Smelly Feet Records Is A Music Platform Which Showcases Both Established And Up & Coming Artists.
No Specific Genre, Just Real Underground Music.
Smelly Feet Records Is A Music Platform Which Showcases Both Established And Up & Coming Artists.
No Specific Genre, Just Real Underground Music.
Label Interview
March 13th, 2018
Tanzgemeinschaft
Label Boss: Claudio Capo
City: Antwerp
Country: Belgium
Genre: Techno / House
Release Type: Podcast
Claudio. Pleasure to meet your acquaintance. Tell us about who you are, what you do and the history of Tanzgemeinschaft.
The pleasure is all mine. Thank you guys for taking the time to answer the Q&A that I put together for your label as well. Love your story.
As for me, my story goes way back. It all started at the age of 15, being a DJ at the local parties with friends that were much older than I was. I can assure you that my mom was waiting for me at the door upon my return on those late nights. With some of the friends I made DJ'ing these parties, we started a collective to promote local talent mixed with established (international) talent. The idea was to run events at abandoned industrial places, and in the end, we ended up in bunkers, caves, barns and old mining buildings. We got promoted via the first online streaming radio station called Pirate Radio based in London. We flew them over and they broadcasted some of our events over a 256k modem. Can you imagine that? Crazy times.
After a while, we split up and I moved abroad. After a long silent period, I met some people at work who maintained a page on Facebook called Minimal Techno. With over 300.000k fans, I found it to be a huge opportunity to start again and reunite with my passion for electronic music. As a group of 3, we managed to accumulate around 450.000k fans. I wanted to start a promotion platform outside Facebook, but the owner of the account sold it to fund the purchase of his house. I could have killed him after hearing that.
I started all over again about 4 years ago as a solo project and put my heart and soul into it. I set up a website, started social channels from scratch and contacted a lot of labels, managers, artists to get things going.
My motto was, and still is:
We do not look for just any music or anyone, we are looking for music and people who create memorable music that inspires and evokes emotion.
I believe young talent deserve a platform to be heard.
How do you manage your time, in order to run a label that puts out so much content - interviews, podcasts, social media posts and artist correspondence?
Tanzgemeinschaft is not a label, although I think about starting one once in a while. I do manage to help some artists sign contracts.
I spend about 20 hours per week on my platform. It is still a side project as I have a day job. When working on this project, I spend my time answering emails, preparing interviews, planning mixes, etc. As my time is limited, I need to refuse a lot of good talent and music, unfortunately.
With this platform I have created, I am looking for passionate people who are looking for an entry in the music scene.
"I believe young talent deserve a platform to be heard."
Is there any advice you’d like to give to aspiring label owners who would like to start their own collective?
As I am in touch with many record labels, I do believe there is room for more. But please, don't be ignorant and ignore young talent. Give them a chance. You can focus on one genre but why should you? Look at R&S records for example. They focus on quality.
In terms of quality, what are the criteria you look for when selecting your guests?
First off, I really love people being polite. I'd love people (managers, artists, labels) to properly introduce themselves and tell me who they are. If not, the email gets tossed away with a simple click.
Second, I hardly focus on major talent as I believe young talent deserve a channel and platform to be heard. But I have some nice artists on my list - David Penn, Bruce Leroys, Ben Teufel (Anture label head), Fractal Architect, AlBird, Maxx, Citizen Kain, CliVe, Momo Arigato, Binary Function and more. Thanks again guys if you are reading this.
Most of all, I love the effort of some of the young talent out there. My advice: keep going.
What have you learned about yourself since the start of the Tanzgemeinschaft journey? Strengths, weaknesses, skills you didn’t even know you had?
Strengths: Perseverance. Never settle. Music connects people.
Weakness: I can't convince people to join help me grow this great platform.
Facts: Music should be timeless, artists should not ask for a review just because there is a release. If the track is good, it will remain good a year or even 10 years later.
"...we are looking for music and people who create memorable music that inspires and
evokes emotion."
What is your personal involvement when it comes to music and production?
I have some Native Instruments gear; Traktor Pro 2, X1 & Z1 and enjoy myself playing at small events that I run myself.
I'd love to run some bigger events again. But living in a city like Antwerp (Belgium) that hosts about 7 clubs on a capita of 450k inhabitants is not an easy task. Clubs charge crazy fees to run an event so you need to be creative. Doing this on my own is way too much work and a financial suicide. So I prefer to keep it small (50 to 150 people).
What disciplines do you practice and are there any that you would like to learn? (painting, drawing, sculpture, digital, web etc.)
I am a digital native and I have seen the internet come alive and many things digitally die like the 256k modem, Napster, early age HTML, Internet Explorer 4; Netscape Navigator 4, browser wars, etc.
I want to learn a lot but have learned that having patience is a great virtue.
Give us some insight as to what you believe the future will hold in terms of broadcasting media, content, different channels & hosting platforms.
Blockchain! I strongly believe in this technology and I believe a lot of producers, labels, blogs, etc will benefit from it.
Weirdest Direct Message (DM) you’ve ever gotten?
It might sound crazy, but besides one sentence introductions, everyone is pretty nice. I have no crazy things to mention - maybe just that one request from people who call themselves Smelly Feet Records.
Thank you guys!!
