Michael Baxter | The Rondos - King Kong Records - 1980 @mickeypenguin | Uploaded April 2020 | Updated October 2024, 9 minutes ago.
“The Rondos were Maoists, bloody heavy,” Crass guitarist Phil Free remembers in George Berger’s The Story of Crass. “Jesus, they were frightening! Serious! They made Crass look like a vaudeville show! They’re probably still doing time for something!”
Contemporaries and comrades of The Ex, The Rondos were a Rotterdam punk band that ran the record label King Kong, and print shop from their communal habitation, Huize Schoonderloo.
With the bands Rode Wig, Tändstickor Shocks, and Sovjets, they formed Rotterdam’s “Red Rock” collective.
Text below from http://rondos.nl/rondos_biografie/index.php?id=biography
On 18 May 1980 we performed with Red Rock in Doornroosje in Nijmegen, together with The Ex and Suspect. We didn’t know then that it would be our last performance.
The Fall from Manchester let us know that they wanted to organize a tour of the Netherlands with The Rondos. They’d listened to our album and were impressed. We declined because we really needed the break.
We took the train to the Basque Country. We were very partial to the more stubborn regions. We also visited Lourdes and eventually the Pyrenees. The breath-taking beauty of the mountains overwhelmed us. We’d gotten used to spending our time in stuffy, dark and smoky rooms. We went on long hikes. We stayed away as long as possible, until we had no money left.
When we got back to Rotterdam, we could think clearly again. The retreat had done us good. We realized we didn’t want to be the frontmen of the punk scene or the scapegoats of neo-Nazis and other riffraff. We decided to pack in The Rondos and Raket. We’d overshot the mark. That much was clear to us.
But we stayed true to ourselves and decided to tie things up nicely. We would publish two more editions of Raket and one last Rondos single. And that is what we did.
Raket 13 appeared in September 1980 in an edition of 1000 copies. It contained 114 pages. The last edition of Raket (14) was published in November 1980, also in an edition of 1000 copies. It contained 232 pages., with no less than 4 supplements: Over platen maken en hun verspreiding (‘On making records and their distribution’), The selling of Limburg, about punk in the mining district, Punk & Verzet (‘Punk and Resistance’) and the first part of De avonturen van Red Rat (‘The Adventures of Red Rat’).
Our arms ached with stencilling and gathering all the pages and we called on everyone to start making their own fanzines again.
With these last two editions we dropped a bombshell. Punk was as good as dead, we argued. What should we do? Anybody had any ideas? A heated discussion followed. The supplement Punk & Verzet that came with Raket 14 is bursting at the seams with the reactions. We may have overplayed our hand in the all too personal polemics with some former Red Rock colleagues.
Feelings were running high and stones literally came flying through our windows. But the loss, particularly of Kaasee, once a refuge for all denominations, but degenerated to the drinking and fighting house of a small, intolerant clique, truly grieved us. We were sad to see it all being thrown away.
The disintegration only gained momentum and on 8th April, 1981 Kaasee burnt to the ground. The Rotterdam punk scene collapsed like a house of cards and never recovered from the blow. That’s that, done and dusted, good riddance.
In September 1980 The Rondos’ last single appeared, titled Fight Back! On the sleeve it said:
“the rondos quit. this is our last record. we brought the rondos to a conclusion, because in our opinion we became too successful. and being successful means being accepted. besides; a great part of the punk-movement is developing in a direction, which is not ours; violence, alcohol, confirmation and commerce/business. but the struggle continues! we keep on fighting with other means.”
It was written without capital letters, in both Dutch and English.
The public at large took offence at the word ‘success’. They thought, like true bourgeois, that by success we meant being in the hit parade and making lots of money. But we didn’t. On the contrary, to us being successful meant to be placed on a pedestal, serving as a punchbag for neo-Nazis and being asked to play on a Labour Day celebration for the PvdA, for Christs sake. We declined. We would rather do without The Rondos.
Our urge to provoke took new shape in the sleeve of ‘Fight Back!’ We were often called Maoists. That’s all very well, but then we would put a portrait of the Great Helmsman on the sleeve of our last single. Almost everyone took the provocation seriously, even though the man in question wore the red Rondos triangle on his luxury workwear. And the song "Which Side Will You Be On?" most certainly was a call to our colleagues from Crass.
We made plans to start a new band later, under a new name, once everything had quietened down. We never did. We sold our PA and paid back the 10,000 guilders we borrowed for it. The Rondos were history. Forever more. Amen.
“The Rondos were Maoists, bloody heavy,” Crass guitarist Phil Free remembers in George Berger’s The Story of Crass. “Jesus, they were frightening! Serious! They made Crass look like a vaudeville show! They’re probably still doing time for something!”
Contemporaries and comrades of The Ex, The Rondos were a Rotterdam punk band that ran the record label King Kong, and print shop from their communal habitation, Huize Schoonderloo.
With the bands Rode Wig, Tändstickor Shocks, and Sovjets, they formed Rotterdam’s “Red Rock” collective.
Text below from http://rondos.nl/rondos_biografie/index.php?id=biography
On 18 May 1980 we performed with Red Rock in Doornroosje in Nijmegen, together with The Ex and Suspect. We didn’t know then that it would be our last performance.
The Fall from Manchester let us know that they wanted to organize a tour of the Netherlands with The Rondos. They’d listened to our album and were impressed. We declined because we really needed the break.
We took the train to the Basque Country. We were very partial to the more stubborn regions. We also visited Lourdes and eventually the Pyrenees. The breath-taking beauty of the mountains overwhelmed us. We’d gotten used to spending our time in stuffy, dark and smoky rooms. We went on long hikes. We stayed away as long as possible, until we had no money left.
When we got back to Rotterdam, we could think clearly again. The retreat had done us good. We realized we didn’t want to be the frontmen of the punk scene or the scapegoats of neo-Nazis and other riffraff. We decided to pack in The Rondos and Raket. We’d overshot the mark. That much was clear to us.
But we stayed true to ourselves and decided to tie things up nicely. We would publish two more editions of Raket and one last Rondos single. And that is what we did.
Raket 13 appeared in September 1980 in an edition of 1000 copies. It contained 114 pages. The last edition of Raket (14) was published in November 1980, also in an edition of 1000 copies. It contained 232 pages., with no less than 4 supplements: Over platen maken en hun verspreiding (‘On making records and their distribution’), The selling of Limburg, about punk in the mining district, Punk & Verzet (‘Punk and Resistance’) and the first part of De avonturen van Red Rat (‘The Adventures of Red Rat’).
Our arms ached with stencilling and gathering all the pages and we called on everyone to start making their own fanzines again.
With these last two editions we dropped a bombshell. Punk was as good as dead, we argued. What should we do? Anybody had any ideas? A heated discussion followed. The supplement Punk & Verzet that came with Raket 14 is bursting at the seams with the reactions. We may have overplayed our hand in the all too personal polemics with some former Red Rock colleagues.
Feelings were running high and stones literally came flying through our windows. But the loss, particularly of Kaasee, once a refuge for all denominations, but degenerated to the drinking and fighting house of a small, intolerant clique, truly grieved us. We were sad to see it all being thrown away.
The disintegration only gained momentum and on 8th April, 1981 Kaasee burnt to the ground. The Rotterdam punk scene collapsed like a house of cards and never recovered from the blow. That’s that, done and dusted, good riddance.
In September 1980 The Rondos’ last single appeared, titled Fight Back! On the sleeve it said:
“the rondos quit. this is our last record. we brought the rondos to a conclusion, because in our opinion we became too successful. and being successful means being accepted. besides; a great part of the punk-movement is developing in a direction, which is not ours; violence, alcohol, confirmation and commerce/business. but the struggle continues! we keep on fighting with other means.”
It was written without capital letters, in both Dutch and English.
The public at large took offence at the word ‘success’. They thought, like true bourgeois, that by success we meant being in the hit parade and making lots of money. But we didn’t. On the contrary, to us being successful meant to be placed on a pedestal, serving as a punchbag for neo-Nazis and being asked to play on a Labour Day celebration for the PvdA, for Christs sake. We declined. We would rather do without The Rondos.
Our urge to provoke took new shape in the sleeve of ‘Fight Back!’ We were often called Maoists. That’s all very well, but then we would put a portrait of the Great Helmsman on the sleeve of our last single. Almost everyone took the provocation seriously, even though the man in question wore the red Rondos triangle on his luxury workwear. And the song "Which Side Will You Be On?" most certainly was a call to our colleagues from Crass.
We made plans to start a new band later, under a new name, once everything had quietened down. We never did. We sold our PA and paid back the 10,000 guilders we borrowed for it. The Rondos were history. Forever more. Amen.
