The Ex - New Horizons In Retailing - Cells / Money / Curtains - Ping Pong Records - 1980

Alphabetically next to the first two Exploited 7″s that were released to this punk rock world, and that I own, you will inevitably find The Ex from the squats of old Amsterdam.

The Ex get far more spins on my turntable than the Exploited ever will.

The Ex really is the good stuff, not so much the Exploited!

The songs on this flexi-disc are pretty basic, unsurprisingly really considering the band's relative inexperience in recording studios at that point, but 'Cells' the first song of this three song set, is absolutely brilliant. The second song 'Money' chugs on with a somewhat sinister sound. The third song 'Curtains' has a slow sluggish start but picks up well towards the end of the song.

This flexi-disc came originally with a Dutch magazine, but presumably these flexi-disc's were handed out at record shops and gigs also, however anyone got hold of a copy, it is a decent statement of what was to follow from the band in the very near future.

This flexi-disc from a young band at the start of 'career' is still a nice listen.

The Ex seem to have been influenced by the Pere Ubu / Gang Of Four sound, chuck in a some sharp Crass guitar sounds and the lyrics on most of the material released by the band is well thought out and concise.

One of the best gigs I ever saw was The Ex performing in a large squatted school in Amsterdam in the mid 1980’s. The whole band would leap over the amplifiers without dropping a note.

What made this act more jaw dropping was that there were beautiful potted plants on top of these amps. None of these plants suffered during the leaps, none where knocked off, the leaps were so high that the feet were not even touching the leaves!

I would barely be able to do one jump over an amp, let alone jump over the floral decorations as well. To do this performing a 90 minute gig holding mics, guitars, trumpets or whatever!

The Ex were, and no doubt still are, very politically active, on a whole range of worthy causes.

A snippet of information on the Ex below from the band's website.

1979

Terrie (guitar), Sok (vocals), Geurt (drums), and René (bass) form The Ex, choosing their instruments by drawing straws to decide on who-plays-what, and start from scratch. For the first half year the group concentrates mainly on an extended hit-and-run graffiti publicity campaign, the name being chosen based on the fact that it could be sprayed on a wall in two seconds flat!.

They play their first gig on 31st August in De Bakkerij, Castricum. Coby takes care of the live sound. They begin playing regularly, mainly in Dutch squats and youth clubs.

1980

In June, The Ex make their record début: the 7″ EP All Corpses Smell The Same. Two more releases follow that same month: New Horizons In Retailing, a 7″ flexi-disc with the Raket magazine from Rotterdam, and a contribution to Utregpunx, a 7″ vinyl compilation from Utrecht.

René leaves, Bas (ex-Bernhard + The Lockheed Rockerz) joins. In October they release their first LP, Disturbing Domestic Peace, (including a free 7″ EP), produced by Dolf Planteydt, an independent sound engineer who they will work with often in the years to come.

In October they have their first concerts abroad, in Berlin Germany.

1981

Geurt leaves, Wim (post-Rondos, pre-De Kift) joins.

The group releases Weapons For El Salvador, a benefit-single for the resistance movement in El Salvador.

In August, together with members of Svätsox and De Groeten, they squat the Villa Zuid in Wormer, to save it from destruction, and spread a free flexi-disc with brochure, Villa Zuid Moet Blijven around the village, to explain why the Villa must stay.