Another one of my favorite bands. I call Golden Earring the Rolling Stones of The Netherlands.Formed in The Hague in the early 60’s as The Golden Earrings they became Golden Earring in 1969.They are still together last putting an album out in 2012. They have had the same line-up since 1970 of founders George Kooymans on guitar and Rinus Gerristen on bass,singer and flute player Barry Hay joined in 1968 and drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk in 1970. Moontan is the first record I bought from them in 1973 when it came out. The U.S. release has a different cover than the much better European version and different tracks. The U.S. replaces “Suzy Lunacy” and “Just Like Vince Taylor” for “Big Tree,Big Sea” from their 1970 album Golden Earring. I like that version better. “Big Tree ,Big Sea” seems to fit better with the rest of the songs on the record which are more progressive in style,”Suzy Lunacy” and “Just Like Vince Taylor” are shorter more standard Rock songs. In 2019 I bought a re-issue of the original European release on Record Store Day. It’s a numbered edition on blue vinyl on the Music On Vinyl label,a company from the Netherlands that has been releasing high quality re-issues for about ten years.

The cover has to do with the first song “Candy’s Going Bad” On the U.S. version that song is second, the first being the massive hit “Radar Love” a song everyone knows and a defining song of the 70’s. That song leads off side two on the European version.”Are You Receiving Me” is next,a 9 minute mostly instrumental song with nice guitar and bass soloing.”Suzy Lunacy” closes side one. “Radar Love” opens side two and has that rhythm heavy sound that is a trademark of the band. “Just Like Vince Taylor”,a live staple, is followed by the last track “Vanilla Queen”,another song about an exotic dancer,a bookend to the first song “Candy’s Going Bad” Another 9 minute song it has a long fade out preceded by two spoken lines by Marilyn Monroe from the movie There’s No Business Like Show Business.All in all a great record and I bought every Golden Earring that came out after that in the 70’s,which like The Rolling Stones were their best years.