siLLy puPPy It's hard to believe that some bands have been around since the beginning of time, well rock 'n' roll time that is. GOLDEN EARRING is one of those bands who have literally been cranking out albums since the days when The Beatles were launching the British invasion to the Americas and they are still kicking around well into the 21st century albeit slowing down on their prolific discography. The band actually formed way back in 1961 in The Hague, Netherlands as The Tornados but soon changed to The Golden Earrings due to the former already being taken. 'The' was dropped in 67 and the plural 's' went bye-bye in 69. As you can imagine with a band's lifespan lasting over a half a century that the lineup would change significantly but vocalist / guitarist George Kooymans and Rinus Gerritsen who handles bass and keys have been around for the entire GOLDEN EARRING ride through the decades, centuries and yes even millennia!

While new bands were springing up by the second in the early 70s, by the time 1973 came around GOLDEN EARRING were releasing their 9th studio album MOONTAN which just so happens to be their most successful and most praised of their entire career worldwide although they were quite popular in their native Netherlands scoring an impressive amount of hits. While i'm not an expert in the GOLDEN one's discography i have heard a sampling of the singles and MOONTAN seems pretty much like business as usual for the group. Basically GOLDEN EARRING was the Dutch answer to the Rolling Stones and MOONTAN displays these hero worship tendencies perfectly right from the get go with the bluesy rocker 'Candy's Going Bad' that could easily pass as a B-side Stones track back in the day when the English music scene was hot and indubitably impacted their European neighbors to the east. Also obvious in the influence department from time to time is The Who, most clearly heard on the 'Just Like Vince Taylor' track.

Personally i find GOLDEN EARRING to be a somewhat mediocre band of only marginal interest. Everything i've heard from them (with a few exceptions) is quite derivative of the British invasion scene (Stones,Beatles, Who, Kinks) and you'd be hard pressed to even know they were Dutch unless you knew their history. So what in the world makes MOONTAN such the wonderful and the most celebrated album of their career? Well, standing tall above and beyond the call of duty are two tracks that are absolutely phenomenal and i'm sure any homo sapien who has listened to classic rock radio stations will recognize at least one of these tracks instantly. I'm talking, of course, about 'Radar Love' (can't help but hear the bass line when you read this, can you? :P) This of course was their hugest of hits charting in many countries worldwide and has even been covered a gazillion times by bands like U2, Sun City Girls, White Lion and even Def Leppard! OMG :o 'Radar Love' was their turning point when they finally learned how to tell a story with a clever bass line that was backed up by interesting musical interplay and brilliant with all kinds of twists and turns that make the track dance circles around the surrounding tracks.

The other outstanding track on MOONTAN is 'Vanilla Queen' with utterly brilliant oscillating synthesizer intro that was new wave before the term ever entered the vernacular and creates one of the most addictive melodies of their entire career and thus is my absolute favorite Golden Earring track EVERRRRRRR!!!!!! The new wave cedes into a rockin' chorus, an acoustic guitar segment and then delves into a satisfying symphonic rocker building up the tension until it crescendoes lasting a satisfying 9 minutes and 20 seconds. Every time i listen to this album i always want the album to be as good as these two tracks. Everything else just seems so uninspired compared to these gems of rock history. It doesn't help that 'Radar Love' has been played TO DEATH on the radio! It's almost like they've never recorded any other single. Personally i find this album overrated and don't enjoy listening to it. Unfortunately GOLDEN EARRING's most raved about album and my experience with their singles doesn't invite me to explore their music more. However, the two best tracks on here are brilliant but can be found on any greatest hits packages as well. Two brilliant classic tracks, many decent but uninspiring tracks. For me NOT worthy of being listed as #32 in Q & Mojo's '40 Cosmic Rock Albums' of all time. Get the greatest hits instead. That one has 'Twilight Zone!'

aglasshouse You know, I've been an active seeker of 60's and 70's music for a while now, and through this experience I've come to realize just how many bands came into being during the late 60's hard rock boom, specifically 1968, 1969, and 1970. Of course you have the obvious like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Atomic Rooster, etc., but underneath these goliaths there existed a massive scene full of bands that, while being of similar caliber, often were to remain shrouded in obscurity and eventually fade into the musical ethos. There were countless bands to name that were considered a part of this, one of my personal favorites being the Dutch-based Golden Earring. Golden Earring came about in 1961, but didn't come to surface until 1965 with their debut "Just Ear-rings". This album followed the then-popular Dutch garage pop style (which would be coined 'nederbeat' in reference to merseybeat, a genre which heavily influenced the Netherlands' music culture at the time), but in a whole wasn't very groundbreaking. Golden Earring continued this style for a few years, akin to how The Guess Who continued relying on merseybeat for several years until their sound change (ironically, The Guess Who made their debut and had a tonal shift at practically the exact same time as Golden Earring), until eventually they shifted into another genre growing in popularity at the time- progressive hard rock. It should be noted that the 'progressive' part of this was vastly dwarfed by the much more popular clear-cut blues rock sans lengthy and ostentatious compositions, and there was a much lower number of bands who would foray into this particular direction than those who would just rock in short bursts. Nonetheless Golden Earring took this road and in 1969 released an album titled Eight Miles High which, adorned with dried clay-covered hands reaching for floating rings, would serve as the band's biggest breakthrough in eight years.

A mess of distortion, abstract ad-libbing and twisted songwriting, Eight Miles High is perhaps one of the best examples of albums of the era. Not only does it break boundaries for Golden Earring as an outfit, it also presents a fantastically insane balance of cheesy psych and booming intensity. The most prolific tracks on this album I believe are the last two. 'Everyday's Torture' is a mysterious, haunting chantey of a desolate soul who, although speaking in pretty blatant terms, has lost hope in the idea of love, and is accompanied by a fantastic one-two punch of a hook and an equally fantastic guitar solo. As the closer we have the title track, staggering in at a massive runtime of nineteen minutes. Although a recounting of the entire track would be a bit too labor-intensive, I will say that the track goes through a variety of phases that include but are not limited to: hearty blues rock, wicked drum solo, an insanely distorted guitar solo (VERY distorted), and much, much more. Other tracks like 'Song of a Devil's Servant' in particular are a great change of pace and help to shift the tone of the album in crucial moments.

But there is a real question that should be asked, and that is to who do we owe an album with such great musicianship? The musicians, of course. George Kooymans as a vocalist channels a lovechild hybrid of Ian Anderson and Jim Morrison, making for the ideal 60's voice. On the flip-side his guitar-playing as previously mentioned is heavy, crushing and intense, and sometimes rather meek and distant (when played in a steady balance these two styles work wonders). Rinus Gerritsen works both in the percussion section as a bassist and as the keyboardist, both of which he excels at well. Sieb Warner, a one-time drummer for Golden Earring makes his sole appearance on this album, never to return, which is a shame because he is highly talented, seen especially during his solo on 'Eight Miles High'. Of course Barry Hay should be mentioned as he does a good job backing up Kooymans as rhythm guitar and backing vocalist, making the overall sound much fuller.

If you're looking for a zesty, above-average example of what the British, or in this case Dutch 60's blues scene could deliver you, I say look no further than Golden Earring's Eight Miles High.