Michael Mayer

Torsten Schmidt

Please welcome Michael Mayer. Tell us a bit about the last three or four days.

Michael Mayer

Well, I was touring in Italy. Turino, Milano and Napoli yesterday. So that’s why I’m quite tired in fact. It was a rough tour, but now it’s Monday and we’re here. It’s nice.

Torsten Schmidt

What do you usually do on a Monday?

Michael Mayer

Usually I don’t sleep enough. Monday’s always a tough day to transition from the weekend to weekdays. Monday is the most important day for distribution life. Monday is the day when the new records are released, so it’s the main fighting day.

Torsten Schmidt

So hang on, you’re too busy DJing all week and then you’ve got nothing better to do than work in the distribution on Monday?

Michael Mayer

That’s right.

Torsten Schmidt

OK. So probably to fill in the people who have not visited the beautiful city of Cologne, what is Kompakt, in a nutshell?

Michael Mayer

Kompakt started as a record shop in 1993. In 1998, we decided to remodel the company because the record service called Delirium, who had labels like Jungle Fever, Profan, Auntie A, the parties were called Friends Experiment, and we felt it was better to use one name for all our activities so that’s how we started Kompakt in 1998. In the meantime, Kompakt is not only a record store and a label. It’s also a distribution company for mainly vinyl records. We take care of 75 flavors from all over the place. Everything, mostly electronic stuff. Techno, and related things. And feedback and...

Torsten Schmidt

So, who is “we” as a start?

Michael Mayer

OK, we. Kompakt consists of three people. It’s Wolfgang Voigt, which maybe some of you know as Mike Ink. He is a quite famous acid producer. Jürgen Paape, who takes care of the shop mainly. And myself. And apart from this, we have 17 people working there altogether for the distribution, the shop and the label.

Torsten Schmidt

So, that’s all full time, 17 people and the three of you?

Michael Mayer

Yeah.

Torsten Schmidt

That’s a bit of responsibility to shoulder on a Monday morning, right?

Michael Mayer

Yeah it is. No, but everything developed in a very organic, slow way. We started with the record shop. It was a very small record shop. And we never rushed things. We just grew in a very organic way and now we’re there and we don’t plan to grow much further. I think 17 people or maybe 20 is the perfect size for a company. Everything more would be too much maybe. It gets too unpersonal.

Torsten Schmidt

We should probably transcend that a little bit more. First of all, you’re like a small town boy as well, right? You come from the countryside as well, right?

Michael Mayer

I come from the Black Forest.

Torsten Schmidt

That’s why you’re into ham and stuff.

Michael Mayer

[laughs] I’m a vegetarian. The Black Forest is a nice place but it’s not the best place to do music. It’s a beautiful countryside but there’s nothing really going on. It was clear I would have to move to a bigger city. Cologne has one million people living there. It’s not a big, big city. It’s just a nice city. It’s a very livable city.

Torsten Schmidt

What do you mean by livable?

Michael Mayer

It’s a very friendly place. It’s a very green city. There are lots of parks and the scene was quite intense. There are many, many labels in Cologne. Some magazines are there. It’s a nice infrastructure for underground music in general.

Torsten Schmidt

So it can be kind of incestuous as well?

Michael Mayer

Yeah, which is a good point about Cologne.

Torsten Schmidt

[laughs] So what’s good about incest?

Michael Mayer

It’s good to work closely together. It’s good to have the creative atmosphere. When you go out you can be sure you will meet some other producer in a bar and exchange ideas. You try to share the experience you have and work together. It’s not very competitive in Cologne. People are more cooperative and that’s the striking point I think.

Torsten Schmidt

What was the thing you got on there?

Michael Mayer

That’s the record we put out by a man from New Zealand. He’s called Andrew Thomas. It’s an ambient record. Andrew Thomas is mainly a composer for film soundtracks, for movie soundtracks. He’s doing this beautiful, modern ambient thing.

(music: Andrew Thomas – unknown)

OK, sounds different here. This is not normal. This is not the record we put out.

Torsten Schmidt

Well, maybe in the mean time, how does someone from New Zealand end up on ...

Michael Mayer

He just sent a demo CD. That’s it.

Torsten Schmidt

And how do you go on about it? How many demos do you receive in a week?

Michael Mayer

Quite a lot. Should be around 50 to 100 in a week.

Torsten Schmidt

And what’s the process of choosing them?

Michael Mayer

Well you listen to them, concentrately. We listen to every demo we receive. Mostly I do it together with my partner Wolfgang. And we discuss the music, if we like it or not. It’s more like an instinctive decision. Something has to catch our attraction. We have to feel the person behind the music. It has to be some unique thing. We don’t like people that copy other people’s music. We want original music, like something, there has to be special handwriting. Then we will put it out.

Torsten Schmidt

Probably to enlighten us, how you go about the choosing process. Where things fit. Could you describe what the individual outlets are about?

Michael Mayer

I release everything from ambient to harder techno, pop-related things. It could be anything.

Torsten Schmidt

What are the different labels you have in your own house? And what are they for? What’s the sound of them?

Michael Mayer

The mothership Kompakt is totally open. We release everything from ambient to more dance-able stuff.

Torsten Schimdt

And what about all the older labels as they used to be, like Profan and Studio 1. What’s the story behind them?

Michael Mayer

Profan was a very experimental label. The idea behind Profan was to invent new grooves. It’s all basically techno, but especially Wolfgang was experimenting a lot with grooves. I can play something from Profan. Wolfgang was the pioneer for different techno, alternative techno. It doesn’t sound like Detroit or Chicago or London. It’s a very particular groove. He’s experimenting a lot with folk music, with classic German folk music, like polka and stuff like this. And he tries to integrate this in techno and the results sound like this.

(music: unknown)

This is very old, it’s 10 years old.

Torsten Schmidt

Where do you get the best reactions to that kind of stuff?

Michael Mayer

Mostly everywhere. It’s not a big scene, but you find the people who love this kind of music in almost every country. It’s growing. It’s getting bigger and bigger. But it’s still a very small market. It’s very, very underground. I’ll show you something else. It’s a rhythm called “schaffel.” It’s based on a four to the floor beat, but the pronunciation is different.

(music: unknown)

This is techno but it’s different. The groove is not straight, it’s a bit like... It’s very inspired by glam rock music. Things like T-Rex or Gary Glitter. It just takes this rhythm and combines it with normal techno elements. It’s kind of a relief when you’re in the club and you’re six hours of straightforward techno. Suddenly, you drop a shuffle track, you can literally see how people breathe. They start moving, like they dance in a different way.

Torsten Schmidt

What’s a schaffel dance?

Michael Mayer

Huh?

Torsten Schmidt

What’s a schaffel dance?

Michael Mayer

It’s more of like from the knees.

Torsten Schmidt

Can you show it? Come on.

Michael Mayer

I mean some people play air guitar to this kind of sound. Everything is allowed. It’s just alternative. It’s different.

Torsten Schmidt

When you go on and produce something, how does the track qualify as shuffle? Is it a certain...

Michael Mayer

Shuffle is a rhythmic pronounciation.

Torsten Schmidt

A certain swing factor or quantization?

Michael Mayer

It’s like riding a horse. It has this kind of gallop.

Torsten Schmidt

Who came up with the horse thing, then?

Michael Mayer

That was Wolfgang. He does this kind of thing. He was a big fan when he was a kid of T-Rex and he was doing schaffel techno since 1991, just because he loves this groove. The first year everybody was kind of laughing at him like there’s this crazy shit, you can’t play that. Over the years he developed this style and now it’s pretty common. Following all the demos we receive, half of them are schaffel. It seems like it’s pretty blowing up now.

Torsten Schmidt

You opened the can of worms and they are now creeping back to the garden?

Michael Mayer

Exactly.

Torsten Schmidt

When you say Wolfgang, how did you guys get into producing yourselves? From being a fan of music to doing music yourselves?

Michael Mayer

I always took music in a way. When I was a little kid I was a freak. I loved my father’s stereo soundsystem. It was my favorite toy. At a certain point, I started to be interested in what’s behind the...

Torsten Schmidt

Front panel?

Michael Mayer

Yes, so I opened up all the machines.

Torsten Schmidt

He was really happy with that I guess?

Michael Mayer

Yes, yes. I was always fascinated by the combination of electronics and music. I’m not too much into physics and this kind of thing, so that’s why I think I became a musician and not a researcher.

Torsten Schmidt

OK, and you were part of a band too right?

Michael Mayer

Yes, a techno boy band called Forever Sweet. It was quite unusual at the time, three people working on one computer. It was a strange concept for a band but it worked really well. We did an album and a few 12”s but now we go separate ways. Maybe we reunite one day.

Torsten Schmidt

As a boy band does. And was the first Forever Sweet that [inaudible] track, right?

Michael Mayer

Forever Sweet was all about playing with songs. The sampler was the main instrument we used and we tried to just make everything sound totally twisted and fucked up. We would never use preset sounds or something like this. Yeah, it was quite freaky music.

Torsten Schmidt

The boy band thing...

Michael Mayer

[joking] Wake up.

Torsten Schmidt

I can’t, I just can’t. At that time again you had both aspects. I remember like Wolfgang totally not wanting to be on covers of magazines and stuff. Whereas you guys where very open. You had photo shoots and suits and all that kind of stuff. In Cologne, people like to talk and discuss things a lot. What was the thinking behind the two separate ways? Apart from the personal stance but what’s the bigger concept? There’s a strong thing with Kompakt and identity visually, directions you want to go

Michael Mayer

I mean the packaging is very important. The pictures or how you present yourself or the artwork. It’s much nicer to have a record which looks like this than to have a record which looks like this. It’s the beautiful thing about vinyl format that you can have this surface to make something beautiful with it. What was the question again?

Torsten Schmidt

We were talking about identity and that’s obviously the whole thing with the logos and all the Cologne and German references. And even to the extent of the black, the gold, the reds.

Michael Mayer

Yes, that stuff’s important. But it’s important to have a certain style. Kompakt records normally only have dots on the label. It’s something you can easily recognize. It’s like this from the first Kompakt record until today, we never change this. It’s like a trademark. I have people who see the dots as a friendly symbol and it’s nothing to be changed. I think it will stay like this forever. People should feel like meeting a friend when they see a record. It has to have a friendly surface. Want to listen to some music? This is an artist from London who is called Rex the Dog. He’s representing a totally different type of Kompakt song. Like this is very funky and very complex. Most of the things we do are not complex and not funky.

Torsten Schmidt

That’s you saying it.

(music: Rex the Dog – “I Look into Mid Air” / applause)

Michael Mayer

This guy here, he started making music because he was a fan of Depeche Mode. He started to buy the synthesizers that Depeche Mode used to work with and tried to be Depeche Mode in a way.

Torsten Schmidt

Including the haircuts?

Michael Mayer

Oh, yeah, yeah. The way it works is really interesting. You can hear a quite complex production but everything is done with old synthesizers. He’s playing with the old synthesizers and recording it and he does a digital edit and mix. That’s why it sounds very warm. It doesn’t sound too difficult I think. It sounds a bit like a silly band, like Depeche Mode. I think it’s a nice way to start doing music out of being fan, out of this passion to get as close as possible to your idol. And suddenly you notice that you are able to create your own sound, to sound different. That you are not Depeche Mode. That you are Rex the Dog. I think it’s a very honest and cool way to do a lot.

Torsten Shmidt

How was it with yourself? I mean, a lot of the people when you started doing the music were looking to Chicago, to Detroit, to North England.

Michael Mayer

We felt that it’s important to add something to the map. There’s no point to copy Detroit techno. Of course they do it better. Detroit techno is best when it is from Detroit. So, what we tried to do was just adding a new sound to this family of sounds. It was the most interesting to develop our own techno language. Yup.

Torsten Schmidt

How do you develop your own language? How do you find it? When the words fail you?

Michael Mayer

It’s difficult to say. Just try to not copy. Try to stay close, as true to yourself as possible. Listen to yourself. If it sounds strange or if it sounds bad just go on and try to find out what’s good about yourself and interesting about the things you do. It takes time to develop your own sound but it’s important to not stop searching for this special sound.

Torsten Schmidt

How did you find your allies in that search?

Michael Mayer

In the record shop. When you go to the record shop you always find people who are interested in the same things and suddenly, you’ve watched your neighbors listening to records, you laugh and you start talking. That’s the way.

Torsten Schmidt

And how do you go from liking the same kind of records to that point of creating a business or a label or all these kinds of things?

Michael Mayer

In our case it happened very organically. I never thought that I would run a distribution company because I’m actually not interested in selling records. I’m not a sales person, you know? But at a certain point we found it made sense to start our distribution because we always had to argue with the other distributors. They were like, “Hey, why do you do these records? We can’t sell this shit.” So we always had to discuss about the content of our records. It’s a very bad feeling when you talk to a business person, a sales person, and he explains to you why your music is crap. We felt that it’s necessary to create our own platform. It’s a bit like farmers. You get the best eggs directly at the farmer, and we felt it makes sense to provide our eggs directly to the world. You have control about all the parts of the business. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to ask anybody if you’re allowed to put out this record. That’s the way we run this company. We are artists offering this service to other artists. We work from an artists’ perspective, and not from a business perspective.

Torsten Schmidt

As Moses Pelham says, artist-owned entertainment. How did you learn about it? Your dealing with a lot of vague things, a lot of legal material, the infrastructure and everything. I mean, it’s not just something you go and look up on the internet. Especially when it didn’t exist in that form.

Michael Mayer

We started with nothing. I didn’t do any business schools, or stuff. We started with three labels, and we find out some phone numbers of the shops. We just started. The fax machine, the computer, that’s it.

Torsten Schmidt

If I was to start a label now, what would you recommend major traps to avoid? Should I even start a label?

Michael Mayer

It still makes sense. Sometimes, you have the impression that there are too many labels, like everything is already said and done. The Beatles already wrote all the songs you can write. You would have those moments of crisis, but when you have an idea of what you want to do, what kind of songs you want to release, you should stay to your dream, and put all your passion inside.

Torsten Schmidt

You would still recommend to do that on your own and not to go with any other label, or even a major?

Michael Mayer

We had our experience with almost every major company. It was not satisfying at all.

Torsten Schmidt

In which sense then?

Michael Mayer

It’s not fun to work with them. They treat your record as a product. For them, it’s just a product number X. Then they have their schedules, like how to promote a record. They’re missing an important point. They treat all the records the same, but every record needs a special treatment. It always felt like you’re giving your music into a factory, and you can’t touch it anymore, it’s gone. It’s in this machine, and things happen with your music, and you can’t stop it. You see that it’s not okay. They just have a lack of sensibility for this kind of music.

Torsten Schmidt

How do you keep the sensibility up when you deal with, what did you say? 75 labels?

Michael Mayer

Mm-hmm.

Torsten Schmidt

I mean, that’s quite a mass.

Michael Mayer

Yeah, but I know everybody personally. It’s important to have this communication. To talk at least once a month on the phone, just to see where the label wants to go with further plans. To give them some help, as well. There are many things worth to know, and there’s no back page where you can read these things. That’s why it’s important to have companies like Handle With Care, or a good distributor with all the technical things. All the basic things you need to do to run a label. Otherwise, you can do stupid mistakes. Suddenly, your record sounds crap, but the production was good, so you did a mistake somewhere in between. That’s not nice, especially when you invest your last 1,000 euros to do the pressing. It’s better to ask two times before you start. There are enough people in the business world there to give you this help, either on a professional basis, or just for free as a friend.

Torsten Schmidt

For those of us who wonder how a record actually gets from my house to shops, do you choose several outlets? Do you have a different policy, or a particular policy in choosing the outlets where you give the records to? How does it work, the whole distribution thing? Because it’s to many of us a mystery. Every artist is always complaining about distribution.

Michael Mayer

OK, you have two different kinds of customers. One is the independent shop. Could be from a rock background, or like at the dance shop. On the other hand, you have the chain stores. Our market is clearly the independent market. We sell records to chain stores, but they can’t really handle this kind of music. They mostly return more records than they sold. It’s not very funny. I prefer to concentrate on the independent shops. To make them grow, and it’s much better like this. CD sales are totally down in the chain stores. They mostly sell DVDs now, nothing else. I think this part of the market is almost dead. It doesn’t really exist anymore.

Torsten Schmidt

Do you deal with things like iTunes? The iTunes shop?

Michael Mayer

Not yet. We’re just preparing our own MP3 shop. When we are online we will start working with the others as well, but we want to wait until we’re ready.

Torsten Schmidt

OK, and what’s missing?

Michael Mayer

The content. It’s just a lot of work to digitalize all the tracks. It would be not interesting just to go online with just a handful of records to download. I think we’ll be ready in January.

Torsten Schmidt

When we’re talking from the independence perspective, how feasible is it to do music? I mean, what’s the standard numbers you’re doing from an average record?

Michael Mayer

It’s totally depends what it is. Can be 500 copies. Can be 10,000 copies. It depends on how many DJs decide to buy it. For ambient music it’s clear you can’t sell as much as you could sell of a strong dance record.

Torsten Schmidt

How important is you being a DJ and running a club with others, and so on, in the promotion of the music you’re putting out?

Michael Mayer

I think it’s very helpful in both ways. When I’m in the distribution, I know that I played the records last weekend. I saw the reactions. I can use this information as a distributor because I’m very convincible because people know that I stand behind these records. When I say it’s a good record they believe me, because they know me as a DJ.

On the other hand, when I’m DJing, it’s good to know about the distribution side as well. It makes me happy to see that records work, like some kind of proof, you know? You sell a record on Tuesday. You play it on Saturday. It’s kind of a circle, and I think it makes a lot of sense.

Torsten Schmidt

Can you see whether there’s still any factors like charts, and magazines, and stuff that make a difference? Are there any factors which make a difference, like charts, for example? Do they still have an influence?

Michael Mayer

Yeah, a certain influence. Sometimes you do... To pick promotion for a record. Then you release it, and suddenly you see that you sold all the records before even one article has appeared in the magazines. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes people are picking up the record because they read something. I’m not sure if it’s really that important.

Torsten Schmidt

Do you do a lot of press?

Michael Mayer

No. The first six years we didn’t do any promotion at all. Now, for albums we do some press, but not too much. It takes longer, it’s a slow process. We grow slowly, but I think people will discover the label, and will like it, they’ll stay with us. You don’t need to take a sledge hammer and promote your record to death. Let people discover it. I think it’s nicer like this.

Torsten Schmidt

When a record only sells about 500 copies, it’s accountable effect as well. You can’t just send out 50 records if you’re only going to sell 500 of them can you? Do you send out promos at all?

Michael Mayer

That is the smaller labels which sell 500 copies. They don’t do promotion, no. You have to calculate if you can afford to do it or not. It doesn’t make sense for every kind of music to do promotion. The market has a certain size, and you can’t make it bigger with promotion. There are already only 300 people who like your crazy stuff, like when you do very abstract music. Then you have limited market, and you can’t make it bigger by promotion.

Torsten Schmidt

If you put a lot of these smaller markets together, it’s still feasible enough to support enough people then? Is it? Or is it more like people doing it as a hobby kind of thing?

Michael Mayer

You have to decide what you want to do. If you want to keep it as a hobby, it’s fine. But then we shouldn’t expect too much. To run a label is a lot of work. You’re responsible for your artists. You have to collect the money from your distributor and stuff. You’re responsible for these people.

Torsten Schmidt

How many organize yourself with that? You just said it’s a lot of work. How do you go about being in the shop or the distribution, DJing on the weekends. The odd remix here and here. How do you not go crazy over it?

Michael Mayer

It’s just because I enjoy every part of my work. Since I’m a kid I wanted to do this. I wanted to make music, to DJ. DJing was my first love. I think I will never stop with this. The distribution is like an unexpected child. It happened and it’s good that it’s there. Producing something which is my latest, my youngest love started quite late. It started in 1996 to do my own records. Before I felt that it’s enough for me to DJ. For me it’s two different things, producer and DJ.

Torsten Schmidt

Since there are only 24 hours in a day, how do you organize yourself? Are there any tips how you fit all these things into one day?

Michael Mayer

They don’t need to fit in one day. Just concentrate on what you do. When you’re in the studio, concentrate on this. Don’t think about distribution when you’re in the studio. When you’re DJing don’t think about your studio. You have to focus on what you do.

Torsten Schmidt

When you’re focused in the studio, are you doing stuff on your own?

Michael Mayer

Yeah. In the early ‘90s, it was like when you wanted to get more bookings as a DJ, you needed to put out a record. Many of my colleagues, they started to work with a producer, and they put out their records under their name. I always found it a bit suspicious. I didn’t like this way.

I wanted to run everything by myself. It’s such an interesting experience too, just you and the computer, just you and the equipment, to find out how you sound. I didn’t want to be interfered by another person, like a media person.

Torsten Schmidt

There it’s a pretty singular experience, whilst the club is a very social experience. Could you probably tell us a little bit about what the club is? It must be one of the longest running nights nowadays.

Michael Mayer

Mm-hmm. [affirmative] We do this club since six years now. Well, we host a night there, we don’t do the club. It’s called Total Confusion. Total Confusion’s all about the club as a social institution. People are coming to our parties since 10 years. They still come every Friday because for them it’s like meeting the family. Every Friday night it’s the church. You go there to meet your friends, and to share this experience of a club night.

I think it’s very important that everybody is equal in the club, like the barman, the doorman, the DJ, the audience. They should be on one level. It’s not about superstars and things. A club is a very fragile construct. When you misbehave, you destroy it. It’s important to show your audience that you love it, and that you don’t do this to earn money. That you do this because it’s a passion to [inaudible] the people.

Torsten Schmidt

How you go about booking policies there? Like residents, guests?

Michael Mayer

Well, there’s always one resident at least. We don’t have that many guests. We’ve felt that it’s important to have a certain continuity to educate the people. When you have different guests every week, people don’t recognize the character of the night so it’s important to have those guideline or red line and the residents carry the club. If you have no good residents at the club, the club is not good. The residents are the basis of a successful night.

Torsten Schmidt

Some questions?

Audience Member

Early on you spoke about receiving demos?

Michael Mayer

Mm-hmm.

Participant

Your tips on us as producers when we’re sending demos potentially to Kompakt or to any label. I know that one of the things I say you should do is keep your tracks done. Obviously, don’t put too many tracks on the demo. What sort of art? Should you put art? Any tips that you could say?

Michael Mayer

What you said is right. Don’t put too many tracks on the demo. Choose the three, four ones you’re absolutely convinced with. You don’t need to add a picture or anything like this, you know? Just take your most beautiful tracks and send it. Artwork is very welcome. This guy here, the CD he sent it looked exactly like this. There was a nice drawing on the CD. Of course this catches your attention, but it’s not necessary. It can be only be a blank CD with your email address on it. That’s the most important thing.

Torsten Schmidt

Then of course hassle you every day. “Have you listened to it? Have you listened to it?”

Michael Mayer

Mmmm. That’s not a good idea.

Audience Member

Should you follow-up or rather just let the weight of the music potentially get response? Let’s say I send a track to a label and I think that it really fits that kind of sound. I’m waiting a month. Should I send a response or just let things be?

Michael Mayer

Unfortunately we can’t answer every demo because it’s just too much. We’d have to employ somebody just to do this. We get in touch with the artist when we agree that we want to put it out. You can send an email or you can call them up. “Hey, did you receive it?” Just to be sure about that. But you shouldn’t bother them every day.

Audience Member

No, definitely.

Torsten Schmidt

Any more?

Audience Member

OK, I’d really like to hear some stories of when it was Wolfgang and Khan and Walker and the Cologne acid days before Profan.

Michael Mayer

It was a long time ago.

Audience Member

Of course, but it’s of course the roots. I have obviously no idea because I wasn’t there. I never got to see it and we love the records. It’s like this magic time. It was a totally different type of acid. It wasn’t like Chicago. It was so much more rock, but it wasn’t rock in a lame way. It was like sleazy and free at the same time. It was very special.

Michael Mayer

Those days were the hot days regarding the party culture in Cologne. For some years we didn’t even have a real club to play out this music loud. It’s difficult to imagine but it was like this. There was Liquid Sky Club which was a bar with sofas and not a big sound system. It was the only place where they could play this kind of music. It was like a huge living room. People didn’t believe it. Cologne was an epicenter for acid and techno and there was no club. It was bizarre. Everybody was hanging around in these sofas in the club like this and waiting for something to happen. Finally, now we have a lot of clubs. This problem is solved. It was a funny time. It was a studio in the basement of the Liquid Sky. It was an old bowling place and this is where Dr. Walker had an amazing studio. He was collecting rare synthesizers, like 300 different kinds of super rare, experimental equipment.

Audience Member

His vision was so clear. After a while you do have to kind of stop to get a new vision.

Michael Mayer

I’m very curious what he would do now.

Audience Member

Me too, but you’re probably more because you worked with him. Earlier you said that Cologne sound didn’t have, it wasn’t like Detroit or Chicago. I mean, I think that it draws a lot from Chicago Trax and a lot from Rob Hood or Dan Bell but also from Berlin, Basic Channel. There’s a lot of Basic Channel in those Studio 1 records to me. You don’t think so?

Michael Mayer

No, don’t think so.

Torsten Schmidt

Uh oh. Our response is over.

Audience Member

It’s just what hear, OK?

Michael Mayer

Basic Channel is dub. Studio 1 is not dub at all. It’s totally dry, minimal.

Audience Member

It’s more sober or something but it still got a similar feel. It’s not an alien feel.

Michael Mayer

Regarding Chicago or DJ Pierre. It’s clear if he wouldn’t have done these records, I wouldn’t sit here on the sofa and Mike Ink would have never did acid tracks. It’s clear. What I meant was we don’t want to copy anyone. We want to add to something particular.

Audience Member

I think that goal’s definitely been accomplished. It does end up now like a unique take on it. I think there was a time period when I felt like techno was going to totally die and never come back. It had just become this rave oblivion. For me, from where I’m from, it’s like you guys kept it alive in a way that was stylish and very easy to listen to. Lots of different types of people can enjoy this stuff, especially since the glam rock beats, it appeals to so many different types of people. A different time. It’s not all this straight 16ths. Of course all the waltz beats, or the polka beats. What do you guys think about, there’s a Detroit artist that does this a lot. Matt Dear. Have you heard that?

Michael Mayer

Matthew Dear?

Audience Member

Yeah.

Michael Mayer

Yeah, sure. He’s good. He’s very talented. It’s nice to see that the States are picking up. For years it was quite calm. OK, you have the Detroit guys, the Chicago guys who are doing their thing. Now there’s a new generation of electronic producers in the States. It seems like the parties are getting more and more again. It’s really alive. I was quite impressed when I went to Detroit to see the parties there. It was fantastic.

Audience Member

Yeah, yeah, who are moving to Berlin so like ...

Michael Mayer

They are moving to Berlin?

Audience Member

[Inaudible] relocating to Berlin spring 2005. They are very advanced in their promotion of themselves. Anyway, they’re the people that kept alive the type of vibe. The original Detroit. I call them rave parties, people get offended by the word rave but they were. The parties like Richie Hawtin threw, which paid so much attention to production values where the sound system was serious. They weren’t serious about the lights or anything, but they were serious about the sound. And the way people react in Detroit, it’s very physical. They get really into it, so it’s this feedback that you get when it’s rocking, and your night was definitely hot.

Audience Member

I want to know if we can hear the first song? We didn’t because the thing got problems.

Michael Mayer

Ah, the ambient song? Okay, let’s try again ...

(music: Andrew Thomas – unknown)

Torsten Schmidt

When you say you think they are loyal, in an ideal world scenario, people like to work with their friends. When there’s something going wrong, how hard is it to get back on track without ruining friendships, for example?

Michael Mayer

At this point [taps coffee table] I knock on wood. I think we were very lucky with the people we choose. We never have a serious problem because of that. No, we never had a serious problem.

Torsten Schmidt

You’re just one merry bunch.

Audience Member

Sorry to interrupt, just quickly, what’s your ratio with the distribution company of German labels and international labels, or is it...

Michael Mayer

Can you say that again please?

Audience Member

Sorry, what’s your ratio, with the seventy five labels that you distribute, what’s your mix of German labels to international labels?

Michael Mayer

There’s no plan, like of...

Audience Member

No, currently that you’re distributing, how many labels are German and how many are...

Michael Mayer

Good question, maybe half of them or more than half of them are German. But there are flavors from Japan, from Netherlands, from France, from Denmark, American labels, Canadian labels. It’s quite the industry.

Audience Member

What do you mean American labels? Just from USA?

Michael Mayer

Not from South America yet. We have artists, we release artists from South America, but...

Audience Member

Like?

Michael Mayer

[inaudible] Who else? Yeah, those two.

Audience Member

You have lost a lot of people, like from in Mexico...

Michael Mayer

Yeah, I’ve heard good things about Mexico.

Audience Member

Did you hear of [inaudible]?

Michael Mayer

[Inaudible], yeah. There’s another label [inaudible].

Audience Member

Do you know something about the reality from Argentina, Chile, or something like that?

Michael Mayer

If I know what?

Audience Member

The reality from the music from Argentina, Chile...

Michael Mayer

I’ve been in Argentina two times, a few years ago, just when the economic system collapsed. I know we don’t sell any records there because there is just no market for this. The beautiful thing is, the way they listen to music. When I was in Buenos Aires, it was quite an experience.

Audience Member

This moment with the critical economic situation is the moment in all the people start to worry that he is patient with his real work, and then the turning we see is when, I think, people like you can help these people to produce something here, because all these people, I think nobody know about this reality. I hope you can hear more about this.

Michael Mayer

I’d love to. I’m waiting for them to send me something.

Audience Member

Maybe I give you something?

Michael Mayer

Yeah.

Audience Member

Thanks.

Michael Mayer

Where are you from?

Audience Member

Uruguay.

Michael Mayer

Uruguay. You too? Mexico?

Audience Member

No, but I know this guy, Fernando Corona and [inaudible], which are really two nice guys and I live in Guadalajara, which is a city with a lot of newborn record labels. I have some of them right now, and then I give you some copies of them. A lot of a growing scene in Mexico, it’s such interesting and a lot of them are working in techno stuff and IDM.

Michael Mayer

You have this Technogeist festival in Mexico, this must be an incredible. Technogeist?

Audience Member

Technogeist, yeah. Two years ago, I guess.

Michael Mayer

I think that’s one of the biggest parties in the world. So pleasant.

Audience Member

Well it’s... The biggest one was in Mexico City. From Mexico. But there’s also the Mexican edition of music festival that we do. Well, I think this is growing up very fast and hopefully one day you can go to Mexico and play your music. You have a lot of fans in Mexico.

Michael Mayer

Some friends of mine were there in a Triple R formation piece label. When he came back he was so impressed.

Audience Member

I was talking about that with you, because you are working with a lot of people all around the world. This is important because I try to book a DJ set from No-Tek and here, and I see that the people who gather the club situations in their hands, they just see in Rome what is in the color of the magazine, and they just make the DJ set here, with electronic music just from the colors. Just from the mainstream. So for me, your work is very important because you are on down there rough situation, but the quality I think is more than what we got from people who work here and they think they are working with the best. This is the first time I see, I hear about this guy, Rex the Dog, and I want to hear a DJ set that’s here, but who can produce that? I can contact you, but if I have the money to do this and I don’t have the club, I never can hear this music live here. I think this is important to say that because we need more of that music. For me if you do this work, your work is very well off. Thank you.

Michael Mayer

Thank you.

Audience Member

I was wondering, when you go to a new market like a new country, distribute to a new country, how do you promote yourself? Like, you throw parties down there, or just leave it to the guy who’s selling your stuff down there?

Michael Mayer

Well, parties are the best promotion you can do. It’s better than any advertising or article in a magazine. Show the people how you rock, it’s the best thing. When you start working with a new territory, like we’ve just started to work with Poland... There’s a new distributor who’s interested in work with us, and we try to support them as much as we can with a promotional copies, with a playing artist there, of course. In the best case you find yourself in an exchange. You distribute their labels. You swap records in the end. It’s always the most healthy business relationship you can have when it’s mutual and it’s working in both directions. You won’t just sell to somebody, but you also buy from him. That’s where you’re getting closer and closer and you help each other.

Audience Member

But to me, I had this problem. Actually, I was trying to work with you because I have record shop in Istanbul in Turkey, which...

Michael Mayer

Istanbul, yeah.

Audience Member

I’m a friend of [inaudible], which throws your parties, so we’re trying to get some stuff for you. The thing is that if you make a party in Istanbul, it will be huge, people will love that, but the real thing is that nobody comes and buys records, because there’s no too much record listeners in Turkey. The thing is that we can’t promote that. Before I have to promote then come to you and say, “Hey, come on, give me some stuff.” I don’t know how to do that, how I’m going to get out of this. We want to throw Kompakt parties right down in Istanbul where lots of people are into it, but mostly... Basically listeners and, unfortunately, lots of MP3s going on. So I think we should get you in the market somehow to get the real stuff to the guys.

Michael Mayer

Is there a market, like an independent market?

Audience Member

This kind of music is totally independent, mostly people listening to that music are... You know, they don’t have money, so can’t buy original things. That’s why I can’t bring stuff because the thing is that I don’t want to call the distributors to get, “Can you send me 50 records?” And they’re like, “Each one is going to be one copy only.” I’m still trying to build up the scene and for that, we need to throw out parties I guess, right?

Michael Mayer

Mm-hmm [affirmative], absolutely.

Audience Member

It’s better to have on magazines and TV or whatever.

Michael Mayer

What about other cities in Turkey?

Audience Member

Oh no. Istanbul is the city.

Michael Mayer

It’s the only city.

Audience Member

The thing is that the other people never listen to that because they’ve never had the chance. If you know everybody’s coming outside from Turkey is coming directly to Istanbul, and there’s two other big cities where you can throw parties, but it’s not like Istanbul so people are not ... They don’t know actually, I don’t know what happens if they know. Somebody says, “This is fashion, go and listen to that stuff,” and they just go and listen to that. But we can’t throw parties. We’re not sure anyway, when you throw parties, there are not too many people around, actually.

Michael Mayer

I heard the parties were really good.

Audience Member

If you heard about [inaudible], those guys, they’re cool, they’re excellent.

Michael Mayer

Yeah, they’re great.

Audience Member

I heard they rocked the party also in Kürn, it was so cool.

Michael Mayer

Yeah I think they played Kürn, they will come again I think, this year.

Audience Member

We would like to see you coming in Turkey with your best DJs, and throwing parties, and just help us to build up a scene so I can get some stuff for you around the shop.

Michael Mayer

All right.

Audience Member

Thanks for that.

Audience Member

I’d just like to talk about how your sound, the Kompakt sound, has, like we were talking about earlier, really spread over into North America. Even small labels in Vancouver and Montreal are selling three thousand plus with a very German-influenced styles of techno. How do you feel about that, and how would you feel about some of the really good Canadian producers that are coming out? Obviously you can tell, it’s a result of them being brought up on the sounds that you’ve been creating over the years, so what do you think about the music that’s your style coming out of North America right now?

Michael Mayer

I think it’s like with every country. Every country has something to add to the whole thing. We don’t want to be alone with our music, so it’s great when suddenly there’s somebody from Buenos Aires sending you tracks which fit on Kompakt, they have something to do with our music, but it’s an addition, it’s an interesting addition. So what happened in Montreal, it’s fantastic. It really put itself on the map as a place where they do weird minimal stuff, and there’s a certain sound of Montreal like a [inaudible], these guys, he added something totally characteristic for Montreal, and that’s cool.

Audience Member

When you were with musicians of other places like South America, how is the mechanic of work with them?

Michael Mayer

The mechanic? When we receive a demo, we get in touch with them, tell them that we love the music, that we’d like to put it out. We usually don’t do contracts. It’s not very usual but we don’t do it because we feel it’s not necessary. We prefer to build up a relationship of trust between our artists and ourselves. We have a good reputation. For me there’s no need to set up a thirty-page contract. We include the artist on the visual side. We ask them, “How do you want the records to look like? Do you want us to do it? Do you want to add something?” Like this [holds album cover] a picture Andrew Thomas took of neighborhood maybe, and he wanted it to be on the record and we say, “OK, cool.” We try to involve the artists as much as we can and to other artistic thing.

When the record is released and after the artist gets sales statements, they can see how many copies did it sell, in which territories even, and then he gets his money for the records he sold.

Audience Member

OK, cool.

Audience Member

I was going to say before you go, you were talking before about how Wolfgang’s been working a lot with southern traditional German folk music. Have you any examples here of any of that sort of sound?

Michael Mayer

I’m afraid no. Well, this one I already played, but I got something else. It’s one of my favorite records of the summer. It’s a perfect example of... Two producers from Cologne, they did something totally freaky. It’s not to compare with anything else. Maybe there’s a little bit of Prince inside. It’s not really techno, it’s something else, and after half of the track something’s happening which might make you laugh. This record has been quite successful. It’s not very commercial. It’s a strange record, but they dared something and they got their reward for this. This is nice.

(music: Andre Kraml – “Safari” / applause)

Torsten Schmidt

So in honor of the new elephant’s house of the Cologne zoo... We’re not joking, it was one of the main events this year. The zoo has a new elephant house.

Michael Mayer

Incredible record. I don’t know...

Audience Member

What’s the name of the record?

Michael Mayer

These guys? It’s called “Safari” on a label called Firm. Firm number six.

Michael Mayer

Unfortunately I have to leave, I have to catch a plane.

Torsten Schmidt

We need to be kind of quick because you need to catch a plane, what’s the energy situation? [exchange between host and RBMA staff] OK, great, that’s good news. There’s even better news because we’ve held – okay here’s one last, final question. We don’t need Bob Geldof to tell us that we don’t like Mondays, but you always have to go back and prepare yourself mentally to work. Any tips?

Michael Mayer

Black coffee.

Torsten Schmidt

Well that will be fine. But we figured you know all these guys get the same sort of fee anyway, it’s more an honorary thing so la la la, and he felt that on his behalf that he’s kindly donating his fee to get us some extra round of drinks so that we will be even more hung over. A certain occasion, maybe on Friday or so...

Michael Mayer

Whenever you want.

Torsten Schmidt

We’ll drink to your honor, and I think we should add a little bit of...

(applause)

This is how we do in Cologne.

Michael Mayer

The air is a bit dry here.

Torsten Schmidt

Yeah, the air is dry, so we need to organize things and make up for whatever. I’d say thank you very much for joining in with us.

Michael Mayer

Thank you.

Torsten Schmidt

Give the man a hand.

[applause]