BELLS ARE CLINGING ON A FUCKING TOWER

My iMac is about 200 years old and when I try to post at home, it says "There's such-and-such thingie missing so you can't post, so tough shit." Well, something along those lines. As I only have access to a PC at my work on Thursdays and Fridays, I guess I'll post just once a week; but I'll try to publish 2 posts at one time each week. Only not this week, sorry!
When I got into collecting early Dutch punk, around 1985, a friend of mine sold me his spare copy of Utreg Punx, which was a total revelation to me. At the time we thought punk/HC was getting "better"; better playing (so more solos and more complexity), better recordings (i.e. lots of reverb and the dreaded 80's "gated" drum sound), better English, better rub-on lettering technique etc. In stark contrast, the sleeve for the 1980 Utreg Punx EP seemed the painstaking product of a bunch of 4-year-olds; it matched the music, which was raw, clumsy and had a childlike exuberance about it. It was the best thing I'd heard all year; especially the triple punch of the Lullabies/ Rakketax/ Noxious side left me gasping for breath. Lullabies start off with a great punk rock song (I still count in my band's - English - songs in Dutch as a tribute to them), then there's Rakketax who are doing a more lopsided/ arty punk thing with a brilliant girl singer (singing the classic lines "Van Agt (=Dutch prime minister) has the power/ Oh what a shower!"). Then there's a couple of seconds silence before all hell breaks loose. The Noxious track Sunday Fools is easily the loudest, most aggressive punk track I've ever heard, bar none. They sound like a bunch of escaped psychopaths that forced their way inside a studio (well, practice room with a 4-track), pick up instruments they've never played in their lives, and proceed to thoroughly destroy them while collapsing on top of eachother, all in 1 minute 8 seconds. It just sounds illegal; like a recording of somebody getting beaten up by a bunch of thugs. The fade-out is pretty cool too (my 2nd favourite song ending ever, after the Meat Puppets' "Foreign Lawns"). There were all kinds of rumours circulating about the Noxious: supposedly, they'd ask people if they knew about their band, then beat them up if the answer was no! They were hooligans, criminals, junkies and at least one of them had been killed. This reputation was probably exaggerated because of the sheer violence in their music, but it was at least partly true, as I found out when I got to talk to the Noxious' ex-singer Rob not too long ago. He's small, wiry and looking younger than his age (I expected some bull-necked tattooed thug), and eagerly regaled stories to me about the old days, like how they'd mug German tourists to get money for drugs! I was amazed when he told me they actually recorded Sunday Fools at the end of the Rakketax session; same equipment, same settings! They had about 5 minutes to get it right, as nobody could be bothered with wasting more time on them... That's when true punk classics are born, I guess!

Lullabies - System
Rakketax - Van Agt
Noxious - Sunday Fools