"NEW SONG ONLINE!There's a brand new song online called 'Another Day', This song will appear on the Chapter Five 7" that will be out next week on Commitment Records. Go check it out and more important, leave us comments and let us know what you think of it!"
Birds Of A Feather at Menno Bakker Bunt's
IDM: I saw some photos about your studio recording. Do you go to eat to the studio? I am not joking anymore, how was the studio recording? When will it be out?
JP: Yeah, we love to eat, especially when we are recording. Our favorite foodis the "rorschach-breakfast-sandwich"; a vegan baguette with hass-avocado,tomato and pepper. Yummy. We went into the studio twice – we recorded a 13song demo in one afternoon at Studio Climax and from there on we movedtowards our latest recordings, which we did at Bunt’s studio with MennoBakker. We recorded 18 songs. In January 2008 we will release a 7" withfive new songs on Commitment records. Finally we get to cooperate withEurope’s oldest and trendsetting straight edge label, which is somethingthat both the label and the band really appreciate. The opening song“Another Day” will also be featured on our upcoming LP “The Past ThePresent”, the other four songs (“Between Two Worlds”, “Goodness”, “Growth”en “Reclaiming Freewill”) are exclusive for the Commitment release. Werecorded our version of the song “Wise Up” from Bold for a Bold tribute CDthat will be released by Embrace records from Malaysia. This record willbe available from January 2008, and it will also be available through us.
IDM: I heard about an European straight edge book. Is it connected with the new LP?
JP: Well, our upcoming LP/CD “The Past The Present” will be released worldwideon five different labels, and it will include the book “The Past ThePresent 1982-2007 a history of European Straight Edge”. We are writing thebook right now, which is a hell of a job. It will be focused around theDutch sXe, in particular Lärm, ManLiftingBanner, Mainstrike and theCrivits, and it will also cotain personal stories how sXe started inEurope and why, how it is different from the usa sXe in it’s origins,thoughts on sXe in general. We are not claiming to write THE history ofEuropean sXe, it is OUR history. It will not be a “book”, but an insertlike with those old Dead Kennedys LP’s, a 48 or 52 page 12” x 12” book.
IDM: I guess mean the design is very important for you. Awesome covers, great draws, lots of merch stuffs. Can the great look of stuffs help the band?
JP: Unfortunately yes. I mean, if a record looks eye appealing by just the looks/ lay out people might be more interested in buying a record than when it looks all shitty. Of course this is not the right way to approach people buying a record but that’s just how it goes while it doesn’t say anything about the music. Of course we want every single record, merch and whatever else to look as good as possible. Aside form being edge that’s ‘our aim’ :)
IDM: You have strong straight edge message. What do you think it's important to put an x on your hand when you are on stage?
JP: It’s good that you bring this up because we should make it a golden rule to X up every time when we go on stage. I guess straight edge turned into something personal for me during the years because I can’t recall the last time I was X-ed up and went to a show before we started playing out with BOAF. Even with BOAF we don’t X up for every show – don’t ask me why, we should!
IDM: How was the concert with Gorilla Biscuits in September?
JP: We really liked it. It was fun to meet all those nice people again, likeLuke and Alex who we didn’t meet again since the early 90-ies. It was justfun to hang out, meeting old time friends. Discussing what life brought usso far and were we are now. Besides that it was just a show at a largevenue with crappy sound for us, and no one really came for the openingact, but everyone came to see GB.
UTRECHT/HOLLAND/07-01 © tamara k
IDM: You made 40 limited vinyls for the Crucial Show. Why could I also get a copy months later?
JP: Well, we made different designs for the covers, which is basically justit, a different cover. Peter did that for all the covers of the records ofthe bands playing at the Crucial Response Showcase. Meaning there was a lot of different merch anyhow. We made 40 7”s and not all were sold, so we could either destroy them or keep them and sell them to whoever is interested. We decided to choose the last option, hence you can still get them. The “Our Aim” 7” is sold as a package with the Voice Of A Generation fanzine, which makes it anexpensive buy if you are just interested in either the fanzine or the 7”.So adding some special feature seemed nice to us too! Also we are happy toannounce that the vinyl is almost sold out!
IDM: You guys are all over 30. How and when did you get into hardcore? What was your first hardcore show like?
Bigma: The First time I heard punk music was around 1977 and I was only 6 years old. My older brother got never mind the Bollocks from the Sex Pistols after that he got Kiss records and stuff like that. So at a very young age I got introduced to loud music. I guess I was around 11 or 12 that I seriously got interested in the music and went to buy my very first own album Punks not dead from the exploited and from there on I got into UK Subs. I guess I was 14 years old meeting up with some Skinheads who where in my town through some Youth detention and they introduced me to oi! Music witch I got stuck with till I was 16 years old and got introduced to Hardcore. I got tapes from a friend of mine with 7 seconds, uniform choice, youth of today, gang green, minor threat, etc.
My first show I ever went to was the Toy Dolls I guess around 1984. My first hardcore show was 3 years later with WCF and Cry of terror.
That was when I got hooked with hardcore, the energy, the message it was just great and I fell in love.
Marc got into hardcore somewhere around 1981. At the time he was 14, and he and his classmate Bart (of BTD fame) were both discovering punk. Through some older schoolmates they discovered the Dead Kennedys, GBH, Discharge, Exploited, Crass, Cockney Rejects and so on. After going to his first show (with Larm somewhere early 1982 in de Tagrijn in Hilversum) Marc discovered the DIY-world of punk and hardcore. Realising that you could be in a band by yourself, book your own shows and make your own fanzine was in the pre-computer-era a major eye-opener. Also that first show was a blast with four local bands, including the forementioned Larm, and also realising that Menno, the singer of Larm, was "one of us", a guy that lived in the adjacent town, that we - being the few punks around - hung out with. And just seeing everyone from our area with mohawks, crazy clothing, weird dances and so on was awesome.
JP was heavily into skateboarding and new wave bands. Through a friend he got a self recorded tape with one side of new wave bands like the sisters of mercy, red lorry yellow lorry and such and on the other side he recorded punk and hardcore bands like CCM, Discarge, Minorthreat, Dead Kennedies etc. Through reading magazines like Thrasher JP got more involved with punkrock and hardcore and one day the Gorilla Biscuits album ended on my desk. In particular the song ‘cats and dogs’ caught my attention and from that point on I think I became more and more into straight edge. My first hardcore show definitely a local one because in the beginning he thought it was a waste to travel to go see bands play. “I’d rather ride my skateboard.” Aside from that, he was depending on public transportation, was a student and didn’t work a job at that time so it was hard to get to places.
Paul got into Skateboarding when he was 12 and trough all the skateboard videos soon I was into punkrock and started playing for fun with friends. After a short period of time i more and more got into Hardcore, mainly SOIA and Madball and from there it just evolved and after many years i ended up here.I just loved going to shows and i still do, I like it a lot because of meeting new people.. i actually don’t remember what my first show was..
Jeff ended up into the hardcore scene through the metal/crossover scene somewhere round 1985, first going as much as possible to shows from Slayer/Metallica/Kreator/Testament/Anthrax going to S.O.D./D.R.I./Excel/Suicidal T. and skateboarding ofcourse and Y.O.T. etc. ;-), And at that stage in 1987 began to play myself in crivits as a co-founder and setting up/helping out with shows in Rotterdam like Crumbsuckers/Napalm Death/Ludichrist to name a few and tried to get Y.O.T. for Rotterdam but sadly enough it did not take place, but I’m glad I managed to see them beginning 1989 when the European tour took off and later on G.B.. 
IDM: I really like lots of old Dutch bands. Agent Orange (i think both of them, the Dutch and the American Agent Orange were cool), WinterswijkChaos Front, Pure Hate. What about these bands? Any cool Dutch bands from this period to mention? Do you have any interesting story about this early period?
JP: To start with interesting current bands, in Marc's opinion Holland always had it's fair share of great bands, from BGK to Pandemonium, from Deadlock to Funeral Oration. Nowadays really interesting bands are Outlive, The Tenement Kids, The Straight A's, FFF, Frightning Fiction, The Works, The Shining, Gewapend Beton, Heros and Zeros, De Bakfietsboys, Staathaat, Seein Red, Iron Cage, Smash The Statues and probably some the we forgot. As far as the early days are concerned, there are tons of interesting stories. But the issue is not to tell these stories over and over again how cool it was in the old days, but rather to make it happen again nowadays, so that everyone, also being young kids getting into punk and hardcore, can experience that same sense of freedom and exitement we had back in the early 80-ies. In that respect a lot has changed over the years, from mail to email, from local to global, from sending tape compilations to straightforward faster then realtime mp3 downloads. But still the excitement over going out to a good show, seeing bands explore musical boundaries, be part of a creative and productive scene, that's what counts. BTW the good stories are either tourstories with silly jokes, or good fights we had. We were all young, goofy kids out there having a good time. Okay, one story although I am probably mixing up dates and place and people; I think it was at the Amsterdam squat "Emma" - which is nowadays a really attractive location for hip, urban companies, but back then it was deserted docklands - somewhere in 1985 or 1986. We used to go there a lot to see bands like Larm, Negazione, DOA but also Frightwig, Atilla the hun etc etc. At some show there were people who got into a medium sized fight, I think it was the regular Amsterdam punk/hc crowd fighting with skinheads. Jos from Larm/Seein Red fame jumped in between shouting out loud "stop fighting, aren't we all communists", which indeed stopped the orginal fight but as far as I recall the anger was directed towards him and he had to be saved because nobody wanted to be called a communist. Mmm, in retrospect maybe not such a cool story, but at the time it was funny.
Bigma: What I remember the most is the enormous freedom we had in that time and how different it was from today, but I guess that has something to do with age. In the mid eighties there was not club or anything in my town where hardcore bands could play so we had to squad something. So we build our own club. We went on pillage tours around town to get wood to build the stage and bar. Good luck there was a friend who was learning for electrician so he could handle that part. It was amazing to have a building where you could do whatever you want. Imaging; the building was so big that we had practicing rooms for bands, we had a skate ramp in there, we had this stage, a huge space to hang out to watch tv and do whatever we wanted. there where people living there who had rooms you would pay a lot of money for. I remember getting drinks for the first gig we organist. It was Saturday morning and my old pal Marcel “geraakt” took the “bakfiets” to go to the supermarket to get beer, cola, juices and a few bottles of cheap wine. What a sight that must have been; driving through they city centre with me sitting on this huge pile of drinks. The main point however was to maintain this building and keeping the enthusiast spirit we had in the beginning. After a year or so the alcohol and drugs abusive started to taking it’s toll. It was kind of funny to be the only straight edge kid in this Sodom and Gomorrah. It help me to strength my convictions that I was on the right path if I really wanted to make a change. Another thing I remember how I went every month through Maximum rock ‘n’ roll to see if there was any new band or release and if you found something interesting going to the post office getting some dollars and send them to order your stuff. I had this list above my bed with all the stuff I order and when I ordered it and when I got my stuff. I’m still waiting for my schism shirts, workshed ep’s and some other stuff.
Bigma in 1989IDM: What's the story about the Chi Chi club? As far as i know it was a legendary Dutch club.
Marc: Well, I've been there just maybe two or three times, because it was like 200 kilometers from my hometown. I remember basically the festivals that, I think, were only one day festivals, but always with a great line-up and a lot of drunk German punks. The Chi chi club was one of those famous "headquarters" of the punk-scene in those days, making it possible to tour, to hang out, to see bands, to exchange ideas, just like places as Kippenhok in Amersfoort, WNC in Groningen, Emma, Wijers and Van Hall all in Amsterdam, Bauplatz in Venlo and many many others. Those places were so important for all of us.
Bigma: The Chi Chi club was a place where we travelled to if we wanted to see the more “bigger” bands. We went there by train or we rented a van stuffed it with people and that was always a big adventure.But I’ve seen so many cool shows there: MDC, SNFU, Lärm, Heresy, WCF and a lot more I can’t remember. It was a place where I finally met some fellow Straight Edge kids but most of them have been gone and forgotten already for a long time.
IDM: Marc, you played in the BTD, Betray. What are the short history of these bands?
Marc: Somewhere in 1980 I discovered punk. As I said with the question about how we came into the hardcore-scene, when I discovered this whole idea about DIY, and the fuck-you attitude, the whole anti-stardom-idea of punk, I wanted to participate, in all aspects, in writing letters, booking shows, making flyers, doing fanzines and so on. And ofcourse I wanted to be in a band. So these older punkrockers from the highschool that I was attending were in a hippy-punk-experimental band called VLA. Not that they were going anywhere, but their practice-space was a good place to hang out, and my friend Bart started to play drums for them. Somehow they stopped and Wim, one of their trumpet players and Bart wanted to start a new band, a real punkband. They asked Marco to play guitar and I just jumped the bandwagon – I bought a bass for 30 euros and was in. Fortunately Marco was a real good guitar player who wrote great songs, Bart wrote good lyrics, I was writing and participating in the scene, and before we knew it (also thru our local heroes Larm) we were playing all over (being 17 years old people had to drive us up to all our shows, or we would go by train, sleep or hang out on the street, caught a train back home at 6 am and then went to bed or to school if it was a weekday. So we played shows, were asked for comp-tapes and made a record (a split 12” with 3 other bands).When BTD stopped I really wanted to continue playing in a band more in my line of thinking, so a bit less “fun”, a bit more political and sXe. With Marco of BTD on drums, and Casper, the last singer of BTD on vocals we started Betray, together with Paul and Boris of State Of The Nation, also a band from our hometown. Betray only played 7 shows, the most of them on our UK tour with Nations On Fire. Betray recorded two 7”s, the songs of the never-released “ancient history” can be downloaded from: http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanou/betray/
IDM: JP, Value of Strength is your baby. Please talk about your fanzine.Your tenth coming out in this summer. Is there any changes between the first and the last issues? Fave zines?
JP: I think it wouldn’t be good think if there wasn’t a differente between issue 1 and issue 10 of Value Of Strength. I’m pretty sure that my English got way better during the time so that’s a remarkable difference. I started out the zine just by myself because in the area that I grew up a lot of kids were doing zines and that somehow got me really into doing my own zine. Nowdays there’s 5 people helping me out with the zine. Things changed a lot during the years, for example I’m no longer able to review all records by myself. My goal is to keep the zine going and I somehow still have good hope to start putting it out on a regular base in the future. Another thing I really wold like to see different is that I can only focus on lay out and design and not all the other garbage that comes to it. But since everyone who’s involved in Value Of Strength is working a full time job and works on the zine during spare time I don’t really see this change in the near future. Currently we also started working on a website were we want to keep the review section up to date, re-release interviews from the past and put up a photogallery with pics I’ve been taking at show the past +17 years. So yeah, we’re quite busy with the zine. My fave zines during the years are (in no particular order) Anti Matter, Second Nature, Rumpshaker, Tirade, Stormtrooper, Refuse and a bunch more.
Jeff: What shall I say?(I don’t like to think/speak to much about it but let me tell you this) Crivits started in 1987 as a bunch of really close friends and close friends around it and ended in 2003 while in the last years some band members left and where replaced.
We put out some great releases and songs, which I’m still proud off but, still at this point, I’m really disappointed in the meaning of friendship because of things that happened over the years within Crivits with some band members and I find it still hard to let someone close to me again because of avoiding a diapointment in close friendships again.Hopefully some nice years with the B.O.A.F. guys is going to take place and perhaps some of the scars will edge off.(sorry about the emo talk ;-))
IDM: Marc, you were working at Revelation Europe. Where had you met Jordan Cooper?
Marc: I ordered some stuff from Rev Recs, which was returned to them because there was some address mix-up. Jordan put that in a Rev ad in MRR in February 1989, something like “from the following 8 people their orders came back in, please get in touch” and that listed my name. Because of that as, on the YOT tour I spoke with Jordan, I think in Aalst, Belgium, who seemed to be a nice guy. Somehow YOT ended up staying a week at my place (although Jordan and Ray were at the Krsna temple a lot of the time), and I just decided to go the USA that summer to visit Revelation, Dischord and MRR. Some crazy idea without a bigger plan, I just went over and ended up staying and travelling with Jordan and working at Rev for 2 months or so, actually going all over and meeting all those people from Roa (Justice League) to Tim Yohannon, COS etc etcetera. After that I just started Rev Europe, basically to take some work out of Jordan’s hands and to improve the distribution of Rev here in Europe.
IDM: Green Day takes to hardcore guys (Timmy Chunks - Token Entry). Marc, if i can remember it you have a story with them.
Marc: At the time I was booking tours, at least I did the dutch leg of the European tours, that were booked by Christy and Mary Jane of Lookout Europe. Also because tours usually started or ended in Amsterdam because of Schiphol-airport, bands stayed at my place for a week or so. Like Supertouch, Sons Of Ishmael, Born Against, Rorschach and so on. With some bands they either stayed longer or we had more fun. Green Day did 3 or 4 shows, and hung out in Amsterdam. We had fun, I played guitar with them on one of the shows, we kept in touch for while. On their recent tour I only spoke to them briefly, I guess life changes when you reach that kind of celebrity-status.
IDM: Big, What was the Colt Turkey band and Colt Turkey fanzine? What's your fave joke band?
Bigma: The colt turkey fanzine was the creation of Michiel and Burt alert. I had nothing to do with that. They only put out 1 issue although there where ideas for issue number two, like a project X interview that Michiel did after the first GB tour when walter stayed with him.The band was Burts idea to do something with this Colt turkey character for one more time. I’m basically not that much into joke bands but I could appreciate Crucial Youth.
IDM: What about the effects that internet had on hardcore in the last few years? Don't you feel that we lost touch of some things like talking face to face, writing letters... (to substitute talking face to face for email,to substitute mail order for paypal etc.)
BOAF: We think that internet is a good way to keep in touch. F.i. for Paul personally it’s just great to be able to reach people in such an easy way and it's absolutely great to finally meet people for real at a show after writing for a long time first. “I think there are positive and negative sides to it but that's just up to you, how you deal with everything.”
IDM: Thank you for your time guys.
JP: I'm impressed with your research. I love it when people take the time to getto the roots! Thanks!
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