POP EYE
by Steve Hochman
Special to the Times
December 28, 2003

For Orgy, it's a family affair

Leaving the major-label world has been a little scary for the band Orgy, which parted ways with Warner Bros. Records in May after two albums. But it has its benefits. Not only does group frontman Jay Gordon get to be his own boss with his new independent label, named D1 Records, he gets to be his dad's boss.

"Well, we're actually partners," says Gordon, whose father, music-industry veteran Lou Gordon, is the label's general manager.

The label will launch with the Feb. 24 release of Orgy's "Punk Statik Paranoia," and the younger Gordon knows it will be a challenge to meet the sales of the electronic-tinged metal band's two Warner Bros. albums, 1998's "Candyass," which, fueled by a hit version of New Order's "Blue Monday," sold about 1.6 million in the U.S., and 2001's "Vapor Transmission," which sold more than 600,000.

"It would be nice to sell what we did on the last record," he says. "That would generate enough capital to do what we want to do with the next two or three projects. Hard to say in this day and age about radio response, it could take awhile for this to catch on."

Meanwhile he's also readying a project with his first signing to the label, a Bay Area rapper who has been using the name Anonymous but may have to change it because another recording artist is using it.