Groove Pushers With projected annual sales at $2 million, Ubiquity Records shows no signs of slowing down. Written by Chris Uiterwijk Photo by Kathy Illera It's Christmas Eve 1992 and while most Americans are at home wrapping presents, Jody and Michael McFadin choose to spend their time handing out money to the homeless who inhabit Union Square. Away from the stores and generous tourists, down a dark and acoustically correct alley, the McFadins are drawn to a saxophone player whose music cannot be mistaken for Christmas carols. Upon talking to the alto saxophone player, Jody and Michael discover he is Sonny Simmons , an eccentric musician, legendary for his ability to play free-form, avant-garde jazz. At that moment, an idea occurs to the McFadins. A friend, producer Dan Prothero, was busy experimenting with mixing live instruments and samples. Why not bring the two together for their fledgling record label, Ubiquity Recordings? The result is a compilation album titled "Home Cookin," which leads to three more releases, dubbed the "Cookin" series, and goes on to sell more than 20,000 units -- an impressive sale by independent standards. According to Erik Boralv, who manages the web site "Acid Jazz Server" in Sweden (www.cmd.uu.se/AcidJazz/), "The 'Cookin' series brought a clear 'insiders' view of the West Coast scene." The Ubiquity ideology is simple: It sells what sounds good. Capturing the raw and yet untapped acid-jazz sounds of San Francisco is just one of the ideas that make the McFadins' record label, Ubiquity Recordings, and its sister labels Luv N' Haight and Cubop, three of the most-talked-about and successful independent labels in San Francisco. Since the label's creation, one can find a diverse selection of original works from the drivingly sexy, funky, club-friendly, trip-hop sounds of Bugs, to traditional Afro-Latin jazz music compilations. Ubiquity is the result of the McFadins' long-time love of music. They have used their love of music to guide their professional lives. "Jody and I used to host and DJ underground parties in the mid-1980's, where we grew up, in the Los Angeles area. We would hold them in Chinese restaurants after closing and a few times in warehouses that we broke into for the sake of throwing our parties," reminisces Michael, 34. This is when they developed a love for rare grooves-classic funk, jazz and soul, which for distribution or other reasons, are hard to find. "In 1989, we moved to San Francisco and opened the Groove Merchant record store, located in the lower Haight," stated Jody, 31. The store is well known for its hard-to-find rare grooves, breaks and soul-jazz records. "The Groove Merchant is famous," exclaims Trace Cooper, an employee of Ubiquity Recordings. "Mike D from Beastie Boys even acknowledges his respect for the store in a song off the "Check Your Head" album." "Jody and I found that many DJs and musicians, locally and internationally, were looking for classics and we were determined to put something out and start our own label." Their first release is Nathan Davis' song "Tragic Magic" released on 12-inch vinyl in 1990, under the label Luv N' Haight. "I remember we pressed 300 copies and we didn't even have jackets for them. I would go to a warehouse in Richmond and buy five to 10 jackets at a time. The 10 then became 50, until one day I came in and bought 500 jackets. The workers of the warehouse applauded," Michael remembers while smiling. "We went on to distribute many re-releases, along the way developing a reputation among old-school artists for operating fairly," says Michael from inside the sunlit conference room of Ubiquity Recordings' office located in the SOMA. Lining the stairwell that leads to the tastefully decorated office are some of the more well-known album jackets of Ubiquity artists such as Greyboy and Karl Densen. "Many didn't even realize they where in demand and welcomed the attention." More than 60 releases later, the McFadins and the seven employees of Ubiquity Recordings are having their most profitable year, selling close to 200,000 units, while working toward targeted net sales of $2 million. "Major labels like Capitol Records have come sniffing around here. We have no intention of selling out though," Jody says. Michael and Jody agree that Ubiquity is always in a state of re-inventing itself. The latest Ubiquity releases are testament to this claim. They feature ground-breaking DJing for the electronica age found on the "Audio Alchemy" series to Latin jazz classics found on Cubop. Blue Caboose studio in downtown Manhattan is where DJs Wally and Swingsett create an abstract hip-hop style like those found on one of Ubiquity's latest releases "Dog Leg Left." In the background siren like feedback swirls through the phone line. The culprit of these sounds is not a bad phone connection, but rather the experimental sounds of DJ Wally's samples heard in the background. "Complete creative control is why we are with Ubiquity," states Swingsett with an animated New York accent. "We do what we do because we love to make music our way. Ubiquity understands that." A lesson Michael McFadin learned during a short-lived tenure at the UCLA film school extension course is one he applies to his business. According to Michael, in a class lecture, Ronald Neame, the director of "The Poseidon Adventure," was asked how he gets a good performance out of an actor. He responded by saying, "I hire only good ones and let them do what they do." |ISSUE #1|FEATURES|A&E|INVESTIGATIVE|GREEN WATCH| |NAKED TRUTH|IN MOTION|HEALTH|LIFESTYLES|FYI|INDEX|