Thursday, May 28, 2009

B.G.K. - a Dutch feast

The Alternative Tentacles website blurts :

Dutch punk; the glory years! Their entire discography collected, the double LP is finally back in print! These Dutch punks offered one of the most furious and intense displays of hardcore the world has ever seen!

Damn straight. I wrote all those furious and intense songs because I'm a furious and intense guy. See, that's me pictured on the cover. OK, I was still a handsome young lad in 1984, sporting stylish European headwear. Even though I did not posses all my Super Slug Powers yet, I still got more pussy than Joan Jett backstage, while you and your friends were getting clowned by the doorman.

I'm not too wild about the title the folks at Alternative Tentacles conjured up for
this project, but nobody asked me, so what can ya do. What the hell is a "Dutch Feast" anyways ?

Released in the year 2000 as double album and in CD format, it is, as the title suggests, a retrospective, and contains the third official re-release of Jonestown Aloha" (1982), "Nothing Can go Wrong" (1986), the multi-bootlegged "White Male Dumbinance" EP from 1984, all in one handy package, with a few tracks taken from compilations like the (also multi-released) "Welcome to 1984", and "P.E.A.C.E" record thrown in.

All this seems to imply that people do want to listen to this stuff, and that we were doing somehing right back then.
 In pre-photoshop/computer grafix times, flyers looked like this.
 Some B.G.K. flyers on my wall. Click to make them big.

If anyone wonders why the sound differs slightly from the original vinyl : the original master tapes had been gathering dust under a beat-up couch in various
freezing cold squathouses for 15 years or so before being shipped to California on
orders of Jello Biafra himself (pictured below, yelling along at our 1984 San Francisco gig). Apparently Mr. B. was able to take time off from his relentless "spoken word" tour schedule to personally re-master all this shit proper in a studio.
ROCK ME, AMADEUS
Alternative location

WHO WANTS TO BUY A BRIDGE ?
Amazon
Artistdirect
CDuniverse
Rhapsody
Emusic
Whoa damn, this thing is for sale all over the interwebs !
Excuse me while I whine but goddammit, IT'S MY PARTY AND I'LL BITCH IF I WANT TO.

See, when the author, performer and rightowner of the songs, who has busted his ass year after year after year playing them on tour, namely ME, gets nothing, Nada, zilch, niente, ZERO, once again, it does not make him, the starving (f)artiste
feel like a happy camper, but embittered like a dog, who never gets his day !

In all honesty, Alternative Tentacles were much fairer in their dealings with us
than other record labels, but then again that doesn't say all that much.
The band did get some funds eventually. Nothing like the amount we
should have gotten, as far as I can tell, but it's the thought that counts.

And seeing as how we already donated the entire proceeds, i.e. our share from the "Nothing Can Go Wrong" album sales on A.T. back into Jello B.'s "No More Censorship Fund" in 1986 for some reason, it was about time I got a little bit of
dough at last without the band deciding it should be donated to a "good cause".

If you must know, it was enough to take the other guys to a nice restaurant and pick up the tab for everyone.

1 comment:

  1. Webster's Online Dictionary sez:

    DUTCH FEAST. Where the entertainer gets drunk before his guest. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

    I doubt this is what AT are referring to, though. If I'm wrong, hats off to them.

    Uli

    ReplyDelete