance music, underlain by cold, mechanical rhythms. Their initial music is aggressive, danceable and dominated by synthesizers and drum-machines. A bit later on in their career, the guitar also had a prominent place in their music.

The Neon Judgement recorded most of their output for the Play It Again Sam label in Belgium, beginning with 1986's Mafu Cage. Their first American release did not come until 1987, with the sex-themed concept album, Horny As Hell. Subsequent recordings included Blood and Thunder (1989), The Insult (1990), and Are You Real (1992).

The duo took a three-year hiatus to rethink the direction of their music, after which they returned in 1995 with At Devil's Fork, an LP recorded with percussionist Ben Forceville entirely in a wooded area.

The band briefly stopped performing in 1998, but reformed in 2004 and started performing live again to promote a series of remixes and re-releases of their material. The touring continued into 2006, with the band promising on their website that, "Live, The Neon Judgement will continue to give art terrorism a good name, finding new ways of marrying noise and beauty, machines and magic".

Dirk Da Davo is also in the side project Neon Electronics, for which he started his own record label Dancedelic-D and he both reworks old classics and composes new material.

In November 2005, the Neon Judgement did a show at the Machina Festival at the Broadway Club in São Paulo, Brazil. The festival celebrated the first eight years of the site FiberOnline and the launch of the label Fiber Records. Fiber Records released the DVD The Neon Judgement – Live at Machina Festival in 2005 featuring the whole concert of 13 songs.

In 2007, the band released the compilation album Redbox. The release comes after the success of the 100% vintage 2 CD Box released in October 2005. Redbox mainly contains the band's work during the second half of the 1980s. The album also features remixes from acts such as David Carretta, Blackstrobe, Lifelike, and Helmut Kraft. Redbox also contains a brand new recording, namely a cover version of "Heroes" (by David Bowie and Brian Eno).

The band's most recent album is Smack, released in 2009.

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Discography

Albums

• Suffering (1981)
• MBIH! (mini-album) (1985)
• Mafu Cage (1986)
• Horny as Hell (1988)
• Blood and Thunder (1989)
• The Insult (1990)
• Are You Real (1991)
• At Devil's Fork (1995)
• Dazsoo (1998)
• Smack (2009)
• We Never Said You're No Good (2012)

Compilation albums

• The Neon Judgement 1981-1984 (1985)
• The First Judgements (1987)
• General Pain and Major Disease (1989)
• The First Judgements (2005 re-release)
• The First Judgements - Outbox (2005)
• Box (2005)
• Redbox (2007)
• Remixed Box (2007)
• A Fashion Party - Live @ AB Bxl (2008)
• Early Tapes (2010)

Singles and EPs

• "TV Treated" (1982)
• "Factory Walk" (1982)
• "Cockerill Sombre" (1983)
• "Concrete" (1984)
• "Tomorrow in the Papers" (1985)
• "Awful Day" (1986)
• "Voodoo Nipplefield" (1986)
• "A Man Ain't No Man When A Man Ain't Got No Horse, Man" (1987)
• "Miss Brown" (1987)
• "TV Treated" (1989)
• "Games of Love" (1989)
• "1313" (1989)
• "Alaska Highway" (1990)
• "Baby's On Fire" (1991)
• "A Nicer Person" (1995)
• "Out Of My Mind" (1998)
• "Jazzbox" (1998)
• "Machine Life" (2005)
• Smack EP (2010)

External links

• The official site of The Neon Judgement
• The official site of Neon Electronics