Kitchener crooner waiting for his big break
Singer hoping Florida company can deliver on its promises and prove the doubters wrong
KITCHENER — All those years behind the wheel, as he drove trucks for a living, what Kitchener’s Mike Derek really wanted to do was sing.
It was the only thing he’d ever wanted, even back when he was a farm kid with six siblings in rural Ontario. He remembers staring at April Wine and David Bowie album covers, singing on the school bus and nursing a dream about becoming a famous singer.
“I was nine or 10 and we were sitting around the table when I announced one day, ‘I’m going to be a rock star.’ There was just a roar of laughter,” he said. “I’ve had discouragement my whole life.”
Last year, Derek decided to stop wishing and hoping and make his dream come true. He recorded a cover of a 1956 song made famous by a child actor — and paid almost $5,000 CDN to a Florida company called Musik and Film, which promised it could help turn him into a household name.
Critics contend these sort of radio promoters are creating fake “hits” that no one listens to, by relying on dubious radio charts that aren’t officially recognized. Musik and Film disputes this view, arguing it’s giving indie artists potential access to a global audience for a fraction of the price of mainstream promotional campaigns.
Sure enough, shortly after signing up, Derek started getting reports from the company showing him rising through the charts, getting more radio play than megastars Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift. According to their data, he was indeed getting radio play around the world.
Derek began getting gushing reviews, too, likening him to Josh Groban, Frank Sinatra and Michael Bublé, published on obscure music websites paid for by Musik and Film.
“My God! It’s been years since I heard anything like this ... a true ballad ... He sings this like no other,” gushed Wayout Radio, a UK-based web station that promotes indie artists.
But all that buzz has not yet translat-
ed into commercial success for Derek, who is selling his music on iTunes and streaming it on services such as Spotify.
Derek still sings at local nursing homes and has to keep his day job working as a carpet cleaner. He says he’ll pay for more promotion, and is willing to sell his house if he has to finance his dream.
His manager says that’s just the reality for most independent artists today. He boasts that Derek performed 29 concerts in 2016, all paid gigs.
“You have to make your own breaks now,” said Mark Schwartz, who met Derek when he showed up at his house looking to rent a room.
Schwartz says he first heard Derek sing karaoke and encouraged him to go professional. He told Derek to ditch the jeans and T-shirts, and suggested he change his last name from Geotz — to Derek, named after his favourite actress, Bo Derek.
“We were driving home from a nursing home one night and Mark said ‘Derek.’ I said ‘Wow. Mike Derek.’ That sounds right,” he said.
It’s the second shot at fame for Derek, who released an album called “Escape” in 2008 under his given name. This time around, he’s self-financed a video for his single “My Dad,” and is hoping he’ll get noticed on YouTube.
Derek trains with vocal coaches and spends two hours a day practising. His desire to make a career in music is clear, saying he’ll even sell his house — paid for through his years on the road as a trucker — if he has to support his music.
That’s music to the ears of those who make a living charging independent artists to promote their music. But a closer look at companies such as Musik and Film shows how hard it can be to gauge the value of that promotion.
Musik and Film, which lists its address as a UPS store in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, was started by a promotor named Stephen Wrench, who has a long and convoluted resume in the music business.
The company claims it has 250,000 radio stations on its roster — and 95 per cent are “mainstream FM stations,” according to Wrench. But he declines to list any of them.
Wrench goes further than just promising to promote his clients. Musik and Film guarantees they’ll do well — promising each client a Top 40 billing, and over 13,400 radio spins, if they buy his “premium” package.
How does he do this? Wrench says he bribes DJs and radio stations to play his clients’ songs. U.S. laws prohibit the “pay-forplay” practice, unless the radio station discloses to listeners upfront that the song has been paid for.
“We pay them off. It’s the American way,” Wrench said in a phone interview.
To chart on Billboard, Wrench suggests it can cost up to $60,000 in payoffs to radio stations. He says his clients can pay up to $125,000 for a Billboard campaign.
The European charts are legitimate, however, he said. He claimed radio play across the Atlantic is based on “votes from listeners,” so obscure artists like Mike Derek can do better than say, Paul McCartney.
“People don’t care in Europe whether or not you’re famous,” Wrench said. “They like the indie artists better than they like the famous ones.”
To prove how popular its artists are in Europe, Musik and Film produces its own chart called the “Euro Indie Music Chart,” which has a grand total of 295 followers on Spotify. Derek was sitting at No. 30 in late February.
Wrench says he’s promoted thousands of independent artists, but insists only about 10 per cent of acts that seek out his help are accepted.
His company uses data produced by a marketing firm called Digital Radio Tracking, a for-fee charting service that says it monitors 5,000 radio stations — primarily measuring obscure web radio stations.
Wrench says artists looking for a quick return on their investment are missing the point with radio promotion campaigns. He argues the ultimate goal should be to get added onto streaming playlists, something that pays a fraction of a penny per song.
Downloads and record sales are an old-fashioned way of measuring success, he said. Artists need to be patient if they’re hoping to make a living by getting their music streamed, he said.
“Nobody sells records anymore, everybody streams everything for almost free,” Wrench said. “It takes time to grow that. It’s going to take him years before he see the residual on sales and distribution on this.”
Wrench says one of his artists managed to break through in Poland by using his services — but he declines to name them, saying they want to remain anonymous.
It’s one of many claims that are hard to pin down. He also said he helped launch the careers of stars such as Beyoncé and Pitbull and previously managed Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose members he claims to have met at Woodstock, even though there’s no record of the band being there.
His A&R man is Terry Nails, whose claim to fame is being the former bassist in Tommy Tutone, a one-hit wonder from the early 1980s. Today he lives with his parents in Nevada.
The company’s “Wall of Success” includes Fuser, a “Grammy-nominated” rock band from New Zealand, although there’s no reference to a band of that name ever being nominated for a Grammy.
Still, Scwhartz believes the promotional spending is paying off, pointing to the charts he’s been sent by Musik and Film.
“I’ve got a warm feeling about these guys in Florida,” Derek adds.
But not everyone is thrilled with what they got for their money after paying for radio promotion. One critic says it’s deliberately deceptive.
A Swiss electro-industrial artist named Naurea says as far as he’s concerned, Musik and Film is creating “hits” that no one listens to by relying on “fictitious” radio charts that aren’t officially recognized.
“I don’t want another good band or artist losing money and illusions due this piece of crap,” he said. “I was seduced by all the names behind Musik and Film, now I know everything is false.”
Others are happy with what they got from Musik and Film, and say they just to wanted get their work out there.
“I wasn’t looking for a millionseller. I was looking to see what kind of response I’d get for something I’d written, produced and arranged,” said Don Rousell, a Georgia-based insurance adjuster trying to launch his own music career.
“I’m pretty happy about the results. I just wanted to know if I could write something that was good enough for airplay, and it was.”
Derek, meanwhile, has plans to invest more in his music, with a focus on a video campaign.
“If you’re going to put that money forth, you’ve got to believe in yourself,” he said.
Derek said he’s not giving up on his dream, and knows it takes dedication — and a lot of money — to make it happen.
“So many people will try to discourage you, but you’ve just got to stay focused,” Derek said. “It all depends how bad you want it. You can never give up.”