Chuck Paugh

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Charles Michael Paugh (born July 25, 1967 in Valparaiso, Indiana) is an American record company owner who founded Party Til Dawn Productions in 1985.

Chuck Paugh has served as the president of Party Til Dawn Productions since founding the company in October 1985. His exposure to the music industry began at an early age having been raised in Southern California amidst the peak of the 1970s punk rock scene, he has been one of the best loved movers and shakers in the music industry for 20 years. With Tar Larner (early road manger for the Circle Jerks and the B-52's) as his uncle and legendary punk diva Joan Jett as one of his early neighborhood babysitters, Paugh learned the inside track of the business from childhood.

One of Paugh's best friends growing up in California was Social Distortion front man Mike Ness who hired him to handle promotions for the band throughout the late 1980s. Founding Party Til Dawn Productions in 1985 while living in Oregon, Paugh sponsored all night underground punk dance parties in Portland and Seattle making Paugh one of the forefathers of the rave culture that was adopted by the electronic dance music scene.

During the Seattle grunge era of the early 1990s, Paugh found himself a regular at Portland's Satyricon nightclub featuring then unknown acts such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Green River, and Alice in Chains. It was during this time he befriended Babes In Toyland front woman Courtney Love and then boyfriend Kurt Cobain of Nirvana fame. In 1993, Paugh returned to Chicago and began hosting his all night punk shows at Off the Alley featuring local and legendary punk music performers.

The year 1994 brought a transition from punk into electronic dance music for Paugh as a result of the death of Kurt Cobain on April 8 of the same year. Paugh was one of the people backstage with Courtney Love the night of October 23, 1993 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago when Cobain lost control on stage smashing the set to pieces. It was the start of Cobain's downward spiral back into heroin addiction. Six months later, Paugh received a phone call informing him that Cobain was dead from an apparent suicide.

Devastated by the death of his friend, Paugh left the punk music world behind him and began working with dance music promoters such as Dust Traxx, Unified Groove, Sound Alliance, Transparent, Spundae, Relode, and Teknomafia making him a vital player in the American underground dance music scene. Sponsoring some of the largest underground dance parties throughout the Midwestern United States, Party Til Dawn Productions became one of the few companies to survive the rave culture it helped to create.

Paugh has quite a diverse education background having completed an A.S. degree in Education from Tomlinson College in 1987, a B.S. in Business Administration from Lee College in 1989, and completing his graduate degree in Sociology in 2001 from Valparaiso University where he was living at the Phi Upsilon chapter of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

Paugh was approached by House music legend Dust Traxx Records and its distribution company Sole Unlimited in 2002 to fill the role of Chief Financial Officer. He was instrumental in making the company solvent and expanding its distribution network in Europe by opening a new distribution office in the UK specifically catering to the European market. It was during this period that he put together the now famous Forte Saturday nights at The District Nightclub in Chicago with the band Mr. A.L.I. featuring Carla Prather of Poi Dog Pondering fame and house diva Dajae on vocals. Through Paugh’s experience in the industry, he was able to bring guest vocalists such as Leroy Burgess and Barbara Tucker to perform with the band as well as bring house legendary producer Marshall Jefferson back home to Chicago from England for the first time in 10 years to spin behind the decks for the Forte crowd.

In 2004, Paugh parted ways with Dust Traxx forming Exact Vinyl Records to meet the needs of the growing House music market throughout the United States. Representing a broad spectrum of underground and established House music artists, the label has provided the musical backdrop for video games to movies quickly making its mark as a force to be recognized in the industry.

Paugh has been described as "a promotional innovator" by former Sex Pistols front man John Lydon in a 1992 interview with Spin magazine, "the man who gets things done" by radio music host Pete Tong during a 2003 BBC Radio One interview with Paugh, and "someone I like having on my side" by legendary House producer Paul Johnson during a presentation at the 2004 Winter Music Conference in Miami. With one of the strongest backgrounds in the music business, Paugh is one of the most sought after consultants in the dance industry today working in 2004 with such companies as Satellite Records, Urb, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dirty Loop Music, and Universal Music Group.

While giving a guest lecture on music business at Valparaiso University in 2004, Paugh was asked his prediction for the future of dance music culture, he replied:

"With the do-it-yourself technology available today for bedroom deejays, we’re on the cusp of one of the greatest explosions of dance music culture seen to date."