Rock and rollers have distinguished themselves from the pack since the music was born by adopting trademark stage moves: Elvis Presley’s swivel, Chuck Berry’s duck walk, James Brown’s impossible splits, and more recently, Michael Jackson’s crotch grabs. Veteran Dutch punkers the Ex, though less well known, have some pretty distinctive moves of their own. During a recent show at Lounge Ax, a Chicago debut for the 15-year-old band, they ran, leapt, staggered, and swung around each other with a reckless abandon that was as thrilling as the music they played. But the movement was more than just shtick, like Bruce Springsteen jumping on top of a speaker stack; it was a visual metaphor for the musical values they espouse.
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Originally the Ex’s music wasn’t as radical as their attitudes. Like many punks, at first they couldn’t really play their instruments, but they turned that limitation to an advantage, developing unique and idiosyncratic ways of using the familiar guitar-bass-drums lineup. Rather than discrete notes and chords, they produced textured slabs of sound, with a very loud bass overwhelming a harshly scraped guitar. Their instrumental skills have since improved, but not in the direction of conventional virtuosity. Andy, an accomplished guitarist from the Scottish quartet Dog Faced Hermans, who has played with the Ex sporadically since 1990, says that Ex bassist Luc and guitarist Terrie (most of the Ex decline to give last names) still don’t read music or know the names of chords. But with the help of odd props like screwdrivers, strips of duct tape, heavy metal bars, and the stage floor they generate an astonishing range of sounds.
But politics and unusual techniques can only carry a band so far. The Ex developed a reputation as one of Europe’s most exciting live bands during the early 80s and sustained it throughout the decade, but they had difficulty capturing their onstage sound on record. Using concert recordings or playing live in the studio, they compiled a catalog of albums that handily documented their harsh, bracing attack, but the band and their fans agreed that the excitement didn’t quite translate to vinyl.
Two years later, taking the stage at Lounge Ax, lead singer G. W. Sok wryly apologized for the delay: “It’s a long drive from the Netherlands.” Then Cora sawed out a dramatic cello line while a twin guitar strum built tension for a half minute before the group exploded into “The Big Black,” a song from And the Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders.
Even Cora, whose instrument kept him seated for most of the night, was far from stationary. He took advantage of the gaps in the stop-start structure of “Total Preparation” to hop up and take a jig about the stage, then returned to his seat just in time to play his next part. As the song progressed the guitarists started throwing towels at each other, big grins on their faces. This illustrated another aspect of the Ex that doesn’t show up on their records; they looked like they were enjoying themselves immensely. On record, the Ex’s sense of humor is only evident in the bitter ironies of Sok’s lyrics, but onstage the fun they have playing was evident.
