Kippenhok squat (s) Amersfoort

Since I've mentioned the Kippenhok squats in Amersfoort in previous posts, here's some footage from both squats that can be found on youtube. It's all from the Definite Choice Video Party tapes and we all should hassle Paul and Olav to re-release those tapes on dvd!

First off we have a band called Second Siberia, they're from Amersfoort and besides a demo (which I will rip sooner or later) they did not release anything. This was filmed at Kippenhok II


The Deadlock footage below was filmed at Kippenhok I. Deadlock were from Amsterdam and released an lp as well as some tracks on the 'Beware of the wolf in sheep clothing' lp



BGK must be known to everyone, the first Dutch punkband to make it to the USA (or was that Panic?). 2nd line up here (with fretless bass!!) filmed at Kippenhok II when they played with Negazione.


SCA were from Amsterdam, they were called Staphorster Chaoten Alliantie at first but changed that into Strong Concentration of Anger. This is the first line up, they had a different bass player later on. We made them put on shorts for this gig, otherwise they were not allowed to play (yeah, call us idiots indeed). Filmed at Kippenhok I


Finally here's some footage of BTD (who chenged name to Betray lateron). They released a tape as well as tracks on the 'On our way to fool's paradise'


And there's loads more, like I said, we should harass Paul and Olav for that!

Vopo's and our encounter with the Baarn skins

This week someone (Peter Verzijl) posted old photos of punk bands performing at Paradiso in Amsterdam. Amongst the photos were a couple of the Vopo's, who were from Zwolle and delivered a classic 4 track ep and a great lp. I must have mentioned them in the thread about the Vultures, because they often played together.
I remember we went to see them at the Oktopus in Amsterdam where they played together with the Outlawz (if I remember right). The venue was packed with punks, from Amsterdam, but also quite a lot from other places. And yes there were some skinheads too, most of them were cool but a couple of them seemed to be out for a fight, but did not dare to, because they were easily outnumbered by all the punks.
Both bands delivered a really good set and especially the Vopo's made quite an impact. When the last band finished, the punks went outside and soaked in sweat we made our way to the railway station. The were more punks on the road and also that group of skins were on their way to catch a train. At the platform the skins started to harass a couple of punks but they did not know that there were friends of the punks already on the train. All of a sudden, the platform was full of punks kicking the skinheads and teaching them a lesson (or two). We witnessed this all from our train that was on another platform and thought it was a really hilarious situation, untill the skinheads entered our train.... There were just four of us and at least ten skinheads, so all of a sudden the situation had changed drastically. They asked us why we had not helped them and before we even could come up with an answer, one of us was hit over the head with a stick and they started to punch us. The condoctur of the train saved our asses by letting us in the 1st class department and then locking the doors. We had no idea where these assholes were from and I remember we were really relieved when they left the train in Baarn, a small city on the west side of Amersfoort. Years later, when I was at college I had a classmate who turned out to be the sister of one of these Baarn Skins. When I told her about this encounter she could do nothing more agree on the fact that they were complete assholes.

Back to the Vopo's and their ep. They did deliver 4 really good punk songs on that piece of vinyl and we even covered 'Menten' with the Sextons. I have seen them three times in total and the last time I saw them, was in Hilversum, where they played at Tagrijn (the venue where Lärm did it's very first gig). This was when they had changed vocalists and I think they had just released the 'Conquer' lp. That lp was quite a dissapointment, but nevertheless we went to see them, hoping they would do some old songs as well. When their new singer entered the stage it was not a good sign. Studded wristbands all the way to his elbows and looking as mean as possible (which turned out to be looking like a clown basically). The atmosphere at this gig was not right and I remember there was a lot of rivalry between various cities and areas in Holland. I have mentioned that before if I am right.
Apparently something had happened between some punks from Utrecht and punks from the Zwolle area. Eitherway, the Utrecht punks were there to settle the score, but we never witnessed that, because the Vopo's did not play old songs anymore. For us there was no reason to watch them so we left. Our friends from Hilversum stayed and they told us the horror stories of the fights that broke out during the Vopo's set.
Years and years later Slapshot would do a song 'So ends our night (into another fight)', which sort of glorifies violence at shows. Let me assure you there was not much fun at these violent gigs, you'd get your head kicked in for having the wrong pins or band logo's. Violence already sucked back then and it still does.

In the file you'll find the Vopo's ep. It got re-released and the Vopo's are back together, but I have not seen them since the reunion they did in Steenwijk amongst reunions of Zmiv, Stanx, Glorious Death and Lärm. I did not really like them to be honest, but the ep and lp are classics and they stood the test of time perfectly.
Right now they describe themselves as speed metal band and the brothers Frans and Theo de Grebber are the only original members. Check their site at vopo's

Vopo's 7"

Resistance

I was just browsing through Dan's blog old-fast and loud where I discovered the demo tape by Resistance. Dan wrote they were from Zwolle, but that band was called Lá Résistance and were from the Steenwijk area if I am correct.
The Resistance tape he uploaded is a band from Amersfoort and yours truly is responsible for the cover art.
Amersfoort had various waves of hardcore punk. In one of the earlier post I mentioned the Asperitys and the Puke. You could call them the second wave I guess. The third wave of bands was around when we had the 'Kippenhok' squats in Amersfoort. The first squat was right in the city center and it was a big church. We ran a bar in there and organised many gigs. Bands such as BGK, Negazione, Kaaos, Tension, SCA, Funeral Oration, Pandemonium and many many more played a lot of great gigs there.
This was also when we got to know people like Theun and Guus, Mirjam, Lara Emilie and others. When the the church burned down a villa was squatted and that was in the richer area of Amersfoort. This worked out pretty well actually. In that squat we had bands like Heresy, Heibel, Government Issue, BGK, Negazione, WCF and many more played there.
This was the time of the third wave of bands. Resistance was one of them, together with Second Siberia and Loud Warning.
The members of Resistance came from surrounding smaller towns as well, but were part of the core of the Amersfoort punks. If I am correct, most of the Resistance members went on as Loud Warning, who were also on the 'On our way to fool's paradise' compilation lp. I think there's even some live footage on youtube somewhere, because I know people have put the Definite Choice video tapes online.
The gigs at both of the squats were a lot of fun most of the times, though in the first one, there was always a threat of local disco youth trying to pick fights and attacking the squat after all the bars closed at 2 pm. I remember the place being really packed when BGK, Lärm and Negazione played there. That must have been one of the wildest gigs ever at that squat. This is also where AMKA did their one and only gig (AMKA was Paul, Olav, Marcr and myself). We did not really rehearse and I remember the 'song' called 'trillende bril' (vibrating specs), where we were silent and I airdrummed which made my specs vibrate. So much for my career on the drums.
In the second squat we organised a lot of gigs with local bands and bands from nearby. We even got in touch with the metal scene and had some of those bands play there too (Second Hell for example. Some of the gigs there were really great, I particularly remember the Heresy one being a fantastic gig. Government Issue was great too, but they were not the most open people. All in all, good memories of that time.
The file that is in the download was being put together by Dan and he also cleaned the recordings and did a good job on that. I did not change the tags, simply because I have no clue how to do that. Dan even made a cover for a cd-r (he does that for all of his files), so all credits to him!
Next time you run into Gwynn @ the OCCII or some other venue, ask him about (t)his band!
Resistance demo

More Mollesters

A couple of weeks ago I was at my friend Marcel's place to do some screenprinting for the limited version of the Systematic Death new ep on the ever great label way back when records . When it was lunchtime, Jeroen also came by (Marcel and Jeroen used to run Coalition Records together). It almost felt like a reunion because I had not seen Jeroen for a very long time. We ended up talking about old Dutch punk bands and Jeroen promised me to get me in touch with some member of the Neo Punkz (I am helping my friend Paco with some re-releases of classic Dutch bands). A short while after Jeroen left, he called and told me he ran into someone who used to be in the Mollesters or was a good friend of them (this guy also used to all the printing for the Coalition label). We decided to meet up with him when we went into town and on a square not too far from Marcel's place we had an interesting chat about Mollesters, BVD, Hollands Glorie and more old punk(s). I told him about the blog and he seemed really into it and willing to hand me some recordings to be (re)released on vinyl too. Untill now I have not heard from him, but I am patient.
After I publiced the Mollesters live set on this blog, my friend Paul reminded me of a short live set they did for the VPRO radio, somewhere back in 1980 or so. I used to have that on tape myself, but it has dissapeared. Luckly Paul still had it and he gave me a copy last weekend. So thanks to Paul, you're all able to listen to more Mollesters live. Sound quality is quite good and the songs are killer. I have no titles, but I guess the first songs is called Violence, then we have Ignorance, a song about Niki Lauda, a song that is probably called 'you're sexless' and finally a song about a tarantula(?). Really good stuff and if you can understand Dutch, you'll hear someone in the audience shouting: 'Yeah fantastic' all the time. At the end the crowd is shouting 'louder' and then the tape cuts off. I am not sure if there were more songs broadcasted or not and I don't know where this was recorded.
Getting back to Paco, the first release will be a Lullabies discography. At the moment I am collecting as many photos, flyers and other related stuff. We have this wild idea about a release party, but I will not tell anything untill it is certain.
In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the Mollesters!
Mollesters live at VPRO radio

ROODWITZWART

In a previous post I've uploaded the Jetset / Bloedbad split tape. Both bands deliver some really good solid fast hardcorepunk on that gem and today I decided to upload a 4way split lp, featuring Jetset, Bloedbad, Massagraf and Barbies Boyfriend. It is a self released lp. All 4 bands were part of the Rood Wit Zwart (red, white black) collective.
Where Jetset and Bloedbad are taking care of the faster spectrum, Massagraf (Massgrave) and Barbies Boyfriend deliver the more experimental part of punk, dare I call it New Wave??
Members of Jetset, Bloedbad, Massagraf and Vacuum formed the 'all star' band Massacubadset for a short while.
This lp is pretty hard to find, I have no idea how many were pressed. It is worth tracking down for sure.
Not too many details in this post, I've showed my eternal love for Jetset and Bloedbad in the previous one.
ROOD WIT ZWART

Tandstickörshocks

Rotterdam had the Red Rock collective: Rondos, Rode Wig, Sovjets and Tandstickörshocks. One of the very first gigs I went to together with Paul and Olav, was Tandstickörshocks, the Ex, Lullabies and one more band performing live in Utrecht. I think it was at a venue called Rasa. At that time punks liked all genres in punk and so people danced to the minimal music of Tandstickörshocks (as far as possible ofcourse). I remember the bandmembers trying to look mean, with their shaved heads and uniforms, but they did not came across that way at all. I honestly can't remember if I liked them or not, I know I enjoyed the Lullabies a lot.

During summertime it was possible to get a card called 'Tienertoer'. The card allowed you to travel by train all over the country for a week for something like 40 guilders. We travelled to the bigger cities to check out record stores and punk related stores (I recall travelling to The Hague because we knew Creepers were on sale there, when we got to the shoe store they only had smaller sizes left....). One of the trips took us to Rotterdam and we went to the 'Raketbasis'. That was the house where all members of the Red Rock collective lived, bands rehearsed and where they printed their zine called 'Raket'. When we arrived at the house, no one dared to ring the doorbell, simply because we did not know what to expect hahahaha. Punks from the countryside eh?
The door was opened by this student looking guy and I recognized him from the Tandstickörshocks gig in Utrecht, he was the singer. After buying some pins, a few records and zines, we left the house. No one in there even remotely looked punk! Damn, that was a shock indeed.
Only the Rondos and the Tandstickörshocks released vinyl, too bad the other bands did not. In the attached file you'll find the Tandstickörshocks ep and a couple of live song by them. Besides the ep, they have some songs on the 'Rotterdam Collection' compilation lp.

Years and years later there was a documentary about one of the band members: Pinkel. I tried to find that movie on the internet, but could not find it. If you search for 'Pinkel' on youtube, you'll find two short films starring him in a bar in Rotterdam.......

Tandstickörshocks

Nitwitz

The Nitwitz were one of the second wave punkbands in the Netherlands. They started around 1979 and released two really good ep's (self titled, the worst of the nitwitz) a killer live set on the nitwitz/götterflies split lp and then a rather dissapointing 12" called 'Scorched Earth Policy'. They also recorded a couple of songs for the famous 'Als je haar maar goed zit #1' lp. Those recordings were a lot more polished than their previous ones and at time I liked my punk raw and unpolished, just like I still do.
I think I have seen them live two or three times. One time in a garage in the Bijlmer (same gig as I saw the Bizkids)and probably once or twice more in Amsterdam.
They were playing very close to my house at one point, in Hoevelaken. Hoevelaken had it's own youthcentre at that time (as many cities and towns did) and somehow they invited the Nitwitz and Götterflies to play there. This was when they just released their 'The worst of...' ep.
Money was not always around and I had two options: Go and see the bands live or buy the ep. I choose to buy the record. At that time I had a small side job, taking milksamples at various farms, so another reason probably was I had to get up at 5 on the saturdaymorning.
Anyways, the youthcentre called 'Kazemat' was in the basement of the local music hall (I think it was a atomic shelter actually, maybe Theun knows that for sure?). On the same night André Hazes was performing upstairs. Google his name and listen to some mp3's and maybe you can get an idea of the crowd that came down to see him. White thrash indeed and that combined with the farmer mentality of a lot of them was a nasty combination with the punks that came to see the bands in the basement. When one of them was playing with a buckknife, this was the sign for the upsairs visitors to attack the people downstairs. It became a night full of violence and if I am correct some people were hospitalized as well. So much for punk in Hoevelaken.
Years later we played their ourselves. And ofcourse there was another event upstairs: The Havenzangers played the same evening and yes, they attracted the same crowd as André Hazes did. Part of that crowd found out there was a hardcore gig downstairs and wanted to kick some punk asses. I can't really remember much but I do remember we locked ourselves inside the office and remained safe that way.
Back to the Nitwitz, not too long after they released their 12", the band broke up. Their singer Erik formed a band called 'Outrageous' and the other members formed BGK, who became the first Dutch hardcore band to tour the USA. Tony (the original bassplayer) reformed the Nitwitz years and years later and moved to guitar in that line up.
The recordings in the file are from the 100th gig anniversary, it contains songs off their records as well as a few unreleased ones.
Hopefully there will be a Nitwitz discography some day. The first two ep's and live side will do Tony :-)

Nitwitz 100th gig