From fairytale to hit

Update 23-11-2020

In 2016 I was working for RTV Rijnmond’s radioshow ‘Vraag Het De Bieb’ and I got a question from a listener about the song ‘De Rode Schoentjes’ by Ronald Molendijk and Bob Stoute. My report was not 100% correct. Ronald contacted me end 2020 and offered to tell the story. Hereby the updated story.

In the studio

Ronald Molendijk en Bob Stoute formed the occasional project Booming Support. The gentlemen were offered time in the studio by music friends Renaat Vandepapeliere en Sabine Maes from famous recordlabel- and studio R&S in Gent, Belgium.

Ronald had a Atari-computer in his home studio with Cubase version 1 and an Akai sampler. This was the equipment he was used to work with in the beginning of his carreer. Molendijk explains: “In the R&S studio there was other (much better) gear and we did not understand much of these devices… We did find an Akai sampler in the rack and we made the song “De Rode Schoentjes” for 90% with it. We were boxing in the wrong league, had no clue that the studio was so big and professional”. He compared the studio with the Hilversum Wisseloord studio. For the men a revelation.

Nieuw Rotterdams Theater, different sleeves with 2 times the same record

A while earlier they got hold of an cassette tape by DJ Paul Hazenberg with on it a spoken version of the fairytale ‘De Rode Schoentjes’. This version is from Het Nieuw Rotterdams Toneel, a recording released on album in 1969.

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Nieuw Rotterdams Theater / Booming Support

Ronald and Bob took samples from that tape and used it for an experiment. The music on their track was sampled from Italian House-act F-16, from a track with the same name.

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Booming Support / F-16

Molendijk: “we sampled everything, also a lot of Italian Housemusic. We composed the whole track in about one hour. Barney ‘Broomer’ Bezemer mixed and mastered the release. He was the ‘go-to man’ of the Rotterdam House scene, really good in his work”.

The hit

Molendijk together with Ron Hofland, was owner of recordstore ‘Basic Beat’ at the Nieuwe Binnenweg in Rotterdam. Molendijk: “The record was only meant as a joke and we released 50 copies on ‘white label’, the idea was to launch ‘Basic Beat Recordings’ with it”.

The men released the track on a socalled ‘white label’. That is a 12 inch maxi-single without information on the label. This method was used more often on promo’s and records tested on commercial value.

The maxi-single ended up amongst others with radio discjockey Jeroen van Inkel. He was working for Radio Veronica, really populair in those days. He played the song frequently, Molendijk explains:”After heavy rotation of Jeroen and fellow dj’s the fax exploded and we just had to release the record”. The track grew in popularity and after it was also released on a ‘cd-single’, at that time the new and hip medium, it reached the Dutch hitparade. It became a hit.

Versions

The ‘De Rode Schoentjes’ track itself wsa target of parody songs, like ‘Rubberen Kaplaarzen’ by Dingetje. On the cd-single is text stating “Any simularity with other sound carriers, in whatever form, is a pure coincidence”!

Furthermore there was a song released with a likeness: ‘The danced to pieces shoes’ by formation the Feetlickers. By the way this song is formed to the fairytale by the same name from ‘the Brothers Grimm’. That fairytale is older, the track is certainly more recent than ‘De Rode Schoentjes’.