Editorial

A short editorial to explain the appearance of StaalZine in the world of the digitized word.

There was no need or urgency to start it. The massive new staalplaat site gave us the possibility to load it with a zine. Editors in charge will be Guillaume Siffert and yours truly, Rinus van Alebeek. Over the last years both of us have spent some of our time setting up exhibitions or shows. We both run a small label, which in fact is curating audible space. From this background, and from a lot more backgrounds the StaalZine will take its shape.

In the first issue we present four articles. Michal Libera from Warsaw writes three letters and talks about Thatcher, Berlin, Cardew, grants and neighbours. Rod Summers from Maastricht receives several parcels per week. He describes one of those days and what he found on his door mat. Phill Harding from Brighton, shows that the twitter network is more then a place to deposit your digital flyers, and has made a composition out of tweets, that evoke experiences with sound. A long article about the first years of Staalplaat, in which I conducted interviews with mail art veterans Vittore Baroni and Rod Summers will shine some light on the question how the humble cassette has revolutionized the idea of producing and spreading music.