A very important and strong message regarding contracts with venues and festivals, etc.
To all my many colleagues and mentors in the world of DJ-ing, clubbing, nightlife and Dance Music, I have copied 100s of people on this e-mail and I "encourage" everyone to please forward my words to as many of your colleagues as possible. And please pardon my very deep frustration, but I simply need to get this very sore subject off my chest once and for all, because: Enough is Enough Dear Friends,
I am writing this letter here to all of you for your support today on Tuesday, September 4th. of 2007 as I feel this is a letter of great importance - not only for me, but for all of us "United Together As One" to further protect ourselves from such a "criminal act" that was recently done to me at a venue in Italy called "Clorophilla" last
month on August 8th. This is not the first time such a "crime" has been committed against me, as I am sure many of you can relate, or have heard of such stories from other DJ's and live acts that have had similar crimes committed against them. This crime is also against all of the artist who's music is now illegally being passed around with no contracts and at the end of the day, what is being passed around is a "bootleg" compilation where no artist receives a penny from it!
I am even speaking now of times long before the Internet where some people have confessed that they had recorded various DJ's sets, but they were only for their private listening pleasure and were never passed around. Today, I am through with such slimy people and I am letting the world know it. I am sure I will have to deal with all sorts of repercussions but I am willing and ready to defend myself and all of you while doing so. I can only hope and pray that I have everyone's support in doing so.
Basically, as it is written in my contract that the venues are not allowed to record my sets, and we are very precise about it
by saying it both on paper and in person upon arrival to remind them of how important this act of crime is against me and ALL
of the artist that I choose to select their productions and place them in my sets. This has happened to me in the past at
other venues and festivals, and I thought we were being as strict as we can possibly be by enforcing this and "kindly" reminding
them to please make sure that no other DJ booth, lighting or sound area is hooking up a CDR/DVD/DAT or modern external
hard drive device that can easily, unknowingly and illegally record an 8 hour set without one single interruption.
Unfortunately, it brings me great disappointment to share with all of you that I and my associates were completely lied to 100% on August 8th at Club Clorophilla in Italy. It was the celebration of
Ferrogosto Week. This is when most of Italy celebrates summer and take seasonal vacations, etc. I did a three city tour that ended in Rimini. I have to say that all three gigs were quite impressive with a turnout of 1000s of people in attendance and all of the venues were full beyond capacities. All of the gigs went extremely smooth and I came back to NY a very happy person, until Friday, August 31, '07 when I discovered and 100% validated with my very own ears a "part one and part two sets" that was most definitely me being illegally recorded at Clorophilla.
As hard as I may try, words cannot even describe the anger I am feeling at this time, as well as such incredible disappointment against these people and this venue Clorophilla who "at the time of the gig"showed me wonderful hospitality, great admiration and respect. I, in return gave them the best of myself and the
venue was still packed at closing time around 7am with everyone screaming for more and more!
But we had to stop by law and it all ended very well and I was happily on my way to the next city.
But, that is until this week when I heard that my set was being passed around by many, many people.
I did not want to not believe it because several times in the past, some people have tried to push off old GU CD
and other compilations of mine by saying it was me live at Pacha, etc, and lies of that nature ...
But this one here from Clorophilla I personally have confirmed it to be 100% LIVE from my set AND in total high quality! This was not a person on a dance floor with a modern recording device - as there is zero distortion. This was professionally recorded on the premises and I firmly believe this to be 100% true!
Upon arrival and sound check, my assistant and dear friend from Italy Adriano had gone ahead of me to do a full sound check and meet with Resident: DJ "Skizzo" (notice his name) - who was in charge of the sound and the booth set up. As of right now, until further notice, I "Danny Tenaglia" am fully holding Skizzo as the person in charge
of lying to all of us and recording my set. Although my strong intuition now tells me many others knew!
Adriano was there in the daytime and all was well. Adriano confirmed that after reminding Skizzo of my Anti Recording policy that Skizzo actually acted in response with a form of "semi annoyance" and with sort of an attitude by saying something like: "I don't need to be reminded, we are sponsored by RANE and I would not record the DJ's sets" ....
Apparently, someone is lying through their rotten teeth?
Underneath the console was a RANE Mixer and I did question it? I had requested a Pioneer mixer and Skizzo said the reason why the RANE mixer is there is because he decided to connect it to the Pioneer mixer in order to get a better overall quality from the sound system. I once again said to my assistant Adriano: please translate this and remind him of my No Recording policy! Well, here I am writing to all of you to tell you that we were all obviously very lied to, and I am
now asking everyone here to please join with me, not only against club Clorophilla and Skizzo (and whoever else was involved) but to please UNITE with me together so that we "as artist" are no longer stabbed in the backs, deceived, lied to, and feel as violated as I do today!
When we go into a DJ booth or onto a stage and perform, that is OUR art, and if we choose to not be recorded or filmed we should be entitled to this right. I honestly cannot imagine anyone here to disagree with me or feel that I am being irrational over this sore subject which is quite sacred to me? There are many professional
ways to do this. For example, when I played at Exit Festival in Serbia they politely asked me if I minded being filmed for the first 20 minutes of my set after Paul Woolford and I fully agreed and appreciated them asking. That is where it's entirely different. We no longer can have much control these days at all over the 1000s & 1000s of patrons with cameras and cell phones that also act as cameras and record us, but I have learned to accept this modern concept and I deal with it without any frustrations. However, in the case of this recent incident with Clorophilla - and last year at the Monegros festival where I signed an agreement to have them record the first 15 minutes of my set for radio promotions and hype, well they too lied to me and more than One Hour of my set was on the radio in Spain and then was downloaded and passed around, also including tracks I would never give away out of respect to the all of the artist and producers and labels involved.
I will not go further in who else has disrespected my wishes to NOT be recorded, but there have been many clubs from Boston to Ibiza and I have had to go to the extent of asking my personal sound tech or assistant, or my manager Kevin to please double check the situation.
Another area to beware of is our sets being recorded from where the lighting people are, as we have on a few occasions now discovered "them" recording the DJ's sets onto a DVD player, and several times
were lied to (at first) and they said no, this is for visuals. We then retrieved the DVD's or DATs, and sure enough it was 100% all audio as they were recording the entire evening of all the DJ's that night!
So, as I am trying to keep this brief, it's almost impossible because I want this letter and one with a very important message to be very understood as I only speak English and this is becoming an "International Virus" not just with Italy. I am hoping that my words get translated to every possible language from NY to New Zealand, etc.
I have been doing this for almost 30 years now and I am as established as one can be. I am fully content with myself, my career and grateful to God that it has exceeded and far surpassed what I had ever envisioned and dreamed it could ever be more than 20 years ago! I am still overwhelmed with a great joy at what God has allowed me to achieve having traveled to 25 countries now and for what I have achieved in also creating some music as well.
The last thing that I want to add here is: And this is from the deepest part of my heart and my existence .... Is that, my greatest reward that I hold so dear to my heart is having the wonderful gift of being able to say that I have met most of you personally. Many of us have now even shared the same booths together and I humble myself here to say to all of you that at the end of the day I am truly a fan of all of you. You have all inspired me in so many various ways from Deep house to Techno and especially with many of you as Producers whom I revere highly for helping my career blossom as most of you have also helped me become successful as I have played all over the world playing so many of your productions and remixes. I can elaborate for days, maybe weeks, but this really is from my every fiber and I hope that you all can sense my sincerity and my deep gratefulness to all of you for helping me over the many, many years.
I wish I had the e-mail addresses of 10,000 more people to add to this, but hopefully this message will be passed around and everyone will eventually feel me and prayerfully agree with me on this topic which is all about "r e s p e c t " and I was totally and completely disrespected @ Clorophilla.
I am not expecting everyone to reply or respond in any specific way. I just needed to get this off my chest and with the hopes that many of you may feel the same way and care if you are illegally being recorded or without any permission.
* When I play, I often incorporate accapellas' and parts from masters that were given to me exclusively out of respect, or some may have been from my very own Productions. I have learned to be careful in what I use when away from clubs in NYC where I am 100% certain that I am not being recorded, and I feel I was still careful at Clorophilla because it's still hard to trust people, even if they give you their word, which is exactly what happened to me there. Upon my first listen, I heard the first 5 seconds and it was 100% me triggering an exclusive accapella I have of Celeda singing: Pick yourself up, Pick yourself up, I knew instantly it was me, as this event was only 2 weeks ago and I had not used that accapella it a very long time.
This recording is 100% ME! There is no doubt whatsoever.
Please share this message with all of our other colleagues that I may not have e-mail access to. Please inform as many
DJ booking agencies as possible and once again, let's please Unite Together in taking better action against venues
and festivals, etc, so that we will no longer be recorded against our wishes and have "our artistic expressions" stolen from us!
I feel extremely violated today and this was the last straw for me. I told my manager and associates that I was preparing
myself to spend this very lovely and sunny summer day indoors to write to all of you and get this awful situation of my chest
in the hopes that it will bring me (and many of you that have been in my shoes) some Justice, Comfort and Peace of mind.
With all of my deepest RESPECT to everyone that reads this here extremely passionate letter!
Sincerely,
danny tenaglia
PS: These words are 100% from me. No one including a lawyer, manager, agent, associate or friend helped in any way to write
this e-mail. This is purely from the deepest part of me. Sorry for the length of it as I guess this validates my anger at this time.
Also, pardon any typos, I did my best to be as clearly understood as I possibly can.
PPS: I will try to reply to as many people as possible with any questions, etc.
However, my mailbox is already backed up from previous travels and I am still
here working very hard as I still have a very full summer schedule. If you have
any other form of questions, please write to my manager Kevin McHugh at:
mailto:kevin@dannytenaglia.com
