Sharing the Gig Love Interviews, How-Tos,and more

As a followup to Carlos Correal’s part 1 interview, we learn a little more about how Carlos originally found the artists that made him so successful. His key to success: using every resource he had to figure out who was going to be the next big hit and bring them to Montreal for big events. But he didn’t stop there, he went on to create a record label and collaborations with various artists. This section finishes with Carlos’ interesting theory involving drugs, talented artists and music.  Here it is:

HUNTING IN NYC

So I am doing my Billion Dollar Boy gay events and my Michino techno events at Sona. I am one guy doing major gay events and major techno events. ..And on top, while doing my techno events I got involved with DJ Nivoc;  we got together and started 2 techno labels by the name of Ascend Records and Default Records. We were initially distributed by Prime in the UK until they went bankrupt. And we weren’t really happy with the work. They were charging us a lot of money for manufacturing the vinyls. So we switched to Neuton which was based in Frankfurt. All along we were so obsessed with sound that the mastering of every track, every vinyl ,  we would do it in Exchange in London.

Baris: So what is the date now?

For the record labels, it was 1995-1996.

Between 1994 and 1998, I was working on the gay events but stopped them after I did this huge event called Hot n Dry. I worked with Bad Boy Club, the biggest gay event organizers in Canada at the time. They do the Black and Blue. They approached me to do an event with them and I created the whole artistic direction, from the name to the marketing.

As for Hot ‘n Dry at Metropolis, I brought Peter Rauhofer to Canada. That was really my main thing – bringing in the new acts to a market ended up being a big help in my career. I was lucky to have a talent for knowing who was going to be the next big thing.

To find the next big artists, I would spend almost every weekend in New York going out to Roxy, to Tunnel, to Limelight, to Sound Factory, to really get to see who was playing there and who was good.

Usually I would approach the artists and just ask, “What’s your name?”

They would say, ” I am Peter Rauhofer”, or “I am Victor Calderone“,  ”I am Robbie Tronco, I’m the one that did Fright Train”. Of course I’d be like “oooh my god, I want you in Montreal.”

In those years it was very easy. There was no agencies, nothing like that. You were dealing directly with the artist.

Baris: But you had a lot of work to do on your own, right? You had to literally show up in those clubs and try to discover the artists, or somebody would give you a tip, you now “this guy is really good, I watched him play, it was a blast”

It was a mix, for example I was talking to the producer Welcome in CT. He was giving me info on what was coming up. Like what was going to be the next big thing. He really helped me out with that. In addition, I was going to NY and really finding out who was there, who was playing, who was on the fliers, and everything.

Baris: So was NY more advanced when it came to the club scene?

Yes, and you have to understand that Montreal has always been a house music city like NY in those days but things are very diverse now – minimal house, minimal techno, electro and everything. In those years everything was house music.  So whatever worked in NY I knew would work in Montreal.

Baris: Got it.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

When I did that big show, Hot’n Dry, I had tears in my eyes. It was a classic, any gay person who was at that party would remember that party for the rest of their life and that was my last gay event. After that I said “no more…I am going to focus on electronic techno music”. This is when I started my label and started putting all my focus on techno.

With the record labels it was great because we started selling licenses to Paul Van Dyk, to John Digweed, to Sasha. There was a lot of momentum. The reason why I stopped the record label was the same reason why everybody else stopped – there was no revenue to be made.

At my age, if I would have been smarter,  I would have created a booking agency because some of the artists we had, like Jörg Henze and Oliver Lieb, which were insanely popular in those years. We would have made good revenue by starting a booking agency, a little bit like Mark Knight with Toolroom Nights. They are a record label, a management Company and a booking agency as well. A 1 stop shop, they do everything.

Baris: At that time, I understand that agencies were not as prevalent as they are today?

Right

Baris: So is this why you did not wake up to that opportunity?

Exactly. We were too young.  And when we started doing those techno events, I partnered up with a famous painter named Carlito Dalceggio.  He actually ended up doing all the private events of Cirque de Soleil worldwide and moved to Paris to do Loreal high fashion events. He was also doing all the events for Marlboro in Russia with like $2M or more budgets.

NEXT DRUG, NEXT REVOLUTION

Carlito and I started doing events together at a really young age. We were going after the Burning Man at the Nevada desert every year, we were hiring artists from the Burning Man and we created the concept in Montreal for the Jazz festival called Circo de Bakuza – it was so huge that we made a clubbing version of it at Sona called Free Bamboo Butterfly. Every flier for the Butterfly became a collector’s item because they were designed by Carlito Dalceggio. They are like a painting in your hands and they are complete insanity.

Those parties, I am not going to go into much detail but those parties were pretty decadent. You have to remember that in those years, sex was a high content of those events. Now you go to those events and they are like rock concerts, people come and don’t even dance. They are with their phones filming the show, then they put it on youtube, facebook and everything, but in those years people would go out to fucking party and go crazy.

Also, people don’t do as much drugs anymore it is a totally different concept. In those years, we were…pretty crazy. And the whole world was going crazy as well. It was a big revolution and we were a part of it.

Baris: So you are saying that the scene has changed dramatically. Is it because it became more mainstream and start drawing a broader audience?

Whatever becomes more mainstream goes through that phase. When Jazz started many of those composers were taking heroine. Like I always say, musical genres are born with a drug and die with it.

Baris: I will quote you on that. That is really interesting and I definitely agree with you.

I mean look at the history, Jazz came with heroine, Rock came with old pills, tranquilizers, pyschadelic rock came with acid, you had disco with cocaine, and you had electronic music with ecstasy. The question is what is next?

I just cannot wait to see what’s going to be the next? The next revolution and the next drug.

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3. Interview: Opium Group’s Carlos Correal Part 3 Here it is. Part three of our interview with Carlos...

Tags: Carlito Dalceggio, Carlos Correal, Circo de Bakuza, electronic dance music, Event marketing, Opium Group, Peter Rauhofer, Promoting gigs, Robbie Tronco, Sona