RS: I heard that you bought that record for like five hundred
bucks and no one else would touch it and you took the chance on it.
Mark Finkelstein: That's right, that's right.
RS: What did you hear on that record the first time?
Mark Finkelstein: Hold on, let me put you straight on one thing, I
don't listen to the music.
People thought it was my great weakness and it was really my great
strengths Because one of my things is knowing what you don't know is
as important as knowing what you do know. I knew my opinions were
irrelevant to what was going on. So I'd let Gladys Pizarro do
anything she wanted and if you tortured me I wouldn't recognize
ninety-nine percent of the records I put out. Simon will have the
same carte blanche. You let people who you believe in and can trust do
their jobs. So I didn't hear anything in Planet Soul, in fact, the
first time I heard it was on the radio. Then I knew I had something.
RS: So I guess Simon is the new Gladys. How did you find
Defected and partner with Simon? Is that going back to the AM:PM
days?
Mark Finkelstein: Before, how about Cooltempo? Simon's signing was
my second license. The first license I ever did was Underground
Solution "Love Dancing." The second license I ever did of any
substance in the UK was Aly-us "Follow Me" and that was with Simon
Dunmore. Then he licensed Djaimin "Give You" and River Ocean "Love
and Happiness," then he licensed more. Three of the first releases on
Defected came from Strictly. I guess I helped him launch Defective in
a way and now he's helping me launch Strictly in a way. He's been a
great friend for fifteen years. We have a great relationship. He's
always been the creative element in our relationship, so I would
license any record to Simon. Simon would A&R it, tweak it, remix it,
polish it, do whatever he needed to do with it, and I'd let him do
whatever he wanted because, as I said, I'm not the music person. So
we've had this thing and in the past it's been on a record by record
basis or an artist by artist basis and now it's more like we're
getting married.
RS: What's your ultimate goal for Strictly right now?
Mark Finkelstein: To make it what it once was, an important factor
in the house scene.
RS: What is the UK reaction to Strictly coming back?
Simon Dunmore: Well, the news trickled out this week and then we're
doing the interviews and the press releases now. We hit a few
websites and some message boards and the reaction's been pretty
amazing. Everybody recognizes the heritage of Strictly and its
contribution towards dance music. A lot of the people that made their
first records put them out on Strictly are now superstar DJs. So I
don't think there's any label that can come in with that kind of cache
of talent and claim it to be theirs, and Strictly can claim it to be
theirs.
Mark Finkelstein: I put out Kenny Dope's first record, I put out
Josh Wink's first record, I put out Roger Sanchez's first record, I
put out Erick Morillo's first record. Danny Tenaglia. Todd Terry.
Eric Clapton. Genesis. Moody Blues. Just kidding, but we put out
Sandy Rivera's first project with Kings of Tomorrow.
We were very instrumental in if not putting the first record out,
certainly grabbing talent that had been around before and taking it to
a new level. For instance, DJ Pierre came out of Chicago and he was
brilliant, but he never got paid by anybody and he put a number of
records out with us. His "Horn Song" became Barbara Tucker's
"Everybody Dance."
RS: Simon, one last question for you. With Defected, which you
do twenty-four hours a day, how are you going to fit Strictly in to
the Defected world?
Mark Finkelstein: With the other five hours.
Simon Dunmore: There's a number of factors there. In Defected, we
have a great roster of DJ/producers with Bob Sinclar, Martin Solveig,
Sandy Rivera, and Copyright. We are very happy with that and I think
there's going to be a whole load of new producers actually that want
to make records for Strictly. Even if I wanted them for Defected,
they're probably going to say no, Strictly's the label, that's the
label we grew up with and we want to have a record on Strictly. So I
think it's going to be a pretty easy decision. It might be made for
me.
