Rinus and the Indos: Earring bassist Rinus Gerritsen looked in awe at Indo bands like The Crazy Rockers. Now he plays with them in Sneek

As part of the Bass and Guitar Day in the Bolwerk in Sneek, April 23, Rinus Gerritsen is the guest of honor. He stands alone for more than 60 years of pop history, as a bass player, sometimes keyboard player and co-founder of Golden Earring. That is the most famous rock band in the Netherlands, which was forced to give up due to the serious illness, ALS, of guitarist George Kooymans.

That day is the documentary Behind the Music: Rinus Gerritsen on 60 years of Golden Earring about his role as the silent force behind the band – that’s how it is with bassists. There is a public interview with him and he plays with The Crazy Rockers, about the only band still active from the golden days of indo rock. Led, these days, by Woody Brunings, who has lived in Sneek for a long time.

Lit by rock and roll

They were neighbours, Gerritsen and Kooymans. In The Hague. City with a high percentage of Indo-Dutch people, people who came to the motherland after Indonesian independence. Inflamed by country and the emerging rock ‘n’ roll and including their own musical traditions (such as the krontjong, somewhat built around the Portuguese guitar – music history is full of transcultural cross-fertilizations), many young Indos started making music. And they often got damn good at it.

Gerritsen and Kooymans looked in awe at the performances of indo rock groups such as the Tielman Brothers and The Crazy Rockers – these musicians are slightly older, and at that time already much more successful. ,, Those Maria songs from The West Side Story we didn’t like it, but that rock & roll… that’s what we went for. The Indorockers were our heroes,” Gerritsen once told the magazine The Sobat .

But the Golden Earrings, later simply Golden Earring, were in a different circuit, a different world. While they scored hits in the course of the 1960s, the various indo rock groups became increasingly marginalized. Overtaken by the zeitgeist, or who knows, skin color and exotic origin, once a plus, might work against them.

Indo rock band with Surinamese and Antillean

By the way, the term ‘indo rock’ (not the same as ‘indie rock’) dates back to the 1970s, so long after the heyday of such bands. The Crazy Rockers definitely fall into that category, although purists might fall for that. Because the band was founded by the Surinamese drummer Sidney Rampersand and singer-guitarist Woody Brunings, now 85, actually comes from the Antillean island of Saba. Also a good piece of Dutch colonial history, but in the other direction. Westindorock, that’s not one of those things.

Well Indian: Northern guitar hero Erwin Java, born in Assen in 1956 and known for White Honey, Herman Brood and Cuby And The Blizzards. His father was a KNIL soldier, so in the old Indies. He is the bottom in this company, but that will not stand in the way of a pleasant afternoon of Indo and music nostalgia. Leo Blokhuis talks everything together.