George Kooymans - founder, lead guitarist and main songwriter of Golden Earring - is 75 today

[highplainsdem]

Cross-post from Music Appreciation.


I hope he's been having as good a day as possible when he's battling ALS.

NPO Radio 2 in the Netherlands has a new article about all the other artists George has helped over the years by writing and/or producing hits for them. I posted about that in a new message in the Lounge topic asking for vibes/prayers for him as he fights ALS:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181674319#post100

Last year's message about his birthday, which explains how he was honored across the Netherlands in March 2021, honored along with Golden Earring, just weeks after the diagnosis was announced and Golden Earring disbanded:

https://democraticunderground.com/103471740

I posted a bit more about the tributes on 3/11/2021 in reply 68 in the Lounge thread, posted last October, showing some tweets from that day:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10181674319#post68

Twilight Zone - which was written by George alone - though by this time he'd usually had lead singer Barry Hay, whose first language was English, writing the lyrics, after years of George writing Golden Earring's early hits by himself. This was at a concert a couple of months before they recorded the song and decided on a final title.

Twenty years after Radar Love was recorded, a concert on the beach near the Hague for hundreds of thousands of fans. This is a song that had been a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands a couple of years earlier:

At what turned out to be Golden Earring's last concert, November 16, 2019 - last because Covid hit before their spring tour could start, and then George was diagnosed with ALS in late 2020 - and since this is a video from a fan, uploaded to YouTube within hours, you can hear how great they still sounded live:

It's a shame most people remember Golden Earring only for "Radar Love" and have no idea how much the kid who founded the first version of the band when he was only 13 - after first teaching the kid who'd become Golden Earring's bass player (and George's brother-in-law) to play guitar - went on to contribute to music over six decades,

[XanaDUer2]

1. Cool nt

[highplainsdem]

8. Yes, he is.

It's unfortunate that there aren't more articles and books in English about him and his band, and more interviews in English. I have ordered the remastered/expanded CD/DVD of their 1969 album Eight Miles High (this was in their psychedelic/prog-rock phase, and one side of the album was an extended cover of that Byrds classic), and that includes a late-'60s documentary with English captions, but it hasn't arrived yet.

Mostly I have to try to pick out what words I do know from Dutch interviews and news stories and TV talk show appearances like the two below, from 1976 and about twenty years later (either 1996 or 1997).

They all speak English - most people in the Netherlands do. They recorded in English to reach a wider audience. But there are all these interviews where you hear them singing in perfect English, and then they switch to Dutch with just occasional English words.

If there are captions in Dutch, I can at least type those into Google Translate since I'm not familiar with that many Dutch words, and it's even harder to follow spoken Dutch.

But even if I could translate everything easily, George typically let other band members do most of the talking. He was the band's leader as well as its founder, but I've seen interviews of just George and lead singer Barry Hay where Barry did at least 90% of the talking. And I've never seen any interviews or articles where George himself talked about all the help he's given other artists. Pretty modest and a bit shy. But very much the person most responsible for Golden Earring's creation, success and longevity.

The song at the start of that second video - "Another 45 Miles" - had been a huge hit for them the winter of 1969-70, when George was 21 and they'd already had hits in the Netherlands for several years. And it was so much a fan favorite that not only were they still doing it at almost every show till 2019, and for that 1996/1997 TV appearance where George was nearly 50 (though he definitely didn't look it there), George would do it for at least some of his shows with Vreemde Kostgangers (Strange Boarders), the supergroup trio he formed in 2016 as a side project with two other singers who'd been stars in the Netherlands in the 1960s-1980s, and whom he had hits and successful tours with while still keeping Golden Earring together and touring.

1969:

2017, Vreemde Kostgangers:

When he was recently made an honorary citizen of the Belgian town he's lived near most of his adult life, a band they had there covering his music sang this.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. So, my friend HPD, I listened to all these ...

And for me, just cause of when I went to HS in the early '80's, Twilight Zone is the most 'known to me' song ... i.e. I heard it before Radar Love, and like it better actually ... but I have to say, I just don't really appreciate Cesar's drum work that much. It reminds of just like ... random friends I jammed with in HS and College.

All the live stuff you posted, I listen to it and I'm like ... these songs really are pretty good ... but then I just kinda don't like the drumming Maybe cause I grew up listening to really creative drummers like Bonzo, Moon, Peart, Watts, et all.

Totally a personal preference, not saying he sucks or anything, but I'm thinking as I'm listening "How I would want the drums to be if it were my song", and it's just ... not that.

Cesar's drumming on the studio version of Twilight Zone OTOH is pretty nails though.

Not trying to diss what seems to be a fave band of yours, but watching the clips I can't help but feel like if the drummer was a stud ... these guys may've been really huge. I think maybe he held them back a bit

Sorry, edit: Happy Birthday George! That dude's a badass.

[highplainsdem]

3. I'm not going to get into an argument with anyone today, if I can help it. Just

don't feel like arguing.

But I love Cesar's drumming. And since you mentioned Keith Moon, I should point out that Cesar was asked to join The Who after Keith died. The bands were old friends, had toured together, had the same managers at times. Cesar turned them down, as Golden Earring's bass player, Rinus Gerritsen, turned down Jimi Hendrix when he was asked to join Hendrix's band. They were Dutch and liked living in the Netherlands.

And their wanting to stay in the Netherlands rather than relocate to the US probably had a lot to do with Golden Earring never becoming as successful as they were in their home country and some European countries.

Cesar and Rinus were so amazing together.

As John Waite pointed out for a Dutch documentary:

Link to the thread for Cesar's birthday last July - and see the replies there as well:

https://democraticunderground.com/103478660

[Hugh_Lebowski]

5. Maybe it's just those particular songs, the live versions

I'm not really that familiar with their catalog, and may've spoke too soon

[highplainsdem]

6. Well, everyone's entitled to their own opinion about who is or isn't a

great drummer. If you think Cesar might have held the band back, that's a perfectly valid personal opinion. But it 's one I've never run across before. And since I haven't run across it before, and The Who wanted Cesar after they lost Keith Moon, I don't think your low opinion of Cesar is very widely shared.

I have a very high opinion of Cesar. Who's inspired and encouraged a lot of drummers.

Sometimes a lot of them all at once. As you'll see in the videos below, from 1992 and 2018.

Btw, if you check out the Music Appreciation thread for Cesar's birthday that I linked to in my last post (but included rather inconspicuously under the video of John Waite raving about the band and Cesar and Rinus in particular) you'll find a reply from a DUer inspired to become a drummer because of Cesar, as well as more videos and a link to a Drummerworld thread.

Here's a thread on Cesar's new band from a Telecaster forum: https://www.tdpri.com/threads/golden-earring-drummer-cesars-new-band-sloper.1084368/

Those videos of Cesar inspiring/encouraging lots of drummers:

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Okay I revise my view and figured out what put me off

On that particular live version of Twilight Zone, there's a ton of tapping on the ride. And this was what the non-pro guys I played with in HS and College used to rely on, and it would get on my nerves, that ting-ting-ting right over my back shoulder when I'm trying to sing

If I go and listen to the studio version, however, it's quite different. During the chorus he's mixing it up on the high-hat, no reliance on tapping the ride (or if it's there, it's buried in the mix so I don't pick up on it), I really do dig the drumming in that version, it's pretty badass.

So maybe it's more fair to say, at least on that live version of that song, I'm not big on the way that it's different from the studio version drumming-wise.

Then I flipped to the last one and heard the ride tapping again. But then as it goes on, I appreciate the style more during the long instrumental part.

He's very solid though ... sturdy, workmanlike timekeeping, occasional bit of flash.

And the rhythm section do play really well with each other.

[highplainsdem]

10. Thanks for explaining! It's always interesting to hear what's behind individual

reactions to songs/performances, and that's a really helpful explanation.

And since the studio track is different, I'll post that below.

Yes, Cesar and Rinus were a great rhythm section. I ran across a Dutch TV show specifically about that a while back, but couldn't find it searching quickly last night. It was in Dutch anyway and I don't recall any captions, let alone English ones.

I can't help wondering what might have happened with the band if Cesar had joined the Who, when invited, and Rinus had agreed to play bass with Jimi Hendrix. From what I've read, the other three band members had made it clear at the times these offers/invitations were made that they would understand Rinus and later Cesar wanting to work with more famous artists, and wouldn't want to stand in the way of their leaving. But they didn't want to leave. Very close-knit band. George had fallen in love with Rinus's younger sister when they were both in their early teens (Rinus is two years older than George, the oldest member of the band) and he was either already married to her or engaged by the time Rinus got that invitation from Hendrix (it did just occur to me that Rinus's sister might have been very much against his leaving Golden Earring). And although Cesar joined the band fairly late, not till 1970, they pretty quickly became family for him, and I remember seeing something about how much George had helped him after his mother died. Plus they'd all been closer to Keith Moon than to the other members of the Who, and it's possible that would have made it harder for Cesar to step in to replace Keith. Whatever the exact reasons, they stayed together.

[kysrsoze]

4. Great band. I still love to crank Bullet Hits The Bone.

[highplainsdem]

9. Very common reaction to both that song (Twilight Zone) and Radar Love.

Both of which have probably also been responsible for a lot of speeding tickets. Radar Love especially.


https://www.democraticunderground.com/103495528#post1

[highplainsdem]

11. A Boston-area rock journalist marked George's birthday with an article on

great Golden Earring songs, which I thought was cool.

I posted about it in Music Appreciation, didn't cross-post here in the Lounge, but want to link to it:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103495621