Archive for the ‘Productions’ Category
By Joe Klein
It’s just wild how things from your past come back to haunt you when you least expect it!
Okay, I wasn’t really haunted by this. But, it still was quite a surprise! Here I was face-to-face with a decades-old radio commercial I produced that’s just found a new life—online!
Back in 1990, I was still producing radio and television commercials, mostly for record albums and movie soundtracks, as president of my Los Angeles-based production company, L.A. TRAX, INC. The very idea of becoming the leading producer of music spots happened pretty much by accident way back in 1977, when SCOTT SHANNON was working for CASABLANCA REOCRD AND FILMORKS president NEIL BOGART, and he met me at a recording session for the record label where I was the engineer. Scott and I became good friends almost instantly. I had been a radio deejay for about a year as a teenager back in the early seventies, and Scott had been a deejay himself before coming to L.A. and getting into the music business.
One thing lead to another, and, within weeks, I started producing ads for Casablanca. The commercials must have “done the job” pretty well because, soon, I was producing several commercials every month for the label. It got pretty crazy.
(On the POP MATTERS website, a really great and in-depth story about CASALANCA RECORDS, written by free lance journalist CHRISTIAN WIKANE, which includes the story of how I got started producing ads for Casablanca, was posted earlier this year.)
Within a year or so, I was producing spots for a few other labels and, by 1980, doing ads for several more record companies. It was crazy, and it ended up in a fifteen year-long run of producing well over 1,000 record and soundtrack ads for just about every major label based in L.A., which was pretty profitable for me and, apparently, VERY profitable for the record companies that became my very loyal clients!
As much as I enjoyed producing all of those crazy record spots, the money and success I found from that endeavor pretty much derailed me from my dream of being a record producer and having a big hit, or two, or a dozen!
My career as a “record ad man” came to an end in 1992, when I, and the music business, mutually decided to stop producing radio and television commercials as an important element in the marketing of music. By that time, music videos had become the big thing, and the budgets for commercials were all but eliminated. I continued on as a voice-over artist for a few more years before dropping out of the business for nearly a decade.
In 1995, I re-entered media production, but, this time, in “new media,” and launched THE PODCAST VOICE GUYS, which was renamed NEW MEDIA CRATIVE back in the summer of 2008.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I got an email a few days ago from the administrator of the website for recording artist JANE WIEDLIN, (former lead guitarist of the huge 80’s girl band THE GO-GO’S). She had heard an old radio ad I produced for Jane’s solo album TANGLED, which was released on EMI Records back in 1990. I had produced and ad for this album, featuring the single WORLD ON FIRE that same year, and, as it turns out, it was the very last ad I produced for that label!
I was asked if it was okay to post the spot on YouTube. I didn’t see any harm, so I agreed. Just a few hours later, my crazy little record ad was posted and even appeared as an item on JANE WIEDLIN’S BLOG!
Too crazy. I admit that I haven’t really spoken publicly of late of my “past life” as a producer of record and soundtrack album commercials, because I am a “new media” guy now. It never really occurred to me that there would be much interest in the “old skool” stuff I produced so many years ago. But, I guess there comes the time that “Everything Old Is New Again,” eventually!
So, here is that wild and wacky old radio spot in all it’s glory, for your dining and dubbing pleasure! BTW it’s yours truly who performs BOTH of the male voices on the commercial because the announcer I hired for the voice-over near the end of the ad called in sick at the last minute!
Here is the full music video for WORLD ON FIRE, which actually inspired the crazy commercial. I have to admit that Jane is pretty HOT, indeed, in this video! What do you think?
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By Joe Klein
About a month ago, my “baby” became an adult! It was 21 years ago last month that CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU, the yuletide novelty I wrote on the beach in Malibu in the summer of 1988, was recorded by THE RAD DUDES and first released.
How the song, and then the record, came to be is one of the many interesting escapades and adventures I found myself in the middle of during the three decades I spent in the music business (from the early seventies until the mid nineties).
Wouldn’t you know it, my old friend RUSS TERRANA is a vital part of this story as well, as he recorded and mixed the record at Motown’s Hitsville Studio in Hollywood in October of 1988 (the record was finished and mastered in early November). CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU would be the last record to be completed at the legendary Hollywood studio on Romaine Avenue, where a large percentage of Motown’s product from the seventies and eighties was recorded.
Last year, former MTV VEEJAY MARTHA QUINN located KARMA AUGER, the lead singer of THE RAD DUDES and did a short interview with him on a special holiday episode of her XM SATELLITE radio show MARTHA QUINN PRESENTS. This lead to me getting in touch with Karma and reconnecting with him for the first time in over nineteen years! I had a great conversation with Karma on SKYPE and posted it online.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to Malibu for Christmas last year, but did travel to Southern California a few days after Christmas. i was happy to spend part of New Year’s eve with Karma and Martha, in Malibu! There was no shortage of “good karma” on that trip, as I reconnected with several other long, lost friends. The 2008 holiday season ended up being a very memorable one in many ways!
JOE KLEIN AND KARMA AUGER (2008)
All the buzz last year generated a bunch of radio and podcast play and, from what I am told, the video was popping up in all sorts of crazy places! This year I’ve already received numerous GOOGLE ALERTS about the song and the video. One alert was for an ITUNES PREVIEW of the song. I also just learned that CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU made the front page of the MEVIO Network and is right at the top of MEVO’S MUSIC CHANNEL as well, thanks to my longtime friend and fan, MICHAEL BUTLER, director and host of the Mevio Music Network.
Who knows what holiday surprises this year will bring for the little holiday tune that’s finally matured! They say some things do get better with age…
You can listen to CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU in high quality MP3 audio on the player below.
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
Click on links below to read more about the holiday tune!
CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU CELEBRATES ITS TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY
MARTHA QUINN AND KARMA AUGER CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU
KARMA AND JOE TALK ABOUT CHRISTMAS IN MALIBU AFTER 20 YEARS
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By Joe Klein
As Christmas 2008 draws to a close and all the presents have been unwrapped, I received one last, very cool holiday gift.
It came in the form of an email telling me that Christmas In Malibu was once again featured on the front page of the MEVIO NETWORK.
(THE FOLLOWING TEXT WAS UPDATED ON 12/27/08)
Listen to Christmas in Malibu on itunes
On Chirstmas day, the music video of the song immediately followed Adam Curry’s holiday greeting on the video player embedded on Mevio’s HOME PAGE. You can watch Adam’s holiday message, which played on Christmas, on the player below. (Note that, following the Christmas day greeting, current daily Mevio video content follows in place of The Rad Dudes video, which did immediately follow Adam’s holiday message on Christmas day.)
What a pleasant surprise, and very cool way for the holiday to end for me. The wind outside was howling, the rain was falling, and the sky was dark gray with storm clouds on a (rarely experienced) cold and wet Christmas day in the Mohave desert. How great it was to sit cuddled up next to the “electronic fireplaces” in my cool little Arizona hideaway. The flat screen satellite TV and widescreen computer monitor were ablaze as surround sound speakers trumpeted out the notes of the holiday tune that refused to die! This made it quite the joyous holiday for yours truly!
On what was a frigid, white Christmas 2008, I offered my sincerest appreciation to all the bloggers, podcasters, video networks, newsletters, mainstream radio, television, magazines and newspapers who featured Christmas In Malibu during the 2008 holiday season. My heartfelt thanks for spreading the warm vibrations of a magical Southern California Christmas twenty years after it was first celebrated!
(Scroll down to the previous post to hear the voice chat between the song’s lead singer, KARMA AUGER and me. You can listen to it on the audio player in the post below.)
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT!
ARTIST’S RENDERING OF MALIBU BEACH ON CHRISTAMS DAY
By Joe Klein
**EXCLUSIVE!!** 
‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE XMAS
CONNECTED ON SKYPE
THAT KARMA AND JOE
CUT THROUGH ALL THE HYPE
THEY CHATTED FOR HOURS
‘BOUT OLD STUFF AND THINGS NEW
THEN LAUGHED ‘TILL THEY CRIED
‘BOUT THOSE DAYS IN “THE ‘BU”
WHEN IT WAS OVER
THEY KNEW ALL WAS RIGHT
AND SAINT NICK WOULD BE SURFIN’
COME THE NEW MORNING LIGHT
Just in time for Christmas, here’s the unexpected yuletide surprise we promised! Hear the voice chat where KARMA AUGER and I reminisce about the making of Christmas In Malibu. We share our own individual recollections of that magical time twenty years ago when the song, the record and the video came together, and then became an instant hit, all in just a few weeks!
The conversation was recorded on SKYPE just before Christmas, and this is the first time we’ve talked with each other about the project, privately or publicly, in the two decades since The Rad Dudes disbanded back in 1989. It’s an interesting and heartwarming chat, and a cool little slice of holiday music history! The chat will be released in two parts, with the first part being our “Malibu Memories.” In part two, which will be posted next month, Karma shares stories and thoughts about his father, BRIAN AUGER, the renowned rock and jazz musician, and tells us what he’s been doing since the Malibu days. A talented and accomplished artist and musician in his own right, Karma’s been playing and touring with his dad for over fifteen years. You’ll hear about his own background and musical tastes, past and present, and what he’s up to currently.
It’s a very special holiday gift that I am so pleased to bring, and it’s only available here! Check out the first segment of this exclusive online voice chat on the audio player below.
CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON BELOW TO LISTEN NOW!
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MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND PEACE ON EARTH
FROM NEW MEDIA CREATIVE!
SURF’S UP, DUDES! HO! HO! HO!
