Young punks Clitteband from Hilversum, the Netherlands, beat three non-punk bands to win in the final round. Herman de Tollenaere reports:
The 035 Popprijs competition final took place on 28th February at the Vorstin venue, Hilversum, featuring four bands; Clitteband, Crashing, Lisa Rose, and bloc bloc bloc.
The 2025 organisers deserve praise for making it a free concert, leading to a packed hall. A welcome contrast to stadium gigs where spectators pay hundreds of euros, pounds or dollars to see rock stars, while often most of the money does not go to musicians, but to businessmen in suits.
Clitteband were the only punk band to reach the competition final – they are: Emmi Dijk on lead vocals and guitar, Lucy Kliphuis on drums and backing vocals, Dieseldump on bass and backing vocals, and Siem Bockweg on lead guitar and backing vocals.
Each band had just 30 minutes to impress the jury of three established music industry professionals.
Hilversum is a bulwark of the Dutch music establishment. Broadcasting organisations and big record labels have their studios and offices there. They tend towards ‘radio friendly’ music, excluding punk. Leading Dutch radio DJ Frits Spits said in 1978: “I have completely by-passed punk, as I thought it was bad music, which never meant anything to me and never will.’’ There was no John Peel in the Dutch broadcasting world to counter that. Dutch punks founded hundreds of bands in 1975-1982. Only four of them got a major label record deal. Three of these were dumped after their first album, and the fourth band were dumped after their second album.
What would this mean for young punks Clitteband in 2025?
There have been criticisms of music contests in the Dutch punk movement. In 1987, six Dutch punk bands organised a series of concerts called De Grote Zeik van Nederland (the Big Piss of the Netherlands), as a parody of the official music industry contest De Grote Prijs van Nederland (the Grand Prize of the Netherlands).
The concert began at 8 pm. First, French chansons. Then, electropop. Both played technically well. The third band played interesting ‘shoegaze’, but struggled with technical problems.
Clitteband played as fourth and last band. Initially, all band members wore suits like the Jam in 1977. Later, they discarded them. Fortunately, the sound mix showed clearly what a great drummer Lucy is. She frequently hit the cymbals hard, fitting for most Clitteband songs.
Emmi is roughly the height of Siouxsie, while her strong voice is reminiscent of Poly Styrene. The Clitteband singer moved a lot on stage, more like Siouxsie than like Joey Ramone, while playing guitar more often than Siouxsie. At the beginning, guitarist Siem and bassist Dieseldump were on either side of Emmi, but later, they often ran towards each other while playing enthusiastically.
Their first song, ‘Killversum Mediarat‘ is about the police and other anti-punk prejudices in Hilversum. The fast song immediately caused hundreds to pogo frantically. From the very first notes, the audience became much livelier and noisier.
Then, immediately, another speedy punk song, ‘Ich bin Wasmaschin‘, about a washing machine. Emmi sang it with diving goggles on.
The band announced their third song, ‘Roze Zonnebril‘ (Pink Sunglasses), which had not been on their ‘Kattekwaad‘ album, with “There is so much stuff in the world making us angry! So, what should we do? Dance!” The ska-influenced tune caused mass skanking.
‘Sluw‘ is one of their earliest songs. Then, ‘Zwartrijden‘, about fare evasion, was new, not on the LP.
Next, a short monologue by Lucy against toxic masculinity and misogynists (like the Tate brothers. Accused in three countries of raping underage girls and other crimes, then released after the US Trump administration pressured the Romanian government at the Munich international security conference). Then, a song about the same subject, ‘Gore Gozers’ (Dirty Blokes).
After ‘Basisschool‘ (primary school), their contribution on the 2024 ‘Uitholling Overlangs‘ compilation LP of young punk bands, came a new song ‘Zuig Pik Bek‘ (Suck Dick Beak) about ‘progressive’ men, claiming to read Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek and German philosopher Theodor Adorno, who turned out to be sexist.
Then, the audience sang along with the last song ‘Roken op het Schoolterrein‘ (Smoking on the School Ground).
What a great Clitteband set! They played even better than at their Leiden and Amsterdam gigs. Also, it was a varied set, exposing the prejudice that all punk supposedly ‘sounds the same’! So, it was very well deserved that the jury announced, to stormy applause, that Clitteband had won the competition!
This meant that they received a thousand euros, the right to rehearse in the rehearsal space at the Vorstin, and that the Vorstin would recommend them to other venues.
It has been a busy 12 months for Clitteband – they and Maria Iskariot from Belgium both contributed to the ‘Uitholling Overlangs’ and played at Paradiso at the presentation of that album. Clitteband were the only punk band in the final of Hilversum town and also the first punk band ever to win it; during a night when the DJ had not played a single punk record. After 50 years, it seems some of the prejudices against punk seem to have broken down, at last. That Maria Iskariot is 75% female, and the Clitteband is 50%, re-emphasizes a break with male near-monopoly in punk music.
I think that if Clitteband were to open in, say, the UK, for bands such as Maid of Ace, the U.K. Subs, Penetration, or the Damned, then the audiences of these bands would greatly appreciate them. Venues, promoters in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and everywhere else: are you listening?
Main Photo Credit / All Photos: MICHAEL BOSBOOM
8 March – Landbouwbelang, Maastricht
5/6 April – Ppauw, Wageningen
18 April – Hillyweird, Hilversum
24 May – Melkweg, Amsterdam
31 May – Astrant, Ede
4 June – 013, Tilburg
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In 1978 Herman co-founded Dutch Rock Against Racism and was a founder of Pin punkzine. He’s vocals/saxophone for Cheap ‘n’ Nasty and in 2021 co-founded the Punk Scholars Network, Netherlands.
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