Why Small Businesses Matter in Norwalk: Factory Underground

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Why Small Businesses Matter puts a spotlight on the local merchants who donate their time, talent, goods, and services for the betterment of our community. The shop local movement spreads virally as local businesses who are “tagged” have the opportunity to share their story!

You're IT Factory Underground!

Four questions with Marc Alan, Director of Marketing of Factory Underground.

Why did you start your business?

Factory Underground was started by its two principal owners and partners, Ethan Isaac and Kenny "Cash" Cascioli. Ethan had been in the music business for many years, as a studio owner, as well as the singer of a rock band called Edisun that was based in Norwalk. It was through Edisun that Ethan toured extensively for Armed Forces Entertainment, performing in 20 countries including Iraq and Afghanistan for US servicemen and women. Meanwhile, Kenny was a Norwalk musician that had graduated from Berklee College of Music, and was looking to build his own studio, "to be his own Paisley Park," he says in reference to his musical idol Prince. The two musicians both needed a place to record their own music, and with their goals in line, they decided to become business partners and build a commercial studio. The studio is located at 16 Isaac Street, in Downtown Norwalk, an underground industrial facility that has grown to encompass nearly 10,000 square feet of space. The diverse and growing business provides many professional services in addition to recording, including commercial video production, commercial photography, graphic arts/animation/web design, artist development and business marketing.

Finish this sentence in regard to your business. "I wish I could…"

I wish I could do more to give back to the community that has given us this incredible opportunity - to grow Norwalk's thriving and culturally diverse music and arts scene. We are active supporters of the Wall Street Neighborhood Association, and I am (Director of Marketing Marc Alan) the Chairman of the Norwalk Arts Commission. Factory Underground has actively supported Make Music Day, First Friday, Carver Foundation, and run food drives to help organizations like Person to Person. Our passion for music is the driving force of everything we do, including helping as many people as we can.

What is your best selling product/service?

A recording is the heart of our business, and we strive to be a state-of-the-art recording studio that can service every level of professional music artists, as well as cater to the needs of the advertising industry, film industry, podcasters, local musicians and students, etc. Expanding our studios with the highest level of digital technology, with analog Neve consoles, a huge microphone collection, and honestly, some fo the best audio engineers in the business - have helped to make Factory Underground really competitive in the field.

However, some things that really set us apart are additional services we offer such as video production, which we got into heavily about five years ago to further service our clients. Today we are developing media content, press video, and full production music videos, which have all been really successful. We recently completed a full documentary film production, and are in the process of finishing an animated rock opera. I'd like to add that this is all work being done in-house by our creative team in Norwalk.

At the same time, we have pioneered quality services for helping artists distribute, market and promote their music and video, which has really opened doors for our clients and ourselves. One of the services we have been especially successful in developing is Video Promotion. We recently directed a music video for the blues artist Tom Forst, that we are now promoting - it's a song called "Late Night Train" that achieved 200K views in the first three weeks of being on YouTube.

Altogether, this is a great example of the integrated work we do because we not only produced and recorded Tom's record, we directed and produced his music videos, are running a radio promotion and publicity campaign, in addition to promoting his videos. We have essentially grown from being a Recording Studio into a full services Artist Development agency, which has seen huge growth over the past year.

How many local businesses do you use to support your business (products and services) and can you name them?

In addition to Factory Underground Studio, we also have Factory Underground Media, which is a division providing media production, business marketing, web/graphic design, social media advertising, and Google-certified Digital Marketing, to help small to mid-size businesses.

We have worked with a number of local businesses, and restaurants, including Saltwater in South Norwalk and Bar Zepoli in Stamford, Ct. We have also worked to service other agencies and organizations such as Norwalk Now (they help promote small business in Norwalk), and recently did some work with WWE.

I would like to nominate ARC SSL - which is lighting, staging, and sound company that is also located in Downtown Norwalk (directly across from our parking lot. In addition to providing production services at local venues such as Wall Street Theater, they do a number of profile events around the Super Bowl every year. They provide technical staff at all the high profile New York City clubs including Lavo and the Marquee. The owner of the company, Gene Morell, is a Norwalk native, who like everyone at Factory Underground, believes in giving back to the community.

Factory Underground is located at 16 Isaac Street in Norwalk. Visit Factory Underground online here.

HamletHub thanks Fairfield County Bank for making our Why Small Businesses Matter series possible!