Richard Jankovich


Richard Jankovich is an American entrepreneur, musician and author in Los Angeles. He currently runs music promotion company and brand consultancy . His musical acts include Burnside Project, Big Mother Gig, Pocket and Mon Draggor. In 2013, his first book was released on Palgrave Macmillan. He has lectured at University of Southern California and spoken at South by Southwest.

Biography

Jankovich attended Marquette University in Milwaukee in the 1990s where he formed the alternative rock band, Big Mother Gig. Big Mother Gig released 3 recordings and played over 150 concerts around the Midwest before breaking up in 1996 when Jankovich moved to New York City. In 1999, he founded Burnside Project while working in music licensing and advertising. Burnside Project released 4 albums on Bar/None Records and Sony Music Entertainment Japan and their 2003 track "Cue The Pulse To Begin" was the theme song for Queer as Folk on Showtime. Burnside Project received critical acclaim from Rolling Stone and Spin and were nominated by Cameron Crowe for a Shortlist Award.
In 2005, Jankovich began remixing under the name Pocket and released his first remix in 2005 to critical blog acclaim. Many of his subsequent remixes have received positive critical reviews from websites such as Stereogum, Pitchfork and Pampelmoose. In 2007, Pocket's remix for Radiohead's cover of Björk's "Unravel" was nominated for the 2007 Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll by Will Hermes. In 2009, Pocket began releasing a series of singles featuring guest singers like Robyn Hitchcock, Craig Wedren, Steve Kilbey, Danny Seim and Mark Burgess. In an interview with Zaptown Magazine, Pocket revealed that the collection of singles was made from a "dream list of all the people he wanted to collaborate with" and that the project took over three years to complete. In 2012, these singles were collected on an album, All of This Happened, released on Tirk Records. Pocket admits the name was bestowed upon him by Brooklyn Vegan when the blog posted his Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons " and referred to him directly as Pocket.
In 2008, Jankovich moved to Los Angeles and continued to make music as Pocket and Mon Draggor while working at in-store music providers like Mood Media. Mon Draggor's double LP "Pulling Strings/Pushing Buttons" was selected as 9th best album of 2015 by PopMatters. In 2013, he launched . Shoplifter specializes in helping artists and record labels get their songs placed into playlists that accompany the shopping experience
In 2017, Big Mother Gig returned with a new EP and began performing live. In January 2018, Big Mother Gig released "The Great Heist", the first of 4 planned singles for 2018. Also in 2018, Pocket began releasing a series of EPs which contained a mix of unreleased songs and remixes with Robyn Hitchcock, Tanya Donelly, Yuki Chikudate, Vic Godard, Dave Smalley, Styrofoam, Mux Mool, Mount Sims, RemoteTreeChildren and Glen Phillips.

Works

Music: LPs & EPs

Burnside Project:
Big Mother Gig:
Pocket:
Mon Draggor: