Phantom United Kingdom

In 1988 Chris and Martin of Phantom Productions, joined the Texas Music delegation attending the international music conference MIDEM in Cannes, France. In addition to representing their artists Deborah Giles and Ron Rogers, Phantom represented numerous other artists and held some 100 meetings with 23 publishers and record companies from 14 countries.

While at MIDEM, Chris and Martin met David Case of Mass Productions from Milton Keynes, England. This relationship resulted in the formation of Phantom UK, with offices in the US, UK and Hong Kong. David brought music resources as well as computer expertise that enabled Phantom to grow in several directions. One interesting note is that Chris and Martin began looking at the Wavefront animation program that had been developed. This excited David and he worked to become the Wavefront representative in the UK. This was unsuccessful, however, he landed the representation for the cutting edge Intelligent Light animation software. These endeavors had David, Chris and Martin making many trips between the US and UK and included a cool computer conference presentation at the Alexandria Palace in London. We presented Intelligent Light's animation demos on the new Apollo systems. This was the venue that Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead (amongst others) played.  Chris and Martin also formed a close relationship with John Cambridge and his wife Joan.  John videotaped a promo while on a trip to the US with David.

          

Chris &Martin with David Case, John Cambridge plus family and friends in pub in Milton Keynes, UK • Martin & Chris with Phantom's UK guitarist John Cambridge in Austin, Texas

 

More John Cambridge & Mark Luke Daniels UK tracks

Here's some photos and stories from that period of time.  Click on photo for larger version.

        

Debra Giles and Ron Rogers

        

       

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David Case the Entrepreneur

Chris and Martin met David Case while promoting Texas music at the 1988 MIDEM in Cannes, France. He was promoting a British duo who had justbeen released from prison. They'd recorded a musical version of the Lord's Prayer and it was gaining attention in the UK. As we got to know David, it seemed he might be a good representative for Phantom in the UK. We had been using Chris' nephew Nick up to that time. David had offices in Milton Keynes, England, as well as Hong Kong. David was a computer whiz and build the first automated checkout system for hotel in Asia. He was also dealing with major corporations.

So David became Phantom, UK and he decided to come to Austin and pitch his music at South By Southwest in 1989. He came over to the US several times over a few years and we'd meet with David when we travelled to the UK to visit Chris' family.

Chris and Martin attended a presentation in Austin for Wavefront animation. We shared the information with David and he decided to try to acquire the Wavefront rights in the UK and Europe. It was already committed, however, not being deterred, David pursued the Intelligent Light animation company. Intelligent Light developed the animation for the international space station.

At one point David flew us to London to assist him promoting Intelligent Light at a high end computer show taking place at Alexandria Palace overlooking London. We spent several days as the conference while David demonstrated an F-16 animation on Intel ligen Light at the Hewlett Packard booth. While there he was approached by Sony to market their new computers, which they believed would take over the market. When David came away from his meeting, he was very pleased. We said did you get the deal. David said no, he didn;t want it. However Sony was going to provide him with three of their new computers for him to evaluate. David said, I don't need the computers, however I'd promised the UK Nuclear Commission that I would obtain several high end computer for them and here they are.

So David was quite the wheeler dealer. We realized being around him that he was very innovative, however could be pulled in several directions and if there was not someone around him doing follow-up, thing could fall through the cracks.

David flew and housed our recording artist, Mark Luke Daniels in England and recorded an up beat album with Mark Luke and David's artist John Cambridge. David also initiated the publishing deal with the Montie Music Group for Mark Luke and Phantom Productions, Inc.

 

He brought John Cambridge to the US and met with record companies in New York and Los Angeles. David also brought his family over and later his son brought a couple of friends over and they stayed with us.

Here are some other interesting times that we had with David Case.

Phantom UK file history

 

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David Case was approached by a UK company wanting to use the Phantom logo for a new car they were building. Nothing ever became of the deal. • video

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David Case CSB Computer Graphics Intelligent Light

       

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The three way chair

David Case (UK) approached us about marketing three way child chairs from Israel. They could be a desk, a rocking chair, or high chair. He had exclusive North American rights from the Israeli manufacturer.

We asked our friend Sandy with Franklin Federal Bank to assist us in looking for backing. She secured interest from the folks who owned the ranch where the hit TV series "Dallas" was being shot. We received two chairs from David. We produced two videos, one using our hair cut person's daughter and one using Marcia Ball's drummer's child.

The folks in Dallas said they found the chair listed in a child's catalog and already available in the US market. Ouch! We were going out to San Diego to visit our son Ken who was in the Navy. The company selling the chair was also in San Diego, so we went by. Sure enough, they had the chairs exclusive rights as well. David pursued the situation with the Israeli company, but never received any resolution. We gave the chairs we had to the folks who helped us.  Video

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Russian submarines

David later contacted us and asked if we were interested in looking into folks in the US who might be interested in six Russian submarines that he had an opportunity ot buy. He said they might be turned into interesting restaurants in the US. We passed.

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Millions of surgical gloves from Venezuela

David also contacted us to see if we had any sources that might be interested in several million surgical gloves he'd acquired in Venezuela.

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Copiers

David Case ended up working for awhile at a UK company that dealt in the resale of office equipment. They moved large quantities of office equipment around the world. David asked if we could find a supplier of used copiers in the US. They were in desperate need of copiers for Africa and South America. We agreed to try. How many was he looking at. David said a container shipload every two weeks. Okay?

We contacted Texas Copier in Austin. They said they don't handle that many used machines. However, they knew of a company in Burleson, Texas that dealt in large quantities. We contacted the company and they said they might be able to handle it for us. They called us back and said they could immediately obtain 100 and would work to access more.

David called and said that he just heard from Canon in Japan who advised him the current cycles would be a problem. We recontacted the Burleson company and the owner said,"let me look into it." A couple of days later he called and said he found a source for converters. They had been built for the US troops during the Gulf War. They would cost about $25 and were available in large quantities. We let David know. A few days later he called and said the $25 put the price too high to make a profit. 

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