THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A RECORD LABEL - Staalplaat: Eleven Years Of Distortion - Frans De Waard

In 1984 Frans de Waard started his own band, Kapotte Muziek, and his own
cassette label, Korm Plastics. A few years later, in 1992, he was asked
to work for Staalplaat, then one of the biggest independent labels for
experimental and electronic music. Staalplaat was the home for bands
like Muslimgauze, :zoviet*france:, Rapoon, O Yuki Conjugate as well as Jaap Blonk, Normally Invisible and Kingdom Scum. With an average of three new releases every month, Staalplaat remained a major player for the next eleven years. Frans was
hired to set-up a database and to sell and buy new music, but over the
years also assumed a role as (unofficial) business director and A&R
man, and came to be regarded as the head honcho. In 2003 he’d had enough
and decided to quit.

This book tells his story about those eleven years, the many high and as
many lows of working for a small independent record label, which also
functioned as a shop, mail order, radio programme, news outlet, and
concert organiser. It’s about embarrassing confrontations with
musicians, labels, distributors, and the endless spending on the most
unique packaging CD-Land ever saw.

This book is not about the 1980s when Staalplaat was part of the local
squatter movement or their post-2000 activities in Berlin. This is
Frans’ personal account from within, when Staalplaat was riding its
biggest wave in the 1990s.

It includes various appendices, such as an interview with Staalplaat
founder Geert-Jan Hobijn, a transcript of a radio interview with
Muslimgauze, a 1980’s account of Staalplaat’s activities, and a
discography, among others.

There are no images of artists or album covers; instead you can feast you
eyes on some never-before-seen, behind-the scenes photos taken in the
office, shop and warehouse.

This book will appeal to everyone with an interest in the experimental music
scene, and anyone else who wants to read a crazy, funny and sad story
about a small struggling record label. Knowledge of the music is not
required, but you will surely be inclined to look it up while or after
reading this. Anyone who is interested in a manual of how (not) to run
your record label might want to take notes.

Pre-order here : 

http://www.timeless-shop.com/prod/this-is-supposed-to-be-a-record-label-frans-de-waard-2287,94.html

A Steven Heller review about Fire Work With can be found on Printmag site :

http://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/valnoirs-dark-vision/

About the author :

Steven Heller is probably the most famous and prolific american
journalist/writter about graphic design. He was honored by Michelle
Obama at the White House in 2011, among other things, and wrote an
unaccountable amount of referential books about the graphic design
universe.

TIMELESS ED. is proud to announce this
nearly 300-pages book FIRE WORK WITH ME presenting a broad selection of
many of the visual productions created by the graphic design studio
Metastazis this past 15 years.

It goes way beyond the mere compilation
of album covers: FIRE WORK WITH ME offers more than a decade of
documents, studies, and often
unpublished texts. For his work exceeds by far the limits of common
musical illustration, Valnoir, leader of the studio, hereby reveals a
wide range of projects that flirt with contemporary arts and the fringes
of legality.

276 pages24X28cm
Printed in 5 colours
Laser branded hardback cover, laser numbered
First press of 500 copies
artist edition limited to 50 copies
published by Timeless, April 2016

Pre-order taken by clicking  here :

TIMELESS SHOP