Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 22, 1993 TAG: 9306220143
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Skip Brown is all business.
When a band comes in, he doesn't want to hear its music.
Not at first anyhow.
First, he wants to know if the group is organized.
Does it have a lawyer? An accountant? Money in the bank?
Does it have a marketing plan?
Then he sits the band down and completely shatters the illusion: Its chances of making it, he says, are slim at the very, very best. It doesn't matter how talented the group might be.
Welcome to the ugly side of the music business - the side Skip Browns calls reality.
But he offers no apologies.
To promise the world to an eager band that buys into the myth of the overnight sensation is wrong, says Brown, who has opened Roanoke's newest recording studio.
"It just doesn't work that way."
Not anymore. nn
Brown, 45, knows from experience.
Thirty years ago in Fairfield, Conn., Brown and his high school garage band, The Mojos, were the overnight sensation.
Of course, the music business was much different then. "If you sounded good, that was it," Brown said.
You could get signed.
The Mojos sounded good.
Formed in 1962, the group played the R&B of the day until the Beatles hit. Then the group tried to sound like the Beatles.
Even then, Brown was obsessed.
"We practiced every day in my mother's basement," Brown said. "My mother made dinner every night with this huge noise seven feet below her."
The Mojos played fraternity parties around the region and the band was signed by Columbia Records in New York. Columbia sent the band into the studio with one of its staff record producers.
Brown remembers well how antiquated the studio was. Surveying his own Awakened Studio in Roanoke, Brown says it is astonishing how far he has come.
"It was low-low tech."
The Mojos recorded on four-track, two tracks for the music and two for the vocals. "Which at the time was considered pretty hip," he said.
The tape recorder was "this big old clunky" thing. The mixing board "had these four-inch rotary knobs with a little pointer on them."
Worlds away from the digital wizardry of today. "The technology is just awesome going back five years - let alone 20 or 25," Brown said. nn
One thing hasn't changed, though. The thrill of hearing your song for the first time on the radio is the same, he says.
The first time The Mojos got air play in Fairfield was a Sunday night. Brown and his band mates and their friends were at church at a youth fellowship meeting.
He says they all gathered in the church parking lot and hovered around someone's car radio, waiting. Then the station played it, The Mojos' first single, "I Like It."
"Everybody went nuts. It was just incredible."
Indeed, Brown says that, back then, nobody had a record, compared to now when it seems that nearly every garage band around has some sort of basement tape to peddle.
It also was unusual just to be in a band. "There were only two bands in the whole town. It wasn't like today where there's a band on every corner."
When WABC in New York played the single, too, it became official. The Mojos had arrived. "That was kind of the certification," Brown said.
Columbia hoped for a national sensation. A promotional campaign was launched. "They made stand-up, life-size cutouts of all of us."
The Mojos stayed with Columbia for five years and recorded a half-dozen singles, but never made it bigger than regional darlings. nn
Still, Brown earned enough money from the band to pay for his first year of college and buy a used Ford Falcon station wagon.
The son of a dentist, Brown came south to attend High Point College in High Point, N.C.
In college, music remained a focal point. Brown played six nights a week in a jazz band all during school.
He also got married. After graduation, he joined the Marines. Then he worked as a controller for Sears, coming to Roanoke in 1973.
For 10 years, he stopped playing music altogether, as the demands of a career and a family took priority. "I put the guitar in my attic," he said.
That changed at a Christmas party where he met Christopher Luteman. They got to talking about music. They wrote down 200 songs that they both knew. They jammed some. Three weeks later, they rented time in a studio.
"The recording obsession started."
Brown bought a four-track home recorder. The pair did some recordings in his garage. "Some of the absolute worst music you can possibly imagine."
He upgraded to an eight-track. He bought a better mixing board to match. It began to snowball. "Eight years later, you see where it's taken us." nn
Brown works as a stockbroker at J.C. Bradford & Co., but his passion lies with his Awakened Studio, which is fully out of his garage now and located at 402 Campbell Ave. It is capable of recording both completely digital or on 24-track analog with Dolby-S.
It has cost him about $250,000.
"You can look at the equipment here and tell it's no amateur hour."
As a result, Brown is able to lease the studio to outside record producers and engineers.
The studio also is home to Computer Video Services, a video production and computer animation company, and Digital Concepts, a radio and television advertising service.
Brown is working with about a half-dozen bands or solo musicians. All of them play what he calls "positive, ethical music." Brown is not looking for the next Nirvana.
He is no less ambitious, however. Even though he is at first discouraging with musicians about their chances of success, Brown is hopeful that they will go somewhere in the end.
His most recent project has been with a Christian rock band, Broken Silence, from Greensboro, N.C. Brown recently recorded the band's debut album.
He likes the group's music, but just as importantly, he likes its attitude. "These guys are dead solid serious about what they're doing," he said.
So many other bands aren't.
They aren't willing to work. They aren't organized. And they are lost inside a studio where there is so much over-dubbing and playing separately from the band.
"I've had bands where you split them up and they can't keep the beat." nn
With Broken Silence, he was impressed right away with the demo tape the group sent him. "They were ready. Their four-track was rough, to say the least, but it was obvious they were well-rehearsed."
From the start, Brown and the band worked out a business plan. The goal was to open for a major label act within a year and then hope for a major label to take an interest.
They went over business cards. "You can't be booked unless someone know how to get in touch with you," Brown said.
There were capital expenditures. The band bought a truck and started its own newsletter. Computer Video Services has shot a video for the group.
"It's just like a business," Brown said. "You've got to run it like a business."
Or rather, the band does.
Brown doesn't manage Broken Silence or any of his other acts. He says he is more like a consultant. "My goal is not to own a piece of anybody's action."
He also says he can only help them so much. He doesn't have the bankroll to compete with the major labels for advertising and air play. Nor is he well-connected.
His role is to offer guidance. The rest is up to the band. "The burden of the responsibility is squarely on their shoulders," he said.
At the same time, Brown doesn't abandon his groups, either, once the studio work is over.
He does, in fact, have an agent in Nashville who pitches his people to the majors.
In addition, the studio time itself is invaluable. Brown gave Broken Silence almost unlimited recording time, a luxury most new bands can't afford when renting studio space by the hour.
"You spend more time watching the clock than your guitar strings," he said. nn
Members of Broken Silence naturally sing Brown's praises.
They all had dreamed once of becoming rock stars, they said. Now, after Brown's warnings, none is ready yet to give up his day job.
If nothing else, they have become realists.
"We never really pictured it being a business with finances and all, not at this level," said David Barksdale, the band's drummer.
Still, he says the group is excited about the release of its CD and video. And with Brown's continued guidance, the band members believe for the first time that they are on the right track.
"We're beginning to understand that it is possible," Barksdale said, "but it's a lot of work."
by CNB