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Photo by Thomas Jack

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Save Club Mezzanine: Inside The Efforts To Rescue San Francisco's Iconic Music Venue

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A major rent hike could force the Western SoMa nightclub to close down in October; here's a look at how its owner and city officials are attempting to save it
Tamara Palmer
GRAMMYs
Jul 26, 2019 - 1:21 pm

Concert and club venue Mezzanine has been a pillar of San Francisco nightlife for nearly 16 years, but, due to a 600% rent increase from the building's owner, its days of showcasing underground talent and GRAMMY winners alike may be sadly numbered. As it currently stands, the beloved venue is projected to shut down in October of this year. Remarkably, though, officials at San Francisco City Hall are helping to fight for its survival.

"Mezzanine is one of our only medium-size concert venues," San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney told SF Weekly last month when he introduced legislation that could protect the future of the business. "It’s woman-owned, and I think it has an incredibly important role in our community as providing a space for the LGBT community, and for local acts. There's rightfully a lot of fear and outright anger that it would be shut down."

Speaking to the Recording Academy, Haney’s legislative aide Honey Mahogany elaborated on Mezzanine’s vital role in the LGBTQ community.

"Mezzanine is an incredibly important venue for San Francisco," Mahogany said. "San Francisco's entertainment real estate is pretty tight, especially when it comes to LGBT[Q] venues. When queer parties get a little too big for their home bars—I’m thinking of parties like Honey Soundsystem, Hard French [and] Swagger Like Us—Mezzanine has been a good next step helping queer promoters to expand their audiences, bring in bigger artists and generally continue to provide creative and fun nightlife experiences for diverse communities."

Haney's proposed legislation would give entertainment venues in his district (Western SoMa) an 18-month buffer should a landlord try to push out tenants and obtain a change of use permit to convert into office space, which is what building owners Dave and Todd Chritton plan to do with the space that is rented by Mezzanine come October. After the lease was set to expire, the brothers had proposed a rent hike from the current $10,000 per month to $60,000 per month, which owner Deborah Jackman can’t weather on her own. (The Chrittons could not be reached for comment.)

The brothers made the announcement that the Chritton family’s 54-year-old security company Microbiz would be taking the space only after Jackman had thought that they'd agree to a three-month lease extension so that all of the events that had been booked in good faith through New Year’s Eve could go ahead as planned.

Microbiz "will be taking over the entire building as of October 11, 2019—ensuring their legacy in the Northern California marketplace," reads a release sent to SF Weekly. "It was their parents' wish that someday Microbiz would occupy the entire building."

If approved, Supervisor Haney's legislation would at least buy Mezzanine some more time to try and negotiate a new lease with the building owners to preserve one of San Francisco's nightlife cornerstones, or a fighting chance to relocate.

"I don’t anticipate any opposition from the Board on this legislation," Mahogany said. "Our colleagues have expressed support."

"I don't think it would be great," Maggie Weiland, the executive director of San Francisco Entertainment Commission, said of the potential impact of Mezzanine's closure on the city. "I don't think that we would be pleased with another venue that provides live music to go away and to turn into another use such as office space. [Mezzanine] is an asset to San Francisco, a very valuable venue that has been around for 16 years. Personally, I would be very sad; I've been going there since I was 21. But also just on a professional level, it’s not a great storyline for our city."

Deborah Jackman was more into bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish when she became manager of Mezzanine in 2008 after relocating from New York City, where she had been opening restaurants, bars and venues for 17 years.

"I moved out here thinking, 'Oh, I’ll get a job running the Fillmore' and found out very quickly that the people that hold those positions in San Francisco, they either retire or die," Jackmain explained. "No one is just leaving a general manager position at the Warfield or the Fillmore or one of those legendary venues that an out-of-state person would think of when they think of San Francisco. So I lucked out when I got the call from Mezzanine that they wanted to meet me."

She's now been the owner of Mezzanine for seven years and credits her time there for opening up her mind to much broader sonic horizons. Her musical highlights from the past 11 years inside the venue are numerous and colorful.

"The most obvious [performance] that sticks out is Lady Gaga," Jackman says, remembering a fond Mezzanine moment. "My first year there we had her it sold out in five minutes of course, and we added a second show the same night and I had no idea who she was. Most average people didn't know who she was, at that time she had a cult following. And I remember seeing the first show and calling my husband and saying, 'You need to get down here and see the second show! This is the real deal, Holy Moses, she is the new Madonna.’ That was just an amazing moment having her, and then three months later she sold out Madison Square Garden; it was that quick of a turnaround for her.

"One of my other favorite memories is, we were having a fundraiser for Save the Waves—they do yearly fundraisers helping to save the ocean —and they had a couple local bands playing,” she added. "One of the bands happened to be friends with the guys with Green Day. Billie Joe [Armstrong] called up this guy and said, 'What are you doing tonight?' And the guys said, ‘Oh, I’m playing a gig at Mezzanine for Save the Waves Foundation,’ and Billie Joe said, ‘Oh, can we come play?’ Somebody called me at four in the afternoon, the event was at seven or eight, and said, ‘Hey, is it okay if Green Day plays tonight?’ I was thinking they would show up and play a song or two. They ended up playing a full hour-plus set of their greatest hits to 600 people. It was just insane! It was rock-and-roll at its most organic and raw form."

She's also gotten a crash course in rising superstar DJs: "Diplo and Tiesto, Skrillex [are] DJs that played Mezzanine so many times. Now they have residencies in Vegas and are paid millions of dollars, and it’s like, ‘Oh, he used to play at Mezzanine.’ One Coachella weekend, we had Florence & The Machine and Major Lazer back-to-back Friday and Saturday nights the year Florence & The Machine ended up winning a GRAMMY for Best New Artist [2011]. Again, it was so easy to recognize the greatness that was on our stage. It was like, ‘This is the real deal!'"

In 2015, Mezzanine’s original owner Patrick McNerney told Jackman, "This has become your baby and you've been running it autonomously for so many years now. I don't even know the people who work there anymore and I just feel like you should be the owner,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, okay!’ So we worked up a deal and he transferred ownership to me and in October of 2015 I went from the GM to the owner which was also amazing. Not only was it a dream come true, but to be the only independent venue owned by a female in San Francisco of this size, I am really proud."

Jackman is prepared to give that up for the future of the venue. When the building owners decided not to renew the lease, Jackman came to the negotiating table with a strong potential partner: Another Planet, the 16-year-old independent and local concert and production company behind Outside Lands and Treasure Island Music Festival. Another Planet already operates Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and The Independent in San Francisco, Fox Theater in Oakland and Greek Theatre in Berkeley.

"They want to come and basically co-own Mezzanine with me, which would allow us to pay the much higher rent that they want," Jackman said. "Again, it’s their right to raise the rent after 20 years to closer to market value. It’s just out of my range as an independent owner with no million dollar trust fund."

The Another Planet business model addressed one of the owners' parents’ original worries.

"The owners, one of their concerns when Pat [McNerney] sold me the business was, well, I’m not a multimillionaire with four homes and all this stuff that Pat had, so this gives them the assurance that there is a bigger entity behind the company and I would still be there as the managing partner. They would keep my whole staff, Mezzanine would continue running as if nothing ever changed, except for the fact that there would be some improvements and Another Planet would be booking it. So that is the dream solution, and [the owners] were open to discussions as far as we knew and they were very excited about Another Planet until May 1, when they just pulled the rug out from under us and said, ‘We’re not giving you your extension and we’re not interested in talking further with Another Planet.'"

“It’s hard to get into [the owners’] heads and it’s been a challenging experience for Deb especially because she’s given hope by the landlord and then it’s squashed, and then she’s given hope again, and then it’s squashed again,” Weiland said. “So I don't see a lot of room for trust personally, and I think that’s why the city is taking this stance that we are out there saying that this is a valuable venue... We want it to stay and we’ll do whatever we can in our policy-making abilities to help protect it.

"I commend Deb for keeping a positive attitude throughout this process and essentially getting super-creative and scrappy and trying to find ways in which to remain," Weiland continued. "I think reaching out to Another Planet and coming up with that plan was really incredible and I think that could essentially be the hook. I would hope that they would take that offer seriously because they’d make an amazing tenant and could help the venue survive."

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will vote on Supervisor Haney’s legislation on July 29.

Purple Pam Foundation Honors DJ Pam The Funkstress With Scholarship Contest

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SFJAZZ Center's Miner Auditorium

Photo by Tim Griffiths

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How SFJAZZ Center Established Itself As A Cultural Force In San Francisco

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After finding a permanent home in Hayes Valley, SFJAZZ Center has changed the way people think about jazz
Lily O'Brien
GRAMMYs
Aug 1, 2019 - 1:54 pm

When the SFJAZZ Center opened its doors in January of 2013, in the heart of San Francisco’s cultural district, it made a huge impact. Now recognized nationwide as a premier center for jazz, it has totally changed the cultural landscape of the city, and has established jazz as an essential, significant and legitimate art form. In addition to almost 500 shows a year by local and worldwide jazz luminaries, SFJAZZ offers extensive educational outreach, training, activities and performing programs for young musicians.

"We have helped put jazz on a similar level to the fine arts around us, so people talk about SFJAZZ in the same way they talk about the ballet or the opera," said SFJAZZ Founder and Executive Artistic Director Randall Kline, as we chatted in his office. Using the San Francisco Symphony as their model nonprofit, Kline had considered that, "If they could do that for symphonic music, why couldn't somebody do that with jazz?  And now after six plus years in this building, we are considered a cultural institution and a vibrant one."

Kline, who grew up in Massachusetts, originally aspired to be a professional string bass player. He moved to San Francisco in 1975, and began producing concerts and working at various clubs, eventually forming his own marketing and publicity company. Fortuitously, he hooked up with the City of San Francisco's arts granting program, Grants for the Arts for the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, that was interested in promoting jazz, and in 1982, Jazz in the City was launched. A series of jazz concerts in small venues around the city, it became incredibly popular, doubling and tripling in size every year.

"I had a marketing and publicity business for the arts, Kline & Associates," said Kline. "But after six years, I had to make a decision, because Jazz in the City was growing and growing and it was going to be impossible to do both." Following his heart, Kline chose the non-profit path. 

Although the series did not initially do well, through hard work and careful programming, Kline worked out the kinks. By the early '90s, the series started getting national attention and major accolades like "best festival in the country," and "the crown jewel of American festivals," from major publications like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. 

Although at times Kline said he was almost ready to "toss it," by the 10th anniversary, things started to really break loose. He changed the name to the San Francisco Jazz Festival, and began bringing in some big names like Tony Bennett. "We were slowly developing a loyal audience of people who understood how we programmed, and our position as a cultural presenter and purveyor here in the Bay Area," remarked Kline. Thus, the fertile seeds were sown for the eventual creation of the SFJAZZ Center, and after many nomadic years, the decision was made to break ground for a permanent home for the festival.

The idea was that the center should be "transformational," a new model that was a cross between a club and a concert hall. "We realized that we had to get everything right," said Kline. "There was a lot of thought about this building not only being reflective of the art form, but also being welcoming." He and his accomplished design team spent a lot of time researching and analyzing the elements necessary to create what Kline describes as a "transcendent moment" in a musical performance, for the audience, as well as the musicians. Their extensive and innovative planning resulted in an impressive, state-of-the-art structure, featuring floor-to-ceiling glass windows, reflective of current architectural trends for performing arts centers.

The center includes a spacious lobby, a casually elegant café and two performance halls—the 700-seat Robert N. Miner Auditorium, and the smaller, more intimate Joe Henderson lab that faces the street, allowing passersby to catch a glimpse of the performances. "At night, all that glass disappears and people can see in from the street, and understand that there's something happening. That’s a real 21st century idea—the idea of openness."

One of the factors that has contributed to the success of SFJAZZ is the creative and diverse programming, done by a team of five people, including Kline, and Director of Programming Lilly Schwartz. Kline explained that he believes that there are jazz influences in many kinds of music, including hip-hop, world music, contemporary classical and even country music. The extensive brochure attracts a culturally diverse audience of all ages who often plan as much as a year ahead when buying tickets.

"SFJAZZ has had a tremendous effect on our local jazz scene. It’s such a beautiful venue to see concerts, and every year their lineup has a great blend of legendary jazz artists—those who are currently making waves in the genre, and also local musicians who are doing great things," said pianist, emcee, producer and bandleader Kev Choice via email. He is currently a governor and the secretary of the board of the San Francisco chapter of the Recording Academy, and has been involved with SFJAZZ for a number of years, both as a performer and an educator.

"I also appreciate SFJAZZ for their dedication to educating the next generation of great jazz musicians," he added. "They host jazz education presentations to students at the venue that expose youth to musicians performing and engaging them about jazz, the tradition, and it’s importance to our culture.  They also host the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Band, which some of my students have been a part of. It provides them with an amazing opportunity to play with other top young musicians in the Bay Area, have great instruction, and perform and travel around the world."

Kline said there are several new projects underway at SFJAZZ. Research and planning is currently in progress to launch a digital campaign, a subscription-based, on-demand series for people who aren’t able to attend the live concerts. They are also looking at ways to do more creative things with the lighting in the hall, and are in the process of designing an immersive AI-designed system done with laser projectors that works in real time, so the music itself will create the colorful patterns.

But most important, Kline and his team are passionate about making the experience at SFJAZZ as enjoyable and memorable as possible, for both the audience and the musicians. "Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life," said Kline, quoting jazz legend Art Blakey. "The music has a chance to really move you—you can go on a journey with somebody and have that transcendent moment. That's what the artist wants, that's what the audience wants, and if you can do that together, what a great thing."

Save Club Mezzanine: Inside The Efforts To Rescue San Francisco's Iconic Music Venue

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Scott Mickelson, producer on Blanket The Homeless

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On 'Blanket The Homeless,' Bay Area Artists Join Together To Raise Money For Those In Need

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The new album of original songs, produced by Scott Mickelson and featuring contributions from Fantastic Negrito, The Stone Foxes, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls and more, is out on Nov. 8
Adrian Spinelli
GRAMMYs
Nov 6, 2019 - 11:44 am

Beneath the Highway 101 overpass, the scene is bleak. Scattered rows of tents create multiple encampments that continue for several blocks from one neighborhood to the other. On some sidewalks, barricades have been placed against the walls to prevent tents from being laid up against them, but it doesn’t stop people from putting them up closer to the street instead. Some suffer from substance abuse issues or mental illness, though others don't. Regardless of backstory, they all just want somewhere to rest or simply have privacy from the world outside of the zipped-up nylon. 

In other parts of San Francisco, the scenes are similar: the city's homeless population counts over 8,000 people in 2019, a nearly 20% increase from two years ago. It’s a miserable sight, one that dehumanizes people who can't afford housing among the city's growing real estate prices.

Local politicians campaign on solutions for the growing homeless population in S.F., but the political will to find a long-term solution to the problem seems flimsy at best. It's in stark contrast to the amount of money flowing into the city's thriving tech companies. The rich are getting richer and the unfathomably poor are growing in numbers. And when political activity is lacking in dire times, it takes independent philanthropists and other local community activists to make a visible difference—anything to help rally a city. 

Enter artists: the ones who made San Francisco a haven for free-spirited creatives 50 years ago have also risen to the occasion over the years by any means necessary when faced with how to help the city’s homeless population. Comedian and S.F. resident Robin Williams led the charge over two decades through the Comic Relief series of events, raising over $50 million for homeless services in the process. After his death in 2014, comedian and S.F. native Margaret Cho coped with her grief by staging a series of busking performances throughout the city to raise money for the homeless population, coining the hashtag #BeRobin.

"It was a way for us to be charitable, but also bring a sense of comic relief and performance. Very Robin Williams," Cho tells the Recording Academy. "And calling attention to it, really ignites people’s humanity. It shows that we’re not going to ignore this problem."

A co-founder of the #BeRobin movement, Ken Newman is a San Francisco singer/songwriter and philanthropist, who has kept the efforts of Cho and others going. In 2016, Newman founded Blanket The Homeless, a local charity that has partnered with the St. Vincent DePaul Society Of San Francisco (SVDP-SF) by seeking to improve the day-to-day lives of people living on the streets. In short, they raise money and donate packages that include blankets, socks, toiletries and any other day-to-day supplies that the homeless population might need. 

To call further attention to the issue and continue to raise money, Newman's latest effort sees him partnering with producer Scott Mickelson to put out a compilation benefit album entitled Blanket The Homeless. Out Nov. 8, Blanket The Homeless features music from 15 Bay Area artists, each of whom contributed an original song to the album, including two-time GRAMMY winner Fantastic Negrito, Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls, The Brothers Comatose, The Stone Foxes, The Coffis Brothers, Seattle's Tobias The Owl (who lived on the streets as a teenager himself), Goodnight, Texas, King Dream, Whiskerman, John Craigie, The Old Soul Orchestra and tracks by Newman and Mickelson as well. The day before the album's release, many of the artists involved will be playing a benefit show for the project at San Francisco venue The Independent. All proceeds from the show and album sales will go directly to Blanket The Homeless. 

"Regardless of the title, I wanted this to be a strong musical statement that stood on it’s own," Mickelson says of the album. While most of the songs do touch on the album's titular theme, Mickelson (who also produced 2017’s After The Fire Vol. 1, a benefit album for victims of Northern California's devastating fires) let the artists know that the songs didn't necessarily need to be directly about being homeless. It just had to be a song they’d be excited to release. 

As San Francisco and Bay Area artists themselves continue to grapple with the ever-inflating cost of living, coming into Mickelson's Marin studio ready to record a song that speaks to the larger issue at hand came naturally. On "American Dream," a spiritual folk number by Rainbow Girls, the band reflects on the concept of self-worth when compassion might not be present. 

"When you listen to it deeply, it's for obvious reasons that this was our song,” singer Vanessa May says. "It's musing on this ideal that we're all seeking 'Americanness.' That we’re all just trying to find ourselves and exist as healthy selves and family. It talks about how easy it is for your carefully laid plans to be blown by the wind."

When May sings, "Everyone is worth something and it's not their weight in gold," one can't help but think about how invisible San Francisco's homeless population has become to many, let alone to themselves. This speaks to the heart of Blanket The Homeless: displaying compassion for human beings who are suffering every day without a place to call home. 

"It takes greater creativity to get people to care again," May says. "It's a different age, where we live in an attention economy and most of our attention is very much occupied." 

Meanwhile, "Working Poor," Fantastic Negrito's impeccable Delta blues track (and the only non-original song on Blanket The Homeless, having appeared on his 2016 The Last Days Of Oakland album), tells the tale of people being pushed out of the city and into the heartland; their home has new tenants as they’re forced to the sidelines. Similarly, on "Odd Man Out," Mickelson, who wrote the song during the process of producing the album, sings of the feeling of becoming invisible, like you don't fit in anymore, a relatable perspective whether you have a roof or a rainfly over your head at night. 

"I find it difficult to understand that in a city where we lead the world to believe that we're so liberal, diverse and the most conscious of the environment and rights, that we literally and figuratively step over the homeless," Mickelson says. "They’ve become such a fabric of the city that they won't be acknowledged."

True to his word, Mickelson has put together an album of songs that can indeed stand alone. While the message is clear throughout the journey of Blanket The Homeless, the mighty talent on the album is just as evident. The stripped-down bluegrass vibe of "Angeline" by The Brothers Comatose and the sultry groove of "Body Language" by Con Brio are two love songs that shine especially bright. For Con Brio lead singer Ziek McCarter, who lives in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, being a part of Blanket The Homeless is in line with his and the band’s ethos. They recently put out a single, "Living In The City," that sent all proceeds to San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness, and have worked with Bread & Roses, an organization that brings music to institutionalized people. 

"We love to give back to the community," McCarter says. "But the condition within the city itself is tough. It's treacherous to walk through the heart of downtown and the Tenderloin. So any way we can contribute and have a positive influence, we’re there. We’re not just in it for the music."

It can be frustrating to think about how a lack of a concrete solutions from city officials is not only not solving San Francisco's homeless problem, it's making it worse. It can be even more frustrating to think that artists, who are becoming increasingly pushed out of the city because of similar economic mechanisms, are the ones left staging effective ways to help. But their efforts are inspiring nonetheless: The money raised will go directly to help S.F.'s homeless population, effectively continuing the great philanthropic work Williams did when he was still alive.

"He was endlessly generous with his time and his comedy," Cho says of Williams. "You know...the original spirit that the city used to stand for something, a great spirit of independence and DIY...it doesn't have to go away."

And for some, like the 15 artists involved in Blanket The Homeless, it hasn't. 

"To be an artist and to make a living in San Francisco...it's a grind," McCarter says. "But it’s a great honor to say that we're part of the legacy and history of artists that have thrived in the Bay and stood up for just cause and stood up for the people." 

For more info on Blanket The Homeless, and to purchase the album, click here.

Purchase tickets to the November 7th Release show at The Independent here.

Historic Berkeley Folk Venue Freight & Salvage Welcomes A New Generation Of Music Fans

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Empire CEO/Founder Ghazi Shami

Photo by Adrian Spinelli

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How EMPIRE Became A Music Industry Giant In An Unlikely City

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Led by founder and S.F. native Ghazi Shami, EMPIRE is flourishing in a city marked by big tech and little else
Adrian Spinelli
GRAMMYs
Aug 14, 2019 - 5:13 pm

The elevator doors open on the 25th floor into a sleek, glass-walled office. There's a Platinum or Gold record plaque on every wall throughout the space from iconic hip-hop releases like Fat Joe and Remy Ma's "All The Way Up" single, Kendrick Lamar's Section.80 album, as well as new stacks coming in from emerging stars like Rich Brian and Lil Durk. While this would be par for the course in L.A. or New York music industry enclaves, we're in a less likely locale: Downtown San Francisco, where EMPIRE HQ, an independent Bay Area label/distributor, has carved out a unique place in hip-hop and beyond.

Entities like EMPIRE don't typically exist in San Francisco, a place devoid of major music industry label infrastructure these days, aside from digital streaming providers (DSP). But CEO/Founder Ghazi Shami, an S.F. local who came up as an audio engineer and then Director of Urban at UMG-owned distribution firm InGrooves, was committed to building an independent entity in his backyard. 

"I'm a product of my environment," says Shami. "This company wouldn't exist if I wasn’t born and bred in the Bay; in S.F. and Silicon Valley. This company is as much a software company as it is a music company. It’d be a disservice to the roots, to the origin, to everything that I stand for, if this company wasnt firmly planted or rooted here."

Since its inception in 2010, EMPIRE has set itself apart from the pack by focusing on digital music platforms first, a stroke of foresight, but also timing, right around when majors still hadn’t accepted that physical sales were going by the wayside. The streaming music focus has rendered EMPIRE as not only a go-to player in hip-hop, but also an organization that facilitates accurate royalty payments to artists, songwriters, producers and labels from all ends of the spectrum. Plus, by staying independent, it affords Shami and EMPIRE unique flexibility to do business differently than a major label. 

"I don't have a board of directors. I don't have shareholders," Shami says. "The Bay Area is a tech hub, but it was also the indie music mecca of the U.S. We didn’t crack the mold, we made the mold on independent music. When artists were getting 75 cents as a royalty for an album, there were artists out here like E-40 getting $9 an album on P&D deals."

More Than Hip-Hop?

That Bay Area hustler mentality is indeed strong at EMPIRE, and it’s at the root of what has made the company's ascent look so different. Not only have they built up their marketing, publishing, content and merchandising divisions to the tune of over 60 employees spread across S.F., a London office and an A&R team in New York, they've begun to expand into new verticals outside of hip-hop. 

VP of A&R Tina Davis, a Def Jam alum who ran a management firm for over a decade until joining EMPIRE in early 2018, says EMPIRE has had an eye on diverse talent outside of hip-hop long before she arrived. 

"It started with hip-hop, that’s the foundation," Davis says. "But prior to me getting here for example, they had successfully set up [chart-topping country singer] Kane Brown. Now we've got DJ Carnage on the EDM side, Robin Thicke has the #1 Adult Contemporary Single for the third week in a row and we have a very strong Latin America division."

Since coming to EMPIRE, Davis says she's actually had to develop a "different side of A&R," namely via analytics and metrics. So while she and her team are rooted in the old school, they have to be forward-thinking when building relationships with streaming services and allowing artists to upload their own releases to DSP’s whenever they want. 

"There's transparency," Davis says. "They can put it up themselves and see exactly what their streams are making and how much they’re making. In the old-school way, you’d get bottlenecked because you’re behind the A-List artist and then you finally get a chance to come out and you’re don’t know what to do anymore."

Bay Area R&B singer Rayana Jay, for example, has put out each of her last two releases in a joint venture with EMPIRE, a set-up Shami is keen on and has made it fairly standard in EMPIRE releases. Pull up the label metadata on a streaming service for an artist and you’ll often see both their name or self-owned label along with EMPIRE's. For Jay, there’s a specific element to the JV structure that appeals to her. "Honestly what I have with Empire is brilliant and something I don’t take for granted," she says. "I have ownership of my masters which is rare, and it’s truly a blessing."

GRAMMYs

EMPIRE's VP of A&R Tina Davis

Growth In Latin Music

Across the sweeping open floor plan of the EMPIRE office, Alán Hensley, Product Manager for EMPIRE Latino (the Latin American division that Davis referenced) is one of the Empire team members who cultivates relationships with streaming services. Hensley got his Masters Degree in Global Entertainment and Music at Berklee College of Music’s Valencia, Spain campus and was working at Square—a payment services tech company co-founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and headquartered in S.F.—before jumping on at Empire over two years ago. 

In a lot of ways, Hensley’s background in tech and his studies abroad signify the future of the music industry. Now operating in 16 different Spanish-speaking countries, EMPIRE needs people like Hensley to navigate this new landscape. 

"One of the most important parts of what we do, is trying to develop a relationship with the DSP’s; the editors and curators of the playlist,” Hensley says. “The new age of music isn’t just about working the album, but working songs into playlists.” 

LatAm music has grown exponentially over the past five years; three of the top four most-viewed YouTube videos in 2019 are from Spanish-speaking artists. And EMPIRE is making inroads working with artists like GRAMMY Award-winning Nicaraguan salsa singer Luis Enrique and Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Darkiel. But Hensley explains that the tide is turning for Latina musicians. 

"It wasn’t until recently [that] we're seeing [Latina musicians] taking control of their narrative," Hensley says. "And now, as LatAm countries and cultures progress more, that narrative is being talked about so openly from the female perspective. But as I look at the charts, as I look at everything on Spotify, it almost seems illogical that there’s so few females out there, but I don’t think it’s for a lack of talent. So I specifically try to find females that are really dope who have something to offer just as much as their male counterparts do... And in general as Latin music is getting more popular in the U.S. and starting to push societal norms and topics within these LatAm countries forward, it’s a reason why EMPIRE has been able to quickly make moves in the market."

GRAMMYs

EMPIRE VP, Nima Etminan, with newly arrived plaques for releases from Lil Durk and Rich Brian

Not Without Challenges

From both a label and a distribution perspective, EMPIRE has no shortage of marquee artists on their roster. The success of Anderson .Paak’s album Malibu, D.R.A.M.'s ubiquitous "Broccoli" have both been defining releases. And most recently, Iggy Azalea's latest album, In My Defense and Snoop Dogg’s upcoming album, I WANNA THANK ME, are both released as joint ventures with EMPIRE. 

But perhaps their biggest success story has been in distributing and releasing the work of embattled rapper XXXTENTACION, both before and after his life was cut short in 2018. The Florida rapper's career has been celebrated for both the popularity of his emotional, post-Soundcloud rap that refused to adhere to stylistic singularity and the accompanying gaudy streaming numbers ("Sad" has over one billion Spotify streams and it's hard to find any song not in nine-figure streams). Over his legacy, however, hangs a cloud from multiple domestic abuse allegations and a slew of other legal issues that followed him through a rough upbringing. The push/pull nature of his music and personal life are an understandable line in the sand for a lot of listeners. 

"I knew him as a person and what he was going through," Shami says. "If I ride with you, I'm with you till the stick shift breaks. From the beginning, I told him 'I'm with you good or bad.' He was making some amazing progress in his personal life and it's a shame that it got cut so short. He's definitely an artist that defined a segment of the legacy of this company for sure. We've had quite a few and he definitely has a gigantic chapter that’s still being written."

That future chapter is the release of Bad Vibes Forever, a joint venture between EMPIRE and XXXTENTACION's estate. Presiding over an artist's posthumous discography is no easy task—especially this particular artist, whose life was much maligned—but Shami feels confident that this project will honor his artistic legacy.

"It’s hard, gut-wrenching," Shami says of releasing this music. "You spend a lot of time that you feel will honor the legacy of how you’d want it to be. I did. With his Mom, [XXXTENTACION's manager] Solomon, producers and engineers. They’ve dug through his scrapbooks and voice notes to weave a narrative that’s as true to form as what we would have wanted."

GRAMMYs

Shami looks out his office window.

A Chance At Success

When I came into the EMPIRE office on a Tuesday afternoon, Shami handed me a water in an Aluminum bottle. I remarked how I’d seen this water before and liked that it wasn’t in plastic. He told me he was actually an investor in the brand; a group of young upstarts approached him with the opportunity, saying they came up similarly to him and that he could stand to make a lot of money. 

"I looked at them and said that I don't care about making a lot of money," he says. "But I'd invest on one condition: 'When you’re successful and you get on, the next kid that comes from what we came from or had the same challenges of the same things we went through, when they come looking for an opportunity, make sure they get a chance the way I gave you a chance."

It’s the Bay Area pay-it-forward hustle personified. It’s how Shami’s 2008 summer intern at InGrooves, Nima Etminan, is now his second-in-command as EMPIRE's VP. "I'm like Robin to his Batman," Etminan jokes. 

With EMPIRE approaching 10 years in business, the pair reflects on what they’ve built together. "We fall somewhere into that middle space," Etminan says. "A lot of resources and infrastructure that typically only come with a major [label], but transparency and flexibility and lack of politics that usually comes with an indie."

"We’re very fluid," Shami adds. "I can build infrastructure very quickly and if something doesn’t work, I can tear it down and rebuild it and shift directions. It’s like King Kong vs Bruce Lee: do you want size and strength or speed and ingenuity?"

Shami then turns around in his chair, looks out the window and points just beyond San Francisco's Financial District towards Chinatown. 

"Bruce Lee was born a block from over there."

All photos by Adrian Spinelli​

How SFJAZZ Center Established Itself As A Cultural Force In San Francisco

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The Bridge

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How Cambridge Recording Studio The Bridge Rose From Fort Apache's Ashes

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A special look into The Bridge Sound And Stage, which is thoughtfully and purposefully upholding the legacy of Boston's famed Fort Apache Studios
Nina Corcoran
GRAMMYs
Jul 15, 2019 - 1:08 pm

Janos Fulop never thought he would run a studio for over a decade, never mind run one so entrenched in music history. The Boston-based engineer and musician (who performs in the local hip-hop scene as The Arcitype) co-owns The Bridge Sound And Stage, a recording studio located in the heart of Cambridge. Back when he opened it, though, Fulop was wide-eyed and fresh out of school. After graduating from Emerson College in 2006 as an Audio Radio major, he worked as a freelance engineer around town until the primary studio he worked for shuttered. As heartbroken as he was, Fulop realized he could do an equally, if not better, job at operating a studio himself. 

"I decided I wanted to stay in Boston because I loved it, but also because there was an opportunity here without the rat race of New York or Los Angeles," he recalls. "I wanted to do something where I could create a space that’s influential and important to a community. I wanted to set up a studio and do it right."

Fulop reached out to a professor, Owen Curtin, who mentored him during his senior year. As someone who was 10 years his senior, professionally established, and connected to the local rock scene, Curtin seemed like an obvious pick to be a co-owner in a future recording studio business. Curtin immediately expressed interest—he could handle the technical equipment and troubleshooting, Fulop could handle the engineering and booking—so long as Fulop could find an affordable space for them to start fresh.

The rest unfurled like fate. After tapping a friend in real estate to keep his eyes peeled, Fulop was offered the old recording studio that belonged to Fort Apache. Back in its heyday, the legendary studio operated as a warehouse in Roxbury before relocating to Cambridge, going on to record iconic albums like Hole's Live Through This and Dinosaur Jr.'s Green Mind, as well as Radiohead's Pablo Honey and The Bends. It's the recording studio where legends were made, and its legacy still lives on. 

The year was 2007, over 30 years since Fort Apache first opened, and Fulop can still recall the tingles he felt upon viewing the studio in person for the first time. The current owner was using the space as a home. Couches lined the living room, the old tile floor acquired some dirt, and some of the wallpaper was peeling. 

When Fulop told Curtin to meet him there, he didn’t expect fate had even more in store for the two of them. Standing in the doorway, Curtin was in shock. "It's crazy," he said. "I didn’t know you'd take me to this space. This is where my first date with my wife was."

When artists came through Boston to perform at The Wang or House of Blues, a local radio station would offer special giveaways. One such prize was the opportunity to see an intimate performance at Fort Apache. When Curtin found out his crush hoped to see her favorite artist at The Wang, he bought her tickets to the show for their first date. When he found out the band would be performing at Fort Apache too, he finagled his way into giveaway tickets to bring her there beforehand.

"He said, ‘I never thought I’d be in this room again, nevermind looking at it for a potential studio for myself,'" Fulop recalls. "Fortunately that date turned into a marriage, so when he went home to talk about investing in this with his wife, the two of them took it as a sign that it was meant to be."

Fulop and Curtin purchased the space and hit the ground running. The duo began remodeling sections of the space that had decayed and bought the old recording gear off the previous studio. They found and framed photographs of artists who recorded in this same Fort Apache studio like David Bowie, Radiohead, Lenny Kravitz. 

Perhaps the most unexpectedly fun part came by way of their neighbors, who they were quick to introduce themselves to and learn a few stories. "An old lady who lived across the street told me a story about how the Red Hot Chili Peppers' limo broke the mirror off her car," Fulop says, laughing. "She walked outside of her house to yell at them, but when they rolled down the window and she saw who it was, she gasped and immediately changed her mind—because she's a huge Red Hot Chili Peppers fan."

With The Bridge nearly done, it was time to think of a name. "We wanted to pay homage to Fort Apache coming before us while still indicating [that] this is a new studio," says Fulop. "Because most of our clients are from Boston, we knew they'd be telling their friends a sentence like, 'Oh, we're going to that studio in Cambridge.' So we thought, 'Okay, then we're going to The Bridge.'" In that sense, The Bridge's name is indicative of their early hopes for the studio. It's equal parts literal, as a nod to Longfellow Bridge connecting downtown Boston with Cambridge; symbolic, as an extension between Fort Apache and a new studio; and metaphorical, as a connector of Boston's old music scene with its new scene. 

With the studio set up, Fulop and Curtin gave themselves a five-year deadline to make it work. The goal was clear: operate on a large-scale format with a boutique studio approach. They kept the studio space open, allowing everything from a 20-person orchestra to a live show setup to be possible in the studio. No matter how many connections the two of them had, Fulop and Curtin were quick to remind themselves they were the new kids and should work to earn their spot in the recording studio neighborhood.

"We found there was a serious need for affordable small booths. What helped us stay alive was offering Studio B for $35 an hour. There’s nothing wrong with recording in a bedroom, but it does come with certain limitations: noisy AC units, neighbor sleeping hours, and outside sounds. We wanted to remain flexible to make the studio work beyond the way we saw it working. In some cases, we even barter with people who prefer that, where they work as an electrician or a carpenter. We did day-for-day trades early on, which allowed a whole booth to be built solely by exchanging recording sessions for barter work."

Fulop and Curtin began spreading the word in creative ways. They partnered with promoters to sponsor live concerts. They offered free Q&A meetings with local artists about licensing music and similarly under-discussed options. They looked outside the box to allow television outlets, like ESPN and PBS, record interviews in their space. For a short while, they even tried to recreate the radio station intimate performance giveaway, bringing contest winners into the studio to see live sessions with Sheryl Crow, Keane and David Gray. 

Internally, the duo created a straightforward method to build their staff. The Bridge hires through an internship program. It's the only way to join the staff. Applicants, who range from teenagers to 60-year-olds, aren't expected to have engineering degrees, official tutoring, or even previous studio experience. They just need to know how to do basic equipment setup. The rest is taught through first-hand experience. "I've had a few opportunities to bring people in from the outside who have a lot of clients, and that would have helped us financially, but that’s not what we're looking for," he says. "I'd rather do the long plan to work with someone long term to know that they care about the studio, they want to form relationships, and they care about what they're working on." Alex Allinson, an intern who eventually rose to the position of partner this past January, is a prime example of how committed interns can be.

While big names come through to record at The Bridge (think Macklemore, Gucci Mane and Termanology), the heartbeat of The Bridge is comprised of local musicians like Michael Christmas, Dutch ReBelle, STL GLD, and Oompa. Their clients tend to skew more hip-hop than anything else, but it’s only because of Fulop’s background—and, if the past few years indicate anything, it's diversifying quickly.

"I've always wanted our studio to be a community hub where artists can meet each other, where opportunities can spawn from unexpected run-ins," says Fulop. "I’ve had moments where a young artist is working in Studio B on his first-ever project. Meanwhile, Slaine is working on a new album in Studio A, and he says, ‘Hey, who is that dude down there? He’s pretty good.’ All of a sudden the two are talking, exchanging information, and bonding. That’s where we can mark our success: if people can say working here helped, in some part, to launch their career."

The Bridge may be a new crew and a new iteration, but it’s carrying on both the soul and literal frame of Fort Apache. Recently, an old engineer from the original Fort Apache studio stopped by to see if the space remained a studio, and he was impressed at how similar it remained. Those stamps of approval mean the world to Fulop and Curtin. The control room remains unchanged. Some of the gear remains unchanged. Apart from acoustic treatment and a few manicured alterations, The Bridge stayed faithful to Fort Apache—and it’s slowly making a similar legacy for itself. 

"Knowing that The Bridge's name has reached folks I don’t know by way of clients or people who work here still surprises me," says Fulop. "Because look, at the beginning, I knew whoever was coming in because I must have, in one way or another, played a part in them choosing to work at our studio. But now, I'll meet strangers at shows or bars who know the studio by name and are excited to talk about it. Knowing it’s created a helpful studio in the greater Boston area is what I’m proudest about. I’ll be honest, I always thought I could run a successful studio, but the fact it’s grown to be so big still surprises me regularly."

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