Keep hold of your valuables this morning - there's a right load of crooks about!
THE CROOKS #1
Meeting on the beach at The Hague (I didn't know The Hague had a beach) in 1965, this band of Dutch folkies broke up a few years later (going off to form King's Galliard and the Ramshackle Stringband) before getting back together to make more music in the late 70s, 80s and 90s.
As featured on the Modern Songs compilation I put together for Sam a year or so back.
THE CROOKS #3
Italian "punk 'n' roll" band sprouting from Milan in 1997...
CROOKS #4
Texan indie/roots band (old-style country, basically) formed in 2007, still propping up bar stools 6 years later...
THE CROOKES #5
The added E is because these guys came from a district of Sheffield called Crookes. For a millisecond in 2009, I thought they were the next big thing, mainly down to the fact that I was rather taken by their song Yes, Yes, We're Magicians. Then I blinked and suddenly they'd released 4 albums before splitting up, and I hadn't heard any of them and... where did the time go?
Their final single in 2016 was called The World Is Waiting. Sadly, it wasn't.
THE CROOKS #6
Also in 2009, these dudes were ploughing an acidy psychedelic furrow in Michigan...
CROOKS #7
Around the same time, these lads from Cheltenham were doing their best to produce "melodic hardcore" (singing tarmac?). Also known as Crooks UK, the track below has over a million views on the tube of you, so they must have been a moderately big thing...
CROOKS #8
We'll close today with a bit of laid-back Dutch rap from 2021. To quote one youtube comment: "Rauwe echte hiphop, big up Crooks!!" Big up is apparently a universal phrase now.
There were many more Crooks to be found on discogs, but their music had all been stolen, so that's your lot for today. Which Crooks would you walk a Crooked Mile for?
I have a track by King's Galliard on a compilation called 'Dutch Rare Folk - 43 Lost Classics' that I acquired from a market stall in The Hague some years ago. They use the term 'classics' very loosely and 43 is an odd number to settle on. Maybe they couldn't find 50.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm going for #2
Good to have you back, Ernie. Without you, this post could be retitled The Madness of King George.
DeleteI truly dislike #1, it's on a par with Atomic and Union City Blue. So far it's looking #5 by a country kilometre
ReplyDeleteThe incoherent, pretentious mishmash of #7 is even more grating than #1. #6 is worth a second listen, and #8 is not for me. My vote goes to #5
ReplyDeleteThat is the correct answer. Well done.
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