Human Algorithm Takeover | 09.18.23
with Franki Chan - Founder & Chief Creative Officer of IHEARTCOMIX
Music Club is back and so are its Human Algorithm Takeovers! To kick things off, please welcome to the club Franki Chan - founder & chief creative officer of IHEARTCOMIX, a music & entertainment creative marketing agency. I came across IHC recently as we both did marketing for the same film. I did a little deep dive and started following IHC Weekly, a weekly playlist curated by Franki that I highly recommend for all my electronic/dance music fans. Others may recognize IHEARTCOMIX from back in the day…it’s the record label that Flosstradamus and Brodinski debuted on and started the LA event series Check Yo Ponytail.
Thank you Franki & IHC for joining us and curating a mix just for the club! They will be celebrating their 20 year anniversary so be sure to follow along and see what they get up to.
🎶 HA Takeover with Franki Chan / Founder & Chief Creative Officer / IHEARTCOMIX
Why music?
It's always been an area of life where I've felt a real sense of community both in terms of the culture & the creativity - the things that really appeal to me. My father was a big music head. I was born in ‘78 so when I was a little kid, between the ages of 5-10, my father had MTV on 24/7 - that era of early to mid 80s with all those characters, videos and hits was something I was immediately attracted to. As I got into high school, I started hanging out with other friends that played music, started to play in bands and went on tour. As I branched out on my own in my early 20s, that love of dance hits from when I was a kid, came back into play. While I was very much in the punk scene, I really liked to dance so I started to DJ too. All that spiraled into different types of events. That was how I met Steve (Aoki). He and I started to collaborate for a few years throwing parties. We started Cinespace Tuesdays together but had a big breakup and started competing parties on the same night (mine was Check Yo’ Ponytail).
IHEARTCOMIX started as a music event/party promoter and record label, then evolved into a creative agency & content studio, with a focus on music, lifestyle & culture. How did it evolve from one to the other? How does music inform what you do?
Next year is our 20th anniversary but for the first 10-12 years ago, we were just throwing fun shows and had a record label. Then it took a turn into the creative agency realm for a couple reasons. The main one being we were growing up and didn't want to be in the club. The other reason was we were spending so much time trying to produce our events that it became more than what we could cover with ticket sales.
Our point of view as an agency has been to stick to who we are in our roots and stay very true to the things that we love, and work within the realm of music and entertainment. Music is a large part of everything that we do. I'd say 70 to 80% of our projects are entertainment based and they're coming to us to speak to our music audience. We've found a lot of strength in owning our niche and trying to be really good at that. It makes us stand out in the industry.
You curate an awesome weekly playlist called IHC Mix Weekly. How do you go about putting this together?
I follow around 20 or 30 playlists of trusted curators - record labels and individuals - that update their playlists every week or every other week. I also religiously follow every artist and every sub artist so my release radar is super robust. I start there, Thursdays at 9pm, go through every song, which is a 2s listen. I go over it Thursday night and Friday as people update their lists and cherry pick what I'm missing. Usually what goes up on Friday is the rough draft. Then by Monday I’ll probably kill 30 songs. It's become a really nice habit as it is a week-long process as the mixtapes are 4-6 hours, so long enough to last the entire week. I also listen to it and refine it as I'm pulling stuff out for my DJ sets. It’s been a nice way to be super up to date with all the latest jams. Then as Monday rolls around, people start putting out new music and start filling that folder back, and the process starts again.
How often do you DJ, is it something you are pursuing or see more as a hobby?
It is more of a hobby, or for fun, in the sense I'm not trying to make a career out of it. I definitely had a period of my life where it was but going into our 20th anniversary next year, I've been making a point this year to play more and be more strategic about where I'm playing. Often I'm playing and practicing to ensure my sets are really good because that is a large part of how IHEARTCOMIX started. So between the playlist, playing more and being way more focused on our PR, our outlook this year is to build our story into the things that we're going to do next year.
What is the inspiration behind your playlist?
The playlist is themed after the next wave of indiesleaze/bloghaus style artists.
❤️ Where to find IHC: Instagram / Website / Spotify Weekly Playlist
🎵 Music Club Beats / now playing: Sept 1-17
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