|
|
Post by jk on Jun 30, 2022 16:35:19 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Jul 4, 2023 7:36:01 GMT -5
Hmm, on top of my head: - Cuby & the Blizzards (or Cuby + Blizzards): probably the best Dutch blues band there ever was. Check out their 60's work. Windows Of My Eyes Appelknockers Flophouse (and yes, that's Herman Brood behind the piano) - Earth & Fire ( not Earth, Wind & Fire): especially their earlier work endlessharmony.boards.net/thread/2177/prog-rock-hub?page=1&scrollTo=61278And - perhaps a bit to poppy for some of us here - but Shocking Blue should be on the list as well. endlessharmony.boards.net/thread/1735/pension-song?page=1&scrollTo=46754 and what about Love Buzz (of which Nirvana thought it was worth covering): As for Dutch / groups artists that sing in Dutch: - De Dijk (band) - Boudewijn de Groot (singer-songwriter, in his early career often labelled as a protest singer) |
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Jul 4, 2023 10:42:45 GMT -5
.... and just for fun, one more track from Focus: Hocus Pocus - live at the Midnight Special (or: how to blow both Gladys Knight and the complete audience of their seats...)
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 4, 2023 12:46:03 GMT -5
.... and just for fun, one more track from Focus: Hocus Pocus - live at the Midnight Special (or: how to blow both Gladys Knight and the complete audience off their seats...) Ha, yes. I saw Focus at London's Marquee Club in early 1972. I'd heard "Tommy" on the radio and knew I had to see this bunch live. They didn't disappoint. I was less enamoured of Thijs van Leer's histrionics, although it's clear he oozes music out of every pore (still does, in fact). But it was Jan Akkerman's guitar chops that really blew me away. And then they played "Tommy" -- wow!  |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 4, 2023 12:52:13 GMT -5
Hmm, on top of my head: - Cuby & the Blizzards (or Cuby + Blizzards): probably the best Dutch blues band there ever was. Check out their 60's work. Appelknockers Flophouse (and yes, that's Herman Brood behind the piano)A drummer in the blues band I joined in 2000 used to play with Cuby. I saw Kayak once in the '70s but they were a bit wimpy. Kaz Lux of Brainbox opened for them -- it should have been the other way round! |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 5, 2023 13:10:03 GMT -5
In Peter Tetteroo and John Swildens' The Beach Boys in Holland there's a brief description of the farewell party thrown at a discotheque for the Boys before they left for California. The band providing the live music was Long Tall Ernie and The Shakers (they were before my time in NL), whose performance that day earned them a recording contract. One of their biggest hits was "Big Fat Mama", which reached #11 in the Dutch charts in 1973:
Their bassist, Henk Bruijsten, left the following year to form Hank the Knife and the Jets (I do remember them), whose debut single, "Guitar King", with its nod to Duane Eddy and featuring Henk/Hank on what their Dutch wiki calls a "six-bass", was a top three hit in NL:
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 8, 2023 5:46:16 GMT -5
Well, the Boys are in very mixed company in the roster of BBC-Studios recording artists! The varied fare includes short stories (columnist Simon Carmiggelt), Bulgarian folk dances (Orkest Brandon), prog rock (The Dream) and boogie-woogie piano (Rob Hoeke, once a perennial guest at jazz festivals). To say nothing of kids' choruses -- from 1972, this is "Woopy Wip" sung by De Merels (the blackbirds): www.discogs.com/label/414098-BBC-Studios-Baambrugge |
|
|
|
Post by lizzielooziani on Jul 8, 2023 9:30:45 GMT -5
Thanks for the Focus “Hocus Pocus” clip. Brought back fun memories.
Of course I tried to sing (or screech) along - can’t hit those high notes anymore!
Recommendations for Dutch bands with great vocal harmonies?
Or Dutch traditional folk music?
Will check out these other clips posted.
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 8, 2023 12:39:02 GMT -5
Thanks for the Focus “Hocus Pocus” clip. Brought back fun memories. Of course I tried to sing (or screech) along - can’t hit those high notes anymore! Recommendations for Dutch bands with great vocal harmonies? Or Dutch traditional folk music? Will check out these other clips posted. Hi Lizzie. I must confess I have never hit the low notes, let alone the high notes, of "Hocus Pocus". Great to have seen them do it live though. I even stumbled across Thijs's organ at a recording studio once (that sounds terrible). Dutch traditional folk music isn't my area (maybe SMiLE-Holland has some ideas). As for great vocal harmonies, I immediately thought of the a cappella group Montezuma's Revenge. (I used to play in a band with one of their number.) They seem to do mainly covers -- not sure about this one: |
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Jul 8, 2023 15:58:23 GMT -5
Thanks for the Focus “Hocus Pocus” clip. Brought back fun memories. Of course I tried to sing (or screech) along - can’t hit those high notes anymore! Recommendations for Dutch bands with great vocal harmonies? Or Dutch traditional folk music? Will check out these other clips posted. There’s The Buffoons. A Dutch vocal group, mainly active in the 60s and 70s. nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buffoons (only a Dutch page is available). They did a nice cover of the BB btw I’m not really into folk music. But, just a few months ago, the book Folkpioniers, by Tom Steenbergen was published (by the same publisher that did the Beach Boys in Holland book). Tom is a BB fan too btw. www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/folkpioniers/9300000134143728/www.vangorcum.nl/product/100-513_FolkpioniersOnly available in Dutch, so you’ll have to practice your knowledge on my native language a bit. But it’s worth a read: www.vangorcum.nl/media/2/folkpioniers_inkijkexemplaar.pdf (scroll down a bit to get an idea of the content 20 chapters, most of them deal with the US and UK folk scene. But the last 5-6 chapters are devoted to Dutch folk. Specific Dutch groups that are mentioned, are Fungus, Wargaren, Irolt en Flairck, but there are lots of more local groups. |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 9, 2023 3:36:13 GMT -5
Only available in Dutch, so you’ll have to practice your knowledge on my native language a bit. But it’s worth a read: www.vangorcum.nl/media/2/folkpioniers_inkijkexemplaar.pdf (scroll down a bit to get an idea of the content 20 chapters, most of them deal with the US and UK folk scene. But the last 5-6 chapters are devoted to Dutch folk. Specific Dutch groups that are mentioned, are Fungus, Wargaren, Irolt en Flairck, but there are lots of more local groups. The only name I recognize from your list is Flairck, who I recall were quite big in a niche-y kind of a way in the late '70s. "Aoife" is the opening track from their first and most successful album Variaties op een dame ("variations on a lady", 1978): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flairck |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 9, 2023 3:44:58 GMT -5
Once again, it was a sentence in The Beach Boys in Holland that make me seek out this Dutch band of yore. I should point out that the charismatic lead singer of Tee-Set (and the one constant throughout its history) is not the Peter Tetteroo who co-wrote the aforementioned book. (The Tee-Set front man died in 2002.) My wife remembers their Dutch chart-topper "Ma Belle Amie", which went on to become a top 5 hit in the US and Canada in the wake of Shocking Blue's "Venus": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tee-Set |
|
|
|
Post by SMiLE-Holland on Jul 9, 2023 5:27:10 GMT -5
I liked their follow-up hit more, but for obvious reasons that one didn’t make it to the US Billboard top 100 🙄
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 12, 2023 14:52:48 GMT -5
The Dream (1966–1973) played at a number of major Dutch festivals over the years, including the celebrated Kralingen Pop Festival of 1970, as well as in Paris and London. They opened for the likes of Pink Floyd, The Kinks and Steppenwolf. The Dream used film projections and liquid slides during their performances. "Mr. V" is one of at least four tracks recorded at BBC Studios in 1971. (I get the impression that they were past their prime by this point.) The lineup now consisted of Rini Wikkering (guitar), John van Buren (keyboards), Karel Zwart (drums), Floris Kolvenbach (guitar, vocals, all compositions) and Edgar Swanenberg (bass guitar). www.discogs.com/release/5113770-The-Dream-Rebellion |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 15, 2023 12:11:21 GMT -5
These are Road, whom our Boys may briefly have rubbed shoulders with in their Baambrugge days.
"A Song For Everyone" isn't the most enthralling track you'll hear today, but then a lot of Dutch stuff from those days was pretty nondescript (at least to these ears). This is the slightly tweaked google-translated YouTube blurb:
"First single from the Leeuwarden pop band Road, then consisting of Hans Krakou (vocals), Harry Kootstra (bass guitar and vocals) Arjen Kamminga (drums) and Frans van den Borg (keyboards and vocals). The recording was made in the early 1970s at BBC Studios in Baambrugge. Harry Kootstra was later replaced by Frans Span, the group made six singles and gained national fame through radio and TV with 'To Know That I Love You', appearing on the Eddy Go Round Show and TopPop. Their most famous song, however, remains "Unchained Melody", the B side of this single. All singles were assembled on an album released a few years ago."
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Jul 17, 2023 6:47:18 GMT -5
Like Road, the psych-folk band The Full Moon Band (or just Full Moon) also briefly frequented BBC Studios. Unlike Road, it seems certain they had a more direct Beach Boys connection, at least if the information in this slightly tweaked interview is correct: Interviewer: What's the story behind your debut album? Johannes Luttik: There was a link with Don Willard. He had a studio in Baambrugge, the BBC Music Farm studio. The equipment was left behind by The Beach Boys, after they recorded Holland. They made a deal with Don Willard and left their stuff, which they had flown in before. Lucky us!! Half of the recordings were done in two days, the other half was a live recording at the Egelantiers in Haarlem (Ide Min was the engineer). [ Source] The third and last track on side one (the studio side) of their 1977 debut album is the 13-minute "People". The lineup for Moon Fools was JL (guitar and vocals), Lucas Amor (violin) and Norman Halsall (bongos and tabla) |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 2, 2023 15:54:58 GMT -5
This is "Ain't That Enough", a track of unknown authorship by the Dutch surf-punk band The Travoltas (with thanks to Rick and KJ for the heads up). My spies tell me the lineup on this song consists of Perry Leenhouts (lead vocals), Jochem "Skokie" Weemaes (keyboards, backing vocals), Michel "Micky" Meeuwissen (lead and rhythm guitars), Daan van Hooff (rhythm and acoustic guitars), Erik van Vugt (bass, backing vocals) and Wouter "Woody" Verhulst (drums). It kicks off the band's eighth (and last?) studio album Until We Hit The Shore. Released in 2017, the ten-track album was recorded in early 2016 at Verhulst's Amsterdam-based studio Van Sonic and mixed by Leenhouts during the summer and autumn of that year in Chicago, IL. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Travoltas |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 7, 2023 6:51:54 GMT -5
This is one of two Dutch psychedelic tracks YouTube fed me yesterday. (I'll be posting the other one in the "1966" topic.) According to Discogs, "Dragonfly were a Dutch psychedelic band active from 1967 until 1969. They were famous for their painted faces pre-KISS. Live shows were with painter Hans Verhagen, who painted their faces, etc." Makes you wonder what the etc was. "Dragonfly -- John Caljouw (vocals), Rudy de Queljoe (guitar), Tonny de Queljoe (bass) and Huib Pouwer (drums) -- were heavily influenced by British psychedelic bands such as Pink Floyd and the likes of Jimi Hendrix. In 1968, the band toured Holland and opened for Pink Floyd, after which Philips released their debut single 'Celestial Dreams'. It briefly reached the Dutch Top 40. Their second single, 'Celestial Empire', came close to a chart position but missed out by merely a few hundred copies. Their debut album got pulled by the label, even though it had already been recorded, and is one of the most sought after recordings in the Netherlands. After this, the band decided to break up. Guitarist Rudy de Queljoe joined a series of very successful Dutch bands including Brainbox, Massada and Vitesse." Source (with a little tweaking by JK): Behind The Dykes booklet: see www.discogs.com/Various-Behind-The-Dykes-Beat-Blues-And-Psychedelic-Nuggets-From-The-Lowlands-1964-1972/release/15906628 |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 10, 2023 6:15:27 GMT -5
Hailing from Assen in the province of Drenthe, Sound of Imker (1967–1970) consisted of the brothers Robert "Tokkel" Imker (guitar) and Remco Imker (bass guitar), Paul Peijters (drums) and Peter Homan (vocals). Tokkel Imker played in the early '70s alongside Herman Brood in the Flash & Dance Band (a BBC Studios recording act). A drug addict for much of his life, he died in 2001 of an overdose, aged 52. The band's lone 45, "Train Of Doomsday", was originally released on the Philips label in 1969: milkcowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/train-of-doomsday |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 15, 2023 8:51:18 GMT -5
Two bands for the price of one now...
From 1970, this is "Astral Plane", the lone 45 by Influenza. This is what band member @pengoffe has to say about it in the comments (reproduced verbatim):
Influenza was a dutch band from Amsterdam, that lived for a year in Paris (1968).
The members of the band were (from left to right on the cover): Peng Øffe (that's me) – drums, Clovis (he is French) – percussion (not on the record), Frans Lammerts – guitar, Dop Nansink – bassguitar and vocals (vocals on the B side), Dwight ... (forgot his last name) – guitar and vocals (only on Astral Plane). Pieter Voogt was the drummer before I joined the band.
The songs are recorded in 1968, I was 17 at that time and had to have permission from my parents to play in France, because I was to young.
The song is written by Dwight ... and not by Nansink/Lammerts.
The B side (Trick) was supposed to be the A side but Dwight (who was the roady at that time!) was playing a bit just for fun on acoustic guitar, a song he just wrote, and the producer and everybody else liked it so much that we decided to make it the A side. That song was Astral Plane. We never played it before, the record was the first time. Another funny thing is, on the record you hear a peep and then "can you hear anything?". That was not supposed to be on the record, it was the technician that opend the studio door (peep) and asked if the headphones were working (can you hear anything?). But, again, everybody liked it, so .....
Cinderella were Betty Raatgever (vocals and guitar), Bernardien de Jong (vocals and guitar), Renée Sampiemon (vocals and bass guitar) and the one male member Nico van Es (drums). Hailing from Oegstgeest, Leidschendam and The Hague, they released the Betty Raadgever composition "From town to town" in 1971:
|
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 17, 2023 5:57:33 GMT -5
Many Dutch musicians and singers hail from the former Dutch colony of Suriname in South America, one of the most successful being Max Nijman. "Alla Mie San E Befie" closes side one of Nijman's album Katibo, released in 1975 on the Pink Elephant label as PE 877.087. The album was arranged, produced and conducted by Stan Lokhin and M. Nijman. Katibo was recorded at (wait for it) B.B.C. Studios in Baambrugge and engineered by Tony Cummings. [ Source] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Nijman |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 18, 2023 2:33:58 GMT -5
Last night I spent an hour or two exploring Dutch psych and "freakbeat" stuff of the 1960s and quite frankly, I didn't find anything that grabbed me enough to warrant posting it here! (Methinks I'll be moving on to Dutch male "classical" composers next.) The one exception was this curiously infectious single from 1967 by Dimitri (not to be confused with today's "DJ Dimitri"). The man behind the moniker is the Amsterdam cartoonist Toon van Driel. In the late '60s and early '70s, van Driel wrote lyrics for Shocking Blue (of "Venus" fame") and released two singles in his own right, this one as Dimitri and the other (in 1971) as Marchall. Actually, "Got A Dog Named Sally" has a personal connection as my parents did indeed own a dog of that name in those years: www.lambiek.net/artists/t/toon_van_driel.htm |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 19, 2023 7:00:39 GMT -5
And then I was fed this... Lap Dog Tally -- Bas Munniksma (flute, sax and vocals), George Kleefman (guitar and vocals), Piet Dekker (bass guitar) and Willem Bemboom (drums) -- evolved out of the Emmen-based band Human Orchestra. In 1972, they recorded their lone 45 "Multicoloured Dreams" for the Ariola record label. Produced by Martin Duiser, it regrettably (and somewhat inexplicably) went nowhere. The band soon split up -- Piet Dekker went on to co-found the hugely successful Dutch-language band Doe Maar and Munniksma and Kleefman enrolled at the Amsterdam Conservatoire. |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 20, 2023 4:35:42 GMT -5
Arnold Schoenberg was still searching for his twelve-tone system and Igor Stravinsky had not yet come into full flower when Jakob van Domselaer (1890–1960) began on his Proeven van Stijlkunst (experiments in artistic style) for piano (1913–1917), abstract sound clusters where time seems to have solidified. He himself called them klankstollingen (literally, "coagulations in sound"). The theoretical framework for his sound experiments arose from his contact with the painter Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl movement. It was van Domselaer who first performed the music of Busoni and Schoenberg in the Netherlands in 1914. His First Symphony (1921), despite an affinity with Mahler and Shostakovich, is completely unique in style and form. The two piano concertos of 1924 and 1926 are at least as expressive but above all they show van Domselaer to have been an admirer of the nineteenth-century piano school in the tradition of Liszt and Busoni. [With thanks to Google Translate] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_van_Domselaer |
|
|
|
Post by jk on Aug 21, 2023 5:40:56 GMT -5
There's really no need for me to spend time searching for Dutch 45s from the mid sixties. Seems I never have to wait long before a candidate pops up in my YouTube feed. Such as this one from 1967 by The Counts, all the way from Nijmegen in the east of the country. It is claimed here that The Counts imitated The Hollies. I don't hear it on "I Can’t Go On", the blues and jazz inflected B-side of their second and last single, "It’s Al(l)right" (which doesn't sound like The Hollies either). The Counts were Theo Driessen (vocals), Lucas Nijkamp (guitar and vocals), Martin Nijkamp (bass guitar) and Willy Eyhout (drums). No idea who the organist is: |
|
