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His recording gear consisted of a ten-year-old Gibson electric guitar, a Rhodes analog keyboard (borrowed), a $70 Shure microphone, a three-year-old Macintosh G3, a copy of Reason music-composition software lent to him by a friend and an old Moog synthesizer that he got for 50 bucks. A frugal, clean-cut Michigan State grad with a degree in philosophy, he made Budrik's money go a long way. "Down-tempo lounge groove," Katsiris calls it.įour of the cuts on Enjoy Detroit are pieces Katsiris wrote and recorded. Premier Cru's first release, Enjoy Detroit, sounds like it could be background for a noir Tokyo nightclub. Their label's name is supposed to be a nod to both first-growth wines and to hip-hop, a genre whose musicians refer to their ensembles as crews. The two met when Budrik hired Katsiris as a salesman for the Wine Cart, the store Budrik manages on Manhattan's Upper East Side. So what if three-fourths of these entrepreneurs will be gone within two years?īudrik, a fervent fan of everything from Spanish bullfight music to classic jazz, teamed up with musician George Katsiris, 25, in his venture. There's no official count, but he estimates that between 2,500 and 5,000 amateurs started up record labels last year. Clay Pasternack, chairman of the Association for Independent Music, says you can put out a CD for as little as $1,000. Technology has done to the marketing of recorded music what it did a decade ago to the publishing of the printed word-lowered the barrier to entry down to just about zero. Budrik woke up one morning to find himself producer of a Bangkok disc jockey's top-five pick. More surprising: In just 18 months his little label, Premier Cru Music, has pulled in revenue of $16,000 and has gotten worldwide airplay on BBC radio. Budrik, though, did not have to risk his life savings, as he might have done a generation ago.