Year: 1984
Country: Netherlands
City: Amsterdam
Label: Villa Zuid Moet Blijven
Format: CD , LP
Tracks: 10
Time: 40 min.
Lyrical themes: anarchism, pacifism
Genre: rock
Style: Punk Jazz
Discogs , Lastfm , Bandcamp
Year: 1982
Country: Netherlands
City: Amsterdam
Label: Pla
Format: LP
Tracks: 12
Time: 34 min.
Lyrical themes: anarchism, pacifism
Genre: rock
Style: Punk Jazz
Back when I was 14-15, I was a fan of The Ex and Svatsox. As was
customary back then, I had both band names emblazoned on various pieces
of clothing. Ten years later, I was making music with former members of
both bands. Now my musical "career" might be bereft of any form of logic
(quit a hardcore band that was going places, to play in a local Joy D.
cover band that was going nowhere; played guitar in a pop-punk band that
was going places, only to hang up my axe and rent a saxophone because
of a sudden obsession with jazz; etc. etc.), but this was one of the
things that actually made sense. I liked Svatsox even more than I liked
The Ex; both bands pioneered the angular, Gang Of 4-influenced
"Wormerpunk" sub-genre (at one point there were about 15 bands in the
village (!) of Wormer, playing the same kind of music!), but Svatsox
were ever so slightly more melodic, at times even new-wavey or dare I
say it, gothic (in the good, early Banshees/UK Decay sense!). Guitarist
Ferry Heyne, currently de facto leader of the very successful De Kift
(the band I mentioned I was in), did some great John McGeoch-meets-Andy
Gill stuff on their records. On their untitled EP from 1981, "Revenge"
is the most straightforward punk song (actually it reminds me a little
of De Straks' "Eet U Smakelijk"!), but the guitar goes in all kinds of
different directions. Of the "Wormerpunk" Oorwormer comp LP, Svatsox' 2
tracks are easily the best; "What Colour Do I Smell" is in a fast-paced
5/4 rhythm (most Wormer bands had difficulty playing 4/4!) and the
ultra-short "Eternal Hunting Fields" features some weird (home-made?)
electronic gizmo (that sounds like it's also used on The Ex' "The Sky Is
Blue Again"). Ruins, their debut LP from late 1982, is easily their
finest hour; while the songs are longer and more spun-out, sonically
it's much more powerful than their earlier stuff. The bass guitar pounds
away like early Big Black, the drums are doused in reverb (without
having that typical shitty 80's sound), and Ferry picked up a distortion
pedal somewhere along the line. Ruins was one of a bunch of great
records (see also Alerta's brilliant In The Land Of A 1000 Pretty
Dreams, Zowiso's 2nd-and-a-half LP The Lust, the Wandas' The Ideal) that
went in a different direction from hardcore, whose practitioners
semi-jokingly called these bands "softies"; ironic, since most of these
softies were pretty tough dyed-in-the-wool squatter types. Svatsox kept
going into the mid-80's (occasionally playing old punk covers as the Sox
Pistels!), before breaking up and morphing into De Kift. Oh, did I
already mention US label North East Indie just put out a Kift CD?
Year: 1981
Country: Netherlands
City: Amsterdam
Label: Wand
Format: LP
Tracks: 8
Time: 20 min.
Lyriccal themes: anarchism, pacifism
Genre: rock
Style: Punk Jazz
Discogs , Lastfm , Bandcamp
