In the beginning was the Funk
While I listen to the latest unreleased track from The Inmates [well, in fact it is the FIRST unreleased... ok the first ever track from that band] I reminice about the begining.
How did it all start?
All Gu's idea really. He had been a funk DJ for at least 6 years with his residency in Bremen's Urban Jazz Groove and several guest appearances at Keb Darge's Deep Funk at Madame Jojo's in London and the Leeds Hifi Club.
The next step for him was to start producing. The idea floated about and we talked about his own label. As I was the one not having been found out yet and still working in business, he asked me for advice which I was happy to give. He had left London when the thought dawned on me that I would actually love to be part of this project. I was a little apprehensive about asking him, thinking that he might not want me to steal his project. Unfounded fears. He was delighted and loved the idea of us doing this together.
[let me quickly change iTunes to Breakestra]
So we both went about starting the label our own way. While he announced to the New Mastersounds that he would like them to play our first funky 45 I went straight onto Amazon and ordered two second hand books that apparently would tell me all I needed to know about the music business. They probably did, but most of the information was utterly irrelevant at this stage and I only read the second book half. Note to myself, try a library first next time, might save some of that desperately needed start-up cash. Of course we still had the biggest ever issue to tackle. The name. No pressure but we wanted to found a label which produces funky 45s. Such a label had to have a good name. Ideas that we didn't use included sensible and not so sensible suggestions like Sesambrothers, Fragments of Funk, Unanimous Music, Her Mistress Music (get it?), Intelli Gents, Happy Mess, Unusual Name, Dosing Dose and 'Power Nappies - We produce some serious shit'.
As it happens sometimes our conversation switched to English and back to German and it must have been during one of those phone conversations that we wondered what we should call our label. And there it was. Why don't we call it Our Label Records. A quick check on Companies House website and DirectNic confirmed that the URL was not taken and that nobody had registered a Ltd. on that name.
How did it all start?
All Gu's idea really. He had been a funk DJ for at least 6 years with his residency in Bremen's Urban Jazz Groove and several guest appearances at Keb Darge's Deep Funk at Madame Jojo's in London and the Leeds Hifi Club.
The next step for him was to start producing. The idea floated about and we talked about his own label. As I was the one not having been found out yet and still working in business, he asked me for advice which I was happy to give. He had left London when the thought dawned on me that I would actually love to be part of this project. I was a little apprehensive about asking him, thinking that he might not want me to steal his project. Unfounded fears. He was delighted and loved the idea of us doing this together.
[let me quickly change iTunes to Breakestra]
So we both went about starting the label our own way. While he announced to the New Mastersounds that he would like them to play our first funky 45 I went straight onto Amazon and ordered two second hand books that apparently would tell me all I needed to know about the music business. They probably did, but most of the information was utterly irrelevant at this stage and I only read the second book half. Note to myself, try a library first next time, might save some of that desperately needed start-up cash. Of course we still had the biggest ever issue to tackle. The name. No pressure but we wanted to found a label which produces funky 45s. Such a label had to have a good name. Ideas that we didn't use included sensible and not so sensible suggestions like Sesambrothers, Fragments of Funk, Unanimous Music, Her Mistress Music (get it?), Intelli Gents, Happy Mess, Unusual Name, Dosing Dose and 'Power Nappies - We produce some serious shit'.
As it happens sometimes our conversation switched to English and back to German and it must have been during one of those phone conversations that we wondered what we should call our label. And there it was. Why don't we call it Our Label Records. A quick check on Companies House website and DirectNic confirmed that the URL was not taken and that nobody had registered a Ltd. on that name.
posted by Tom Gutjahr at 7:59 pm
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