Latest News

  • NOISEVEMBER

    Oct 14

    Noisevember is a month long festival and celebration of DIY noise c...

  • SOTU Festival 2026 Tickets

    Apr 02

    Passe partouts tickets (€25,-) Per night: Thursday 16 april:...

  • SOTU FESTIVAL 2026

    Jan 04

    SOTU Festival 2026, Amsterdam16 April - De Tanker in Noord (ticke...

  • noisevember

    Oct 23

    NoiSEvembeR is a spontaneous celebration of "NOISE" as a cul...

  • BAH AGENDA

    Jul 28

  • SOTU Preparty at De Groote Weiver, Wormerveer

    Mar 04

    On March 28 we are organising the preparty of the upcoming SOTU F...

  • SOTU Festival 2025

    Feb 13

    We are thrilled to announce that the 14th edition of SOTU ...

  • NoiSEvembeR

    Oct 26

    NoiSEvembeR is a spontaneous celebration of "NOISE" as a cul...

  • NOISEPRET

    Sep 29

    PΞB PΞB is a Berlin based duo by Ilia Gorovitz (drums and e...

  • Ruisoord

    Aug 27

    Saturday-frank vishttp://www.plattegrondx.com/vestas/-schoco mune&l...

Photos

SOTU Festival 2024

thumbnail for image 195
thumbnail for image 197

NEWS

Prologue - festival booklet

Every year we invite someone to write on the underground regarding SOTU festival. You can find it here on the digital version of our beautiful and carefully designed booklet. (by Kees Peerdeman)

 

There is no underground in 020

Maybe I have to be honest and chauvinistic: Underground and 020 seems like a weird combination to me. In 020 you always have to be careful, cause the term underground more sounds like a marketing slogan instead of an attitude.Of course the city gave us top notch artists like ICP, BGK, Soviet Sex and The Ex, cutting edge institutions like Steim and legendary festivals like Triple X and Robodock. But after the glory days of the squatting years the city seemed to be Disneyfied and gentrified and finished. Underground venues became institutions. The city became too expensive and too inward looking. And artists that looked beyond the borders moved to Berlin.Underground  is no Berlin. Underground is no indie. Underground is no beerpunks. Underground is not the next big thing. Underground is what happens at Sotu. I’m glad to see that the real underground venues and initiatives and artists from 020 are joining forces, are going back to the 020 roots of mixing improv with punk with electronics with world with styles with attitude. It’s something that the city needs. It’s something that every city needs to stay creative and curious. Check out Nouveau Velo, one of the most exciting new Dutch bands that sounds like the Uk band that the Uk press wants their Uk bands to sound like. Go to EKE, one fine band in the Dutch improv tradition. Pay homage to Zea who’s one of the driving forces of worldwide underground energy. Enjoy what the underground feels like!


Joost Heijthuijsen is one of the people from Incubate and one of the people from Cairo Liberation Front.