Ricardo Marcus of XL
MVP: We are with Ricardo Marcus, who spins music videos at the NYC nightclub XL. It is October 20th, 2005. Ricardo you have been looking at music videos for a long time. When did you first get involved?
Ricardo Marcus: Well in the Caribbean it was all about video tape. We did not get MTV there so the video stores used to tape MTV, and then you rented the tape and saw the music videos that way. I actually used to be a school teacher and I would go to a video bar in Manhattan and I used to like the music videos. So I actually ended up being a DJ and collecting music videos. I sent a demo to this bar that was looking for a video DJ and they hired me based on my taste because of all the videos that I had
MVP: So what year did this all happen?
RM: This all happened in 1994.
MVP: Wow! So you have been doing this a long time and you have seen the changes over the years.
RM: Yeah. I started to work for RockAmerica in 1997. That actually happened because the club used to subscribe to RockAmerica videos. I met Ed Steinberg and he did not have a programmer, so I basically asked him if he needed a programmer and he said yeah. He actually taught me everything that I needed to know because I did not know anything. He didn’t show me how to look at videos; he just basically showed me what he does and how to program it. That’s how I got into it. I’ve been doing it for nine years now.
MVP: That is a long time.
RM: Yeah with one company. It is kind of unheard of in the music business these days.
MVP: I am curious, in 1994 there were lots of big budget videos and MTV was there to showcase them...Cut to 2005 and it is a completely different musical landscape.
RM: That has had a lot to do with the record companies merging with one another and they dropped a lot of artists so now they have less product. There was a lot more coming at us back then and now there is a lot less.
MVP: In the nightclub setting, how do videos have impact? Give us some examples of how you see it first hand, and certainly labels love to know that if there are people at a club and they see their artist’s video that could lead to a sale.
RM: Well when you think about it, it is one thing to play a record or a CD in a DJ booth and put it in the sound system. It is more appealing when you look at the screens and you see someone actually singing the songs and you can see an image. When the labels put out the albums there are always images associated with the songs, right? The image is associated with the artist; it’s a great way to expose an artist, for people to see the artist. It does have an impact because Backstreet Boys and N’Sync, the two boy bands, did not do very well the first time they were put out. It took the Backstreet Boys a year to break in America; they broke these artists’ in Germany first. But both bands were popular in the clubs because the video pools, Rock America was one, and they actually released their videos to the clubs a year before they came out in America and they were successful because back then the CVC chart was still in existence, those videos were getting played by DJ’s and they were reporting them. This is just simply based on the fact that it was something to throw on at night and they just played it and then the rest of what happened to the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync was history. The clubs played a little part in the success of the band. It had to start somewhere.
MVP: Like a DJ, will people come up and request a video?
RM: Yeah all the time. I’m actually glad because the place where I work right now, the DJ booth is all the way at the top of the stairs so people feel apprehensive to do it. DJ’s don’t like requests, but unfortunately you do get a lot of requests and you do get a lot of people asking the names of songs that they’ve just seen the video for. Another thing the people would ask the DJ is the name of the song on the dance floor and it’s a hard thing to describe the song after a few drinks, so many times the next day after the video played and people don’t know the name of it, they can at least describe what they’ve seen on the screen. So it is useful as well, it is a bit more descriptive to tell somebody, “You know the video where this persons shirt catches fire.”
MVP: I’m curious about the technology because when you first started spinning in 1994 you probably had some 25” screens or maybe one big screen but it seems like now technology has taken the video form to a whole new level and I’m curious how those advancements have helped you as a VJ.
RM: Well for one thing, CD’s became more widespread in clubs so that helps. People still use vinyl but CD’s became used a lot more once you were able to mix the CD’s and in the last year Pioneers made a DVD player that allows you to mix the videos. So now you can do flawless video mixes for a dance floor so it’s just like playing a CD in the dance club and now you have the screens that create all the visuals. Also a lot of the clubs, with Rock America I speak to other DJ’s around the country, and I think software has become beneficial for us, like Avid software has Avid Express which is one of the industry standards for editing software packages for $500 where you can put videos on a timeline on a computer and add graphics to it and a lot of clubs and DJ’s actually have editing computers that they are able to add the clubs logo to it and add the clubs advertising, like specials going on at the club. So it is like your own mini television network within the club. So think about when a music company sends the video to a club, they can actually get the club to get text up on there if they wanted to. Most DJ’s don’t get paid a lot of money. They do it because they love music and they’re passionate about it. So if it’s an artist they love it is a no brainier they will probably just go ahead and promote the artist because they love the artist. There is this DJ that called Rock America this past week looking for Stevie Nicks videos. There is nothing new by Stevie Nicks but he loves Stevie Nicks and he just wants to do a Stevie Nicks night. He submits to one of the fan sites and advertises that he is doing a Stevie Nicks night. I sent him some Stevie Nicks videos that he didn’t have. But basically here is a DJ just playing Stevie Nicks because he loves Stevie Nicks and adding text to the videos and claiming some attention for that artist. I think what happens with a lot of DJ’s is they just like someone and they just do it because that’s what they do.
MVP: That is very interesting. Now give us a visual of XL, when you walk in and what might you expect to see when you go out onto the dance floor. What is the vibe there?
RM: XL is actually a video bar, so that’s the focus, the video screens not the dance floor. The first thing that you’ll see when you walk in would be the plasma screens buried in the walls on either side of the bar and then if you look up, on either side of the ceiling there are projectors. So the first thing you notice is that XL is a visual bar. Also another thing that is appealing about XL is the bathroom, if you’ve ever seen Sex and the City, the scene where they were in the bathroom and there was an aquarium, that’s from XL, they shot that scene in XL.
MVP: In the nightclub setting, how do videos have impact? Give us some examples of how you see it first hand, and certainly labels love to know that if there are people at a club and they see their artist’s video that could lead to a sale.
RM: Well when you think about it, it is one thing to play a record or a CD in a DJ booth and put it in the sound system. It is more appealing when you look at the screens and you see someone actually singing the songs and you can see an image. When the labels put out the albums there are always images associated with the songs, right? The image is associated with the artist; it’s a great way to expose an artist, for people to see the artist. It does have an impact because Backstreet Boys and N’Sync, the two boy bands, did not do very well the first time they were put out. It took the Backstreet Boys a year to break in America; they broke these artists’ in Germany first. But both bands were popular in the clubs because the video pools, Rock America was one, and they actually released their videos to the clubs a year before they came out in America and they were successful because back then the CVC chart was still in existence, those videos were getting played by DJ’s and they were reporting them. This is just simply based on the fact that it was something to throw on at night and they just played it and then the rest of what happened to the Backstreet Boys and N’Sync was history. The clubs played a little part in the success of the band. It had to start somewhere.
MVP: Wow! Excellent! Well now you program the videos, what’s going to attract you to a video, what is going to be worthy of your patrons attention? What catches you, what compels you to program a video over another?
RM: Well there are lots of things. Number one, given the fact that it’s a public space I have to consider the clients that go there, whether or not they’re going to like it. So there are certain genres of music I simply can never ever play, like a country song by Brooks & Dunn for instance, even though visually I may love the video it’s just something I know I can’t put on a reel. Shania Twain, yeah I could play her because she’s pop. Pop music and dance music. So my first consideration is what the crowd is. The second thing that follows is how recent and how new it is because the crowd is a very discriminating crowd, especially with the internet being what it is. People know what is out there, music fans know what is out there and they expect to see Madonna’s new video on the screen the same week that MTV may have played it. That’s kind of an important thing. Another thing I have noticed is that people don’t thoroughly get how something might be on the internet simply because the British record company put it out there or the German record company put it out there. It’s the World Wide Web, people know that it exists and they don’t understand the legalities. Something might be on the internet but not in America, its unfortunate, I think they are missing out on something there.
MVP: I agree. We talk about Britian and it ebbs and flows with the interest there. Would you agree with this statement—the interest in what’s happening in Britain now here in America is keen?
RM: Yeah I think it is. I think things might be turning around now because I’ve looked at the charts and noticed there is more pop and rock more than hip-hop because the charts were saturated with too much of one thing and I think with this change in radio and the track format gaining the popularity it has in the last year that people really want to hear some rock, some hip hop, some pop, and they want to hear ballads as well, a little bit of everything. Yeah, I think there is some interest in the European charts because the European chart has always had a little bit of everything in it. One thing about dance music is it doesn’t do well in the states, but the rest of the world never stopped dancing after the 70’s; every year there is always a major dance hit in every country in the world except America it seems. I can’t think of any one song this year that was a dance hit, a real dance single that was a big hit. (I'd hardly call DHT a dance artist since the only version you seem to hear on Mainstream radio is the ballad version, so there seems to be some apprehension there with them being associated with the genre.) Probably the last time there was a big dance hit in American charts was the Kylie Minogue record on the top ten but there hasn’t been one since on that level.
MVP: I’m curious, do you think people aren’t going out to go dancing as much anymore with people just wanting to stay home and fool around with their computer? Do you think the Internet is keeping people from being social anymore?
RM: Yeah definitely, with many things. Television viewership is down as well because of the Internet. I mean going out actually was a quest to be entertained just like watching TV was a quest to be entertained, it just socialized more people but the internet has displaced a lot of that activity. I think that will level off at some point, some places may shut down but I think there will always be a demand for places for people to go out, social centers, but the internet really is an exciting thing. There is an excellent idea for you, entertainment should be instant. We created that world now where we want to be entertained right now, right away. We don’t want to wait. People want to download music right away. They don’t want to wait for the shops to have it in stock. For instance, the Madonna single has been floating around now for a couple of weeks. I actually want to buy it, I know I have friends that want to buy it but they’ve all downloaded it now on sites that actually have it up even though they genuinely wanted to buy it but it is just not in the shops. I understand about a marketing plan, I know what all that is but for some reason the technology has changed but some labels haven’t really kept up with what they should have done, how they should have responded to the technology, how things have changed,
MVP: Well some of us want to stay staunchly old school.
RM: I just don’t think I’d like to live in a society that is completely downloaded. I think the record still serves a purpose. The thing is people would look online for something specific. If you like Genesis you want to look for Genesis online. You may not necessarily look for any of the other off shoot bands they had, you would probably just look for the one band, but in a record store you are given the option to browse and say “Oh yeah, I forgot I like that album, I should pick that up.” I walked into the Virgin Megastore a couple of weeks ago and I realized they completely changed what they are doing. Their store now has video games on the main floor, clothing on the main floor, videos on the main floor, CD’s, just a bit of everything. Whatever the big CD’s are that’s what’s on their main floor. If you want to find CD’s you have to go down a level and then the CD’s are all squished together. They don’t have as much as they used to, basically they are moving away from being a music shop to more of an entertainment sort of shop. So actually that is what’s going to happen now, people are buying less music. I go to Tower Records and I remember Tower being a very busy place, now there are always no more than two people at the registers, and there is hardly ever a line there and I think that’s just going to get worse. I would hate to see the music store go away completely because I love going to the store, I go to the store every week basically to see what’s come out because the record companies do not send me everything for free so I do have to buy some things.
MVP: I’m curious to know what you think of music videos on your cell phone and videos on your iPod now.
RM: I like the idea of making music videos more accessible to people but the thing is they are going to start charging for these promotional tools. I think they are redefining what the music video is and it’s going to become a commodity. It could be that people are going to download music for free but the music video populous is not something you can really download for free because it is a movie file and a bit more tedious to get access to that. I like the idea of being able to get music videos that way but I don’t like what it holds for the future and what music videos will represent five years from now. It will become an item to buy and it won’t be used as a promotional tool necessarily. At first I thought it would be cool while you’re in transit, because usually I’m listening to my iPod, so it’s another thing to do while you’re on the train but then I mentioned to someone I wanted to get one of those new iPod’s and they said so what’s the point of high definition television or high definition technology and what is the point of filming a very expensive music video if you are going to deliver it on a two inch screen for people to look at, how can you really appreciate a music video on such a tiny screen, and that made sense. There are some music videos that I just love looking at but to look at it on a two inch screen I just kind of think, well would an artist really like that or appreciate that, that this is how their art is being appreciated. Miniaturization is a good thing but I don’t know if in this case it is.
MVP: You’ve got knowledge of lots of artists that you know are going to break and you know it way before anyone else knows it. We’ve talked about so many of these bands and you are always right on the money, just wondering if there are artists that people who are not so in the know should be looking out for.
RM: I recently bought a bunch of new CDs, this has been a good month for new music actually. My favorite new disc is by Texas. They are released only in the UK for now. The most infectious pop/rock around at the moment. I also got the new Bananarama which I was excited about at first, but was soured on the idea of them very quickly, (long story!). However, they seem to be in quite a state of preservation and could very well show the younger crop of girl groups how it's done. Then there are theSugababes who have been #1 in England for three weeks already this year with "Push the button" and they’ve tried to release them 3 times in America already. This is the fourth album; I hope Universal puts them out in the States next year. Such wonderful, sensible pop. They could probably be this generation's Bananarama. Then there is Westlife who have defied the boy band odds and released album #7 now. Nothing about them is cutting-edge and they seem to make no apologies for it and still get #1. Bless them!
MVP: Interesting, how about in the clubs do you see any new artists setting the clubs on fire?
RM: Unfortunately, dance music has just been really boring in the last couple of years. There hasn’t been anything that’s just been “Wow, that’s amazing!” and I think it’s because no record company really nurtures a dance artists to be an artist in that fashion. I mean the last time that that really happened was Kylie, look at how she was everywhere and how big she was and there was nurturing when it came to her. Basically, everything has been a one off release
MVP: Tell us where XL is located and when people can come and check out your VJ-ing skills.
RM: It’s on 357 West 16th Street in Chelsea and I’m there on Friday nights.