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Doe Maar was a Dutch ska band with punk and reggae influences. They were together from 1978 to 1984. They are among the most successful pop bands in Dutch history. Outside the Dutch-speaking world they are little known, because most of their lyrics are written in Dutch. The success of Doe Maar made it possible for other Dutch singing groups to break through, a development called Nederpop. This page is about ska, the musical style. ...
Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ...
Reggae is a style of music developed in Jamaica and is closely linked to the Rastafari movement, though not universally popular among Rastafarians. ...
1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...
1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Nederpop is a Dutch term that was invented during the early 1980s to name the sudden growth of the Dutch language pop music of the Netherlands. ...
Doe Maar is a Dutch phrase meaning go ahead, mostly used in a deprecatory, sulky manner.
The best known Doe Maar line-up involved Henny Vrienten, bass, Ernst Janz, keyboard, Jan Hendriks, guitar and Jan Pijnenburg on drums (although Pijnenburg did not appear on any of the recordings.) Henny Vrienten was the singer, songwriter and bass guitar player of the popular eighties ska pop band Doe Maar from the Netherlands. ...
The band members still enjoyed playing together and admitted to doing so in private. In 2000 they got back together for a one off tour and album, Klaar (Finished or Ready, whichever way you want to interpret it). This article is about the year 2000. ...
Beginnings
For a couple of years, Doe Maar had led a fringe existence. The band had more or less decided to break up, but were looking for a new bass player to replace Piet Dekker in order to wrap up their performance obligations and to finish recording the second (and what was then thought to be the last) album.
They approached professional player and composer Henny Vrienten, who refused at first, because Doe Maar did not look like the right step in anybody's career. However, Vrienten decided eventually to join. With two gifted song writers now in their midst (the other being Ernst Janz), Doe Maar took off.
Lucky break The record company was still not convinced of the quality of Doe Maar's work and held back the release of the album, Skunk, until after the december season and after carnival, because they felt that the bands offering would not survive amidst bigger names. Swabian-Alemannic carnival clowns in Wolfach, Germany A carnival parade is a public celebration, combining some elements of a circus and public street party, generally during the Carnival Season. ...
However, the record company did start marketing the album and samples were sent to the radio stations. Due to an error, the DJs did not know that the record had not been released and were happy to have some quality amongst the usual vulgar carnaval music trash of the northern Netherlands. DJ or dj may stand for Disc jockey, dinner jacket The DeadJournal website, or Djibouti. ...
Listeners immediately picked up on the song, "32 jaar" ("32 years old"), although they had difficulty remembering the original name "sinds 1 dag of 2" ("since a day or 2"), until radio dj Frits Spits renamed it to the current title.
The huge success of Doe Maar cannot just be explained as a function of the quality of their music. Here are some possible explanations.
In the late seventies, the pop landscape in the Netherlands was pretty barren. It may just have been a matter of Doe Maar being a definite injection of quality at the right time.
One of the strange things of their success was that they were hugely admired by young teenage girls, who for some reason have a knack of falling head over heels for a band or star and sobering up by the time they hit sixteen.
Doe Maar had two older front men: as Henny Vrienten sings, he was 32 at the time and Ernst Janz was of a similar age. However, they were good looking in their own way and what's more, their songs were unusually raw, honest, direct.
Of course, the feedback function of any hype could have played a role: once Doe Maar were recognised (consciously or unconsciously) as a hype, they in effect were a hype.
The band had a hard time dealing with the success. They did not revel in seeing tens or hundreds of young girls fainting in overly crowded hot venues, nor did they particularly seem to like the overnight and complete loss of privacy. Telling may be the name and a stanza from their song 'Eén nacht alleen' (One night alone)
Sylvia, Jeannette, Nathalie en Fien; Elsje, Treesje, Truus, Babette, Betsie en Sabine; Greet, Magreet, Marie, Marij en Angeline; Mies, Marjan, Marjo, Marlein en kleine Tine ... which is a list of feminine names.
Discography - Doe Maar
- Skunk
- Doris Day en Andere Stukken (Doris Day and other performances 1)
- Doe de Dub (Dub album based on Doris Day)
- 4Us (Virus)
- Lijf aan Lijf (Double Live Album)
- Afscheidsconcert (Double Live Album from farewell concert in 1984)
- Klaar (Done/Finished/Complete)
- Hees van Ahoy (Reunion concerts registration)
1: Another translation is "Doris Day and other babes" — a play on words. Doris Day Doris Day (born April 3, 1924) is an American singer, actress, and animal welfare advocate. ...
External links - The official (but defunct) Doe Maar website
- http://www.xs4all.nl/~pulp/doemaar/virus.htm is a discussion in Dutch of the band's history and especially of the album 4us (pronounced 'virus' -- with an 'i' as in 'bier' -- which means, virus).
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