Cosmo

Heinz Reich

What were the smartest decisions in your life? What were the things you would have done differently? Let’s speak globally before we go into the details.

Cosmo

I’m one of these people who finds that even the mistakes you make are important. So I don’t think I would have done anything differently, even though I probably made some unwise choices at certain points. But how you really do learn is by making mistakes. And the bigger the mistakes, the bigger the lesson. I never really had a grand scheme of things or a big plan. It kind of developed organically and naturally, but also with a lot of hard work. It didn’t just come out of nowhere. But I feel if you work hard enough, if you are dedicated and disciplined, then luck seems to happen.

Heinz Reich

Cosmo, as a lady you represent a tiny minority in the music business. Why do you think that DJing is such a male-dominated profession?

Cosmo

I think it’s definitely changing. Coming from my generation, I grew up in the ’70s and the early ’80s, it was definitely a different situation to girls growing up today. We didn’t have computers around, we didn’t have that kind of technology available to us. As girls, like myself, you learned to play the piano, boys played electric guitar – things you could plug in. So there’s already that kind of technology thing, where boys don’t have a fear of it as much. So partly it’s conditioning. Another thing is record collecting. I started record collecting when I was 12. All of the girls and guys that I knew didn’t collect like I did at that time. But record collecting is like having a slight form of autism because you become obsessed with a certain thing. And it is proven that males, more than females, have slight forms of autism. So it’s that trainspotter attitude as well as the technological conditioning. But it’s completely different today. Girls growing up today, they’re just surrounded by this technology all the time.

Heinz Reich

When we observe what women and men are doing, you can definitely come to the conclusion that it can’t be a difference in skills. Whatever a woman tries to achieve, she can do it as good or better than a man, of course. But in the radio show we are running in Austria we had about 400 DJs last year. Now imagine how many out of these 400 were women?

Cosmo

Ten.

Heinz Reich

No, a bit more. [laughs] It was 30. But there must be some psychological or sociological reasons why more men are pushing in this direction, becoming a DJ or a music producer.

Cosmo

It’s also the lack of role models. When I was growing up, I can’t remember any female club DJs. There were a lot of female radio DJs. That’s why I started on the radio myself. The other thing is that it’s very difficult if you want to have kids. To be traveling around is a lot easier for a guy. He can go away and come back. I’m not saying it can’t be done, it can, but it is a factor that comes into play.

Heinz Reich

Were there big male obstacles in your life?

Cosmo

Well, you know, for anyone starting to be a DJ or a music producer there’s always a lot of obstacles – whether they’re gender-based or not. For example, I worked in record stores for years. People would call in and ask me, “Can you put me on the phone with somebody that knows about music?" Obviously, if it was a guy, that wouldn't happen. Another time a bouncer wouldn’t let me into the club. I was standing there with all my records and he was thinking I was trying to get in for free. He couldn’t believe DJ Cosmo was a girl. When I was doing my radio show, mixing live and engineering the whole show myself, announcing, answering the phones, people would call and say, “Tell the DJ he’s doing a great job." I mean, all these things. But then you kind of educate the people as time goes on. You just have to let it go.

Heinz Reich

How would you explain the difference between a radio and a club set to the DJs in this room?

Cosmo

It’s a huge difference. Radio is everywhere, which is the beauty of it. It’s much more democratic than a club. Clubs choose if you can come in or not. It’s also depending on economic factors, if you can afford to go; all that kind of stuff. Or say if for some reason you are unable to go to clubs for physical reasons, you can always turn the radio on. And that’s one thing I loved about having a radio show. For instance, some of my listeners were blind. So it would be difficult for them to go to a club. And probably it would be too loud for them. Some listeners are parents having children. They used to go out, but now they’re tied down a bit more. I had a lot of fans that are prisoners, from Rikers Island. That was interesting because the correction officers used to play my show. I had some people to call up, they just had one phone call a week, and they called me up! I got letters. This was very intense. You’re communicating a very positive message, and they were able to get it through the radio. One of the best requests I got was “Bustin’ Loose” by Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers. That was a good one from Rikers. The one thing that is a bit strange with radio is that you are sitting in the studio, all isolated. And aside from the telephone sometimes it’s hard to feel your audience. That’s why I always like to have a telephone in the studio, and I would answer it as much as I could. I wanted to have some kind of relationship with the audience. That’s the benefit of a club, where you are really interacting with the audience. Because I feel as a DJ it’s not just a one-way signal, it’s definitely a two-way.

Heinz Reich

I think it’s also a big freedom that when you play in the radio, you can create more mood changes. In a club, it’s more functional. You have to make people dance.

Cosmo

Yes, that’s true. It depends on how free you are as a DJ though as well. Because some DJs can take the club experience a lot further than others. But true, the idea of going to a club is to go out to dance. Whereas for the radio it’s for your mind and your soul and your ears.

Heinz Reich

Your radio audience is probably not dancing in their living rooms.

Cosmo

Some of them do actually.

Heinz Reich

But in general they will just be washing dishes or lying in their bathtubs. You never know what they are doing.

Cosmo

Yeah, sometimes you don’t want to know. Yes, you have a lot more freedom on the radio, musically. The thing that is great about clubs is you get a kind of instantaneous response, which then fuels you to do something else. So you would maybe go to a place you wouldn’t have gone musically. I always love that. You never really know what is going to happen, which is wonderful. You can get that on radio too. There’s a kind of intuition that goes on with your listeners. It happened to me many times where I had one record playing on turntable one, I had another cued up on turntable two. And before I even played it somebody has called up and requested exactly the song I'm about to play. This happened to me a few times. Then you know that you’re on a certain plane with your listeners.

Heinz Reich

You’ve been in those legendary clubs in New York. Today, young people are still reading or talking about these clubs. What was so legendary about them? Or are there still clubs which are just as good?

Cosmo

It's about getting all the ingredients right. A club is not just about the DJ and a DJ set. It starts with the security people as soon as you walk up to the club. When they put you in a bad mood right at the start, you’re not going to have a good time. Then it’s the sound, the acoustics of the room. The sound is so important. But unfortunately, in a lot of clubs today it’s secondary, sometimes even tertiary. It’s ridiculous. They care more about the bar than the actual soundsystem. Another thing is the lighting. So many times I’ve been playing in a club where someone comes up, puts the strobelight on and then walks off. It’s unbelievable to me. This is like not interacting with the music at all. In the best clubs in New York the lighting technicians work with the DJs. I love working with people like that. “Here’s a breakdown, let’s do a blackout.” They feel the music and understand what’s going on. They know how colors work. The staff is such a big part of it. How the bar staff treat people. But the main ingredient is the audience, the dancers, the people who are there. It’s as much about them as it’s about anybody else; not just about the DJ playing a great set. It’s how sll these different things have to interact. This is very difficult to do. People really need to aspire to do that if they want to have more legendary clubs.

Heinz Reich

What makes a label hot? How do you make your label hot?

Cosmo

Just like a club, this takes a lot of ingredients. First of all, you have to really think whether you want to go to another label or start your own. I decided to start my own because I always thought that you have to do things yourself if they are supposed to be the way you want to have them. I signed a few records to other people. But sometimes they get back to you after you’ve done the contracts and everything. Right before you’re about to sign they say, “No, we don’t want to do it now.” I’ve kind of been jerked around a bit, nothing terrible, nothing I can’t get over; but again another learning experience. I realized that if I wanted to get it done how I wanted to do it, and if I wanted to own my own material, I'd have to start my own record label and publishing company. Which is what I did.

Now we can get into a lot of details about starting your own label. Basically I want to give you an overview, whether you're starting your own label or your own club night. The first thing is your identity. What makes you different? Why should people buy your stuff and not someone else’s? Before you even do anything you have to think about that. Our identity was not to have an identity in a funny kind of way. I realized that a lot of labels have these signature sounds. And every record always sounded the same. We all loved them when they first started, and after a year we got sick of it. That’s not a good recipe for longevity, obviously. And also my business partner and I are into a lot of different forms of dance music. Of course house is represented quite a bit. But there’s also broken beat, Afro, we’re doing some ragga stuff, we have some soca stuff coming up in the future, electro as well. So it’s not the same record every time with a new packaging. Also, packaging is important as well. That’s one of the reasons I brought that stuff with me [points at the records displayed behind her], not just to promote myself. Coming up with a logo. Again it’s about getting the identity across. For Nikki and I, we wanted to have a good template. Different colors, but basically you know it’s a Bitches Brew record when you see it. But it doesn’t really tell you what kind of music it is, which is really cool. I love Naked Music and I love their covers, but you kind of knew what you will get. With our artwork, this is not the case. You have to be open-minded right from the start. But our records have the Bitches Brew imprint. I hope this stands for quality. So we had to think through all these things before we even put out a record. Identity is really the most important thing. Same with a club night. Why should people go to your night as opposed to others? What makes it special? Are you doing what everybody else is doing or are you doing something different?

Heinz Reich

The next thing is of course communication. What ways of communication can you use as a producer or as a label manager? How can you achieve that you are talked about?

Cosmo

Well, there’s a lot of tools. One, to have your website, obviously that’s a must. Two, you have to have a strategy of how you are going to market your record. Some of these tunes [points at the Bitches Brew 12"s placed behind her back] are quite different. On the first one we had deep house and broken beat mixes, the second one is an Afro thing. Some of the listeners will cross over, but some of them are quite unique. For instance, Afrobeat people will play this and not the first one. You have to have your audience, who you are marketing to. Your website and email address are necessary basics for communication. And then there is the press. You have to send out your press mailings. There are also a lot of websites that specialize in music. You have to go through these online magazines as well. But I’ve always felt that radio is the most important aspect of the whole business. That just exposes things to so many people all at once. It’s such a great tool. Plus the DJs announce what the record is, as opposed to in a club. Sometimes the playlists are published online or archived. I always focus a lot on radio DJs, even on people that have online radio shows. The biggest focus should be on the retail; most record companies seem to forget about this. That’s where the records are sold. Labels might have had a lot of press, but then they don’t know why they don’t sell any records. Well, the retail doesn’t know about it. That’s probably the biggest job. Once you get the press mechanism into place, the main ingredient for having a successful label is to get in touch with the distributors and the retail.

Heinz Reich

For most of the people who run small record labels, the record label and the productions are tools to promote their personality as a DJ. Then they make the big money with the DJing. Would you agree?

Cosmo

Yeah, I do agree. My DJing supports this label. It’s not self-sufficient, supporting itself yet. I’m hoping one day it will. But then again it took me a while to support myself as a DJ. It took years of work being out there and doing it. Perseverance and talent got me to the point that I had enough to start a record company. Hopefully the label will be in the same position in another few years, the same goes for our publishing company. It takes time. Most of us will not get rich overnight. For those of us who do, it’s wonderful. If you are an artist and you have a big record, you will probably be able to focus more on the creative aspects in some ways because you will have a manager, your PR people, your lawyer and all that. But for most of us it’s unlike that. So you need to know how to work all of it. There’s too many out there who want to do this. But why are there so few that stick to it? Because of all the work that it takes and how much you need to know about the entire business and how the whole puzzle fits together.

Heinz Reich

What about your role as a producer? Did you co-produce all of the records on Bitches Brew?

Cosmo

No, no. A few of them have my involvement, some don’t though. My role as a producer? I don’t engineer my own stuff. Partly because it’s a whole other job and I’m doing so many things already. I felt that I really would have to sit and learn that to do it well. So why not work with a pro? You can’t do everything, obviously. I decided to prioritize, so I work with engineers. I love producing, but once you start your own label you have less time for that. Plus the traveling and the DJing. It’s difficult for me to get into the studio. I’d like to do it more as time goes on. Hopefully one of my records will make it big and I can be a producer more than a DJ. Right now that’s not the case.

Audience Member

I don’t know of too many female label owners and I am wondering if you had any obstacles related to that. I find that distributors often are not very forward-thinking when working with women. Also I’d like to know if you had any mentors as far as the label went.

Cosmo

Basically, I haven’t had any obstacles with being a female. There are a few others in deep house. For instance, Jeannie Hopper who runs a label called Liquid Sound Lounge, and Bettina Constanzo who owns her own label Flipside. And she used to own a distribution company as well. But you are right, there aren’t many females who run labels – especially ones who are also producers and DJs. I think in some way, it’s still quite a novelty. So it might be a good opportunity to seize at the moment. I mean, we’re using Bitches Brew as our label name. It’s kind of funny because we are the “bitches.” But we are in a boys environment. We are distributed by Goya, everybody else is a guy. That’s cool. There are people involved like 4Hero, Alex Attias, Bugz in the Attic, I.G. Culture and then there are Nikki and myself. I think the guys actually like it, to be honest. They have been really supportive. I never had any problems at all on the business side as far as being a woman is concerned. I think it’s how you hold yourself, too. Some women use their sexuality. You see some DJs that dress up in bondage gear. Obviously, they are playing the fact that they are a woman. So they probably do get sexually harassed. I’m not saying they are asking for it, but they are using that as a tool. But if you don’t, if you’re just out there playing the game like guys do as far as it’s about the music, then it really hasn’t got as much to do with my gender. This way, you probably won’t have as many problems.

Heinz Reich

Let’s speak of piracy. I think there are different ways of fighting it. One is the legal way, tracking people down and suing them. But the other way, from the producer’s side, is to create a product that is so unique that people want to have it with its artwork. They will be just unhappy when having only a lousy self-burnt CD.

Cosmo

Yes, that’s true. The whole packaging is quite important. That’s the thing I love about vinyl. It’s so much nicer, like all the old gatefold sleeves that open up. It seems so tangible, the big records as opposed to this plastic thing with a little booklet. Packaging can make collectors items, things that people are buying not just because of the actual recording.

Audience Member

What’s the average percentage that you offer your artists?

Cosmo

At Bitches Brew, our artists get 50% of our profits. So after everything is paid, we share 50/50 with the artists. In the States, it’s a bit different. It’s a lot less for the artists there. Usually, they pay anything in between eight and sixteen points – after everything is recouped on net profits.

Audience Member

If you increased your marketing costs, would that decrease the artist’s share?

Cosmo

No, that would be taken as a cost to be recouped. It would not be taken from the net profit but from the gross income. In fact, basically the record company and the artist would be paying for that.

Participant

When you are signing DJ contracts, do you put a time limit on the set you are supposed to play, like you will be playing for three hours and that’s it?

Cosmo

Yeah they usually do. The agents will put a time limit in the contract. But as a DJ, I always feel that’s negotiable when you get there. If you have a good time and they want you to play longer, then go for it.

Audience Member

When we did parties in Greece, we had DJs that would play longer, but only when they would get more money.

Cosmo

I don’t think you should ask for more money. Once a deal is done, the deal is done.

Audience Member

How many radio stations broadcast your show?

Cosmo

I used to have a syndicated radio show. That was on 200 college stations in the States. College radio is really powerful in the States. Nearly every university has a radio station. And then I had another show that was on 50 commercial stations. Now I do just guest spots on different European radio stations, and I have a monthly Japanese radio show.

Alex Rosner

I want to say a few things. I think it’s really refreshing to hear a “minority” DJ saying things that really need to be said, things that I never heard before from a DJ.

Cosmo

Thank you. [laughs]

Alex Rosner

Such as, that it’s about the music, and yet it has to do with the audience as opposed to the ego. I think that’s very valuable and important to say. You are in a position to influence other DJs. And they should hear that loud and clear. The other thing I wanted to comment on is, someone asked a question about contracts. This reminded me of something that happened long ago. I was very reluctant to enter into a contract with a friend of mine who wanted my services. I asked an older fellow’s advice. He said to me, “A friendship was never ruined by a contract.” I always remembered that. And I think that’s something some of you might remember. It’s true: A friendship was never ruined by a contract. And yet a contract is a very useful device, because even though it’s just a little piece of paper, it’s a record of someone having agreed to something. And a deal is a deal.

Cosmo

It also protects both parties. Everything is stated. It’s all clear, both parties have agreed to do so. As you said, it wouldn’t wreck a friendship. It’s an agreement between two people. All the points are put on paper. Then there’s really nothing to dispute.

Audience Member

How you’re feeling about that, you’re doing a set, you’re all into it, you know what I mean? Got your headphones on, and then this person comes in, and I'm sure every DJ knows about this, “Yeah, this is a bit cool, but can you play something more techy, or whatever?” And you've got a big “no requests” sign right here. [laughs]

Cosmo

There’s so many fun ways to deal with that. One is ask to sing it for you. And you go, “I can’t hear you.” And just keep saying that until they have to sing it really loud and get embarrassed. Sometimes requests can be good. When you are, for instance, in the Loft with David Mancuso. His crowd is an educated crowd, they’re pretty much on the same page. So if there’s a good request, you should play it. I just love getting good requests. I always play them if I have the records. That’s just a joy. But as you said, there are some people who believe that they are the ones that should be DJing. But I don’t think that they would like it when you told them how to do their job, whatever they do. One way of dealing with it is keeping your headphones on. That’s what I just usually do. Probably it has nothing to do with music, it has just to do with their ego. They want to be center of attention. And just not giving them the attention is usually the best way to defuse any kind of situation like that. If you politely say, “No, I don’t have it." Then some people will just keep on you. It’s best to ignore them.

Audience Member

What are the three things that you do, being a resident DJ or being booked in a club, when the soundsystem breaks down?

Cosmo

That’s a good point. Alex Rosner will get into that more detailed later on. He is a sound expert. Number one: Your duty as a DJ is to learn about sound. You may not have to be an expert. But you should know how it works. Unfortunately, most DJs don’t seem to care. They are pushing up the gains, pushing up the master, putting the EQs all the way up. They are distorting the signal before it even gets to the amplifier. So the signal on the front end is already distorted. And then they are wondering why it sounds horrible, why they’re blowing speakers out. So the first thing is to know your equipment well, to learn how to use it, whether it’s a microphone, a mixer or a turntable. You have to learn how not to abuse your equipment and how to get the best performance. But most DJs don’t have a clue. Sometimes I can’t believe it when I come in. The gain’s all the way up, the EQ’s way past twelve o’clock, they are just playing in the red. They are not listening. So actually the first thing is to listen. Second thing is to know your equipment. And the third point is: If there’s a sound engineer, then work with him. I think a lot of sound engineers and DJs have problems. It’s pretty interesting, in some of the bigger clubs where I play there’s a sound engineer present. So I always go up and introduce myself. Usually, they are quite shocked, “Ooh, she’s being nice to me, the DJs being nice to me.” You are working together! So I tell them, “Listen, I am going to keep this volume here. I want to keep my signal on the front on a nice level; not distorted, just clear and pure. And as the room fills up, I obviously need more volume because the people are absorbing the sound. But you control that, I’ll let you do that.” But you also might have problems where you are the DJ and the club management doesn’t care about the soundsystem. That’s a big problem happening quite a bit. So what do you do? Well, you try to do the best you can and get on with it. Unfortunately, this just makes you sound bad. Basically, I try not to work in those places anymore. And I make a point of letting them know why. You need to explain these things to the management and to the people that work there, “You open as a club, as a music venue, and you don’t care about the sound! But you care more about the wallpaper or whatever.” It’s ridiculous. I even left places because the sound was just so bad that it makes me sound bad.