Chez Damier

CHEZ DAMIER

[short conversation with members of the audience.]

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

While most of [the audience] will [know] the names of certain cities… mainly Detroit, Chicago and New York, somehow you’ve been boarding a plane there at one stage or another. Where and which one of those three – because there were certain rivalries between all of them – which of those do you call actually home, or did you call home, and when?

CHEZ DAMIER

All of them. Because I lived in all of them. I lived in Chicago during its primetime of what they call the “developing” house music, just as a dance kid and club kid. I was just during that whole time…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What years are we talking there?

CHEZ DAMIER

We’re talking ’81 to ’84. Actually, ’80 to ’84 was pretty much primetime for Chicago. Then, I left Chicago to move to Detroit, which was becoming to be the primetime for techno.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was the reason for you moving there?

CHEZ DAMIER

To end up here [laughs].

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

OK, that’s a good point.

CHEZ DAMIER

The reason why I moved, because you move with time. The scene in Chicago was switching, and I wanted something different.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How old were you at the time?

CHEZ DAMIER

Oh my gosh. I hope this is not on camera or tape. I was barely legal. Started clubbing, like 14 years old.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Obviously, we’re a little bit jealous when we see footage of these days, especially the pre-official house before it was known as house kind of days. Can you picture us what club life meant back then?

CHEZ DAMIER

What club life meant. Club life meant probably the same thing as it does today, which was a bunch of kids who were rebellious, who thought that they wanted to experience something outside of the rules of their household. We were searching for a good time.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which is fair enough.

CHEZ DAMIER

Which was fair enough, which is probably the same thing that people are searching for today.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Nevertheless, we have this romantic notion that a good time was a lot easier to be found back then, without all these rules of what a good time supposedly looks like.

CHEZ DAMIER

No, I think it’s the same. It would be no more than we would compare early Egypt to today’s society. They were doing it then. We couldn’t compare in a sense of they were doing it better or we were doing it better, but they had it nevertheless. I just think that we were fortunate enough to be a part of the stone age, the earlier stone age of particularly dance music.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What mammoths and saber tigers were you hunting in that stone age?

CHEZ DAMIER

What was what?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What mammoths? I mean, when you were talking about the Stone Age, who were the big animals in that?

CHEZ DAMIER

The big animals were when I was coming up in the music business, which some of you all would probably be unfamiliar with, and maybe you all would be by force of music, which were like Steve Hurley, Farley Keith [Farley “Jackmaster” Funk], Jesse Saunders, Ralphi Rosario, Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Tony Humphries, Larry Levan, the Detroit cats, Ken Collier. These were people who were what we call our forefathers of dance in the States.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How was the ratio between club life and radio regarding the importance of the formative years?

CHEZ DAMIER

The formative years, we had support of radio then. The radio supported the club life, which was probably why it was a good life.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What were your favorite shows on the radio?

CHEZ DAMIER

Oh my God. On the radio, actually, anything that played music outside of just the regular top 40 works good for me. We came up in a generation where we were exposed by funk, rock, punk, new wave, house, disco. Probably every conglomerate of music. Our culture, we come from the school where there was a melting pot. We had the British invasion. We had the import of music coming over to the States. We were spoiled. Well, now you guys might be spoiled because you have technology today, but we were spoiled because this was something that we were not just privy to, this was something that everyone who listened to the radio was privy to. Nowadays, everything is a specialty. You have to be underground.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was the ratio of mix shows and stuff to, like, the usual program?

CHEZ DAMIER

Probably just two, one or two mix shows. That’s all you needed then. Weekends.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

The DJs who would have those shows would have a certain power already then, to be tastemakers or however you want to put it?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, but we didn’t quite view it that way. We just viewed it as programming. Just having accessibility to a weird place to listen to a B-52s behind disco records was funny, then behind a soulful record, but we didn’t look at it as DJs having power then.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Funny as in a novelty kind of sense?

CHEZ DAMIER

Funny as in, yeah, funny as in a novelty. Because you get older and you look back, you say, “Whoa…” We had a good variety of music.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What were the elements that you found the most of these things that kind of tied them together for you?

CHEZ DAMIER

I don’t know, probably artistic expression. Which is why a lot of you are aspiring artists and probably artists in your own right. I’m an inspired artist. An inspired artist in my definition is someone who’s not doing it on demand, who does it as a form of expression. You do it, like I’ll be inspired from this trip, so I’ll get a project out of it. That’s how it goes, as opposed to having to keep up, as we call, with the Joneses.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

This is exactly what it usually means, like the little trap that a lot of people either fall onto or magically elevate and hover above it and start to really elevate their work as well, maybe. How do you keep that inspiration and still manage to get a daily life?

CHEZ DAMIER

You don’t believe the hype. That’s how. A lot of people will tell you all that you’re great, you’re brilliant, a superstar. They’ll praise you. I think you have to know when to take a bite out of it because a certain part of us kind of feel our self-worth. It’s OK to feel like, “I’ve done a good job.” I think the flip side of that is that I think that our society and people will make you feel larger than life. I think that sometimes that goes to artists’ heads. I think that the difference would be, all of a sudden you get an inflated head, you begin to think that you’re more than you ought to think that you are. I see a lot of that happen in just probably entertainment, period.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

That’s the bottom hit of it all. It so fried some people, getting out and exposing everything. That’s when they get so much more vulnerable.

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, again, don’t believe everything you hear. People will… let me not discourage you all. I think that in all of us, when we put our time and effort into work, we want to feel rewarded. I remember sometimes sitting up one or two nights, just listening to a track we were working on, it’s just I couldn’t get away from it. I was just so into it. Then, to release the project, and people come back and tell you that it touched them or they were at a point in their lifetime where they heard it and it had done so much in their life, then it makes it all worth it at the end of the day. I tend to lean toward people who are authentic about being honest. Because I can take brutal truth as well. People who are affected by what you do, that’s usually a great a compliment, I think.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s all down to how you measure success?

CHEZ DAMIER

It’s how you measure success. Believe it or not, I have been recording actually since 1988, and I think I can count the times that I’ve ever played my own records. I can count the times, probably on both fingers, that I’ve ever played my own records. The reason why is because the process of making the record is the best time of my experience of making the music. By the time the public gets it, I have lived it. By the time they get it, I don’t have to re-live it. I don’t have to keep listening to it to remind myself. It’s like you go through the period where you live it, and then you give other people a chance to enjoy it.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

That’s the thing you always ask yourself when you see, I don’t know, Pete Townshend from The Who up on stage and you wonder, “How many times has this man sung ‘My Generation’?” Then, every time he gets to this point where he goes like, “Hope I die before I get old,” and then you’re like, makes kind of sense when you’re like 21 and you’re like, on your school day and you want to bash people’s heads in. When you’re past 50 and on the German prime-time Saturday night TV show, become a little bit…

How do you actually, again, find a way that you keep your artistic integrity, have fun while at it and also not deal with the situation of the beautiful thing that people are into your stuff… without being like the clown that you just put there and goes like, “Hey, here’s a thing I did in 1992.”

CHEZ DAMIER

Experience will probably be you guys’ best teacher in life. I think when you become mature in anything, you begin to separate what is real from what is not real. I am not exempt from it, I was a die-hard party kid. I got stoned, I had probably done everything under the rug and under the sun. The reality is that one day the party ends, and you begin to look at priorities. You look at it that, I’m not 17 years old anymore, and I’m not trying to look like a 17-year-old, I’m not trying to party like a 17-year-old. You begin to move on, so you begin to look at life a little different, get mature. It’ll happen for all of you all as well. This is the prime time in your lifetime. One day, as you begin to mature, you realize that life changes and people change, and so you… I pity the person who doesn’t recognize change and doesn’t move with it. You have to reinvent yourself always.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Even to make it up onto that stage where you can actually change, you need to develop certain guerrilla tactics to survive until then. You just can’t go 24/7 partying, even with a net, while you have that success. How do you develop the techniques to not get lost in the maelstrom?

CHEZ DAMIER

Here’s my suggestion. I think there’s a lot of freedom of being artists, you all, but my suggestion is always have a plan to fall back on. I have other skills and degrees in life that allow me to actually go into other areas of my life, from counseling people to retail or helping develop companies. It’s a big difference, but if you don’t have something to fall back on, I think that, from what I’ve seen in life, there’s usually one and 2% of people who start out in the music business on this level that ends up sustaining to stay there. I think that you always need a back-up plan. Not so much as, “What if this doesn’t work?” But you need a back-up plan in terms of, “What about the day when you want to do something else?” If you don’t spend the times actually learning as much as you can learn, then you get to be a little older and then you can’t learn as quick.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Even before that, let’s say, I mean you had your hand into running clubs, for example. Obviously, you are working when everyone else is out partying. You can’t be like the Nazi German standing in the corner going, “No, this is not for fun. “You have to somehow be in there to lift the game and make sure your venture is prospering. At the same time, you somehow have to keep parts of your head in this logistical kind of way as well. How do you walk through life with being a three-headed monster?

CHEZ DAMIER

With being or without being? [Laughs]

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Well, that’s for you to decide.

CHEZ DAMIER

How do you walk in life without being a three-headed monster, or how do you?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Or how do you manage all these different hats?

CHEZ DAMIER

You do it. You do it. The first thing I often ask people is where your passion is. Normally, if your passion is in a particular place, then you’ll, what do I call it? How do I best explain this? All of you are familiar with bank accounts, right? You’re familiar with checking accounts versus savings accounts, right? I think it’s an awesome state when you’re an artistic and you know how to transfer one level of energy or artistic-ness into another realm. And that’s how you manage. I’ve always been a part of marketing, so it’s, part of it is how it is and part of it is how you want it to be. I was always the one who I wanted it a particular way, I wanted it a particular color, you know. It’s a little different I think.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was your role in a place like the [fabled Detroit nightclub] The Music Institute, then?

CHEZ DAMIER

Wow. Music Institute. Music Institute was developed actually by myself and two friends of mine. We were party kids and we wanted to bring an element of kind of underground club life to Detroit. They lived in Detroit and I was from Chicago. We were traveling back and forth from Chicago to Detroit. We just, one day we found a space like this, put a sound system in it and we thought, “Whoa, this could work.” People came out, we opened the doors at like 11:00 at night. People went till like 6 o’clock in the morning. That was our marketing research. I know it sounds strange, but you sometimes have to do your homework before you jump out and to do things. That was our homework.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was the setting in Detroit like at the time? Was it as run down as it is today?

CHEZ DAMIER

Actually, Detroit is quite built up these days.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s a relative term, I guess.

CHEZ DAMIER

I don’t know. I don’t know if I can answer that because I think most artists kind of live in their head. I could make something beautiful if it’s not beautiful. I think it depends on how a person looks at things.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Who are the people who were instrumental in making The Music Institute the institution that it came to be?

CHEZ DAMIER

Our big influence actually was England, actually. Just the notoriety, having people like the Depeche Mode come out and hang out. I think Erasure was in town once and they came and visited. We were just kind of amazed with the international attention that we were getting. In terms of programming, we hired a DJ such as Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, which were just happening to be the new gurus of techno. Myself and Alton Miller programmed Saturday nights which we called it Back To Basics. It was a good balance, a new generation of Friday nights and Back To Basics on Saturday. It worked out fine.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Hang on, when they were the new kids? What time are we talking?

CHEZ DAMIER

What year?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Yeah.

CHEZ DAMIER

’88. Yeah. They were the new generation.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was the scene that they were bringing in, all the things they started out in a slightly different party scene right?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, they did actually. It’s kind of weird to answer that because I… It’s just kind of weird to answer that because I only knew them when I relocated to Detroit. I didn’t have much of the history of them prior to… I knew what the Detroit scene was like.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Were they already kind of established then?

CHEZ DAMIER

No. They were just being established. Juan Atkins I think was established at the time. Model 500 was established but outside of that, I think. Kevin Saunderson was just beginning to be established with Inner City and I think. Derrick was just beginning to introduce his new sound.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

You started to work with some of them on other levels as well, outside of the club.

CHEZ DAMIER

Right.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

As in?

CHEZ DAMIER

The group Inner City, which is actually Kevin Saunderson’s group. Speaking of milestones and humble beginnings, I had an opportunity to… I mean it’s amazing sometimes when you have a passion about something. I heard a track that Kevin was working on. I heard he was working on an album for his group, Inner City. I got a hold of a track, and I started writing something to it. I would play it in the club on Saturday night. It became kind of like my club kind of theme song. Right after that, he was completing his album, and I had an opportunity to write on an album for the first time in my life. I thought, “Whoa.” Back then getting $1,000 advance for a publishing was just, oh my God. That was like heaven. Getting the opportunity to actually write on his project.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What did you contribute then?

CHEZ DAMIER

What did I contribute? I ended up co-writing one of his songs on the Big Fun album, which was called “Set Your Body Free.” I got a chance to co-write it and perform with them with it. That was brilliant.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s really interesting for us because obviously Inner City kind of worked like in a classical band sense almost, musical directors, full-on stage shows. Then, you had this little switch over to this total faceless kind of effects.

CHEZ DAMIER

Back then the market was demanding, and you all… The problem within particularly dance, and probably more so than any other form of music, has always had a struggle to survive because it has always been a faceless form of music outside of disco. It was a faceless form of music. Because it’s a faceless form of music, people wouldn’t pay really to come out to hear an act, a house act. That’s why people had to make songs and people had to put vocals and had to be real. I think that’s one of the reasons why house, dance music particularly, had a very, very hard time surviving.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which all goes back to how you measure success, because I mean it pretty much did survive, without …

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, I mean, when you look at all the different genres of music, when you look at… from rock, hip-hop, pop, you can’t compare. All of them have sustained in the marketplace as icons. Nowadays, there’s so much dance music out here that, you know, unless something crosses over, people don’t remember what it is. People don’t normally remember.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Still, there’s enough people out there who remember [the Chez N Trent Prescription Underground EP].

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, well we came around a good time.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What was the actual concept between, because that was about as far as you can get from being iconic, just from the outside?

CHEZ DAMIER

When we were developing Prescription music, myself and Ron Trent, we had taken ourselves from being artists to architects. We were trying to design music for sound systems, which is a big difference than just making music because it sounds good in your ears. We were experiencing some of the best sound systems in the world, at least we thought between New York and London. We would go back and we would almost draw out what we wanted to hear coming out of these speakers. That’s how we ended up developing our sound. Our sound was actually quite different than someone who was just inspired just to do something. We were actually, on purpose, trying to make sounds that would come out and grab you, and feel you, and spank you and all these other things. I know that sounds weird, but…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What sound systems are we talking about, of which club?

CHEZ DAMIER

The two sound systems that we had basically referenced, one of which is the Sound Factory [in New York’s] sound system and… in London, Open Music, what was the club, oh my God, I haven’t been in so long in London. It’s a huge club in London. Oh my God, I can’t even remember, and I’ve…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What…

CHEZ DAMIER

Who? Heaven? No. Ministry of Sound! Ministry of Sound was just opening actually like a couple years… actually, maybe a year or two before we got together. Ministry of Sound was I think, in the UK, considered one of the best sound systems that was happening. Our reference points was between the Ministry of Sound system and Sound Factory sound system.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

OK, but when you take other examples that were designed to sound create on… I don’t know if you take the Junior Vasquez stuff on the one hand, and take your hand on the other hand, they seem to be kind of far away in aesthetics.

CHEZ DAMIER

We weren’t trying to design sounds after DJs, we were trying to design sounds for sound systems, that’s a big difference.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How do you separate the two properly in your head when you do music?

CHEZ DAMIER

How do you separate the two? [To audience] Have any of you ever been lost in music? Yeah, who? Just show of hands – who’s been lost in music? OK, so if you’ve been lost in music, then that’s the difference. When you’re lost in music, it’s a whole different level I think, consciously, subconsciously and so it’s just different. When you’re lost in music you can hear things, you can feel things. It’s just different. When we were designing music we were trying to do it with having people who would get lost in it.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

There’s something interesting right there, you’re trying to get to that point where you’re totally lost in it, and for once the damn brain shuts off for once, and then you talk about designing that moment, which is about as cerebral as it gets.

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s about as cerebral as it gets. Yeah.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How do you take yourself, while creating from this point to wherever?

CHEZ DAMIER

How do you? I don’t know if I understand the question.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When you talk about designing that kind of thing, then you must have developed some kind of way of getting there. Designing is a really conscious thing to do, so you’re consciously trying to unreveal your unconscious, or something like that.

CHEZ DAMIER

Right. Let’s just say, for instance, I’m just gonna play the beginning of this, “The Choice”, and I’m gonna play this.

(music: Chez N Trent – “The Choice (Full Dosage)”)

We wanted that sound to rip through your body. How do you consciously have an idea of a sound ripping through your body unless you’ve been in a place where something has ripped through your body. We were designing stuff because we had been there. We were dancing in the middle of the dancefloor, and we wanted to know what it would be like to create stuff that would just grab you. That was the closest. We had no scientific proof that that’s what it had done, but when we would go to New York and hear our music played, that was our Grammy award right there.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which again calls us back to how you measure success then.

CHEZ DAMIER

Right. We measure success actually by people who appreciate your music. When you get top DJs in the world playing your music, and it’s just innocently them playing your music, that has got to be one of the best feelings in the world. We would have never had to be known any place else, but just having people who were reputable, people have good reputations to play music to play our music, that was just like, “Whoa.”

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How does it feel when you see a total wanker playing your music?

CHEZ DAMIER

What does? How do you feel when you see a total wanker play your music? What’s a total wanker? [Laughs]

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Someone who you might not appreciate at all.

CHEZ DAMIER

Because I don’t have… I don’t know if I have a dis-appreciation for anyone like that. I think anyone who plays your music is just as [reputable] as someone who is big. It’s just that someone… I think for all of us, we all look for the approval. The validation of if we’re good enough. Sometimes people measure their greatness by how other people interpret them. If I tell you, “Oh, that’s not a good project.” Then, you may go on to think that it’s not a good project. You may go somewhere and he may be playing your project and that will bring a whole new life to you. I think it’s a big difference with it. I hope I was kind of clear on that. Did you understand me on that? Did any of you understand that? What I just said? OK.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When you and Ron tried to design the sound, which was ripped through your body, now not every one of us is so fortunate to have little monitors like these kinds, let alone the Sound Factory sound system at home.

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, we’re sorry. That’s what we were doing then. We weren’t trying to make stuff for the CD. We weren’t trying to make stuff for the home system. That was just a time for us. We just weren’t doing that. Some of you all make stuff for the listening of the music. Like now, I’m working… I work on stuff that is more… I want to hear at home. Different, right?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Totally fine.

CHEZ DAMIER

But when you’re young, you’re chaotic, you’re just ah… you want to live on the edge. That’s what we were doing. We were young and on the edge. Make sense? Maybe not, but that’s what we were doing.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Technically, maybe not so much, but I think the general approach is understandable, yes. This we, who is this dubious and famous Ron Trent character?

CHEZ DAMIER

[Sighs] I said that with a big breath, all right? Ron Trent was probably, no doubt, one of the youngest producers that we knew of probably out of the States, period. When he made his first record. He first made his first record “Altered States.” I think he was 14 or something like that. This record was just massive for him.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Got it on computer, by any chance?

CHEZ DAMIER

I don’t have “Altered States,” no.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Can you hum it?

CHEZ DAMIER

Wow. There’s got to be a generation of people out here who can hum. I’m not a hummer [Laughs]. But if you are unfamiliar with…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

If you went to English magazine, that would be a pretty good headline now, “I’m Not A Hummer.”

CHEZ DAMIER

Right. “Altered States.” He was a pretty young… one of the youngest, probably producers that we were familiar with. Actually, I didn’t know him until way after the project had happened. I was visiting Chicago once and a mutual friend introduced us. I said, “Hey, do you want to go to New York with me?” I took him to New York for the first time. We went there. We experienced the New York lifestyle. We came back and we started producing.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How simple is that? One, two, three…

CHEZ DAMIER

As simple as that. We had a lot in common in that capacity, so that worked out okay.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Where was Ron from?

CHEZ DAMIER

He was from Chicago as well, but we were just different in age group. We were just different in experiences, but it worked.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How would one envision your actual workload?

CHEZ DAMIER

What do you mean?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How is it like going from working on your own to having to force two or more creative visions into one?

CHEZ DAMIER

[Sighs] Yeah. That’s… I’m sure some of you all are experiencing that now right? What is it like to work with someone else? How do I put this? How to work with someone else? How to work with someone else and how we worked was you understand your weaknesses and your strengths. You understand what makes you good at what you’re good at, and what makes them good at what they’re good at. There was an old saying that we had when we were going to the studio that if you didn’t like something, then give me something better. That was the whole thing. It wasn’t good enough to say, “I don’t like that part.” “OK, so you don’t like that part? Give me something that you do like.” We learned to work balanced that way. I think that every time you collaborate with someone, you usually bring to the table something that they don’t have. They bring something that you don’t have.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How do you overcome that little moment of frustration? When you don’t like that part, and you know that there must be something better? When you yourself can’t come up with it?

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s not even a debate. If you have something and I can’t come up with something better, than that’s the part. That’s the part. It doesn’t turn into, “Oh, I’m just frustrated. I don’t like it.” No. No. It’s not like that at all. Case in point, we were doing a particular track called “Foot Therapy.” The project, and I’m going to play it a little bit later for you, in a second… Ron wanted to do kind of a very mental, very melodic kind of piano kind of feel. Well, we had different energy levels. I was always like the punchier energy, and he was the laid-back. The combination of the two was just actually kind of interesting. This is actually the track that we put together as a result of taking two energy levels and making them make some sense out of something. Right? I imagine. Let’s see. What can we… Let’s see.

(music: Chez Damier & Ron Trent – “Untitled" (The Foot Therapy EP)” / applause)

One of our struggles was always trying to find balance. Ron was much more musical than I was, and there’s a balance between the things that are musical versus the things that are gonna work on a dance floor. We constantly had to balance out what was gonna be the balance between something that was dreamy and lush versus something that was gonna punch you. We had to constantly find a balance, and I think when you work with people, that’s what you do. You try to find a balance.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Was any form or shape different to work for a release that you may have had on, let’s say, KMS then to doing it for your own imprint?

CHEZ DAMIER

I don’t understand the question.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What’s the working process and any sort or shape different than when you did something together like on KMS than when you did it for your own label?

CHEZ DAMIER

No, no, because you still wanted to… I think when you get into creating, I think even though he was doing things solo before I came along, and I was doing things solo before he came along, so you come to the table and you realize that’s what you bring to the table. You brought ice and I brought the Red Bull [laughs]. I don’t think it was so much that much of a difference in that capacity.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Obviously, it was a slightly different scenario with the way markets were going back then, but when do you think is a good point to decide, “Hey, I’m just going to release this on a label that just runs and everyone would just go and check him out because they’d just like the label or such,” or when do you do it on your own and just deal with all the hassle?

CHEZ DAMIER

Hmm, hmm, hmm. I think and my piece of advice to you all would be as well, there comes a period sometimes where you do things because other people think you should do it, and I think there are sometimes you do things because you really, really want to do it. Fortunately, I’ve always been in a position my whole life to do things because I really, really wanted to do them, and made them happen because I really, really wanted to do them. I think that the difference with doing things… how do I put this? Some of the mentality of doing things on demand versus doing things because you really, really feel it’s good.

I think that’s why we ended up creating our own record label was because, I was speaking to one of the students last night and someone was referring to when they submit stuff to record companies, and people were not feeling what they’re doing. We knew what we knew. If you’re doing dance music in particular, or any kind of music, when you know that it’s in your mind that it’s good, and people tell you that it’s not good, then you have to decide if it’s that good that you’re gonna go the extra mile to make it happen. That’s what we’ve done. We didn’t give another person’s opinion. We never submitted our music to anyone for approval. It’s almost like we know this is an experiment, we know it works to us, and we’re the proof. We released it. We put it out.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When you speak about things that you really, really, really want to do…

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s it, really, really.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Does that include… deals and what a distributor does and all these things as well?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Fortunately you all, I had a very, very good situation. I was able to kind of come from being a young DJ to a young executive at the same time. At the same time of me learning how to DJ in a club, I was also writing contracts for artists and proofing them and doing licensing deals. It was a unique situation, so yeah, we could want. Particularly, I had these [flips through pamphlet] put out for you all today which is actually a rough, roundabout of information on publishing. It does vary from different… this is pretty much the standard in the US and Canada, but pretty much the lingo is pretty much the same all around. Only thing that would really change is usually percentage.

The reason why I passed this on to you is that I think that knowledge is power. One of the things that I didn’t understand, even as being a person who signed other people to contracts and writing contracts was that I could be got myself. In situations where you’re doing this and all of the sudden you find out years later that somebody owns some of your publishing of some of your songs, you’re like, “Whoa!” I gave you all this particularly because I really believe it will be able to help you all get an understanding of it because I’ll be quite honest with you, the lifeline of what you do is actually in the publishing.

The lifeline of what you do is not in the performing. It is not into the producing. It is into the writing. That’s the lifeline, so I hope you all will take this information also with you guys and actually just do some research yourself. Find out in your territory what companies administrate publishing. That’s how you do it. So many of us in the business have gotten… we didn’t understand it. We didn’t understand it because nobody explained it to us. No one explained to us that when you sign… if I sign my record over to you, then am I signing my life over to you? And pretty much that’s what happened. To answer your question, yeah, we did have control over how we would be distributed, how we would be marketed. You should at least obtain, keep some of that integrity for yourself.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Integrity meaning at that stage a lot of us who bought the records didn’t have the faintest idea of what you guys looked like for example?

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s it, but we wanted it that way.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

I guess that sort of appealed as well because you really concentrated on what you felt mattered.

CHEZ DAMIER

Right, which was the music and the message.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Without running through this and paraphrasing it all, because you probably give us… I mean, they always seem to be these really bad big words. Like, “Oooh, he’s a publisher” and, “Whoo, a signed deal.” Can you probably…

CHEZ DAMIER

It’s called Dictionary.com. [laughs]

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s always a real big difference between reading something in a dictionary and having someone who knows about the essence of it and who can cut away the crap.

CHEZ DAMIER

[Laughs] Let me rephrase that. I was responding to you said these big words.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Oh.

CHEZ DAMIER

The big words. There’s a lot of big words I don’t understand, but hey, let me go look it up. That’s what I was just laughing at. OK, explain what you were saying? You were saying that…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

There’s obviously things that you would find in Dictionary.com. They will be words and will be a really technical explanation. But what other things… in the same way as you, as an artist, don’t really want to know probably about the physics of the bass waves and all of that. You know, really, what are the nitty-gritty details of what you need to know about when it comes to publishing in as simple form as possible.

CHEZ DAMIER

As simple a form. I try to be simple a little bit anyhow. I really couldn’t simplify it any greater because here’s the trade-off. If I do something for you, you have to do something for me. It’s simple. That will not change, probably as long as we live, which means if I’m the company who wants to invest in you, that’s what I’m doing. I’m investing in you. What’s my return back on investing in you is a piece of you. How do you protect yourself?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

From walking around without limbs?

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, I just gave you… This is just the basics of understanding [holds up a piece of paper]. Without limbs, making sure that… my thing is making sure that there’s an understanding. There’s an agreement between … if you’re co-writing with people, make sure that there’s an understanding, because see a lot of people don’t know that when you write… I found this out actually years ago. When you write, lyrics is one part of the publishing. Music is the other part of the publishing. I think sometimes people will get confused because you could publish your lyrics, and I don’t have to publish my music, but your lyrics are published. If they’re used, then you’re going to get paid off of that even if I’m not published, the music portion of it. I think that people should at least have that clear understanding that there is a partnership between the music and the words.

For you instrumentalist people, I always use the motto, “Try to tack something on it that will make people remember the name,” because instrumental music is sometimes so hard to trace. It’s just hard to. Sometimes people can play your stuff and… especially if you’re a good overdubber… hmmm, they can put in a mix and people will miss it. They’ll miss the whole publishing lights of your music, versus that if you hear… That’s why sampling was I think so popular is that you hear a sample of a word, that’s the song. That’s the song. People remember the sample. People remember words. Just know that. Just know that… I think the chances of someone having a lyric attached to their music versus just an instrumental is probably far greater to get paid on it than just having instrumental unless you’re Jay Dee, which was just one of them rare things that it just worked.

Then I think Sony was behind it, so it was a whole another ball game, or one of the majors was behind it at some point. I can’t really simplify it outside of it’s simplified actually in the information that’s given to you all. I just say have a really good understanding of who you’re writing with. I was told years ago that if I created something and you were in the room with me, actually that entitles you to a part of the publishing.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

There’s more people around than you think.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you. I was told that because there’s a sense that you couldn’t have come up with that without my energy presence. But, very seldom do people really cash in on that idea. I have to check to make sure nobody cashed in on me, but I think that there was an old saying that if we’re all in the room now and I come up with a tune, technically I’m told that that gives you all just as much rights to the project as it does me. You all will figure that one out.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

The next step in the process of moving it from club kit to DJ to promoter to writer is a label head in a way. If something who’s as protective of his own rights as you are, how does that change your outlook on when you’re dealing with other people’s creative work?

CHEZ DAMIER

You mean, in terms of me putting it out? Or me letting someone put my stuff out?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

No, with you putting other people’s work out?

CHEZ DAMIER

As a label head?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Mm-hmm.

CHEZ DAMIER

What was the question again?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When you’re getting a bit of a two- or three-headed monster position…

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. There’s a… It’s a four-headed monster now, yeah.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

You want to keep that relationship, and you want to keep it as fair as humanly possible, but… I mean, obviously to have a long relationship with that artist, you want him to feel good.

CHEZ DAMIER

Sometimes the best way to ruin a relationship is to put a project out on your friend’s label. Sometimes the worst time to have a bad relationship is honestly to put a project out on someone who you know has asked you to put a release a project out. I don’t think that people maliciously want to do you wrong, but I think that people… unless you’ve been in the business, and you understand the background of the business, that you understand that even to have a facility open it takes, you have to keep it running. People get this misinterpretation, especially new artists, if you see your record on the chart and you see it on the next chart, and you see it on about three or four or five charts and people start hyping you, you get this impression that you have sold a lot of music. That is a deception. That is deception at its core. That does not mean because people are playing your record, that does not mean because DJs are listening to your records, that your records are actually selling. What happens is that then the artist becomes… they question the label. They say “Oh, I was down at the store. They’re selling it. It’s hot.” They have really no idea that it’s not that simple, you all. For those of you all who are interested in doing the independent label. I heard one of the guests the other day was talking about from England, “We’re doing this label…”

I worked distribution, where we’ve lost $100,000 in particularly dance music and foreign sales, that we could not collect from distributors because they have either filed bankrupt, they wouldn’t pay us, the money wasn’t there. You have to understand that there’s a whole process. It’s almost like a bank. If I tell you that I sold 2,000 copies of your record, it don’t mean I’ve been paid on 2,000 copies of your records. Because I sold 2,000 of your records, that means that, yeah, but the money is pending coming back in. In this world and society, everything is worked off credit and terms. That means that if I give you 100 copies of your record, and I tell you, “Pay me three days from now,” and the three days come and you don’t get paid, then what happens? Who really lose at the end of the day?

Really, the label loses, because what happens is that most of the time, the label has advanced you. They have given you some money up front, and because they’ve given you money up front, they give you money up front because it’s money toward the sales, the potential sales of your product. I don’t know if you all understand, really, what advances are all about. That’s what an advance is worth. Advance is worth to say, “Hey, I believe I can probably sell 2,000 copies of this; let me give you an advance on that,” but the flipside about it is that we’ve seen a lot of companies go out of business and under because people were not paying them. A lot of distributing companies went out of business with thousands and thousands of dollars of people’s money.

If I have $200,000 worth of credit out there and you want your money, I file bankruptcy, and what happens at the end of the day? The independent person has lost completely, because not only have they paid you up front, but they were not able to get their money on the back end. Now, in a digital world, it’s a little different now. Thank God, I think the good and bad part of dying of vinyl, but nowadays, you have to understand that that process still works for CD projects. Because someone may sell 500 copies of your CD does not mean that you’ve actually collected the money for the CDs. This is a society that works off of terms and credit. You understand that?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[Inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

I’m sorry? The price? How the suggested retail price comes about

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[Inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

Most of the time, people are not… sometimes, in independent companies, you’re not actually getting paid on the suggested retail price, you’re actually getting paid on the wholesale price. How it works is that there’s the producer, manufacturer of it, there’s the retail aspect of it, and then there’s the customer aspect of it. The retail makes as much as the manufacturer does. Let’s just say suggested retail price that has been set, suggested retail price is, let’s say $19.99. Well, your contract from a company may say that your royalties are not paid off the $19.99, your royalty may be paid off of $10.98, which is what they’ll actually receive. Do you understand that? OK.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s quite a hard learning process as an artist to understand that you are, as soon as you get out there in the market, just one fish in a big food chain. Even though it’s your ego and it’s like, “Hey, I’m the world’s greatest, and give me that [inaudible].”

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. Knowledge is power, you all. That’s the bottom line at the end of the day. Knowledge is power. I think that gone are the days of having people… sometimes an artist wants to be too much of an artist, and sometimes people will trick you and say, “Oh, well you don’t have to worry about anything,” and “Let me handles this,” and then the horror story behind that is you hearing that management ran off with all this money, and the lawyers ran off with this. The flipside of it is that you really need to know, actually, every aspect. I think that we’re in a more savvy society right now where you should want to know more. I don’t want to be so blind and say, “Hey, I’m producing music for you. I don’t know what’s going on.” Let me know what’s going on. Let me know how the sales are transpiring, let me know how they’re licensing and who you’re licensing stuff to.

The more mature you all get, the more you’ll be able to work out different kind of deals as opposed to sometimes taking the money up front. I used to work out a deal when I was doing music. I would work out a deal with, every time I produced with an international producer, this was the deal: the deal was, you have rights in your territory and I’ll have rights in my territory. We never had to pay each other!

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When I’m from Luxembourg, I caught a really good deal.

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s the deal. If you were in Mexico and I’m in the States and we do a project together, you can release out there, you do the rights, and I’ll release it here and I’ll keep the rights. If there’s a third-party interest in it, let’s say Canada wants to license it, then we’ll do 50/50.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Simple deal.

CHEZ DAMIER

Simple deal.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Let’s flip the table and look at it from the other end. Let’s pretend I’m a talent from New Jersey who thinks I’m already bigger than Prince, and I want to sign with you.

CHEZ DAMIER

OK, and…?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

There might be a record coming out that would be… people would like it, and then all of a sudden, relationships change because again, the hype kicks in and people would go like, “Hey, you’re the world’s greatest!” again. How do you, when you suddenly get put into a different position, how do you keep your cool?

CHEZ DAMIER

I’m only human. How do you keep your cool? I don’t know. I had a situation like that to kind of happen with this artist called Roman Anthony. Romanthony was pretty much doing a lot of releases for this label Azuli in the UK and I went out to his house and I met with him and I thought he was just a genius, so I talk with him, I say, “Hey, give us a project for the label.” He goes into, he plays me lots of material and then I hear this one particular song, which was called “The Wanderer”. I thought it was just so different at the time. I thought, “Woah, this is so different. This is just strange, but I like it,” but then it comes to the point where on one hand you had the hype of people telling you, “Oh, you’re great, you’re brilliant,” then you come back to me with this fabricated idea of what you think you’re worth, so sometimes that can be complicated. With the label versus, or anybody who’s doing business with you, your self-worth.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Still, as a creative person, and not a “suit” per se, you would still understand where they were coming from?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. I understand. By the way, the reason I asked each of you all actually what everyone’s position was because here’s the flipside and here’s the reality of it, every aspect is not cut out for everybody. That’s the flipside. Regardless how much I suggest that you handle it, you don’t let people handle your stuff, here’s the flipside of it… some of us are just not actually capable of actually doing every aspect of it, so we need people to…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

It’s not a bad thing.

CHEZ DAMIER

No, it’s not a bad thing at all, but you do want to keep some sort of knowledge of how they’re doing your business. I think that’s fair enough to say, right?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

I guess so.

CHEZ DAMIER

Of course, again, times have changed. When I first started doing it, and I don’t know how music is now, but when I released my first record, we could sell… I think my first release independently, I think we sold, like, 40,000 copies. 40,000 copies today is unheard of independently. We’d be lucky to sell 2,000, be lucky to sell 1,500, but that was vinyl then. Then you had the CD rights and stuff. Back then, you sold records, and it was a different kind of marketing on it. I’m grateful, actually, for those humble experiences, and I would just encourage you all that… everybody has milestones in their lives, and actually this is a milestone, because all of you all will remember this, probably, as a reference point for the rest of your life, but milestones are places where you’ve been and what you’ve done musically, and as you begin to grow, you begin to look back, and you begin to say, “Woah, that was then,” and you begin to appreciate where you come from.

I know a lot of artists would rather be instantly successful, a lot of artists would rather have a famous name instantly, and sometimes it’s not really worth it. Sometimes it’s worth having the humble beginnings, and sometimes it’s worth it that I love the stories to hear when people say, “Oh, you know, I sent my track to all of these companies and everybody rejected it,” and it becomes a huge track. That’s an awesome testimony to an artist. I think realistically, you have to look at your work as really being milestones. Even what you all produce and create here, it’ll be a milestone. You’ll be able to look back on it and say, “OK, wow!” You can grow from it and look back as a reference point, and that’s how I stayed encouraged.

I stay encouraged because when I go back and listen to things that I’ve been a part of, it’s interesting. It’s really, really, really interesting. I had a couple of milestones. I’m just going to play a couple of tracks, actually. Each of the tracks that I played, actually, were all milestones in my life because, at the time, there was either something going on in my life, and you wanted to write about it or you wanted to sing about it, but I never had a chance to actually go back and look at it until actually being here. That’s mind-blowing to me. That is mind-blowing to me, and almost… 15 years? 15 years, I’ve never had to look back at the milestones in my life until actually coming before you all. I don’t own any of my music. When I say I don’t own it, I don’t actually own copies of it because I lived it. I let everybody else live it.

In going back to come here, it forced me, honestly, to go back and listen to some of my earlier work and to where I’m at now. That freaked me out. It freaked me out because I’ve never had to do it. I’ve never had to really pay attention to it. It’s like, you chuggle along, you do it all, “OK, I’m just moving,” but then, faced with going back, you’re like, “Woah, this is pretty interesting.” I’m going to play a couple of tracks, actually, that, actually I want to take you all to where I’m at now, backwards. OK? How about that? Where I’m at now, backwards. I hope that makes sense. This is a project I just worked on with a couple of friends of mine who was doing an album, and they wanted to invite different guests to be a part of their album project, and I’m just going to play. I’m just gonna play, and then I’m gonna play you guys the last thing that I produced and then hopefully we’ll take it from there, how about that? Make any sense? OK.

(music: Home & Garden with Chez Damier - “In And Out” / applause)

That’s where I’m at today, right. Today, where I was at last year – because it’s a difference for being an inspired artist versus artist on demand – I had a chance to work with one of my idols of music, and actually, this is not the version that came out but I’ll play it. This is one of the raw versions actually before completing the project. The artist was Leroy Burgess, and it was just amazing actually to have a chance to work with someone that had heard for… I think, musically, he’s had the most recordings of any dance person history… I believe over 100 albums, projects that he’s been a part of. To get a chance to actually not only work with him, but I got a chance to record him, I got a chance to arrange him. That was just mind-blowing. I will play you all actually just that’s where I was last year, and I think I have a snippet of that.

(music: Chez Damier feat Leroy Burgess – “Your Love” / applause)

That’s where I was actually last year. Also, last year, because I’m an ex-die-hard dance kid, I’m gonna play a track that I called the track called “Tweet,” because that’s all it is. It’s just a mental track. It’s just a track.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Before we go into this, the Leroy Burgess school of songwriting, maybe even the church of songwriting is slightly different than let’s say the Neptunes approach. What are the things that you learned from studying his work?

CHEZ DAMIER

Oh wow. First of all, someone who’s been recording for a while is just awesome when you get an opportunity to see them work. It took me 22 tracks to record his vocals to get one sound. That was mind-blowing. Just little parts, Little things that he’d done on each track to make one whole sound. It’s awesome, awesome. It’s just how he worked, he’s quite professional, came in, worked, he said, “OK, let’s try that again…” OK, try it again and cut it. For the most part he basically just hit everything on the first round. That was just amazing. His work ethics were actually a lot different than working with someone who is new, obviously, because someone who’s new is trying to figure it out.

One of the students here as well, I had a chance to witness them writing, and I say it’s hard sometimes trying to write and record at the same time. The difference between a lot of people in the old school versus new school is that they rehearsed, and that was the difference. They didn’t waste valuable studio time on trying to learn it and spend [inaudible] at the same time. We’re in an age now where a lot of us are kind of forced to learn it, write it, and produce it all at the same time. I think it’s OK. I think it’s OK if you don’t get it. I think it’s OK if you don’t get it the first time around, but I would just probably suggest that if you’re doing writing apart from the studio, try to get it down as much as you can before time to go in the studio because whether the engineer would tell you or not, it’s really taxing to try to sit there. What happens is the engineer is almost forced sometimes to be a co-producer. You’re trying to figure out how to do it, and they’re getting impatient with you doing it. It’s just simple. I just really suggest that. What I’ve learned from him actually was just his professionalism in working.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What do you mean by professionalism?

CHEZ DAMIER

Professionalism is the attitude. If a person tells you that something doesn’t sound right you don’t get an attitude and storm out the room. You take it as constructive criticism and bite the bullet and you go back and you do it again.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which brings us to something which is probably as important as learning about publishing and all that quality management. How do you let a young artist know to ask themselves just because there’s a mic on the stage or maybe a hard drive, they’re just ready to go and to record with infinite possibilities to… What do I have to add there? How do you get that?

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, a lot of times, when I came up into Detroit, the person who was mastering our music at the time, his name was Ron. Ron was a guy who had mastered everyone from Aretha Franklin to Parliament and Funkadelic. His track record was incredible. Here we were coming with this [punches hand] punchy beat. We broke a lot of needles of his trying to get him to get our sound because he came from the school of engineering where sounds were different. There were to tracks. We come from a school where everything was punchy, so we had to train his ears to… How we would do it is that we would bring to him records that we liked and says, “This is what we want it mastered like.”

A lot of times even with yourself is that you have the beat that you really like that really sounds good to you, be honest with yourself. Measure yourself up to it. Say, “You know what. Does it have the same quality?” Because you can hear if it’s the same quality or not. In terms of quality control, listen to stuff that you like and then say… Because a lot of the technology, excuse me, stuff… A lot of it sounds like it’s right out of the computer to be quite honest with you all. I think the difference… This is really just new to me actually. I am one of the ones who came from the school where we had to figure it all out. We had to figure out all of it. We had to figure out from the [inaudible] to the effect units. S-1000. We had to figure it all out and that’s how we were able to probably get fortunate in creating certain sounds.

A lot of times, because you have the tools to make it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s ready for press. That’s why we still have studios. We still have studios for the outboard gear… Again, some of our ears are really good where we can really master so some stuff on computer but for the most part, a lot of it sounds very robotic, sounds very brassy to me as opposed to warm. I think that’s probably why live music will probably still outdo a lot of music because it was something about the feel. It was something about the warmness that I think we have so I hope I answered that okay for you. Yeah? Close? OK. Close.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How does it feel like if you personally having doubt of someone who like you mentioned Romanthony earlier, will have the ability to probably approach both worlds, letting the warm meet the cold or the warm meet the punchy and then standing in its own way?

CHEZ DAMIER

What was the question?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How does that make you feel personally?

CHEZ DAMIER

How does that make me feel personally?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Having had the opportunity to help someone out with a great talent and then let ego get in the way?

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, I hope I... I don’t know how to particularly answer that but I hope that this will help some of you all out there. In most of my in particular career, every time I’ve done a project, I’ve tried to bring someone new on board to give them exposure of the project. Everybody has someone that has potential around them. My whole idea was to bring someone who I can kind of give a push to and let them do their thing on my project. In terms of that particular thing, I don’t really know if I can answer that, actually. Yeah. But I will suggest to you all honestly when you’re doing a project, a lot of times you’ll be surprised actually how many people that you know that you’ve met or close to you… I think a lot of people give this illusion with big names… I think that people… I think every new producer wants a big name to mix their record or remix their record and I think that I was never really big on that. I was always big on the…

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

You had to be there.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, usually on the person who had potential because it does two things for you. The beautiful part I get out of it is knowing that everybody that I’ve had to do a project has flourished out on their own and have become great in their own right. That was the reward back for me as opposed to just using people because they were quote/unquote big names. Besides, when you use big names, you got to pay big money.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

So it’s more of rather the proud parent than 1980s Patrick Bateman yuppie approach?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. That is correct.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

So, here go out and foster the world.

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s it. Go out and foster the world and you know… I don’t know how else to say. I think personally, all of you all are in a really unique position. I hear that you all are quite talented. For those of you I’ve had the chance to meet, I’m encouraged by you all, but it is such a great opportunity to be a part of something that you can have a bit more understanding as opposed to your friends or your counterparts who may not have insight. I’m sure that you guys will go from here just thinking differently and your approach to things and that’s power. That’s lots of power, whether you all know it or not. I don’t know.

Is there anything I didn’t cover? Any questions anyone has that hopefully I can answer? Go.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I was wondering… Sorry. Just touching back on the publishing bit with melodies with stuff like dance music, do you write down your melodies? If it is just a melody in partnership with the lyrics because something like dance that so often has changing melodies and repetitive melodies and things like that, it’s hard to… I know you can… from what I learned, you just actually write the notes of the melody and send that to whatever [inaudible] or whatever it is. I’m just wondering how often that happens in dance music because everything I have learned from publishing has been around bands and that kind of music and getting more into electronic stuff like glitching. All that. It’s hard to put that into paper in a publishing sense, so I’m just wondering if you have more insight on that.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. It’s called putting it on cassette or CDs, honestly. Because the melody is the melody. Melody doesn’t mean… You don’t necessarily have to write the notes out to a melody. The fact that you can hum the melody is the melody. You know what I mean? Because otherwise, words are just words. I could use his… he can come up with a great poem, but it’s just words. Now, if I come along and I put a melody to that, then I’ve given it a whole other meaning, don’t I? You come along and you put music to it, you given it even more of a meaning.

I think when it’s time to copyright and publish it, I think that somebody needs to know how it goes. That’s why sampling is so prevalent for when people sample stuff. Really, what you’re sampling is melody. Melody and tone. I think you have… You can copy samples so much, but it’s usually the melody that people remember, normally. Did that answer somewhat of your question?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

How do you keep your workflow there without getting totally paranoid and just sending off every two bars that you ever did to someone postbox?

CHEZ DAMIER

You don’t. I want the world to sample me. I think sampling is brilliant… I once upon a time saw these two producers in particularly… I won’t mention their names, but one producer sampled the other producer and he’d done a great job. It was hot! The other producer says, “This is hot! I’m going to put it back out.” He put their song out because it had enough of his sample in there to be his song. He figured at that point, he treated it almost as a remix. I think sampling is good. I want people to sample me. I think it’s good. I think it keeps people alive.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

What did the Producer B think of this then? How did he react?

CHEZ DAMIER

He couldn’t hear it. It was just amazing. He just thought it was outrage. He just thought it was absolutely outrage, but what could you do? If you got a hot… Pretty much what it was, it was a sound, a sample sound. Here’s the good part. I know every record that has sampled a sound of mine in it. You know your sound. It’s just that simple. It doesn’t matter because I’m not using patches like that. Your sounds are custom-made sounds. You know when someone uses your sounds. When someone use your sound, you can do two things. You can say, “Whoa. Good job,” or say, “Oh, I don’t like the way they done it,” or they use enough of it to give it an identity. You say, “OK, do I see any writing credits in there?”

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

On the “lost in music” aspect, how much time do you spend on actually designing the sound, because you can easily get lost in all the nobs and wheels?

CHEZ DAMIER

You don’t. You just do it until it sounds right. I don’t think that there’s a formula for a perfect sound. I think some people get too deep into it, too technical. People want the whole Quincy Jones effect on it, so the bottom line is some things are just meant to sound wrong. Some things are meant to sound nasty. Some things are just meant to sound certain ways. I think you don’t spend hours and hours on stuff that’s meant to be a particular way.

I was sharing with one of the students that… here’s a trick. I was working on a track on an MPC 3000 and I thought it was the hottest piece. I just thought it was hot. I tried to bump it up to a 24-track, multi-track, two-inch tape, and I lost it. It was like lost in translation. It gave it a whole other meaning. We had to add all other things to it to make it sound the same. The interesting part about technology, y’all, is that some things, two or three tracks is hot. Sometimes, you have to leave it just at that. Sometimes you have to not try to give it the whole, “Let me bump it up to the next level,” because you’ll lose something. Does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not, but it made sense to me. I just encourage you all that when you’re doing it, some stuff are meant to be six/eight tracks. When you try to make it to another level then you have to add more stuff. When you add more stuff it turns into something else. A track is a track, isn’t it?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Speaking of which…

CHEZ DAMIER

Right. I have my power cord, but do you think you have an adapter?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Hmm…

CHEZ DAMIER

Do you think we can round up one?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Hmm?

CHEZ DAMIER

Do you think we could get one? I just have I think two tones.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Oh, see.

CHEZ DAMIER

Oh, wow.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Magic fairies just arrived.

CHEZ DAMIER

Whoa, awesome. OK. Are there any other questions? Let me also tell you all this as well. Until you have an understanding of anything, you should always ask questions. Don’t ever think that there’s anything that’s not worth asking because a lot of people get messed up with the pride of not asking, or they get messed up with thinking that something is a stupid question or silly. When you have people who have been in the business for a while at your disposal, I’d ask everything that I want to know just so I have somewhat, even if that’s not the correct answer, I’d want to know enough of it because you have the opportunity to do it. When you begin to play the game, it is an advantage for a person to keep you in darkness. Do you all understand what I’m saying?

The more you don’t know, the more I could use you. The more you don’t know, the more I could profit from you. I think that, originally, that’s the whole record business at some point must have happened. It was built on not educating people. It was built on keeping you… Hmmm, “You stay blind and let us do all the work,” as opposed to asking questions. My plea to you all is that you should always ask questions. Again, I don’t think no question is silly, and I don’t think no question is too small.

I was listening to one of the artist’s music last night. Listen to this. Taste in music is a matter of opinion, OK? What you may call great maybe not great to someone else. What someone calls not so great might be genius to someone else. Try not to compare yourselves with what people call the standard. Do you understand what I’m saying? If you do, you’ll lose your identity in all of it. Do you all understand what I’m saying? I think that that’s what makes artists and individuals unique is the fact that even if sound strange to some people, that’s a good strange as opposed to feeling like you have to have a certain formula.

I think that’s one of the misconceptions that most people have in particularly music, hip-hop and dance in particular that you must have a certain sound in order to make it work. I don’t think that that’s so. I just think that you have to have enough confidence about what you want and believe in it, then it happens from there. Make sense?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Totally.

CHEZ DAMIER

I never make sense, but oh well. OK. I’m gonna play just a couple. I’m gonna move forward, and then come back. I’m gonna play a piece of the first track – the first single, I should say – that I’ve ever done. The first single I’ve ever done. You aspiring artists and musicians out there, I never, in particular, wanted to have to sing. I find myself singing because after trying to sign people and get people in the studio to do certain parts, they could never pull it off. What happens is that you figure, I’ve gone through three, four vocalists and I wanted it a particular way, and they can’t give me what I want. Then you find yourself doing it yourself, so I think that’s acceptable. I think that’s okay. Make sense? Probably not. Let’s see here. This is the first track I’ve ever done. Not the first track I’ve ever done, but the first single project that I’ve ever done.

(music: Chez Damier – “Can You Feel It” (MK Lost Tape Version))

OK, that was called “Can You Feel It.” That was the first track, and the second track I tried in my lifetime, I wanted to know how to arrange other people in singing background. I think every step in my life, I call a milestone because when you’re trying to learn how to be an engineer, producer and writer all at the same time it can be kind of overwhelming, especially if you’re using a studio that you’re just learning how to use equipment. It’s quite interesting is the result of it. So, I recorded another track and this time I wanted to bring in … I wanted to know what it would be like to record with other voices, and this is like 1992. Yeah, 1992.

(music: Chez Damier – “I Never Knew Love” (MK Club Mix))

Simple, just one- and two-bar songs. But to give you all just an explanation of, then now moving to the realm of actually trying to bring other voices into the studio, to make them sound big, or to make them sound full, was also just an interesting challenge. I don’t know if any of you have had any experience in actually recording vocals, but it’s a difference between recording a vocal, versus vocals. Which can be pretty intense.

One of the tricks I’ve learned in recording, and if you guys ever get the opportunity of actually recording, is to record them two or three times and just stack them. It’s a good effect. Taking, if I have three singers, including yourself, you record a track, then go and do another track. Do about three or four tracks, and it sounds fuller. Background.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[Inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

No, you record them as a group. Group and then, you can do it two ways. They can sing with themselves, or you could not let them hear themselves, and then record them again on another track and then mix them together.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Do you not comp your vocals ever? How do you feel about tuning, things like Auto-Tune, and how far that’s gone? Do you ever use that, or do you rely more on performance? Because I find working with bands, people think you can just fix everything later.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

I’ve not had the opportunity. I’m from the school of, “It feels good, it sounds good, keep it.” It can be out of tune, it can be out of pitch, but if it works for me, it just works for me. I think that most people in, probably the R&B kind of family, you tend to see them doing more of that. I like the not-so-perfect kind of sound.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

[inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s a lie. What is it? There’s an R&B singer, her name is… It’s one in the States. Studio-wise, she’s magic. I heard her, she sung in front of the president, and she sang it live, and she was horrible. There is some magic that can happen.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Only to a certain degree.

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, yeah, OK.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What kinds of effects do you use on your vocals?

CHEZ DAMIER

Again, there isn’t a certain effect. There’s several kinds of just vocal, warm rooms, it depends on what… you have to pretty much just go through them, and know what sound you want. I don’t think that there’s one particular one. Because with me, using an effects unit is like figuring out a drum machine, because there’s so many. You can go into editing, there’s just so many things that you can do with the effects unit, that to me, I’m just curious to see how it would sound. A lot of times, I’m into the tone tweaking. The more strange it sounds, I think it will work for me. I hope I answered your question.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

In a way.

CHEZ DAMIER

To answer it, there isn’t a set effect unit. Because there’s anything from harmonizers… it depends on what you have access to.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What do you have access to?

CHEZ DAMIER

Whatever the studio is using at the time.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What do you use? What programs do you use?

CHEZ DAMIER

There isn’t programs. It’s usually effect units. The harmonizer effect unit actually was what I’m probably most familiar with. It allows me to try some things pitch-wise. A lot of times, it’s usually a combination. I can record something with one effect, and then take it into another program, and add another effect to it. It’s like salt and pepper. It’s according to your taste, of what sounds good to you, I think.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

To turn this towards a wrap, what is the lesson that we… how do you retain your cool, creating music which is not all about the hook line, which does take its time, which needs space, in the age of the iPod in a 30-second snippet? Give me the hook line, and the most booming sound you can get within… now…

CHEZ DAMIER

OK. Do that for me again. What are you asking me?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

When you’re doing music now, where it seems like so many things are craving for attention, that everyone tries to come out with the most recognizable key sound, the most recognizable hook line, that hits that instant boom, “Hey, I sold you right now within one bar.” You want to do music which takes its time which is about delayed gratification and needs space.

CHEZ DAMIER

The flipside of it is that times have changed. If you’re on iPod, if you’re on the web looking for songs, that’s what you want to hear, you want to hear what the hook line is. You want to hear what is going to grab you. Unfortunately, we don’t have the accessibility to listen to two minutes of the song, because most servers won’t hold that much music, so what do they do? They take it to the part that they think is most effective, which is normally either the strong part, the part that’s going to get you jumping up and down, or the hook line.

Because people want to know what the hook line is. You ask me… I really have no opinion on that. I do think that there’s different writing for alternative and dance music. I think it’s a different style of writing versus mainstream pop and R&B. That’s kind of cool. You were talking about, even the repetitiveness…

Repetitiveness can be good. If it’s got a good hook, I think it can be good. Sometimes all you need is a hook. If you’ve got a good hook… because people remember hooks. This is the bottom line. I wish I could reinvent the wheel, but people remember hooks. Right now, every song you all probably know, you remember it because there was something in the song that you remember. Make sense? Probably not, but oh well.

But I have had an enjoyable time, and I hope even more so that I was able to actually share something with you guys, that you all would at least be able to hold onto. Even with playing you guys stuff, it’s not about me. It was never really about me. It is about what’s happening in the future. Again, I was sharing with someone yesterday, when you become a part of history, then it’s okay. You don’t have to strive to become much. I don’t have to fight for space in the world, and so on.… dah, dah, dah. It’s like, “OK, fine” I’m in the old encyclopedia. OK. Let me live there. It’s about what happens from this point on with you all. I’d be curious to see if there was any inspiration out of any of this. I know that you guys look like you’re worn out. You guys have been having long nights. You guys were probably here late last night as well and probably here first thing this morning. There was an opportunity to create something with you guys. I think it will be interesting. If not, then at least I will be giving you a piece of me.

Now, the flipside, the last thing I’m going to actually play you guys is that... I think I was listening to one of the students as well. Although I played you guys a lot of song stuff that was written, I also like tracks, because I just like tracks. Tracks, to me, don’t have to have any necessary meaning. It doesn’t have to have any necessarily emotions. It’s just tracks, so, I’m going to just play them. The last track that I’m going to play is really just a track.

I was in Paris last year and hanging out with a friend of mine, and it was just different and I got bored. I wanted to… I was almost fighting for intensity in my head, and I had to figure out actually how to pretty much work Logic. I’m not… Again, I tell you, I come from the school of analog, so, I really wasn’t quite familiar with Logic before we worked with it, but I wasn’t quite that familiar with just the whole process of computer sequencing and stuff. That was quite different for me. I’m just going to play this last track, actually.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Can we maybe hold it for a second to close it off? I think we have another question in the background.

CHEZ DAMIER

Sure, you want to sing together?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah, mine was getting back to publishing side of things, really. I’m just wondering… if I lay some vocals down on the track, and it was produced by a particular guy, I own the lyrics and he owns the track. Is that correct?

CHEZ DAMIER

Technically, yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Untechnically?

CHEZ DAMIER

Untechnically is that it’s a marriage when they come together.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

OK.

CHEZ DAMIER

You could claim the 100% of your lyrics and 50% of the project.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

OK.

CHEZ DAMIER

... and vice-versa for them as well.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Right. If the track is then sent off to some film producer to be put on some film or something like this but they just use the instrumental or use a snippet where the vocals are not in it, what’s the scenario then?

CHEZ DAMIER

I think at that point, it becomes… that’s why the marriage has… you have to have a really good understanding with your co-partner in writing. Because I think that… and it depends on actually how educated you are. I’ve worked with vocalists that just want it. The whole 100% of, “I own my lyrics and dah, dah, dah.” If the track got placed and they placed us, they had no rights to it. Usually, having a good understanding that when we’re going into this, we’re writing it together. Even though it may have your vocals on it, even though you may have done most of the writing to it, I think you should have a good understanding. Say, “Hey, you know what? This is going to be our project together. It’s going to be 50/50.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER

This where written agreements and stuff come in to play?

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, no. I just think that when it’s verbal, I think could work as well. I think that a verbal agreement is just as valuable as a written agreement. It’s just that, you both must make sure that when you publish it, that there’s an understanding. Like I know with BMI, for instance, there is a segment in the application, you can register the song online and they’ll ask you your percentage. They’ll ask who else was the writer on the application, so you name the other person. You say, “I wrote this and the other person wrote this,” and they’ll ask you what percentage of that? Because here is the flip part. Let’s just say you’re writing, you’re singing, you wrote most of the lyrics, but I come out with the hook. How do you want to work that out? I think it’s the understanding. You could say, “You know what? OK, then I’ll give you 10% of both sides,” which would mean 20%. In the publishing registration, they’ll ask you, “What percentage did you write? What percentage did he write, and what percentage did the other person write?” You all should agree on what the percentage is.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which is a little different because the writing scenario these days might be a little different with… let’s say a producer has got 300 beats on his hard drive and that you’re just going to come in like, “I’ll have that, but let’s flip around this bit so it would fit.”

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s it but I think again, it’s the understanding because here is the deal. You may have 100 beats for this sequence on your sequence. Well, I may come with the two beats that make it make sense. To me, the difference between producing and production is the producer brings it together, really. That’s the whole understanding. A producer technically doesn’t have to play anything on the project. That’s the glorious part of being a producer. You technically don’t. Productionists become productionists and producers but technically, the producer says … Have you ever wondered why you’ve seen bands and groups produced? Have you ever seen… You don’t see most produced by themselves. You see an outside producer producing them. Why is that?

Well, over the years, I had to understand, “Hey, how is that? They’re a brilliant band.” It’s because someone else’s ears came along and says, “You know what? This has to make sense. I’m going to pull it all together.” You can be a… That’s why they say productionists and producers. A lot of times, productionists are producers but somehow in the world of music, they tricked us. They say that someone else can come in and…let’s say, for instance, let’s just say you do a whole project. I come in and I just in a hi-hat. What if that hi-hat ties the whole song in?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Who decides if it ties it in?

CHEZ DAMIER

Again, it has to make sense. It has to make sense. That’s all producing is. It just has to make sense. What if it was just missing that one element? Then someone comes in and says, “Oh, I’m going to add this to it.” Technically, they’ve put… You can do it two ways. You can say, “OK, I can thank you. I can give you a writing percentage or if your role in wanting to be a producer, then we can do co-op producing.” I hope that makes some sense. Probably not, but oh well.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Well in case you want another, just listen to Metallica albums pre-Rob, Rob whatever his name is and when he got involved and that didn’t change. They can still play or can’t, depending on whether you’re the drummer or not.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, but you see a lot of great bands and even… for years, I used to wonder… George Benson, and I couldn’t figure out, “George Benson is being produced?” I’m thinking, “I’ve seen him live,” and I’m thinking, “Oh, he’s awesome,” but he was being produced because someone else’s ears says, “OK, you’ve got some good talent there but now, we need to pull the elements together.”

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Which is what you have a lot of… musicians because they get lost in music really easily.

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s it. They get lost in music. Before closing, is there anything…?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Sorry, I’ve got another question. I’m just wondering, when you were coming up, have you ever been in a scenario where you’ve just given away your music for free for films and like promotional purposes and all this sort of stuff?

CHEZ DAMIER

Have you given it away? Given… Wow, that’s a powerful word, give. OK, do you mean for promotional, or just give it to them?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Just give it to them. So for instance, you have a film crew.

CHEZ DAMIER

You’re awesome, man. If you were doing that, have you got something you can give me? Because if you’re giving like that, you want to make sure… do you have any of the copyrights?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah, because if I would have made it then yeah, I guess I would have the copyright on that then, wouldn’t I?

CHEZ DAMIER

Oh, well then I think it’s always cool. I think it’s cool. I think people do different things to promote themselves. There’s a lot of people who send stuff out because they want people to snag it. Maybe someone will snag it and that would be big loot for you.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

OK, so if you’re the film man, I give you a snippet of my music and why it’s gone, I was back on, and yeah, you use it. I should be expecting some sort of recompense.

CHEZ DAMIER

You better believe it. You better be expecting something, or I better be expecting a phone call. Yeah, you should be, because most of the time… unless he asks you by permission, I think that that’s a difference. I think sometimes… I can ask, “You know what? Can I use this by permission?” Which doesn’t mean I’m licensing it, which doesn’t mean that I’m taking the rights from you. It’s just that I’m asking you, “Can I use it?” If you agree to it, normally you would just say, “Use what permission” or I think… If you’ve got some tunes out there that people are using as soundtracks, that’s awesome.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Thanks.

CHEZ DAMIER

It’s alright.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Say if you’ve got a melody in your head and you can’t necessarily play the piano, and you get someone and you sing that melody to them and then they start arranging, How much would you… Would you still be the producer of that track, or would you…

CHEZ DAMIER

You’re a writer.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

You’re a writer?

CHEZ DAMIER

You’re writing. Yeah.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I can’t play the piano.

CHEZ DAMIER

You don’t have to.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

I’m employing that person as an arranger, or do I just say, “This is it,” and they start playing and they show me the chords of it and…

CHEZ DAMIER

Well, no. I think that when you’re… What you’re doing is that you’re actually writing. I’m a melody writer. I have melodies in my head all day long. If you’re a melody writer and you say, “Can you play this? I’m hearing this.” Or you start humming it and the person starts to play behind it, then yeah, I think that that’s a part of writing credits. I think that’s a part of writing credits.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

To the person playing the piano, or just myself?

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s writing credits for you added to that. It’s writing credits for the person who’s playing it but it’s for you as well. Well, again. No. You own a percentage. I mean, I’m not going to want to just turn this to me because I’m not a publisher expert, but it depends on the agreement that you all have with each other. Here is the bottom line. If you trust me, let’s be fair about it. If there’s three or four of us involved in it, let’s say there’s four of us involved. Well, what if you wanted 50% and you wanted us to split the other 50%. You know, there has to be something… You know within your heart. People know if that’s a fair deal or not. If I just gave you a melody line to it and that’s not the melody of the song, then I think it should be negotiable. If you came up with the hook melody of it, then I think that that should be considered.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

This is where common sense comes into play again because first and foremost, you’re doing this not to create the rent for your grandkids but to enjoy it first of all. Maybe you shouldn’t be too worried about how many hi-hats I added to a beat of 168 bars. Nevertheless, make sure what is yours is yours, right?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. I think, again, just be honest with each other. Did that answer, somewhat?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yes.

CHEZ DAMIER

You need to also know this as well. I think that a lot of people get confused. There are people who actually just write melodies. Literally, they are melody writers.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

They’re making a pretty decent living.

CHEZ DAMIER

They make a very, very good living out of it. A melody writer, you bring the life to a project. Don’t ever get discouraged. Just because you don’t play doesn’t mean that you can’t contribute. Because to me, I think it’s an awesome talent to even be able to write melodies. I think it is awesome. I think without melody, what would we be? A bunch of words and music, wouldn’t we?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Melody-less.

CHEZ DAMIER

A melody gives it the character, doesn’t it? The melody tells us how to get there. That’s what I think. Last round, is there any questions, you guys, because… Yes?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

What do you think about the website MySpace? Is it ready to allow the members of the community of MySpace to sell their own track in download files very soon? What do you think about this?

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

A.K.A., what happened to real life?

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, well, do you mean selling your project on MySpace?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

All the artists who haven’t got a contract with labels, so what do you think? Is this going to help the artist and the directors of labels for finding new artists or I don’t know? What do you think about all this new stuff because maybe going to change the rules of the game? Maybe not, I don’t know.

CHEZ DAMIER

That’s interesting because I received an email from Master Builders which is, I think, out of the UK. They have their own website. They sent me a link to MySpace to download a free song off of them. I guess it’s a part of marketing. I think that you have to know what you want enough to go for it. I think the flip thing about it is you have to be careful especially when there’s unpublished stuff, because if there’s enough free copies of something, then I don’t ever have to buy it do I? That’s the flip part. Who has accessibility to it?

In fact, I’m still trying to find out some of the laws in terms of the whole downloading process. Because there’s millions of dollars that is out there being traded off, and some of us are not even seeing it. Let’s say, for instance, I’ve got a song out and you have it on your website as a store. Who’s getting residuals from that? Who’s monitoring that? Who’s actually saying, “Hey, there’s 100 stores that have your stuff on their downloading store.” How do you do that? I think that the laws are quite interesting. I think you just have to do your homework. I have nothing against people wanting to take whatever route that you need to take to sell your stuff.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

OK.

CHEZ DAMIER

Does that help any?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

Yeah.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah, probably it didn’t make sense, but oh well.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

OK, thank you.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

OK, so before everyone tries to sneak out while the track is playing I think this is our chance to thank Chez Damier [applause]. Which was, on the other hand, wasn’t an invitation to sneak out.

CHEZ DAMIER

Just in closing, I had this all a whole other way but it works out the way that it’s supposed to work out. I just had it worked out a whole other way. Was any information helpful to you all, which is what I’m more concerned about? Was there anything that you guys, that was informative to you all that you could use? Well then, that makes it worth the while to me, to be quite honest with you. This was not, This Is Your Life, and I’m sharing it.’ This is… you guys are the TV audience. It was about actually passing something back on to you all. At least you all have a little comprehension. In closing, before playing this track again, hold on to this. [Holds up piece of paper] This is just really basic understanding of terms. Most of the laws changes from country to country may vary but the lingo is still the same. Bottom line is bottom line.

What does it mean to co-op? What does it mean to administrate my publishing? What does it mean to be a self-owner? Again, you guys can contact your local territories and find out how to do it. Today in technologies, I’ll tell you, you don’t necessarily have to be published in your own country, I’d imagine. I don’t know if the laws have allowed, but I know that due to the internet, a lot of the publishing firms actually have it where you can go in and apply online for your music. I think that one of the requirements is I think you must have something out. Otherwise, be careful of people saying pay you lots of money to publish you. That’s kind of scary. Or to administrate you. Because if you like me that much, you should be paying me, right?

OK, so in closing, I come from also – again, the world. Just so you guys have somewhat of a clear understanding – from Chicago. Chicago has been considered the house. Detroit has been considered the techno city, and New York has been considered the garage. Fairly to say? Okay. I enjoy all of them. Even everything that subs under that. Every now and then, I want to lose my mind in just a mental track. I’m just going to close out on just a mental track. OK? OK. OK, mental.

(music: Diz – “When the Martians Come” / applause)

Well, thank you guys, I thank you all. I wish you all very, very well on your next venture. I wish you all a safe trip home back to your land.

AUDIENCE MEMBER

As to you.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yes. Thank you very much because I leave tomorrow. I need that. I want to have a safe trip home. I thank all of you for… I don’t know who’s actually doing studio… who’s doing studio tonight? Who has a studio session tonight? Everybody has studio session tonight? What are you doing? What are you guys doing?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[Inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

You’re doing some what?

AUDIENCE MEMBER

[Inaudible]

CHEZ DAMIER

All right, and who’s doing what? Are you guys working tonight? OK.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Be careful there’s someone watching your back.

CHEZ DAMIER

I just want to know who’s availability because I think I’ve got a couple of hours around. I wanted to know if you’d want to get into a vibe, or have a moment while I’m alone.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

So, just come up and we might arrange something.

CHEZ DAMIER

Yeah. Thank you all.

TORSTEN SCHMIDT

Thank you.