When Peter Varshavsky
compact fluorescent lamp and his father, Sergei, decided to start a new music label in San Francisco last year they had no idea what they were doing. Having come from stuffy academic backgrounds, the Russian transplants just knew they wanted to do something to promote all the great local music they were hearing in clubs. So they picked up a couple of outdated books about the music industry and studied them carefully.
"We built our business model on breaking almost every rule those books were giving us," says Peter, 27.
In November, the Mission District Porto Franco Records put out its first six releases, immediately going against the grain by introducing an eclectic collection of music that runs the gamut from Gaucho's moody Gypsy jazz to Mark Matos and Os Beaches' twangy psychedelic rock.
No niche
"The way we were reading about music marketing, we were told to find a niche and stick with it," Peter says. "But the way we like music is one day you go to an old-time jazz band, the next day you go to an indie rock concert. We were seeing a lot of the same people in the audience."
In a move that would probably make EMI shareholders blow coffee out of their noses, the home-grown label then determined to skew everything in the artists' favor. This means not only do the musicians get high royalties and full access to the accounting files, but they also have no contractual obligation to stay with Porto Franco - Italian for free port.
"We only want artists to work with us if they want to," Peter says.
Tough economic climate
Just starting a music label seems counterintuitive in this economic climate, when even the majors are having trouble keeping afloat.
"The running joke is we needed somewhere to invest our money," Peter says.
To date, the father-and-son team has invested close to $200,000 in Porto Franco acts and has seen very little - if any - of it returned.
Having moved
compact fluorescent lamp here three years ago to finish his master's degree in mathematics at San Francisco State, Peter became increasingly distracted by the vibrant live music scene in the city's small venues. His enthusiasm was infectious. Sergei, 50, sold his clinical research company in Eastern Europe, relocated to San Francisco and started helping local musicians with finances, press and promotion. The Varshavskys figured that providing their favorite bands with a label would make things even easier, so Peter put his studies on hold and made this a full-time job.
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