"De Hitkrant" was a mainstream magazine about pop music and appeared on a weekly basis. In the days of the NWOBH, it had an editorial on hard rock called 'De Betonmolen' ("the concrete mill"). "Beton" was a commonly used expression in those days for heavier styles of music, introduced by Alfred Lagarde. The editorial dealt with major international acts, such as Iron Maiden, Saxon, Whitesnake, Dio, Vandenberg, etc. Bodine received exposure in the Belgian counterpart Joepie. De Hitkrant still exists today, but "beton" went out of fashion.
Then there was Muziekkrant Oor, aimed at a more intellectual reader, publishing more serious in-depth interviews with artists about their motivation to make music and life on the road. You will find an article about Bodine in the archive borrowed from Oor magazine. Also Oor still exists today.
The major source of information for Dutch heavy metal fans in those days was Aardschok magazine, which later was re-baptised into De Nieuwe Aardschok. This magazine still exists today and is now called "Aardschok" (Earthquake). The other source of information on hardrock was Oor, which dedicated a few pages per month to international and Dutch hardrock acts. The impression remains, however, that contemporaries Vandenberg, Picture and Highway Chile received more press than Bodine.
Then there were international magazines like Kerrang! (UK), Metal Hammer (DE) and Rock Hard (DE), which had a much lower distribution in the Netherlands and only sporadically paid attention to the Dutch metal scene. If you have any publication or article other than the list of publications, please scan it and upload it in the forum.
Being the biggest player in the field, Aardschok had a major influence on opinions of headbangers about albums and concerts of metal bands and the careers these bands tried to make. Aardschok Magazine was set up by motivated people with a genuine interest in metal music--a bunch of eager beavers who may not always have realised what impact they had through their publications. Bodine must have experienced this as well.
In the live reviews, the authors of Aardschok seemed to take Bodine's live performances pretty much for granted. Naturally, not every single Bodine concert was covered in Aardschok, but when there was a review, their performance seemed to be taken for granted.
Take the following examples from this review in Aardschok (April 1984):
1984 April, Aardschok
Earthquake review
"Bodine did not take me by surprise this afternoon. I just know that Bodine are a good live act. Bodine have a lot of stage experience."
In the following interview, Gerard Haitsma was asked the following, rather sneering questions:
Aardschok: "To many people, you appear on the stage as if you are gay. Are you guys in fact gay?"
GERARD: "No, what do you mean?"
Aardschok: "In particular, it’s the way Axel moves about the stage and the lipstick that Rheno is wearing?"
These are not exactly encouraging words for a band that is struggling to survive. The question to what extent the press influenced the atmosphere in the band is yet to be answered. How were the band members affected by this?
It has to be noted: Aardschok has since come a long way since in raising their journalistic standards!
An overview of articles about Bodine can be found here. It shows that in the first year, Bodine received quite some exposure. A great part of this came from regional papers, though, which did not have a very wide-spread circulation--a few thousand readers, perhaps. Later on, the band received less exposure, but the attention from international press increased. It is almost as if Bodine was reaching a break-through...