Om Records' Chris Smith looks back on a decade's worth of future sounds
Chris Smith likes to tell the story about the first days of Om, perhaps the West Coast's most influential dance-music label. The year was 1995. The place: San Francisco's Lower Haight. The business plan: none. The office was a small flat. People predicted the company wouldn't make it past year one. And, well, the naysayers should have been right. Partner Steve Gray opted out after that first year, citing stress. And Om hobbled along, barely, until its first sneaker success, 1997's Mushroom Jazz, an unusual compilation of down-tempo grooves mixed by up-tempo DJ Mark Farina.
"As a new label, nobody knew who we were, we had poor distribution, we didn't have money to promote, and we didn't know what we were doing," says cofounder Smith, 35. "It took us a while to figure it out."
But figure it out they did. Nowadays Om, wrapping up its 10th anniversary and looking forward to another decade of "future music," is a paradox of success. It's had great penetration with its anti-superstar-DJ music policy, serving as a reliable alternative to dance cheese - trance, Euro-jocks, and big-room elitism. And yet Om sells more records than most of the nation's top dance labels. At a time when DJ shops, distributors, and fellow labels are shutting their doors, in fact, 2005 was Om's best year, says Smith.
"We've been quick to embrace iTunes - we were one of the first 20 labels to sign up," he says. "We're doing a lot of download sales, selling CDs online, licensing music. We're doing a lot of business. And we're still selling a ton of CDs. We're selling more vinyl that we've ever sold. We have our market."
And, despite being an alternative to DJ worship, the label has certainly churned out its own mix-CD stars: Colette, who spun records on the red carpet before the recent Academy Awards ceremony; Mark Farina, now a staple of lounge-worthy down-tempo; and Kaskade, a house-lite crossover star in the making.
"Kaskade is a perfect example of an Om artist," Smith says. "He was my production assistant. We took that and grew that into what it is now. I think most of the music we put out has broad appeal. We're not just putting out tacky, banging stuff."
Indeed, Om is a rare dance label that's as well-known on dance floors as in office cubicles. Its soulful down-tempo (Om Lounge 10) and lullaby vocal house compilations (Om: Miami 2006, out Tuesday) often feel like digital smooth jazz, but have just enough bite and swing to move a crowd. Most of its artists stay around for the long term and often develop into icons - folks such as Los Angeles deep-house mainstay Marques Wyatt, Chicago house producers Iz & Diz, and indie hip-hop DJ J Boogie.
The original idea for the label was to tap into the West Coast's underground energy by signing leftfield hip-hop acts, acid-jazz artists, and deep-house heroes. Smith - a product of Mammoth, California - had spent 1991 and 1992 in Los Angeles, soaking up the city's rave heyday, taking in Doc Martin at warehouse parties. The next year he moved to San Francisco to study multimedia arts at the local state college.
"I just fell in love with the place," he says of the Bay Area. "The energy was amazing. The club scene that was going on was completely off the hook."
Soon, the idea of tapping that energy, and pairing it with burgeoning multimedia technology, stuck in Smith's head. Om's first release was an underground hip-hop compilation called Groove Active. It featured a CD-ROM of graffiti-art pictures and video clips. It was, of course, ahead of its time, and it wasn't until Mushroom Jazz two years later that Om's ball got really got rolling. "Mushroom Jazz" was a Monday-night party with Chicago-bred DJ Mark Farina at the decks. Smith was a fan and signed Farina to a deal. When the CD came out, sales were slow-but-steady, until one of the tracks Farina had chosen, Blue Boy's "Remember Me," became a hit in the U.K. and an underground anthem in the United States. Today, the funky, groovy Mushroom Jazz series is five volumes deep, and each vinyl version is eagerly sought by DJs (and the label is reissuing LPs to keep up with demand).
"We didn't really have any kind of concept of why it would be popular, but I felt like the music was great, and it was marketable," Smith says. "It happened slowly."
In the mid-'90s, Smith started traveling to Chicago to sign up its overlooked house-music legends. While the rest of the dance world was looking to Europe for The Next Big Thing, Om was tapping the well where it all started, signing up folks like Colette (who eventually moved to Los Angeles), DJ Sneak, Derrick Carter, Iz & Diz, and off-the-wall, underrated house-music band the Greenskeepers. While Colette, Kaskade, and West Coast house hunk Miguel Migs kept the music smooth and easy, Sneak, Derrick Carter, and Iz & Diz kept it real - and banging.
Still, if any labels are responsible for the smooth-dance phenomenon known as West Coast house, Om might as well stand up. Smith signed producer Jay Denes to compile a title called Naked Music NYC. It featured artists such as Migs and heavenly vocalist Lisa Shaw. The 2000 release launched a new sound for the left coast - ironically, since Denes was from New York - and preceded the launch of Denes's own iconic label, Naked Music. Om tapped into the sound too, unleashing its own Migs tracks and putting left coasters Andy Caldwell and Kaskade on the smooth-house map. Sure, easy-listening e-music grates on some critics' nerves. But there's no shame in Smith's game. When asked if he would mind crossing over to pop radio and the charts, he has a quick answer: "I pray for it. I hope for it all the time. We're not sitting here saying we want to stay underground."
Like we said, Om is a paradox, born of underground party culture, reaching for jazzy musicianship, and looking to stay relevant not just as a West Coast cultural institution, but as a business. Case in point: The label this year is spinning off an imprint, Om Hip-Hop, with indie-minded rap acts such as Strange Fruit Project, Colossus, and J Boogie working on new releases.
Could Om's success be duplicated, by some young dreamer, in 2006?
"I would say stay away, unless you had a really intense passion to do it and are willing to go to bat every day," Smith says. "It's 10 times harder today than it was 10 years ago. You really have to have some stamina. Most people who are attracted to the music business don't typically have that kind of sensibility." It may be a creative business, he points out, but you still have to do business. "I guess I always had that in me. I also enjoy making spreadsheets and dealing with budgets. I know how to do it, and it's rewarding to get the job done."
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