An enormous amount of Dutch music history was lost on Friday night in the major fire in the Western Docklands. Artist on the Road has been renting out musical equipment and instruments to big names in the music world for 37 years. A fire at the neighbors, a car company, spread to the building where all their belongings were stored. “Prince and The Revolution used our drums in Paradiso.”
“It’s almost unbelievable, so much lost history.” Defeated, Jonny Smokes walks past the blackened speakers and melted keyboards. Friday’s fire completely destroyed the entire first floor of the music rental company where he works.
The fire started at the neighbors, on the ground floor. But at Artist on the Road there is relatively little fire damage on the ground floor. “The fire started there” – Smokes points to the wall – “but didn’t get through there. It went up and then went through the ceiling.”
Music legends
The fire spread through the roof to the first floor of the music rental company. “We had all kinds of stuff stored there that had been used by all kinds of music greats over the years.”
The list is long, from Hammond organs to dozens of vintage drum sets in perfect condition. “There were items signed by Eddy Van Halen and Steve Vai.” Smokes puts his hand over his face. “Oh god – I had Tito Jackson’s guitar [van The Jackson 5, red.] above.” The historical value hurts at least as much as the business blow, says Smokes. “It’s a pretty big loss.”
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In addition to the car company, a total of eight other companies were affected by the fire, according to the fire brigade. “We had just been here for a year and a half,” says Steven van Schoonveld. The owner of Loof Catering has to move to other locations of his business for the two dozen orders he has scheduled for tomorrow.
“This was the heart of the company, chefs were constantly busy here.” Finding another place will be quite a challenge, Van Schooneveld fears. “That will be very difficult, especially in terms of power supply.”
Restart
Smokes doesn’t know yet whether he and his colleagues will move or rebuild in the same spot. “I don’t think this building can be saved anymore.” It will be a lot of work, but: “We are a family, we take care of each other. We will do what it takes.” That camaraderie was evident during the evening of the fire: everyone came to the business park. Smokes: “I stood on the podium in Groesbeek and drove for two hours. Last night I kept watch here.”
Now the company has little choice but to go through its stuff and save what can be saved. “A lot of stuff was rented out because of King’s Day, which is our luck. This should allow us to make a good restart.”
