We are proud to have Wyclef Jean of the Refugee Assassins on the cover, as well as his Mercedes V500. Some of you may not be familiar with Wyclef, who is one of the most prolific guys in the music industry! But just about everyone knows the people he has worked with and helped, like the Fugees. Wyclef is a top producer and musician, and a busy man on the go; hence the loaded V500.
One day I got this telephone call from a young woman who began to quiz me about the Fred Durst cover on CA&E (December, 2000). I was not on staff at the time but Christen of Unique Autosports explained that the East Coast would like a little love as well! "We have major clients, too - Busta', Eminem, Wycelf, Eric Sermon..." Like any editor in his right mind, I said, "OK hook me up!" We're more than glad to spread the love. She told me more about the A-list clients and top of the line rides with first-rate installs. A little later the phone rang; this time it was Will of Unique Autosports. He let me know that within one week he would be going out to Las Vegas for a little business and pleasure, and that he could hop over to the Los Angeles airport to give me a full multimedia demo on his laptop computer, if I was willing to meet with him. This cat is willing to fly 3,000 miles? I will be there! We had an hour and forty-five minute lunch meeting; and back on the plane Will went. No joke, he has the largest names in the industry, a fly portfolio, and he comes to visit us. This is serious! It's all about cross marketing! Will's partner is Eric Semon. Some of you may recognize him from the famous hip-hop group EPMD from the late eighties. Eric had a stereo/wheel & tire shop located in Atlanta, but wanted to keep his two passions closer together with his production studio. For more on Unique please see our E-Files section.
Last month I wrote about how installers are key to our industry. And the popularity of the Installer Challenge, a contest that took place at Spring Break Nationals, only confirmed us of that. The idea for it came from Dave "Fishman" Rivera. With help from a number of people, like Robert Garza of Select Products, who hosted the challenge, it finally came together. This was and will be the single most important event of the year. An important page in the history of car audio competition. Maybe I should re-word that and say that this marks a new chapter: The Re-birth of Competition. This is something to build on! Sound quality? Who died and made you judge and jury over sound quality? I do not need someone to tell me my system sounds good! SPL? I love you guys, but I have a better crowd pleaser. Let's bring out these big gun woofers and have a 110 volt death and destruction hopping match. We could lay the woofer face down, give it some extra power wire and juice and let that sucker hop all over the place till it blows! The crowd will go insane with laughter. Enter for the first ever CA&E woofer hopping competition now! I think my boys over at Lowrider magazine will serve as judges. Ah, the smell of burnt electric motor crust. We could use some comedy in our sometimes o-so-serious industry. While I am on the subject of the Spring Break show - it was unfortunate that the facility was not large enough to hold the entire gig. A publishing company (not us) tried to bring the whole car show aspect to the sound-off arena, but the limited space would not allow it; so there was a separate show five blocks away. Not too bad, but enough so that I did not get to go and visit during the allotted hours. Not exactly advantageous for cross-over marketing for our industry. But we did manage to make it to their world-class after-party. Paul Okenfold was on stage spinning the crowd into a deep trance at the get together hosted by Super Street magazine when all of a sudden I was yanked from the stage by a very large person from security. I was shooting photos for our readers when he started to give me the third degree, asking how I got on stage. I was escorted off the premises. Now I know who mandated it because I was talking over the issue with him and he turned his back. He, a friend of the industry, could not tell me to my face, and had his security cats do his dirty work. A class act. Go to our site and maybe I will get some photos up on behalf of Paul and his manager. Sorry, Super Sweet - I mean, Street.