The John Kleis EMMA Sound Off The First
Slightly in the ‘˜Not A Lot Of People Know That’ bracket is that I have been a rep in the car audio world. I had been made redundant for the second time by a chap who had valiantly assaulted the high end audio market in mobile electronics and I liked the business enough to follow up a lead I was given by Gordon Dutch, the G of BBG as I needed a job. This was ‘˜Electrosystems’ who were the outfit that was spawned from one chap supplying boxes to fit in the then Mini, so you COULD fit a radio! They were a distributor of all sorts of workshop consumables and I had to make eight or nine calls a day selling everything from crimps and insulating tape to thick power cables and cheap electric aerials.
One of the better places to go visit in my patch was John Kleis in Reading. They were cool and knew about high end product, not just box shifters as so many were back then. Anyway, they have been in business in the Reading, Berkshire area (UK for non-Brits!) for around thirty years. I can recall Mary Hopkin winning the Eurovision song contest back when it was fun and here she is, from a news cutting scanned and put on the John Kleis website!
Anyway, the point is that Mr. Pioneer to me, Mr. Girish Janday, has been playing Sound Off Sensei again! This means, that like gifting an entire round of the European Mobile Media Association’s UK sound off series to Car Audio & Security, he did the self same thing at John Kleis in Reading. He was visiting there, looking after an important account, when the idea struck. One call to the organiser, who, as you can see, is now a good mate of his
and the sound off event was secured and started the planning stage, right there! That the shop had NEVER even had an open day was irrelevant. For with Jas Dahele bringing his massive Four Masters tenties and the top bods from Celsus showing up with the collection of JL Audio cars, tents and flags, as well as the Pioneer Smart Brabus and the awesomely potent SPL-Monster amp equipped demo car of their own building, it was like a fairground.
It was great fun. Ashley Booth fixed up a four-girl hair trick and I sorta video-director-bombed it. This was the result:
What I took to be simple burger van operation, turned out to be top end caterers, who’s every item is home-made. Even down to the bread if not doing burgers and Bratwurst also home made. It feels like disloyalty to the dude who has come to the T-meets with his burger van in the past, but these guys are the best I ever tasted out doors! Check out their website, here! link. Turns out that the lady director Daniel was the chef I met is also a corset maker for the great and the good of the UK’s Burlesque dancer industry! Those who know me well, said ‘You shoulda been here yesterday and seen what Serine had ON!’ because she wore a corset of her own making!
Pop-up kitchen in front of shop!
So, of course, I asked nicely.
I had massive amounts of stuff to give away and THIS was a lovely moment
As was swagging out the gorgeous Hybrid Super Natural wax plus cloths to three lucky owners of cars worthy of such attention, shamelessly kicking Meguiars’ clean out of their detailing buckets
Matt Pooting of Celsus, who’s JL Audio installed coupe will be shiner..
And the Lego-Man! Setting-up is serious stuff
This lad just ripped it open and got at his bodywork immediately, without even opening the cloth stuff he was given bless! Super Keen For Super Natural!
Lee Thomlinson is loved by CAD for his choice of brands!
And the locals were amazed at what was suddenly going on upon their doorstep:
The sun shone, we bassed and boomed and SERIOUSLY irritated the one neighbour John had hoped was not going to be home, yet the SQ guys were also able to operate as the shop’s grounds are quite extensive and with outbuildings, there was even some isolation for the Sound Quality judges’ ease!
‘Over there, SQ, over there’
John with two of the four promo lasses who were there
Even before the Sunday was done, Mr. Kleis declared the event an enormous success and admitted he had liquidated a fat slice of stock at mad prices, which was nice and also made him decide to do it all again next year. He said, ‘Awesome! Flippin’ awesome! Obviously, it was a learning experience so next year we will do things a little differently. But yes, keep the last weekend in June free and hopefully we won’t be on the same weekend as the UK Formula One again!’ So you just read about a new fixed star in the firmament of the UK sound off scene.
Here is what they were fighting for!
All that remains is to offer my most deep thanks to the EMMA guys, Roo and Papa Bear, as well as the judges and Girish Janday for making it happen, as well as letting Talk Audio swag some of the most valuable and lovely stuff it has ever been my privilege to give away!
Check out the slideshow of ALL the photos I took and be warned, I er did rather take a lot of shots of Serine and her ahem fabulous assets. Right here! link
Here’s the John Kleis Website: link their number is 01189 866 224
And EMMA’s site to check out the results of the first sound off they held, here: link WARNING has video of my fat face right on the top of the front page as I write!