Gitaren uit de Oost (live)
Guitars from the East is a talk show and podcast with live music and video footage that explores the origin and influence of Indorock, featuring Woody Brunings (The Crazy Rockers) and Megan de Klerk (Nusantara Beat).
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The four-part talk show and podcast series Gitaren uit de Oost (Guitars from the East) combines live music, video footage, and conversations between artists from different generations. The central theme is the relationship between musicality and Indo-European or Moluccan identity, with music serving as the connecting thread. Complex themes such as 'Postcolonial identity' are addressed in an accessible way.
Indo-European and Moluccan youths were the first to climb Dutch stages in the late 1950s with a guitar to play rock & roll - a genre that was still unknown here. 'Indorock' opened the door to pop music, from which later R&B, indie rock, disco, and house emerged.
Program maker and host Eva Verboon has ancestors who were Indorockers. She realizes how important music must have been for the generation of her father and grandfather. Why else would you take your guitar in that one suitcase on the boat, heading towards a new life in a distant, unknown country? And why were it specifically the Indo-European and Moluccan immigrants who got the Netherlands excited about 'modern' music? Eva also connects this with the present: who are the Indorockers of today, what does their music sound like, and how does that musicality fit into the story of their identity?
About Woody Brunings
Woody Brunings (87) is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of The Crazy Rockers. The band was founded in 1959 and still performs to this day in 2024 with their rock & roll in the style of the Tielman Brothers. The band has been composed of musicians with different backgrounds from the beginning: Indo, Surinamese, Moluccan, and Dutch.
Woody was still in school when Sidney Rampersad asked him to start a band together. They played together and had some individual gigs. Woody was then called up for military service. Upon his return to the Netherlands after his service, Sidney was immediately enthusiastic again. Woody brought Eddy into the band, and together they often drove to their rehearsals. Sitting on the back of the bike with a small amplifier was 16-year-old Eddy. From that moment on, The Crazy Rockers began as a Hague Indorock band founded in 1959, inspired by Rock & Roll from the United States.
About Megan (Nusantara Beat)
Megan de Klerk (1990) has been singing and dancing since she could talk and walk. Megan is a singer, songwriter, and vocal coach with Indo roots. She grew up in the province of Utrecht (Nieuwegein and IJsselstein) and was already performing in a band at the music school at the age of twelve. She inherited her love for music from her parents, both of whom sang in bands. Since 2002, she has been making music herself and studied at the Herman Brood Academy and the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Megan became known as the frontwoman of the post-pop band EUT and is now making a name for herself as the singer of Nusantara Beat.
In Guitars from the East #1, she already made a small contribution, but we are even more excited to now hear her entire story in her own edition at the Vinyl Festival Haarlem.
Guitars from the East (live)
With Woody Brunings and Megan de Klerk (Nusantara Beat)
Location: PHIL (Small Hall)
Time: 13:00-14:30
Tickets: This program is accessible with a Saturday or weekend ticket, available here.
Nusantara Beat will perform on the Saturday of the Haarlem Vinyl Festival at Patronaat, tickets are available here. The concert is also accessible with the HVF Weekend Pass. If you already have a ticket for the Nusantara Beat concert, you are also welcome at this live recording of Guitars from the East.
This program component is made possible in part by Podiumkunst.net, Guitars from the East is also made possible in part by AFK and Cultuurfonds.