Archive for November, 2008
This holiday season marks the twentieth anniversary of the original release of CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU, the classic holiday novelty written and produced by New Media Creative’s JOE KLEIN in 1988. The story behind the music is as inspirational as the song itself. So, if you’re interested, read on…
It was twenty years ago last July when Joe had a musical epiphany while sitting on the beach in Malibu, California. By the end of the day, that vision had spawned a song—the first song the accomplished producer, director and voice-over artist had ever written. What’s more, it was a Christmas song he’d just penned in the middle of summer.
The song is about a forlorn surfer who has broken his surfboard and is delivered a new one by a surfing Santa on Christmas day. Appropriately, Joe titled it Christmas In Malibu.
Joe couldn’t get the song out of his head over the next couple of months. Then, in the fall of 1988, his good friend, RUSS TERRANA, who was the chief engineer at Motown Recoding Studios, called him and asked him if he wanted to record the quirky yuletide composition in the famed studio, which was soon to close forever. After pondering the question for about two seconds, Joe replied, “You betcha!”
Russ then introduced Joe to MITCH DEMATOFF and DALE ECHNOZ, a couple of talented guys who had been producing publishing demos for Motown on a cutting edge, two hundred thousand dollar music production computer called the SYNCLAVIER which was owned by the studio.
After hearing a piano and voice demo Joe recorded of the song, the duo immediately went to work on the Synclavier producing the backing tracks for Christmas In Malibu. A couple of days later, they played the result of their efforts for Joe, who was totally awe struck. “This sounds exactly like the finished track I heard in my own head months ago,” he exclaimed.
With the tracks done, the next job was to find an artist to perform the song. Joe got lucky again. Just a day after hearing the finished backing track, he stumbled upon a couple of Malibu surfers, one of whom was a singer and musician named KARMA AUGER (son of British keyboardist Bryan Auger) with a fresh young voice and style that suited the track perfectly. The other surfer was a handsome young guy dubbed “The Wolf,” who was seemingly always surrounded by adoring women wherever he went. Another epiphany for Joe—and THE RADUDES were born. (Months later the name was modified to be in two separate words—THE RAD DUDES—to avoid pronunciation confusion,
Joe rushed into the studio with The Rad Dudes and, within a few days, the vocals for the record were recorded. A few finishing touches were added to the recording and the final mix was completed. But it was now late in October, far too late to get a record company to release Christmas In Malibu and get it into any record stores for the holidays. But Joe knew that it wasn’t too late to get the song on the radio, if he could get it to the stations quickly.
So Joe went to work, calling countless old radio colleagues and music trade magazine editors. Everyone he called loved the song and agreed to help. One of the trade magazine editors met Joe at Motown studios, heard the track and told Joe he would bring it over to KEVIN WEATHERLY, then the music director at pop radio powerhouse KIIS-FM in Los Angeles. He asked Joe if he wanted to tag along. They brought a “reference disc” made at the studio to Kevin’s office at the station. Kevin placed the needle on the record, listened for about one minute and took the needle off the record. Joe was deflated, fearing Kevin didn’t like the song. Then Weatherly began typing on his computer and remarked, “I’d like to world premiere this song right after Thanksgiving weekend, if it’s okay with you.” Joe paused and replied, “Let me think about it for a minute…..Uh, okay.”
Christmas In Malibu premiered at 9:00 PM on Monday, November 28, 1998 on the Hollywood Hamilton Show on KIIS-FM. Meanwhile, after Kevin had agreed to world-premiere the record, Joe rushed to press up 1,000 45 RPM discs of the song (which featured a ”karaoke” mix of the tune on the B side since no other tracks had been recorded).
The day of the premiere, Joe began mailing out records to hundreds of radio stations around the country. He then purchased a full page ad in Billboard magazine touting the world-premiere of the song and including quotes from a couple of powerful, well-known radio programmers that were friends of Joe. Fate entered once again. Due to the sudden, unexpected death of rock legend Roy Orbison, a full page ad for his new album was pulled at the last minute. The ad was slated to appear in the magazine’s premier spot, the page facing the Billboard “Hot 100” singles chart. As a result, the avant-garde, black and white ad for Christmas In Malibu appeared next to the Billboard singles chart in the early December issue of the venerable trade magazine.
In the days following the first KIIS-FM airing of the song, the music directors of competing stations in Los Angeles, who had heard the song on KIIS, called Joe and wanted the record for their stations. By the end of that week, Christmas In Malibu was on half a dozen stations in L.A. The following week, hundreds of stations around the country were playing it, which became the most requested song on many of them.
With all the attention and national airplay the track was receiving, Joe knew that MTV would want a video to air. So he hired a video producer, small crew and a few pretty models and, with nothing more than a few notes scribbled on a legal pad, proceeded to shoot a video on Malibu beach in a single day and night. After only a few hours sleep, Joe dragged himself into a video suite to edit the video and got in on a plane to MTV the very next day. The network agreed to air the video, so Joe made more copies and sent them to several other major national video outlets, who also aired the song that year.
Christmas In Malibu earned the ominous distinction of becoming the biggest holiday hit of 1988 that was not available in stores anywhere that year. Still, a little piece of music history had been made.
THE ORIGINAL MUSIC VIDEO OF CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU (1988)
Early in 1989, with the unprecedented success of the yuletide novelty under his belt and the hopes of securing a major record deal for the concept group, Joe recorded an additional song with The Rad Dudes, an updated version of the old Beach Boys hit “Surfer Girl.” He also began collecting additional material for the group, which included another cover tune, an instrumental from the late fifties and a some cool original songs written by fellow producers, writers and musicians he knew in the music business. Joe even came up with a unique concept for a fully choreographed stage show and a story treatment for a cutting-edge major motion picture loosely based on Christmas In Malibu.
Music CD’s were beginning to become popular at the time, so Joe put together a label design and had a few dozen promotional CD’s made with the surprise holiday hit and Surfer Girl to help promote the project.
Joe began contacting major record labels and movie studios in search of deals for the group and the movie. Although there was some initial interest and a few of the music executives liked the concept and the material, no record deal was consummated. It was probably due simply to bad timing. Grunge rock and hip hop music were the rapidly emerging music genres in 1989, and the record companies didn’t share Joe’s vision for The Rad Dudes. Ironically, they were a model “boy band” a couple years before their time, and simply considered too “syrupy-sweet” to succeed in an era of emerging Grunge Rock and Hip-Hop.
After many months of pounding the pavement in search of a deal, Joe accepted the fact that the timing for this project was simply off and, reluctantly, made the decision to discontinue his efforts on the project and move on. The Rad Dudes disbanded. However, a limited distribution deal to distribute the song as a cassette single for the holiday 1989 shopping season was negotiated and the track was available as a cassette single in some stores that year.
The song and music video continued to receive significant airplay during the holidays for the next few years. During that time, Joe made up more Rad Dudes CD’s and handed them and the remaining cassette singles out as Christmas presents. Sadly, by the mid-nineties Christmas In Malibu simply faded into the California sunset. Joe carried on with his life, changing his focus to a budding voice-over career and other media related endeavors.
It wasn’t until 2005, a decade after it seemed that Christmas In Malibu had slipped into musical oblivion, that the new medium of “podcasting” burst upon the media scene. Joe had decided to return to the voice-over and audio production business after several years with the launch of THE PODCAST VOICE GUYS. Around the same time, Adam Curry’s new media network PODSHOW launched THE PODSAFE MUSIC NETWORK to distribute independent music to podcasters. Joe was working with a few of the original podcasters involved at Podshow and learned of the new music network, so he posted the song online in the fall of 2005. Much to his surprise, dozens of podcasters that had garnered pretty large audiences early on found the song on the network and featured it on their shows.
In 2006, Joe entered into a distribution deal with the INDEPENDENT ONLINE DITRIBUTION ALLIANCE (IODA), a new online commercial music distribution service based in San Francisco. By the fall of that year, Christmas In Malibu was available for purchase on iTunes, EMusic, Amazon, Rhapsody and scores of other online music retailers worldwide. Joe then uploaded the old music video to YouTube, Mevio Video, Google Video, Blip.TV, Spike and several other viral video sites, where it has received tens of thousands of views. The video has been included on countless blogs and online holiday video lists and compilations, including WHOPPY AND STREAKER’S 99 CHRISTMAS MUSIC VIDEOS, an eclectic list posted by well-known music business blogger ARTIE WAYNE. Meanwhile, thanks to the promotional efforts of IODA, the availability of the track on the Podsafe Music Network and some mainstream radio trade coverage, the song stated getting significant airplay again on mainstream broadcast stations in 2006. Last year, the visibility of the song expanded further, with scores of radio stations around the country and hundreds of podcasts and blogs featuring the track or the video.
The original release of Christmas In Malibu was several years before the internet and world wide web were in widespread use and just getting the song out to the world was a huge challenge. Ironically, two decades later, the track is now available for download from scores of international online retail music sites and the video is posted on dozens of viral sites, giving the song a worldwide distribution and presence that Joe could never have even dreamed of twenty years ago.
Meanwhile, rumors persist that Santa can still be spotted catching a few waves in Malibu on Christmas day each year before getting some badly needed rest. There have even been reports of hearing old St. Nick bellowing out his classic chant as he hangs ten, “SURF’S UP, DUDES! HO! HO! HO!”
Christmas In Malibu is licensed by ASCAP for commercial airplay. Also cleared for online play, podcasters and bloggers can download the song for play on their podcasts or blogs from The Podsafe Music Network or IODA Promonet. (Registration is required at both these sites.)
You can listen to the track in high quality audio on the player below.
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By Joe Klein
So, okay, here it is. My final recap and thoughts about the 2008 PUBCON LAS VEGAS conference, including a few photos of the Pucon 2008 Networking event that took place on Friday, the “day after” the conference officially ended.
Overall, my take on the event is that it was very received and very well staged. It seems that, after a few years, Pubcon continues to be a relevant conference that serves its participants and attendees quite well. Let’s face it. SEO, web design optimization and affiliate marketing strategies continue to be very vital areas in the ever-expanding Web 2.0 environment. The thing that most impressed me was that, even given the dire and deteriorating economic climate, most of the attendees were relatively upbeat and in good spirits. Positive attitudes abounded throughout, and nearly everyone I encountered had high expectations of what lies ahead. Maybe the recent election factored in or the boundless youthful energy of those involved in the cutting edge New Media world. Whatever it was, this old dogg was uplifted and energized by all the optimism!
Another aspect Pubcon that I found most interesting was the cross-promotion between this and other new media related conferences. For what I believe is the first time, a competing conference actually had a booth at Pubcon, specifically the Blogworld and New Media Expo. It was fascinating to see Patti Hosking openly soliciting exhibitors and sponsors for next year’s Expo at this “competing” event. The team from the New Media Expo was very visible at Pubcon as well, with Tim and Emile Bourquin not only attending, but Tim was part of a panel of conference presenters as well. With the economy placing an ever-increasing strain on sponsors, exhibitors and attendees of trade shows and conferences, it was intriguing to see fellow event organizers attending a show to spur sponsorship and attendance for their own future events. Personally, in these difficult times, I found it promising to see an emerging spirit of symbiotic cooperation replacing a tradition of fierce competition. I chatted with Susan, Tim and Emile about the subject and was heartened to hear that they seemed to be open to the notion of alliance among the organizers of trade shows targeted to the new media community. I have never myself been a very competitive beast, so the idea of working together for the common good was most definitely welcomed by yours truly.
On Friday, the final official event of Pubcon took place at a great German restaurant called the HofbrauHaus Las Vegas. This was especially cool for me, as I was staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, located just across the street from the place on Paradise Road. Although I have never attended an industry event there, I’ve eaten there once or twice before, and the food and atmosphere are really great. It has excellent authentic German grub, incredible beer (several varieties actually flown in direct from Deutschland in actual wooden barrels) and a totally authentic atmosphere. (Only in Vegas!) If you are into German cuisine, I highly recommend this eatery when visiting Vegas.
The Pubcon networking party on Friday afternoon was a cool bash to be sure. Several hundred die-hard Pubcon attendees showed up to network and schmooze. Dozens of rolling suitcases lined up against the wall near the entrance indicated that many made this party their last stop before heading home, while I am sure that many others, like myself would be staying in town to enjoy some of the sinful delights of a weekend in Vegas. The free beer flowed like water, served in full liter mugs! There were huge bowls of soft pretzels and several cute frauleines continuously circulating with the beer mugs plus trays loaded with Wiener Schnitzel, Knockwurst and many other varieties of German finger foods.
The positive vibes and camaraderie of the conference carried on and the volume level of happy voices in the cavernous banquet room where the event was held (actually the whole rear half of this huge restaurant) steadily increased to a near-deafening drone as the beer continued to flow through the afternoon. It’s an understatement to say that a good time was had by all, as the Pubcon revelers networked and reminisced their way into the weekend.
I chatted with a few folks I had met over the previous couple of days. With my vision a bit blurred after a couple of huge mugs of great German beer and the loud cacophony of conversation beginning to get a little tiresome, it was time to wander back across the street to the hotel for my own final night in Vegas. With my “New Media” duties finally behind me and a nice little buzz already in place, I was looking forward to an evening of relaxation and a bit of card playing, to be preceded by a wonderful dinner at the famed AJ’s Steak House at the Hard Rock. This great eatery will be closing forever by the end of the year, so it was only fitting to invite my good friend, local Las Vegas television news anchorman, fellow voice-over artist and blogger DAVE COURVOISIER, to join me for one last incredible steak and a couple hours of great gabbing about all things media, new and mainstream!
JOE AND DAVE COURVOISIER AT AJ’S STEAKHOUSE
After dinner, Dave had to get back to the TV station for his 11:00 PM newscast. I then retreated to the bustling Hard Rock casino, brimming, as usual, with gorgeous young women, and dutifully proceeded to “pay for” the cool “comp” room that had been offered up to me by the hotel. Before retiring for the evening, I dug out my camera and shot this photo of the awesome view of the Vegas strip from my room on the top floor.
Saturday morning, I woke up to a mild hangover, shot a few more photos of the Hard Rock Pool (sadly “closed for the season”) and the huge expansion construction project going on at the property. Finally, it was time to head for home, having received yet another healthy dose of “Vegas 2.0!” I had to ask myself, “Am i just getting too old for all of this??” NAH!!!
By Joe Klein
Just returned from four more days in Sin City, where I attended the 2008 PUBCON conference. Wow. This is my fifth visit to Vegas this year!
I admit that I did feel a bit out of place at this event, as SEO, web design, affiliate marketing and the like are not my areas of expertise or really my thing. (I concentrate on concept, copy, production and voice and leave these more geeky tasks to our associate BRETT BUMETER, who is far more knowledgeable and experienced in these areas.)
Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, I didn’t arrive until day two of the event (Wednesday) and missed a couple of sessions and parties that I would have liked to have attended on the first day of the conference (including what I heard was a very cool TWEETUP party Tuesday night hosted by ZAPPOS.COM at the new Wasted Space Club at the Hard Rock Hotel). Darn! I stayed at the Hard Rock and it would have been quite convenient to have made this scene and not having to worry about making my way back to my hotel.
Once I did arrive, I had plenty of time to attend a few sessions of interest and comb through the relatively small exhibit floor on days two and three. I ran into several old friends and colleagues and made some interesting new contacts that could prove to be profitable in the months to come. Our friends at TECHZULU were streaming video live, as they were during the Blogworld and New Media Expo a couple months back.
Thursday’s conference session on podcasting was a must for me and I found it to be somewhat interesting and informative, particularly for those attending who are not very experienced in the genre or its mechanics. My friend, and founder of the NEW MEDIA EXPO, TIM BOURQUIN was one of the speakers, as was GLENN GAUDET from PODCAST.COM
JOE WITH TIM AND EMILE BOURQUIN GLENN GAUDET AND JOE
This being a relatively small conference, there weren’t countless parties to make (at least that I knew of). But I did enjoy a few nice after-hours events that were going on during the week. There was a very cool meetup Wednesday night for Pubcon attendees at the high roller’s lounge at the Mirage Hotel. It was hosted by the folks from the PURPOSEINC 2008 SEO POKER TOURNAMENT (which took place the following night at The Venetian). I had a chance to meet the host, Dr. David Klein (no relation) who is a very cool guy and a big time MMA (mixed martial arts) fan. He’s also a huge fan of ultimate fighting superstar RANDY COUTURE and was super excited to be in town for the big UFC 91 event on Saturday just after Pubcon where Couture (“The Natural”) was to fight wrestler BROCK LESNAR in what was billed as one of the biggest fights in UFC history. This great party was filled with lots of happy people (who got happier as the liquor flowed into the wee hours), cool vibes, and great conversation. For whatever reason (probably being a bit out of sync on my first day in Vegas and tired from several busy days before arriving) I forgot to bring my camera to this schmoozfest (and my cell phone takes pretty awful pictures), so I didn’t get any photos of my own to post. However, there is a great set of pictures from the party here.
On Thursday night was the mega SEARCHBASH LAS VEGAS party at the trendy Rain Nightclub inside The Palms Hotel. This bash, organized by WEBMASTERRADIO.FM was blogged as the hottest ticket of the week and, as conference parties go, this one was definitely first rate. With about what I estimated to be nearly a thousand guests, the event was as well-staged as it was attended. A troop of performers from PAUL OAKENFOLD’S PERFECTO LAS VEGAS (who now regularly appear at the club on Saturday nights) were on hand to provide hours of cutting edge sensual entertainment that really made this party one to remember. Here are some pix I shot of the wild, wild night!
Huge kudos to Daron and Brandy (and their terrific lineup of sponsors) for the best bash of the conference and one of the best after-hours events of any geek conference I’ve attended in quite some time!
DARON BABIN OF WEBMASTERRADIO.FM AND JOE
Okay, I’ll agree that this post was not particularly detailed or all that comprehensive in covering all the geekiness that is Pubcon. Again, my apologies but, as I said, all this SEO and web design stuff just isn’t this “old skool dog’s” primary area of expertise. But at least I brought you some of the fun stuff, no? Worry not. If you crave for more, there’s tons o’coverage and hundreds of Pubcon photos out there. The folks at TopRank did a great job of covering the conference on their ONLINE MARKETING BLOG which includes a really great collection of photos. Search Engine Land really stepped up to the plate with a day by day posting of links to just about everything else out there about the event. There are dozens of links to coverage of each day of Pubcon on their posts for DAY ONE, DAY TWO and DAY THREE. Also WEBPRONEWS offered up extensive video coverage of all three days of the event. So, hopefully, I’m off the hook for not going into any more detail here!
And even our own coverage of Pubcon is not quite over. I’ll return with a few photos of the big Pubcon Networking party on Friday (the day after the conference ended) and some final recaps and thoughts in my next post to follow. Same time, same website….
The latest issue of BLOGGER AND PODCASTER MAGAZINE has been published. The online version of the magazine is very slick, appearing as a “flipper” format which allows the viewer to flip through the pages of the magazine in a virtual layout of the print edition. The lead story in the magazine’s “News Feed” section (on page 6) is about NEW MEDIA CREATIVE. We also have a full page ad appearing in the magazine (on page 18). Our ad is accompanied by an audio promo we recently produced. We also produced an audio promo to accompany the full page ad for the APHEX 230 MASTER VOICE CHANNEL (on page 14 of the magazine). That promo includes an endorsement from our own voice-over and production guru Joe Klein. The audio promos launch automatically when the reader lands on the page where the ad appears, which, as audio producers, we have to admit is pretty cool.
As we did for the last issue, we produced certain segments of the audio podcast version of the publication. Joe voiced the “News Feed” and “Editor’s Note” segments and worked on additional production for the remaining podcast segments. We also produced new branding media elements, which can be heard as audio signatures at the opening and closing of all the podcast segments of the new issue. Bill Fortune’s splendid pipes really stand out on the awesome new sigs for the magazine podcasts.
In this issue of the magazine, its publisher, LARSTAN PUBLICATIONS, announced the launching of an ambitious new venture, the BLOGGER AND PODCASTER MEDIA NETWORK. The new network combines the resources of Blogger and Podcaster along with established podcast directory PODCAST PICKLE, U.K. social blog network FUEL MY BLOG, and blog discovery engine SOCIAL RANK to form a powerful new network that will offer significant reach, income and other valuable benefits and monetary rewards to its blogger and podcaster members. You can read all about it on page 30 of the current issue. We’re working with the article’s author, company CEO LARRY GENKIN, on the podcast version of this major story, which should be posted online next week.
Each individual column and article in the magazine has an embedded flash audio player at the top of the page that will load and play and podcast version of the story. There is also a flash player with a pre-loaded playlist of all the current issue’s podcast segments. That player is on the publication’s home page here. From the home page you can also open up the online flipper version of the current issue and search for and access past issues from the magazine’s archives.
