By Jan 
We’re almost there! Earlier this year, we already welcomed The Ramones from America as the first permanent punk fixture in the list! This month, a hefty dose of energy arrives from Australia: The Saints make their entrance with “I’m Stranded” (#1), and with this punk anthem they historically beat the British punk pioneers The Damned, The Sex Pistols and The Clash to the punch!
Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper and drummer Ivor Hay were already playing together in 1973. Back then, they were still called Kid Galahad and The Eternals. Things were already pretty energetic at the time! In ’74 they reinvented themselves as The Saints, and what followed became quite a remarkable chapter in Australian music history, one that has now been unfolding for nearly half a century. Chris Bailey remained the driving force behind The Saints until his death in 2022. In the meantime, Kuepper and Hay are back at the helm!
Even a few years ago, Bert De Coninck swapped the temporary for the eternal with “Evelyne” (#2). This eccentric bard is a rather special figure in Belpop. Suddenly, in the middle of 1975, he came up with his debut album “Enfant Terrible”. Everyone expected a brilliant and richly rewarding musical career, but the Mechelen cuckoo flew the nest rather quickly. Together with Fran, he did manage to cook up a few more musical concoctions and founded the band Crapule de Luxe, but by the early eighties you could say he had disappeared south with the sun to Portugal.
The top three is rounded off this month by “Desperados Under the Eaves” (#3), the syrupy closing track from Warren Zevon’s self-titled album! Rest assured, that Werewolf won’t be getting any peace in this list before the end of the year!
The motley bunch that has settled between sixth and tenth place this month has absolutely no precedent! From the occasionally terrifying growling grizzly-bear sounds of Tom Waits on “Tom Traubert’s Blues” (#6), via the utterly absurd tearjerker antics of Koot and Bie in “Rozen, Rumbonen en Rode Wijn” (#7), we arrive at number eight with an infernally screeching and almost gag-inducing Arno Hintjens.
Come on, admit it: the almost grotesque cover of Tjens Couter’s “Little Red Rooster” (#8) adds several glorious extra dimensions to the original! And it gets even worse: anyone capable of surviving the rubber-ball assault designed to induce a full-blown fit of “Satisfaction” (#9) by The Residents must have nerves of steel. As if that weren’t enough fun, the slightly infantile “Abominable Snowman in the Market” (#10) by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers adds yet another layer of madness to this utterly deranged sequence.
And yes, for some reason that is probably difficult to understand and even harder to fathom, I find this sequence groundbreaking genius. 😉
One more thing worth mentioning: September ’76 was a particularly fertile month on home soil. Besides the aforementioned Bert De Coninck and Tjens Couter, we could also enjoy Lieven, another forgotten glory who conquered — and still manages to conquer — the nation with “Neerhof” (#14), taken from his album “Jus d’Orange”. Proof of that enduring appeal is its continued presence on Radio 1’s Lage Landenlijst.
We round off our homegrown four-leaf clover with Zjef Vanuytsel: “Soms wanneer jij er niet bent” (#20) is an album track taken from his third album, “De Zanger”.
(Jan VH)
Playlist
1 – The Saints – I’m Stranded
2 – Bert De Coninck & Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Evelyne
3 – Warren Zevon – Desperados Under the Eaves
4 – Lewis Furey – Lucky Guy
5 – Ramones – I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
6 – Tom Waits – Tom Traubert’s Blues
7 – Simplistisch Verbond – Rozen, Rumbonen en Rode Wijn
8 – Tjens Couter – Little Red Rooster
9 – Residents – Satisfaction
10 – Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Abominable Snowman in T. Market
11 – Alan Parsons Project – The Raven
12 – Kevin Ayers – Blue
13 – Dillinger – Cocaine in My Brain
14 – Lieven – Neerhof
15 – Nick Lowe – Heart of the Country
16 – Rolling Stones – Crazy Mama
17 – Eric Clapton – Hello Old Friend
18 – La Düsseldorf – Düsseldorf
19 – Artful Dodger – Scream
20 – Zjef Vanuytsel – Soms Wanneer Jij Er Niet Bent
21 – J.J. Cale – Hey Baby
22 – Loving Awareness – Love You to Know
23 – Be-Bop Deluxe – Modern Music
24 – Vangelis – Alpha
25 – Bryan Ferry – Heart on My Sleeve
26 – Shelter Skelter – She’s a Sucker
27 – T. Rex – Laser Love
28 – Southside Johnny & A. & J. ft. Ronnie Spector – You Mean So Much to Me Baby
29 – Leonard Cohen – Do I Have to Dance All Night
30 – Flamin’ Groovies – You Tore Me Down
31 – Nils Lofgren – It’s Not a Crime
32 – Danny Kirwan – Let It Be
33 – Jess Roden Band – All Night Long
34 – Climax Blues Band – Couldn’t Get It Right
35 – Harvey Andrews – Why (When Somebody Picks a Fight)
36 – Stevie Wonder – Isn’t She Lovely
37 – Max Romeo & The Upsetters – Uptown Babies
38 – Steely Dan – The Fez
39 – Hollies – Daddy Don’t Mind
40 – Bonnie Tyler – Lost in France
NOV – Henhouse Five Plus Too (Ray Stevens) – In the Mood