Maarten Ploeg (1958-2004) was an artist and musician who caused a furore in the Netherlands from 1980. As a painter, he is seen as one of the Dutch representatives of the ‘Nieuwe Wilden’, together with Peter Klashorst and Rob Scholte. At the moment, a retrospective exhibition of his paintings can be seen in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag until June 11.

From 16 April to 30 April, café MILK will show a photo exhibition of the bands in which Maarten Ploeg sang and played: Initially, he started the band Interior (1979-1980) together with fellow artist Peter Klashorst and Moniek Voulon. This led to the post-punk band Soviet Sex (1980-1982 and 1994-2004), with Ellen ten Damme from 1996 onwards. Blue Murder (1982-1987) played at Pinkpop in 1986 and had a modest top-50 hit with ‘Talk Talk Talk’. The clips of this band were regularly shown on MTV and the music was often heard in VARA’s ‘delicious 15’. Astral Bodies (1987-1991) was the band best known for its inventive video clips and the 70-minute film ‘Giant Leap’ (16mm), which was accompanied by live music during the late 1990s music/theatre tour. various photographers including Roy Tee, Martin Grootenboer, Claude Crommelin, Patricia Steur, Esther Kroon and many others will be featured on the walls of MILK.

I played bass guitar and sang background vocals in his band Astral Bodies. Last Sunday, April 17th was the official opening. Tthe exhibition is free to visit, until April 30th 2023. Together with this exhibition we launched a CD, Astral Bodies Live At The Milky Way, from recordings we made during our live shows back then, we still have the poster of these gigs, see below. Both our CD’s, Astral Beat and the new album, can be bought online or streamed through Spotify.

First row: the new album, cover design by Arnold Weel, a band photo by Esther Kroon and the first album, cover design by Maarten Ploeg and Max Kisman (typeface in the circle).
Middle row: a review in newspaper Het Parool, today, April 19th, by Peter van Brummelen, another band photo by Esther Kroon and the poster of (the recordings of) our live gigs.
Below: photo impressions of the exhibition and the opening in MILK by Andrea Sunder – Plassmann.