Keijser 18

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Dear friends of me run a music magazine publishing company, Keijser 18, which is housed in an old school building. Within five years the company grew from 5 magazines and 5 five people on the payroll to about 15 magazines and 20 people. The chaos is enormous: everywhere are piles of magazines and boxes with more magazines, and everyday new magazines arrive, that have to be filed, mailed and saved. But there is no system and no place to store all the paper, and the people who work there are very unhappy about the situation. Two weeks ago they asked me if I was willing to help them out. YES!
We made a plan for all kind of bookcases, in which all the magazines can be stored, and found when needed. I am allowed to work one day per week; there is no money for more. I ask 25 euro per hour, no matter what I have to do: designing the cases, getting the materials there, building, painting, etcetera. A complete bookcase made of MDF, inclusive the painting, is about two days work. That means that it costs about 600 to 700 euro’s. That is a case the size of a wall. There have at least six of such things to be made, so I have something to do for the next twelve Fridays or so.
It also means that i spend a lot of my thining time on building bookcases. Last week I made some sketches of bookcases in the train, because I forgot to take a book to read with me. These cases are a bit more complicated than the ones I am making right now, but they are also smaller and, apart from the doors, not much more work:
Among the magazines that are being published by Keijser 18 are De Slagwerkkrant, Gitarist, Beyond and Interface. Although it is all about music, it is not about what attracts me in music. De Slagwerkkrant for example is mainly about the technique and the equipment of drummers. For me drumming is about the goose bumps that I get when I hear a song with great percussion. About ten years ago I proposed to write a hand lettered column for the magazine, about all the strange and wonderful percussion records that you and I know too well, but that 90% of the readers of De Slagwerkkrant have never heard of. To my surprise I got the column, and I have written it for two and a half years. I cannot remember ever getting one single reaction, which is quite an achievement when you write for a few thousand readers. Here is such a column:

And here is the soundtrack to it, that of course lacked in De Slagwerkkrant:

.
And here is the cover of the LP, for the die-hards:
.
(I have made little booklets of most of these columns, so if you can read Dutch and want to have copies of those, make me an offer I can’t refuse.)

Comments: