Picture this. The end of the 70’s. Some totally bereaved street punks, totally sick of the patchouli and for that matter sick of everything else, are inspired by “ Never mind the Bollocks” by The Sex Pistols . Pretty Vacant, remember this fine ballad? With some money they begged hard for, they rent a dead cheap, decaying place in the now renowned Kammenstraat in Antwerp, Belgium.

Opposite are the police headquarters. A tower that seems to be designed by Godzilla, providing office space for the big chiefs. A monster that btw is since the early nineties a protected monument.

Speaking of law protection. At the time, we didn’t know that we were dangerous in the eyes of our ‘neighbours’. But yes, we were! Tatatataa: 2001, the beginning of a space oddyssee. FANS had to put up with a lawsuit on account of “Inciting to drugs use”. You know, in Belgium when you’re selling t-shirts with a marihuana-leaf on them, you’re considered some heavy weight topcriminal. Oh, sure our shop was and still is provocative in some people’s eyes.

Don’t mean to sound like some old farts talking here, which we’re not. But let’s go back into time. With the help of a 20 square meter chicken fence and one fitting room which was a second hand windscreen et voilà the first shop in the Kammenstraat opens in 1978.
Everyone who’s anti-mainstream finds his or her way to that shack. You know, the word gothic is waiting to be invented at this time.

Punk, hardcore, new wave, grunge, speed metal, gothic etc … surface. As time goes by. FANS becomes a household name in these alternative music culture scenes and, hit me, in the kinky sex scene. Providing a healthy counterbalance for the mainstream culture of this world.

As it is with the fansssite.be, the shop is also a way of to come into contact with the underground scene. To expand this goal, we need you.

There’s only one slogan from the 60’s that has survived, like us: “tune in, turn on!”

In other words, You ask, we deliver. Preferably together.

The FANS-team