And you began Distant Music in '96, correct? What type of artists and music were you trying to put out with this?

Well the first release was by Johnny Fiasco (The E.Z. Tracks EP Vol. 1). I wanted to mix and match - I didn't want to just start with my own stuff. I was still just kinda doing production stuff and I had to work doing retail, selling records, and I knew Johnny Fiasco at the time was selling a lot of units. I was already friends with him so he did the first one.

Why the name Distant Music? What does that mean?

Distant Music kinda represented how I wanted to be distant from all the other labels, and just really far away from everybody. And at the time where I lived which was Red Hook in Brooklyn was a good fifteen blocks from the train so that was about as distant as it could get.

Did you run this label by yourself?

I started the label off at my house, but you know - you gotta understand I worked at another label and I was doing retail so when I started my label, I more or less knew what to do. I work very quick. I started my label, and did a P&D deal with 83 West Records in Toronto and kicked those two labels off and we worked very quickly.

Within six to eight months, I was already renting a little office space and then within a year I had taken over the office space. As it went down, I started getting more staff, etc. etc. It built very quickly.

Now I'm back to just freelancing. With the diminishing of the vinyl end of the business and everything, I gave the office up about two years ago. The office was then in Manhattan. I've moved back into Brooklyn now and basically I'm just doing my production again. You'll see some Distant Music stuff on the digital downloads and the CD stuff.

That's what I wanted to ask you and I've been asking a lot of other artists as well. Right now it still seems like a gray zone with the MP3s and iTunes and where that's going to go. How do you see the market going now with the whole digital download?

Within a matter of three or four years, everything has completely changed and that's why you see now everybody is kinda single. Now there's hardly any need for a staff. For me, I'm back to being an independent freelancing producer. I do mixes, I release them on Distant Music. I might press up 1000 limited vinyl and do my MP3s.

I think about this everyday, but I really can't answer that question. It's very small now - we're down to a few pressing plants, a few distributors and a few record stores... because there are some guys out there that just collect vinyl.

Do you still play some of your earlier tracks or do you sometimes cringe when you hear some of your earlier work?

There are a couple of things I might cringe about but what I realize is that sometimes, you may want to be stubborn... but when I go on these gigs, a lot of kids ask to hear this stuff.

I was actually googling myself last night on some websites and there were like three or four things that I've done that I completely forgot about. There's a lot of stuff that I completely forgot about but I want to have them all on CD because the kids do ask for it when I'm playing out.

"It's Yours" was such a major club anthem, is it almost required that you play it in all your sets?

I had not played "It's Yours" for about two years. I just now played it at the last two gigs because they were asking for it and it was kind of a crowd that wanted to hear the hits. It was some place in the UK. I go back and forth. I don't play it unless its asked for, but if it's asked for, you don't want to be mean about it.

Can you tell me how you came about writing that song?