Archive for the ‘Productions’ Category

By Joe Klein

As mentioned in the previous post, KARMA AUGER, who is the lead singer on Christmas In Malibu, was tracked down by former MTV veejay MARTHA QUINN to be a featured  guest on her “LIKE, TOTALLY AWESOME RAD HOLIDAY SPECIAL” which aired on the XM/Sirius satellite radio this weekend. Karma even opened the show, easily sliding right back into his past role as the definitive 80’s surfer who is “the most rad dude of them all.”

What followed was a short but sweet interview, in which the former RAD DUDE recalled the wild days of the late eighties when the song was first recorded. Mentioning that he was a little embarrassed at first about being on the “corny” record, Karma said that the more he heard the song and saw the video, the more it grew on him over the years. Karma said he now totally digs the song  and its “comedic genius.” The original Rad Dude also joined the growing ranks of those who consider Christmas In Malibu a holiday CLASSIC! At the interview’s end, Martha introduced the first song on the special, one that has become the “theme song every year she’s done her holiday show.”

I do believe that this is the first time Karma has done a media interview about the song since the flurry of media appearances made by The Rad Dudes when the song was first released two decades ago. So big kudos to Martha for a pretty cool music business “scoop” on the song’s twentieth anniversary.

Check out the segment of the show with Martha and Karma on the audio player below!

CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON BELOW TO LISTEN NOW!

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***NEWS FLASH!***

Like Martha, I was also successful in locating Rad Dude Karma Auger! We emailed back and forth and, shortly after Martha’s special aired on XM, I called Karma’s cell. He answered and we spoke for about half an hour……the first time we talked in over nineteen years!

After a bit of OMG’s and nostalgic reminiscing, we decided it would be a cool idea to do an interview. Now, who will interview who is up for grabs at this point, but we’ll connect on SKYPE over the next day or two and just record some great musings and memories about the making of the……dare I say it……holiday classic!

Big shoutout to Martha Quinn for being the catalyst that got me and Karma back in touch after way too many years! Stand by for what just could be the coolest unexpected Christmas interview of the year……when Karma and I recall those crazy, hazy days back in 1988 that culminated with Christmas In Malibu! Coming soon to a browser near you, right here on the New Media Creative blog!

***UPDATE 12/22!***

I am happy to report that Karma and I had a great hour long chat last night. Not only did talk about our recollections of all the madness surrounding the making and promoting of Christmas In Malibu, but covered much more ground in what was really a heartfelt and in-depth talk between a coach and his lead player so many years after the big game! The conversation was really much more about Karma than me, and the vibrant musician, artist, husband and father of two was not in any way at a loss for words no matter what it is we spoke about.

Karma, now 38 years old, has been through a lot and I was left with the impression that he has very much enjoyed all he’s done and experienced in all the years since we worked together. It’s also clear that he’s grown and matured as both an artist and person and, through it all, maintained a very close, positive and production relationship with his father, renowned rock, blues and jazz keyboardist, Brian Auger. Listening to Karma, you really do get the feeling that he is living life to the fullest, and his stories, reflections and insights about the last twenty years are about as interesting as it gets. It’s pretty uplifting and inspirational stuff, and I am sure you will enjoy the musings of this experienced and righteous “old dude.”

Currently, there’s a whole lotta’ editing going on and it’s looking like the talk will probably be cooler to put out there in two, or perhaps three, parts. I hope to release the first installment before Christmas, with the remainder shortly therafter. So, as I have so often said, “Stay tuned……and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

By Joe Klein

It’s beginning to look a lot like…..ruthless self-promotion. Not my intent here, I promise! I’m just reporting the news as it breaks……So here’s more late-breaking news about Christmas in Malibu.

Former MTV veejay MARTHA QUINN, who worked at the music channel with ADAM CURRY in the eighties and early nineties, is featuring the holiday track on a special holiday edition of her XM/Sirius Satellite Radio show MARTHA QUINN PRESENTS GODS OF THE BIG EIGHTIES.

The special is called “MARTHA QUINN’S LIKE, TOTALLY AWESOME RAD HOLIDAY SPECIAL.” According to a post on HER BLOG, Martha tracked down RAD DUDES lead singer KARMA AUGER by contacting his dad, English keyboard player BRIAN AUGER (who achieved legendary status in the sixties and seventies playing with practically every figure in English pop and rock royalty). Brian, in turn, put Martha in touch with Karma, and she goes on to say in her blog that Karma was heading out to Malibu to record an interview about the song. This was news to me, which I only found out about after receiving a Google email alert about the song a couple of days ago that included a link to MARTHA’S WEBSITE.

Martha (in the lower right of the photo) was one of the original crew of five MTV veejays (that also included J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman and Alan Hunter) that were on the music channel for the first several years following it’s launch in July of 1981. Martha remained at the music channel for ten years, departing in 1991 to work on commercial endorsements and other television projects. Eventually she relocated from New York to L.A. and, with guitarist Jordan Tarlowe, had two sons. In 2004, Martha and her family settled down on the shores of Malibu and started her satellite radio show on Sirius in 2005. When she was putting her first Christmas show together that year, she came across Christmas In Malibu online and, remembering the video from her days at MTV, played the song on her show.

Martha did contact me that year and we traded a few old stories from the MTV days and talked about getting together on one of my frequent visits to Malibu, but it never happened. Frankly, I’m ashamed to admit I forgot all about her show for the last couple of years and it was a pleasant surprise to learn that she featured the song on her Christmas shows in 2006 and 2007 and had decided to track down Karma for this year’s Christmas show, which just so happens to coincide with the song’s twentieth anniversary! Now, how cool is that?

Martha’s satellite radio shows had been airing on Sirius Satellite Radio. But recently Sirius merged with XM Satellite Radio and her shows now air on the combined network. The holiday special airs on Saturday, December 20 at 9:00 PM EST (6:00 PM PST) and repeats on Sunday, December 21 at 11:00 AM ET (8:00 AM PST) on XM’s “80’s On 8” channel, which is on channel 8 on XM Radio. The music channel can also be heard by DirecTV subscribers on DirecTV channel 805. (Check the program schedules on XM or SIRIUS websites for air times of Martha’s regularly scheduled 80’s show.)

I really don’t know why, but, for whatever reason, I haven’t spoken to Karma Auger (or the other Rad Dude, “The Wolf”) since The Rad Dudes disbanded in 1989. I’ve emailed Karma and hope to hear back from him and reconnect before Christmas (in Malibu). In any event, I hope you’ll check out Martha’s show this weekend. It should be cool to hear Karma’s recollection of  all the madness that surrounded the song twenty years ago!

Check back for updates. Rest assured that any further posts about Christmas In Malibu will be limited to a report on contact with Karma or an audio excerpt from Martha’s show with the song and her Karma Auger interview. Unless, of course, something else happens that may be newsworthy!

By Joe Klein

I always knew that Christmas In Malibu was not your average holiday toonage and did feel that the song could become some sort of cult favorite one day, once it got out there. Well, as fate would have it, the song did get out there twenty years ago. But, at that time, Christmas In Malibu seemed to be embraced by the masses as a mainstream kind of holiday hit on radio and the major video channels that existed back then. I remember it almost always brought a smile to the face of whoever was listening to the song or watching the video.

When the song faded from view back in the mid-nineties, I didn’t have any expectations one way or another about it’s future. I was just happy that the first song I ever wrote got made into a pretty cool record which got played on the radio and MTV.

After all, isn’t that the dream of most songwriters, artists and record producers? It was a sweet “dream come true” for me, because I had never been lucky enough to have recorded a “hit” record before.

When I got back into media back in 2005 with the launch of The Podcast Voice Guys, I just thought it would be cool to post Christmas In Malibu on the new PODSAFE MUSIC NETWORK launched by Adam Curry’s Podshow Network and then see what, if anything happened. This was just before YouTube hit the scene. Much to my surprise the song got played on a whole bunch of podcasts that year, including Curry’s own very popular show, THE DAILY SOURCE CODE. Maybe it wasn’t back on the radio, but Christmas In Malibu was back, just the same.

The following year, 2006, is when I made the deal with IODA to distribute the song commercially online and then posted it on YouTube and a few other new viral video sites. The song, and now the video, got a whole lot more play in that year than in 2005, thanks in a big part to the viral video revolution. Last year saw even more of the same, and the video started showing up in all sorts of bizarre places. Embedding videos into blogs became all the rage in 2007, and Christmas In Malibu started popping up on all sorts of surfing, snowboarding and other action sports blogs in addition to music and holiday oriented sites.

This year, the fascination with the little offbeat holiday trinket continues and the song has been appearing in all sorts of crazy places. Recently the very popular skate and surf blog BOARDISTAN featured the music video. Then a blog called ACTION SPORTS BLIPS picked up the post from Boardistan, and late last week the FUEL TV EDITOR’S BLOG embedded the video as well.

So I guess it comes as no surprise that my friend and former agent, ARTIE WAYNE, who recently added the video to his widely-circulated 99 CHRISTMAS MUSIC VIDEOS list, labeled Christmas In Malibu a “Certified Cult Classic” in an ARTICLE POSTED ON HIS BLOG earlier this week.

Okay it may be a bit of a stretch, and Artie admittedly has been known to get a bit over-zealous about projects he supports, but, hey, when a music video like this gets featured on extreme sports sites alongside head-banging heavy-metal skate videos, cult status seems to be appropriate, or, at the least, worth considering.

Like I said, I always thought that Christmas In Malibu could be a cult favorite, so getting anointed as a cult classic by a long time colleague and supporter is something I can live with. Besides, it’s all in the spirit of the season and good fun that has surrounded the project for the last two decades.

Surf’s up, dudes! HO! HO! HO!

 

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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