The singer looked completely off his head, part Admiral de Ruyter, part bricklayer.
The singer looked completely off his head, part Admiral de Ruyter, part bricklayer.
Summer Punks Party! – Sub 071, Leiden, 08/08/08
Fun, fun fun!
What more could the discerning underground gig goer want? 11 bands, a bit of grub, and a cheap beer bar in the most congenial of squat surroundings. All this hilarity came by way of celebrating Sub 071’s two and a half years as a venue and three years of Multipleks as an institution in its own righton a most auspiciouos and magical calendar date. This country would be a much duller place without the good folk who run Sub, believe you me…
Incendiary got down there in time to see Izah, whose sludgy, punky blitz combined an element of postrock that gave them a swagger that we weren’t at all expecting. They’re an energetic lot, and deceptive, in that there’s a lot more light and shade about their music than the format would normally suggest. And how the singer delivers his throaty growl on a regular basis is beyond me… Bloody enjoyable though. Down the stairs we popped to see All Shall Be Well. Now, this lot are something else, even though their preferred style of music – instrumental post-rock with a shoegazey sheen – has a lot of competitors at the moment. Still, they stand out, if only for the unbridled energy they bring to their minor-to-major chord surges and the undoubted strength of their playing. Think Loop with their heads down and you’re half there. There’s a nice 60’s twangy sound interlaced in the music too, which gives the listener something wistful to toy with…
Voetvolk followed upstairs in the main bar and brought any winsomeness to an abrupt halt. The band deal in foot-to-the-floor Dutch punk, with the odd change in tempo, (well, mid-paced to fast if I’m honest)… Dutch lyrics do have a slightly histrionic, order-giving quality to them (I reckon you can yell them better) that somehow sounds cartoony and serious all at once. Maybe its the gutteral stop start feel you get… Fuck knows, the menacing, gawky singer certainly gave it some, often joining the crowd in cutting some rug… Totally enjoyable. Down in the basement, weird things were happening. Danny Ramirez, a bearded, genial chap was singing comedy songs to a tape recorder. And getting laughs. And for the life of me, I can’t bloody remember what he was on about. The guy’s a character nonetheless, and has a certain rogue-ish charm.
Upstairs again to see the band I’d been waiting for, Karel Anker & de Joden. And, yes, for the record I think at least one (the guitarist) was a Jewish lad, or should have been… The singer looked completely off his head, part Admiral de Ruyter, part bricklayer. The songs were classic punk stuff, a veritable car-crash of swagger, screaming and spit. They don’t seem very happy with the Dutch nation either. At one point we even got the refrain "Joden, Joden sieg heil"… Classic. Subwoofer Testing Days were equally loud down in the basement, but their wellspring is Lemmy, the Sabs, Kiss and Iggy. And boy they don’t half rock out in a Neanderthal way. There’s no real light and shade in the music, but what they do is pummel an audience in such a way that it just has to go along for the ride. A fabulously charged gig.
After this Kinderen Tegen Kinderen blended the surreal with punk. Frankly I can’t remember much but I do remember thinking that their childlike muse, (think kids TV hosted by the Toy Dolls and a drunk Jonny Richman) was utterly bonkers… At that stage so was Incendiary’s crew, and an early escape was not only required (seemingly with the aid of a cauliflower), but necessary to maintian some emotional equilibrium. Still, better to get squiffy in good company, eh?
Words: Richard Foster