On My Radar! by guest blogger Keith Toop...
- Keith Toop
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Keith takes the reins again as he looks into a band that's piqued his interest recently, but that you might have forgotten about....
In 1961 a Dutch rock band was founded in the Hague. That band was the Tornados, but they
went on to change their name just two years later. They had 26 studio albums, 8 live albums,
3 compilation albums and 74 singles. Their latest album was called “Switch” which was
originally released in 1975 but was remastered and expanded in 2025.
So if you were a rock band and you had some reasonable hits in your own country, you
might be satisfied? Or you might be thinking that it would be great to spread to a bigger
audience. Well in 1968 they had a minor hit in Belgium. The song was Dong-Dong-Di-Ki-
Di-Gi-Dong, where it reached number 1 in Holland and number 18 in Belgium. It wasn’t until
1970 that they had a number one in Holland number 2 in Belgium, 6 in Switzerland and
15 in Germany. The song was “Back Home”, followed by “Holy Holy Life”, which charted
in three European countries.
By 1972 they had released 8 studio albums and 22 singles, all with varying degrees of
success. You might be thinking that if it took 9 albums to score a massive worldwide hit,
you might give up. Well there have been many artists and bands that waited a long time
for fame. Bill Withers was 32 when he released his debut album “Aint No Sunshine”,
having served in the Navy and worked in a factory. Leonard Cohen released his debut
album at 33 but only decades later did he have the smash hit Hallelujah. Bands that
were a slow burn are Fleetwood Mac, taking about ten years to hit fame. AC/DC were
known in their native Australia, but took about fourteen years to achieve world fame.
Other bands are” Green Day”, “Red Hot Chilli Peppers”, “ZZ Top”, “Goo Goo Dolls” and
the band “Kiss”. There are many more bands and artists that fall into the late fame
category.
The aforementioned KISS - reminding you who gave you rock 'n' roll
So this band had had no album releases in the UK or singles to this point, but this was to change in 1973 with their 9th album, “Moontan”...
This was the first and only album tochart in the UK. There were two singles released from the album. This was by far their best album. It lead to the band doing more world tours and boy did they tour hard. They toured from 1969 to 1984 13 times in the US, including supporting big acts like “The Who”, “Rush” and “Aerosmith”. They were known as one of the longest running bands with a stable lineup until 2021, due to ill health of one of the band members.
The band members were George Kooymans (Guitar), Barry Hay (Lead Vocals), Cesar
Zuiderwijk (Drums), Rinus Gerritsen (Bass), Robert Jan Stips (Keyboard) and Bertus
Borgers (Sax).
When you think of The Netherlands you usually think of cheese, tulips, football and the
colour orange, to name but a few. You don’t really think of big performing artists outside
of their own country. This makes this band stand out amongst others. So what did it for
this band. We already know that their best album came in 1973, so who are they, and
what was it that lifted them to the heights they achieved?
The Band is “Golden Earring” and the song was “Radar Love”. It was an amazing
worldwide hit which is still seen as a huge rock classic today. It is widely known for it’s
47 second drum and bass intro. The album version is timed at 6:26 and the single
version is timed at 5:04. This one song is the biggest legacy of the band and changed
their history, but they would be nothing if it was not backed up by an extensive back
catalogue of good rock songs.
by Keith Toop
Thanks Keith - that's an absolute classic! I found this video whilst adding the music video into the blog, which takes a bit of a dive into the lyrics.... Jon.
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