Biography
LUL was a Dutch alternative rock band, originally from Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, although they moved to Amsterdam early in their existence.
LUL formed in 1987 when Sytse van Essen and Fritz de Jong, also active in local post-punk powerhouse It Dockumer Lokaeltsje, teamed up with Empee Holwerda and Klaas Schippers. The band decided to move to Amsterdam after just one year. Van Essen decided to stay in Leeuwarden, so the band went on as a three-piece. Their music displays a frenetic, rhythmically complex amalgam of influences, including Wire, This Heat, early Sonic Youth and hardcore punk.
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1988 saw the release of their début album, Inside Little Oral Annie, to much critical acclaim. A session for VPRO Radio ensued: these recordings were officially put out on the album Autolocation (1989). The Inside Little Oral Annie and Autolocation albums, as well as the Colony EP were later brought together on the CD Ueberlocation (1991).
The band's third LP, released in 1990 and named Hail The Frisians Free, featured lower tempos, the music even more intricate than before. Love Thy Tiny Sums followed in 1993 and proved to be the band's swan song. In 1994 De Jong quit the band, LUL dissolved and Holwerda and Schippers moved on to form the idiosyncratic Solbakken.
Miscellaneous... One of the band members claimed that the name LUL was an abbreviation for Lui Uit Leeuwarden ('Folks from Leeuwarden'). Coincidentally, lul is also the Dutch word for 'dick' or 'cock'.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.