CLONING EINSTEIN
NEW INTERNET BASED OPPORTUNITIES FOR
INDIE ARTISTS CREATE A NEW LIFE FOR THE
PHILLY BASED BAND'S SELF-TITLED ADULT
CONTEMPORARY ALBUM—SEVEN YEARS AFTER
TRACKS FROM THE PROJECT SCORED MASSIVE
SUCCESS ON MP3.COM!
* * *
Cloning Einstein's Fugees-Inspired Take On U2's
“I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For” Hit The
Top 20 On MP3's Worldwide Chart; The Still Fresh, Hypnotic
Mid-Tempo Ballad  “I Believe,” Which Went Top 40 on MP3, Is Set
To Hit AC Stations Everywhere On January 14

While everyone on the conglomerate level has been bemoaning the so-called impending death of the industry for the past few years, the present and future has never been brighter for indie artists and bands with exciting and innovative music to offer. Thanks to myspace, facebook, iTunes, Rhapsody, CD Baby, et al, those who would never have had a shot under the old business model are now reaching millions and finding success beyond the limitations of corporate myopia.

No band in 2008 is benefiting more from these newfangled ways of marketing and distribution than Cloning Einstein ( www.cloningeinstein.com ), a Philly based fivesome whose vibrant playing, bright melodies and harmonies and thoughtful lyrics are about to take over the Adult Contemporary airwaves.

The band's first single “I Believe,” the opening cut on their self-titled album, is going to radio on January 14. The instantly infectious, hypnotically romantic mid-tempo ballad is the perfect pre-Valentine's Day gift for an AC audience starved for fresh new sources of cool musical romance.

The track is being promoted by Tom Mazetta of South Beach Marketing & Promotion, Inc., an expert in this genre whose recent clients include superstars Paul McCartney, Rascal Flatts, Andrea Bocelli and Stevie Wonder. “Watch us kick ass beginning with our AC Add Date!” he says enthusiastically.

Not a bad start for a track—and an album—that was written and recorded in 1999 and originally released in 2000. Back then, MP3.com was the center of the universe for artists and bands across the globe hoping to get their music out to the masses. Cloning Einstein struck gold on the site both locally and internationally. Driven by the loyal support of their hometown fans, ten of the album's eleven tracks were in the Top Ten on the local Philadelphia and regional Pennsylvania charts for months. A still vital, slow-jam, Fugees-inspired cover of U2's classic “I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For” reached #19 on the worldwide chart, ahead of millions of other entries. “I Believe” was its follow-up track and hit #38.

People everywhere were listening then, and thanks to the vibrant, ahead of its time production by Cloning Einstein members Jeff James Beck (lead vocals, keyboards), Joe Dougherty (bass) and Mike Soper, they're going to be seduced now. Dougherty says, “The cool part of this now is that if we were to redo this album today, we would produce it exactly the same way. Because it's a very adult oriented project, and not subject to trends as so much of popular music is, we were not trying to produce it for a specific time period. We simply concentrated on each track for itself. We wouldn't compromise on the mix no matter what anyone in the industry told us at the time.”

The reviews were indeed phenomenal from the start, but the industry realities of the time kept Cloning Einstein from securing a record deal, despite many close calls. Their former manager Michael Marquardt says, “we came close so many times, it's almost sickening. From world class producers to big time promoters to major record label execs, everyone raved, everyone wanted them, but that magical deal never quite became reality.”

Late in the summer of 2007, this fortune turned when Dougherty, who now owns the downtown Philly nightclub Fuzion and is a personal manager himself, brought his hip-hop client Ryan Banks to meet with Kevin Glickman, former chief counsel of Roughhouse Records. Just by chance, the bassist let Glickman listen to “I Still Haven't…” and he loved it and said that Cloning Einstein had to find a way to release it.

Dougherty started Googling and connected with some industry marketing execs who were similarly blown away, and one of them hooked him up with Mazetta. Turns out that the two had met back in 2000, when Dougherty sought the radio promotion guru's advice on how to get things rolling. This time, they struck a deal and Cloning Einstein—whose members are all still active in various capacities on the Philly music scene—is once again a viable entity.

Beck says, “Everything happens for a reason. I believe there's a good reason we never got that deal back then. Before we started making this record, the internet, and the opportunities it gives us, didn't exist as they do now. It wasn't a mainstream reality yet, a part of everyone's daily lives.” Dougherty adds, “As popular as we were on MP3, I don't know how seriously the industry took artists who were successful there. In those days, companies were threatened by the internet and there were less opportunities, but now they use it to break bands. Since we were in a niche market doing smooth pop music, our options then were limited. Now, they're wide open!”

As extraordinary as Cloning Einstein's resurrection story is on its own, the band has a back story that's equally fascinating—in fact, CE wasn't supposed to exist at all! Throughout the 90's, the core members of CE—including guitarist Joe Black, drummer Colin Diemer and singer Tom Schied—were huge on the Philly music scene as the edgier pop/rock outfit Crash Council. The band recorded two well received albums (Lies That Rhyme and Roses In The Rain), made music videos that received national airplay, and lived the life of local legends, complete with autograph signings for hundreds of fans per gig.

In 1998, the band thought it would be a nice change of pace to write and record an acoustic album, mixing new compositions with organic renditions of Crash Council favorites like “I Believe,” “When You Lose Someone,” “It's Hard” and “Just Say Goodbye.” While Scheid was CC's lead singer, Beck's voice lent itself better as the lead for the new project. The project took on a whole new direction, and the band became so immersed in the new sound that they decided to morph completely into a more adult contemporary band. The recording that was supposed to take a week took two years, and by the time it was tracked and recorded, there was no going back.

Now it's full steam ahead for Cloning Einstein. “We're all very proud of this self-titled album, and so excited by all the great new opportunities coming our way,” says Dougherty. “We understood what we were trying to accomplish, a very honest and pure recording with strong songwriting and production, and really worked hard to make it a reality. The good fortune that has come our way to give Cloning Einstein the chance it deserves has felt like a real storybook tale. It's a great feeling to finally find the perfect situation to make things happen for us.”