Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The INDOCHINA Story - The Beginning
It's the year 2000. A relationship has recently ended. Actually, a couple of relationships as I had also recently broken up with my girlfriend. But the relationship, I'm talking about is the one I had with James Euringer and his NYC Rock group Mindless Self-Indulgence. I had quite literally "discovered" this artist and mentored him, releasing the group's debut CD on my own independent label: CHIP/Squeaky Clean. The group was signed to my record label. We were aiming for major label success. For me, this was my musical creative outlet so the idea of making music was redundant - A&R'ing and executive-producing this group was my way of expressing myself musically. Or so I thought. The relationship was dissolved semi-acrimoniously for several reasons. I can go into that story at some other time. Suffice it to say that I felt an initial shock and that there was a crisis in my sense of purpose since I had rationalized/justified my work as a manager and marketer in music (though now I wonder why I felt the need to rationalize/justify that activity (!!) by considering that this was all being done in order to support my efforts with MSI. Once that was over, a question came up: WHY do I do what I do??? I guess making a living wasn't a good enough answer!
The official dissolution of that relationship also coincided with the end of my active work as a artist manager. My Company's work with [European Electronic/World/Ambient acts] Deep Forest and B-Tribe had ended some time ago and management commission from those projects had petered out. We had tried, back in 1995, to launch a Nottingham band called State of Grace (on RCA Records) with mixed success. Also, another project that had played a Mindless-type role in semi-fulfilling my creative needs, and distracting me from pursuing my own artistic endeavors was my work as US consultant/marketing quarterback for the incredibly talented (and unbelievably annoying) French Techno/Electronica act Pills (aka Anthony Sandor).
On the music business side, I now began to focus exclusively on my company's work in independent marketing for music. In 2000, I moved my business back to my Gramercy (NYC) 2-bedroom duplex mini-loft residence from the office we had occupied in Chelsea. Also, as an independent marketing firm, a trend had started whereby we would have continued success, but with projects that would drift further from my core personal musical tastes and passions.
I don't know how much time elapsed between these changes and my felicitous (re-)meeting with Phil Painson, which will heretofore be known as "the Oliva incident" (just kidding). I guess it might have been kind of a millenium thing.
Because, I believe it was early Summer 2000 when I ran into Phil. But it might have been a year earlier. The reason I say this is that we were so tight by Summer 2001, I can't imagine we grew that close as musical creative partners, and teammates in hitting the events, clubs, and shows on the New York circuit, in just one year. So it was either during the Summer of 1999 or of 2000 that I was sitting on a bench outside of a restaurant called Oliva which is on Houston and Allen (great restaurant which was owned by a bunch of guys I knew, including this dude Steve Benisty who would spin good music in the place). I was hanging with my longtime friend Nicolas Ronteix (who enters the INDOCHINA story later) when Phil walked by, and I recognized him.
Phil and I hadn't seen each other in years. Phil was the house engineer in the early 90's for a small recording studio in a Soho loft called No Mystery. I had worked with Phil on several House-Music projects that I had co-produced & released as 12" vinyl singles on my indie dance label Knockout Records. I had recently acquired or was in the process of acquiring a bunch of used recording gear and was ready to fully set up my home studio. I had no idea, at that time, how much Phil and I had in common in terms of musical vision, tastes, and history, that we would become very good friends, and of the impact we would have on each others' lives and careers.
I certainly am more comfortable now as an independent, internet-centered arts & culture, entertainment, and lifestyle marketer with a home-based office and as a working artist (prolific would be good but not true yet due in part to my problems in consistently allocating time to, focusing on, and completing work). Though this is becoming economically (even more) difficult. This seems more authentic than my previous identity/incarnation as a wannabe music big-shot. Though this has more to do with my growth as a person and with the way things played out than those specific identities.
Notes: My earliest work files for the song "Madly" date back to September/October 2001 though I think I/we started work on this song earlier than that. Also, according to my E-Mail system, I first corresponded with Anne, INDOCHINA's main lead vocalist, in 2001 but I think we met a little earlier than that.
Characters in this story:
Anne, Noel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tommy Saleh, Ben Butler, Adela Ali, Nicolas Ronteix, Morgan Le Gall, Steve Caicedo, Fred Jorio, Eric Calvi, Donald Elliott, Andrew Willinger, Adam Gazolla
The official dissolution of that relationship also coincided with the end of my active work as a artist manager. My Company's work with [European Electronic/World/Ambient acts] Deep Forest and B-Tribe had ended some time ago and management commission from those projects had petered out. We had tried, back in 1995, to launch a Nottingham band called State of Grace (on RCA Records) with mixed success. Also, another project that had played a Mindless-type role in semi-fulfilling my creative needs, and distracting me from pursuing my own artistic endeavors was my work as US consultant/marketing quarterback for the incredibly talented (and unbelievably annoying) French Techno/Electronica act Pills (aka Anthony Sandor).
On the music business side, I now began to focus exclusively on my company's work in independent marketing for music. In 2000, I moved my business back to my Gramercy (NYC) 2-bedroom duplex mini-loft residence from the office we had occupied in Chelsea. Also, as an independent marketing firm, a trend had started whereby we would have continued success, but with projects that would drift further from my core personal musical tastes and passions.
I don't know how much time elapsed between these changes and my felicitous (re-)meeting with Phil Painson, which will heretofore be known as "the Oliva incident" (just kidding). I guess it might have been kind of a millenium thing.
Because, I believe it was early Summer 2000 when I ran into Phil. But it might have been a year earlier. The reason I say this is that we were so tight by Summer 2001, I can't imagine we grew that close as musical creative partners, and teammates in hitting the events, clubs, and shows on the New York circuit, in just one year. So it was either during the Summer of 1999 or of 2000 that I was sitting on a bench outside of a restaurant called Oliva which is on Houston and Allen (great restaurant which was owned by a bunch of guys I knew, including this dude Steve Benisty who would spin good music in the place). I was hanging with my longtime friend Nicolas Ronteix (who enters the INDOCHINA story later) when Phil walked by, and I recognized him.
Phil and I hadn't seen each other in years. Phil was the house engineer in the early 90's for a small recording studio in a Soho loft called No Mystery. I had worked with Phil on several House-Music projects that I had co-produced & released as 12" vinyl singles on my indie dance label Knockout Records. I had recently acquired or was in the process of acquiring a bunch of used recording gear and was ready to fully set up my home studio. I had no idea, at that time, how much Phil and I had in common in terms of musical vision, tastes, and history, that we would become very good friends, and of the impact we would have on each others' lives and careers.
I certainly am more comfortable now as an independent, internet-centered arts & culture, entertainment, and lifestyle marketer with a home-based office and as a working artist (prolific would be good but not true yet due in part to my problems in consistently allocating time to, focusing on, and completing work). Though this is becoming economically (even more) difficult. This seems more authentic than my previous identity/incarnation as a wannabe music big-shot. Though this has more to do with my growth as a person and with the way things played out than those specific identities.
Notes: My earliest work files for the song "Madly" date back to September/October 2001 though I think I/we started work on this song earlier than that. Also, according to my E-Mail system, I first corresponded with Anne, INDOCHINA's main lead vocalist, in 2001 but I think we met a little earlier than that.
Characters in this story:
Anne, Noel, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tommy Saleh, Ben Butler, Adela Ali, Nicolas Ronteix, Morgan Le Gall, Steve Caicedo, Fred Jorio, Eric Calvi, Donald Elliott, Andrew Willinger, Adam Gazolla
