We knew Giorgio back when we rented room at his space on (25th, 24th, or wherever down the street from Billy's Topless?) in the early 90s. I was a big reader of Stones and Brit Invasion books and knew of him before we actually met, but because he was so approachable the initial awe went away after a while due to the circumstances we found ourselves in. Despite the idea that he was still trying to get a scene going (I think the Green Door thing that happened later on might have been legacy Giorgio?) their weren't too many other bands renting space from Giorgio and he seemed to rely on an in house studio guy named Doug who wasn't doing much business either. He seemed to spend most of his time in his apartment upstairs with his live in gf and Amiga computer setup pursuing his graphics thing but occasionally he'd make time for us; I particularly remember running over to Radio Shack to snag a PZM when he recorded us and wondering how often he had employed that technique over the past 25 years? Our relationship soured after a promotion he threw featuring us where few bothered to show up, he ended up running the stairs throwing up his hands in disgust but that seemed par for the course at that time because nothing was really happening at that space back. The last thing I remember from our time was he started housing a hair band named Breda who happened to be from the Seattle area and had tales of these other Seattle bands with strange names like Nirvana and Soundgarden but this was early 90s NYC so what did we know? I'm sure Giorgio didnt coin off that either.
My final verdict was he was a nice guy auteur whose time had passed, maybe not that different from Hilly Kristal who he'd namecheck from time to time. Basically a Euro club guy, it wasn't hard to imagine him back in his heyday because he likely hadn't changed all that much since the 60s.
We knew Giorgio back when we rented room at his space on (25th, 24th, or wherever down the street from Billy's Topless?) in the early 90s. I was a big reader of Stones and Brit Invasion books and knew of him before we actually met, but because he was so approachable the initial awe went away after a while due to the circumstances we found ourselves in. Despite the idea that he was still trying to get a scene going (I think the Green Door thing that happened later on might have been legacy Giorgio?) their weren't too many other bands renting space from Giorgio and he seemed to rely on an in house studio guy named Doug who wasn't doing much business either. He seemed to spend most of his time in his apartment upstairs with his live in gf and Amiga computer setup pursuing his graphics thing but occasionally he'd make time for us; I particularly remember running over to Radio Shack to snag a PZM when he recorded us and wondering how often he had employed that technique over the past 25 years? Our relationship soured after a promotion he threw featuring us where few bothered to show up, he ended up running the stairs throwing up his hands in disgust but that seemed par for the course at that time because nothing was really happening at that space back. The last thing I remember from our time was he started housing a hair band named Breda who happened to be from the Seattle area and had tales of these other Seattle bands with strange names like Nirvana and Soundgarden but this was early 90s NYC so what did we know? I'm sure Giorgio didnt coin off that either.
My final verdict was he was a nice guy auteur whose time had passed, maybe not that different from Hilly Kristal who he'd namecheck from time to time. Basically a Euro club guy, it wasn't hard to imagine him back in his heyday because he likely hadn't changed all that much since the 60s.