Andreas Kohl

Growing up behind the iron curtain but in a household with a deep admiration for rock ’n’ roll, my earliest memories date back to my father turning up the volume of a Gene Vincent tape after my mom claimed the boy was listening to too much music. The effect might have lead to finding myself in my teenage years on a meadow with friends, booze and a wooden cassette player where I first heard the MC5 – a life changing experience. And then it went on, from booking underground shows, publishing music fanzines in the early 1990s leading to becoming a music journalist for VISIONS Magazine and a PR manager at EFA Distribution before I started the label Exile On Mainstream and the agency Southern Records Germany as sister company for the now legendary Southern Records UK providing distribution, label management, PR and tour booking. Together with touring as a musician in bands it built up to three decades of experience in pretty much every field of the music industry while maintaining a deep admiration for the undergrounds and independent business. In 2013 I closed Southern Records and joined Optimal Media working mainly in the vinyl department as senior manager in sales, customer service and quality assurance. In June 2022 I left Optimal Media and joined Key Production Ltd. in October 2022 as European Operations Manager. In 2024 I was asked to curate the Making Vinyl Europe Conference as director - an industry gathering bringing together the record manufacturing industry involving pressing plants, compound manufacturers, labels, artists, design agencies and all the periphery around vinyl records. So far I am responsible for the 2024 and 2025 edition of this renowned conference and I enjoy it very much. I also write as freelance journalist for MINT – a magazine dedicated to everything vinyl. In my free time I build speaker cabinets for fun, climb up mountains in summer, ski them down in winter and still love hanging out with musicians more than anything else, with one exception: listening to and talking about vinyl records.