Q 65
The
‘Kjoe, as they were called by there fans, were partly a continuation of
the ‘Leadbelly’s Limited’. Their manager Peter van Rooyen had given this
outfit an opportunity to play in his own nightclub were he regularly organized
dance events. With there first performance they didn't attract a huge
crowd. Peter van Rooyen advised the band to fire the less skillful members.
His advise was taken and soon after they also changed the name into Q65.
In
the beginning of their career a lot of stagetrics were thought by the
manager. Supposedly he had given the singer Wim Bieler a lesson in how
to move as a rock and roll artist by doing some strange turns and twists
on the floor.
Their
first gig took place in de Houtrust at the 8th of may 1965. The
lessons had helped and the audience went mad.
Q65
wouldn't become The Haigs most popular band, but it definitely was the
wildest one. They had big similarities with the British Pretty Things. Not only did their material consisted out of
a large portion of Things covers, they had the same dress code and hare
do.
It
was a rough bunch of youngsters alright. If they wouldn’t have succeeded
in music they probably had spend their lives working in some kind of local
factory. But their aggressive nature had a lot of advantages when they
were touring the country, and playing in sleazy nightclubs. “ When a club didn’t want to pay the group, we went inside and
terre the whole place upside down” as Peter Vink told a reporter in an
interview. |
Even
when the were writing their own material the style remained the same:
raw primitive beat mixed with old blues. A employer of Dutch recordlabel
Phonogram saw them playing in the Club ‘ De Drie Stoepen’, and tipped
of Peter Koelewijn. This was one of the most important figures in the
industry at that time.
An
invitation followed to do a testrecording in the Phonogram studios. Soon
after their first vinyl was released on the Decca label. The production
of “ You’re the victor/And your Kind was organized by Peter Koelewijn
and Jan Audier. It’s an incredible punkrecord and to the amazement of
the recordcompany it became a hitsingle which sold about 20.000. The fact
that this, one take recording, had such a success showed beatmusic had
become a serious business.
The dutchbeat fans and even their critics unanimously claimed this one to be outstanding. Besides their own compositions, even covers like ‘Spoonfull’ are exceptional. A new direction in dutchbeat was taken with the usage of classical instruments like the harmonium and flute. |
