DIFFERENT DEVENTER KOEK

These days all towns look the same wherever you go; same houses, same shops, same bunker-like concert halls (that want the live music to end as early as possible so they can let another paying crowd in for the night disco). Guess you can't blame today's bands for sounding the same. About 20-25 years ago this was still very different; most of today's clubs started out as squats back then, run by people who actually liked music. Small record shops would often have their own "flavour", reflecting the tastes of the people running them. Likewise, bands from different towns would sound different. For instance, Venlo in the south had a distinctive sound of its own. (O.K., that was because the same people played in every band!) And Wormer of course. Alerta were from Deventer, a town in the east famed for its Deventer Koek, and though they forged a friendship with such "Wormer" bands as The Ex and Zowiso, they were pretty much on an island stylistically. I didn't know a lot about them, though I remember reading a Koekrand interview where they named their main influences; "The Damned and Zowiso". At a time when it was de rigueur to name about 300 ultra-obscure Latvian bands as your influences, this sounded pretty refreshing. It took a couple of years before I scooped up their 1983 In A Land Of A Thousand Pretty Dreams LP; guess the hippy dippy cover (and title) put me off. There was no need to fear; from the first booming bass notes of "Jill, Jack and John" you get immersed in that great typical early 80's Koeienverhuur sound; loud, metallic, grating and reverby (it's funny to think all these "doomy" Svatsox/ Ex/ GRRR/ Funeral Oration LPs were recorded in the middle of the countryside, overlooking green fields of grass, grazing cows, etc.). The songs are great too, definitely on the "softie", post-punk side of the fence but with just the right amount of anger and punk sneer. At times they even remind me of Funeral Oration, maybe it's the singer's diction...

Despite also putting out a split-EP with The Ex, Alerta remained pretty obscure, this being the time of the great Hardcore/Softie schism; they broke up pretty soon after releasing their one-and-a-half record. I had no idea if any former members had done anything music-wise since, but Steve of Low Down Kids (also from Deventer) informed me that guitarist Harry Otten later played in the Nightblooms, who were pretty famous (outside of the Netherlands) during the "shoegazer" days. Actually the Nightblooms' way of combining noise and melody wasn't that far removed to what Alerta were doing; I guess Alerta did so in less receptive times.

Jill, Jack and John
Jester
An Accidental Man
Masks
Living Circus