Carl Venables Wins Lifetime Achievement Award – Rayner mucks up – but they still loved it!
Ooh the Thrill of the Cloud and FINALLY BEING TRUSTED in the publishing room without the fear of knowing I am going to break something! This is the very first entirely-upon-the-new-software news story to be published here on Talk Audio magazine.
Last night was the ninth Mobile Electronics News magazine awards with yours truly as the Master of Ceremonies. There was the usual throng of suits and just a few women, all looking fabulous.
The products and who won what was not what this news piece was about – it’s about the people. The night before I was at Car Audio & Security in Hayes for the last night of the JL Audio Unleash Your Music tour and was sat in a car with Chris Bennett who was to get the Services to the Industry Award the very next day, yet we kept him fully in the dark! Well done the Celsus boys for the sheer intrigue and well done to Paul Baker of Celsus for a moving speech read out for him as he was in parts foreign on business.
I, meanwhile was on a bit of a manic tip…I only but barely managed to thank the sponsors, Connects2 and I utterly forgot to say a damn thing about how bloody awesome the team at Creative Media are, to hand over such a full slick presentation for me to drive and look well armed while I am doing it.
Charlotte Body is the Boadicea-like leaderene of this mad crew of Essex Birds and Dudes and I love ’em all. (I nearly dribbled on poor Lucy Poet, it was the red shoes….sorry too much detail!)
But one daft thing happened and it was sort of my fault. Carl Venables, the boss and designer of all that Vibe and FLi and Edge kit was the get the prestigious Lifetime Achievement award. Previously, this has been given to blokes who then promptly retire! So it looks like the kiss of death! But Carl is definitely NOT going to adhere to that bit.
Next part is a bit odd but Emma Ward of Vibe was in an airport arrivals hall coming back from a far flung trip and saw news of my mum’s demise on the news and as a dear mate in the trade she got right on the phone to me to offer her condolences. I thanked her and them told her I wanted some material to use to talk about Carl before handing over to who ever was coming up from Vibe to accept the award on Carl’s behalf.
Then, on stage last night, I made some jokes about Carl being a mad designer/scientist and terribly shy and then suggested he had gone to Hong Kong just to avoid the pressure and finally read out the lovely stuff Emma had prepared.
His lovely and elegantly preganant wife, Kate (the woman behind the great man) came to collect and that was that. Except afterwards I found out that Pete Gilmore of Vibe, had spent some time on some words that Carl had written on an aeroplane and had a speech prepared I had kinda covered, so felt it wasn’t needed.
But the ‘net is a Cool Tool and Vibe happen to be our most stalwart supporters and I personally have a huge slice of pure admiration for what he has achieved, decades before any other winner of this award.
So now, here is the speech (with a very light ‘trade’ edit as it was for a trade audience not end users) that they SHOULDA heard.
“Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, Carl Venables is currently in China taking care of business so, sadly, is unable to be with you tonight. He has, however, asked me to accept this lifetime achievement award on his behalf.
I would like to say just a few words to mark the occasion…
Whilst it is likely that everybody here will have heard of Midbass, and most will certainly have heard of Vibe ,Fli and Edge; there is a distinct possibility that there will be many here who have no idea who Carl Venables is, and that’s just the way he likes it.
Carl Venables is CEO, owner and creator of VIBE and the other Midbass brands. He tells me that some dealers may remember him cold calling them 20 years ago, that VIBE was practically unheard of then, that he would refer to the ‘˜bass boxes with the alloy parts’ and that this was usually met with same response… ‘˜Sounds great but the box is a bit rough!’.
Back then, in a small unit near Birmingham, alongside the first three Midbass employees, who are with the company to this day, Carl designed the stuff, built it, promoted it, retailed it and distributed it. A jack of all trades, and as it turns out today, a master of many too.
Most of you will never have met Carl, you probably never will. His passion lies behind the scenes creating and cultivating his brand, a brand whose achievements over the years are truly noteworthy. He would say that, although grateful, he’s not sure he has worked enough of a life-time to receive such an award. For Midbass on the other hand, he is certain that that this creation has really earned its stripes, as one of a dwindling number of British brands we remain as much of a favourite as, say, Marmite, Jaguar, HP sauce… well, almost!
As I’m sure you are all aware times are increasingly difficult for UK businesses, even more so for wholly British brands and this, perhaps, is one of the reasons why Carl has received this award. His passion for, and dedication to consistently delivering the products that take this brand from strength to strength is second to none.
Carl puts this same level of commitment into his team, to which he credits a lot of the company’s success. He feels that the staff of Midbass are first class in the representation of what he has built, which is why he is happy to remain, largely, a ghost!
Looking to the future, we all suspect there will be tougher times ahead, The market has changed in front of us, the thirty-something connoisseur now remains satisfied with the standard CD and built in nav’ and MP3 controls.
Fortunately for Midbass though, we have a new consumer, the iPod generation, with free board and lodging at Mum and Dad’s, leaving more disposable income for their VIBE system! We haven’t done too bad but still, these days everybody wants something for nothing and times remain harder than they once were. And so Carl’s determination goes on, as does his constant evaluation of how Midbass will continue to thrive and more so, what can be done to help support the dealers who helped put us here in the first place.
Well, we have several things going on right now, including a massive push on the web where we have staff working flat out to bring you something never before done in the UK, you will soon be able to read all about it in Talk Audio magazine announcements and the surrounding PR. Also, although car audio will remain our primary focus, we will be bringing in six new areas of audio related products and we invite you all to share in this new diversification.
In the meantime thank you for listening and we hope you continue to enjoy your evening, Carl would like me to apologise for his absence but I’m sure you will all
appreciate that these exciting new prospects take some work and hopefully all will be forgiven when we deliver you new ways in which to experience the Vibe!
On behalf of Carl ‘˜the boxes with the alloy parts’ Venables, and all of the Midbass team, thank you whole-heartedly for this prestigious award I will leave you know with a quote from the man himself, words that were spoken at the start of all things VIBE and a phrase that has been quoted and written many times since:
‘Bass is the life in all music without it you only hear half the song’
It is this philosophy that has kept him in business for the last 20 years, and the foundation of this life-time achievement”
So that was the speech and there’s promise of stuff to come…but you know what? At the end of the awards, when I did my usual sign off, of “My names Adam Rayner but that DOESN’T MATTER” I left the little podium while they were still clapping. Never good to stand there while it does away, how ever brief.
But it wasn’t brief. They carried on clapping and Lucy Poet came and dragged me back onto the podium and they all stood up and clapped and clapped and I just wept like a big soft pillock.
For it was the first real bit of public stage work I had done since I lost my mum but 48 hours before and the love and feeling for her that was expressed by so many people has been overwhelming and humbling. I’ll take my ovation to my own grave and all I can say is that if that was where my life career peaked, then it doesn’t suck! Thank you guys so very much and most of all well done to Carl Venables of Vibe for his lifetime achievement award.
It’s entirely deserved and I reckon one day, you’ll earn a second! There, I said it…….