Profile - Wayne Briggs:
Essential to the scene
Groove Essentials, Wayne Briggs’ “entertainment marketing and concept-building company,” is essentially an umbrella for his many ventures into the world of entertainment.
Groove Essentials performs services including music promotion and management, club and event promotion, and (in the future) film production.
Speech (of Arrested Development) handed over control of House of Vagabond, a music production and promotion company, to Briggs in 1997. Briggs took the computers, the files and the know-how and formed Groove Essentials that same year.
SHADE IN THE BOX FOR THE BLURB @cutline:Brigg’s piece de triomphe is the second annual Bohemian Debauchery, a theatrical club party that will happen at eleven50 on Sat., June 26.
As erotic as it is exotic, BoDeb is “like the Cirque du Soleil of the club scene,” insists Briggs. “It’s a tribute to all the people who live and love the club scene.” (See Allnight for full details.)
Briggs’ baby: “I’ve always been pushing other people’s work. Bohemian Debauchery is a culmination of everything that’s been in my head — it’s like my band.” It’s also a celebration of his 10-year anniversary of working in Atlanta.
You’ll not likely see many artists working under Briggs’ thumb, as his strategy for Groove Essentials is one of “strategic alliances”: “We prefer to work with people rather than own them. I’m trying to discover and promote talent and just be a conduit, not to own and have interest in talent.”
Growing up in Los Angeles, Briggs worked for an entertainment magazine, an entertainment lawyer and as a booking agent. He got the bug for scouting talent when he “discovered” Wiki Wiki, a French ska band, in Paris in the 1980s, and procured them a publishing deal in the States.
Briggs and the Groove Essentials crew have worked with local acts Minamina Goodsong, El Pus, DJ Mike Pepsi, Tim DeGroot (of Rareform) and Mad Happy.
Owning his own business has Briggs working every minute of every day. He winds down by mountain biking, playing the trumpet and listening to unsigned artists.