Hard in style, soft in core. For Luna van der Laan (Looney Lunatic) and Carlos Kok (Boot 122), their passion for noisy, fast music stems from a broad artistic (self-)schooling, high levels of passion for music and, above all, an open mind. With a DIY-mentality, a grounded aversion of the establishment and a substance-over-style-approach, their common denominators are not hard to locate when meeting them on a rainy day in Utrecht’s Cartesius area.
Words by Dave Coenen
Photography by Tess Janssen
We are seeking shelter under the roof of Carlos’ passion project annex community hub Boot 122, located in the maze-like epicenter of creative chaos of this neighbourhood. With its upcycled furniture, its overarching canopy and stage-like porch, it’s quite easy to imagine what a fully functioning 360 degrees sound system would look like here, surrounding performers and selectors from different styles of music - as long as they’re loud.
But that’s the future, and we cannot just dive into future plans of people we don’t know the history of. So, what was your musical upbringing like?
Carlos: “Bad!”
Luna: “Oh really? But what’s bad?”
Carlos: “Lots of schlagers. I know a lot of Peter Alexander songs by heart, I’ve come to grow a soft spot for it. But it’s so bad. I think I only started to develop my own musical taste at 15.”
Luna: “I think mine turned out pretty well. My dad introduced me to Bob Marley, UB40 and Pearl Jam. My mother influenced me with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nina Hagen and in some less expected corners Daft Punk, Jamiroquai, Earth, Wind & Fire… From the Indonesian side of the family, it’s a lot of soul. My grandparents always blasted Michael Jackson at home. I used to mimic the 'Thriller' dance while the song was playing.”
Carlos: “I remember when the video for 'Thriller' was released. I wasn’t even allowed to watch it, as I was too young. My family just sent me off to my room.”
And just like that, you get them going. We’ve got two real heads here, whose broad fundamentals in popular genres led them to deeper dives into the niches. But the deeper the knowledge does not necessarily mean the closer to your own creations immediately.
When did you start making music yourselves?
Luna: “I think I was about 12. I started to spice up my own style with buttons, I also started dying my hair. Not much later, a friend lent me a ukulele, and I started to practice covers of famous hit songs on it in my room. This developed into playing the bass and being the vocalist in a Nirvana cover band. At school in Nieuwegein, where I grew up, I took “expression classes”: some extra hours of drama, music, drawing, that kind of stuff. I partially started to discover my own identity and tastes there.”
Carlos: “At the age of 20, I started DJing multiple times a month at De Kelder in Amersfoort. Back then, it was acceptable to just walk up to the DJ booth and ask: “can I play here?”. The DJ then would ask you: “What are you doing next Friday? Do you wanna come and play here?”. From then on, I also started to play in electronic music acts, co-founded an IDM-like record label and started throwing parties. We’re talking about the days in which Aphex Twin and Autechre were huge.”
Luna, how did you get in touch with electronic music?
Luna: “I think that only started when I moved to Utrecht, back in 2020. Not that long ago, actually! In those days I was checking out live streamed shows by Reinier Zonneveld from home and I thought they kicked ass. It made me curious for an experience I knew nothing about yet: being in a club.
It also didn’t click that deeply. Yet!”
It took a year until Luna’s roommate in Utrecht pulled out an Aphex Twin record during their communal record listening sessions. Still, when taking just a quick glance at Luna’s Instagram page, you’ll quickly find her passionately spitting about the connective power of music and the welcoming nature of the gabber community during her 'spoken core' performance as Looney Lunatic.
It feels like hard genres and noisy electronic music have always been there in your life, like there’s an inherent natural understanding between you and what the culture’s about.
Luna: “It’s a feeling.
A funny, but perfect example about our community: just last week I lost my USB after a performance in Delft. I posted a message about it online, and within no-time I saw my post being shared in all of these digital communities, Instagram feeds and WhatsApp group chats. Everyone I was close to in the gabber scene was so invested and supportive in helping me find that USB. Next to the love of music, gabber is about being social and connective. I always call this scene my second family, because here, as well, I feel very welcome and connected to my roots.”
Playing music has also led to the creation of Boot 122, right?
Carlos: “Yes, Eelco [Bosman, co-founder] and I have been playing in bands for years. We’ve known each other since our younger years, for nearly thirty years now. About four years ago, after both being involved with breweries and cafes for quite some time, we decided we wanted to create a place of our own. A place where we would do everything ourselves. It’s a funny motto and a big life lesson at once, because you can do more autonomously than you might think. You could spend 200 to 500k to furnish your new bar, but you could also not do it.
At one of our previous cafes, someone passed by on roller skates. We chatted a bit about throwing a roller disco. Three weeks later we were actually throwing a roller disco, together with this person.”
Did doing things yourself bring the two of you together as well, Carlos and Luna?
Carlos: “Not really - although the DIY-mentality is in the air of the places we’ve met. We mainly know each other through dB’s. You worked there behind the bar and I came there to hang out and drink beers.”
“Luna really opened something in my brain. I’ve witnessed the rise of the gabber scene first-handedly when I was growing up. I’ve held strong opinions about it, because I was coming from such a different musical angle. I’ve been to gabber parties a few times, because I had friends who organized them. I preferred the organizational approach of visiting parties anyways, enjoying it while being busy backstage. Nowadays, I’m hearing Luna do her thing, and I say to myself: fucking amazing. Now, I regret that I wasn’t open to it back then. But I’m enjoying the genre for two now.”
How has this performance been to you, Luna?
Luna: “Very similar. I burst into tears immediately after. Of course, because of the tension release and the high energy that was saved up inside of me, and because of all the eyes watching me for a longer while. The lyrics I write are deeply emotional and just as versatile, and I’ve never experienced and expressed all these emotions for a crowd within the time frame of 30 minutes. It was very intense.”
“We didn’t experience the exact same things, of course, but I think even though Carlos and I are different, we can still relate to each other. That’s what I like about collaborations like these - when completely different worlds can come together. What I like about my act is that it blends the punk with the electronic side. It’s exemplary for the eclecticism of this collaboration."
Carlos: “And I do think the gabber scene is very DIY. The other day I saw a clip on your Instagram from some kind of musical car gathering…”
Luna: “Oh yes, the trunk afters! A lot of people in our scene own a big fat car with an enormous subwoofer set up in the back of it. Me and my boyfriend brought some turntables to this trunk gathering and we connected some portable speakers to them. But then someone offered to connect the turntables to their enormous car sound system. That was so nice of them! So, this kinda happens every weekend, just doing everything yourself by just gathering everyone’s cars at a giant parking lot.”
“Punk and hardcore have a lot in common. That’s why I love them both. They’re both very contrarian. I don’t want to participate in society in a normative way. I want to do my own thing. And that makes me belong to gabber, in any sense.”
It feels like your performance also provides your own fresh take on a genre with a retro feel to it, bringing in a lot of (spoken) layers and emotions that haven’t really been put on top of a high-tempo early hardcore beat before.
Luna: “My spoken words are accompanied by existing older tracks I dig from the nineties. It’s an ode to where it all started. I think that revisiting history and going back to the roots is very important.”
“What I also wanted to add is the beautiful combination of deep emotions covered in tough sounds. Hardcore and punk tracks are very loud, but a deeper dive into the matter can expose so many emotional layers. One of my biggest inspirations is punk outfit Amyl and The Sniffers. Their sound is hard and raw, but Amyl’s lyrics are about radical feminism and sexual assault, about heavy, humanitarian subject matter. I think it’s beautiful she sets her thoughts and emotions out into the world in such a loud sonic make-up, because that’s what’s making her feel safe. I tend to do the same, performing very vulnerable, emotional words dressed up in loud music.”
I feel like the (early) hardcore genre has been on a return for the last few years. How do you feel about it?
Luna: “A lot of media think it’s interesting. I think that’s partly because of the release of the Dutch feature film 'Hardcore Never Dies', and partly because of Joost, who entered this year’s Eurovision Songfestival with a little help from Dutch hardcore legend Paul Elstak. The subculture and sound are getting a lot of attention lately, for sure.”
“But I don’t feel like the scene’s been sitting still. Maybe it seems that way to outsiders."
"I do notice newer, broader, different crowds sometimes at parties tho, and it is received with mixed impressions by peers. The new people are just getting to know the genre and the community and are seeing whether it’s something for them or not.”
What would your advice be for first-timers at gabber and hardcore raves?
Luna: “Dive into the experience head first. Don’t let yourself be held back by judgmental looks by people who think you look too stylized or “not gabber enough” or outsiders who frown upon Aussies. Everyone is welcome, as long as you appreciate the music, the scene, the moral values and the rules of conduct.”
Specifically in Utrecht, we can see a little boom of the subculture at venues like De Helling, where a little uprising of returning and debuting (early) hardcore parties can be noticed during the first two quarters of 2025. The first moment I noticed hardcore was still alive and kicking in Dutch clubs, was one of the final weekends at Amsterdam night club De School in 2023; a two-day bender full of old-school hardcore, aptly titled 'De Core'.
Luna: “I was there too! It was a bizarre experience. It worked SO well. I even wrote one of my poems right there, at that very moment, during the ending of Ruffneck’s set."
Speaking of new waves and blending together: what can we expect from the program you’re presenting right here during U? Festival?
Luna: “A bunch of noise!”
Carlos: “That sums it up. Oh, we’re gonna host it outside.”
Luna: “We’re gonna configure the Utrecht initiative CFX Soundsystems here at the terrace, under the canopy.”
“A lot of people on our line-up hail from illegal tekno raves. That truly is the common denominator on the line-up; to me, tekno is the musical connection between punk and hardcore. This scene is pretty underground and is allowed to stay under the radar of course, but I had to invite Jellinek over, who I’ve met during skating sessions in Nieuwegein in 2018. He’s been a huge inspiration to me for so long. Furthermore, we’ve got Mau’s Acid Machine, an electronic one-man-band. So cool, it’s like an Ed Sheeran show where the main artist does everything themselves, but with a whole bunch of bleeps! Last but not least, we’ve got 7// [pronounced: seven eleven], a five-piece band with acid and tekno influences. Their live set has blown my mind with the drop of every track.”
Luna: “That reminds me of this lovely famous hardcore motto. De bas die moe je niet hore, die moe je voele!”
U? will be freely accessible. Imagine a broadly interested crowd is passing by at Boot 122, without knowing what you’re doing. What do you hope they will take away when returning from your program?
Carlos: “Openness and understanding! Even though they wouldn’t necessarily play this music at home themselves. We’re imbedded in between a lot of guitar stuff, tho. A cool label is taking over The Village, dB’s and De Stadsjutters have got some dope stuff on their line-ups.”
Luna: “I’ve got a very busy weekend myself during Le Guess Who?. I’m performing a spoken core performance [about the Dom Tower] during the celebration of the Dom Tower, so if that’s finished, I’ll rush back to check out whatever I can.”
That’s a strong dedication to music.
Luna: “To me, music’s always there for me, I can always rely on it. It can be a sounding board for all your emotions. Some people talk to their pets, but I feel heard and understood by songs and artists. A hip-hop collective from Amsterdam, Osdorp Posse, once wrote a song called 'Hardcore Blijft'. I think the track is about the hardcore of the hip-hop and street art scene, but I’ve made my own interpretation of that word, haha. There’s this wonderful line at the end of the song: “m’n hele leven zit van alles al tegen / maar ik heb muziek om m’n leven aan te geven / hardcore - het is m’n steun en toeverlaat / de enige liefde die je nooit in de steek laat.”
Carlos: “Music is such an inherent part of this place, of who we are. NTS Radio is always playing here, we’re always on the hunt for new sounds.”
View the full photo series
Performing at U? 2024, as part of Looney Lunatic presents, curated by Luna & Carlos, are 7//, dj Jellinek, and Mau's Acid Machine. They perform on Saturday, 9 November, at Boot 122.
