On 30 March to 1 April 1984 the conference “Kantlijnen van de Pop” took place at Paradiso in Amsterdam – the founding moment of the Benelux branch of IASPM. While during the 2-day conference leading academics including Boudewijn Büch as the chair and British sociologist Simon Frith presented their work and discussed popular music studies as an emerging field of research, in the evening The Falls and INXS performed in Paradiso. The conference was followed by a big record and cassette collectors fair. Special thanks to founding member and conference organizer Stan Rijven for reminding us of this important date!
For the special occasion we asked Stan Rijven to share some of his memories of this important time for Popular music studies - especially in the Benelux region:
“On the 1st meeting at UVA (1981) and the follow-up in Reggio Emilia (1983), Montreal (1985), Accra (1987), Paris (1989), Berlin (1991), etc. As a popjournalist I reviewed all these conferences in dagblad Trouw by which I could earn back my travel expenses. It also meant building a personal global network from Japan to Australia, from East Germany to Ghana.
By this John Shepard, Peter Wicke, John Collins and Simon Frith became regular cauchsurfers at my Jordaan apartment.
It also meant the start of several publications like the Popular Music series and special working papers, for instance on Rock for Ethiopia which contained the papers of Greil Marcus, Will Straw and me on the Band Aid phenomenon (1985).
Concerning Benelux, we ‘added' Belgium and Luxembourg in the hope to develop a fruitful mutual exchange on popular music studies. With poor results though since we only got a few members (like Gust De Meyer, Leuven University) from outside The Netherlands. Overhere we held regular (expert)meetings either in Amsterdam or Utrecht, resulting in several DIY-publications. To keep members connected, stimulating their yearly contribution, I compiled special cassettes like Globeat (IASPM-Beneluxary Sounds, 1989).
Also important were our board meetings, among others with Paul Rutten (Radboud University), Michiel van het Hof (Stichting Pop Muziek Nederland) and Ronald vd Ende (Popcollectief Brabant).”