Groove Addicts, the Los Angeles-based music and sound design house headed by owner/executive creative director Dain Blair, has expanded to the Midwest with the opening of a satellite office in Chicago. Producer/composer Howard Pfeifer, who has relocated from Southern California to the Windy City to head up the new venture, serves as creative director.
Blair and Pfeifer plan to bring on one or two Chicago-based composers in the near future. However, all of the company's composers and sound designers will be available to clients in the Midwest.
"I'll be writing, presenting and working with other composers and clients to achieve things quickly and easily in a meaningful way," Pfeifer noted. "We'll have one or two key guys here, and the full roster of people in L.A., with [tracks] transferred by the Internet."
Groove Addicts' core spot composer roster, in addition to Pfeifer, includes Al Capps, Tim Winn, Phil X, Harry Cody and Tony Phillips. The company represents upwards of 50 composers for commercials. Coming from varied disciplines—primarily features and the recording industry—they include such big-name talent as Kate Bush, Stewart Copeland, Danny Elfman, Michael Kamen, Marc Shaiman and John Powell. Sound designers are Jonathan Miller and Robert Wear.
The target for the satellite office—which features a ProTools studio—is that segment of the midwest spot production business that doesn't leave the Chicago area. "We have been told on countless occasions by agencies that there's a certain percentage of work that remains local, that we can't be considered for, even in this age of FTP sites and instant gratification," Blair noted. "Sometimes the agency wants face-to-face meetings near their office." Added Pfeifer: "Groove Addicts has enjoyed good relationships with Chicago agencies, but still can't get some work because of the convenience element. So we're hoping to offer people we already work with [in the Midwest] a stronger base, and to build [our midwest clientele] from there."
As part of the expansion, Groove Addicts has fortified its representation in the Midwest with the addition of independent rep Peter Freiberger, who will cover the smaller midwest territories, as well as the Southeast. Elizabeth Mang continues to rep the company in Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit. She now also handles Texas. New York-based Elyse Emmer represents Groove Addicts on the East Coast. West coast sales are handled in house.
A native of Chicago, Pfeifer had been based in Southern California for the past 25 years. His relationship with Blair dates back some two decades, to when they both worked out of now defunct Killer Music. About two years ago, they began working together on a freelance basis, with Pfeifer continuing to operate his own 10-year-old commercial music house, Pfeifer Music Partners (PMP). Pfeifer continues to maintain PMP out of Groove Addicts for select non-competitive assignments.
As a composer, Pfeifer said, he is most interested in scoring commercials that reveal some truth, and in which "the concepts work together and make a strong piece of advertising." He continued, "I've been doing this for years, and, obviously, to be successful you have to be versatile, so there's not too [many music styles] that I find difficult to tackle." Via Groove Addicts he recently scored a spot for Airheads candy, out of The Wonder Group, Cincinnati. Through PMP, he scored a Western Union ad via Bromley Communications, San Antonio, Texas.
Category: News