Art is a business. If you want to be an actor, musician, writer or any other sort of artist when you grow up and leave the warm embrace of school, you’re going to have to find people willing to pay you for your art. And while you may wish to believe that your talent is great enough to materialize an audience out of thin air, the truth is it often takes a lot of advertising, canvassing, arranging auditions and booking gigs to find and make a significant following.
Two Madison students will investigate the dichotomy of art and business as UW senior Christopher Quimbo launches his music career with the aid of Majic Management — a company born of the entrepreneurial efforts of UW senior Mike Jurken.
Quimbo has thrown himself into the considerably large local music scene with a recently recorded CD and a series of small venue performances scheduled throughout the semester to promote the release. Quimbo already has some exposure as a MadHatter but decided to branch out into a solo career as a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.
Quimbo’s voice possesses a husky tonal quality that lends him a unique and soulful sound. His influences — The Beatles, Wilco, Ray Lamontagne, Radiohead, Beck and Coldplay among others — appear in a rich and broad ballad style, supplemented by smartly used orchestration.
“[On the album] is piano, electric piano by myself, cello by Michael Graves, bass and synth percussion by Scott Lamps,” Quimbo explained.
Not a surprising or unusual assortment of musical instruments, but they are well employed to complement his gritty voice. The cello is smooth and velvety as it floats over and then into Quimbo’s piano playing. The end result, produced by Scott Lamps of Mike Droho and the Compass Rose, previously The Profits, sounds clear and the instruments well balanced.
The album also reflects the efforts of fellow MadHatter Mike Jurken, who caught on to Quimbo’s potential and offered to help him develop his music career.
Through established business sense and people skills, Jurken saw the potential to help artists pursue their dreams. In high school, Jurken began a small DJing company based in the Milwaukee area. Through his ingenuity and hard work he was able to grow the business into Majic Enterprises, a company capable of putting on corporate events for clients such as The Red Cross. He provides equipment and services for various shows and festivals including Summerfest, and maintains Reviewaconcert.com, one of the internet’s largest sites devoted solely to reviewing concerts around the country. For his efforts, not only does he boast an impressive list of clients, but his company was awarded a spot on the “A-List” by WISN-TV, Milwaukee’s ABC affiliate. He accomplished all of these feats while going to school full-time, but Jurken wanted to do more. That’s how Majic Management was created,
“Majic Management is a full service talent management firm, representing clients in the music, acting, modeling and writing industries. My clients range from musical artists to actors in feature full-length movies and reality TV shows,” Jurken said.
Through Majic Management, Jurken is able to help young and student artists in the Madison and Milwaukee areas book gigs, get in contact with the right people and increase their exposure. This is the business of art — planning, managing, producing and strategizing.
“Reviewaconcert.com has put me in touch with many record labels and artists. [I can] develop appropriate markets for my clients,” he continued.
Even better is Jurken’s ability to help the performers.
“It’s pretty awesome [working with Mike Jurken]. I know that I can ask Jurken anything and get an honest answer. He keeps it real, literally. It is nice having someone like that working on your side when you’re dreaming for big things. … He finds a way to balance a million things and just when you doubt that you have his attention, he delivers something big,” Quimbo said of working with Jurken.
Jurken may be proving himself an integral part in the careers of performers like Quimbo, but he knows that without the artists, this venture could not exist.
“At the end of everything it’s about the artist; I want to help them share their talents,” Jurken said.
Christopher Quimbo is the artist; Mike Jurken is the businessman. One is the voice, and one is the megaphone. Without the voice, a megaphone is useless. But, without a megaphone, the voice has much less of a chance to stand out.
