MATCHBOX BLUES

Sometimes it seems like nobody ever gets it right over here. 99% of Dutch music is a potpourri of all the worst bits of the worst bands (of five years ago). Every drummer does the lame, lumpy Red Hot Chili Peppers surrogate-funk rhythm; every singer still has their mouth full of marbles Pearl Jam-style; bass players look to Mark King for guidance and inspiration (I mean, that was already uncool 25 years ago!)... well, you get the picture. Living in the middle of this cultural wasteland, it often boggles my mind how we could get it so right at least twice: first, with the Beat Boom of the 60's; then, on a smaller scale, the DIY punk boom circa '80. How come suddenly, from out of nowhere, thousands of bands popped up in Holland with the right sound and the right attitude? It must have been some sort of primal instinct, just like all over the world everybody laughs and cries in the same way...


But while in the 60's they "had the numbers", the punks of the 70's were fighting a hopeless battle against the demographic curve. Which made it all the more amazing that, out of a micro-scene of no more than a couple of thousand scattered punks, so many remarkable records were released. Records that in a way were actually "more punk" than those made in England: our punk bands really couldn't play, really recorded in their garage and really had no musical ties to anything pre-1977. In the case of one of the most remarkable records of all, the 1980 Tandstickorshocks 12 song EP, it's hard to even find post-'77 influences. They were part of the Rondos/Red Rock scene, but while their "big brother band" often played pretty catchy, fast songs, Tandstickorshocks's music is totally hook- and chorus-free. Though they sound like they're just starting to learn to play, the playing is precise and to-the-point. It's not "energetic" or even aggressive in the usual punk way. In places, the music reminds me of stuff like early Minutemen, Teenage Jesus, Red Krayola and early Scritti Politti, but the difference is those bands (and the Rondos, too) came from an art background, while Tandstickorshocks were genuinely young working class kids. Well, in the TV-film about former Tand... member Pinkel (shown on Dutch TV in 1982) he worked as a wallpaperer, and the great footage of his band playing the Kaasee club shows him and the other singer teasing their hair in the bathroom mirror (one of them had a half-shaven "7 Seconds" 'do), saying deep stuff like "isn't it great, all the stuff you can do with your hair!", so I guess these guys were no hifalutin' intellectuals. I'm not saying intellectuals aren't allowed to play with their hair, but ... you get the idea. Tandstickorshocks were the 70's Socialist wet dream of common workers turning out great, totally original art. Too bad they only lasted about 2 years; they broke up around the same time as the Rondos (about whom I did a post last October) and, apart from 1 or 2 tracks on comps, these 12 songs are all that's left. I wonder if that TV doc will ever turn up again?

To Hell With Shell
Religion Pt. I
Kill For Peace
Tradition
Religion Pt. II
School Army Working Dying
Crisis
Vi Taenkar Anderledes
T Rights
Song For A Guy
It Stinks
The Wall