Instituut Schreuders

Thursday, 8 March 2007

I am not good at numbers and dates, but somewhere around 1984 Piet Schreuders began doing a weekly radio show on one of the Dutch national radio stations. The show was called Vrije Geluiden and lasted only five minutes. Still it was worth staying home for and recording it. No show was the same: one week Piet demonstrated that all pop songs could easily be reduced 50% or more in length without doing any noticeable damage to the listening experience, the next week he played anti drug ads from an Eskimo radio station. Vrije Geluiden was presented by Albert Ballintijn. ( I will give more detailed information in a later episode.)
After doing this “shortest show on Dutch radio” for about seven years Piet wanted to do other things (he is a well known graphic designer) and he asked if I would like to continue the show. Which I gladly did, for another fifteen years.
But in the nineties, when the Space Age Bachelor Pad Music became hot, Piet began missing the radio and started another show: Instituut Schreuders. In this weekly ten minutes show he played what he called light music, but which was an eclectic mix of tunes from all corners of the world. The show was broadcasted at times that I could not listen to it always, so I had to trade tapes with other fans to hear it. Like Jack Keuss, who is also a graphic designer and illustrator by the way. (The illustrations in this episode are his.)
Recently Jack surprised me with a CDr with some of the material that was played in Instituut Schreuders and I immediately missed the show. The availability of almost all recorded music, thanks to the Internet and modern technology (MP3, CDRr, Bit Torrent, etcetera), seems to have dulled many people in doing something creative with all the stuff. Collecting is not enough, you have to let your collection work for you and share it with others. Music dies if it has no context.
Anyway, I was working on a CD compilation with variations on the James Bond Theme last night (because I bought a 45 with an embarrassing early house version of the theme yesterday) and that is why I picked the Instituut Schreuders compilation from the shelves. And that is why you are now reading all this not very interesting information today. Because on the CD is this track by The Surf Champions.

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