WHEN BEING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY’S ODD COUPLE PAID DIVIDENDS…

We called ourselves “Walter and Jack” after the two characters in “The Odd Couple”, and the name stuck because it was true: We were Asia’s odd couple of the music industry, and also, very possibly, the most successful. It worked to have one of us who talked softly and carried a big stick and the other who enjoyed being a big stick and having some thinking he was a whack job who had a short fuse. 

Norman (Cheng) and I read the tea leaves extremely well. We almost magically and effortlessly came together- this smooth and urbane Chinese gentleman and the other born in Sri Lanka, and making a name for himself in advertising while also writing for Billboard, the world’s leading music trade publication. Somehow this combination helped doors of opportunity open for a fledgling music industry in Asia that would normally have been shut. 

Norman and I pried these doors open without even knowing we were doing it. Perhaps, we were being guided by timing and common sense…and The Big Oddball above?

Through a friendship that had started about a decade earlier with us being in different pop groups-Norman, the Chinese guitarist with Hong Kong’s most popular pop group Teddy Robin and the Playboys, and me going to secondary school at KGV, a far more international school and at a time when a number of us teenagers in Hong Kong were forming school bands with varying degrees of success, something totally unplanned came together.

Norman was slightly older than us and already a teenage “band boy” playing professionally at a nightclub in North Point. He was a very good guitarist who many of us looked up to as while most of our bands were rather rough and veering towards three chord commercial blues, as its leader, Norman had shaped the Playboys into a very tight commercial pop unit that even knew barre and augmented chords.

He also had a part time job as an assistant engineer at Diamond Music which gave him a head start when it came to understanding the different ways of recording music- and knowing what kinda stunk and didn’t cut the mustard but passed gas.

I didn’t know what I wanted to be and really wasn’t very good even as one of the Sons Of Han, a group formed and led by my best friend in school and a brilliant young all round musician in Steve Tebbutt.

Steve and Norman formed their own musical mutual admiration society and which was probably the reason that the Sons Of Han got any recording time at the Diamond Music studios. What were we recording? We recorded a single with both songs being originals by Steve, who had decided to give up drumming to play guitar and sing. We also recorded some original tracks which we mimed our way through on a couple of television variety shows as Go Go dancers frugged energetically around us.

It probably looked pretty surreal because I was going through my George Harrison phase at the time and trying awfully hard to be this mystical man of peace and writing about, I guess, being mystical while trying to grow a beard.

The Sons Of Han were short circuited and circumcised when Steve decided to go on to bigger things by playing professionally as a drummer in Tokyo and Hawaii while still in his teens whereas I was making some progress as a budding songwriter.

Sadly, Steve accidentally checked out of life in his early twenties and when revisiting Hong Kong very close to the time that I had met the Wrangler girl and whom I corralled and married. I was with Steve the night before we were forced to go our separate ways.

Meanwhile…

I wrote the first three English songs for Sam Hui to record after he left his group called the Lotus, which were fairly sophisticated for those times.

Teddy Robin, the Wynners and a few other local artists recorded my originals which were okay without being Wolfgang creations. Norman produced all the tracks and eventually took over the General Manager position when Diamond Music was sold and became PolyGram.

Without anyone knowing it, Norman was building his own team and signing up unknown artists who are considered Canto Pop legends today.

Hong Kong was quickly becoming the leader for Cantonese music though with still a very long way to go whereas with my new career in advertising included writing and recording jingles, and having Billboard on my name card didn’t hurt. Again, it opened doors.

Writing for Billboard helped me promote music from this region and also meet some of the biggest names in international music, which made me think that this might be where I belonged. I also saw the worlds of advertising and music marketing and sports sponsorship coming together long before MySpace and the rest of the online world made way for Napster and Facebook and the world entered the MTV mothership.

Norman and I not only saw the writing on the wall, we pretty much owned the wall in Asia.

When PolyGram bought fifty percent of MTV Asia, and with my background in advertising and knowing when a consumer product was broken and could be fixed, the dexterity of the odd couple came into play. 

This was when I became Bwana Hans, the man sent in as the troubleshooter to look after PolyGram’s interests and investment in MTV Asia and find out what I could.

My advice? Put a cap on the investment, cut your losses and pretend the deal never happened.

I leveraged this bit of financial chaos into selling the music channel its first short-form programming idea called “Out Of The Box” for Philips, the parent company of PolyGram.

To kinda close the circle and have me on side, I was asked by the music channel to be an Advisor on the Philips million dollar marketing and sponsorship budget, which segued into the the time when Seagrams bought PolyGram and launched Universal Music.

In a competitive war with someone else to become who would lead the operations in the region- including Japan- I used my position as correspondent in Asia with Billboard to create a checkmate move for Norman. After all, he was from Asia, he knew the music industry, he was a good A&R man and he understood consumer tastes.

This positioning the Asian Odd Couple very clearly to those in the industry and was built around The Art Of War concept and how Divide and Conquer can actually work: Norman looked after the China market and Japan whereas I joined Universal Music and made the always entertaining worldwide presentations, looked after International and made the Asia region, and especially China, look humongous and exciting with funding needed to make Big Dreams of POTENTIALLY being the biggest music market in the WORLD a reality.

Norman had already established himself as a game changer when he had Hong Kong born singer Jackie Cheung record his new single release in Mandarin with this meaning tapping into the mainland China market. This track became a huge hit and overnight, the priority was for Hong Kong artists to record in Mandarin and eventually tour China. Big name sponsors were clambering to get on board the same bandwagon.

For myself, I thoroughly enjoyed my twelve years with Universal though we both knew there was someone right at the top who would have preferred to see the back of Norman- but only a fool would knock success and we were -an extremely successful team and delivering the numbers plus, sponsors and new business streams.

The Japanese market was at its strongest, our international roster was the best in the world as was our back catalogue and the labels we had meant that we practically had everything and everyone who mattered on Def Jam, A&M, Motown, MCA etc. 

Max Hole, the global head of International and I became firm friends and got along extremely well with me being the person who gave him the idea for the “Michael McDonald Sings Motown” album that sold over 15 million units and resurrected the career of the much overlooked artist.

More rewarding for me was presenting Martell with the idea of Music becoming part of its When You Know advertising campaign.

We closed the deal at the very upmarket and exclusive escort club in Tsimshatsui known as BBoss and with a Rolls Royce to take customers from one side of the Club to the other.

This deal saw us selling the client 867,000 units of different CDs comprising tracks from our back catalogue at full price and which single handedly made our EBITDA for the year in the region- Earnings Before Income Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation. 

Universal Music aside, Norman and I were also enjoying a six star lifestyle by travelling around the world for various meetings, staying at the finest hotels, dining in the best restaurants and always making the time to go horse racing, clubbing and all the time building up our roller deck.

There were also new plans afoot that needed about two years of planning and finding the right people to take our places so that we wouldn’t be bound by non-compete contracts and Non Disclosure Agreements. Everything came together. 

As far as everyone knew, Norman was going to retire and I was returning to advertising.

At quite a tacky club in Happy Valley picked by someone at Universal, I gave a speech and thanked Norman for all his achievements and assured him that the gift of a cheap set of golf clubs would serve him well during his retirement. The night spluttered to an end with he and I meeting up for a late night drink and discussing next steps. 

There wasn’t going to be any “retirement” and which caught many off guard. Timing was and still is everything and the Odd Couple were moving to EMI and support our former bosses at PolyGram- Alain Levy and David Munns- who were their own very odd couple.

Though we had to let some deadweight go, the EMI Years started off with a bang and ended with a fizzle when the music company was nefariously sold to private equity company Terra Firma and Levy and Munns found themselves locked out of their offices in London.

The Biscuit Bungler had struck.

The good times included taking a struggling major music company with a four percent market share in the region to 24 percent in less than a year, thanks to the massive successes of the debut releases by Norah Jones, Coldplay and Gorillaz plus Robbie Williams scoring big with “Angels”.

It was also the time for bringing Asian sounds and artists into the global jumbo mix through chill out remixes of the original recordings by Shanghai’s original divas and then bringing bangra and Chinese rhythms and artists into the music of international names like Gorillaz, David Bowie and Robbie Williams. The great godmother of Hindi music Asha Bhosle duetted with Bowie and Robbie. 

Yoko Ono gave me permission to Remix “Give Peace A Chance” with the Voices Of Asia and helped me release an album of John Lennon’s outtakes. I also did what some at Head Office thought was mission impossible.

This was when setting eyes on the extremely tall Croatian classical crossover artist named Maksim at a new talent EMI showcase in Barcelona and knowing audiences in Hong Kong, and especially China, would love his brand of cheesy gothic kitsch. They did.

One of my favourite Chinese artists in Faye Wong endorsed the Upper Class services of Virgin Atlantic and had also recorded with the Cocteau Twins whereas a Danish group with the unlikely name of Michael Learns To Rock were coerced into covering in English the huge Mandarin hit for Jacky Cheung which not only became their biggest hit in the region, but through the power and popularity of karaoke, it resulted in a very successful regional tour.

Before the arrival of Terra Firma and EMI falling into the hands of the Guy Hands owned private equity company Terra Firma, Norman had used his time wisely and created his own label called Gold Typhoon and which he quickly built up and sold to a budding entrepreneur named Louis Pong.

I went straight into creating the Happy Wednesday brand for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, managed it for twelve years and which changed the face of horse racing by introducing it to a younger audience largely through giving it a musical soundtrack.

Seems like I do everything in twelves. Must be a Jesus complex.

Of course, I am still in touch with Norman who is enjoying spending quality time with his family while also staying fit playing tennis and jamming with friends. 

When we meet, we reminisce, not like the Sunshine Boys, but about two guys from humble beginnings who changed the music industry in Asia by creating a new one and now seeing it become what it is.

I’m working on a multimedia project about the world needing Hope, Happiness and Inspiration as the black clouds of negativity and doom and gloom must make way for all that’s good and positive.

Though unhappy seeing what the world has become, there’s no point whining about things beyond our control. 

As the man said. He who ain’t busy doin’ is busy dying, so don’t follow leaders and watch your parking meters and embrace and dance in the glow of the incredible and inspiring talent of Jessie Buckley.