Hollands Glorie

Hollands Glorie was a band formed by two ex-members of BVD and Ketchup. Hailing from The Hague, Hollands Glorie was another band that sang in Dutch and added some more melody to their sound. There is a hint of Oi! to be found, as well as rock and roll, very catchy indeed. I think they were together for 3 years or something like that. Two of the bandmembers joined a band called World War Rockers afterwards. Uploaded are their demo and ep.
Demo
Harde Feiten ep

Bizon Kids

I can't really understand why I haven't uploaded the Bizon Kids ep yet. They were the first band Paul. Olav and myself ever shared the stage with during the first and only Sextons gig ever. I have mentioned before we used to go to a lot of punk gigs in Utrecht. The city was nearby and for some reason we always felt very comfortable at the gigs overthere (until we went to the Strength Thru Noxious! festival, but that is another story). At the time of the first Sextons gig, I met a punkette from Utrecht who was placed out of her home there and was living with fosterparents in Amersfoort. Het name was Meetje and I think she is the one who got us in touch with the Bizon Kidz. More on that gig can be found in the piece I wrote about the Sextons. The Bizon Kidz were a fun band to watch live, they joked around a lot and their ep is an example of that. They created their own game (Bizon Borden) which can be found on the lyric sheet and were not afraid to cover an a capella song about frikadellen (google that!). Besides this ep, they recorded some songs for the 'Rock Against' lp. After that, they faded away from the punk scene and I do not think they went on in other bands. I have fond memories of them playing at the rock against religion festival in Utrecht, in one of the cellars close to the town hall. Seein Red covered two songs of them over the years: Godsdienstwaanzin on the split with MK Ultra en Ouwe Lullen Tango on the anniversary ep. There is some live footage on youtube here

Bizon Kidz ep

Squits - Haarlem Punks

Yes I know it has been a real long while since the last post on this weblog, but I am hoping to do this on a more regulare basis from now on. This time I would like to introduce a band from Haarlem called 'Squits'. They self-released an ep in 1982 that had 12 songs on it, if I am correct this was the first Dutch ep with this amount of songs. Part of the artwork was done by Joost Swarte, a famous illustrator and artist from the Netherlands. Besides this ep, they also contributed to the first Holland Hardcore tape and by then they already had evolved into a faster hardcore band like a lot of punk bands did at that time. Not too soon after these recordigns the band split up and the bass player Paul joined or formed a new band called Pure Hate. They also slef released an ep that pops up every now and then due to dead stock being discovered at a lot of record stores and distros. It is one of those underrated hardcore records that not many people seem to care about. It is not rare enough or hyped enough. I think it is a great record and it includes a Squits song too (people). I never was fortunate enough to catch the Squits live though, I am not sure if they played live a lot. You will find the ep, the Holland Hardcore recordings and the Pure Hate ep underneath.

Enjoy
Squits ep
Squits Holland Hardcore recordings
Pure Hate ep

Miranda's

I know it has been a real long while since the last post here. Time is something that I do not seem to have enough of lately.
On Facebook, there's a group called 'Punk Rock Holland", basically it consists of a lot of old punks who post about the old days and moan about today and who used to be more punk than the other.
Besides that, you encounter nice people and some interesting facts as well and I ran into a live photo of a band called 'Miranda's'. Although I own both their ep's, I have never seen them live, or know a lot about this band. Someone told me that there will be a reissue of their ep's plus some demo recordings, alwawys nice to see this happen.
I uploaded the first ep, the second one will be uploaded another time.

An exibition on punk in the Netherlands has opened in Utrecht a few weeks ago. I went there last weekend and was not completely dissapointed, although I think it could have had some more focus on punk itself instead of on the 'arty part' of it. If all goes waccording to plan, an article by yours truly on this exhibition will be published soon.

mirandas ep

Art In Revolution

No new episode, but just mentioning that the singer of Art In Revolution got in touch and he gave me two links. One to the complete discography of the band and another one to the fanzine that they did. Thanks a lot Tony, this is very much appreciated. Both can be found in the thread on A-I-R

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"