Lärm - First gig april 8th 1983

Friday april 8th 1983 was the date Lärm played it's first live gig ever. We played at Tagrijn in Hilversum, a city quite close to Amersfoort and the venue was known for the weekly punk/new wave nights and also for putting on bands in this genre. If I am correct we played with Asperitys and I am not sure if Red Riot played or not, maybe it was just 2 bands.
I recall us being quite nervous, this being the first time for Lärm to play live on a stage with a PA system too. We arrived for soundcheck, plugged in and played two songs. The soundguy then asked us to stop fooling around and play a proper song. When we told him we just played two, he looked at us as if we were from another planet. He switched off his soundboard and left, shaking his head in disbelief. Obviously he did not care and if you listen carefully to the live recordings, you can hear reggae played through the PA while we played live. Maybe that is where my dislike of reggae comes from? Who knows.
After being introduced as 'LARM' (even Dutch people can't pronounce it right), we kicked off with a special version of 'Our Future'. Crass had a slogan 'Fight War - Not Wars', we had our own: 'Milk Cows - Not Bulls'. We even had a banner at some point with this slogan. We definately put effort into the image of being farmer punks, even though only Dorien and myself lived on a farm.
The crowd was not completely ready for us. Lärm was one of the first bands in Holland that took punk to another level: faster and louder than most other bands around back then and also completely clueless when it came to tune guitars. We knew how to use a distortion though!
On this recording you'll hear a few songs that were skipped before the split lp with Stanx. Sick Of You and Oh Beatrix were both Total Chaoz songs originally and if I am correct Dead Soldiers was a Sextons song even. Country Life was a song glorifying life on the farm and HCP (stands for Hardcore Punk) was changed into OSL later on. Wodka had a different intro back then and some songs are longer than the versions we recorded on vinyl.
For me this was a pleasant trip down memory lane and hopefully the Dutch speaking people can understand some of the in between song ranting.
I guess this is where the Campaign For Musical Destruction started.

Tracklist:
01 our future
02 nijpels face - ban the bomb

03 disorder - vader abraham
04 pigeon
05 nothing for us
06 too old
07 police threats
08 only reality - south africa
09 passive punks
10 revolting youth - oh beatrix
11 wodka
12 country life - dead soldiers - hcp



Lärm: first live gig ever

Tröckener Kecks (demo)

Tröckener Kecks, it could stand for 'Dry Biscuits', but I am not even sure if it is written in an existing language.
I have been looking for their first lp 'Schliessbaum' for ages. It was one of those records I did not pick up when it was released, basically because I did not have enough money to buy all records released and choices had to be made. Paul and Olav taped it for me though and at that time, it did the job really well. I know someone in Amersfoort has a copy too, but despite all my trying and begging, he did not want to part with it.
You can imagine my joy when my friend Theun sent me a textmessage: 'Schliessbaum without lyricsheet in good condition, interested?' Ofcourse I was and for an ok price I am finally owning this record. Another one crossed of the list.
The Tröckener Kecks were part of the second wave of punk bands in Amsterdam. What makes them stand out of the rest, are the lyrics. Often poetic, but also critical and therefor interesting. Listening to them these days, they could be compared to the Undertones at some point. Musicwise that is.
They once played about 5 km from my house. I think I mentioned that gig in the post I did on the Nitwitz.

Tröckener Kecks were also featured on that mega-festival in the UK called 'Christmas On Earth' where they played among a lot of UK82 bands as well as Black Flag and Lama (!). Henry Rollins wrote about this festival in Get in the Van.
Personally I lost interest in the Tröckener Kecks after their second ep, that is when they moved on from punk to more rock. They actually became a quite succesfull band lateron, with different members than the Original line-up.
I have uploaded their 1980 demo, recorded at Oktopus Amsterdam. Most of these songs can be found on the Rik Ringers ep or the Schliessbaum lp. Sometimes in a different version that the ones on the records. There's also some unreleased songs (as far as I know).
In his book 'Johan was punk an dhe knows it' , Johan van Leeuwen wrote about the times he joined the Tröckener Kecks on the gigs they played. Being fanatic fans of Heineken, every time they passed the brewery on their way to a gig, the van stopped, everybody jumped out and kissed the walls of the brewery. Hence the song 'Heineken Beer', which is a non stop ode to this beer brand (and we all know it tastes like shit right?). Dutch punk band Outlawz wrote a song called 'Chocomel' (chocolate milk) as a reaction to the Tröckener Kecks ode.
I will upload the first ep and the Schliessbaum lp somewhere in the future.
Enjoy their demo



Tröckener Kecks demo

Utreg Punx compilation ep

I have mentioned it before that Utrecht was a city that influenced us a lot in our earliest punk days. It was close to Amersfoort and had quite a vibrant punk scene, with loads of bands, zines and record stores. Needless to say that we went there quite often. The punks from Utrecht called themselves Utreg Punx and at that time most punks named themselves after the city or area they came from. Mokum Punks were from Amsterdam (Mokum is a nickname for Amsterdam), punks from Groningen called themselves Grunn Punx, punks from the eastern part of the Netherlands were called Boer'n Punx (Farmer Punks) and so on. Jet$et once wrote a song about this, condemning all the punks who weree eager to label themselves after the city/area they were from. But that is a different story. The punks in Utrecht were very DIY and also not too keen on a lot of bands from the UK who they labelled as rock stars (for example Stiff Little Fingers, because they left the stage when punks did not stop throwing beer at them, UK Subs for appearing on BBC television). They organised concerts in various venues and later on in squats. I remember going to place like Rasa, NV Huis and SSR and many (temporary) squats. They also had their own record label called Rock Against. The most well known output must be the Utreg Punx compilation ep which features the only vinyl output (so far, but more on that in a few months time) of the (in)famous Noxious. Their song 'Sunday Fools' is a short violent blast of 'we don't give a fuck' punk. The version recorded on the ep is basically the try out version to test the levels and turned out to be the best version. On these recordings they had a stand-in bass player (Buffel, who played bass in the Bizon Kids). Rakketax still had the female singer at this point. It is also the vinyl debut of the Nixe, one of the first all female punk bands from the Netherlands, known for their very simple songs, but who ever said that punk rock needed complex song structures eh? Lullabies records a song that was a lot noisier and rawer than the one released on the U-Tracks compilation lp and it was also one of the first outputs by the Ex. Who were not really from Utrecht, but who cares? At that time, two members of the Ex lived in Utrecht. (thanks for the correction GW Sok)
This ep is a fine example of what happened musically at that time and as far as I am concerned the Noxious song is one of the best songs ever from a Dutch punk band. It might even be one of the first hardcoresongs ever recorded in the Netherlands.
 opefully after the release of the Lullabies discography, the unreleased Noxious recordings will be available as an ep. I will keep you posted on that ofcourse.
Seein Red covered two songs on this ep on our anniversary ep: The Lullabies song and (ofcourse) the one by Noxious.
Utreg Punx ep