Eet U Smakelijk: JUBILEE EDITION

March 09, 2008

JUBILEE EDITION

As astute Eetusmakelijk readers will have noticed, postings became scarcer over the last few months, culminating in a record-breaking 7-week gap between the penultimate post and this one. Well, I'll just come clean about it: after 86 posts I've felt I've said about all I had to say within the narrow confines of this blog, plus posting mp3s is getting more and more useless since just about everything has already been posted/ is available on CD/ can be found at p2p programs like soulseek, etc. Add to that the fact that I've switched from a part-time job with access to a computer and lots of time on my hands, to a full-time job without access to a computer... But the last straw for me was when, inspired by Erich's posting of the first Bad Religion EP, I decided to post the first Offspring 45; after a bit of Googling it turned out that not only had KBDrecords already posted it 2 years ago, but I had commented on the post and totally forgotten about it! So, I'm sorry to say, Eetusmakelijk will be on er, eternal hiatus from now on. I'm thinking of starting another blog but it won't be (strictly) about punk (or even music), i.e. it won't automatically attract a niche of interested people like this blog did, in which case I wonder if it's any use... Anyway, thanks for checking me out, listening to the music and commenting!

I've posted something by my own (first) band, Gepopel, before, and am glad to announce there will be an LP out very soon of all of our old recordings (check it out here). But that LP won't feature the earliest (1982-83) recordings I did under that name. Those were tracks I recorded by myself in the attic, using old broken-down and borrowed equipment and "ping-ponging" onto a 2 track tapedeck. March 1983, exactly 25 years ago today, I released my very first tape called No One Can Stop Advance. It sold 30 copies; I still remember seeing the row of finished tapes and thinking: "Wow, I've just mass-produced something!"

Musically, it was a grab-bag of punk, proto-HC and more post-punky stuff, reflecting the records I'd been listening to just before it got all Hardcore. To me, it's part fun, part embarrassing hearing it back and thinking: "Oh, I copped this from a Siouxsie record...Stole that from The Ex..." Tracks 1 to 11 were on the actual tape; the other 11 are from the same time but were never released. I feel a little weird about posting this, sorta like showing someone baby pictures of yourself, but I hope there's sort of an early-80s charm to it (a writer's block-free era, as you could always write about The Bomb! Wish it was still as easy nowadays). I've also put up the booklet showing my first attempts at being John Heartfield.

Only one or two songs (like Eenheidsworst) made it to the later "actual band" Gepopel, although we recycled the chord structure of The Day After (sped up about 8 times!) for Two Days After. Not every song tackles nuclear war; the curiously-titled I Will Put Him is about much-reviled Dutch TV personality Henk van der Meyden and his bad English, while Cock Is Dead was about our (me & Henk Gepopel & Ruud Indirekt) Latin teacher, Mr. Cock (Nomen Est Omen). Come to think of it, I wonder why I never wrote a song about our German teacher, Mr. Goebbels?

Gepopel - No One Can Stop Advance (1983)

The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan
The Day After
Eenheidsworst
NATO
Dallas
Toy Town
Smashed Up Slums
VWO
OSL
Mushrooms
Recession