LPG (Dutch band)

LPG is a Dutch indie-pop band, signed on Excelsior Recordings/V2 Records. In April 2005, their critically acclaimed debut album I fear no foe was released in the Netherlands, receiving positive reviews from established magazines and websites, such as Oor, VPRO 3voor12 and Volkskrant. There were few negative reviews, which mostly struggled with the applause in the opening track Speech, and the diversity of the band.

Shortlty after releasing the debut album, the band released a homemade music video to the song Sparrow, which consisted out of more than 1500 separate photos, resulting in an artistic animation. All in their early twenties, the band toured the Netherlands and supported such acts as The Cribs and Zita Swoon. In January 2006, the band announced the song Belly Rollercoaster from their debut album I fear no foe was to be used in a worldwide TV commercial for the Nokia 6280 mobile phone. The music video to this song proved a struggle to make, and was released several months after its premature release party.

In 2002 Anne van Wieren and Arend-Jan - two friends from high-school - decided to start a band and record a demo on their own. They both had been in bands before, but wanted to take a fresh and new approach to music, one without concessions. They record their first demo at home in Hoogezand-Sappemeer, a small municipality in Groningen. After sending the demo to several friends and people in the record industry, they receive positive feedback and decide to form a band. Gerald Kooistra (bass), Christiaan Nijburg (drums) and Rob van Essen (keys) join in and the basement of Christiaan's parents house is turned into the band's recording and practicing room.

The first gigs were either really good or really bad. One of the most talked about gigs in the early years is to be played in Volta, where a girl takes place on a bar stool behind a microphone stand, only to drink wine and smoke cigarettes.

In 2003, VPRO 3voor12 and Excelsior Recordings discover the band. On 3voor12 several items about the band are placed in one of which Niels Aalbert (A&R for Universal Music Group in the Netherlands) praises the band for their ambition and commitment, comparing the band to The Lemonheads and Guided by Voices, yet he feels the band would be better at place at a smaller label such as Konkurrent or Excelsior Recordings. The latter take on the challenge, and give the band the gigs and time they need to grow before they can record their debut album. As a taste, the band release a handmade 7" vinyl split-single featuring the demo version of Sparrow, with the previously unreleased Spinvis song Goochelaars en geesten as the B-Side.

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Wikipedia