Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Marc Geiger

Transcript

Marc Geiger · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Mark Garger, formally head of Music
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of w m E. All Around Music Here Mark, good
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to have hi, Bob Okay. Drive in concerts gimmick, A
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: real gimmick. Tell me a little bit more. Why is
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: it a gimmick? Do I have to? I mean, um,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: why is it a gimmick? Capacity is very small by
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: the time you actually put the cars in. Um pricing
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with a disconnected experience is high. The audio I don't
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: think it can be very good yet in the car,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: but hey, um, these are temporary stockcapt solutions. So for me, economically,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: they're scale garth. That a very interesting thing, basically the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: pay per view right to other drive ins. I think
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: there's a feeling that what I called during the what
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I call the germophobia economy, that almost anything will sell
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: because they're saying it is dying to get out of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the house. So for me, it's not really a great experience.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Well that begs the question, uh, when the economics are broken,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: so let's you know, let's get real. People are doing
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: things to do them, not to make a living, right,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So when do you think concerts returned. My guess is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: late twenty one, more likely twenty two. I think that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: this is going to be Look, the whole thing is
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a ship show. You write about it, everybody knows whether
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it's testing organ as a government that let's not. It's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: too infinite of a well to go down. But in
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: my humble opinion, it's gonna be twenty two. It's gonna
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: take that long for what I call the germophobia economy
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to be slowly killed off and be replaced by what
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I call the claustrophobia economy, which is it really wants
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: to get out and go back to dinner and have
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: their life and go to festivals, go to shows. And
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: my instinct is that's just going to take a while
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because as you can see, these super spreader events, sports shows,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: anything classroom ain't gonna do too well. And while the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: while the viruses this present. So my my instinct is
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the world has a very long forced time out. A
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: lot of people see the positives in it, um, whether
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: it's climate, whether it's pollution, whether it's traffic, whether it's nature,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: whether it's animals, whether it's our own beings, and taking
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a pause, um, and I know it's frustrating, maddening and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: um economically you know, destructive, but ah, you know this
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: is bigger than us. And if you study history, things
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: like this have happened in history and been super disruptive
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to normal society. So here's a biggie for our lifetime.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Let's go drill down for those people are not experts
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: like you, to what degree is insurance and liability of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: factor and restarting? Well, there is no insurance against COVID
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: currently offered, and even normal insurance policies are pretty scarce
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and hard to come by. The insurers are sitting on
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the sideline because there's infinite liability. I don't know what's
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: tested not tested. Luss Hey, I got COVID at this event,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: how do you approve it? Etcetera. I think the biggest
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: companies can maybe self insure UM and they can start.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Everybody else has to wait till the insure industry feels good.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So that's one of many many roadblocks in the way
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of restarting this vibrant economy that got put down right.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: So there's probably twenty of them when you drill into
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: why can't you the virus and the illness being one,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you know, all the spacing. The density insurance is a
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: biggie and I don't know when that comes back either. Now,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: needless to say you're no longer with wm ME, but uh,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: certainly there's no live business. Mean, there's no income for
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: agents and agencies they work for. What we've learned over
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: the past week is a lot of these touring entities
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: got money, The Eagles got money for the road business,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: ETCETERA question I'm asking is to what degree will sitting
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: on the sidelines for two years affect the economics of
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the industry. Can these companies survived? Michael Rapino says he
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: can borrow money, there's no not an issue. But being
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: in the heart of an agency, can these agencies and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: these other support elements survived two years off? Look um,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: no matter what anybody says, it's economically devastating, Okay, So
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: I recognize that, and I don't think any excuse um
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: can be made. And there will be a huge amount
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: if I'm right on the timetable right, there's gonna be
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: a massive amount of blood shed and ankruptcies and it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: will not be good for the majority industry. I think
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Michael or Pino is right. You know, he's he's big,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: he is great backing, people want to buy his stock, um,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: he's got liberty, he has a great business. When it
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: comes back, so you can borrow against that and it's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: not a great outcome. But your question is can they survive?
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I think people who have access to really good financing
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: credit facilities can definitely survive. Right, I know, the costs
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of carrying over some of these businesses agencies are actually
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: relatively cheap. Michael Orpine has got a much bigger issue
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and a much bigger staff. The biggest agencies are again
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the cheapest relative word. Right. But if something's gonna cost
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: fifty or a hundred million dollars to bridge for a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: moment um, again, that sounds huge. But in today's world,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: when you have access to capital, you can borrow against
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: that for a year or two, and the businesses were
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: quite profitable and they can pay down the debt service.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: It's a short term mortgage, okay. And when it does
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: come back, how does the landscape change? Sure billion dollar question?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, let me be specific. I think, Bob,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that's a really tough question to answer. I think if
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the if we're in the second or third inning of
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the ball game of destruction. UM, I don't know what
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the game looks like at the end. I think the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: next six months maybe more painful than the last batch,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and maybe the next six months after that might be
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: even more so. So I think one of the things
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that happened for me after leaving was, UM, I was
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: able to look at the pandemic two ways. I was
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: overseeing or part of a team of industry people who oversee,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: oversaw this destruction, this cancelation, postponement, etcetera, etcetera, tried to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: have order out of it, but was sort of trapped
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: in that viewpoint. Um, now I get to look at
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: COVID is a bit of an opportunity. But the question
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of where to exactly look and who's not gonna make
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: it and who's going to be under distress. You start
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: bottom up, small people with no access to capital, people
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: have high overheads, people who have staff that they can't
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: easily go into shutdown mode and they're gonna get the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: viscerated and they're gonna need help. So in any event,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: recapping here, Mark, you said, Uh, when we look at
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the future, we're talking from the bottom up. People at
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the bottom or squeeze for capital please continue. I think
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that again, people with infrastructure and more overhead and lack
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of access to capital, it's a perfect storm for them. Um.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: When you start talking about the big companies of Live Nation,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: eight g CTS, Ossessa and others, they have access to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: facilities and credit and debt facilities. They're public companies. The investors.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of investors look at them as value because
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: they think, oh, when the claustrophobia economy kicks in and
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: world restarts, everybody's gonna want to we participate in. These
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: companies will be in a good position to take advantage
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of it. So I believe that is going to rule
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the day and people will make smart investments into business
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: as they think they'll come back. But the bigger the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: better there if you're small, if you're medium sized, it's
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: going to be tricky. If you know, like NIVA, the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: organization who represents is a trade organization for the clubs
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: is trying to appeal to the government for money for
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: obviously a loan or a grant to the clubs. So
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I think at the end of the day, Um, the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: economic devastation is going to be bigger than people think
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: they Reshaping is going to be bigger than people think,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and we all have to watch and conserve our capital
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and just take a pause and try obviously not spend
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: just to get to the other side. I know that
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: sounds very basic, but I think it's true. Question becomes
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: when we come out the other side, do the big
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: get bigger? It depends how they act. They can. I
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: mean they have to get small. Larder worries is overhead.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: But you know, people with real access to capital. Again,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, like a bigger version of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: two thousand eight in the real estate crash, if you
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: owned a bunch of office buildings or apartment buildings or
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: hotels or houses and you had to sell them, or
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you had a cash crunch, you were screwed, right, you
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: were on the bad side. If you were a real
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: estate funder private equity a hundred billion in cash or
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: ten billion in cash, and you waited till all the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: foreclosures showed up on your street, which we all saw
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and you could swoop in. It was an unprecedented opportunity.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Um certain banks and others made a fortune during that time.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So I think it's how you look at the world
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and if you have access to capital. But I do.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I do think there'll be a lot of different owners
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: uh and people who have equity in the music business
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: infrastructure when you come out of this, well, liberty is
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: capped in terms of how much they can own of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Live name. But if you look historically in two thousand
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and eight, uh, they invested in Serious and ended up
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: with control of that company. So staying on this same tip,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: we grew up in the pre internet era where you
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: were a band, you started in clubs, you worked your
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: way up, and in addition, the record company supported the clubs.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what that was like prior to this crisis. Um, okay,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: which part to you omans? The question is is that
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: paradigm broken? It's more important than ever. I think that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: there's just because the world switched to streaming and there's
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a different distribution system. Artist developments not that different. You
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: have more tools, all right, You have more connectivity, you
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: have more ability to be globally, use multiple platforms to
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: communicate with your audience, and your music can get distributed better.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: You're not held out of a record store. But the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: development process the same the touring press. Yeah, but it
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But but as I say, if we go back to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the club are critical, they're more They're more packed today
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: than they were back in our club era by a lot.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: But are there as many Yeah, there's more, many more clubs.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Music has infinitely more genres than the period you're talking about,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a right, popular genres. Kids have much more access kids,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: everybody has much more access to music, and so music
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: is thriving. Um. You know, you can argue long tail,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: but from a genre standpoint, you have much more access.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: They're much deeper. I mean, the electronic nightclubs alone outnumbered
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the amount of rock clubs than in total when we
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: were growing up. So I think it's a um and globally, um,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: there's a ton more. So I think the supplies up
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and the demand is up. Um, which ones last, how
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: they get transformed, that's all a big question. But yeah,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I think the development process is healthier than ever and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: bigger than ever. And by the way, the upside is
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: bigger than ever. It's just there's more noise. It's a
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: signal noise, right, there's there's how many new releases, remember
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: what was back in the era you're talking about. There
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: is only x amount of music that could come out
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: that's dwarfed in a week Okay, let's let's go to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: this specific issue. Hey, when you're working at William Morris,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: would you sign an act, Let's assume the right act
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: had no record recording representation of any significance. Would you
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: sign an act that did not have a live head? Uh,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: you know, could not sell tickets by themselves already, So
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: how would you break an act like that? Okay? You
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: breaking an act would imply that we were that powerful.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: You know, we're just team member, subcontractor on the team
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of building a house. That's the way I look at
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it all right, from any position. So part of it
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is how well is the team and the work together.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: How great is the manager obviously? How great is the artist?
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: How greatest in music? Um, Listen, when you sign an artist,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: if you really love them and you believe in them,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: it's not about breaking them in a record. It's about
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: laying a base so they grow, they happen to break,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: they break. The industry wants. It's you know, immediacy, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: it's stadium this and so and so that, and it's
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: pop metaphor. I typically, you know, my taste is outside
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: pop metaphor. So you don't have a choice. You're five
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: ten years to grow and break artists over time, especially
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: depending on how they how they record, and how frequently.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: So part of it is packed tour packaging. Part of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: it is festivals, part of his getting great publicist. Part
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: of it is calling favors if you can to whoever
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: it might be that can promote stream etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: If you have that kind of leverage and and hope
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that others are making the same calls. From our standpoint
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: when you were on the agency and by the way,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you work well with the manager and the manager had
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: how how's their social media? How are they on? Are
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they are they frequent posters? Are they infrequent posters? Is it?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Are they creating content more frequently than the other There's
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of What changed was the ability to post
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: content in different places and different types. So if you
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: were not an artist that generates a lot of content,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you were a significant disadvantage in the digital area. If
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you're somebody who could post a lot of content, assuming
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you didn't turn into a commodity, you had a big advantage.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's all different, and you have to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: look at every artist, genre, level of interest, critical acclaim, uh,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: all of it and create a custom strategy, just like
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you know a good UM tutor or teacher does for
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a student. Their all individuals, so part of his can
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you get other artists to love them and recognize what
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: you love about him and and champion them. There's a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: lady I signed before before I left, called Jensen McCrae,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and she is my favorite. She's Joni Mitchell meets Tracy Chapman,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and I think she's absolutely spectacular. A couple of songs
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: on Spotify, the albums should be Best New Album, Best
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Artist on the Grammys. Um, she's a social media monster
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: and she's hyper genius. So she's very different than some
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of the other people who don't post. They're not political,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they're not trying to build an audience that way, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: her music is more viral than others. So I think
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: there's a lot to all of this, and it's very
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: custom and there is no one. What we have now
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: as an open system like technology where everything getting an
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: app can be made for any platform because there are
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: open systems. Now leave Apple out of this for a minute. UM,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: generally open systems. I think music is the same, and
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: so people who create more content know how to communicate
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: with their audience to do a little better. But that
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: was part of the job, was giving them opportunities, getting
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the right slot on Coachella, lallapaos at this festival, that festival,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this opening slot, this so and so, this right night.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: It's all of it. And if you do it all right,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you know, people think you do but that's okay. So,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: speaking of the signal to noise, it also applies on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the agency level. There are more people making music, more
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: people looking for your time and your abilities to work
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: with them too. How does someone reach you or w
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: when you worked at or an agent at W M
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: E or do they have to be involved with someone
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: who knows you because there's just too much product? You know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing. First of all, everybody's reachable because
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty easy to get too, as there are most
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: people out there if you try, if you don't know
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: anybody and don't can't figure an email address or to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: post or what to do. I understand that, but I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: do think when you look at things that are income
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: and you have a lower hit rate than when you
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: look at things when you're proactive, so let's call them reactive.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I get twenty million artists coming at whether it's Wan
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: in the old you know, in my past, or any
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: other agency or any other label, or I'm trolling blogs, criticalist,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: all music Guide, Consequences, sounds, stereogum, whatever it might be.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Other filters that I trust, and I proactively go after
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the records, all right, or the the artists. That's the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: difference between success rate and a ten percent success rate.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times you don't want the incoming,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: even though that story sounds good. Hey, somebody got to me,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: they were fantastic, whatever, And I think that the bottom
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: line is to try to prioritize your trusted filters over
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: just incoming noise. Would be how I'd answered that question,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: so I didn't care that much about that. It's kind
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of like you, by the way, you're the one who writes, hey,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: if you pitch me on a record, I'll never play it,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and then I have to read every way every three
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: letters and some random rant on a record you discovered,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and you wouldn't write it. If I told you to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: listen to it, you wouldn't, absolutely, man, But there's so
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: much incoming. It affects the business so on so many levels.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Since you were in a different vertical than I am.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: That's why I asked question. You know what the truth is,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: we had to process more than you did. You could
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: be more selective because of what you did. We had
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to process hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: artists and try and make intelligent decisions whoever you are
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: in any business thousands and what can I say? You
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: try to make you try to narrow down your decisions
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: over time and get more fine in your filtering. Well generally,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I would say this is ninety nine percent.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I don't respond to email from people I do not
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: know unless they're famous, because ten percent of the public
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: is literally insane and you don't know what ten percent
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it is. Have you had that issue where there are
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: people who relentless and coose problem for you to get
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: rid of what? Yes, but that's a few people. You know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you didn't lose my music. You don't know what are
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you're talking about it? So you get judged on ultimately,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: get judged on the artists you work with, not the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: failed attempts and the who wanted to get into the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: party and you didn't sign them. It's did you find
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: were you able to identify good artists. Could you grow
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: them and develop them? Did others on your team do
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the same? Could you be collaborative? Could you figure out
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: more intelligent filtering systems? Could you figure out more intelligent
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: marketing promotion systems or whatever it is or artists development
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: systems in our case, So you know that's what it is.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: By the way, Debra Newman Hart South Side did a
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: great one and it was great for New Jersey. They're
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: just one off. But even though they're successful. Sorry, I'm
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: reading the chat high kids. Okay. Now, in the old days,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: pre internet days, the developing act would essentially borrow money
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: from the record company to stay alive until hopefully they broke.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you do it today if
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: there's no record company involvement. Well, here's the good news.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: In the old days you needed a record company. Today
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: you don't, right, I mean you know that you write
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: about it all the time, of course. Okay, So there's now.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: In the old days, there were two ways to get
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: on the freeway, right, record company or you had to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: be allowed INDI right, and even the indies developed over time,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: but they had them right back on the pop days.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: You can a VJ. You could have this, you could
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: have that Concorde rounder, subpop, etcetera. And not it or
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is There are many many of them. Those were your
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: two on ramps and the rest of the time you
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: were kind in the demo in Nowadays, there are multiple
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: platforms for all the way up to Spotify and artist
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: program from sound that that that, and you can break
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: on TikTok or something all right, so you have options
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: didn't happen before. You also have scale options, global scale options.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: You also have CRM see rum technical term for identifying
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: your audience and figuring out how to keep them right
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and keep them interested. And that is what record companies
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: tried to do without the actual communication directly with an individual.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: So you can be a record company and there's a
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: billion indies. So the options are dramatically different. It's back
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: to how great is your art? How does it cut through?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: You know? Is it Jensen McCrae one listen, holy shit?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Or is it something else? Right? Um? And I think
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: it's how intelligent how can you act given the new
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: tool set? Well, I'm plugging specifically about cash frequently it's
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a it's make a bunch of videos, you get some traffic,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: you get viral and you get some ad sense from YouTube,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and you know if people are if you read about it,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you can make money that way, you could. You need
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of you sift. What I understand. My point
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: is that there is ad revenue. There didn't used to be, Okay, ever,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: there is ad revenue across a bunch of platforms if
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: you can generate traffic. If you were look, Bob, I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cannot answer you to tell you that all the two
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: trillion artists who want to make it in this world
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: are gonna make money. They're not. That's not how the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: system works. Okay. No matter what system, and no matter
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: how open it is, there's a bunch that get through,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: have traffic, listeners and fans that make money from the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: bottom of the pyramids. Let me let me be very specific.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: In all these days, you put a band on the road,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: they need a van, they might need hotel rooms and usually,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: and usually there was short full. In the old days,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: it was the label, assuming there was a label, or
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the manager. If there is not a label, is it
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: still the manager's taking care of that shortfall? Necessity is
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the mother of invention. I know a lot of artists
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to sleep on couches who make phone calls to work
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the networks. I was talking to Jim Casey who came
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: out of defying his so far sounds. They do shows
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: in people's living rooms. People just scale down. They released records,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: they put it on band camp. They sell twenty records
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: at ten dollars each and they make they make do,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and they make do with the costs they have. Like
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: everybody else, you can create a home to which you
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: couldn't use to. Yeah, they find a way. If you
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: talk to people who sell clubs, and of course clubs
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: have been redefined. It used to be really under four hundred,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: but now you know you have the Wiltern that is
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred. But if you talk to acts that consistently
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: go clean in those venues, they are bitching at infinitum
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: about the ticket master fee and they can't make money.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Needless to say, on the other end, the stars dictate.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Are they bitching? Do they have a legitimate point that
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: they cannot make enough in these buildings and they cannot
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: keep ticket prices low or they just you know, wankers
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: who were complaining. Hold on, are you saying the bands
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: are to air Live Nation at those relates to the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Weltern and you confuse me said the capacity. Let's not
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: make that specific. Let's just talk under five hundred capacities. Look,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: ticket fees, you know what they are? You right about them,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: all right? Right? Most people, most artists don't get ticket rebates.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: That's wrong. You write about it all the time. You
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: write about the top few people who are have that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: kind of leveraging cloud and you know, or grandfather deals.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Most people don't get them. I can tell you that, right,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and I know that world well, they don't. They don't.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: So it's not the artist dictating ticket fees. Ticketing was
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a profit center for a promoter that we're all promoters, frankly,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: all promoters. They were lifelines and not just the big
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: ones took advances from et cetera. Because in world with
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: no downside, promoters can't make money. Okay, they can't. It's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: not a fair fight. So the reality is a little
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: different than you write, okay, because there's a sensationalism. Um no, no,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I agree with hold hold okay. You know you talk
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: about the big people who are able to get a
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: ticket rebate here and there that for the most part, okay,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: there weren't rebates, and ticketing is what helped promoting companies
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: grow as sad as it sounds. So in an all
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: in ticket it might be a more fair economic percentage.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And then for whatever reason, people don't want it all
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: in ticket because the artists then thinks ticket brice to you. Whatever. Okay,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: this will find its feet at the end of the day,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: no matter what have been. Anybody says there were more
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: tickets selling in two thousand nineteen and there were going
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: to be in two thousand twenty as a record year
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: than ever before in history. Buy a lot. So the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: ticketing fees as however you feel about them, and obviously
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to answer you in a political fashion. Wait, wait,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: didn't affect consumption. Let's talk about then you is it
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: are under five hundred, which is a complet There are
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: acts that consistently sell those. They say, we want to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: sell the ticket for it's forty and we're not making
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: enough money. That's true. That that's true, and they have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to negotiate a reduced ticketing deal, which is possible, especially
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: if you have good connections. You can do it. If
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you can't, you might be a little screwed. There's some
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: truth there, Okay, So let's go to the future. What
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: do we know which you which you illuminated, which essentially
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: is the acts take all the revenue, and therefore the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: promoter and the biggest promoters you talk to them. Yes,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: they make their money on the ticketing. But also let's
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: get real the acts again. I'm not taking the pro
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: artist pro anything here. I'll just try to be a realist.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: The artists have expenses, forget commissions. That question. Okay, listen,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: if the promoter doesn't make money, you know, Live Nation
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: would be out of business, like question becomes when it
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: comes back. Already, the promoters are trying to lower the percentages.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: They're trying to make deals a more advantageous to themselves.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Do you do you think those will stick? I think, Look,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be a prognosticator. My instinct is
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: is that the artists and their representatives have always had
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the leverage and they exact it as balanced as they
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: can be. Okay, So I don't think any of this
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: stuff lasts to be fair to promoters to have additional
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: risk when people are trying to reschedule dates when you
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: may be reschedulinguntil next May, which is going to get canceled?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Okay or whatever? And the promoter can't get insurance and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: has to hire that more doctors, temperature checks and all
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the other crap they have to put up with, let
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: alone that they don't know. Which mayor governor county official
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: will say, you can only sell half the people half
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the capacity and they're supposed to be on the hook
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: for a guarantee is insane, all right, I'm just insane.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: The risk is infinite, So promoters are absolutely not wrong.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: They should say everybody should share the risk. We don't
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: know what the futures like, certainly in the immediate short term, right,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: and everybody does need to pitch in UM. And I
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: think for the most part before I got before I
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: exited UM, most people were and most people when you
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: really think about how much risk the promoter does carry
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and what they have to deal with and the lack
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of food and beverage or sponsorship and all the things
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that canceled out of any of these people's lives. From
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a nancialer revenue standpoint, they're getting pounded. So to just think, oh,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: they should bridge their companies and then they should make
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: minus minus dollars isn't really fair. So that was sort
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of in my two cents. What I would say back
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to you, I think it is needed in the short term,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: like any help is needed for anybody, whether there's governmental
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: assistance or whatever. Talent fees are high, and they'll find
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: their way back. It's like the stock market. You know,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: it goes way up, then it goes back down, then
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: it crawls back up, and if you're an investor, you're
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: kind of used to it. And I think artists, we'll
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: have to play that way. And not every artist. Remember
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: this is too easy of an argument, because not every
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: artist sells the same amount of tickets and means the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: same gross. So there's levels of risk just of promoting
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: artists in general. And maybe if the overall markets down
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and half the artist sold sixty, now they're down forty.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: You know, there may be down to forty or something
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: like that, and so the promoter has to deal with
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: that too. Let's let's go back to the agent used
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to be for Historically the agent got a straight ten percent.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Assuming you have an agent, the people who can go
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: clean the p selling the big buildings are not paying
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: ten percent, So give us the landscape there. Well, listen,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: ten percent. Business is different if you're in theater books, acting, film, television, etcetera.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about music. I got it, but I want
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: to explain it because it's important for people to realize
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it's about effective margin, Okay. And I tried to explain
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: this to a lot of people in Hollywood so they
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: understood it because a lot of people in Hollywood felt
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: that music people were disruptive and disrespectful of a commission system,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: which is not true. It is totally different. Okay. If
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: you're a director or an artist, you get or an
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: actor or whatever it is, writer, you get paid your fee,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and you pay either an attorney or an agent or both,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: and you keep roughly of the hall. If you're an
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: artist and you get a gig, you may be thirty
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: thirty five percent, maybe forty of the net. Okay, that's
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: your net of a guarantee. So commission off the top,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: which is a gross number, is a big number to that.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: It can vary the net by a good amount, and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: when you have million dollar guarantees or higher, commissions can
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: be very high at ten. So there's been a natural
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: arc I should say um over time in the music
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: industry because of this, and arc is as the artist
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: gets bigger, they pay less commission, right, and they make
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: it a more digestible piece of their fee structure. And
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I think they do that with a lot of the
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: professionals on their team as they have more leverage. And
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I think that's historic. Okay, when you get to the
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: level we're making a touring deal with Torpedo and certainly
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Rapino or Concerts West under age you want to do that?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Why does an act need an age? By the way,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: did want to do that? Right now? You're you're the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: one who mentioned that they have all this money out. Yeah,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they would like to have a lot of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: it back right now and keep some employees, uh and
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: some other infrastructure, versus having it sitting an artist bank
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: account that can't be recouped at the moment, so that
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: will find it's it's day two, right, and who has
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: that much advanced capital and sitting out and for how long?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And thought that all? Right? Back to your question because
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I I took a side road, Okay, it was the agency's.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: The question is if you're making a touring deal with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: like just simplify there, why do you need an agent?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: A lot of people don't A lot of a lot
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: of the lot of the managers do those deals directly? Um?
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And look, there's a whole bunch of reasons. Uh, you
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: don't know what you don't know. So are you paying
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: for professional advice? Paying for people that know the market?
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Why don't people list their houses more on their own?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Tell me why it's cost five or whatever it is?
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Do they think they know the price? Do they think
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: they know the deals? Do they know the comps? Do
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: they know how to do it? Um? Can they market?
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Can they get well? Hang on? No? No, no, these
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: are specific answers to the same thing in music And
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: can they get on that festival? Oh, they make a
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: deal with Ropino and now they want to play glaston Barrier,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they want to play Coachella and that's a e g.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Then how do you manage all of that stuff? Right? Um?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And the truth is there's loyalty in this. People grow
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: bands from inception and here's a big deal and you're
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: gonna cut people out there. There's a lot in this.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It's not one answer, all right. Sometimes when it whether
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: it's reading your articles or other um people's take on
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the industry, it's very simple and black and white. And
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of these answers are okay, because
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: there are millions of artists, or at least tens and
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands, and they're all different. So I would
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: say you should. If you ask ten managers that question,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: they would give you ten different answers, including I don't
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: need an agent, or I would only pay them a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: reduced amount, or you know what, they deserved it and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: they earned it, or I think they got me double
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the money, or they got rid of an earnout provision
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: in the deal that would have lengthened you know, wouldn't
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: make it a fine ideal. There's a lot of answers
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: there or there or you know what, I don't need
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to pay them on this, But the private corporates and
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the college gigs or the fair dates or the festivals
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: outside of so and so are we're so much to
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: me and that's where I make the money I'll pay
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: them are reduced on it. Again, it's there's a lot
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of answers here. Okay, let's say you're an act. A
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: lot of these festivals have three to five stages. If
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: it act plays with two in the if they played
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: two in the afternoon. Other than saying I played that gig, okay,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I played Lollapaloosa. Is there a benefit to them? Can
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: they break? I think so. I mean, listen, I've said
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: for years and made it a real point to say
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: festivals or the new record stores. All right, when those poet,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: when that gets announced, most people that are going and others,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: because there's such a massive cultural force, go do research
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: like you would up anything back in the day, all right,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: on all the people playing the festival, including who knows
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: what band, what artists, what friend of theirs? Who? Why
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: are they not know that band? They're not hip enough?
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And so there there's a hastened discovery process on the announced.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Then the app comes out and you're making your schedule
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: of where to go and what to do, and you're
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: basically continually sifting through a lineup whether it's a hundred X,
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and you are making choices and you're in it. Okay,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: it's like what party do I go to? It's like
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: your school um day, all right? What classes do I take?
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And where do I go and win to my lunch?
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: So I think festivals are infinitely more than that. And
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I think the one o'clock and two o'clock slots I've
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I've been involved with fifty acts that are breaking broken
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: starting there. In fact, as it relates to signal to noise, Bob,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: if you have a big show at two in the afternoon,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you own that period. By seven, the whole festivals rocking,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: and you don't, you might not make a sound, right,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure it's a disadvantage. We've purposely put
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: artists in the old days early in the slots to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: avoid competition, so they got all the attention, Amy Winehouse
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: is four o'clock on purpose. Okay, let's to what degree
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you've talked about this over the last fifteen years or so,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: expanding the purview of the agency into advances into promotion
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: of concerts. Are these venues that agencies will continue to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: forage in or will they ultimately just be arbiters of gigs? Listen,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I can't I don't want to tell you what other
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: people are gonna do moving forward post COVID. What I
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: would tell you is the market's going to get and
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: when that happens, typically things can be more formless and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: opportunity drives. Nobody's going to be worrying about regulation at
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: the moment, you know, if not for years until this
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: thing comes back. So the answer really is where do
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: people see opportunities and where they're willing to go and do,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: including the agencies, right, labels could go start agencies or
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: management companies. Michael Ropino is all and and a g
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of invested in management companies and other things and venues.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I know, Core and cap Show. He went and spent
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: or went and invested in a lot of different um
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: vertical markets around touring. A lot of people have, so
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's a The one thing that everybody's learning
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: through this is how complex ecosystem is and how many
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: pieces get affected right when the revenue stops and artists
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: can't play, including even labels. Right people think labels are okay, Well,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: really all the indies depend on the artist touring getting
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: pressed putting out records in order for they don't spend
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: that much in marketing promotion. They don't have it. So
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: UM and the major says you know, have reduced their
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: flow of new releases in it because people don't want
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to just lose the record in a week for the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: most part. Again, so I think everything is on the table.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Everybody is going to make some choices where they think
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: the opportunities are best and where they should invest and
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: what they should grow. The great news unlike past disasters.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know there's everyone like this, but but is
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: that the music economy is way bigger and way more
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: healthy than people know. So wherever you invest, you've got
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: a good chance of making money or striking gold because,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: as you know, value copyrights is going up. Look at
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: the Warner I P O Spotify price. Everything in the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: copyright I P business is skyrocketing. Look at merk mercuriotis
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: is multiples on its publishing. That world is going nuts.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: You read the Goldman Report, it's how you four to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: six times and you're talking a hundred billion dollar recorded
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: music industry minimum, and then the touring industry and how
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: vast it is, and it was just really growing, especially globally.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: You know it's gonna go through at least a double
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: could be fifty billion a year, bigger than the movie
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: business and all the associated pieces. I think it will
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: come back, will come back big, and it will be healthy.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: The questions can people get through and then where they
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: spend their time agencies? Yeah, everybody can remake themselves. Now, okay,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: let's go into genre. You were saying that generally speaking,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you are not personally into what is on the chart,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: so to speak, how strong hip which charts we're talking
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: about Spotify, Spotify Top fifty, which okay, the Spotify Top fifty,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: which is basically hip hop and pop. Does that do
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: as well as the top fifty of your live They've
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: always been disconnected. I mean I remember reading poll Star
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: in the eighties and looking at Pink, Floyd, The Grateful Dead,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Bob Seeger. You know, they weren't on any chart of
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: recording music ever, right, Pink, etcetera, etcetera. And the same
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: was true later in the all rock, you know, grunge revolution.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of it. Look, I think pop and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: ticket sales can converge and do probably more today than ever.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: And saying with hip hop hip hop, it was part
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of the development period for people to really take the
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: touring infrastructures um and invest in it as as the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: rap and hip hop community grew. And that took a
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: lot of time. I was part of it and I
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: watched it um. I think the same is true for
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the electronic music industry. Took a while for people to
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: really shake their metaphor of what being a DJ was
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and put it into a live you know, Greena or
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: other conte festival context, and I think over time all
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of them grow and that's why I have such a
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: robust business at the moment um. So the chart is
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the charts. The recorded charts are again not today when
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the touring market is shut, but it's more in line
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: than it was in the past in my opinion, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: there's more surprises than ever because there are touring surprises
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: that are not on the chart, and there's huge recording
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: artists that don't really affect the touring, but I would
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: say a large percentage of it. The holy grail is
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: people to switch on all the revenue streams, okay, and
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: they understand what they are today. So whether it is
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the ad rev ad share that you discounted but I
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: think is bigger than you do, or direct e commerce
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: or merchandise which is an all time high, publishing and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: sinks and you know all the different uses of publishing
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: and splits and remixes and data touring and all the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: touring besides merch all the touring ancillaries. I think today
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: people realize there's ten revenue streams in the music history.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I gotta turn at least six to ten of them
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: to to really be in the game. So I think
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: everybody's trying to learn. So you have history in different areas,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: you have history at a record company. Let's just assume
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: there's not my best one. It's like, okay, but I'm
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: going to give you a liberty here. There are three
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: major record companies at this point in time. If I
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: were to put you in charge of one of them,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: forget which one, what would you do besides take it public? Yes, okay,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: well that's the first thing, all right, um, and I
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: think that will be happening. Well, really, Sony is part
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: of a Sony Music is part of Sony International, Warner
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: just Win Public and right now it used to be that,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you know, if you were content, you're driving the machine.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: There's an argument to be made that Sony Music's valuation
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: is getting crushed by being part of the bigger But
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: you have to but you have to assume that. Okay, Now,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I think that you
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: know it's a separate stock. Um. Universal obviously is under Vendy,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and I think Universal at some point goes public and
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: will be massive and good for all of them. They've
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: done a ridiculously great job building look I think record
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: companies have the next eighteen months where they have a
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: lot more staying power. They have the market with them.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: If you're public and a lot of capital, they could
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: be the great consolidators right now. If I were driving one,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: I would be really building out my tentacles of infrastructure
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: to have more pieces of the music industry and the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: what I'll call the supply value chain. If you if
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: you call Spotify pipeline and the label is oil will supply.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I would be um doing a lot around the oil
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: supply and the healthy parts of the music industry. Because
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I have capital on flush, I can do artists felt
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: you could buy clubs, you could be a label, you
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: could do a lot right They started merged companies, they
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: started agencies, They've invested in managing companies. I know Vivendi
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: is doing a ton in Africa. I saw a presentation
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that was fascinating there in like fifteen cities and Africa.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Why is there not They're investing in the music industry, infrastructure,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: their French company, there's a lot of French territories and
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: so it's sort of fascinating. I think they are. They
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: have the most opportunity right now. My two cents and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: they have publishing, so they're already covered two ways to Sunday, right, okay,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: but what do we know about major labels today. They
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: are releasing fewer records and fewer genres than ever before
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: in an arrow where there's more music and more genres
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: both being distributed in that type of music. So they're
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: pausing the new release piece to but remember, the new
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: release pieces at least profitable for them. So in some ways,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: by cutting that all right and getting more catalog revenue
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: as a blend, they're actually profitability is going to go
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: up in some ways, okay, and the valuations are skyrocketing
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: at the same time. I think they will be fine.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think that their DIP is going to be
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: bad invested. Let me put it slightly different way. Uh,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: they are missing out on genres uh that don't do
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: well on the Spotify quickly because certainly you get paid
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: on consumption. This could ultimately the be the bane of
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: their existence. I don't think, because they certainly want to
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: take a big piece, I don't agree. I think what
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: happens is after every format change, the majors just buy
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: up what they don't have. Historically, they've started labels, bought labels,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: consolidated labels, because when there's a new profitable model and
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: streaming is the most profitable and the best one, they
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: just buy more of the Spotify. It's a it's a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: math formula. Okay, it doesn't stream as much as a
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: hip hop record maybe or a pop record. But you
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: know these labels are they have very smart people in
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: there who know the value of an indie record, electronic record,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: hip hop, hop, pop record. They have a different value
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and multiple assigence, and they still want to buy them.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: The end of the day, the game is going to
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: be buying up as much as the Spotify streaming revenue
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: as you can get, and the majors will be able
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: to do that. So I think that's gonna be unprecedented
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: in the next five to ten years because they're losing
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: market share, you know of that, because the exactly, yeah,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: they're gonna buy it up. They're gonna be flushed cash
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: like a lot bo bob sixty billion dollars the Universe
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I said forty, they're gonna go out at sixty. Okay,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: if anybody's listening from Universal, I'm sure you whatever, you'll
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: say something, but it's good what do we know if
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you have good what do you think they could do
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: with five billion dollars in cash with indies a rabbit hole.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Now he's got a side because let me go to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: a slightly different point. Okay, if you have incredible traction,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: if you're a little naz X, you can write your
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: ticket at the label. But if you're not someone with
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: incredible streaming numbers, at first, the record company, the traditional
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: label is not going to give you a good deal.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Whereas you go to direct to spotify the others and
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: get it more than of the recording revenue. Someone who
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: is young and leverages that, why do they need the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: major labels? The major label is a great percentage of
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: their distribution market share is based on they distribute all
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: these little labs to them. Signal to noise, you don't
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: first of all, you have efficient back ends and systems.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: If usually because you get a cash advance, because you
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: get bought out, and you don't get a cash advance otherwise.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: So that's the majority of why people do this, right.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: It's not like they take your records of the store
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: and rebrand them with a label on it and sent
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: in as a nice price that no longer happens, so
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: nobody knows what happens because the I P stays in
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Spotify or Apple Music. It never changes. It's always accessible
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: to customer. There's no label there anyway, So it's just
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: who gets paid the royalties, right, that's it. It's an
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: invisible transaction. So if somebody's wait, so if somebody's gonna
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: make a margin on it, they're gonna buy more of it.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: It's like factoring. So if I think that you know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the indie label deal is this, and I'm gonna pay
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: him a million dollars to take over this, and I
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: get thirty nine cents and might pay out to them,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: was factor to thirty three cents and I make six cents.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: They're gonna do it all day long. It's just math. Okay,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: let's go to the other side of the equation. The artist.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Of course, there's a decision whether it take that deal.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: But in the heyday of classic rock, when this business
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: was built, artists were worried about their credibility. They did
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: not want to do endorsement, sponsorships. There were very few
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: private To what degree is that a factor it acts today?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: It feels very like an old topic from back from
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. To me, I think that that
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: that ship sailed. There are a few people that still
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: feel that way. My good friend Paul to Let feels
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: that way about Coachella, and more power to him. Um. Look,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: my view is this, Uh, sponsorship is one revenue stream
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: most people can't get. Okay, it's easy to say, oh,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: you're selling out, and a lot of people feel that way.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means anymore. I mean, Trump's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: using people's music without authorization for his ship, and artists
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: are fucking freaking out over that. You think they should
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: care about a commercial they got paid for. That's much worse.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: So anyway, Look, here's what I say. It's a it's
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: an older, overblown topic. Of the artists I think would
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: take it and think it's no hit to their credibility.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: The truth is that in their Instagram feeds there's advertising everywhere.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Just like when MTV played their videos there was ads
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: before and afterwards they couldn't do anything about it. The
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: same was true on radio, the same is true on
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: social media, and I think it's an overblown topic. Music
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: is surrounded by advertising almost no matter what platform. Again,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: you know Pandora and streaming services aside their concerts. They
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: go play a venue where they don't take a sponsor,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: and there's a spot three sponsors at the venue. Who
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the funk knows? You think the consumers like, Nope, that
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: band has credibility because they're playing the Chevy Concert Series.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: It's not them. I don't buy it. I think we're
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: way past that. But sell by date. Sorry, Okay, let's
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: talk about you for so people get where you're coming from.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Where did you grow up near you, buddy Stanford? I
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: know all your history this Connecticut. Okay? And uh, were
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you the type a kid who was the straw that
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: s uh stirred the drink? Or were you alone? Or
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: what kind of kid were you? What is the straw
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: that started to drink social? No, yes, that's someone. When
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: uh Reggie Jackson came to the New York Yankees, he says,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I'm the straw that stirs the drink, the leader of
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: the band. I try not to have that kind of
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a thought about myself. I think I was a normal,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, first generation immigrant kid who was a jock
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and I was into music. I was I used to
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: call myself a geek jock because my dad is an engineer,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and I was pretty mad, and I was into genetics
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: and immune therapy and gene there. You know, I'm a
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: bit of a geek and I'm a computer nerd. Was
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: gonna be a here science miner. In college, I was
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: writing compilers. That was probably the first guy in the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: industry use a computer or spreadsheet. Most people know that.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: And I was one of the first people to talk
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: about online services the Internet before the Internet, right when
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: it's commercial online services. So I don't know. I'm a geek,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: music freak, you know, jock, kind of normal, normal guy
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: that doesn't it isn't any I don't want to be
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: one of the big personalities in perfect Okay. So we're okay, okay,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: I know this, But from my audience, where do you
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: go to college? You see San Diego? Why pre med only?
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And I was gonna go to Berkeley. Sere used to
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: buy records on telegraphic Leopold's and rescuing. It was my nirvana. Right,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I'd be shopping for C. T. I Jazz all the
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: way through the latest indie whatever. I was a freak,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: and um Berkeley had a ship med school and no
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: housing In nineteen eighty and you had to pick three
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: schools if you were in the UC and I looked online. Still,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: UCSD was beautiful and at the best med school. I
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: flew down there and it was out of control, gorgeous. Okay,
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: just at what point do you at what point do
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: you move from Connecticut to San Francisoto junior junior year? Okay,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that must have been very hard and social. No, no,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I was. I was a baseball player, so it was easy.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: What happened? You got? How good a base that was
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: pretty good? My kid's good too. But here's the bottom line.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: You get accepted. I wasn't an outcast athletics or other
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: special interests. Uh allow you acceptance in ways that you know,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the normal outcast slash. I don't know, anybody doesn't. And
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you know I tried to be so much social. Okay,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: So to go to UCSD, how do you get involved
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: in the music program? There's a fun story. So um,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: it's some fun fun dormates by the way, my judge
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: with the dormate was at the time, So they had
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: a campus record store and I signed up to work
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: at it. It started the year before and once again,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: what once you get what ye're we in And I
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: ended up running the record store within two months, I
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: think maybe a month, and that was really fun. I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: had I managed a band out of the record store.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I called their number on the back of the vinyl.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: What was called the church, so what I was at
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: that point. Then the campus radio station came calling. I
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: joined the campus radio station and I took that over. Um.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I then joined the concert committee and that went really
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: really well, and I end up promoting shows on campus
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: and then a little bit slower because usually there's a
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: hierarchy in college. You're the newbie and there's not a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: UCSD everybody. It's a nerd school. It was you know, yeah, no,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: and I kind of I don't. I don't want to
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: say anything here, but let's just put it this way.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I was lucky enough to have an idea of what
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: to go do and that led the day. So what
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: did you say to do well in the concert area?
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Buy more shows and put on more shows. And I
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: convinced the administration then call just did enough fear calling
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: agents back in the day. I remember this day calling
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Andy Waters and my first show and Joel Harrisman on
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the second show. I promoted and trying to remember who
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: did spyro Gyra at the time, Paul la Monica on
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: bb King, you know, Joel Parrisman on King, Crimson, Andy
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Waters and Ian Hunter, and it just rolled. I I
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: don't even know what to say. My friends said to me, Yeah,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: this is what you're always destined to funk that doctor ship.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: That was a bunch of bullshit cover for your mother,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and this is what you were going to do. But
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that. So it just went and I
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: ended up having a lot of success down there, and
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: I was on ninety one excellent Radio. I started humphreezing.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: It blew up and I a little bit slower. How
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: many shows did you do at ucsday four to start?
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Then started a company, did four more and then got
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: hired by what is was Avalon Attractions Mark Berman that
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: then got bought and is now Live Nation. But and
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: then hundreds of shows the junior and senior year. Hundreds. Okay,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: so we say you started home Free. You tell us
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: about that um To venue in San Diego. It's been
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: going thirty something thirty up thirty seven years probably the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: Potters Venum say, do you get one of them? But
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: what happened was we were. I promoted Carla Bonoff, Bonnie
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Rait and John Anderson from Yes at the old Globe
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Theaters in San Diego and which are gorgeous, all right,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: lar theaters, but they were union houses and you couldn't
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: make any money, okay, and no, Bob, I did not
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: church twenty dollars a ticket to make money on top
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: ticket fees. But uh, you couldn't. So we were looking
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: for a cheaper venue. And I happened to go with
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the production manager to a radio station um event where
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: they were giving out drinks and promoting some advertiser, and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: it was at a hotel and they laid it out well,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Jasmine was playing on this lawn, and I said, Hey,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I bet you this looks cheap. We could do shows here.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: And I went and met with the hotel manager and
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: he said sure, and I cut a deal with him
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: on the spot. And I think the first show we
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: did there was David Lindley and El rayo X and
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I think we did The Crusaders and then four nights
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: of Jimmy Buffett, and Jimmy Buffett sold that in ten minutes.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: There were three thousand boats trying to watch the show.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: From next to Humphries and it broke and it never
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: looked back, so okay, And whose money was it? It
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: was the company I worked for at the time, which
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: was the promoter who part of it before. It was
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: a partnership between a San Diego promoter named Mark Burman
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: and Avalon Attractions, so it was both of their money's.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: I think Avalon was floating the cash and Mark Berman
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: had done some stuff and Avalanche it wasn't nice, and
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Avalone said, we're gonna throw you out and take our
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: money back. So there was a big show that they
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: captured the entire box office and settled the score. And
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: then I was asked to choose which one was I
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: going to work for, and I and I was still
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: in school and Humphries was my baby at the time,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: so I stayed with the Mark Burman guy for a moment.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: It's a whole funny story. He was funded by a
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: drug dealer and it was just wacky. And I lasted
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: there about another nine months, and then I made a
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: decision to go to l A and become an agent.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: I was pursued. Funny story, the guys who were triad
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: than William Morris, Richard Rosenberg and Peterboroughs like great guys,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: dear friends and great people. God rest, Peter salt Um.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I sold out a Sergio Mendez date. I think ine
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and Richard Rosenberger was one of Sergio Mendez his best
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: friends at Bellafante, and all these people had loved del Mar,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: who's a horse guy, so he would go down to
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Delmar all the time. So here's this excuse, Sergio Amende
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: is actually selling out somewhere, which never happened. He's like,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I gotta meet the guy that's selling out, Sergeion Amendez,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: And I got to go to del Mar. He came down,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: we became friends, and I went to work for him
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: after that. And and it's, uh, you know, that was
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: the start of post college and what point do you
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: decide you're not going to be a doctor. And what
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: do your parents say about that? She's still pissed. Um.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know that my parents ever figured out what
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I actually did or do truly, they're ritchen press, but
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they know. Um. I was really
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: getting my ass handed to me into sophomore year in
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: Kem classes and down there, Okam and Pekem were really
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: really hard there, and I just got killed. I was distracted,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: so that made it made my choice easy. Then management
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: science became came calling, which is a joke, but whatever. Okay,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: So you you moved to l A. You work for
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Triad Agency at the time, got merged into Triad, went
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: to nine one, okay, and in ninety one you go
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Rick Rubin, here's here's here's a fun story. So incredible years.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: They were all incredible years. So those are incredible. I
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: mean the music that was coming out, whether it was
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: beginning hip hop, where it was grunge, all rock, it
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: didn't matter whatever you call it, you know, indie data
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: da da. But it culminated kind of in Lollapalus and
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I left and I was really upset. I got a
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: shitty bonus one year and it really bummed me out.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing that bumped me out was
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: product manager and Electra Record just had all the say
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and the promotion people over the Pixies, who are one
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: of my favorites, and I was a Pixies fanatic, and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: they were putting out I think it was Trump Lamont
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and they picked the wrong single and you should appreciate this.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: You mass was the hit, and they never put out
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: as a single and I went crazy. I was like,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: the Pixie are finally gonna have a huge hit. They
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: get something they deserve in the world, and the record
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: is gonna suck it all up because some radio programs
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: like the of this record I was living. So I
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: realized right then and there, between the bonus and that
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I gotta go on the record business. That's what the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: power is. Every agents are nothing, live business on the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: bottom of somebody's shoot, which is no longer the case.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And you've written about that too, but it was at
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: the time. So Irving had offered a job to me,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: and um somebody worked in me and said, you know,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: instead of you being reactive, you should be proactive. How
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: did you know? How did you know Rick Rubin? Well,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: I worked as Dan's exagent and we were friends. We
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: were friends from before that. Um and I wrote down
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: my three heroes at the time and the record business.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: One was Iva Watch Russell for a d but it
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't work for him, um Rick, Reuben, Gary Kerr First
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: and Seymour Stein and they were when when when this
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: person said be proactive, you gotta work your your mark, Igor,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: you gotta don't take the first whatever, go work where
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: you want to work. And I went and met with
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: all of them. I was they were heroes to me.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: And Rick felt the best and I spent five years
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: with him. That we're amazing. I learned a ton he was,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: He's amazing. Uh too much for the podcast. But I
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: watched him and George de Culius and Brendan O'Brien and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Dave Sarrty and all these people make records, and I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to make a record. I'm watching recruit
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and make records. I helped them sign Johnny Cash and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Mr Funt Delly Kind. I'm the guy that flew down
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: to sign Johnny. You know on behalf of Rick It's huge, Branson,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Miss Already and Nata It's ridiculous. Chili Peppers, Bloodshirt, Sex mensh,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic, Wildflowers, Tom Petty. All made during
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that time, Mick Jagger, plus plus plus, Plus, Plus plus
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: plus plus, Slayer, this that. In the next I signed
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: fifteen bands that I loved. All failed, but you know,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: not failed great records. Mary Jane, I'm Sea, Jesus Medicine,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Julian Cope, Frank Black, just artists that people didn't care
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: about commercially but I loved but I learned a lot
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: and then I bought a couple of websites when I
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: was with him that I had a real vision for
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: and he became a partner and artist Direct. So that
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: was kind of so tell us when Artists Direct started.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: What the viewpoint was in the development thereof the viewpoint
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: was pretty simple. It's funny. Okay, So here's a funny story.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: I saw Mark cats Is somewhere here, but um so
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: this is relevant. If you haven't seen the Beastie Boys
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: documentary on Apple TV, I highly recommended watch Linda run
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Stats too. It's amazing. But the Beastis brought me back
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: to um a story. Ian Rodgers and I met in
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: Detroit at Pine Knob I think was a beast show.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: It wasn't La La it was Beast Show and John
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Silva was there and I was freaking out at that
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: period over the Internet and what it meant. And I
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: just to be clear, what what year are we in?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Do you remember? Ninety? True? Good question? It was not.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: The Internet was commercial online services, so it must have
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: been earlier two okay okay? And Ian and I were
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: explaining the Beasts and Silva what was going to change
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: about the world and fast forward. I was in the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: car with Rick explain maybe it was when the browser
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: came out, uh, explaining that right now, I didn't understand
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: how if I was a fan and I used the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: best boys with Rick obviously because he was instrumental there. Um,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: why I have to go to a concert to buy
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: the band's T shirt? And why when I want to
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: find out what they're doing on their new album, I
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: have to wait and buy ten magazines to see who's
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: going to write about them. And I want to buy
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: go to the records from buy their records, but I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: can't buy their ticket there. I have to go somewhere else.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: And so what the fund is that? It's like the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: worst organization system you could even think about. It makes
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: a scavenger hunt look good, right because it's random. I said,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to be a fan. What terrible? So again,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: I've been in commercial online services, a well compy serve Prodigy.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: You know Delfi, my buddy from college, was one, was
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: probably number two in siliconality. They made a movie about
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: him because it was such a forward thinker, uh, in
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: terms of home automation and networking. And I said to Rick.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: When the browser hit, I said, the world has to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: be reshaped. Everybody has to go to the artist for everything,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: their tickets, their t shirts, their information, their tour dates,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: their music, their videos, and it should be in one place.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Why do you have to fucking jump around the digital
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: This internet thing is going to allow for that to happen.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: I want to build a company that builds the home
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: base where everything is at, so when people go there
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: they get everything. It's a stupid organizational system. This is
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: a reorgan okay, with the artist around the center. This
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: is before the concept of commercial online streaming services, which
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: then is a platform where you have a lot of artists, right,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: but then hopefully you link to these centers and now
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: there's multiple centers, multiple channels. But at the time it
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: was built trying to build the first one. So the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: real thought behind it was trying to centralize the artist
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: content and their goods right and their information and not
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: make it, you know, a road trip to have to
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: figure out how to get that ship. It was. It
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: was maddening and for me, who was a super fan
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: of Indian underground music, um, it was double bad because
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: those artists didn't get enrolling stuff or on MTV or
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: on the radio. So now you had to dig and wait.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: For god, it was written in a musician magazine, or
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: did option to a story or trouser pressed do something
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: or cream or this or that, or depending what you
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: were doing, or oh, I gotta wait till the enemy
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: comes in three weeks late and Sounds and Melody Maker
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to see if they write about them right. And I'm
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: representing the Order and the Bunnymen, and you know, Smith's
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: for a moment and cocked out Twins, the Pixies and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Dead Can Dance and nobody's did They're not on the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: fucking radio, kay rock whatever some of them, And how
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: are you going to find out about that? And then
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: what really bothered me was I said, Okay, now I'm
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: an agent. I'm working with these bands. I'm in New
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: York for the bunny Man. They sell out Roseland and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Radio City ten thousand freak Bunnymen fans, and after the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: show's over, nobody knows who they are and how to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: get to them again. And I go, that's the dumbest
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I have
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: to fix this. This is so stupid that things with
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: this kind of fandom where those fans would kill to
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: have Ian McCulloch say here's a new song or anything right,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: kill crush, and there's no system for that. So those
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: two thoughts is what I went to try to do. Okay,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: so you leave deaf American, which becomes American at some
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: point what year beginning of what do you? What do
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: you do for cash? On this startup? Start an agency?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: We made cash right away, had chili peppers, rage, pearl
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: jam b York, you know, ninety we had a lot
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: of them. Okay, Well, just to be clear, was the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: agency part of artists to direct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: whole way. That was the concept. We didn't take financing
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: for a year and a half and then we raised
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: very little. We didn't need it, and we built. I
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: built the first system and FileMaker e commerce. Both the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: booking system and the e commerce system was built in FileMaker.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: I wrote it, I coded it. So we were doing
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: FileMaker transactions and what happened. Here's a funny story. So
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I was good friends with Norman Perry from Periscope Vancouver promoter,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: great guy, hyper smart, dear friend. He went to work
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I think in Toronto for Michael Cole and then he
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: opened up one of the merchant companies called Brockham with
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Peter Lubin and got sold that got pushed out whatever,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: and then started a new company and he had David Bowie,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: he had the Rolling Stones, you know, he had some
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: real heavyweight folks and he was a big friend and
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: fan for another mutual friend. But we were dear friends.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: We still are to this day. And when we were
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: opening Artists Direct, the Rolling Stones are a huge business
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: for him, but he couldn't sell anything online and this
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: e commerce thing was new, and I called him up.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: In fact, my Frankie said you should call Norman see
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: if you can get the Stones. And I actually the
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: first band Artist Direct ever signed with the Stones ever.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Norman is like, I'm gonna set you with Mick bless you.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: You go meet with Mick if you can convince him,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: and he's an online freak. O you go. And I
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: went back with Mick in the Four Seas Hotel in
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Beverly Hills one morning, came out the bathrobe. He's the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: smartest motherfucker anyway. He understands understood the Internet. He's like,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I'll give you this, but you gotta get me my cricket.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: I want my cricket every city I'm in. Now, this
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: was in nineties six or ninety seven. There's no cricket
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: online being streamed anywhere when most streaming and his bandwidth
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: was terribly You couldn't a well, graphics are still downloading slow, right,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: so forget songs. And he wanted to watch cricket everywhere
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: he went. And he was furious that he wasn't running.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: He was like, that's what the Internet is gonna be.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Fast forward. He was right, um, and he said absolutely,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: And we built the Stone Store and it, you know,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: did a million dollars of e commerce pretty quickly. And
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: then we went from there and it was a hell
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: of woy to start. Um sort of proved the concept.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Although it was early. There weren't banner ads. I mean,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: we're the very first implementation of s A P RP
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: system on the whole internet. So you just think about
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: what area you were in. There was no programming languages.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: You couldn't program a database. Everything is in Tickle, which
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: ran CEN that and you had to hire Tickle engineers
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: T I C L. And there were none of them.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: So it was you know, today it's everything's plug and playing.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: You could do anything on multiple platforms. So it was
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: a very different era. Okay, now we know the end
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: of artists directors, It goes public and it goes bus
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: But what happens between what happened to be in siding
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the stones and then built like we built like motherfuckers.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: We signed a hundred twenty five artists, did their websites,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: their e commerce, their direct marketing, their email, you know,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: marketing to their fans. We ended up selling tickets, We
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: ended up selling albums. So whether it was beck or
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: share or it didn't. You know, we worked with a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: number of brilliant artists and they had records that didn't
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: that the labels didn't want to count a commitment records,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: so we sold them direct a fan and we'd sell
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: fifty twenty thousand direct a fan of a record that
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: you never heard of. Now, this is before digital, so
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: it's still C D S or whatever, vinyl or whatever
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: um at the time. And obviously then the file business
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: changed things. Um it's kind of gone or close to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: gone by then. But we grew, we built, we grew bigger,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: we built bigger, we did more stuff. Um. We failed
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: on a couple of record labels, which weren't really a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: big part of the business. We had a couple of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: other websites, the Ultimate Band List, which was the first one,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: UBL dot Com, which was you know, we were trying
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: to grow the traffic. But you know, at that point
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: you had MP through dot Com, then Napster, you know,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: prior to that music Boulevard CD now than the introduction
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: of Amazon. So for historical sake, that's what you were
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: dealing with. And nobody knew the difference between Napster and
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: MP through dot Com and US or Launch, poor David Goldberg,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and they didn't know, and they were all radically different.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: And but it was version one point of the Internet
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: with Ultivist and asked Jeeves an Excite and Yahoo and
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: Infoseek and micos and not many people made it past
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: wave one. And you know, our story was legendary because
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I went We went public the week of the market crash,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: which was interesting and Starbanes Oxley and I had to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: be a public company CEO for you know a couple
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: of years after getting completely beaten up and not knowing
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: what to do. So I can I feel for public
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: executives right now? Um, you know, twenty years later they
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: have to face a version of a completely decimated business
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: and market. But listen, it was the greatest learning experience
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: of my life. So I don't know what else to say.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: You know, it happened, it's history, and we built a company.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: We were doing million dollars in internet revenue, which you know,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: in today's numbers, who knows what they'd be mostly e
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: commerce we started. We were one of the first people,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: Mark Whites and a few others in the internet advertising business.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: People figure out what's a bann or how does it work?
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: What's a mouse over? What's you know when flash doesn't
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: work here? So and so there. You know, I think
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: we took a lot of blues and built one of
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: the first websites ever for a festival. It was really fun.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Remember his little carnival. Okay, you're painting such a positive picture.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: Why did it fail? There's a bunch of reasons. Number one,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: I fucked up number two fifteen years early, probably for
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: the real market. Number three, I fucked up number four.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: What do you mean terrible market? Meaning you had to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: for me to be an inexperienced public company executive when
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: the markets closed for three years and run and Starvings
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Oxley and me trying to figure out what the fuck
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: to do. I should have just shut down and thought
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: about it and waited. I it was too when I
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: say fucked up, Bob, it was ship was swirling in
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: my head. People were happy the internet was over. It
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't you know who old media's see all you young upstarts.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: You you were in a hard as you thought. You know,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: you're dealing a lot of crap. I didn't know what
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: to do, and I was lost. I went and met
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: with everybody or trying to sell our companies had a
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: lot of cash. I was still lost, but I was
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: an idiot. I should have held out in my cash
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: and just got through it. Definitively, Were you too early
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: and it could never work? Or was there something I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: don't wait at the bust up son for fifteen years,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: you'll do better? And that was a cutting, fucking blow. Um.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I was so into being in the next
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: system that I forgot that people have to transition into
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: the next system. It was all about what I thought
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: was possible, not what was gonna happen all right, or
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: or consumer habits hadn't evolved, or technology hadn't been laid
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: in or the waves of the Internet had to happen.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: I was enamored by this idea, and I just imagine
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: time didn't exist and everybody's going to convert like they
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: have today. Right, So now that I'm supposed to be
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: older and wiser, definitely older. Whether I'm wiser and that's
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: a different story. But once you look back pindeslight being,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: you go schmuck. There were massive societal changes that had
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: to take place before your vision could come through. Who
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: the funk are you? And what were you thinking? Asshole? Right, Like,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: everybody's just gonna, you know, have their browsers handle this
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: kind of add thing, or they're gonna feel comfortable with
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: their credit cards on the internet or any of that stuff. Right,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: those are all hurdles society has to get through or
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: people will go to the web. There were no mobile devices.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: Is fucking blackberries? Right? I mean the bricks so um
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: and is an air of palm pilots. So I was
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: a moron that way, and today I try to think,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: am I doing something that takes massive societal adoption? Is
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: there technology that has to get laid in place? Oh?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Do they have to lay in bandwidth for the ship
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: to work, you know what, like I should be the
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: one that's out they're experimenting. So that was a lot
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: of it. The answers, Yeah, it's a schmuck. Okay, so
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: ay when it crashes, how does that affect you emotionally?
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: Be how long does it? How long does it take
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: you ultimately to segue back into the business, and how
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: do you decide to go back into the agency? Three
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: years I was bloodied in bankrupt and had to get
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: a job that paid me a salary. I was paying
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: myself a hundred and fifty grand a year as a
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: public executive because I Don Muller and I were very
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: worried about that that we were we wanted to be
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: looked at ethically. We're taking the public's money, investors. We
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: weren't going to get ourselves rich. We weren't gonna do this,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: do that. And I was crushed. Had some kids during
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that time, two boys, and you know, ah, so I
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: was going personally bankrupt. You know, I lost sixty three
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: million on paper and two million in cash, and thank
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: god for a couple banker friend of mine who basically
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: got me credit and helped me work my way out
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: of it. And then Peters hired me back. I went
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: to see we had sold the talent agency to see
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: a done wanted to go. We wanted to get off
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: the scary ride. I don't blame him at that time.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: And we had a great staff and most of those
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: people went to see a lot of me stayed there
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: and the artist want We closed that piece down and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: I kind of high. I made a mistake and I
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: hired ted Field because I was beaten. I was a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: beaten man, and he basically turned into the label for
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the last gap and it wasn't great. It was terrible, actually,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: but whatever it is what it is. Mistakes made, and
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: I put myself to bid to the agency because they
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: were the only people who are gonna pay me. I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go back and be an agent. I
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: went to go run a tech company. But nobody's gonna
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: hire me and run a tech company. I just got
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: beaten up. They didn't pay. It was all back end.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: The record label was gonna have me. I was a
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: failure there uh and wasn't proven manager. I didn't have clients.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: They didn't really want to do that. I tried to
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: go back to be an agent, totally bummed out. At
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: the time, and Peter said, Geiger, come on back, I'll
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: pay you, and that's what as I started. Okay, so
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: that episode at the agency business which turned into w
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: m ME is now over and needles to say, there's
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a pause, but certainly in the
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: live business. But what do you see for yourself personally
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: going forward? Business was Um, I'll be honest, um, curly,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: somebody should read that comment. Damn straight good good left midfielder. Sorry,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: I'm reading the text. Um. I think it's the best
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: time in history to start something. So I think I'm
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: going to start something. I mean, listen, there were some
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: rumors planted out there about what I was doing, and this,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: that and the next thing weren't true. You know, well
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: I never got a call from Daniel Ack. He's a
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: friend of mine, so uh, you know, I don't have
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: a job to be a mocker at YouTuber, Apple Music,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: Amazon or Spotify or any of those places, and they
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: don't or anything close. If you were offered those gigs,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, but I don't have them,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter, and it depends what the gig is.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: I got inquired about a position at SoundCloud that wasn't
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: very interesting, but still, um, there's nothing really there. There's
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: a few other big jobs I might consider in the
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: rest of the traditional music industry, and they're not there.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: And and that's so, that's okay. But the truth is,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: when I sat out here over the last four months
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: and thought about what made me happy because I'm getting older,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: what do I want to do? Damn on this old
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: what do I really want to do? It came to
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: a couple of fun conclusions. One is I am what
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: I am. I love tech, but there's no Roman tech
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: right now. I don't see it. Everything that I talked
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: about happened, and it's big, big I've said it, You've
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: seen my speeches. It's the big player time, the very
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: little room for disruption right now. Okay, it's hard. Everything
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: is being built onto the big platforms, and new media
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: is in some way. It's not the same becoming old
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: media again, right They just is and it's bound to
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: be that way. Um, systems don't change that much, even
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: though the distribution of pricing changed. Um. So I looked
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: in I said, what turns me on another in tech
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: and being forward is artist development and discovering music and
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: I'm a music freak, and the underbelly of the industry,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: the ground up golden voice, you know, clubs, indie labels,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: developing artists. You know, Jenson McCrae is an example, right,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: So that's what gets me the most excited and gives
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: me some purpose. And I could and and there's some
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: part of me and my friends know this, and I
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: think they're the same that feels young by staying very
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: current in music and the music business and tech. Okay,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: if you're sort of I'm into e sports, my son's
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: and the sports, I'm very on top of that. I'm
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: deep in the digital world, so kind of keeps you young,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: and so I want to stay there. So I'm probably
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: gonna start up focused in those areas. Okay, just looking
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: at the business and large. Once we get to the
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: end of this pandemic, Uh, what do we know? The
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: record companies ruled until the internet. The Internet came along
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: a great percent Other than the tippity top tier of
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: streaming artists, most artists make the majority of their income live,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: which has changed the paradigm, and that the live business
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: A funds these acts and B can break these acts.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: Do what do you see going forward in terms of
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: where the power lies. Well, this is gonna be not
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: that sexy and answer. I think building an artist's career
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: is like building a house. The reason I use the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: housing metaphor is because the manager is really like a
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: general contractor to me. They have to manage the owner
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: i e. The artist, right, and they have to look
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: after all the subs, the record company, the publishing, the agency, touring,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: the merchandise that this that you know, everything right, advertising,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: the content creation, and they have to do all those
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: deals or manage all of those things. So I think
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: it's similar to a g C. And then I think
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: all of the other pieces of the building the house,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: I either the artist is um actually important so in
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: a weird way, you know, can the electrician do the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: roof and the hardscape? You know, I eat, can the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: promoter do this that in the next short in certain cases.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of artists and there's a lot
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: of specialized pieces to all of this. So as much
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: as people want to label me a disruptor, I've never
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: actually been a disruptor. I have tried to identify disruptive disruption,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: but from a disruptor, either dropped price or you collapse
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: and consolidate people into or companies and jobs into into
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, you consolidate them. Do you disintermediate? Okay, sorry,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: I was searching for the word. And I actually think
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: that when the business comes back, every piece of the
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: subcontracting universe and general contractor will be more needed than
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: ever because every artist will be hurting for money or success.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: Every club will, every venue will, every promoter will, every
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: agency will, every label will want to get back to
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: where it was, and I think it will be all
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: hands on deck and more activity than ever before. So
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I see there's consolidation opportunities, Like
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: I talked about, if Universal or Warner went on a
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: tear and wanted to do some stuff and got really
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: smart about it. I can see that, um. I can
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: see new money coming in like that real estate investry
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't have office buildings during the crash, but they have
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: new capital and and and buying things. But I think
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: every part of the industry is gonna be vibrant. I
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: think agents are gonna be more vibrant than ever and needed.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: I think promoters are going to be very high on
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: the on the value chain. I think labels will continue
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: to be high on the value chain only increase because again,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: everybody wants success, Bob, and they want money, and so yeah,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: there's a very powerful mental force to look at big
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: artists and go who works on their team? And they don't.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: They're not devoid of a manager and ageent or a
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: record company. There's not that many of those stories. So
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: I think when you look at the most successful artis
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: in the world, is who's on who is their team?
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: And I want to be with them. So I think
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: the aspirational you know called Lemming theory. Aspiration drives the business.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: So I think every piece of the industry is going
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: to be there and healthy and not disrupted. Weirdly, I'm
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: not talking about radio or or record stores or those
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: pieces which get wiped out. I'm talking about professional services.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I don't see it. I think it actually got more complex.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think promoters know how to break you worldwide
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: for the most part. I've national Age a little different.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: They are worldwide, and they have tentacles. They can keep
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: them for the most part, and with good players, so
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: they are as close and the labels have similar that
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: they are as close to filled out networks is as
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: you can find now whether they give a funk about
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: your little artist or not, and would give you the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: You know, this is where the theory is different, interacting
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: for the superstar and then for anybody else. But there
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: you go, Okay for getting the pandemic. What how do
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: you do that? Sorry, it's not that hard when the
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: question is ultimately reviewed. What what advice would you give
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: to a new artist today just starting out? Number one,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: make a lot of content. I mean, the one thing
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: I would say to artists starting out or not is
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: right now, okay, here's the left SIPs. You know, back
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: in the day, the Rolling Stones made three albums a year,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: The Beatles made three albums a year, The Beach Boys
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: made three whatever. Okay, you know what I'm saying about
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: two albums with a minimum relief. Steely Dan. I remember
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: we went on Steely Dan listening binge. First three albums
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: came out in like a year and a half. It
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: was crazy, right, and they were genius. So you sit
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: there and go, what the funk? Weren't they touring? Oh yeah,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: they actually Steely Danton, But for the most part they did. Actually, um,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: I had no idea. Michael McDonald was in Steely Dan.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: I just learned that and Jeff Baxter, and that's how
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: they do. Jeff Baxter was a regular member. You know,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Michael even more than you think. But anyway, pre dubies anyway.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: I think artists to do that again right now, right create.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I think that the elongation of the marketing period where
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: you can tour the world for two or three years,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you know, and not put out a record and come
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: back and then have to spend a year making a
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: record discycles too long. So I think the number one
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: thing people need to do is make a lot of
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: content right now. I don't care what it is, but
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: store it up for winter and don't release it all
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: because the distribution systems give you credit for constantly releasing,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: whether it's YouTube or Spotify. The way the new releases
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: are set up, the way the playlist work. You know,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: you have your one week to one month honeymoon period
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: and if and then it's gone up in the Library
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: of Congress in the FOURT floor, nobody know you wrote
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: the book. So to me is okay, how do I switch?
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: I may still put out albums, maybe it's the end
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: for whatever, but how do I consistently work the system
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: in the way the system works which just have new
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: releases on a constant basis. So that's my answer. Okay,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: And what advice would you give to someone once again
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: forgetting the pandemic disruption? What advice would you give to
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: someone wanting to get into the music business? Not the
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: greatest time. Um, Look, there's so many people that are
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: getting laid off by the music business. Yet I gotta
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: I won't get there. I just right now? Is I
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: just I can't? It's a ship time, Um, manage the band?
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: No barrier to entry. I mean you want to learn
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: how to build a house. Start on the smallest house
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: and build it. Figure out how to you know, that'd
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: be one thing you know is no getting on the radio,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: you know, put together play list for your friends. Uh,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: but managing man is the lowest barrier to entry if
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: you think about it. You can't get a job at
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: a record company or an agency. It's not that easy.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: You can, by the way, you can try agencies were
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: an easy point of entry. You go in milrone. Uh,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: gonna be somebody's assistant that you respect, UM and write
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: him a personal note. Do some research. You know. The
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: biggest thing I found about young people is they don't
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: do much research. I read everything coming up. I read
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: every Rolling Stone Guide cover to cover, fifteen times, Trouser Press,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: Gude fifteen times, Option magazine. Fucking print was six point
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: font and I would read Option magazine reviews. If you
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: remember Scott Becker and every bit of it. I was
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: just a freak. I listened to everything. I the way
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: I used to sign artists. I go to England, I
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: talked and talked to the indie label head and they
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: would say to me, Wow, you know more about my
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: artists in my label than I do. And you're a
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: kid from America, right, So do your research. Figure out
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: who's your favorite. Write him a note. Nobody ever does that.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways to enter, but find somebody
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: and manage them. Mark. This has been wonderful, Thanks so
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: much for your insight by pleasure until next time. This
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: has been the Bob Left Sets Podcast