Session Transcript:
Michael Mayer
Red Bull Music Academy, Rome 2004

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

Direct from the pastel streets of Cologne, where the people are, in the words of Tobias Thomas, "passionate with a touch of melancholy". He’s Kompakt Techno empire posterboy, Michael Mayer. In Rome, Michael gave tips for running a respected record label/distribution company. It’s all about teamwork. Showcasing the range and depth of Kompakt material, Mayer played everything from an ambient track that sounds like the feeling of being stranded in a Newark bus depot in the dead of winter, to Profan’s reduced polka funk, to Wolfgang Voigts’s Gary Glitter shuffle beats.

RBMA: »Yeah, would you please welcome Michael Mayer (applause). So, tell us a bit about the last three or four days.«

Michael Mayer: »Well, I was touring in Italy, Torino, 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.«

RBMA: »What do you usually do on a Monday?«

Michael Mayer: »Usually, I don’t sleep enough, so Monday is always a tough day. It’s the transition from weekend to weekdays. Monday is the most important day for distribution life. Monday is the day when new records are released. So this is the main fighting day.«

RBMA: »So hang on, you’re too busy DJing all weekend, and then you’ve got nothing better to do than working on distribution on Monday?«

Michael Mayer: »That’s right.«

RBMA: »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: »Or Kompakt (uses the German pronunciation). Kompakt started as a record shop in 1993, and in 1998 we decided to remodel the company. Because the record store was called Delirium, we had labels like DJungle Fever, Forever Sweet, Profan, NTA, the parties were called Friend’s Experiment. And we felt that it was better to use one name for all of it. 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 labels from all over the place. Everything: mostly electronic stuff, techno-related things.«

RBMA: »And feedback, and ooh. Who is “we”, as a start?«

Michael Mayer: »OK, we: Kompakt consists of three people, it’s Wolfgang Voigt, who some of you maybe know as Mike Ink, he’s a quite famous acid producer. Juergen Paape who takes care of the shop mainly, and myself. Apart from this, we have 17 people working there altogether. The distribution, the shop and the label.«

RBMA: »So that’s all fulltime people, and the three of you?«

Michael Mayer: »Yeah.«

RBMA: »That’s a bit of responsibility, isn’t it, to show up on the Monday morning?«

Michael Mayer: »(laughing) Yeah, it is. No, but everything developed in a very organic, slow way. We started with the record shop, which was a very small record shop. We never rushed things, we just grew in a very organic way. Now we are there and we don’t plan to grow much further. I think 17, or maybe 20 people is the perfect size for a company. Anything more would be too much maybe, because it gets too impersonal.«

RBMA: »And how do you go with it, how many demos do you receive every week?«

Michael Mayer: »Quite a lot. Should be about 50 to 100.«

RBMA: »And what’s the process of choosing them?«

Michael Mayer: »Well, you listen to them, concentrating. We listen to every demo we receive. Mostly I do it together with my partner Wolfgang. We discuss the music, if we like it or not. It’s more like a very instant, instinctive decision. Something has to catch our attraction. We have to feel the person behind the music. There has to be some unique thing. We don’t like people that copy other people’s music. We want original music. There has to be, like a special handwriting. Then we would put it out.«

RBMA: »And what about all the older labels? As they used to be? I mean, like Profan, and so on and so on, and Studio 1 and all these things? What’s the story behind them?«

Michael Mayer: »Profan was a very experimental label. The idea behind Profan was basically to invent new grooves. It’s all basically techno, but especially Wolfgang was experimenting a lot with grooves. I’m going to play something on Profan. Wolfgang’s a pioneer for different techno, alternative techno. It doesn’t sound like Detroit or Chicago. It’s a very particular groove. He was experimenting a lot with folk music, with classic German folk music, like Polka, and stuff like this. He tries to integrate this into techno, and the results sound like this.«

(music: Wolfgang Voigt - unknown)

»So this is very characteristic of Cologne techno, it’s very stripped down, very reduced. And the groove is quite square. It’s not very, ahh…«

RBMA: »You mean, it lacks a certain element offFunk, or...?«

Michael Mayer: »No, I think it’s very funky, but it’s a square wave, it’s not…«

RBMA: »It’s a square dance!«

(Michael plays another record by Wolfgang Voigt, with a loud 303 acid bassline)

Michael Mayer: »This one is from 1994. It’s a classic. This is very old, as I said, it’s ten years old.«

RBMA: »When do you get the best reactions to that kind of stuff?«

Michael Mayer: »Mostly everywhere! It’s not a big scene, but you find people who love this kind of music in almost every country. So it’s growing, it’s getting bigger and bigger, but it’s still a very small market. Very, very underground. I’ll show you something else, this is called ‘schaffel’. It’s based on a four to the floor beat, but the pronunciation is different. It goes like this.«

(Michael plays a tune from Kompakt records, with the triplet-emphasised shuffle beat)

»You see this is techno, but it’s different, the groove is not straight, it’s very inspired by glam rock music, things like T.Rex or Gary Glitter. It takes this rhythm and combines it with normal techno elements. It’s kind of a relief after you’ve been in the club and you’ve heard 6 hours of straight 4/4 Techno, and you drop a 'schaffel' track. You can literally see how the people breathe and they start moving, they dance in a different way.«

RBMA: »What’s a schaffel dance?«

Michael Mayer: »It’s more like your knees. Your knees and your shoulders.«

RBMA: »Can you show it?«

Michael Mayer: »No (laughs)!«

RBMA: »Come on.«

(audience cheers and claps)

Michael Mayer: »Well, some people play air guitar to these kind of sounds. Everything is allowed! So it’s alternative. It’s different.«

RBMA: »When you go on and produce something, how does the track qualify as schaffel?«

>Michael Mayer: »Schaffel is a rhythmic pronunciation.«

RBMA: »A certain swing factor, or quantization?«

Michael Mayer: »It’s the 'ga-duk ga-duk ga-duk'. It’s like riding a horse! It’s this kind of gallop move.«

RBMA: »So, who came up with the horse thing then?«

Michael Mayer: »That was Wolfgang. He loves these kinds of things. He was a big fan, when he was a kid, of T.Rex. And he’s been doing schaffel techno since 1991. Because he loves this groove. And in the first years everybody was kind of laughing at him. “This is crazy shit, you can’t play that.” But over the years he developed the style, and now it’s pretty common. From all the demos we receive, over half of them are schaffel. Yeah, it seems like it’s really blowing up now.«

RBMA: »If you put a lot of these smaller markets together it’s still feasible enough to support people then is it? I mean, or is 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 that’s fine, but then you 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.«

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

Michael Mayer: »It’s just because I enjoy every part of my work. Since I was a kid I’ve wanted to do this, to make music and to DJ. DJing was my first love, I think I will never stop with this. The distribution, it’s like an unexpected child, it happened, and it’s good that it’s there. And producing something, which is my latest, my youngest love. I started quite late. I started in 1996, to do my own records. Before that I thought, that it was enough to be a DJ. It was two different things, producer and DJ.«

Participant: »Earlier on you spoke about receiving demos? [What are] your tips for us as producers, on sending demos, potentially to Kompakt or to any label? I know that one of the things they say you should do is to keep the tracks, obviously don’t put too many tracks on the demo. What sort of art; should you put artwork? Any tips that you could say?«

Michael Mayer: »Well, what you said is right, don’t put too many tracks on the demo. Choose the three or four ones that you’re absolutely convinced with, and don’t add all your 'lebenslauf' [resume], you don’t need to add a picture or anything like this. Just take your most beautiful tracks and send it. Artwork is very welcome. This guy here, the CD he sent (holds up a record), it looked exactly like this. There was this nice drawing on the CD. So, of course, it catches your attention. But it’s not necessary. It can be only a blank CD – well, with your email address on it. That’s the most important thing.«

RBMA: »And then, of course, hassle you every day: “Have you listened to it, have you listened to it?”«

Michael Mayer: »Mm, hmm (laughs). No, that’s not a good idea.«

Participant: »You mean should you follow up? Or rather just let the weight of the music potentially get response? Let’s say I sent a track to a label and I think it really fits that kind of sound. Should I send a [follow up email]? Or let things be?«

Michael Mayer: »Unfortunately, we can’t answer every demo because it’s 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, and you can call them up: “Hey, did you receive it?” Just to be sure about that. But you shouldn’t bother them every day (smiles).«

Participant: »No, definitely not (laughs).«

Brendan M Gillen: »OK, I’d really like to hear some stories of when it was like, Wolfgang and Khan and Walker, and the Cologne acid days. Like, before Profan, you know?«

Michael Mayer: »Woah, it’s a long time ago (laughs).«

Brendan M Gillen: »Of course! But it’s of course, the roots, you know? And I have absolutely no idea, I wasn’t there of course, I never got to see it. But we love the records. It was kind of like this magic time, it was so loose. It was a totally different type of acid. It wasn’t like Chicago, it was so much more rock. But it wasn’t like rock in a lame way. It was sleazy and free at the same time, it was very special.«

Michael Mayer: »Well, those days were very hard 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 the Liquid Sky club, which was like a bar, with sofas, and not a big soundsystem. And it was the only place where you could play this kind of music. It was like a huge living room. And people didn’t believe, you know, that Cologne was like an epicenter for acid and techno, and there was no club. It was bizarre, so everybody was hanging around on the sofas in the club, like this (waves his hand at the Academy lecture room where everyone is laying back on cushions). And waiting for something to happen. Finally, now we have a lot of clubs. This problem’s solved. It was a funny time. There was a studio in the basement of the Liquid Sky. It was an old bowling place. And this is where Dr. Walker had his amazing studio. He was collecting rare synthesizers. He had 300 different kinds of super rare, experimental equipment.«

Brendan M Gillen: »I mean, his vision was so clear, you know? After a while you do have to kind of stop, to get a new vision.«

Michael Mayer: »But I’m very curious what he will do now.«

Brendan M Gillen: »Me too! But you probably more because you work with him. But earlier you said that the Cologne sound, it didn’t have, it wasn’t like Detroit, or Chicago. But I mean, I think that it draws a lot from Chicago jack tracks. And a lot from Rob Hood and Dan Bell. And also from Berlin: Basic Channel. There’s like a lot of Basic Channel in those Studio 1 records. To me. You don’t think so?«

Michael Mayer: »No, I don’t think so.«

RBMA: »Uh, oh. Pandora’s box is opened (laughter).«

Brendan M Gillen: »It’s just what I hear.«

Michael Mayer: »Basic Channel is dub, and Studio 1 is not dub at all. It’s totally dry.«

Brendan M Gillen: »It’s more sober or something, but it’s still got a similar feel, it’s not an alien feel.«

Michael Mayer: »Regarding Chicago, DJ Pierre, his [influence], it’s clear. If he hadn’t done these records, I wouldn’t sit here on the sofa. Mike Ink would have never done acid tracks, it’s clear. But what I meant was, we didn’t want to copy, we wanted to add something, something particular.«

Brendan M Gillen: »I think that goal’s definitely been accomplished. Because it does end up now like a unique take on it. There was a time period when I felt like techno was going to totally die and never come back. Because it had just become like this rave oblivion. For me, for 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 it has the glam rock beats so it appeals to so many different people. The different times, it’s not just like straight 16th's and of course all the waltz beats, 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? 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 had the Chicago guys and the Detroit guys doing their thing, but 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. The Paxahau guys.«

Brendan M Gillen (Ectomorph): » Yeah well, they’re moving to Berlin, so like: “Paxahau are relocating to Berlin in spring 2005.” Yeah, they’re very advanced in their promotion of themselves! But yeah, they’re the people that kept alive the type of vibe that you guys are doing. The original Detroit, I call them rave parties. I mean, people get offended by the word rave, but they were. And the parties that Richie Hawtin threw, that paid so much attention to production values. The soundsystem 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 kind of like this feedback you get when it’s rocking. And your night was definitely hot.«

RBMA: »Earlier on you were talking about the social institution. Do you find these trustworthy accountants within that scene, or do you have to look outside for them?«

Michael Mayer: »They’re all autodidacts. They’re all not from business schools. Almost everybody who’s working at Kompakt is a friend. We employ people – we find them at the bar (laughter). Suddenly you’re wondering: "Oh, what do you do? I’ve known you for three years, you’re always here in this club, what are you doing?" “Oh actually, I don’t have a job.” "Ok, what can you do, what’s your profession?" “I’m this and that,” and suddenly this person starts working for you and the decision is a very personal decision. It’s not because he has a list of references or anything like this. We employ people that are loyal. People that we think are loyal and we can get along with very well. You need this family atmosphere at Kompakt, otherwise I think it wouldn’t work.«

RBMA: »But, when you say you think they are loyal; in an ideal scenario, people like to work with their friends, but when there’s something going wrong, how hard is it to get back on track without ruining friendships for example?«

Michael Mayer: »Well, at this point, (raps his knuckles on the table three times) I knock on wood. I think we were very, very lucky with the people we chose. We never had a serious problem.«

RBMA: »Just one merry bunch (laughter).«

Michael Mayer: »I think it’s like with every country, I think every country wants to add to the whole thing. We don’t want to be alone with our music. So it’s great when there’s suddenly somebody from Buenos Aires sending you tracks. OK, they 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 you do weird, minimal stuff, and there’s a certain sound of Montreal. Like Akufen and these guys, they edit something, it sounds like it’s from Montreal. So it’s cool.«