Radar Van

"Radar Van" is a (fictional) song by Johannes Vonk and the Clogheads written and performed on behalf of the TV Licensing Service as part of their awareness campaign.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7\_1rc8riNU

**Background (Fictional)**

*Van Beers, D. (2005, March 18), "A Clog in the Works", Der Spiegel "He kept talking about performing covers, but I told him, that's not what the Clogheads are about." These were the words that may have helped unravel a planned 2004 coup in Equatorial Guinea that brought together British political scions, South African mercenaries and a little-remembered Dutch Synthpop band...*

*...*

*...Vonk, met Thatcher during the production of the Cloghead's single "Radar Van" which had been commissioned at the behest of the UK government as part of a public service campaign for the British Broadcast Corporation. The title of the song refers to the BBC's use of alleged "detector vans" that are said to be equipped with electronics that can detect the operation of a television set in a given home. Thatcher assumed that putting the detector vans back into public consciousness would increase compliance and raise flagging revenues. But Thatcher's organizational skills were no better in the 1980's and production entered into a quagmire.*

*"They came up with this absolutely crackpot idea to get people to pay up, which was to commission a popular pop song encouraging people via the threat of the radar detector van that they had to pay up," said record executive Crispin Highsmith in an interview with BBC Indiana. "The problem they had was finding a musician to do it... No one would touch it with a fucking barge pole, and we're talking about people who were absolutely cained to the eyeballs on the absolute finest Columbian sh\*t, but no one was touching the steaming turd that was the Thatcher government. They went to every band in the UK. I mean they went to Culture Club. No one would touch it. Level 42 told them to go f\*ck themselves."*

*The Tulip Invasion of 1985, where a number of Dutch synthpop acts broke into the British mainstream, provided the British government with an alternative. Thatcher approached Johannes Vonk and the Clogheads in the wake of their hit "Honkbal Hoofdklasse (On My Radio Tonight)" hoping to strike big with an act that was popular but politically naïve. According to Yap Van Hoot, former Clogheads bassist, the band was the perfect material.*

*"We get approached by the British government and we think 'Jesus this is big.' They tell us they want to make a song, but they don't really tell us what the song is about. At the time we don't really speak English that well, so they give us these lyrics and we have to learn them and we're singing something about a radar van," van Hoof said. "We have no idea at all. Suddenly it gets popular and then we find out it's about a TV license and I don't understand..."*

*...*

*...Vonk, was allegedly approached by Thatcher due to his connections to American financier Jeffrey Epstein. In leaked documents Thatcher referred repeatedly to "Jeff's black book" and the billionaire's ability to leverage powerful people into potentially backing the plot. But when Vonk demurred, citing the band's lack of a fanbase in Equatorial Guinea, it meant the coup would have to go in underfunded and undermanned.*

*"It was really strange," Vonk said in a BBC interview last year, "he kept talking about using the tour for cover and winking. I think maybe there was something wrong with his eye? I had to keep telling him that Johannes Vonk doesn't do covers, we'd have to play our songs but in the end it didn't end up going anywhere. I heard he got another group together and they had some plane trouble, so it probably worked out for the best."*

*(Article Retrieved 03/07/2021 using Google Translate).*

Song "Radar Van" by @milo\_edwards and @inthesedeserts of Trashfuture, support them on Patreon at www.patreon.com/trashfuture/