Interview and Music Career Tips with Timo Garcia

Recently, Music Jobs fired a few questions at music industry freelancer and Music Jobs member Tim Belcher (aka Timo Garcia), touching on his past experience in the industry, as well as advice on dodging some of the pitfalls, and his current and future work projects.

You seem to have been involved in the music industry for a while now, but what was your first music job?

At the tender age of 15 I used to book a local night club and put on events. I hired indie bands to play live upstairs while we DJ’ed indie and dance music on the main floor below. It was tricky trying to get some of my school friends in saying they were 18 mind you because I looked a lot older than some of them!

What kind of work have you been up to recently?

I do a lot of sound engineering work at my studio these days. I have found I really enjoy working with other artists and realising their dreams by turning their ideas into finished products ready to release on Beatport. Plus it’s a lot more healthy than DJing every weekend and means my body clock isn’t messed up quite as often as when I’m out DJing.

How did you start your own record label?

An old friend of mine who I used to DJ with in France years ago came to one of my gigs at Pacha in London and said he had a bit of cash to invest and did I want to set up the record label we’d always talked about running one day. My production had just got up to a good enough standard to release and so Berwick Street Records was born.

What is it like being an indie label in the digital age? What kind of problems have you come across and how have you overcome them?

We came into the market at completely the wrong time and lost a lot of money on physical products like vinyl and CDs with four different distributors going bust on us and owing us stock and money! There are obviously a lot of positives about the digital era but there’s just not enough money generated from sales of even a pretty solid big name release these days to keep going. Then when you get handed a massively unrealistic invoice from the accountants along with legal threats and massive fines (from a certain company where you get e-images) claiming that a couple of photos we used on our promo page were theirs we had no choice but to close the label down.

What are the positive and negative things about a career in music?

Working in the music industry is fun and rewarding because you know that so many people are enjoying the end product and that it can change peoples lives and create happiness as well as many other emotions! One of the main downsides is that people no longer think they should pay for music and so many jobs are being lost and people are expected to work for less these days it seems. That and the amount of sharks that infest the waters of our beautiful industry!

How long have you been producing music?

Since around ’97 when my flatmate at Leeds university Mr Jon Naylor installed some wicked software called ReBirth on his PC and I started jamming on that making acidic beats! I then set up a full studio back in my loft down south with my Spanish friend Alvaro Garcia (hence the name) and we learned how to use synths, effects units, samplers, mixing desks and sequencers for a few years until finally in 2005 I felt ready to release my first ever solo production onto the unsuspecting public!

How would you say your sound has evolved over the years?

I always enjoyed making Deep House but (the real) Garcia was more into Trance so we met in the middle and started producing a kind of Tribal / Prog sound so I guess when I went solo I kept some of the Proggy vibes in my productions. Also I find I get some very festival type gigs by releasing the big room sound. But to be honest I have a very varied style. For example I just released a 122bpm Deep House cut on OFF Recordings last month which was followed up the week after by a big room 128bpm Tech House monster on Loaded which I’ve now recorded Amber Jolene’s vocals over. But I’ve also recently released a 14 track down-tempo artist album under my T_Mo guise called World Of Sound, so it’s hard to pinpoint my exact sound.

T_Mo – World Of Sound (artist album 30 secs sampler) by TimoGarcia

What influences you whilst making music?

What I ate at lunch! What time I went to bed the previous night! Seriously though it does all have an influence on the direction I take my music in. That’s why I produced my chillout album. Because I share a studio sometimes I have to make use of it on a Sunday or Monday and if I’ve been out DJing til the early hours or am recovering from jet lag then I prefer to make music with melody, feeling and hardly any loud beats! Or if it’s Friday and I’m ready to party, I’ll make some big thumping House sounds!

Which other musicians have you enjoyed working with?

I’ve recently done collaborations with X-Press 2, Jerome Sydenham and DJ Pierre which were all great fun. Also I love working with Amber Jolene, she really brings my music to life and takes it in a completely different direction. And of course I love working with my engineering clients… It’s great to work with other peoples ideas and to get their productions out there on to Beatport and iTunes. I’ve just spent a week working with a really great producer / vocal and lyricist called Baile… watch this space…

What else does the future hold for Timo?

Apart from doing a lot of music engineering work, I’m also writing my second down-tempo album at the moment. As for the club stuff, I’ve got a lot of releases coming up on Compost, Yoshitoshi, Stealth, Skint, Southern Fried & 303 Lovers as well as my remix of the Robert Owens classic ‘I’ll Be Your Friend’ which hit the top of the Miami Buzz charts in spring finally coming out in August! On the gig front, I’ve got gigs and tours coming up in Brazil, India, Italy, France, Holland and of course my home town of London on Friday Aug 5th at East Village (with Juan Atkins!)

Check out Tim’s Music Jobs Profile


by Lee Jarvis.

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Tags: deep house, dj, down-tempo, Electro, electronic, Engineer, house, interview, Producer, techno, Timo Garcia