Melissa Lane

Hed Kandi, the ubiquitous club brand comprising residencies all over the world, compilation CD sales topping 50 million, a multitude of Top 40 hits, and one of the most widely recognized clubbing-lifestyle identities in the world, suffered a major staff walkout--one that included the man who created it.

As the now-former director of American operations, Eric Kupper, says, "the main reason for leaving for most of us was that Hed Kandi was originally owned by a small radio station in London called Jazz FM [now Smooth FM]. A large corporation called the Guardian Media Group [best known for the Guardian, which is a major U.K. newspaper] bought Jazz FM and along with it, Hed Kandi." It seems that this should have been the moment when those who had sweated their heart and soul into creating the glamorous party phenomena would finally hit paydirt, particularly Mark Doyle, the visionary who spearheaded the concept and tirelessly built it up over five years.

Doyle was a DJ in the late eighties West London acid-house scene who created the now-wistfully spoken of nights, Freestyle (1988) and Back To Love (1996). After joining Jazz FM in 1999 with his radio show "Hed Kandi," he approached the higher-ups about spinning it off into a compilation label to showcase the music he was playing. They agreed, but did little to support him financially or structurally.

In an interview with Pacha.com, he recently recounted how "during the first two years of Hed Kandi, I actually spent an awful lot of my own money. I remember when we received our very first two mix CDs, I went into the office and said 'I think it would be a really good idea for me to go out to Ibiza with a couple of hundred copies of each of these albums and give them to all the bars and all the people there.' The company said 'No, we don't see the point of that.' So I paid for my own holiday, went to Ibiza, took the CDs with me and gave them out at my own expense. We didn't really start doing many gigs until the second year of Hed Kandi and at those I basically DJed for free too; we did fourteen weeks of gigs in Ibiza in the second year and I never took a penny for it or charged the company."

With Hed Kandi having since spawned an artist roster with significant artist album sales, two sister labels (Stereo Sushi and The Acid Lounge), and gearing up to release its fiftieth compilation CD, Doyle was still only an employee of the company with no share in ownership and, as one music lawyer told him, "massively underpaid." In that same interview, Doyle explained how he "went back with what he thought was a reasonable offer based on what the company was physically turning over and everything else, and they said 'No, absolutely no way,' which was when it all really started to fall apart."

With Doyle went every other key player at Hed Kandi from art director Jason Brooks all the way down to licensing and business-affairs manager Carrie Miller--and a nice section of the DJ roster that included Eric Kupper, Craig McGivern, Hatty Lovehearts, Lisa German, Mike Van Loon and Kevin McFarlane. Kupper, Doyle's right-hand man, explains that "It was our intention to finally create a truly independent company... and Mark had a fantastic vision." Thus was born the Tokyo Project label. He continues, "the name conjures an ultra-modern notion of 'work--buy--consume--die,' a live-for-the-moment, high-speed, high-tech, adrenalin-fueled lifestyle. The visual possibilities of the name are quite vast and colorful, from the traditional sexiness and mystique of the geisha to the ultra-high-tech and anime."

Anyone familiar with the thematic cleverness that built Hed Kandi will delight in the brand-tentacling already slated for the junior label with just one release under its belt thus far--the acclaimed 3-CD comp "The Collection": Everything from discofied funk ("Tokyo Disco"), to more extreme techno-electro friendly sounds ("Tokyo Electric"), to summer anthems ("Tokyo Beach"), to a compilation of heavenly sounds ("Tokyo Angel").

While the Tokyo Disco parties have been popping up all over Europe, the first American residency launches in Chicago--complete with geisha girls, Tokyo dancers, anime and other Tokyo-styled videos--and, of course, all with the same uplifting funky house good-time party vibe that constitutes the hot molten core of what these guys are really about.

Tokyo Disco Wonderland, with DJs Eric Kupper, Craig McGivern, and a live PA by Bonnie Bailey takes place at Enclave, 213 West Institute, (312)654-0234, on December 16 at 9pm.

(2005-12-13)

Also by Melissa Lane

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Tip of the Week
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