IT DOCKUMER LOKAELTSJE

If there is one legendary band from Leeuwarden, one band that brought  big frowns on Frisian, Dutch, English and German heads (even BBC DJ John Peel was looking under the table when he played this band on the  radio, thinking that a strange animal just bit him), it’s IT DOCKUMER LOKAELTSJE. And Leeuwarden just recently realised again that they missed this band for about twenty five years, because a few months ago a new album, called TONGER, fell out of the sky splashing full on the frisian capitals culturally celebrating head.

Halfway the eighties three young fellows got together after school time  in Leeuwarden and decided they had to show the world a new form of obstinate playful in-your-face post-punk. It had to be fresh and short and in Frisian. Peter Sijbenga shook the most imaginative stories out of his sleeve and became a young chroniqueur of the Frisian flatlander’s live. He knew how to put down some bass grooves too and Sytse van Essen en Fritz de Jong were smart enough to add off-kilter guitar lines and bonkering beats to make sure a new sound was moving out and going around. They made two albums, let the planet tremble and then disappeared for almost 25 years.

In 2014 they met again, they shook hands, they rehearsed and came back, they wrote new songs and played some shows, went into a studio and released a full new album in 2017, called Tonger. Again the short songs, strange stories, weird hooks and catchy lines; It Dockumer Lokaeltsje is back and the world says, “Hmmm, au, ya, hell, godverdomme, we need this band, how did we ever survive without?”

It Dockumer Lokaeltsje keeps the moods busy in and outside Fryslan  because their strange Frisian tales have an itch. Dutch people might be known in the world as a combination of preachers and salesmen, well, It Dockumer Lokaeltsje pulls the plug out of that bubble and serves the perfect antidote for people who are just a bit too sure of themselves, this band is quite a doubtful case: “it is nochal in twiveleftich gefal”.