Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jed Weitzman

Transcript

Jed Weitzman · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftstuffs podcast. My guest
0:13
Speaker 1: today is Jed Weitzman, who's head of music at Logitics. Jed,
0:19
Speaker 1: what is Logitics?
0:21
Speaker 2: So, Logitics is a company that really optimizes ticket sales
0:26
Speaker 2: for rights holders, you know, by offering a comprehensive set
0:31
Speaker 2: of solutions and products to teams, musicians, artists, you know,
0:37
Speaker 2: all different kinds of rights holders through dynamic pricing, distribution
0:41
Speaker 2: and data. You know. It's it's really about maximizing ticket sales,
0:47
Speaker 2: you know, putting money in the pockets of artists or
0:51
Speaker 2: teams and tickets in the hands of fans.
0:54
Speaker 1: Okay, very simply does Logitiics sell tickets?
1:00
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on we are. We're the software that
1:06
Speaker 2: distributes tickets, Bob. So we work with teams, we work
1:11
Speaker 2: with artists primarily to try to figure out how to
1:15
Speaker 2: price that inventory, and then we do distribute. We do
1:18
Speaker 2: distribute tickets absolutely.
1:19
Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's drill down. Let's say I'm gonna act,
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm an arena tour, I have an overall deal with
1:25
Speaker 1: ticket Master. Ticket Master is selling the tickets for my tour.
1:30
Speaker 1: Does Logitics intersect with that?
1:33
Speaker 2: No, not necessarily. Where we would come in with a
1:36
Speaker 2: Ticketmaster act for example. Is the way it works for
1:39
Speaker 2: me is I'll get a call from a promoter. We're
1:42
Speaker 2: all get a call from an agent. We're a manager.
1:44
Speaker 2: Here's what we're doing. We're going on the road. This
1:46
Speaker 2: is what we're thinking of putting together. This is the package,
1:49
Speaker 2: here's the routing. What do you guys think we can
1:51
Speaker 2: you know, what do you guys think we can do?
1:53
Speaker 2: What do you think we can charge? And really, Bob,
1:55
Speaker 2: what I do is what we do is analyze the
1:58
Speaker 2: secondary markets in order to help artists on the primary.
2:01
Speaker 2: So look, I said secondary market. I know a lot
2:04
Speaker 2: of people. Everybody don't turn off right yet. Okay, So
2:07
Speaker 2: the idea is is that you're able to actually see
2:10
Speaker 2: what's happening with inventory, what people are willing to pay,
2:15
Speaker 2: what people are not willing to pay. It's you know,
2:19
Speaker 2: how do I put this? At the end of the day,
2:21
Speaker 2: we're really a company that you know on the music side,
2:25
Speaker 2: I deal with data all the time, right, So it's
2:28
Speaker 2: about me looking at the opportunity, talking with the agents,
2:31
Speaker 2: looking at the routing, and figuring out the best way
2:35
Speaker 2: to price that tour. So that fans get the tickets
2:39
Speaker 2: and artists make that money. I mean, that's that's the
2:41
Speaker 2: thing we're seeing it. That's the most difficult, Bob, is
2:44
Speaker 2: pricing correctly.
2:46
Speaker 1: Okay, just trying to get the system down. Let's say
2:50
Speaker 1: I'm a manager or an agent and I call you
2:53
Speaker 1: about pricing before the tickets go into the public market.
3:00
Speaker 1: How do you charge me?
3:02
Speaker 2: That's so funny. You know, that's an interesting situation.
3:04
Speaker 1: Uh.
3:05
Speaker 2: You know, usually what we're doing is we're working you know,
3:07
Speaker 2: the people we're working with, we're working by selling our
3:10
Speaker 2: data or we're licensing our data to help people.
3:13
Speaker 1: But it just.
3:14
Speaker 2: Depends, you know, it can be you know, if if
3:16
Speaker 2: if the artist wants to openly distribute that those tickets,
3:20
Speaker 2: if the if the if the team is trying to
3:25
Speaker 2: openly distribute those tickets, you know, we're we're distributing them
3:28
Speaker 2: and taking a fee that way. But it's very different.
3:30
Speaker 2: The music side is very different than the sports size, Bob.
3:33
Speaker 2: I mean, it's uh, you know, it's a very it's
3:35
Speaker 2: a it's a it's a unique set of challenges. To
3:38
Speaker 2: put it mildly and quite frankly, Uh, you know, the
3:42
Speaker 2: music side where I where I exist is like kind
3:45
Speaker 2: of pushing a rock up a hills sometimes. I mean,
3:47
Speaker 2: it just depends. We charge many different ways, okay, but
3:51
Speaker 2: we got to.
3:51
Speaker 1: Get some specific so people can understand what you're doing.
3:56
Speaker 1: Let's talk about people who call you for price before
4:01
Speaker 1: the tickets are actually priced by the ticket distributor and
4:05
Speaker 1: sold to the public. How often does someone call you
4:08
Speaker 1: for that?
4:09
Speaker 2: Every day, Bob, literally every day?
4:13
Speaker 1: And what kind of people call you.
4:17
Speaker 2: Well, it depends. Usually it's the agent, could be the manager,
4:22
Speaker 2: could be the promoter. And what we try to do
4:25
Speaker 2: is get ahead of it. I mean I got calls
4:27
Speaker 2: this week from a promoter saying, Hey, my artist just
4:30
Speaker 2: played a show in Florida. We had a fifty five
4:32
Speaker 2: percent drop count on the show. I don't know where
4:34
Speaker 2: my fans are. What are you guys seeing on secondary right,
4:37
Speaker 2: So that's already too late. What we want to do
4:40
Speaker 2: is be there before the tour goes up, while the
4:43
Speaker 2: tour is in its planning stages, so that we're looking
4:45
Speaker 2: at comparable artist in the marketplace, that we're looking at
4:48
Speaker 2: the reality of what's really happening in the marketplace. I mean,
4:52
Speaker 2: I don't know if you know how you know tours
4:54
Speaker 2: are usually priced, but a lot of times people are
4:56
Speaker 2: looking at historicals on the primary side or looking at
4:59
Speaker 2: comp walls in the primary marketplace, which by the way,
5:02
Speaker 2: is a great place to look. But we feel that
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Speaker 2: the secondary data is a really important data set in
5:09
Speaker 2: order to complete the full picture.
5:11
Speaker 1: Okay, As I said, I want to be specific so
5:14
Speaker 1: people will know what you're doing and whether they are
5:17
Speaker 1: positive or negative, or whether they want to hire you.
5:20
Speaker 1: Would it be fair to say what you're selling is
5:23
Speaker 1: an analysis of the secondary market what tickets are worth
5:28
Speaker 1: in that arena. Absolutely, that'll be a fair assessment to say.
5:32
Speaker 1: I mean the idea is, you.
5:34
Speaker 2: Know that look, at the end of the day, a
5:38
Speaker 2: fan doesn't necessarily understand sometimes if you primary and secondary,
5:43
Speaker 2: they shop where they like to shop. We like to figure,
5:46
Speaker 2: you know, we believe that the data we're looking at
5:49
Speaker 2: is you know, it's just that it's the real you know,
5:54
Speaker 2: it's the it's the real representation of what a fan
5:57
Speaker 2: is willing to pay for the ticket. And you know,
5:59
Speaker 2: quite honestly, every day I'm getting calls with people saying
6:02
Speaker 2: I don't understand why are my tickets high, why are
6:04
Speaker 2: my tickets low? And what we try to do is
6:07
Speaker 2: when we work with our clients, which are agencies, you know,
6:11
Speaker 2: management companies, promoters, what we do is try to help
6:14
Speaker 2: them see the complete picture as they're starting the process
6:18
Speaker 2: of trying to price those tours. You know. So that's
6:20
Speaker 2: the example, I mean, that's the idea.
6:23
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say I've called you, we have a relationship,
6:28
Speaker 1: but I am anxious about charging a certain price. Will
6:34
Speaker 1: you then say, oh, okay, I'll take five percent of
6:38
Speaker 1: your inventory or some percentage in sell on the secondary market.
6:42
Speaker 2: Listen, It's not that simple, quite frankly, because first of all,
6:48
Speaker 2: most of the ticketing platforms, some of the biggest in
6:51
Speaker 2: the business, don't necessarily allow Because now we're starting to
6:54
Speaker 2: talk about the idea of open distribution, right, so, you know,
6:57
Speaker 2: what we talk about is that in what we believe,
7:00
Speaker 2: even in the free market, you know, ticket business, is
7:02
Speaker 2: that primary and secondary are going to eventually combine into
7:06
Speaker 2: one marketplace. And you know, for the for the sake
7:11
Speaker 2: of this discussion, we can use the term secondary. But
7:14
Speaker 2: the way I'm looking at it is that is that
7:18
Speaker 2: we believe that the open distribution of tickets and transparency
7:21
Speaker 2: across those things is the way, you know, to solve
7:24
Speaker 2: a lot of the secondary issues that people are having.
7:28
Speaker 2: And so it doesn't really work like that because you know,
7:33
Speaker 2: it's not about you know, yes, if we're if we're
7:35
Speaker 2: given the opportunity to take the inventory. But the thing
7:38
Speaker 2: is is that everybody gets paid. So that's that's where
7:40
Speaker 2: this differs from any other type.
7:43
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not I'm not expressing a judgment here. I
7:47
Speaker 1: understand interest, but there's so much stuff. Do you as
7:51
Speaker 1: logitics and let's just keep it in music because that's
7:53
Speaker 1: your focus. Do you ever sell tickets for talent.
8:00
Speaker 2: If the talent wants us to do that? Absolutely? Openly correct,
8:04
Speaker 2: so that the ticket is listed on primary and all
8:06
Speaker 2: the different marketplaces at this way. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
8:09
Speaker 1: Do you ever sell tickets for an entity when you
8:14
Speaker 1: are not the primary ticket company? No?
8:19
Speaker 2: Absolutely not, not on the music side. No, that's not
8:21
Speaker 2: that's not what we do.
8:23
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's go back to your original example. You
8:26
Speaker 1: have an agent who calls you needs help. The people
8:30
Speaker 1: who call you do they tend to have an ongoing
8:34
Speaker 1: relationship with you where they call you said, I got
8:37
Speaker 1: a big tour for stadium act. Thanks for this I'll
8:41
Speaker 1: pay you, and I'm done well.
8:43
Speaker 2: To be honest, I've been doing this for a long
8:46
Speaker 2: time and I've been in the business almost thirty years.
8:49
Speaker 2: Hopefully after this podcast, I'll be able to be in
8:51
Speaker 2: another thirty years, so you know, So yeah, Bob, I mean,
8:56
Speaker 2: most of it is my relationships with people over the years,
8:59
Speaker 2: and they know what I do, and uh, you know,
9:02
Speaker 2: I consistently go into meetings with agents, with artists, with
9:06
Speaker 2: promoters and show them the reality of you know, of
9:10
Speaker 2: what's happening in the marketplaces and they go, oh my god.
9:13
Speaker 2: They their minds are blown. And I you know, we've
9:15
Speaker 2: been doing this so long and giving examples of what
9:20
Speaker 2: is really happening in the marketplaces out there. You know,
9:24
Speaker 2: if we can just take a step back for a second.
9:26
Speaker 2: You know, eight years ago when I started to understand
9:30
Speaker 2: what the secondary market was right in terms of how
9:35
Speaker 2: it could be utilized, to understand the primary and find
9:40
Speaker 2: ways to to to to to to show artists sort
9:47
Speaker 2: of in certain instances what they missed in certain cases, right,
9:50
Speaker 2: what what resellers had gone out and done, but but
9:54
Speaker 2: more importantly, how they can best figure out how to
9:57
Speaker 2: understand that data in order to place it in order
10:00
Speaker 2: to make better decisions on the primary So it just
10:03
Speaker 2: depends Bob.
10:03
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, we'll dig deeper into how you actually do it.
10:07
Speaker 2: God, I thought you were gonna ask me what my
10:09
Speaker 2: favorite led Zeppelin record is.
10:10
Speaker 1: Bob.
10:10
Speaker 2: We're just diving right in, aren't. Well.
10:12
Speaker 1: Well, I think people, I want to get to your uh,
10:14
Speaker 1: your business. We'll get to your life in a while.
10:18
Speaker 1: You expressed in a previous conversation that ticket Master may
10:23
Speaker 1: not think positively about logitics. Why would they not think positively?
10:28
Speaker 2: But I really did I say that? I think? Did
10:31
Speaker 2: I really say that? I don't know.
10:32
Speaker 1: I think.
10:33
Speaker 2: I mean I get along with those guys really well.
10:35
Speaker 2: I mean, I look, I don't. We don't work with
10:38
Speaker 2: them per se. But you know, if I get a
10:40
Speaker 2: call from them asking me about how an on sale
10:42
Speaker 2: did or you know, nothing makes me happier than sending
10:47
Speaker 2: you know, numbers over there to show them that you know,
10:51
Speaker 2: they were able to get tickets in the hands of fans.
10:54
Speaker 2: There's not a ton of inventory on the secondary market
10:57
Speaker 2: that verified can't work or whatever. Nothing makes me happier
11:00
Speaker 2: about that. I mean, I love the ticket Master people.
11:03
Speaker 2: I mean, they're.
11:04
Speaker 1: Always let me. Let me let me phrase the question
11:07
Speaker 1: a little bit differently. In the business, generally speaking, people
11:12
Speaker 1: are negative about the secondary market. Yeah, when you do
11:17
Speaker 1: your job, do people have open arms or are they
11:21
Speaker 1: negative about logitary they're blown away?
11:24
Speaker 2: First of all, let me take a step back or
11:27
Speaker 2: a step forward. Logitics is a company with almost one
11:30
Speaker 2: hundred employees, a little over one hundred employees. We are
11:33
Speaker 2: you know, the sports business was how this business was founded.
11:38
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with the way that
11:40
Speaker 2: you know. Ticket companies like ours work in the sports
11:43
Speaker 2: business where we work with teams and we help teams
11:46
Speaker 2: distribute that inventory not only in the primary but also
11:50
Speaker 2: on the secondary marketplaces. Right, So, I mean that's that's
11:55
Speaker 2: how this company was founded. The music side of things,
11:58
Speaker 2: I can't lie to you, is tough. It has been tough.
12:01
Speaker 2: But I'm one of the only guys that's out there saying,
12:03
Speaker 2: you know what, this ain't going anywhere. This is the
12:07
Speaker 2: reality of the concert business. The secondary market, if you will,
12:12
Speaker 2: is not going anywhere now, certainly not for the time being.
12:15
Speaker 2: People don't want to hear. People want to keep their
12:16
Speaker 2: heads in the sand. You know, I'm one of the
12:19
Speaker 2: only guys out there, and there is so much information
12:22
Speaker 2: we can glean from consumer behavior, you know, all of
12:25
Speaker 2: that stuff. So I mean that's the reality.
12:27
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, let's go back twenty five years. There
12:31
Speaker 1: was this company, Big Champagne, who had data on what
12:36
Speaker 1: was traded in Napster. That's all they did.
12:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:41
Speaker 1: So when your a particular case, your job with Logitics,
12:45
Speaker 1: are you only selling data.
12:48
Speaker 2: In certain cases?
12:49
Speaker 1: Yeah?
12:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
12:50
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no no no. Does Logitics ever
12:53
Speaker 1: sell tickets for musical acts?
12:56
Speaker 2: Yes. And the way we do it, Bob is there
13:00
Speaker 2: are a lot of primary ticketing companies that work with
13:03
Speaker 2: artists that allow them to distribute their tickets everywhere, including
13:08
Speaker 2: the primary So there are shows for example. I mean,
13:13
Speaker 2: what's interesting about that, Bob is, for the most part,
13:15
Speaker 2: it's distressed inventory. So we will get a call, for example,
13:19
Speaker 2: when a tour is not doing well, more often when
13:21
Speaker 2: a tour is doing well, so that we're able to
13:24
Speaker 2: identify in the market via the secondary data which we
13:28
Speaker 2: spoke about earlier, and then we will you know, we
13:32
Speaker 2: will never buy, there's no buying of inventory. We always
13:35
Speaker 2: work together with the client to figure out how to
13:38
Speaker 2: distribute that everywhere, right, And so I know that might
13:41
Speaker 2: be strange to some of your audience, but the idea
13:45
Speaker 2: right of selling tickets or shall I say, distributing tickets
13:54
Speaker 2: on the secondary because we're taking a very small piece,
13:57
Speaker 2: we're bringing all that money back into the growth of
13:59
Speaker 2: the tour is always to benefit the artist and you know,
14:05
Speaker 2: the promoter and the ticket So I mean, at the
14:07
Speaker 2: end of the day, that's that's the biggest difference between
14:10
Speaker 2: what I think a lot of your audience think about
14:12
Speaker 2: what we do.
14:13
Speaker 1: Okay, so you don't do that with ticket Master? What
14:19
Speaker 1: companies do you do that with?
14:21
Speaker 2: Uh? You know what, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say,
14:23
Speaker 2: but there's just this but let's just say, let's just.
14:26
Speaker 1: Use a company that does Okay, it's an exclusive ticket.
14:32
Speaker 2: I can I say one thing, but do you see
14:33
Speaker 2: how that makes it? By the way, I want nothing
14:36
Speaker 2: more than to shout from the rooftops right what we do.
14:40
Speaker 2: And we're still in a place on Friday, marchase twenty
14:43
Speaker 2: twenty four where you know that side of things is
14:47
Speaker 2: not necessarily you know, people don't want to talk about it,
14:50
Speaker 2: and you know I can tell you numbers and we'll
14:53
Speaker 2: get more into it later about you know, the stats
14:56
Speaker 2: we're seeing in terms of when we open distribute something,
14:59
Speaker 2: you know, bringing seventy to seventy five percent new people
15:03
Speaker 2: back to the back to the primary. No, it's not commercial.
15:06
Speaker 2: I'm just telling you no, no, no, no, no no.
15:08
Speaker 1: I want to get to the nuts and bolts and
15:10
Speaker 1: then I want to know how you do it. All right,
15:12
Speaker 1: So okay, let's say you have a ticketing company and
15:17
Speaker 1: are we talking and you say, the act has an
15:21
Speaker 1: allocation most ticketing companies, the act has an allocation to
15:26
Speaker 1: their fan club. Are we talking about those tickets? It
15:31
Speaker 1: depends BOP to be honest. Again, especially when we're dealing
15:34
Speaker 1: with distressed inventory. Do you sometimes help acts with the
15:40
Speaker 1: tickets they get for the fan club?
15:43
Speaker 2: Never? Never, there are no. I mean honestly, I don't
15:46
Speaker 2: even know if the fan club tickets exist.
15:48
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So if the show goes clean, they're not
15:53
Speaker 1: going to call you, right never.
15:54
Speaker 2: No, that's the best case scenario. Absolutely.
15:56
Speaker 1: Okay. So generally speaking, they call you when they can't
16:03
Speaker 1: sell tickets.
16:05
Speaker 2: Yes, in certain cases. Yeah, but by the way.
16:07
Speaker 1: This is after you know, this is after the on sale.
16:10
Speaker 1: We were talking earlier, before exactly exactly.
16:13
Speaker 2: By the way, Bob, where I was coming from before
16:15
Speaker 2: is that I wish they would call me earlier, because
16:19
Speaker 2: you know, then we wouldn't have these problems.
16:21
Speaker 1: I totally understand it. Just trying to get the logistics. No,
16:25
Speaker 1: got so on some level, you're kind of doing what
16:30
Speaker 1: gold Star does. Would that be fair in a way?
16:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually that would be fair. And we just brought
16:36
Speaker 2: over a wonderful woman, Wendy Lebau from gold Star, who
16:39
Speaker 2: I think you know, Bob, who's awesome. So she runs
16:42
Speaker 2: open distribution for us, right, So well, I was saying, yeah,
16:47
Speaker 2: I just thought, okay, you know there's some funkiness with
16:49
Speaker 2: gold Star right in the way that people view putting
16:52
Speaker 2: their inventory on gold Star.
16:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely, but let's not make it about gold Star. It's different. Okay. Yeah, Oh,
17:01
Speaker 1: let's assume you have it a ticketing company and an act.
17:05
Speaker 1: Does the ticketing company ever call you without the acts participation?
17:11
Speaker 2: No? Never, It's all about the artist always. And by
17:14
Speaker 2: the way, just so you know, usually the way this
17:17
Speaker 2: works is it's the call is usually from the artist,
17:22
Speaker 2: or the call is from you know, it's usually from
17:25
Speaker 2: the promoter. It just depends. But you know, it's not
17:27
Speaker 2: the ticketing company ever calling The ticketing company, you know,
17:32
Speaker 2: always has to be paid and make their fees, just
17:36
Speaker 2: like you know, the promoter and the artist. Everybody has
17:39
Speaker 2: to you know, make their cut and usually you know.
17:42
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, let's use a hypothetical, you know, yeah, because
17:47
Speaker 1: margins are thin. Let's say it's an arena date and
17:51
Speaker 1: ten percent of the sellout is the promoter profit and
17:55
Speaker 1: only fifty percent of the tickets are sold. Okay, then
18:01
Speaker 1: the promoter in concert with the act. Let's say we'll
18:06
Speaker 1: call you and say, Jed, we have a problem, and
18:10
Speaker 1: you will say, I will.
18:11
Speaker 2: Say, let's look at the market. Wow, you guys are
18:14
Speaker 2: way below face on the market. Are you going to
18:17
Speaker 2: be able to come down on the prime area or
18:18
Speaker 2: are we going to have to figure out a way
18:20
Speaker 2: to try to get people in the building. I mean,
18:22
Speaker 2: every situation is different, Bob, in all honesty, you know,
18:25
Speaker 2: every situation is different. If that's if that situation happens,
18:29
Speaker 2: then yeah, it's about taking inventory, undercutting the markets in
18:33
Speaker 2: order to you know, you know, stoke the market to
18:36
Speaker 2: get fans to buy inventory and buy tickets and then
18:39
Speaker 2: you know, help them, help people get in the buildings.
18:41
Speaker 2: I mean, I cannot tell you how many calls I get.
18:44
Speaker 2: If I see my phone ring at nine point thirty
18:46
Speaker 2: at night, I'm like, okay, this has got to be
18:48
Speaker 2: an agent or it's my daughter from downstairs wanting water. Right,
18:52
Speaker 2: So I cannot tell you how many calls I get
18:54
Speaker 2: from agents saying to me, I'm in the roxy. There's
18:58
Speaker 2: nobody here. We were sold down out. What's happening, right,
19:01
Speaker 2: And so that's an indication for me to then go
19:04
Speaker 2: and check the markets and see what's going on with
19:06
Speaker 2: the tickets.
19:07
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get to all that. Oh okay,
19:10
Speaker 1: but let's assume I'm that promoter in the act and
19:13
Speaker 1: I've only sold fifty percent. Then your goal, as logitics jed,
19:20
Speaker 1: would be to sell the other fifty percent at a
19:24
Speaker 1: price that the public will buy.
19:26
Speaker 2: Correct. It's always trying to figure out the markets.
19:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that might that might be below how it
19:34
Speaker 1: was scaled on the primary market.
19:36
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
19:37
Speaker 1: So let's just assume the date's going to play soon.
19:42
Speaker 1: You get a call and they say, hey, okay, where
19:46
Speaker 1: do you technically get the tickets from? And then how
19:50
Speaker 1: and where do you put them on sale?
19:52
Speaker 2: So usually you know, it depends on wherever the tickets
19:56
Speaker 2: are coming from. It could come from the primary, especially
19:59
Speaker 2: if there's ton the blue dots. You know, it's always
20:02
Speaker 2: let me put let me put it this way. The
20:04
Speaker 2: days where tickets fall off trucks, you know, and that
20:08
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, not in my world. And we can talk
20:10
Speaker 2: about when I started eight years ago that I made
20:12
Speaker 2: that really clear, right, So you know, they might come
20:16
Speaker 2: off primary. I mean, that's where they're coming from. They're
20:19
Speaker 2: not coming from any side pocket or fan club or
20:22
Speaker 2: stash or anything like that. They're always coming from a
20:24
Speaker 2: legitimate place with full knowledge from the artist, the ticket
20:30
Speaker 2: and the promoter. Okay, So then I've got a team
20:33
Speaker 2: of guys that are going in there monitoring the marketplaces.
20:36
Speaker 2: We're putting it up through our systems, so you know,
20:39
Speaker 2: we're listing it on the primary and then on every
20:43
Speaker 2: secondary site that we're that we're completely interact, you know
20:47
Speaker 2: that we're integrated with the idea of bob is. Most
20:51
Speaker 2: people buy tickets via Google, as you know, so they
20:54
Speaker 2: google the bob lefsets experience five things come up and
20:57
Speaker 2: then it's you know, TM and access and whatever and
21:00
Speaker 2: whatever the primary might be and you know, quite frankly,
21:04
Speaker 2: we want to be where the fans want to buy
21:06
Speaker 2: their tickets, and so that's the idea. The idea is
21:09
Speaker 2: managing the markets for the artists in order to get
21:13
Speaker 2: people in the venue. In certain cases, I.
21:15
Speaker 1: Think you've been very clear, but let's just drill down
21:17
Speaker 1: on this one thing. The secondary market is organized such
21:22
Speaker 1: that the same tickets a pair everywhere online. Are you
21:27
Speaker 1: part of that world to make sure this inventory is
21:30
Speaker 1: available everywhere?
21:31
Speaker 2: Perhaps? Well, that's the you know, that's the idea. The
21:34
Speaker 2: idea is to place the inventory everywhere and manage it individually.
21:39
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, you know the ticket network. Would you be
21:51
Speaker 1: part of that ticket net?
21:53
Speaker 2: Now that that's a B to B, that's a broker
21:55
Speaker 2: to broken marketplace?
21:56
Speaker 1: So no, okay, So just because I'm interested, Let's say
22:02
Speaker 1: you have ten thousand tickets and you want to make them.
22:05
Speaker 1: But let's assume you got them, you talked with the
22:07
Speaker 1: primary you got them. How do you make sure they're
22:10
Speaker 1: available everywhere? Technically? How does that happen?
22:13
Speaker 2: Well, we have a we have a software, we have
22:15
Speaker 2: a system right that where that Jesus Bobby putting me
22:19
Speaker 2: on the spot, not the tech guy here. You know,
22:22
Speaker 2: we have a wonderful team of people that will you
22:25
Speaker 2: upload that inventory, and they're not going to put it
22:28
Speaker 2: all out at once. They're going to figure out a
22:30
Speaker 2: strategy to find, you know, which marketplace is listing it
22:34
Speaker 2: for for you know, for for this price or that price,
22:36
Speaker 2: or which you know, the artist or the customer will
22:41
Speaker 2: come to us with what they would like, what are
22:43
Speaker 2: their floors, what are their ceilings, what they need to
22:46
Speaker 2: make back on you know, all of that stuff, and
22:48
Speaker 2: we will adjust accordingly. And then literally it is the
22:51
Speaker 2: tickets going everywhere, and.
22:55
Speaker 1: But that's all via your logitic software.
22:58
Speaker 2: Correct does no?
23:01
Speaker 1: Okay? And let's assume you do that for an act
23:04
Speaker 1: and promoter. How does Logitics get paid. It's a percentage.
23:09
Speaker 1: It could be a you know, a split and split.
23:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
23:13
Speaker 1: Does anyone ever call you saying the tickets have gone
23:18
Speaker 1: on sale, we underpriced them. Help us sell some of
23:24
Speaker 1: these tickets at fear market value.
23:27
Speaker 2: I haven't had that experience in quite a while, to
23:29
Speaker 2: be honest. You know, there's so much inventory out there
23:34
Speaker 2: right now that we have, you know, it could happen
23:40
Speaker 2: and hasn't happened in quite some time. Okay, So and
23:43
Speaker 2: by the way, if I can just step back for
23:44
Speaker 2: a second, Bob, I mean all that stuff right, My business,
23:48
Speaker 2: primarily after COVID became a data business, and I know
23:51
Speaker 2: we've spoken about that, and and so when I'm out
23:54
Speaker 2: there talking and when we saw each other in Aspen
23:56
Speaker 2: and I spoke about you know, open distribution and the
23:59
Speaker 2: second primary coming together, et cetera, ceter like. That's where
24:03
Speaker 2: I hope this is going right. And I mean, I
24:07
Speaker 2: know that's where this is going because I see it.
24:10
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, a lot of the stuff we're
24:12
Speaker 2: seeing on the music side is more difficult to Uh.
24:16
Speaker 1: I want to get, I want to get, I want
24:18
Speaker 1: to get all that, but I want to build from
24:20
Speaker 1: the base. So you are saying jet and logitics today,
24:26
Speaker 1: if we go to an annual basis, most of the
24:30
Speaker 1: income is selling your expertise data advice.
24:35
Speaker 2: On the music side.
24:36
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is your expertise. And as you said,
24:39
Speaker 1: you're not the expert on sports. Let's just leave that aside.
24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's correct.
24:44
Speaker 1: Okay, So there are good shows, Jesus, Bob, but they're
24:49
Speaker 1: like God, there are good shows and bad shows.
24:52
Speaker 2: I'm the worst guest. You might have ever had, Bob.
24:55
Speaker 1: I just want to say no, no, no, no, no, no,
24:56
Speaker 1: You're good. It's just trying. Listen. I don't know what
24:59
Speaker 1: was making you anxious, because the reality is everyone needs
25:04
Speaker 1: help selling tickets they can't sell.
25:07
Speaker 2: Well, that's what that's what I find, you know. I mean,
25:09
Speaker 2: look and again, you know, I guess where I come from.
25:14
Speaker 2: You know is that you know, we as a company
25:16
Speaker 2: believe you know, in the open distribution of tickets, right
25:19
Speaker 2: and transparency across all that stuff.
25:21
Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know, I just most this is not
25:24
Speaker 1: a sophisticated business. It's sophisticated. But we're talking a lot
25:29
Speaker 1: of people are saying I go on tour, I sell
25:31
Speaker 1: tickets whatever. Let's not We'll drill down to philosophy after
25:36
Speaker 1: you are saying post COVID you're mostly selling JED interfacing
25:42
Speaker 1: with people. This is data, This is information.
25:45
Speaker 2: Let me help you out, Let me show you how
25:47
Speaker 2: to read it, let me help you out. Okay, okay,
25:50
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Well, let's just go back to the landscape.
25:54
Speaker 2: When someone uses you, whether it be an actor, promoter,
26:00
Speaker 2: does it tend to be a one time event or
26:05
Speaker 2: once they use you, they're always using you. It's it's
26:09
Speaker 2: it's a consistent situation. It's usually it's usually a good
26:13
Speaker 2: EXPERI I mean, come on, Bob, rightt you having a
26:14
Speaker 2: good time with me? I mean, it's usually an amazing
26:16
Speaker 2: a business.
26:17
Speaker 1: You know, it's not so I.
26:19
Speaker 2: Know, I know, okay.
26:21
Speaker 1: So, so, how often in a month do you get
26:25
Speaker 1: a call to potentially do business with someone you haven't
26:29
Speaker 1: done business before.
26:30
Speaker 2: Well, it's actually pretty interesting. It happens quite often, at
26:34
Speaker 2: least once twice a week. It just depends. But you know, also,
26:38
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a music iy like you, so I'm
26:40
Speaker 2: not a you know, I try to be aggressive, but
26:43
Speaker 2: I try to kind of sit back and observe the
26:46
Speaker 2: markets and so to speak. And so yeah, there are
26:49
Speaker 2: certain agencies that I speak to more than others. There
26:52
Speaker 2: are certain promoters I speak to more than others. It
26:56
Speaker 2: just depends. There are certain folks in our business that
26:59
Speaker 2: get it more than others and understand the reality of
27:04
Speaker 2: the situation. So there's new business all the time. I mean,
27:08
Speaker 2: I was in New York yesterday for a couple of
27:10
Speaker 2: meetings that will be really interesting, mostly about data, which
27:14
Speaker 2: was actually very interesting. One with a client in the
27:16
Speaker 2: morning and then with a potential client and then with
27:18
Speaker 2: a label believe it or not, in the afternoon. That
27:20
Speaker 2: was very interesting. You know that there's just so many
27:23
Speaker 2: ways to dissect what we do and the information we have.
27:27
Speaker 2: So you know, yeah, it's it's you know, you can never.
27:31
Speaker 1: Tell, okay, leaving goldstor out, which is a different model.
27:35
Speaker 1: Is anybody else doing what you're doing?
27:39
Speaker 2: Oh? There we have competitors in the sports space. I'm
27:43
Speaker 2: not sure about the music space at the moment. There
27:45
Speaker 2: are a couple of bigger companies taken consolidators, but now not.
27:50
Speaker 2: I don't really hear other people in my business at
27:53
Speaker 2: the moment.
27:54
Speaker 1: So why isn't everybody calling you, calling me, calling you
28:01
Speaker 1: for logitics?
28:03
Speaker 2: Well, I think the people that want to really dig
28:07
Speaker 2: down deep and understand what's happening with their inventory call me.
28:11
Speaker 2: You know, there are certain people, Bob, that I've been
28:14
Speaker 2: you know, working with for years that I know it's
28:19
Speaker 2: gonna sound shocking. Not everybody gets it, and that's you know,
28:23
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people that are very comfortable with
28:26
Speaker 2: the state of the business and how it works for them,
28:29
Speaker 2: and that's absolutely fine. I have no problem with that.
28:32
Speaker 2: But that I mean, that's the reality of the situation.
28:34
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the original example. Act calls
28:38
Speaker 1: you before the tickets are on sale. How much of
28:43
Speaker 1: your business is that?
28:45
Speaker 2: I would say a good third two thirds of the
28:48
Speaker 2: business is that. I wish it was more. I gotta
28:51
Speaker 2: be honest with you, Bob, because you.
28:53
Speaker 1: Know, a lot of the time we got the concept. Okay,
28:58
Speaker 1: now let's walk through Jed, you're my good buddy. I'm
29:02
Speaker 1: going on tour. I'm not exactly sure what I should
29:07
Speaker 1: place the tickets at. And Jed then says, I'll get
29:10
Speaker 1: back to you with.
29:11
Speaker 2: What We have a team that will put together an
29:15
Speaker 2: analysis of the historicals on that artist. We will put
29:20
Speaker 2: together an analysis of current artists that are comparable pomps
29:25
Speaker 2: to that artist, and we will come down to understanding
29:29
Speaker 2: the markets on what people are, you know, the highs,
29:31
Speaker 2: what people are listening, the medians and the lows, and
29:34
Speaker 2: figure out a way to meet right in the middle,
29:36
Speaker 2: the sweet spot, so to speak, by looking at the
29:39
Speaker 2: actual information right of what people are willing to or
29:42
Speaker 2: not willing to pay, and come to them with a recommendation.
29:45
Speaker 1: And just understand, I'm going on the road I haven't
29:52
Speaker 1: been on the road in three years, how do you
29:55
Speaker 1: assess the value in the secondary market.
29:59
Speaker 2: So that that's actually a very interesting question because we
30:02
Speaker 2: just I just did this with a hip hop act
30:03
Speaker 2: that actually hadn't been on the road ever. We looked
30:08
Speaker 2: at what the scaling was on the primary We looked
30:11
Speaker 2: at what they thought they were going to charge. And
30:14
Speaker 2: this was this past summer. We went out and we
30:16
Speaker 2: did an analysis of four acts or three acts that
30:20
Speaker 2: were of similar, similar streams on Spotify, similar you know,
30:26
Speaker 2: likes and you know, you know, on Instagram and all
30:29
Speaker 2: that stuff, and we were able to come in with
30:32
Speaker 2: the three comparable artists. We came to them with what
30:35
Speaker 2: we thought would be the right thing to do in
30:36
Speaker 2: terms of what they should price at. They didn't listen.
30:39
Speaker 2: They went on sale. You know, they ended up canceling
30:42
Speaker 2: a bunch of shows. And so I'm not saying we're
30:44
Speaker 2: always right, but uh, you know that that's what our
30:47
Speaker 2: guys do. We have really smart business intelligence.
30:50
Speaker 1: I just want to go back to that story. So,
30:54
Speaker 1: since they had a canceled date, it would seem that
30:58
Speaker 1: they overpriced the inventor.
31:01
Speaker 2: That's correct. We came in much lower than what they
31:03
Speaker 2: should have done. Then what we thought they would do.
31:06
Speaker 1: So that happens. It's not you know, because people talk
31:08
Speaker 1: about the secondary market and they always say, well, there's
31:11
Speaker 1: a value they're capturing this, it's not going back to
31:14
Speaker 1: the act. But sometimes the tickets are inherently overpriced beyond
31:19
Speaker 1: what people will want to pay.
31:21
Speaker 2: And that's the concept what you just said about money
31:24
Speaker 2: going back to the act. You know, that's what this
31:27
Speaker 2: is all about.
31:28
Speaker 1: For us and for me, I understand. So let's just
31:34
Speaker 1: say that I call you, Jed, I want to know
31:37
Speaker 1: the value. That's all I want. You'll send me a
31:41
Speaker 1: bill for that information.
31:43
Speaker 2: Correct, yeah, absolutely.
31:46
Speaker 1: And that bill might be based on hourly or a
31:49
Speaker 1: basic fee. How would you come up with a number?
31:57
Speaker 2: I mean, Bob, I mean you know, we we know
31:59
Speaker 2: what we charge. We have of rates for what we do.
32:01
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a rate, you have a rate. Yeah, okay,
32:03
Speaker 1: that's it's fine. That's what I was looking for. Okay,
32:07
Speaker 1: let's go to the secondary market. What do people acts
32:13
Speaker 1: and ticketing companies not understand about the secondary market.
32:23
Speaker 2: I mean, the secondary market is six to twelve months
32:27
Speaker 2: ahead of the primaries in terms of technology. There are
32:32
Speaker 2: certain things that acts do, uh, I mean, what do
32:37
Speaker 2: they not understand about the secondary market? I mean, I
32:40
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's hard to really you know, I
32:43
Speaker 2: mean I think they understand.
32:44
Speaker 1: Well, well, well let's let let me I wasn't clear enough. Sorry,
32:48
Speaker 1: let's just assume they have the tickets in terms of
32:52
Speaker 1: the valuation of the tickets, which is what on one level,
32:57
Speaker 1: what you really do it logitics? Yeah, how do they
33:00
Speaker 1: not understand the value of the tickets or do that
33:05
Speaker 1: the artist or the representative?
33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bob, I couldn't tell you. They are you know
33:12
Speaker 2: that they are told that this is where it should be.
33:15
Speaker 2: You know, you have to understand right that there's like,
33:18
Speaker 2: you know, you have platinum where things are dynamically priced.
33:22
Speaker 2: You know, the primaries have secondaries built in red dots
33:26
Speaker 2: versus blue dots and all that stuff, and so there's
33:29
Speaker 2: a much bigger situation behind the pricing discussion. There's a
33:34
Speaker 2: lot more people involved in the pricing discussion than just
33:37
Speaker 2: the artist. You know, there's a lot more that goes
33:39
Speaker 2: into that. So you may see high prices on a tour,
33:42
Speaker 2: because I know a tour recently where they priced extremely
33:46
Speaker 2: high because they assumed the brokers were going to get
33:49
Speaker 2: the tickets and the artists wanted to make that money themselves.
33:51
Speaker 2: Didn't work. There was a lot of tickets available when
33:54
Speaker 2: the show got close to the tickets eventually sold, but
33:56
Speaker 2: the on sale didn't go clean. You have certain instances
34:00
Speaker 2: where you know, if if I mean, I know you
34:03
Speaker 2: know this, but if like if there's a big guarantee
34:05
Speaker 2: from a promoter, they have to price the tickets at
34:08
Speaker 2: a certain level so that they're able to make that
34:10
Speaker 2: money back. And you know, they do, you know, forty
34:13
Speaker 2: six shows that you know, three rolls of shows that
34:17
Speaker 2: aren't doing well the first show, but they have to
34:19
Speaker 2: roll them too the second show in order to you know,
34:21
Speaker 2: pay the artist, you know, the guarantee in order to
34:24
Speaker 2: make you know, and so you know, it's it's a
34:26
Speaker 2: really interesting, you know process. Everybody's involved, and so you know,
34:33
Speaker 2: when we're speaking to a promoter trying to help them,
34:37
Speaker 2: you know, maximize you know, sales so that they can
34:41
Speaker 2: you know, make that money back. Obviously, I mean, it's
34:45
Speaker 2: it's a it's a complicated system. That's all I can
34:47
Speaker 2: really tell you, you know. So, and I got to
34:49
Speaker 2: be honest with you, I wish everybody spoke to me
34:51
Speaker 2: about pricing, but they don't. And that's you know, I
34:53
Speaker 2: can't that's thing I could do about that.
34:54
Speaker 1: Okay, let's flip the script a little bit. We're on
34:58
Speaker 1: the secondary market. What is going on there. They're getting
35:03
Speaker 1: their tickets, however, whether through bots or whether they have
35:07
Speaker 1: access to the building and Senate seats, how do they
35:12
Speaker 1: decide what to price them for?
35:14
Speaker 2: You know, it's amazing. I uh, it's it's actually interesting.
35:20
Speaker 2: I don't know because obviously I'm not in the world
35:23
Speaker 2: with those folks. Sometimes some people are better, some you know,
35:26
Speaker 2: better than others. The data sets, though, are insane, right,
35:30
Speaker 2: So they are setting the market based on demand. And
35:34
Speaker 2: the one thing you got to know about these folks
35:36
Speaker 2: is that for the most part, when the market starts
35:39
Speaker 2: to drop and that ticket starts to drop, they sell
35:43
Speaker 2: their out, you know. So so it just they are
35:47
Speaker 2: they are pricing, you know, to whatever they think they
35:49
Speaker 2: can get. To be quite honest with you, you know,
35:51
Speaker 2: there's a lot of folks that look at it that
35:53
Speaker 2: if the market can bear it, they'll you know, they'll
35:56
Speaker 2: price it and then you'll see uh tours, you know,
35:59
Speaker 2: like there was one this summer that went out and
36:02
Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of sneaker kids bought the tour.
36:04
Speaker 2: You probably know about that one, and nobody bought the tickets, right,
36:08
Speaker 2: So it's just it's it's always different. But these are
36:13
Speaker 2: these are really smart guys, you know, really smart guys.
36:16
Speaker 1: Okay, crazy, I want I want to clarify somebody you said,
36:19
Speaker 1: you said when the price starts to drop, what happens?
36:23
Speaker 2: Most of these guys get out of their position, right,
36:26
Speaker 2: So a lot of these guys, it's like, you know, look,
36:29
Speaker 2: it's like day trading, I suppose, or you know, flipping
36:32
Speaker 2: stocks or whatever it is, or I mean that's you know,
36:36
Speaker 2: that's what these guys are really doing. It's a quick hit.
36:39
Speaker 2: And if they can get in, great, and if they
36:41
Speaker 2: can get out by making you know, their investment back
36:44
Speaker 2: and a little bit on top of that, and they
36:46
Speaker 2: just apply that to the next one and they keep going.
36:48
Speaker 2: The thing you have to realize is that they are
36:51
Speaker 2: getting the inventory by hook or by crook, anyway they can.
36:55
Speaker 2: If it's a if it's a credit card sale, they're
36:58
Speaker 2: you know, registering for cards. If it's a you know,
37:02
Speaker 2: a FAVERI fight fan, which I don't even know if
37:03
Speaker 2: fair fight fan exists. Anymore. I'm not even sure they
37:05
Speaker 2: call it that anymore. You know, they've got you know,
37:08
Speaker 2: sixty people in another country that are sitting there slamming
37:11
Speaker 2: the servers. Right, Like, you have to realize that what
37:15
Speaker 2: Ticketmaster does is actually incredible, right because it's so giant,
37:19
Speaker 2: and there's so many people trying to buy tickets all
37:21
Speaker 2: the time, and most of the time it works, you know,
37:25
Speaker 2: as a matter of all the time it works. It
37:27
Speaker 2: just sometimes, uh, you know, these guys are a little
37:30
Speaker 2: faster and they get in there and get it, you know,
37:32
Speaker 2: And that's what's I mean. I had a woman call
37:33
Speaker 2: me today, friend of my mother's bob, who didn't get
37:37
Speaker 2: Billy Joel tickets. She was so upset. She waited in
37:39
Speaker 2: the queue, she was, you know whatever, ten thousand people
37:43
Speaker 2: in front of her into it. By the time she
37:45
Speaker 2: got in the queue, she didn't get the tickets. There
37:48
Speaker 2: were bad tickets left, and there were the resale tickets
37:51
Speaker 2: were too expensive. Jed, what am I going to you know,
37:54
Speaker 2: I'm gonna help her get the tickets, right, But like
37:56
Speaker 2: the point is is that that's the that's the reality
37:59
Speaker 2: of what happens every day.
38:00
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, let's go to your mother's friend. What
38:04
Speaker 1: advice would you give her? Would do? Actually? Is she
38:06
Speaker 1: your mother's friend and we all know people, and you'll
38:09
Speaker 1: get the tickets that way? Or is there a way
38:13
Speaker 1: if you're the average customer to get the tickets that
38:17
Speaker 1: are the best tickets of the best price.
38:19
Speaker 2: I mean, to be honest, if it's not on the primary,
38:21
Speaker 2: you have to go to a secondary. You have to wait. Now,
38:24
Speaker 2: it's my mother's friend, so of course I'm gonna get
38:26
Speaker 2: her the tickets and she's gonna have a good time
38:27
Speaker 2: at the show. She'll probably sit next to you and Felice.
38:30
Speaker 2: But that's another story. I mean, I you know those
38:33
Speaker 2: are but those are the calls I get every day.
38:36
Speaker 2: I mean, you have to realize most people don't know
38:40
Speaker 2: how to put a code in a box on Ticketmaster, right.
38:43
Speaker 2: And the other thing, you have to realize that most
38:45
Speaker 2: people don't even know they're not on Ticketmaster right. They're
38:49
Speaker 2: looking at whatever app they have in their phone with
38:51
Speaker 2: their credit card save that they know that they're familiar with.
38:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I still have people come to me after
38:57
Speaker 2: being in this business for thirty years and the artist
39:00
Speaker 2: doesn't make money on step up. It's like Jesus, are
39:02
Speaker 2: you serious right now? I mean, I'm telling you every day,
39:05
Speaker 2: and I have people in the business that say this
39:08
Speaker 2: to me record business, not to take a business and
39:10
Speaker 2: and look, I don't. I don't mean to be, you know,
39:14
Speaker 2: uptight about it. But I do you carry I have
39:17
Speaker 2: chip on my shoulder, Bob, one hundred percent. You saw
39:19
Speaker 2: it an aspen, right, I I am so passionate.
39:23
Speaker 1: Okay, but I don't. I don't, I don't. I don't
39:26
Speaker 1: do what you do. I have a friend who's a
39:28
Speaker 1: household musician name musician of a very successful act. And
39:33
Speaker 1: this person is sensitive and has gotten negative feedback for
39:39
Speaker 1: decades as a result, that person is very sensitive. From
39:45
Speaker 1: my dispassionate position, I can't see, you know, forget that
39:52
Speaker 1: I did with ignorant people with the agendas all day long. Okay,
39:57
Speaker 1: but from what you've laid out now, I don't see
40:00
Speaker 1: from your perspective, anything to hide anything that is untoward.
40:05
Speaker 2: By the way, I agree with you. No, I agree that.
40:08
Speaker 1: They're ignorant people. People believe I have stock in Spotify.
40:11
Speaker 1: It's like I know those people I believe service. No,
40:17
Speaker 1: of course I don't have stock.
40:19
Speaker 2: That's what I mean. Bob. You know.
40:21
Speaker 1: But I'm trying to say is you people will cannot
40:26
Speaker 1: handle the truth like in the old movie. But I
40:28
Speaker 1: want to go back to this story. What have we
40:32
Speaker 1: learned about the value of tickets? Because, needless to say,
40:37
Speaker 1: in many cases, the secondary market prices are different from
40:42
Speaker 1: the primary.
40:45
Speaker 2: Well, I think what we've learned about pricing of tickets
40:49
Speaker 2: is that people are going to pay what they will
40:52
Speaker 2: or won't for the tickets, and that the free market
40:56
Speaker 2: of the secondary market is a much better indication of
41:00
Speaker 2: what is of what people really want. And uh, you know,
41:07
Speaker 2: the thing for me is everybody should make money, promoters, ticketers, artists, everybody.
41:13
Speaker 2: But it shouldn't be you know. But so that's where
41:17
Speaker 2: I come from, and that's the that's what I'm trying
41:21
Speaker 2: to talk about, and that's the belief I have, is
41:24
Speaker 2: that everybody should be working together. Right And so when
41:28
Speaker 2: you made the comment about people not liking me from Ticketmaster,
41:31
Speaker 2: maybe I made that comment someday. I have no idea.
41:34
Speaker 2: I want Ticketmaster to make money. I want them to
41:36
Speaker 2: make money if we were to openly distribute tickets together
41:39
Speaker 2: a hundred percent. They also everybody should make money.
41:48
Speaker 1: Okay, let's not speak to the uneducated and uninformed. You
41:53
Speaker 1: and be both have a certain level of sophistication, and
41:56
Speaker 1: I'd rather get inside information I'm unaware of. Then we
42:01
Speaker 1: hash the ignorant people and their opinions. Okay, what do
42:07
Speaker 1: you say to the acts who come to you and say,
42:11
Speaker 1: based on my image, I can't charge more. What do
42:16
Speaker 1: you say?
42:19
Speaker 2: Tell them they're crazy, Tell them the cost of touring
42:23
Speaker 2: it's expensive. Cost of living is expensive. And if people
42:27
Speaker 2: are willing to pay for that ticket and there's a
42:30
Speaker 2: market there, you should charge for it. You know the
42:34
Speaker 2: thing with Bruce last year, right when he was charging
42:37
Speaker 2: the platinum tickets on the floor or whatever, it was,
42:39
Speaker 2: five thousand ticket and you know, people went crazy. First,
42:42
Speaker 2: I don't know if that many people went crazy, but
42:44
Speaker 2: quite frankly, those tickets sold. People bought those tickets, and
42:48
Speaker 2: you know, that's the reality of the situation. I believe
42:51
Speaker 2: artists should make money, However they can't. I do believe
42:56
Speaker 2: that there are certain is where everybody he needs to
43:00
Speaker 2: be on the same page, in the sense that the
43:03
Speaker 2: artist needs to be aware of what people you know,
43:06
Speaker 2: of what's happening on the primary so that there's no
43:09
Speaker 2: so that everybody is on the same page, and that
43:12
Speaker 2: you know, nobody's you know, charging more than the artist
43:16
Speaker 2: has agreed and all that kind of stuff on the
43:17
Speaker 2: primary right, But like it has to holistically work together.
43:22
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting about the music business, Bob, is
43:26
Speaker 2: that I feel like it's the only business where people
43:30
Speaker 2: get you know, people get a lot of heat from
43:32
Speaker 2: their fans for charging you know, fair market prices for
43:38
Speaker 2: people to come and see them. You know, tickets are expensive.
43:41
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, that's just the way it is, right, I mean.
43:44
Speaker 1: Well, as I say, you know, the number of people
43:47
Speaker 1: who complain is really relatively small. If you talk to
43:51
Speaker 1: those people, they believe they should be able to sit
43:53
Speaker 1: in the front row for fifty bucks. They're just delusional.
43:57
Speaker 1: But let's just say, Bruce, you know, back on the road. Now,
44:01
Speaker 1: let's say John Landau called you for unbooked dates. Obviously
44:06
Speaker 1: you would go through all your data and find out
44:09
Speaker 1: what you think is the fear market value. Let's just
44:15
Speaker 1: say that he would say, well, I don't want to
44:17
Speaker 1: charge more than a bucket a quarter for a ticket.
44:19
Speaker 1: What would you say?
44:20
Speaker 2: I would say, that's you know, so that's up to you.
44:23
Speaker 2: That's you know, whatever you want to do. This is
44:25
Speaker 2: what we think you could charge, and if you're not
44:27
Speaker 2: comfortable with that, that's fine. By the way, I would
44:30
Speaker 2: love John Lander to call me because Henry, my dad
44:33
Speaker 2: is the biggest Bruce Spingstein fan. I'm taking them to
44:35
Speaker 2: the show pop. But uh, I mean that's you know,
44:39
Speaker 2: it's up to the artist, right, I mean, the artist
44:41
Speaker 2: has the right to wait.
44:42
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, the artist has.
44:44
Speaker 2: The right to charge what they want.
44:45
Speaker 1: To charge, right, right, But irrelevant of what you're doing.
44:49
Speaker 1: Now we get into the philosophical point of how do
44:53
Speaker 1: we solve this problem? One thing we all know which
44:57
Speaker 1: no one can accept. Not everybody can get a ticket.
45:00
Speaker 1: It's just that way.
45:02
Speaker 2: That's reality.
45:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, if I snapped my fingers, what is the
45:08
Speaker 1: appropriate way to price tickets across the board or to
45:13
Speaker 1: sell tickets?
45:14
Speaker 2: I mean, look, those are two separate things. My belief,
45:18
Speaker 2: the best way to price the ticket is by looking
45:20
Speaker 2: at the actual the actual free market. You know what's
45:24
Speaker 2: going on out there, what people are actually paying for
45:26
Speaker 2: the ticket, because you can see that because I can
45:29
Speaker 2: show it to you day after a ticket, you know,
45:31
Speaker 2: an on sale. Every day, my numbers are freshed. I
45:33
Speaker 2: can show you what your position is in the market, right,
45:36
Speaker 2: or what other artists you know or what you know.
45:39
Speaker 2: So it's like I got to call recently about a
45:41
Speaker 2: young band, Bob Okay, and the agent was concerned about
45:46
Speaker 2: the secondary and that nobody's going to be in their
45:49
Speaker 2: venues and there's tons of inventory in the secondary. And
45:52
Speaker 2: I said, hold on a second. I pulled it up
45:53
Speaker 2: on the computer. There was very little inventory on the secondary,
45:57
Speaker 2: but it was insane. The prices were crazy. And I'm
46:00
Speaker 2: talking to troubadour shows, you know, tiny little shows. And
46:03
Speaker 2: so that's a really good example to me of, you know,
46:09
Speaker 2: of of the free market of what you could charge
46:12
Speaker 2: for those tickets. They didn't want to do that, but
46:14
Speaker 2: that's just an example of next time they're going out,
46:18
Speaker 2: how they're going to you know, how you can look
46:19
Speaker 2: at that and how you can charge for those tickets.
46:21
Speaker 1: Right. So look, well let's be philosophical. You're in this business.
46:27
Speaker 1: You know that no one complains about four figure prices
46:32
Speaker 1: for sports. They almost brag about it. I went to
46:35
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. I paid six thousand dollars. I was
46:37
Speaker 1: in the building.
46:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
46:40
Speaker 1: Can we ever have that mentality in music?
46:45
Speaker 2: You know, Bob, I hope so. And that's not from
46:48
Speaker 2: a ticket seller's point of view or a data seller's
46:51
Speaker 2: point of view. That's for from the point of view
46:53
Speaker 2: of of what's good for artists. I mean, I mean,
46:56
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sorry to say it, but I really
46:59
Speaker 2: believe that artists should be making more money. I really
47:03
Speaker 2: believe that. That being said, I do think they need
47:06
Speaker 2: to Philosophically, I hope we get to that place. Philosophically,
47:11
Speaker 2: I hope we get to a place where secondary and
47:14
Speaker 2: primary or want you know, I really believe that's where
47:18
Speaker 2: this is going. I really believe that, you know.
47:20
Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear, theoretically, if tickets were placed appropriately,
47:27
Speaker 1: there wouldn't be a need for secondary, right.
47:31
Speaker 2: Well theoretically, but the marketplaces still exist, and so you know,
47:38
Speaker 2: you're I mean, so the the idea is, it's not
47:41
Speaker 2: necessarily the fact that you know, the second you know,
47:45
Speaker 2: the secondary is you know, increasing or decreasing the price,
47:48
Speaker 2: it becomes a distribution model. So you know, fans again
47:53
Speaker 2: should be able you can buy a ticket where they
47:55
Speaker 2: want to buy that ticket, and the artists should be
47:57
Speaker 2: able to make money that way. You know, that's the idea.
48:00
Speaker 2: I mean, if you really think about it, if artists
48:03
Speaker 2: were to come out and say we want our tickets
48:04
Speaker 2: sold everywhere, it's like a win win for everybody because
48:08
Speaker 2: everybody's getting paid. It's not just sitting on the primary.
48:11
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, red dot is a ticket that's
48:15
Speaker 2: being sold everywhere, right, So like that's a reseller ticket.
48:20
Speaker 2: The red dot is still you know, sold, that's still
48:22
Speaker 2: a ticket that's listed on stub ups. He geek givet
48:25
Speaker 2: all those different places, right, so you know, I just
48:28
Speaker 2: it's uh, you know, let's.
48:30
Speaker 1: Go, let's go one step further, very specific. This is
48:33
Speaker 1: all theoretical. Your model works that way, and the set this.
48:41
Speaker 1: We'll call them scalpers, just because I don't want to,
48:44
Speaker 1: you know, the theoretical bad guys. They say I bought
48:48
Speaker 1: the ticket at one hundred dollars, I'm selling it for
48:51
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. That's four hundred dollars minus cost to me. Yeah,
48:58
Speaker 1: then you're going to come along the act and you're
49:01
Speaker 1: gonna say, I could have primary tickets, but if you
49:05
Speaker 1: sell them, I get ninety percent of the money.
49:11
Speaker 2: I mean that's yeah, that's that's Do you think.
49:13
Speaker 1: We'll ever get to that point? Because it's breaking their
49:16
Speaker 1: business model.
49:17
Speaker 2: Listen, I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about the artists.
49:21
Speaker 2: And what I do believe we're going to get to, Bob,
49:24
Speaker 2: is that an artist is going to say, Hey, you
49:26
Speaker 2: can buy my tickets on primary, you can buy my
49:29
Speaker 2: tickets on the secondary. I've had conversations with some of
49:33
Speaker 2: the exchanges about selling official tickets, you know. So I
49:39
Speaker 2: mean we're going to get there. It's just a matter
49:41
Speaker 2: of things open, okay.
49:42
Speaker 1: But I just want to project, and it's all theory.
49:46
Speaker 1: There are a lot of players in the secondary market.
49:49
Speaker 1: If the secondary market sellers have access to primary tickets,
49:57
Speaker 1: will that eliminate a number of people and leave the
50:00
Speaker 1: professionals or will they kick in screen try to have legislation.
50:05
Speaker 1: What do you think will happen?
50:07
Speaker 2: I mean, look, they're already trying to have legislation, you know,
50:10
Speaker 2: to deal with the situations that are out there. And
50:13
Speaker 2: quite frankly, you know that's great. I don't I don't
50:16
Speaker 2: think it'll ever go you know. I know you had
50:18
Speaker 2: Dana on who's a very good friend of mine, recently,
50:21
Speaker 2: and I think what NIVA's doing is completely fantastic and
50:25
Speaker 2: we're friends, and I work with a lot of their
50:27
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of their people. But yeah, I don't.
50:31
Speaker 2: I think the I think the way to solve the
50:34
Speaker 2: issue of the secondary market is to open everything up
50:37
Speaker 2: and literally have tickets available everywhere. That's what I think.
50:42
Speaker 2: You deal with that.
50:43
Speaker 1: Okay, that is the end. Let's go back to the beginning.
50:48
Speaker 1: I'm an act. I'm calling you about the pricing of
50:51
Speaker 1: the tickets, calling an arena fifteen to twenty thousand. Would
50:57
Speaker 1: you say the flex price certain tickets or would you say, no,
51:03
Speaker 1: price them at this amount?
51:04
Speaker 2: I would say, price them at this amount. And then
51:07
Speaker 2: you know, again, yes, the answer is, I would say,
51:10
Speaker 2: price them at this amount, and let's figure out how
51:13
Speaker 2: we can move them because quite frankly, a lot of
51:14
Speaker 2: the times with a lot of times when we're doing
51:16
Speaker 2: that and there is no open distribution involved. So it's
51:20
Speaker 2: a one time thing. This is what you're doing, you know,
51:23
Speaker 2: this is how you do it. Go ahead, and then
51:25
Speaker 2: we're watching it obviously going forward and we're looking at
51:28
Speaker 2: you know, hopefully the map doesn't look like you know,
51:31
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean. It's all blue, right, so you know,
51:34
Speaker 2: you're figuring trying to you know, make things. You know,
51:36
Speaker 2: hopefully things goes well and you get to move the
51:38
Speaker 2: invent you need to move the inventory, and it's clean
51:40
Speaker 2: and there's not a lot of red dots.
51:42
Speaker 1: Forget what was used to be called platinum, which was
51:46
Speaker 1: seats up close occasionally with a perk. Now they call
51:50
Speaker 1: sections of the arena platinum because they're flex pricing. It
51:54
Speaker 1: happened to no promoters who when on sale goes on
51:59
Speaker 1: let's call it Saturday at ten am, they are changing
52:02
Speaker 1: the prices based on demand.
52:05
Speaker 2: I'm aware of that.
52:06
Speaker 1: Are you saying, if you listen to me, you wouldn't
52:10
Speaker 1: have to do that?
52:12
Speaker 2: I no, I'm not. I mean because if it's platinum,
52:17
Speaker 2: you know, the more money they pay for a tour,
52:19
Speaker 2: the more platinum seats there are, right, and all that
52:21
Speaker 2: money goes back into the pod. And you know, I
52:25
Speaker 2: think that maybe the people you're talking about well flex
52:28
Speaker 2: prices based on demand, and I think that's great for them.
52:32
Speaker 2: You know, it's fantastic as long as they're able to
52:35
Speaker 2: sell the inventory and the artist is happy, and you know,
52:38
Speaker 2: artists doesn't feel like they're being you know, you know,
52:40
Speaker 2: it's all good.
52:42
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk, as I say, forget the seats that
52:45
Speaker 1: are sold up close for four hundred five dollars. In
52:50
Speaker 1: the case of Bruce, there were seats in the first
52:53
Speaker 1: balcony which they now called platinum, which was euphemism for
52:57
Speaker 1: flex pricing. Needless, there's a lot of things. The prices
53:02
Speaker 1: went beyond what anybody would pay to sit that far.
53:07
Speaker 1: Do you think if you were advising an act, would
53:10
Speaker 1: you say, oh, that section up there, I can price
53:13
Speaker 1: it appropriately as opposed to you flex pricing it and
53:17
Speaker 1: risking backlash and all this other stuff.
53:20
Speaker 2: I might give my opinion, but you know, I'm not
53:22
Speaker 2: going to get in the way of what the promoter
53:24
Speaker 2: wants to do, you know, I mean.
53:26
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me change.
53:29
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I know we're theory I know we're
53:31
Speaker 2: being theoretical. I know.
53:33
Speaker 1: No, No, this is you as a person, not you
53:37
Speaker 1: as at logitics. Would it be better if the price
53:42
Speaker 1: was the price as opposed to the flex price the
53:49
Speaker 1: secondary market, et cetera.
53:53
Speaker 2: You know, Bob, that's a tough call for me. I
53:57
Speaker 2: you know, I understand where the promoters coming from. I
54:01
Speaker 2: understand that, you know, that's their decision. I'm not trying
54:05
Speaker 2: to dodge the question I'm just trying to be honest here,
54:07
Speaker 2: which is they have that right to you know, do
54:10
Speaker 2: what they want for that inventory, for that show that
54:12
Speaker 2: they're paying for all that stuff. I mean, but me
54:14
Speaker 2: as a human being, I mean, yeah, sometimes it can
54:17
Speaker 2: be a bummer if it's too expensive. You know, if
54:19
Speaker 2: it's an eight hundred dollars ticket supposed to be three
54:22
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars and they're flexing him to eight
54:24
Speaker 2: hundred on the floor of an arena, you know, and
54:26
Speaker 2: it's you know, forty rows back or thirty rows back whatever,
54:29
Speaker 2: but the mark you know, the shows, there's forty thousand
54:31
Speaker 2: people in the queue and things are going crazy, and
54:34
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, believe me, they're all aware. People
54:36
Speaker 2: are all aware of everything that's going on, right so,
54:40
Speaker 2: especially after Taylor. So yeah, I mean, you know, I
54:46
Speaker 2: think I think finding the best way to get tickets
54:49
Speaker 2: in the hands of fans is the.
54:50
Speaker 1: Most important Okay, okay.
54:52
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry to dodge around it, but no, no, no,
54:54
Speaker 2: you're not dodging, and you're answer the question. Yeah, So.
54:59
Speaker 1: Is there a risk with weight tickets are sold now
55:03
Speaker 1: with flex pricing that ultimately there is a stink upon
55:08
Speaker 1: the artist. The artist concept that I'm afraid the fan
55:13
Speaker 1: won't like me anymore if I charge too much or
55:15
Speaker 1: I do that? Is that a fiction or is that reality?
55:19
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I again, remember we talked about it.
55:22
Speaker 2: There's a very small group of people that are very
55:25
Speaker 2: upset about it. I mean, I think that's the reality
55:27
Speaker 2: of the situation. I you know, it's a it's a
55:33
Speaker 2: tough one. It's you know, as as things, you know,
55:36
Speaker 2: as we live in a world where things get more expensive.
55:39
Speaker 2: You know, my argument with people is it really expensive
55:42
Speaker 2: to two these days, it's really expensive to deliver a
55:45
Speaker 2: show that fans want to see. Fans expect a certain level,
55:49
Speaker 2: you know, so it is expensive to go to a show.
55:52
Speaker 2: By the way, it's expensive to go to My wife
55:54
Speaker 2: and I always look at each other when we go
55:56
Speaker 2: to Disneyland and take the kids. We're like, how are
55:58
Speaker 2: these people affording to come here?
55:59
Speaker 1: You know? So it is what bothers me most is
56:03
Speaker 1: the Springsteen fans who want to go for one hundred
56:06
Speaker 1: dollars will go for dinner for an hour and a
56:08
Speaker 1: half one hundred dollars per personop listen and not think
56:11
Speaker 1: twice about that.
56:12
Speaker 2: But my fourteen year old India Okay said to me recently,
56:17
Speaker 2: she's watching the Formula One show. Dad, I love Charles Leclerk.
56:20
Speaker 2: I said, that's great, because can we go. I want
56:22
Speaker 2: to go to the Formula one in Las Vegas. I said, well,
56:24
Speaker 2: that's not happening. No, Dad, you don't understand. I said, honey,
56:27
Speaker 2: that's so expensive. Not happening. You're fourteen, love you all
56:31
Speaker 2: watch it on TV. That's kind of a reality of
56:34
Speaker 2: the world we live in. Like it's okay to not
56:37
Speaker 2: do something. It's okay to not be able to do something.
56:40
Speaker 2: I mean, Jesus Christ, I would love to be able to,
56:44
Speaker 2: you know, go live in Paris. But I yeah, that's
56:46
Speaker 2: it's expensive. I mean, you know, it's these are difficult things.
56:49
Speaker 2: There are decisions you have to make in life. We
56:51
Speaker 2: live in a society. I mean, now you really want
56:53
Speaker 2: to get theoretical with you know, this phone I'm holding up.
56:56
Speaker 2: Where everything's instant. Everybody thinks they have access to every everything.
57:00
Speaker 2: Everybody thinks they're entitled have access to everything, and you know,
57:04
Speaker 2: it's just part of life. I guess where it's okay.
57:07
Speaker 1: You're dealing with the data every day. Needless to say,
57:11
Speaker 1: there was pent up demand subsequent to COVID. When the
57:15
Speaker 1: business went live again, Live Nation had incredible numbers. Recently,
57:20
Speaker 1: what do you see in the marketplace? Is there any
57:23
Speaker 1: softening of demand?
57:24
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's gangbusters. I mean, the only thing
57:28
Speaker 2: I'm seeing is there are certain tours out there that
57:30
Speaker 2: may not have performed initially on on sale that I
57:33
Speaker 2: think people thought. But you know, it's a machine. You know,
57:37
Speaker 2: it just keeps going, you know, and you do a
57:39
Speaker 2: theater tour, then you come off, you do an arena tour,
57:41
Speaker 2: and look, I the numbers are astounding. They're amazing at
57:46
Speaker 2: what they do. You know, there's nothing I can say
57:48
Speaker 2: except amazing. Those guys are incredible, you know. And I
57:56
Speaker 2: don't see any softening. I mean, it's bigger than ever,
57:59
Speaker 2: you know, it really is. It's pretty wild.
58:08
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. How'd you get this job?
58:11
Speaker 2: So? I had been working at enough So about eight
58:16
Speaker 2: years ago, I was I, you know, was I just
58:19
Speaker 2: moved back to LA from New York and I was
58:23
Speaker 2: kind of had finished. I had a production company with
58:25
Speaker 2: a friend of mine, and I finished doing that and
58:27
Speaker 2: a buddy came to me and said, hey, I'm buying
58:29
Speaker 2: a ticketing company. And I said, okay, great, he goes,
58:31
Speaker 2: could you help me meet some people at the agencies
58:33
Speaker 2: and so, uh, it was a secondary ticketing platform, right,
58:38
Speaker 2: And so it was you know, a distribution company, right
58:40
Speaker 2: that would make deals, you know, take a consolidator making
58:44
Speaker 2: deals with you know, sports teams in order to manage
58:46
Speaker 2: that inventory and distribute it everywhere. Because as you know, Bob,
58:50
Speaker 2: you know, there's eighty one games a year, fifty thousand
58:53
Speaker 2: people in the stadium, and you know, you got to
58:55
Speaker 2: you've got to figure out a way to you know,
58:56
Speaker 2: sell all the tickets. And so I met with these
58:59
Speaker 2: people and they show me their information and I said, wait,
59:01
Speaker 2: there's data there. Let me see the dad. I took
59:03
Speaker 2: him around and I started in this business trying to
59:07
Speaker 2: understand the secondary and for the first few years it was, uh,
59:12
Speaker 2: you know, it was it was very interesting. You know,
59:16
Speaker 2: the markets were crazy, everybody was going nuts. There were
59:20
Speaker 2: big tours, and then COVID happened. After COVID, I turned
59:24
Speaker 2: this job into a data business more so than a
59:26
Speaker 2: distribution business on the music side. And about almost two
59:32
Speaker 2: and a half three years ago, I got a call
59:34
Speaker 2: from a friend of mine at Logitics, who said, we'd
59:37
Speaker 2: love you to come over here, and uh, you know,
59:39
Speaker 2: come work with us.
59:40
Speaker 1: And so wait, wait, just so wait, just so we
59:43
Speaker 1: understand when you started eight years ago, you were working
59:46
Speaker 1: for a different company.
59:47
Speaker 2: Not working for no I was not working for Logitics.
59:50
Speaker 2: I was working for a different company. But again it
59:54
Speaker 2: was you know, sort of both feed in in understanding
59:58
Speaker 2: secondary And as you know, I grew up in this business.
1:00:03
Speaker 2: I grew up around this business. And I've been in
1:00:05
Speaker 2: the music business. I've been a manager for almost thirty years,
1:00:08
Speaker 2: which just pretty crazy you think about it. And so
1:00:12
Speaker 2: I just knew everybody, and I knew a ton of
1:00:15
Speaker 2: people in the music business. And that began me going
1:00:17
Speaker 2: and knocking on doors and saying, look at this data,
1:00:20
Speaker 2: look at this information, and how can we figure out
1:00:23
Speaker 2: how to understand this and make you smarter and get
1:00:29
Speaker 2: you more money in your artist's pockets and you know,
1:00:33
Speaker 2: put tickets in the hands of your fans. And that
1:00:35
Speaker 2: was how it went. And yeah, so Logitics has been
1:00:41
Speaker 2: a really great experience. It's run by great people, Bob,
1:00:45
Speaker 2: And I think that's the other thing for me that
1:00:48
Speaker 2: sometimes people don't understand about what I do is I
1:00:51
Speaker 2: truly work with wonderful people who actually give a shit
1:00:55
Speaker 2: about what we do and about the idea of taking
1:01:00
Speaker 2: care of our clients.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: And Okay, so you're the you're the front person.
1:01:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people.
1:01:05
Speaker 1: Were scraping the data and analyzing the data. Is that
1:01:09
Speaker 1: one team that covers everything, sports, music, et cetera.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: I have. I have a team of guys that handle
1:01:16
Speaker 2: the music side of things. Gil Michael so much smarter
1:01:19
Speaker 2: than I am. You know that actually are out there,
1:01:23
Speaker 2: you know, and we you know. No, And by the way,
1:01:25
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's a it's a team of people.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: So I have a team on my music side. As
1:01:32
Speaker 2: I said, I work with Wendy on the open distribution side.
1:01:35
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it's uh, it's a lot of
1:01:38
Speaker 2: people in this company. It's gotten really big.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the beginning. Your father, who
1:01:46
Speaker 1: recently passed, was a legendary attorney, Howard Whitesman. When did
1:01:51
Speaker 1: you realize he was Howard Whitesman.
1:01:55
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a great question. Well, you know, you take me.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: He used to take me to his client's houses. Okay,
1:02:04
Speaker 2: my parents got divorced when it was four and my
1:02:07
Speaker 2: mother tells a story of when I came home at
1:02:09
Speaker 2: one point from being with him on the weekend, because
1:02:12
Speaker 2: I always went to him on the weekend. I told
1:02:14
Speaker 2: her a story about going to dinner at these nice
1:02:16
Speaker 2: people's house, probably Wittier for something like that. Pop and
1:02:20
Speaker 2: the mother, the wife was feeding meatballs to the doberman
1:02:23
Speaker 2: from the table. You know, it was like it was
1:02:25
Speaker 2: Louis Dragna. You know, i'd some mob guy. You know,
1:02:28
Speaker 2: When did I realize he was Howard Whitesman. You know,
1:02:31
Speaker 2: I guess my whole life, you know, and you have
1:02:32
Speaker 2: to realize, like you know, when my parents got divorced,
1:02:35
Speaker 2: you know, my dad was Howard Whitzman. My stepdad was
1:02:37
Speaker 2: the Fawns. It was nineteen seventy five. I mean, it
1:02:40
Speaker 2: was like insanity, you know. And so my dad was
1:02:45
Speaker 2: My dad was one of a kind. I mean, my
1:02:47
Speaker 2: dad always took care of business. There were never any issues.
1:02:52
Speaker 2: He was a larger than life guy. I don't know.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: I sent you something this morning. I don't know if
1:02:57
Speaker 2: you had a chance to read it.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: I did.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: My dad was the kind of guy that would say
1:03:01
Speaker 2: I love you, but if you cross me, you know,
1:03:03
Speaker 2: I'll see the shit out of you. You know, I
1:03:04
Speaker 2: mean that was him, you know, you know, he was
1:03:11
Speaker 2: the thing about my dad was that he knew everybody,
1:03:15
Speaker 2: and the most important people to him were the guys
1:03:17
Speaker 2: that took the car, were the guys that were the
1:03:19
Speaker 2: bus boys that think, you know, because he came from nothing,
1:03:22
Speaker 2: you know, and so you know, I realized he was
1:03:26
Speaker 2: Howard Whitesman, you know, quite early on. My dad was
1:03:28
Speaker 2: the coolest bob. I mean, to be honest, you know,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: growing up, you know, I always he told me that
1:03:34
Speaker 2: my first concert was Mata hoopelt like seventy five at
1:03:37
Speaker 2: Santa Monicacidic. I don't know if that's true, but I'd
1:03:39
Speaker 2: like to think it's true. But because I was with
1:03:41
Speaker 2: because I was with him on the weekends, you know,
1:03:43
Speaker 2: and I was with my mom and Henry all week
1:03:46
Speaker 2: you know. It was my dad and my stepmom. And
1:03:48
Speaker 2: so if there was a concert, if it was you know,
1:03:50
Speaker 2: the long run tour at the Santa Monica Civic, my
1:03:53
Speaker 2: dad was bringing me. Or if it was you know,
1:03:56
Speaker 2: if we were going to see you know, Russ never
1:03:57
Speaker 2: sleeps in the theater and the avco, it was my
1:04:00
Speaker 2: dad was bringing me. I was always this little kid,
1:04:03
Speaker 2: always in adult situations, you know, And yeah, it was
1:04:07
Speaker 2: a really interesting, unique way to grow up. Very special guy.
1:04:11
Speaker 1: Okay, he was a very high level guy on big cases.
1:04:16
Speaker 1: To what degree was he representing musical talent?
1:04:20
Speaker 2: So he always represented you know, guys that got in
1:04:24
Speaker 2: trouble in the olden so and I swear to God
1:04:28
Speaker 2: if I remember this right, you know, tonight's the night
1:04:32
Speaker 2: the Neil Young song and he talks about Bruce Barry was.
1:04:35
Speaker 1: Of course.
1:04:37
Speaker 2: That's right, And I think my dad represented Bruce and
1:04:40
Speaker 2: so you know, he always would tell me that, you know,
1:04:42
Speaker 2: I mean in the old days, in the four in
1:04:44
Speaker 2: the three ADSL or whatever that little car was, there
1:04:46
Speaker 2: was no seat in the back seat. I was in
1:04:48
Speaker 2: the back seat. He was in the front seat. You know,
1:04:51
Speaker 2: there was no seat, there were no seatbelts, and top
1:04:54
Speaker 2: was down driving wherever we were driving. Neil Young on
1:04:57
Speaker 2: the on the deck Steely Dan. I mean, that was
1:05:00
Speaker 2: my dad. We listened to music all day long, and
1:05:03
Speaker 2: so you know, one of the things that is so
1:05:05
Speaker 2: important for me to get across to you is that
1:05:07
Speaker 2: music's my life. You had my buddy Chris Robinson on
1:05:10
Speaker 2: and I was listening to it yesterday, like those like
1:05:13
Speaker 2: That's what I love. You know, music people to me
1:05:17
Speaker 2: are it actors schmacks. I don't care. Like if you're
1:05:21
Speaker 2: a rockstarant and you walk in a room, I'm gonna
1:05:23
Speaker 2: lose my mind, you know. So for me, like those
1:05:26
Speaker 2: are the those are the most memorable things. So with
1:05:28
Speaker 2: my dad, you know, he represented those guys when they
1:05:30
Speaker 2: got in trouble, and then after DeLorean and then when
1:05:34
Speaker 2: he you know, uh so you know, amazingly stepped away
1:05:39
Speaker 2: from the OJ case. You know, he just always you
1:05:42
Speaker 2: know that he eventually became this guy that was sort
1:05:45
Speaker 2: of a litigator, and then the Jackson estate happened. And
1:05:49
Speaker 2: but to this day, I will meet people who will
1:05:53
Speaker 2: tell me, you know, I knew your dad, you know.
1:05:55
Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about like, you know, the people
1:05:58
Speaker 2: I knew that knew him, that I grew up with,
1:06:00
Speaker 2: random people, or you know, I'll go into meetings in
1:06:03
Speaker 2: an agency, you know, with seventeen agents, and we'll finish
1:06:06
Speaker 2: the meeting and I'll be explaining dad to them, and
1:06:08
Speaker 2: one of them will come up and you go, you know,
1:06:09
Speaker 2: I knew your dad, and he took care of me,
1:06:11
Speaker 2: you know, and so he knew everybody, and so he
1:06:14
Speaker 2: was really really incredible guy, Bob, And so yeah, I
1:06:19
Speaker 2: mean that's I mean, that's why I do what I do.
1:06:21
Speaker 2: You know, Okay, let's go back.
1:06:23
Speaker 1: Your biological mother. How many times was she married or husband?
1:06:27
Speaker 2: She has been married to my father and then to Henry.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: So okay, your father, how many people has he been
1:06:33
Speaker 1: married to?
1:06:34
Speaker 2: Just to my mother and to my stepmother Margaret White? Okay,
1:06:38
Speaker 2: still in my life and all best friends.
1:06:40
Speaker 1: Okay of your biological mother, your biological father. Are there
1:06:46
Speaker 1: any other kids of the marriage other than you?
1:06:48
Speaker 2: No, they broke them all when I was when they
1:06:51
Speaker 2: had me, it was over.
1:06:52
Speaker 1: And when Henry married your mother, did he come with
1:06:56
Speaker 1: kids or did they have?
1:06:57
Speaker 2: Now we I have a sister Zoe and a brother Max,
1:07:01
Speaker 2: who are pretty.
1:07:02
Speaker 1: Hilarious, and they were born with.
1:07:05
Speaker 2: My mom and Henry. Yeah, and for us, Bob, it's
1:07:09
Speaker 2: you know, there are no steps. You know, when my
1:07:11
Speaker 2: father passed away, my sister Zoe spoke at the funeral.
1:07:14
Speaker 2: You know, my stepmother, Margaret comes on vacation with my
1:07:17
Speaker 2: mom and Henry. You know, it's a whole. It's a whole.
1:07:20
Speaker 2: You know, it's a whole.
1:07:20
Speaker 1: Okay, did your father ever have any more kids.
1:07:24
Speaker 2: He I have a brother, Arman, with my mom, with
1:07:27
Speaker 2: Margaret and my dad.
1:07:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and what is he up to?
1:07:30
Speaker 2: He's a writer, actor, he was, you know, does a
1:07:33
Speaker 2: bunch of his comedian great guy. My brother Max is
1:07:36
Speaker 2: a director, works with Brian Murphy. My sister Zoe has
1:07:40
Speaker 2: three boys and has a nonprofit called This Is About
1:07:44
Speaker 2: Humanity and is married to a great guy Rob. And
1:07:48
Speaker 2: I'm the only okay you know that's in the music business.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a guy. You mentioned you've been in the business.
1:07:52
Speaker 1: What year were you born?
1:07:54
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy one. I'm fifty two.
1:07:58
Speaker 1: What the fuck is it like having your f the fawns?
1:08:01
Speaker 2: Okay? So it was get first hen on my fourth birthday,
1:08:08
Speaker 2: I mean my fifth birthday cake was spider Man, Batman
1:08:11
Speaker 2: and the Fawns. Okay. And then and then literally bob.
1:08:15
Speaker 2: This man walks into my grandparents' house to pick up
1:08:18
Speaker 2: my mother in Brentwood, and I opened the door and
1:08:22
Speaker 2: I said, oh, my god, Phonsie, and he said, uh,
1:08:25
Speaker 2: my name is Henry. How would you like it if
1:08:27
Speaker 2: I called you Ralph? And I was like, whoa, who
1:08:29
Speaker 2: the fuck is this guy? Right? And I think you know,
1:08:32
Speaker 2: Legends is I kicked him and then walked away. But like,
1:08:35
Speaker 2: it was unbelievable. It allowed me to live a life
1:08:38
Speaker 2: beyond my wildest dreams. It was, I'd be honest, it
1:08:42
Speaker 2: was not easy for me, and to be quite frank,
1:08:45
Speaker 2: I don't talk about it very often, so I'm happy
1:08:47
Speaker 2: to talk about it with you now. But he uh,
1:08:51
Speaker 2: you know it was it was major Fawn's time that
1:08:54
Speaker 2: I was also very guarded with how people kind of
1:08:58
Speaker 2: viewed me or how people came into my life, you know,
1:09:01
Speaker 2: But there was nothing bad about it. I mean, it
1:09:04
Speaker 2: was unbelievable. I mean if I went to a concert,
1:09:06
Speaker 2: you know, we met the band, you know, I mean,
1:09:08
Speaker 2: it was unbelievable, right, It was like, you know, I
1:09:09
Speaker 2: wanted us see David Bewie. There were O great here's
1:09:12
Speaker 2: you know, I have a great I'll send you this
1:09:13
Speaker 2: picture of me and Bok Fons.
1:09:15
Speaker 1: The Fonds is legendary to this time. Yeah, reading a story.
1:09:19
Speaker 1: I was watching a video on social media today with
1:09:21
Speaker 1: him and sliced alone. Okay, was this a burden? Could
1:09:27
Speaker 1: you not leave the house? Could he not show up
1:09:29
Speaker 1: with your ball game? Could you not go out to
1:09:31
Speaker 1: dinner because people were bothering him.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: He always came to my games, We always went out
1:09:38
Speaker 2: to dinner. It was a little crazy in the beginning,
1:09:42
Speaker 2: but we were in La right, so it wasn't so
1:09:45
Speaker 2: bad because we were here. You know, this man is
1:09:49
Speaker 2: seventy whatever he is, and he literally can go anywhere
1:09:54
Speaker 2: in the world and people will know who he is.
1:09:57
Speaker 2: And that is unreal. And it's funny because of my girls,
1:10:01
Speaker 2: Lulu and India, who are ten and fourteen. They went
1:10:06
Speaker 2: they went to Century City recently with Nana Papa to
1:10:09
Speaker 2: go shopping on a Saturday. They came home and I
1:10:11
Speaker 2: said to Lula, how was that?
1:10:12
Speaker 1: She goes?
1:10:13
Speaker 2: You know, Dad, that was really crazy. I've never really
1:10:15
Speaker 2: seen anything like that with Papa before, you know, like
1:10:18
Speaker 2: that's it still gets crazy. We went to a Chiefs
1:10:21
Speaker 2: game recently, a Chargers Chiefs game. It gets nuts. I mean,
1:10:25
Speaker 2: people go nuts. Everybody knows who he is. It's pretty
1:10:27
Speaker 2: pretty remarkable, to be honest.
1:10:30
Speaker 1: How does it feel having the public own your dad?
1:10:38
Speaker 2: You know? I was recently with him somewhere and we
1:10:44
Speaker 2: met somebody and he said, this is my son, and
1:10:47
Speaker 2: I said, nice to meet you. And the guys who well,
1:10:48
Speaker 2: I must have been really weird and I said, no,
1:10:51
Speaker 2: it's actually really great. You know, it's a pretty amazing thing.
1:10:56
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, was it frustrating when I was younger, Yeah,
1:11:00
Speaker 2: might have been. But I've always been very grateful for
1:11:03
Speaker 2: where I come from and and all that stuff. And
1:11:08
Speaker 2: you know, I think I'm able to do what I
1:11:10
Speaker 2: do now at the level I'm able to do it
1:11:14
Speaker 2: because I grew up in this way. You know, I
1:11:16
Speaker 2: grew up with all these folks, you know.
1:11:20
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you grew up in your formative years,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: what neighborhood were you in.
1:11:24
Speaker 2: I was in My dad lived in the Palaishads and
1:11:26
Speaker 2: Henry and my mom lived in Tuluca Lake, So I
1:11:29
Speaker 2: went back and forth.
1:11:30
Speaker 1: And when you were living with your mother and Henry,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: where'd you go to school?
1:11:35
Speaker 2: I went to school called Oakwood in North Hollywood. Sure,
1:11:38
Speaker 2: in the in the eighties. Eighties were really good to me, Bob.
1:11:42
Speaker 2: I thought I was in Rat most of the time
1:11:45
Speaker 2: in the eighties. That's funny. David Marcus will always make
1:11:48
Speaker 2: fun of me with the Rat jokes because he knows
1:11:50
Speaker 2: I love Rat so much. But yeah, I mean I was.
1:11:53
Speaker 2: I was a metal head. I was a Valley medal kid.
1:11:56
Speaker 2: But I listened to so much music growing up, and
1:12:00
Speaker 2: I was also a liner note weirdo. You know, So
1:12:03
Speaker 2: as I got more into the management side of things,
1:12:06
Speaker 2: you know, as I got older, or you know, when
1:12:08
Speaker 2: I worked with Morrissey for a while, or I'd be
1:12:10
Speaker 2: in London and I'd run into Nick Hayward and I'd
1:12:13
Speaker 2: be like that record you made with Jeff Emrick, can
1:12:15
Speaker 2: you tell me about that? Or when I started a
1:12:17
Speaker 2: sanctuary working for mrk Right, I worked with Peter Asher,
1:12:20
Speaker 2: and I mean I was just like, my god, you know, hey, Peter,
1:12:23
Speaker 2: I'm on site, slim in the blue Horizon on machine
1:12:25
Speaker 2: gun Kelly that conversation. Who is he talking to you?
1:12:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, right, okay, okay, but let's stay
1:12:33
Speaker 1: with the appearance. What lessons did you learn from your father?
1:12:37
Speaker 2: To be humble? To be extraordinarily humble and thankful from
1:12:43
Speaker 2: both of them. My father, Howard, he took care of everybody,
1:12:49
Speaker 2: and that was the greatest thing that I learned from him.
1:12:54
Speaker 2: You know, I talked to everybody. I always am acknowledging
1:12:59
Speaker 2: people I am, you know, in private or at home.
1:13:03
Speaker 2: I made not my wife might tell you I'm not
1:13:06
Speaker 2: the you know, the easiest guy to live with. But
1:13:08
Speaker 2: you know, when I get out of a car at
1:13:10
Speaker 2: a restaurant that I go to all the time, you know,
1:13:12
Speaker 2: I'm hugging the valet guy. That's my guy, you know.
1:13:15
Speaker 2: And uh, I when I go to a restaurant, I'm
1:13:18
Speaker 2: a weirdo like that, Bob. But go to the same places.
1:13:20
Speaker 2: I eat it the same places all the time. I
1:13:23
Speaker 2: like to go where I know people. And that's what
1:13:26
Speaker 2: my dad was. You know, my dad went to the
1:13:28
Speaker 2: same restaurant every Friday night. You know. You know, in
1:13:31
Speaker 2: the last ten years of his life. You said, at
1:13:33
Speaker 2: the same table what restaurant was. It was called it
1:13:37
Speaker 2: was called Vincenti And it's no longer in listening, Bob,
1:13:43
Speaker 2: I'm serious, Like it was literally like Jesus, okay, fine,
1:13:47
Speaker 2: you know, let's go. You know, that was his thing.
1:13:49
Speaker 2: And if somebody was in the table and he came early,
1:13:52
Speaker 2: they'd move them. I mean, you know, you know when
1:13:57
Speaker 2: when the thing about my dad is that everybody for me.
1:14:02
Speaker 2: People are always pretty good to me, and people always
1:14:06
Speaker 2: will take my call, they'll always listen. And you know,
1:14:11
Speaker 2: I was always very aware of other kids that were
1:14:18
Speaker 2: full of shit and other kids that were not respectful
1:14:21
Speaker 2: and not aware of their surroundings and aware of what
1:14:27
Speaker 2: they had and didn't have. I mean, sure I was
1:14:29
Speaker 2: dumb at one point in my life, but you know,
1:14:32
Speaker 2: I finally feel at fifty two like I kind of
1:14:35
Speaker 2: know what I'm doing a little bit and it's a
1:14:39
Speaker 2: good place to be. But all that, you know, craziness
1:14:41
Speaker 2: has certainly made me who I am.
1:14:43
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so you graduated from high school, then what.
1:14:46
Speaker 2: I went to Georgetown for four years, had a great time.
1:14:51
Speaker 2: I majored in music history and English, which was amazing,
1:14:54
Speaker 2: and then I started working at Saturday Night Live in
1:14:57
Speaker 2: ninety three.
1:14:58
Speaker 1: Well, were a little bit slower. Yeah, yeah, so you
1:15:01
Speaker 1: graduated from Georgetown. Yeah, how did you get the job?
1:15:05
Speaker 2: So? No, So I grew up with Bernie Brostein and
1:15:09
Speaker 2: Brad Gray. I knew those guys for you knew them
1:15:13
Speaker 2: from which father, right, both, This is actually quite funny,
1:15:19
Speaker 2: and so we used to vacation. So in the old days, Bob,
1:15:25
Speaker 2: you know, Hawaii was It still is a fun place,
1:15:27
Speaker 2: but in those days it was like us, the dailies
1:15:32
Speaker 2: guy named Bob Daley and his kids. So I grew
1:15:34
Speaker 2: up my whole life the Rickles Warner Brothers. Yeah, the Rickles,
1:15:38
Speaker 2: the New Hearts, the Joneses, Quincy, and I mean it
1:15:41
Speaker 2: was you don't understand, like it's so funny. I never
1:15:44
Speaker 2: really think about it. And a buddy of mine asked
1:15:46
Speaker 2: me recently, Jimmy Ton Rickles, and I was like, actually,
1:15:49
Speaker 2: I spent quite a few of Christmases with him, you know,
1:15:51
Speaker 2: and then you'd have a dinner at the hotel and
1:15:53
Speaker 2: he'd be roasting everybody in the room, and yeah, it was.
1:15:57
Speaker 2: It was beyond right. So, and I knew Brad and
1:15:59
Speaker 2: Bernie I was very young, and I always wanted to
1:16:02
Speaker 2: work for those guys. The other thing was is that
1:16:04
Speaker 2: when I was fifteen, I started working at Warner Records,
1:16:07
Speaker 2: interning for Michael Austin, you know, Lenny and Moe and
1:16:11
Speaker 2: all those guys. And so I was around that my
1:16:13
Speaker 2: whole life too. Music was always what I loved more
1:16:17
Speaker 2: than anything. But somehow, as I when I graduated, I thought,
1:16:22
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just going to be a manager, you know,
1:16:24
Speaker 2: and I kind of went and did that. It was yeah, sorry,
1:16:28
Speaker 2: it slower.
1:16:29
Speaker 1: When you graduated, did you work for SNL or did
1:16:32
Speaker 1: you become a manager.
1:16:33
Speaker 2: I went to SNL and I worked for Lauren. I
1:16:36
Speaker 2: made Lauren's popcorn. He always wait, wait before you get there,
1:16:40
Speaker 2: before you get there. Was it as simple as Bernie
1:16:43
Speaker 2: calling Lauren. I got a guy and then you show
1:16:46
Speaker 2: up most likely. But also he was very close with
1:16:49
Speaker 2: the Austins too, so it was he always had a boy.
1:16:52
Speaker 2: I understandings. He always had a kid, a guy, a
1:16:54
Speaker 2: kid every year. That was kind of like the you know,
1:16:57
Speaker 2: the great right the pop corn maker. And so you know,
1:17:01
Speaker 2: I went and met them and it was me and
1:17:02
Speaker 2: three women, three girls. One of I mean, they just were.
1:17:07
Speaker 2: One of them was Ruthless. I remember that. And it
1:17:10
Speaker 2: was you know, I actually had dinner last night at
1:17:12
Speaker 2: Chunley in New York, and I was remembering in ninety three.
1:17:16
Speaker 2: You know, there was no door dash. It was Jed
1:17:19
Speaker 2: in the cab going to pick up dinner for thirty people,
1:17:22
Speaker 2: you know, on Friday nights in his office, and you know,
1:17:26
Speaker 2: it was that was an unbelievable experience, Bob, because I
1:17:30
Speaker 2: knew him, I'd met him Lauren, and he was really
1:17:34
Speaker 2: warm and nice to me, you know. And it was
1:17:38
Speaker 2: Chris Farley, Sandler, Spade, Hartman. You know, I'm still friendly
1:17:43
Speaker 2: with Sandler and you know, all those guys are still
1:17:45
Speaker 2: good dudes. Unfortunately, I had a front row seat to
1:17:49
Speaker 2: the whole Farley thing, and you know, it was uh
1:17:53
Speaker 2: but it was May. I was un believe. I was
1:17:55
Speaker 2: twenty two years old, living in New York City, working
1:17:57
Speaker 2: for Lauren and you know, being an s L. But
1:18:01
Speaker 2: every Thursday two o'clock was three o'clock was when the
1:18:05
Speaker 2: band loaded in, and I would go down there and
1:18:08
Speaker 2: I would just sit there for loading and dress rehearsal,
1:18:11
Speaker 2: and I just that was the greatest that Aerosmith Pearl
1:18:14
Speaker 2: jam Nirvana. That's actually where I met Mark Ketes for
1:18:17
Speaker 2: the first time, when Nirvana played SNL in ninety three. Right,
1:18:21
Speaker 2: I mean, just unbelievable experience because the music is always
1:18:25
Speaker 2: what killed me, was always a thing that made me
1:18:27
Speaker 2: the most excited.
1:18:29
Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, wait, let's stop here. I've only met
1:18:33
Speaker 1: you face to face within the last ninety days, and
1:18:37
Speaker 1: you've certainly been warm and friendly and approached me. Is
1:18:43
Speaker 1: that the secret of you being friends with all these
1:18:46
Speaker 1: people because you can work at SNL and panted when
1:18:49
Speaker 1: you have a lot of long hours at bonds people,
1:18:51
Speaker 1: but you can work somewhere where there's a line between it,
1:18:54
Speaker 1: or is your personality such wherever you go, you're going
1:18:57
Speaker 1: to make friends with everybody.
1:18:59
Speaker 2: I would say the latter. I mean, I it makes
1:19:04
Speaker 2: my kids crazy.
1:19:05
Speaker 1: You know.
1:19:05
Speaker 2: Sometimes when we're out, I talk to everybody. I actually
1:19:09
Speaker 2: look people in the eye and say, hey, nice to
1:19:11
Speaker 2: meet you, how are you, thank you, appreciate you, you know,
1:19:13
Speaker 2: because people, you know, most people don't do that. You know,
1:19:18
Speaker 2: most people are scared or they're nervous or whatever. But
1:19:22
Speaker 2: my secret sauce has always been to just be genuine
1:19:25
Speaker 2: and be myself, you know. And so yeah, that's that's
1:19:31
Speaker 2: what I do. You know, I talk to people. I
1:19:32
Speaker 2: talk to people for a living.
1:19:34
Speaker 1: Okay, I have my own theories, but I want to
1:19:36
Speaker 1: ask you, how do you interact with famous people?
1:19:42
Speaker 2: You just treat them like they're not famous. I mean,
1:19:46
Speaker 2: that's the easiest way to do it. You know. I
1:19:48
Speaker 2: agree that. I mean, I get Bob the only thing.
1:19:51
Speaker 2: I mean, there's only been a couple times where I truly,
1:19:55
Speaker 2: only a couple I can count on one hand where
1:19:57
Speaker 2: I was like, I just I kind of I tried
1:20:01
Speaker 2: to be cooler, and I'm not tried. But like you know,
1:20:05
Speaker 2: when I met Chris Robinson twenty years ago. Like that
1:20:08
Speaker 2: was just like, oh my god. And through a mutual
1:20:10
Speaker 2: friend of ours, we became close and you know, now
1:20:13
Speaker 2: he's you know, one of my best buddies. But like
1:20:15
Speaker 2: when I met Jimmy Page, I didn't know what to
1:20:18
Speaker 2: do with myself and it was very like it was
1:20:20
Speaker 2: like a passing thing on the sidewalk in front of
1:20:23
Speaker 2: the Marquis and I was with somebody that knew him,
1:20:26
Speaker 2: and it was I just you know, there were no
1:20:28
Speaker 2: high phones. I didn't get it. You know, it was
1:20:29
Speaker 2: like BlackBerry days. But like those were the coolest things. Man.
1:20:33
Speaker 2: You know, you just treat them like a normal human being. Honestly,
1:20:37
Speaker 2: that's the thing you have to do. And for the
1:20:39
Speaker 2: most part, they are normal human beings. You know, what
1:20:42
Speaker 2: makes me crazy is when people, you know, if you're
1:20:47
Speaker 2: if somebody treats you with respect, you're going to treat
1:20:50
Speaker 2: them with respect back. And that that's just you know,
1:20:52
Speaker 2: in life, right, I mean, that's how I treat how
1:20:55
Speaker 2: I teach my kids. Right, Like we went to the sphere.
1:20:57
Speaker 2: I told you that. On Friday night, we emailed, right,
1:21:00
Speaker 2: it was amazing. I took India, my fourteen year old
1:21:02
Speaker 2: walking in I'm like, listen to me. When you meet Josephine,
1:21:06
Speaker 2: I want you to make sure you give her a hug.
1:21:08
Speaker 2: You know, she knows. She's like, I know, it's work dad, right,
1:21:10
Speaker 2: So like, I get to go to shows with my kids,
1:21:12
Speaker 2: but it's worked for me. You know. When I go
1:21:14
Speaker 2: to the form, I know who I'm going to see.
1:21:16
Speaker 2: And one of the greatest things that happened to me
1:21:19
Speaker 2: recently was I do a lot of analysis for the
1:21:25
Speaker 2: eight and G guys, right, and so we go to
1:21:26
Speaker 2: Coachella every year and they're I love all those guys,
1:21:30
Speaker 2: Paul and the Golden Voys team. You know, they're amazing people,
1:21:33
Speaker 2: and so they know my kids, and to me, that's
1:21:36
Speaker 2: the coolest thing of the you know, and so they know.
1:21:40
Speaker 2: Or we were Coachella last year and Lulu was then nine,
1:21:43
Speaker 2: ran away from me, ran backstage because that's what she knows.
1:21:47
Speaker 2: And the guy who runs the forum walks by and goes,
1:21:50
Speaker 2: was that Lulu? And I'm like, yeah, you know, in
1:21:53
Speaker 2: my head, I'm like, how cool is that he knew?
1:21:55
Speaker 2: You know? So, yeah, it's all about just treating people
1:21:58
Speaker 2: with respect, Bob. The worst is when they're an asshole.
1:22:02
Speaker 2: That's the worst, you know, and usually means they're not
1:22:05
Speaker 2: a good people and not a good person. And when
1:22:07
Speaker 2: we were talking about like Bob Daily, right, he always
1:22:10
Speaker 2: taught me to live in the lines always because I
1:22:12
Speaker 2: was a little wild when I was younger. But he
1:22:14
Speaker 2: always used to sort of hold his hands together narrow
1:22:17
Speaker 2: and say bring it in jet. You know, all of
1:22:21
Speaker 2: those guys, the good ones, you know, are good people.
1:22:25
Speaker 2: You know, when something happened with my dad last summer
1:22:28
Speaker 2: in his firm, first person I called reserving said I
1:22:31
Speaker 2: got you call. He called Lenny and Dennis and he
1:22:34
Speaker 2: put out a great thing in hits. And you know,
1:22:37
Speaker 2: the people who are really good at what they do,
1:22:40
Speaker 2: they return calls, they return them that day. They answer texts,
1:22:44
Speaker 2: you know, they're mentions. That's the world we live it.
1:22:48
Speaker 2: You know, there are a lot of people who aren't anymore.
1:22:50
Speaker 2: Nothing makes me angrier than if I text somebody and
1:22:53
Speaker 2: they don't have the respect to text me back, or
1:22:56
Speaker 2: they don't answer an email, or they don't return a
1:22:58
Speaker 2: phone call. It's just people who were worth their salt
1:23:00
Speaker 2: don't treat people like that, I believe.
1:23:10
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were SNL for a year.
1:23:13
Speaker 2: Yep, I was at SNL for a year and then
1:23:15
Speaker 2: what then I moved back to LA and ninety four
1:23:19
Speaker 2: I moved back to LA the weekend of the White
1:23:23
Speaker 2: Bronco Chase, which was hilarious, and I went to work
1:23:27
Speaker 2: for Brad Gray as that company was coming together. At
1:23:32
Speaker 2: Brostein Gray was really hitting its stride in the TV space,
1:23:35
Speaker 2: you know, which was fantastic. And I did that until
1:23:39
Speaker 2: two thousand. Okay, slower, slower, Yeah, wait.
1:23:43
Speaker 1: Wait, wait slower. What was your job at Birlstein Green?
1:23:46
Speaker 2: When I first started, I was Brad's assistant, second assistant.
1:23:50
Speaker 2: So in those days it involved ordering big berth of
1:23:53
Speaker 2: golf clubs for Michael Ovitz. It was you know, it
1:23:56
Speaker 2: was anything like that. It was I'm driving to the studio,
1:24:00
Speaker 2: take my car, I'm going to drive with this. I mean,
1:24:01
Speaker 2: it was it was. It was all that shit. You know,
1:24:03
Speaker 2: those were the days you just did whatever you were
1:24:05
Speaker 2: told to do. And I did that for about a year.
1:24:10
Speaker 2: But like that was and I knew those guys, right,
1:24:12
Speaker 2: So I would sit outside his office. Bernie was in
1:24:15
Speaker 2: the office, you know, right in front of me. He'd
1:24:17
Speaker 2: sit outside his office, you know, on the phone, unbelieving,
1:24:21
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, that was my education in showbiz
1:24:24
Speaker 2: was those guys. You know, I knew most of the
1:24:27
Speaker 2: people they were on the phone with, and at that time,
1:24:30
Speaker 2: I would get phone calls from agents asking me if
1:24:33
Speaker 2: O J really did it, So that was always really
1:24:36
Speaker 2: exciting and fun. I'd be like, wait, what do you what? Like?
1:24:39
Speaker 2: That was what I did. I knew all the comedians
1:24:43
Speaker 2: and I would go to clubs and scout people, and
1:24:47
Speaker 2: then I eventually, you know, got promoted and became a manager.
1:24:50
Speaker 2: I had great clients. I was probably not a great
1:24:53
Speaker 2: manager at that time in my life, but I had
1:24:55
Speaker 2: really great clients.
1:24:56
Speaker 1: So who were the clients.
1:24:58
Speaker 2: Let's see Zach Gallifan Actus, Jill Soloway, I guess now,
1:25:03
Speaker 2: Joey Soloway. I had Stephen Colbert for a minute. I'll
1:25:09
Speaker 2: never forget. He sat me down at the then Century Plaza,
1:25:11
Speaker 2: looked at me and said, if my career is not
1:25:13
Speaker 2: better within you know, a month, you're fired. I was like, great,
1:25:16
Speaker 2: and so of course that happened. I had Steve Carrell
1:25:19
Speaker 2: for a while. I had a lot of young comedians.
1:25:23
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was great, But what I
1:25:25
Speaker 2: really wanted to do was be around musicians. So okay, yeah,
1:25:30
Speaker 2: what is the key to being a good manager for
1:25:33
Speaker 2: those people? Well, at the time, I don't think I
1:25:37
Speaker 2: could have told you. But now what I can tell
1:25:39
Speaker 2: you is you have to really be in tune for
1:25:43
Speaker 2: what they want. You have to be present, and you
1:25:46
Speaker 2: have to really be able to navigate this insane world
1:25:52
Speaker 2: and give great advice and in that. At that time, again,
1:25:58
Speaker 2: it was all about relationship. You know, It's always been
1:26:00
Speaker 2: our relationships with cast and directors and all that stuff.
1:26:03
Speaker 2: But you know, it's, uh, you know, that world is
1:26:05
Speaker 2: completely different now, but it was always about listening and
1:26:08
Speaker 2: being you know, being understanding and getting shit done. I
1:26:13
Speaker 2: don't think I was very good at it then. I
1:26:15
Speaker 2: think I got good at it later on in life.
1:26:19
Speaker 2: I still have a couple of people I work with,
1:26:20
Speaker 2: which is actually great because it helps me on the
1:26:24
Speaker 2: logitic side of things, because it sort of brings it
1:26:27
Speaker 2: all back full circle. Whenever I'm you know, at a
1:26:30
Speaker 2: label or I'm dealing with a promoter for somebody else.
1:26:33
Speaker 2: That always, you know, it's all it's all the same thing,
1:26:35
Speaker 2: you know.
1:26:36
Speaker 1: So what happens in the year two thousand.
1:26:39
Speaker 2: In the year two thousand, I left Bilson and Gray,
1:26:44
Speaker 2: and I went to go work in the music business.
1:26:48
Speaker 2: I went to go work for Pat Magnarella, which is
1:26:51
Speaker 2: a great learning experience. It's a wonderful guy, and I
1:26:57
Speaker 2: mean it was amazing. And then I ended up leaving
1:27:00
Speaker 2: there and going to work for a guy named Arthur Spiedak,
1:27:03
Speaker 2: who was another great manager at that I'm sure you know,
1:27:05
Speaker 2: and he taught me a lot because, by the way,
1:27:07
Speaker 2: being a music manager is a lot different than being
1:27:09
Speaker 2: a comedy manager. At least it was at that time,
1:27:11
Speaker 2: routing doing all that stuff.
1:27:13
Speaker 1: You know, Oh, okay, okay, tell us the difference.
1:27:17
Speaker 2: Well, the difference is is that you know, you are
1:27:19
Speaker 2: routing tours. You are you know, in those days it's
1:27:22
Speaker 2: Thomas guides and maps and whatnot, and there's no you know,
1:27:24
Speaker 2: the Internet is very young, and you know, it's a
1:27:27
Speaker 2: different set of people and you know, labels and all
1:27:30
Speaker 2: that stuff. But I had a front seat to all
1:27:32
Speaker 2: of that insanity of all the emo bands being signed
1:27:36
Speaker 2: and the Victory reference bands, you know, all that craziness
1:27:38
Speaker 2: of that time of the you know, so interesting, Bob,
1:27:42
Speaker 2: when you know just the way people were chasing bands
1:27:46
Speaker 2: and the way all that stuff was happening was just
1:27:48
Speaker 2: you know, it was just fascinating, right, and so I
1:27:51
Speaker 2: would in those days every week I Got the Enemy.
1:27:54
Speaker 2: And I was always an angliphile from when I was
1:27:56
Speaker 2: really young in terms of the music I liked, and
1:27:58
Speaker 2: in those days, it was Get the Enemy. You open
1:28:01
Speaker 2: up the last couple of pages, you read the clubs,
1:28:04
Speaker 2: and you figure out who's playing and what clubs, which
1:28:06
Speaker 2: clubs are featured more, who's got bigger ads, And then
1:28:09
Speaker 2: you go to the website. In two thousand and one,
1:28:11
Speaker 2: two thousand and two, you know, you'd bookmark that stuff
1:28:14
Speaker 2: and then you would figure out how you know who's
1:28:17
Speaker 2: playing what, who's doing this, who's doing that. And that's
1:28:20
Speaker 2: how I tracked bands back in those days, and that's
1:28:22
Speaker 2: how I met the people at The Enemy, which was
1:28:24
Speaker 2: fortuitous when I ended up going to work at Sanctuary
1:28:29
Speaker 2: and work for Perry, Perry, Farrell and James, which was
1:28:33
Speaker 2: two thousand and two.
1:28:35
Speaker 1: Okay, you were working with Arthur. How did you end
1:28:38
Speaker 1: up working for Sanctuary?
1:28:40
Speaker 2: I got a phone call from a friend of mine
1:28:41
Speaker 2: who was managing Jane's. I need help. I need somebody
1:28:44
Speaker 2: to work directly with Perry. You want to come over
1:28:47
Speaker 2: and do it. There's this guy Merk, I said, great,
1:28:49
Speaker 2: So I went over started working with my buddy Adam.
1:28:53
Speaker 2: I walked into the office that first day and Peter
1:28:56
Speaker 2: Asher's office was right in front of where I sat.
1:28:59
Speaker 2: There was three thousand gold records on the wall. Was unbelievable.
1:29:04
Speaker 2: And then I went to work with Perry every day.
1:29:06
Speaker 2: And so it was when they were putting Lola back
1:29:09
Speaker 2: together and Jane's was kind of relaunching again. I think
1:29:13
Speaker 2: it was the Strays album that they just finished they
1:29:16
Speaker 2: were putting out. If I could be wrong, but I
1:29:18
Speaker 2: believe that's what it was. And Uh, Perry was really
1:29:23
Speaker 2: into the flash mob thing, you know, with the Nokia
1:29:26
Speaker 2: phones and all that shit. And so I went to
1:29:29
Speaker 2: London to help him put a flash mob together. And
1:29:33
Speaker 2: because I had been so into the NME, I had
1:29:36
Speaker 2: read about this artist named Banksy, And when I got
1:29:39
Speaker 2: to London, I met with Banksy, whose name is Robin
1:29:44
Speaker 2: and Zach.
1:29:46
Speaker 1: He makes the career of flying under the radar. How
1:29:51
Speaker 1: did you connect with banks.
1:29:53
Speaker 2: I'm somehow I got in touch with I forget his name,
1:29:57
Speaker 2: the guy who was wrapped zetting him at the time,
1:30:01
Speaker 2: and that was the guy I got to him. But
1:30:04
Speaker 2: this was way but this is like two thousand and one,
1:30:06
Speaker 2: two thousand and two, This is like way way before.
1:30:09
Speaker 2: And we did a flash mob and I knew the
1:30:13
Speaker 2: guys at the anme just by emailing with them when
1:30:16
Speaker 2: I was at Arthur with Arthur and James did a
1:30:20
Speaker 2: flash mob in Coven Garden and Banksy did all the
1:30:24
Speaker 2: artwork and the way that we got people to the
1:30:27
Speaker 2: flash mob was different Banksy art through the city we did.
1:30:32
Speaker 2: There was a girl holding a balloon in the middle
1:30:35
Speaker 2: of trafout Piccadilly Square. I mean it was. It was
1:30:38
Speaker 2: insane and I'll never forget it because nmmy covered it
1:30:43
Speaker 2: and it was the opening when you opened the magazine.
1:30:46
Speaker 2: It was the first picture was the Banksy stuff and
1:30:49
Speaker 2: then the crowd of the flash mob. And I'll never
1:30:52
Speaker 2: forget it because that came out that night. I went
1:30:56
Speaker 2: to the show at Hammersmith and I was walking up
1:31:00
Speaker 2: the stairs backstage and Rod Smallwood, who you may know,
1:31:05
Speaker 2: Bob who.
1:31:08
Speaker 1: That's a whole nother story.
1:31:10
Speaker 2: I can't wait to talk about these walking up behind
1:31:13
Speaker 2: Merk and Rod okay, and Rod turns around. I'll never
1:31:17
Speaker 2: forget it, turns around, looks at me and goes nice work. Mate,
1:31:21
Speaker 2: you know, and I was like okay, and then Mark
1:31:23
Speaker 2: was like yeah, wait to go nice one. And that
1:31:25
Speaker 2: was it and I went, well, they know who I
1:31:28
Speaker 2: am and you know, and so show happens. I fly
1:31:32
Speaker 2: back to LA sitting in the office, still working with Perry,
1:31:37
Speaker 2: and I get copied on an email from Merk to
1:31:42
Speaker 2: Morrissey and it says, jed in my Los Angeles office
1:31:45
Speaker 2: will come pick you up and take you to the
1:31:47
Speaker 2: studio today, And I thought, what the hell is called?
1:31:51
Speaker 2: What is this like? You know, I wasn't even a
1:31:53
Speaker 2: Morsey fan. And Mark called me and said, I need
1:31:56
Speaker 2: you to go and meet this guy today. And then
1:31:57
Speaker 2: that started, you know, crazy times with that guy for
1:32:02
Speaker 2: three or four years working with him with Murk, which
1:32:07
Speaker 2: was pretty wild crazy. You know.
1:32:11
Speaker 1: See, he does not have a reputation for being wild
1:32:15
Speaker 1: and crazy. He has a reputation for being mercurial, doing
1:32:20
Speaker 1: what he wants. So dig a little bit deeper. What
1:32:23
Speaker 1: was it like working for him?
1:32:24
Speaker 2: I mean, he's actually a very funny guy, but it's
1:32:28
Speaker 2: also he's very I guess idiosyocratic is the way I
1:32:31
Speaker 2: would describe him. I mean it's a very uh, you know,
1:32:34
Speaker 2: I talked you know he was you know, didn't talk
1:32:36
Speaker 2: to waiters. I would do that. It was if something,
1:32:39
Speaker 2: you know, if he changed his mind or didn't want
1:32:41
Speaker 2: to do something, that was it. You'd move on to
1:32:42
Speaker 2: the next thing. It was I made two records with him.
1:32:47
Speaker 2: It was an amazing experience. He is a very strange guy,
1:32:51
Speaker 2: but also very funny. We got along very well, you know,
1:32:56
Speaker 2: but it was I was flying by the seat of
1:32:58
Speaker 2: my pants, you know, it was making records, he was
1:33:01
Speaker 2: canceling shows. I'd have to figure out how to bob
1:33:03
Speaker 2: and weave and do kind of crazy stuff. And you know,
1:33:06
Speaker 2: one great story, I'll just give you one great story
1:33:10
Speaker 2: was the U Are the Quarry tour. This is two
1:33:14
Speaker 2: thousand and three, and uh, He's supposed to play a
1:33:18
Speaker 2: weenie roast or some k rok event on a Saturday.
1:33:22
Speaker 2: I'm with Merk the Marquis and I call him and
1:33:25
Speaker 2: I said, we're coming to pick you up. He says,
1:33:28
Speaker 2: I don't feel well. I'm not okay, I can't do
1:33:30
Speaker 2: the show. And I'm like, what I said, No, I'm
1:33:35
Speaker 2: gonna come get you. He goes, I can't, I'm not
1:33:37
Speaker 2: doing the show. I said, okay, I said, I'm calling
1:33:39
Speaker 2: Joe Sugarman. We're on our it's a Saturday. We're coming up.
1:33:42
Speaker 2: We're coming to the house. Let us in and we're
1:33:44
Speaker 2: gonna see what's wrong. We got called Joe. He's like,
1:33:47
Speaker 2: what I said, get in the car. I'll eat you
1:33:48
Speaker 2: up at the house. Joe comes, we go, he's sick.
1:33:51
Speaker 2: We cancel the show. The next day we have to
1:33:54
Speaker 2: fly to DC to start pearsals for the tour. We
1:34:00
Speaker 2: land in DC that Sunday and my BlackBerry is blowing up.
1:34:04
Speaker 2: Ally McGregor, Rick Roskin. This one. That one. I call
1:34:07
Speaker 2: Ali back, who's a dear friend still to this day,
1:34:10
Speaker 2: and she says he's got to go on k Rock
1:34:12
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning and apologize for missing the show or else
1:34:16
Speaker 2: they're not going to add the record. I see, no problem,
1:34:20
Speaker 2: I'll take care of it. Get to the hotel. I
1:34:22
Speaker 2: walk into his room. Great, comfortable, Great. I said, by
1:34:24
Speaker 2: the way, I need you to go on the radio
1:34:26
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning to just, you know, say I'm sorry I
1:34:29
Speaker 2: missed the show and we're going announce a reschedule work,
1:34:31
Speaker 2: so I'm not gonna add the record. He goes, I'm
1:34:33
Speaker 2: not doing that. I said, no, you don't understand they're
1:34:36
Speaker 2: not going to add the record. It's k Rock. I
1:34:39
Speaker 2: need you to do this for me. Please, just you know,
1:34:42
Speaker 2: to be nine o'clock or ten o'clock in the morning
1:34:44
Speaker 2: and be five minutes. I need you to do it.
1:34:46
Speaker 2: He goes, no, I will do no such thing. I said,
1:34:49
Speaker 2: you're going to go on the radio, and he goes,
1:34:50
Speaker 2: I dare you. I said, okay. I went back to
1:34:52
Speaker 2: my room ross the hall. I called the tour manager.
1:34:55
Speaker 2: I said, find out who does the best Morris imitation
1:34:58
Speaker 2: on the crew. Have to meet me in my room
1:35:01
Speaker 2: tomorrow morning, nine forty five. He's like what I'm like,
1:35:04
Speaker 2: just do it. And Ali, if you're listening, I think
1:35:08
Speaker 2: I told you the story, but don't kill me. It was,
1:35:10
Speaker 2: you know, twenty five years ago. Guy goes on the radio.
1:35:15
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. You know this guy, Charlie Brown. I
1:35:18
Speaker 2: remember he did it. I went into his room. I said,
1:35:20
Speaker 2: you were great on the radio. We were laughing so hard.
1:35:24
Speaker 2: Merk called me and goes, a great job made or
1:35:26
Speaker 2: I mean, it was one of those. It was like,
1:35:27
Speaker 2: you gotta do it, you gotta get it done. We
1:35:29
Speaker 2: did it. The record got added, and of first there
1:35:31
Speaker 2: was some conspiracy theories about it because his fans are
1:35:34
Speaker 2: so crazy. But there was a lot of shit like that, Bob.
1:35:36
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it was just it's just, you know,
1:35:39
Speaker 2: it was. It was a good time. We lived in Rome.
1:35:40
Speaker 2: We made a record together in Rome. One good story
1:35:43
Speaker 2: from that was we recorded at a studio that Maricone
1:35:47
Speaker 2: had recorded all those records with or there, and there
1:35:52
Speaker 2: was a young kid that ran the studio. His dad
1:35:55
Speaker 2: had run the studio. I'm not gonna remember his name.
1:35:57
Speaker 2: And during Tony wiscons he was using the record and
1:36:02
Speaker 2: you know, like two months in three months. It was
1:36:03
Speaker 2: unbelievable experience living in Rome. I was probably thirty three whatever,
1:36:07
Speaker 2: just great. He and I would drive Vespas to the studio.
1:36:11
Speaker 2: We did that once and I said, you know, we're
1:36:13
Speaker 2: not going to die. It's wrong. We're getting a car
1:36:15
Speaker 2: and we would drive back and forth and God, and
1:36:16
Speaker 2: it was great. And I said to them, I said,
1:36:20
Speaker 2: you know what you do not get more kone to
1:36:21
Speaker 2: do strings on a song. And he said, how are
1:36:24
Speaker 2: you going to do that? I said, I think I
1:36:25
Speaker 2: know how to do it. I said, I think what
1:36:26
Speaker 2: I'm going to do is I'm going to ask this
1:36:29
Speaker 2: gentleman who wants to be a producer and not running
1:36:32
Speaker 2: a studio. I sai, let's get him to produce the strings.
1:36:34
Speaker 2: If he can get more Coney to do it, then
1:36:37
Speaker 2: this would be perfect. We'll do it.
1:36:38
Speaker 1: Great.
1:36:39
Speaker 2: So, uh we get more conne and it is I need.
1:36:44
Speaker 2: I want thirty thousand euros cash the morning of the
1:36:48
Speaker 2: session or I'm not doing it, no problem. I'm like,
1:36:52
Speaker 2: what have I done? I call Mark. I'm like, listen
1:36:54
Speaker 2: to what I did. He's like great. Mirk was, by
1:36:56
Speaker 2: the way, and is an unbelievable advocate of artists always.
1:37:00
Speaker 2: Mirke was the guy. Mirk was the guy. Bob if
1:37:04
Speaker 2: mor Morrise, he's assistant, called me on a Wednesday. He
1:37:08
Speaker 2: needs to see you. I'm like, okay, you're in Dublin.
1:37:11
Speaker 2: I'm in West Hollywood. I was like what. I'm like, okay,
1:37:15
Speaker 2: a call tomorrow. This is crazy Burk. He wants to
1:37:17
Speaker 2: see me. He goes, great, go to the airport, get
1:37:19
Speaker 2: on a plane. I'm like, what e goos, Just go
1:37:21
Speaker 2: to the airport, get on a plane. See what he wants.
1:37:23
Speaker 2: So that was that was those days, right. So anyway, uh,
1:37:27
Speaker 2: week so morning comes or the sessions on a Monday,
1:37:30
Speaker 2: it's now Thursday, I don't have the cash. I called
1:37:34
Speaker 2: the label. I'm like, hey, I need thirty grand. They're like, uh, yeah,
1:37:38
Speaker 2: it's a bank holiday. You're you know, we're not getting
1:37:41
Speaker 2: it to you. I said, well, you don't understand. I
1:37:42
Speaker 2: found to get thirty grand on Monday is not doing
1:37:44
Speaker 2: the strings, and it's Morcone and it's amazing opportunity and
1:37:48
Speaker 2: so I'll never forget it. I didn't get the cash
1:37:52
Speaker 2: that Sunday. That's Saturday. I went down to the concierge
1:37:57
Speaker 2: to the hotel, took out my AMX and I said,
1:38:01
Speaker 2: here's my MX. I want you to charge me thirty
1:38:03
Speaker 2: thousand euros on the MX. I want you to go
1:38:06
Speaker 2: to your CFO. I want you to go to the bank.
1:38:08
Speaker 2: I need to get me thirty thousand euros from Monday morning.
1:38:11
Speaker 2: And we got it done. I walk in, give him
1:38:13
Speaker 2: the cash. Great session, amazing four minute intro to the song. Unbelievable, fantastic, great,
1:38:21
Speaker 2: knocked out of the part. Everybod's freaking out. It's more
1:38:23
Speaker 2: to Connie, it's unbelievable. And of course Morris he's like,
1:38:26
Speaker 2: I thought, I can hate it. Yeah, I've cut to
1:38:29
Speaker 2: cut the three minute intro down to like thirty seconds
1:38:32
Speaker 2: or whatever, and and me being the Putts, actually had
1:38:35
Speaker 2: to go to the man's apartment and play him the
1:38:37
Speaker 2: final version with the cutdown intro. I mean it was
1:38:42
Speaker 2: he just looked me out and speak a lot of Italian,
1:38:44
Speaker 2: but he just looked at me and he said, Marred,
1:38:47
Speaker 2: I think means shit. So yeah, that's my Mortcone story.
1:38:51
Speaker 2: It was pretty crazy.
1:38:54
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the next step in your career?
1:38:58
Speaker 2: You know, I love what I do, Bob, and I
1:39:01
Speaker 2: love advocating.
1:39:03
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, what's the next No? No? Oh?
1:39:05
Speaker 2: Then then oh Jesus Christ, yeah, more seed happens. And
1:39:10
Speaker 2: then I leave Sanctuary I and I went to New
1:39:17
Speaker 2: York for business meeting over somebody with a new project
1:39:23
Speaker 2: I was going to get involved in. I'm at dinner
1:39:25
Speaker 2: with this guy that wants me to work with him
1:39:28
Speaker 2: and his wife and another and I just met these
1:39:31
Speaker 2: dudes and they're lovely and I'm going to work with them.
1:39:33
Speaker 2: And one of the ladies tables is twenty sixteenth December
1:39:36
Speaker 2: where those communos on third and one of the ladies says, yeah,
1:39:42
Speaker 2: you know you're dating anybody, And I'm like, no, not really,
1:39:45
Speaker 2: you want to meet this girl. I'm like, listen, I
1:39:47
Speaker 2: live in LA. I don't need to meet this girl.
1:39:48
Speaker 2: She pulls out a BlackBerry shows me a picture of
1:39:51
Speaker 2: this woman. I'm like, you know, yeah, I'd love to
1:39:52
Speaker 2: meet this I mean, it was like that. And next
1:39:55
Speaker 2: thing I know, I go to I go back to LA.
1:39:58
Speaker 2: I'm texting with this woman. I came to New York
1:40:03
Speaker 2: in January of two thousand and seven, went on a
1:40:05
Speaker 2: blind date with my wife, Amanda, and I never left.
1:40:09
Speaker 2: And so the next step of my career was being
1:40:12
Speaker 2: in New York for about seven seven and a half years,
1:40:15
Speaker 2: primarily working in the startup business, and I worked at
1:40:19
Speaker 2: IAC for Barry Diller for a while. It was the worst,
1:40:23
Speaker 2: you know, I was the music guy in the startup space,
1:40:26
Speaker 2: and you know, it just it was. It was a
1:40:28
Speaker 2: complete and total bummer. And then I so, you know,
1:40:33
Speaker 2: there's just not a lot to talk about there. I
1:40:35
Speaker 2: had two kids in New York City, which was great,
1:40:37
Speaker 2: and all I wanted to do was move back to
1:40:39
Speaker 2: LA And that's what I did in twenty fourteen, and
1:40:42
Speaker 2: I kind of done a lot of different things.
1:40:44
Speaker 1: You know, how'd you convince your wife to move to LA.
1:40:47
Speaker 2: Well, my wife looked at me. It was after the win.
1:40:51
Speaker 2: It was the I think it was like a twenty
1:40:53
Speaker 2: thirteen was a horrible blizzard in New York. I remember that,
1:40:57
Speaker 2: and it was she looked at me and saying, Okay,
1:40:59
Speaker 2: we can either moved to New Jersey or to Westchester.
1:41:01
Speaker 2: And I said, we're going to move to the Pacific
1:41:03
Speaker 2: House state and she was like, let's go. I mean,
1:41:04
Speaker 2: it was just that easy. She's from Englewood, New Jersey
1:41:07
Speaker 2: and her parents are great. But yeah, it was it
1:41:10
Speaker 2: was just that easy. It was like winter, No, we're done.
1:41:13
Speaker 2: And we had two kids and the girls have had
1:41:16
Speaker 2: a great life here. And then, like I told you before,
1:41:18
Speaker 2: I fell into this ticketing space.
1:41:20
Speaker 1: Okay, and this parapatetic career. How did the money work?
1:41:25
Speaker 2: Meaning how did I make money?
1:41:27
Speaker 1: Did you make enough money to pay your bills? Or
1:41:30
Speaker 1: did you have to get money from your parents? Were
1:41:32
Speaker 1: there not?
1:41:33
Speaker 2: Always? No? I always made enough money, you know, it
1:41:37
Speaker 2: was never you know, yeah, if there was an issue,
1:41:41
Speaker 2: but it was it was never like that.
1:41:42
Speaker 1: It was.
1:41:44
Speaker 2: I always, uh, you know, I was able to make
1:41:47
Speaker 2: enough money. You know, definitely not a parental money situation.
1:41:51
Speaker 2: You know, if God forbid, you know, would have been
1:41:54
Speaker 2: a situation, but it was never like, you know, you're
1:41:56
Speaker 2: a trust fund guy. It was just that was never
1:41:58
Speaker 2: my life. Ever.
1:42:01
Speaker 1: So you've met a lot of famous people. Tell me
1:42:05
Speaker 1: one person who really lived up to the Rep Frank Sinatra.
1:42:12
Speaker 1: Tell me more.
1:42:14
Speaker 2: I in nineteen. I'm gonna say eighty six, but I
1:42:20
Speaker 2: might be wrong. It might have been earlier. There was
1:42:23
Speaker 2: an event for the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island,
1:42:28
Speaker 2: one of those things. There was a big thing in
1:42:30
Speaker 2: New York City. I'm not gonna remember the exact date, Bob,
1:42:33
Speaker 2: but it was and Henry was on the special or whatever,
1:42:39
Speaker 2: and so we were in New York and I will
1:42:41
Speaker 2: not forget this because I remember. I feel like it
1:42:45
Speaker 2: was Sarah Jessica Parker. I don't know. There was a
1:42:48
Speaker 2: lot of funny and interesting people there. And I was
1:42:50
Speaker 2: probably fifteen, and there he was, and he came over
1:42:54
Speaker 2: to speak to Henry and it's my son. And he
1:42:57
Speaker 2: looked at me and he touched my head and said
1:42:59
Speaker 2: your aunt, and boy, aren't you I was like, really shit.
1:43:02
Speaker 2: That was Frank Sinatra. Yeah, that was pretty cool. You know,
1:43:06
Speaker 2: all these guys I met, I met a lot of them.
1:43:09
Speaker 2: You know pretty cool.
1:43:10
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, since you're such a music fan, tell me
1:43:13
Speaker 1: about one or two rockers you met who lived up
1:43:15
Speaker 1: to the rep.
1:43:16
Speaker 2: Cause most of them don't. So I know a lot
1:43:20
Speaker 2: of them, don't. I mean, I, you know, the guys
1:43:25
Speaker 2: that I really get off on pop or like a
1:43:28
Speaker 2: lot of the session guys that I met, or you know,
1:43:30
Speaker 2: I you know what you know those guys are you know,
1:43:33
Speaker 2: you know, you know the guys that I love. Is
1:43:36
Speaker 2: like sitting down with Lenny Warniker and being like, hey,
1:43:38
Speaker 2: tell me about Rest Titlemen and Lowell George. What was
1:43:41
Speaker 2: that like when they made those records? Like, to me,
1:43:43
Speaker 2: that's that's the coolest thing in the world, you know,
1:43:46
Speaker 2: to be able to have those discussions where, you know,
1:43:49
Speaker 2: I listened to so much music all the time, and
1:43:53
Speaker 2: when I used to know and I listened to it
1:43:54
Speaker 2: like I'm always thinking about the production and how this
1:43:57
Speaker 2: is working, and how that's working, and how did this
1:43:59
Speaker 2: work and how do they put this together? And and
1:44:01
Speaker 2: so for me to have those discussions, that's that's the
1:44:05
Speaker 2: coolest thing in the world, to be quite honest with you.
1:44:08
Speaker 1: Okay, you have two parents, two fathers who have quite
1:44:12
Speaker 1: a distinct legacy. Yeah, how do you feel about your
1:44:17
Speaker 1: career where you are not as problem as they are?
1:44:22
Speaker 2: Well, let's hope I have a career after being so
1:44:24
Speaker 2: terrible on this podcast, Bob. But uh kidding, this is
1:44:30
Speaker 2: when you say you weren't terrible, but that's fine. I uh,
1:44:34
Speaker 2: I said that too much already, Bob. I am. I'll
1:44:40
Speaker 2: be honest with this. Something I thought about I but
1:44:43
Speaker 2: I knew very early on I was never going to
1:44:45
Speaker 2: be able to give them that. I knew very early
1:44:49
Speaker 2: on that the level of success that I grew up
1:44:53
Speaker 2: with was probably not something I was going to be
1:44:55
Speaker 2: able to offer my kids. But I the thing for
1:45:00
Speaker 2: me that I'm able to offer them is experiences that
1:45:04
Speaker 2: we love together. And music is that experience. You know,
1:45:07
Speaker 2: my kids are lucky. They get to go to every
1:45:11
Speaker 2: concert they want to go to with me, right which
1:45:14
Speaker 2: they probably are over at this point going with me.
1:45:17
Speaker 2: But you know, I enjoyed that, so I uh, it
1:45:21
Speaker 2: really never bothered me that much. I mean for me
1:45:28
Speaker 2: to know these people to know that that I'm I'm
1:45:32
Speaker 2: kind of at a place in my life where I'm
1:45:34
Speaker 2: really one call away from anybody I need to get to,
1:45:37
Speaker 2: and you know, I feel really good about my career
1:45:40
Speaker 2: and what I do. You know, I don't want to
1:45:43
Speaker 2: be judged by that. I don't think about that very often.
1:45:45
Speaker 2: I used to think about that, that I would never
1:45:47
Speaker 2: be able to provide for them like that, but I don't.
1:45:50
Speaker 2: I don't think of that as much anymore, you know,
1:45:52
Speaker 2: I just I just love that I got to experience that.
1:45:55
Speaker 2: I love that they get to experience that with Henry especially,
1:45:59
Speaker 2: you know, out of my day. That's not around anymore,
1:46:02
Speaker 2: you know, you know my kids, you know, my kids,
1:46:06
Speaker 2: I think they finally get it. I don't know if
1:46:08
Speaker 2: I think they've ever watched Happy Days, but they get it.
1:46:10
Speaker 2: You know. It's pretty funny.
1:46:12
Speaker 1: How did hend we meet your mother?
1:46:15
Speaker 2: I think the story is that my mother was working
1:46:20
Speaker 2: at a or was a pr person for clothing stour Fields,
1:46:24
Speaker 2: same Jerry Magnan that was in Beverly Hills a million
1:46:27
Speaker 2: years ago. You probably remember that, and I think she
1:46:30
Speaker 2: was she was there working. He came in to buy
1:46:32
Speaker 2: clothes and he pasked her out and she said yes,
1:46:36
Speaker 2: And those were seventies were great, man, that was really fun.
1:46:41
Speaker 2: I mean that was wild, you know, very fun.
1:46:44
Speaker 1: Well, certainly pre internet, pre cell phone camera. Okay, you
1:46:49
Speaker 1: talk about all these shows you went to, two best
1:46:52
Speaker 1: shows you ever saw.
1:46:54
Speaker 2: Taylor Hawkins tribute at the Forum was unbelievable. I mean,
1:47:00
Speaker 2: it was everybody that I loved in one place, you know.
1:47:04
Speaker 2: And by the way, I was hoping, you're gonna ask
1:47:06
Speaker 2: me who I've not met that I wanted to meet,
1:47:08
Speaker 2: and that would be Getty Lee and Alex Lifson. But
1:47:13
Speaker 2: you talk about they're not that hard to me, Well,
1:47:16
Speaker 2: no one's I've never been able to do it. So
1:47:18
Speaker 2: Bob helped me out. I mean, those guys like you
1:47:20
Speaker 2: see for me like I anyway, I that was unbelievable
1:47:27
Speaker 2: that that that Taylor Hawkins concert was unbelievable. Was everybody there.
1:47:31
Speaker 2: And then I've got to say, you know, it's probably
1:47:34
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. I go to so many shows.
1:47:36
Speaker 2: I just I can't really I was thinking, I knew
1:47:38
Speaker 2: you were gonna ask me this. You know, it's probably
1:47:42
Speaker 2: probably something from a million years ago. Might have been
1:47:44
Speaker 2: the first time I saw Kiss, you know, might have
1:47:46
Speaker 2: been the first time I saw Cheap Trip. I mean,
1:47:48
Speaker 2: I can tell you there's a lot of concerts that
1:47:50
Speaker 2: were really bad. You know. I still go to a
1:47:52
Speaker 2: lot of I go to a lot of old heavy
1:47:55
Speaker 2: metal concerts with people that's pretty funny, you know, with
1:47:58
Speaker 2: some of my best buddies from high school. But I
1:48:01
Speaker 2: just love the concert experience after I left, you know,
1:48:06
Speaker 2: being on manager, being on the road, you know, going
1:48:08
Speaker 2: to a concert is like, you know, I'm looking at
1:48:10
Speaker 2: the production. You know, I'm not looking at the I'm
1:48:12
Speaker 2: not watching the show. I'm wondering how they got all
1:48:14
Speaker 2: that in there, what's the trust? You know, all that.
1:48:16
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I look at these days, you know.
1:48:18
Speaker 2: And but and now I'm looking at how many people
1:48:20
Speaker 2: are in their seats, and what do I think this
1:48:22
Speaker 2: person paid next to me versus what I paid? And
1:48:24
Speaker 2: dynamically pricing and all that stuff, you know.
1:48:26
Speaker 1: So okay, so let's just assume your wife is out
1:48:34
Speaker 1: of the picture. You were having a searching of the
1:48:39
Speaker 1: soul moment at three in the morning. Let's not make
1:48:41
Speaker 1: it three in the morning. You're having a searching in
1:48:43
Speaker 1: the soul moment. Who do you call?
1:48:50
Speaker 2: Hm? That's an interesting question. You know, I'm not sure
1:48:59
Speaker 2: it's my mom, Henry or Margaret anymore. It's uh, it's
1:49:03
Speaker 2: probably my family. It could be my friend Benjamin. But
1:49:05
Speaker 2: but most likely it's probably you know, at the end
1:49:07
Speaker 2: of the days, it's a tough one, Bob, It's a
1:49:10
Speaker 2: tough one, you know. I don't uh, you know, I
1:49:13
Speaker 2: don't share a lot of that stuff, you know. And
1:49:16
Speaker 2: I don't have a lot of soul searching moments anymore
1:49:18
Speaker 2: like that, or I don't share that very often. But uh, yeah,
1:49:24
Speaker 2: it's it's I guess it could be Margaret. I don't know.
1:49:26
Speaker 2: It might be my step mother.
1:49:28
Speaker 1: Oh, so are you still buddies? Is Benjamin from the
1:49:31
Speaker 1: old days?
1:49:32
Speaker 2: Like growing Benjamin's buddy of mine from New York. You know,
1:49:34
Speaker 2: he's one of my best buddies. I mean, you know,
1:49:36
Speaker 2: I just you know, I I don't share a lot
1:49:39
Speaker 2: of that stuff. Let me put you to that way,
1:49:41
Speaker 2: you know. And I don't have a lot of those
1:49:42
Speaker 2: soul soul searching moments. It probably should, you know, but
1:49:46
Speaker 2: I don't.
1:49:47
Speaker 1: Do you not share that because you've seen been around
1:49:51
Speaker 1: public figures so much.
1:49:53
Speaker 2: It might be it might be that, you know, Look, this,
1:49:56
Speaker 2: what we've done today is the most I've ever spoken
1:49:59
Speaker 2: about this, and asmen, was the first time I ever
1:50:01
Speaker 2: spoke about any of this with anybody publicly. You know,
1:50:04
Speaker 2: I always kept it very people knew maybe, but don't
1:50:08
Speaker 2: really talk to me about it. You know, it just
1:50:09
Speaker 2: was just was it just was, you know, just was
1:50:13
Speaker 2: my life.
1:50:14
Speaker 1: Okay, when you're vacationing in Hawaii, et cetera, with these
1:50:18
Speaker 1: household names, was there a clique a group of their
1:50:24
Speaker 1: children who you all ran together with.
1:50:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still friends with all of them. Some are here.
1:50:30
Speaker 2: There's some that aren't here anymore, but you know, which
1:50:33
Speaker 2: is unfortunate, But most of them I'm still very close with.
1:50:37
Speaker 1: You absolutely, And what insight can you give us? Not
1:50:40
Speaker 1: only you given us from yourself and you're here and
1:50:44
Speaker 1: you say some of these people are not What insight
1:50:47
Speaker 1: can you give about being the son or daughter of
1:50:50
Speaker 1: public figures.
1:50:52
Speaker 2: Being responsible, not being an idiot? You just got to
1:50:59
Speaker 2: know that. You just got to know that there there
1:51:02
Speaker 2: could be a lot of judgment out there. You know,
1:51:04
Speaker 2: just be humble, do your thing, work your ass off.
1:51:08
Speaker 2: You know, By the way, now, I never you know,
1:51:10
Speaker 2: when I said to my parents, like when I was fourteen,
1:51:13
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to camp anymore. Henry was like, great,
1:51:16
Speaker 2: you're gonna get a job. You know, my first job
1:51:19
Speaker 2: at fourteen was at National Compact disc came next to
1:51:22
Speaker 2: Fat Jacks the corner of Tahunga and Ventura.
1:51:26
Speaker 1: Remember that store. How often did you did Fat Jacks.
1:51:30
Speaker 2: All the time? Or I'd go down the street to
1:51:32
Speaker 2: Henry's Tacos. But Bob, that was one of the first
1:51:35
Speaker 2: CD only stores in Los Angeles, right, And so I'm fourteen,
1:51:40
Speaker 2: I'm working with all these rockers, you know, who were
1:51:43
Speaker 2: playing all these amazing like you know, Genesis records, like
1:51:48
Speaker 2: I knew three sides like, but all of a sudden,
1:51:49
Speaker 2: they're playing seconds out and lamps line's down a Broadway
1:51:52
Speaker 2: and my mind's exploding and somebody's telling me, you gotta
1:51:55
Speaker 2: listen to this Dark Side of the Moon. I mean,
1:51:56
Speaker 2: like that was. That was unbelievable. That was That was incredible,
1:52:00
Speaker 2: And I got, you know, discounts on CDs.
1:52:02
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the medals. So who were your
1:52:04
Speaker 1: favorite metal locks?
1:52:06
Speaker 2: Oh? My god, Ozzy. My dad worked with Ozzie, by
1:52:08
Speaker 2: the way, and I always loved Ozzy. I mean that
1:52:10
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six Ultimate Sintour. I saw Metallica Mustard Master
1:52:14
Speaker 2: Puppets open for Ozzie two nights in a row, Long
1:52:17
Speaker 2: Beach arena mind blowing. I was always into rock. Okay,
1:52:21
Speaker 2: Zeppelin's my favorite. But in the eighties metal it was,
1:52:24
Speaker 2: you know, it was Rat Motley Crue, it was all
1:52:27
Speaker 2: that stuff. But I also listened to Stanley Jordan or
1:52:31
Speaker 2: I listened to Hiram Bullock, right.
1:52:32
Speaker 1: You know.
1:52:32
Speaker 2: I listened to all kinds of music. I've always been
1:52:34
Speaker 2: into that, the guitars, you know, all the old AC
1:52:39
Speaker 2: DC stuff in Lizzie all that stuff, you know. And
1:52:43
Speaker 2: then uh, and then I heard Pretenders Won, and then
1:52:46
Speaker 2: I went that way, you know, and then I you know,
1:52:49
Speaker 2: so it's I just love it. I listened to everything.
1:52:52
Speaker 2: There's very little that I don't like. But if I
1:52:55
Speaker 2: don't like it, I don't like it.
1:52:57
Speaker 1: You know, I work for Sanctuary Law before it, when
1:53:01
Speaker 1: public et cetera. It ultimately imploded. Why do you think
1:53:04
Speaker 1: it imploded?
1:53:07
Speaker 2: That's a tough one. I mean, I think there was
1:53:10
Speaker 2: a there's you know, I think there are a lot of
1:53:16
Speaker 2: money spent, and I think saying no sometimes is important,
1:53:19
Speaker 2: you know. So I mean, I don't really know. I
1:53:21
Speaker 2: don't know the inside the ins and outs of that.
1:53:23
Speaker 2: It's just I think they I think I think things
1:53:27
Speaker 2: got a little crazy. That's all I know.
1:53:30
Speaker 1: Okay, as we speak, hypnosis was the assets were discounted
1:53:36
Speaker 1: by twenty five percent. Merk was the face of buying
1:53:42
Speaker 1: catalogs and paying for them. What insight can you give
1:53:45
Speaker 1: us into that?
1:53:47
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that. I just know Mark's
1:53:49
Speaker 2: a music guy, always has been a music guy. He's
1:53:53
Speaker 2: an artist guy. He's always been an artist guy. He's
1:53:56
Speaker 2: always been good to me. To this day. We still
1:54:00
Speaker 2: you know, we both support the same football team, Arsenal,
1:54:03
Speaker 2: so we text often. I've known as kids forever. Yeah,
1:54:10
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know too much about that.
1:54:11
Speaker 2: I just know Mark's always been a big artist guy.
1:54:14
Speaker 2: That's all I can tell you, Bob Okay.
1:54:17
Speaker 1: And if you have a music business issue, who do
1:54:20
Speaker 1: you call for insight and advice?
1:54:25
Speaker 2: Eric Greenspand probably one of the first calls I make
1:54:31
Speaker 2: Michelle Bernstein. Probably the second call I make smartest tour
1:54:36
Speaker 2: Marketer slash live person who understands the live business better
1:54:40
Speaker 2: than anybody I've ever met. Helped me understand the necessary
1:54:46
Speaker 2: opportunity here on understanding the second dairy market and the
1:54:49
Speaker 2: data it beholds, and how to apply that to the
1:54:51
Speaker 2: primary she's a genius and a very close friend. There
1:54:57
Speaker 2: are a couple other people out there too. Gean Solomon,
1:55:03
Speaker 2: good guy, good friend of mine.
1:55:06
Speaker 1: And do you think a major act can go out
1:55:09
Speaker 1: without production?
1:55:11
Speaker 2: Sure? He got'd be amazing. Nothing would be cooler. I mean,
1:55:16
Speaker 2: I mean, I just saw you two at the sphere.
1:55:19
Speaker 2: If they didn't have the graphics, there was no production,
1:55:21
Speaker 2: I mean you know, I mean I it was Yeah,
1:55:24
Speaker 2: I think that would be amazing. I think that would
1:55:26
Speaker 2: be absolutely amazing. Then it's just all about the music.
1:55:30
Speaker 2: But it depends on the act, right, So my girls
1:55:33
Speaker 2: they don't want to see that. They want to see
1:55:35
Speaker 2: the whole thing. But like me, if it was Crows, right, Chris,
1:55:41
Speaker 2: they can go out without production and fucking heal it right.
1:55:46
Speaker 2: So that's a guy by the way. For me, now
1:55:49
Speaker 2: that we're close friends, like I get excited when we
1:55:52
Speaker 2: share music together. I live to send him music that
1:55:56
Speaker 2: he doesn't know but doesn't happen very often, and I'm like,
1:56:00
Speaker 2: send me music, send me you know, that's all I want,
1:56:02
Speaker 2: are his playlists, right, It's like that's the coolest thing
1:56:04
Speaker 2: in the world to me, you know, it is to
1:56:06
Speaker 2: be able to share my musical taste with other people
1:56:09
Speaker 2: that have similar musical taste as me. That can rocket.
1:56:13
Speaker 2: I don't know if you saw them when they played
1:56:15
Speaker 2: last night. I saw that. I went to the first
1:56:17
Speaker 2: Aerosmith Gross show. They're unbelievable.
1:56:19
Speaker 1: This tour is going to be amazing, by the way,
1:56:22
Speaker 1: So can you name two acts that are new acts
1:56:26
Speaker 1: that you're busy sharing with other people.
1:56:29
Speaker 2: There's a young guy named Billy Tibbles who I'm crazy for,
1:56:33
Speaker 2: who Chris produced the record and it's on Chris's label.
1:56:37
Speaker 2: He's got a great record out right now that Apple
1:56:41
Speaker 2: Music is all over, so that's cool, which I'll send you.
1:56:45
Speaker 2: And there's a there's a band out there called Eggy
1:56:48
Speaker 2: egg Y that our jam band. There's the guitar players,
1:56:53
Speaker 2: a guy named Jacob Brownstein and Jake Brownstein. He's unbelievable.
1:56:57
Speaker 2: And those guys are are the next They're the next dudes.
1:57:01
Speaker 2: They're the next part of that scene you know, to
1:57:04
Speaker 2: kind of to kind of go there right, like I
1:57:06
Speaker 2: missed Goose, I don't get it, but like they're huge,
1:57:09
Speaker 2: Eggy is they're the next ones, you know.
1:57:11
Speaker 1: Okay, your name is Jed. What is the name on
1:57:14
Speaker 1: your birth certificate?
1:57:15
Speaker 2: Jed. My great grandfather from Odessa was named Jeddy. I
1:57:23
Speaker 2: think that was his name, and so my mother named
1:57:28
Speaker 2: me Jed. It's just Jed. Bruce Weizman and an incredible guy.
1:57:33
Speaker 1: And you know, most people hear Jed and they think
1:57:37
Speaker 1: of the Beverly Hillbillies and the cleupits. Was it tough
1:57:40
Speaker 1: growing up with that name?
1:57:42
Speaker 2: I mean no, I mean it happened, but I didn't
1:57:46
Speaker 2: give a shit. I just didn't even pay attention, you know.
1:57:48
Speaker 2: And then after Star Wars I was Jedi, so it
1:57:50
Speaker 2: all worked out the end, Bob, you know.
1:57:53
Speaker 1: And on that note, with your lightsaber, I think we've
1:57:56
Speaker 1: come to the end of the feeling we've known. I
1:57:58
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for sharing your insight
1:58:01
Speaker 1: and story with my audience.
1:58:04
Speaker 2: Thanks, Bob, It's a pleasure.
1:58:06
Speaker 1: Pleasure is mine. Until next time. This is Bob left
1:58:10
Speaker 1: Stacks
1:58:32
Speaker 2: H