Latest / Promoter101 / Promoter 101 # 247 - Pinnacle Entertainment's Scott Sokol

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Promoter 101 # 247 - Pinnacle Entertainment's Scott Sokol · Promoter101

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: All right. Promoter 101. Promoter 101. Discussion. It's the heart
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• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Promoter.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Promoter 101 podcast. So excited for this,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the 247th episode of this podcast. Today, we're going to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: be joined by Pinnacle Entertainment's Scott Sokol on the show,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: talking boutique agencies, big artists, and the ins and outs
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of the talent business. Plus, we're going to break down
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the latest in the industry headlines. You're listening to Promoter
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: 101 podcast starting right now. This is Cindy Lynott. I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: work at Works Entertainment, and I'm on Promoter 101.
• 1:54
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  Speaker 1: Promoter 101. Me? I'm at W. Luke Pierce. Dan is
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  Speaker 1: and I'm at WLukePierce. Seems like it's time.
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  Speaker 3: UFC has made the jump from X to threads on
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  Speaker 3: their feed now. It seems like maybe the industry and
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  Speaker 3: the world have left X behind, and maybe we should
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  Speaker 3: follow suit, Luke.
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  Speaker 1: You know, listen, I think there's still a very weird
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  Speaker 1: an awesome part of the corner of the internet. But
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  Speaker 1: when it comes down to some work, some thought leadership,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's over on threads. The world evolves, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: so must we, Luke. Come find us. Check us out online.
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  Speaker 2: I am Barbara Hubbard from New Mexico State, retired, still
• 3:00
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• 3:13
  Speaker 3: Luke, shall we dive into the latest industry news?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Dan, we've got a wild range of news this month here,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: but I want to start with this news because it's
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: kind of breaking as we're recording the podcast over the
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  Speaker 1: weekend here on Friday. Bonnaroo announced it's not happening in 2027.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: C3 and Live Nation put that out on August 21st,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and the language was a much-needed year off. The farm,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: they said, and the main venue in particular, needs to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: rest and recover. Rolling Stone and Stereogum report the plan
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: as a 28 return. The statement itself didn't promise one,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: but plenty of things leading up in this in Bonnaroo.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: The road in 2025 pretty much died in the vine
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: after one day of flooding. They opened at 75% refunds,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: ate a 6,000 name petition and went to 100%. They
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: spent real money on the site, proving it after all
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the disasters in 25. And then new drainage, four and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a half miles of road, 135 acres of new grass.
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  Speaker 1: In June, 2026, still evacuated on Sunday and they lost
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: 11 sets. So Dan, is this an act of God
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  Speaker 1: story or is it a capital expenditure story? I mean,
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  Speaker 1: Live Nation bought Superfly's stake in the second half of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: 2019 coming off a record-setting 80,000 capacity sellout. Tenants between
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: 21 without COVID and 23 kind of running right around 85,000 people,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: falling closer to 70,000 in 2024. And of course, those
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  Speaker 1: figures are unofficial, so hold them loosely. When you spend
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that kind of money on drainage and you lose a
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  Speaker 1: day out of four, and the next ask is eight
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  Speaker 1: figures to make a flood plan behave, I think that's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a hard pill to swallow for Live Nation. This is
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: something that I think there's always been conversations around this.
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  Speaker 1: Dates usually land in June. It's historically rainy and terrible
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  Speaker 1: here in the state of Tennessee during that time. That's
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  Speaker 1: what talks about moving this to the fall. So, you know,
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  Speaker 1: do we think 28 is an intention or a guarantee?
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  Speaker 1: You know, is Bonnaroo going to come back smaller on
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  Speaker 1: a reconfigured site? Does it come back at all? What
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  Speaker 1: do you think about this, Dan?
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  Speaker 3: Well, as you said, Live Nation does own the site.
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  Speaker 3: On top of that, Charlie Walker... Ted Heinegg, their teams
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  Speaker 3: have done an amazing job bringing that festival back to
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  Speaker 3: current and cool where it's like they had these moments
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  Speaker 3: where it was super hip, then it kind of cooled
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  Speaker 3: off and they brought it back. They've definitely done some
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  Speaker 3: stuff with that space during COVID. They used it for
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: outdoor shows and they've done some other festivals in there.
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  Speaker 3: There was a metal festival that Guns N' Roses headlined
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  Speaker 3: that they tried on that site. They have the property,
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  Speaker 3: the infrastructure's there. I don't see them walking away from it.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's frustrating that you do build the festival,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: you sell the tickets, you get the fans there, and
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  Speaker 3: then Mother Nature has another idea.
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  Speaker 1: And when it.
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  Speaker 3: Happens a couple years in a row, hard to expect
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  Speaker 3: fans to come back. That said, I haven't talked to
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: the Tarleys, I haven't talked to Michael about it, I
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: haven't talked to Ted. But hard to believe Bonnaroo was done.
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  Speaker 3: Keep in mind that Glastonbury takes a year off, plays
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: like three, then takes a year off to rotate the
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  Speaker 3: field and let the field protect itself. So it's not
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  Speaker 3: unheard of for a festival to take a year off,
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  Speaker 3: let the site take care of itself.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It's a big piece of property. Maybe do some refreshing,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: maybe do some big infrastructure improvements and then regroup and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: rebrand a little bit and bring it back. I don't
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: think we've seen the last of this event. And I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: think Charlie Walker's team is going to figure this one out. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think you're right about that, Dan. I think this
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  Speaker 1: is something that the Bonnaroovians, I'm sure, is a tight-knit
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: community of people that want to see the success of
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: this thing continue on. And if it takes a couple
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: years off, those people are still going to be there.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: In the short term, the city of Manchester, Tennessee, going
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to take a hit. But for environmental reasons, which we
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: just talked about here for a second, Dan, just weather
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: in general. kind of pivoting for a half second here
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: into another piece I want to spend some time talking
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  Speaker 1: about because weather's, at least in the last six weeks,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: have really stopped becoming small talk and it's turned into
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: some sort of light end for all of us. And
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  Speaker 1: I know you, from your own personal experience, you had
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Hurricane Lala hit the Big Island of Hawaii as a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Category 1 about a week ago, as at the time
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of recording this podcast. It was a direct hit near
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: a south point, 80-mile-an-hour winds, 200,000 people without power. The
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Midwest has been cooking since June. Cooling centers open. Cities
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: pulling outdoor events. Heat indexes that turn a two o'clock
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  Speaker 1: load into like real safety problems. You know, what that
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: looks like on our side, kind of unglamorous. You know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: amphitheater dates carry a risk profile they probably didn't carry
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  Speaker 1: five years ago. You're advancing weather, you're advancing shade, extra medical,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a heat plan that somebody's going to actually own on site.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: You know, you're watching a radar at 10 in the
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  Speaker 1: morning on a day you've already spent the money on.
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  Speaker 1: The day of call is ugly in both directions. Cancel,
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  Speaker 1: you're eating the settlement. Push through, somebody goes down the pit.
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  Speaker 1: That's a very different conversation. And then there's the paper.
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  Speaker 1: There's event cancellation coverage has gotten pricier. They've gotten pickier
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: on the carrier side. And the name storm and heat
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  Speaker 1: extreme heat exclusions are turning up where they just didn't
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  Speaker 1: used to be. So that slides risks back to producers
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  Speaker 1: and promoters. Uh, and then of course down to the artists.
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  Speaker 1: So whether Dan, I mean, to talk about Brad Williams,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it's kind of weird that why he got a hurricane.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It's like an El Nino year, but like weather has
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: become the thing that's over 20 years. There was a
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  Speaker 1: direct hit on one of the islands. They get the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: warnings all the time, but you have all the different
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: models and it always goes the other way. Right? So, uh,
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  Speaker 1: No one was really expecting it. This was the first
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  Speaker 1: time I'd been in the path of the hurricane personally.
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  Speaker 1: I will tell you that we knew the show was
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: going to play out before the weather, but then we
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: got to the point where there was a state of
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: emergency called and Hilo was going to get hit before
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the Kona side of the island. And the venue at
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that point was like, okay, we have an issue. What
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: about people trying to get home? What about.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: The rain starting versus the eye getting here we're a
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: little worried about this and i gotta tell you the
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: island had such a brave face on the locals never
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: let it slip that they were worried about it until
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  Speaker 3: they were and it was the afternoon of the show
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  Speaker 3: when it was like hey we're worried about the fans
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  Speaker 3: and the second they were worried about the fans it
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: took brad and me three seconds to be like let's
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  Speaker 3: move the show and get it out of the way.
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  Speaker 3: And we found a time to come back in January
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  Speaker 3: and we're going to put up a second show cause
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  Speaker 3: we were already sold out and Brad's gonna not only
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: make it back to the Island, but you know, deliver on.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: The demand that was there and we'll do the double.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I will say that Hilo got really hit and their
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: power outages were massive and roads were washed out and
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that's going to take a long time to recover.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: The volcano did a lot to protect the Kona side
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  Speaker 3: of the Island. So they didn't get it nearly as bad, but, um,
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: You know, they're going to get hit a second time
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: and that weather is coming. I'm watching it on the
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: news right now that they're, you know, they're looking at
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: a second hit where they're still rebuilding and putting.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: The power back up. So, I mean, this is one
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of those.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Exhausting things where it's just like you've been without power
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: for a week maybe you're just getting it back on
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: the roads aren't still open across the island and now
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: you're worried about a second hit like That kills supply line,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: especially when you're an island.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And it's dangerous.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: So first and foremost, protect the fans. Entertainment's always secondary
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: towards the health and protection of the fans. But whether
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: you're on an island or whether you're in the Midwest,
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: you never want to see an issue where someone goes
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: out for a night of entertainment and the weather changes
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: people's lives in a massive way. So you're always thinking differently.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: You know, longterm. And it's not about the dollar at
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: that point. It's about the longterm effect and history, right?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You just, you don't want to change the world history
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of somebody's life because you were getting a show in.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: It's like move the fucking date, protect the fan, protect
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the artists, protect the venue, live to live to promote
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: another day. Yeah. So, so just like some more specifics on,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: on that, you're obviously gonna roll two next time through, right? Yeah,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: we're going to be back in January, January 16. We
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: haven't announced the new show because we got the cancellation
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: updated out immediately. Like, this is the new date. Hold
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: your tickets. Please don't come out in the weather.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: And then we'll announce once all the weather's passed and
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: everybody's back up and running, we'll put the second show
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: on sale. But I want the venue to get back
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: on their feet and we'll worry about announcing a new show. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: technically the show's not announced yet. So we broke it here.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Night two will be added on the big island for
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Brad Williams in January. So you're out some costs, Brad's
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: out some costs.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Is this like a triggering of an insurance thing to receive,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you know, to seek anything back from that? Is it,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: or is it the type of thing where we just
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: eat it and move on?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: No, it's, it's such a small thing. It's like, we'll
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: make up the show, the venues, you know, in on
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: it with us where it's there. They're not going to
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: charge us for moving the date. You know, it's like,
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: it's an act of God protecting the fans. Everybody's working together.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So, you know, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll put some
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: extra travel in there and we'll, Brad will get a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: second show fee and, you know, we'll eat some travel
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: from the support and the production guys. And, you know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: there'll be a little bit more catering and a second
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: runner day, you know, it's like a couple of guys
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: will get paid. We'll just, we'll eat it. It's not
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that much money. But for these producers and promoters putting
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: on outdoor shows in the United States, I mean, I,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and I, I've seen crazy heat moments happening in Europe,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: you know, 20 something, festivals, including your pollster, are already
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: impacted by this sort of stuff here. For those producers
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: producing things in extreme weather conditions here in the United States,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: have you talked to anyone that you think has had
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: an experience here that's been, you know, Bonnaroo-esque at this
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: point this year? Any stories out there?
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Look, the insurance on rain and weather is very expensive,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: and not everybody gets it, and it's very well defined
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: on how much rain you have to have before a
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: payment goes into effect.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: So.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: The date, the time, the number of inches, where you're
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: recording those inches are all part of that. And it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: expensive and not everyone actually takes the insurance. Like a
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: lot of people just roll the dice without it. And
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: I don't want to confuse invent insurance, liability insurance with
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: cancellation insurance, weather insurance.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Two different things.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying people are doing events without insurance. I'm
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: saying people are doing events without cancellation insurance. And that
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: happens more often than you think now because it's super expensive.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: And the rain or shine idea is there until it's
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: unsafe and that it's it's so extreme.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It's like worse than anybody would have thought on the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: bell curve. And it's just like, OK, we're paradigm shifting
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: our expectations. This is worse than rain or shine. This
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: is this is dangerous. And we're not going to put
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: people in a little bit. It's one thing to get
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: wet at the show. It's another thing. to get swept
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: away by the water in the show when the landslide happens. So,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the difference in extreme there versus play it out.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: It's just a little water. Yeah, no doubt. You know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you hurt your knee, rub some dirt on a kid
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: versus you broke your knee. Right. There are different extremes here, right? So.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Whether you get the cancellation insurance, whether you had enough rain,
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: you know, it's like, do you file a claim? If
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: you have a car in accident, how big of an
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: accident was it? How big is your deductible? Can you
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: just pay it yourself so your rates don't go up?
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: You know, does it matter?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: These are all the little things that you start to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: think about, right?
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: So it's a matter of, do they have it? Are
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: they going to use it? Did they get enough? Did
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: they fall exactly in the, you know, it's like, I
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: like to think of it as being at the roulette table.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Did you bet exactly right on red 17 and did
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: it hit? Cause that's kind of what cancellation shares is.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: It's like, you're kind of betting to make sure everything
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: is good. If ever, if the show sells out, you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: it's show costs, it's.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: A line item.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: If it doesn't and you're losing, maybe, you know, maybe.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: You cut that thing a couple of months out when
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: you're dying and you're going to lose on the event anyway.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah. And the indoor shows, you don't normally see
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it anyway. But on the outdoor festival shows or the
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: big outdoor shows, it sometimes comes into play. But it
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: definitely is a producer decision. And not everybody does it,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: especially some of the bigger independents. Listen, I mean, I've seen,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and this is, of course, depending on your underwriter and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: what part of the country you're doing the event in
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and time of year and all those things. I mean,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they have wonderful... actuarial tables on, on all this stuff
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: based on his story. But he's writing the paper on
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that stuff anymore either. Yeah. It's only, it's gone from like,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: you know, low one, 2% of gross, you know, on your,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: on your premiums to like upwards of like five, 8%.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And if you're making 20% on a festival, like on margin,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like five, 8% for like underwriting, uh, This is like
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: eating a quarter of your margin just to protect yourself
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: from complete downside. I mean, it's a real business decision
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to make on the cancellations. That's just, again, cancellation side,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: not liability side. No one should be doing events without
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: liability insurance. Ever. Ever. Something to pay attention to here
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: as we wind down the summer season and start to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: get back from outside to inside later here in the year.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Fair enough. Fair enough. Moving on, Luke. What else you got? Dan,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: we got a couple little AI roundup going here and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: some stories here. Two AI stories that I wanted to
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: talk about this month pointing in opposite directions here. First
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: one from earlier in August, Suno, the AI company, signed
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: a licensing deal with BMG covering all publishing and recorded
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: music that cleared Suno's prior use to the use of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that catalog in training of its AI model. I have
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a few artists signed to BMG and they're offering up
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: all these participation incentives right now. So artists can choose
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: if you're signed to BMG to opt in if you're
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a songwriter or an artist. They haven't disclosed the terms to,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I can tell this to artists, they haven't disclosed them
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: publicly in anything here, but Suno's licensed model is still
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: slated to release later this year. And that's the second
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: deal that's coming forth here. Warner had previously signed and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: settled back in November of last year. But then five
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: days later, after the BMG deal announced, Roundhill Music went
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the other way. They filed two lawsuits, both in California,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: one against Suno, which also names Bright Data, which is
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: a data scraping outfit for copyright infringement. The other one
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: was against Anthropic, the parent company of Claude. Same court
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: claims in both lawsuits, copyright infringement, DMCA violations for circumventing access,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and stripping copyright management information off of all files. They
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: filed over 500 compositions in pieces, both Bellwethers, and they
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: say it will amend up to more than 10,000 by
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the time this suit is done. At $ 150, 000 per work
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: for a willful infringement, that's an exposure close to a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: billion dollars for both of those companies. Richard Bush was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: hired as trial counsel and the CEO of Roundhill, Josh Gruss,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: said they have no intention of selling either of these things.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So something that's going to play out here. And here's
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: why I think It's important to care. Major recorded music
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: companies are cutting deals, and those deals are set and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: priced privately with no public information attached to them. Roundhill
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: is betting that the number is bigger in front of
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a jury. So whoever turns out to be right is
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: going to set that rate card for every catalog standard
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: behind them, including yours, if you are a writer or
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a songwriter or an artist or representing one of those people.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And I've read the opt-in language in the BMG structure.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: The choice sits with the artists. That's real leverage. Artists
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: can say, even BMG did a deal, but I still
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: don't want my works included in these AI training things here.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So not really anyone's arguing anymore about whether these companies
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: use the catalog. That fight's over. What's left is who
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: gets paid, how much, and whether a boardroom or a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: courtroom decides it. These companies getting so large, profitable, heading
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: for public markets here later in the year. In Anthropic's case,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's something we're going to have to pay
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of attention to, and there's plenty of money
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: being made off the backs of songwriters and artists in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: these businesses that You need to be counted for, Dan,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: so it's a story we'll pay attention to. I love
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Plenty of Money. You like the Plenty of Money headliner?
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: That's a good one.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: I think the best part of that story is the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Plenty of Money. You know, I think the podcast should
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: be eligible to sell our catalog to at some point.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Would you opt in to the licensing deal, Dan? We've
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: always given the podcast away. I was just kidding. It's
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a labor of love. We've never put a dollar on
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the podcast intentionally. It's there for everyone. It's our payback
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to the industry and our thank you. For allowing us
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the life that we live. Well, if we do spot
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: any willful infringements at $ 150, 000 a pop, Dan, it might
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: make sense just to cash in with everybody else. What
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: do you think? It's all well and good to give
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: back until the money gets real. Exactly. Exactly. Let's talk
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: about some other media news here. Brooklyn Vegan. basically gone.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: And most of Alternative Press and Revolver went with it.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: The company that did that is, of course, the parent
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: company Veeps owned by Live Nation. Here's what happened. On
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the first week of August, Veeps, which is the live
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: streaming company started by the Madden brothers, announced they're cutting
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: all editorial staff at the famed and loved independent outlet
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Vegan, as well as Alternative Press, Revolver, Goldmine, and
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Metal Edge. Veep's, of course, the live streaming company that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Joel and Benji Madden founded in 27, that Live Nation
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: bought a majority stake in in 2021. The magazines got
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: pulled under that roof sometime last year. The numbers seem
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to be contested, Dan. I really can't find anything straight
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: on this. I'll give you both what I'm finding. Music
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Business Worldwide reporting that seven people got cut across five
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: titles and about 25 editorial staff are still on site's
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: on publishing. There are people that work there that tell
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it differently. Senior editors, Bill Pierce and Andrew Sacker said
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: almost the entire Brooklyn vegan staff has gone. Amanda Hatfield
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: said 15 years came to an end and reporters try
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to reach anyone found the Brooklyn email revolver metal edge
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: emails bouncing. So the sites are still up, but it
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: seems like almost nobody made it. Uh, and we haven't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: really seen much commentary from beeps around this. So if
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you're out there plugging a book, or a show, or
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a tour, or anything else. Brooklyn Vegan was where the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: 250 cap tour announced kind of would generally land, right?
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: It's not a press release that's going into the void.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: There's a listing of real people that people actually read. Revolver,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: an alternative press, did that for metal, for pop punk,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: for kids who found a whole life in a record review.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And I didn't really see much replace that in the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: modern age of things. There's an algorithm. The algorithm doesn't
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: care what your band, if your band sold out Bowery
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: or not. I think people do Looking around at that.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: And there was plenty of comments from industry professionals out
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: there in the world. Jacob Dannemann saying, RIP Brooklyn Vegan.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Utterly unceremonious and moronic actions by veeps. Haley Williams from
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Paramore posted, Every day we lose recipes to dorks who
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: simply cannot cook. Looking forward to the inevitable vengeance of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the underground. So some smoke there coming from the publicist.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Smoke coming from artists there, Dan. these are things that
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: were built before, uh, the good Charlotte guys got in
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the mix in these things and then bought under a
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: tech company and now kind of in a very succession,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Walter-esque fashion. If those of you are fans of that show,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: understand that reference, completely got it. Coverage stopped becoming journalism.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: It's just a funnel. Funnels get optimized. Editorial gets cut.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: This is a cycle we've seen ad infinitum in media
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: these days, but I just feel like it's a little
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: bit of the same losing memory here, Dan. I don't
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: know how you feel about any of these outlets or
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: if you ever read or were on all these outlets.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I know Brooklyn Vegan for me in the early 2010s, Revolver,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: places like that were places I actually looked for this stuff.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But does it carry the weight anymore is an important
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: thing that we need to be talking about.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: So all fair for us is a massive publication and yeah,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Brooklyn vegans big. So I didn't know beeps had rolled
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: that stuff in under them. I mean, Benji's out with
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: good Charlotte with his brother out in the road. I mean,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: they're out with doing co-headline dates with the bench set
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: from full they're in Denver tonight and salt Lake city
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: tomorrow or on Tuesday, uh, Phoenix this coming week, as
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: well as LA, which I believe data remembers also on
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: that show on the 30th next Sunday.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So they're out there doing big shows.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Hard to manage the shop and headline a massive amphitheater
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: stadium tour that they're doing. So, you know, maybe this
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: is a cost to that, but I did not realize
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: they were doing both, but I had massive hopes for veeps.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: What they were doing during COVID was super cool.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And obviously they brought the credibility of them being massive
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: artists to veeps. So hopefully, you know, there's a rebrand
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: and re-decision on what's going on with the streaming stuff
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and They get, there's some focus there to keep building,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I had no idea. So the layoffs are
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: news to me, like as far as the dead eating
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: up those brands. Yeah. Quite, quite a few under the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: veeps umbrella. It seems like there, and it does seem
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: like a lot of like, like I said, the scene
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: losing his memory, you know, it's a tough, but that's
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: what's happening with media right now at every level.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: It's, it's hard to sustain financially. And how do you
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: pay those salaries when nobody's paying for subscription services anymore
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: and you're getting all the articles for free in real time.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Online.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Even if you're hiding it behind a paywall, you're seeing
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: the headline on the streamers and that's all anybody reads anyway.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Hate a good paywall. Hate a good paywall.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: I do love the weeklies and print and historically the
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: old ads that broke the shows that used to be
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: the Bibles every week that we've seen go the way
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: of the dodo over the last 20 years was such
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: a big deal. We'd memorize the weeklies. Who was playing
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: where and what we were competing with and who was
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: in town and we'd know every venue and now bands
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: come through town and unless you're on their site or
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: on their socials, you don't know because nobody's reading the
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: weeklies unless there's something else driving it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Like Denver, the Westward is completely run now by ads
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for the dispensaries as the only reason it's still red
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: weekly is because the deals for the dispensaries is a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: big deal in Denver. Yep. The weeklies are strong editorial,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: still great places to find stuff. I know I read
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the Nashville scene here pretty regularly, but it's got fantastic
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: editorial and like writers on staff that are capable journalists
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: writing great pieces that are worth reading. And so outlets
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: like that across the United States, I mean, there's got
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to be a crazy number of falling weeklies here in
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the last 10, 15 years. And it's thankful for advertiser
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: bases like dispensaries in Colorado or real estate companies in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Nashville keeping these things alive. for sure.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: You know, I believe we did a podcast. Scott Tobias
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: from Village Voice Media Group, who oversees the Westward in Denver,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: was on episode 53 of Promoter 101. Goes back 200 episodes.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: But Scott would probably be a great guy to get
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: on the podcast and get his viewpoints of what's going
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: on in this day and age with how you keep
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: a media company alive when print is a secondary form
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: and it's all online. And I'm sure... he would talk
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: to us about how they're driving digital. Yeah, we should
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: do a revisit with Scott, for sure.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Good dude.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that would be timely. Well, last but
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: not least in the news here, Dan, and the news
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of companies closing down, RIP Columbia House. Columbia House, after
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: 71 years, the company that sold you a CD or
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: a cassette for nine cents finally turned the lights off.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: If you're under 30... If you're under 40, really, this
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: means nothing to you. If you're not, you definitely remember
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the ad, right? 12 CDs for a penny. You'd peel
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: those little stamps off the page, stick them on a card,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: tape an actual penny to it, and you mail it in.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Free music. You felt like you were getting something awesome, right?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: You weren't. The fine print said you owed them eight
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: more at a regular club price, so the club price
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: was never regular, and shipping and handling is where they
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: got you, and if you forgot to mail the card back, congrats.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Here's the selection of the month and whatever, Michael Bolton
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: or whatnot. But I think a whole generation of people
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: built their first record collection off that first penny, Dan.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: If you were buying Motley Crue and Poison, you were
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: probably getting Warrant and Wrath.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: You weren't getting Michael Bolton. They were actually really good
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: at that. They didn't want you sending it back.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I know that it's kind of funny where some
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of these businesses have gone right now, too. I know
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the Star Vista cruise business was essentially built on the
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: backs of the call centers and email and purchaser information
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: for one of the other competing entities for that records business.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And so it's funny to see where that data is
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: morphed and what they are selling people. Star Vista now
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: famously selling cruises like the Country Music Cruise and a
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of other things to people that have a little
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: bit more coin and time and money for those things.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: But I'm sure that data is going to be bought
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: by somebody somewhere and redeployed in some other weird, maybe
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: meaningful financially way. So it seems to be a big thing.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Now I heard that the spirit airline data was the
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: best part of the bankruptcy sale and 10 million bucks
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: to Google.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Google did buy all the emails, all the customer tickets,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: all of the information to train its Gemini AI for
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: $ 10 million as part of the bankruptcy sale there too.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: So yes, all those emails, all those customer service things
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: mean something to somebody somewhere, right? So it's still getting
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: repurposed somewhere, somehow. I'm just very curious to see what
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: the next life of this is. But I will just say, RIP,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Columbia House. RIP, motherfucker. Worth every cent. Loving every minute
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of it. That'll do it for News of the Month, Dan.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I'm Johnny Fairplay on Promoter 101, and I wouldn't lie
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: about that. It wouldn't be Promoter 101 if we didn't
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: check out what Dan is saying over on X. And Dan,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: at the top of the podcast, you had some thoughts
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: on X. But still see you're still firing at it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe we just copy some of these into threads for
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: this month. How about this one? When the phones go
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: quiet on a summer Friday afternoon. It seems to be
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the new normal, and we'll welcome it. Especially in summer, Dan,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like the summer Fridays are a hard observation
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: these days. You know, I think like people are, most
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of the agencies are like hard between at least the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: 4th of July and Labor Day about this stuff. So
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you got a nice like six, eight weeks there where
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: it really does go quiet.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Well, now with festivals happening, people are traveling to festivals
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: on Thursday. They're setting up on Friday, taking meetings, spending
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: time with artists.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: They're in the field.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: They're traveling back Sunday and Monday.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're taking Tuesday just to dig out a little
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: bit and they're back to work on Wednesday and Thursday
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: before Friday. repeating the whole process all over again in
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: festival season.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: So if you're not traveling, you got a little bit
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: lighter time at your desk to maybe catch up on
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: some past stuff.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, sir. I love it. How about this one, Dan?
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I thought this was pretty interesting. I think... I would
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: have made an outstanding personal assistant. My OCD really does
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: play into that a little bit. Maybe it's not too late, Luke.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Looking for a second career here, Dan?
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Much as Dwight Schrute was the best possible assistant to himself,
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: I truly think I could have been a great assistant.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no doubt you would be a great assistant.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Were you ever an assistant? It was not. Yeah. Never
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: had the assistance back.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: There are days where Jason Zink has commented that I
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: missed my calling.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: You do love a good counter invite. I know that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Do like a good invite. This one, this one's got
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to be some relevance. There's some story behind this. When
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: the repair guys try to explain anything to me, we
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: have some work going on at the house, Dan. Every
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: day of this week, you know, it's the new place, right?
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: So we're constantly having little adjustments. We're just getting it right. So, Plumber, electrician, handyman,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: they've all been here this week.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And I got to say, if I understood what you
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: were doing, I might have tried to tackle it myself.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: But well gifted at a lot of things. Handy, not
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: so much with a hammer and nails.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe not rewiring some electrical in your house. It's probably
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: not a calling that you missed. Definitely wasn't messing with
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: the electronics or the plumbing, but I will hang a frame.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: You know, that's pretty good. You can find a stud,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: put a nail on the wall.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Ironically, I hung four of the five TVs throughout the house,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: and I could not, even with the stud finder, find
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: the stud in the last room, and it drove me
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: a little fucking mad with the white OCD.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: That's when you got to get to the anchors, or
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you got to mount another piece of wood between the studs, Dan.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Those TVs are heavy. That was when I went on
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: to chat GBT to find out who the best handyman
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: in Mill Valley when it comes to hanging and mounting TVs.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: His name's Jeff White. He lives up the street, right?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: You know, if there's anyone who's less handy with power
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: tools than me, it's probably Jeff. But no, I went
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: with a fine Ukrainian guy named Arthur and his partner Gregory,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and they've done an amazing job with every task I've
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: given them. And I think Elodie has found much more
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: confidence in the projects that have been done around the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: house since they've taken over that task. Well, shout out
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Arthur and his partner there. Give them a nice plug
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: here of the pod. That'll wrap it up for Tweets
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of the Month. Make sure you follow Dan over on X.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: He's at The Jew.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: Hi, it's Kim Badir with City of Tacoma.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: Venues and Events, appearing on Promoter 101. Glad to represent
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: all Canadians everywhere, particularly those who have landed in the U.S.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Of A.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: We are thrilled for this month's featured interview. Dan sat
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: down with Pickle Entertainment's Scott Sokol to talk about the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: ins and outs of boutique agencies that he's been working
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: in since the early 90s, including some of the biggest
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: acts in metal. from Hellstrom to Slayer to Mastodon. From
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: his education to his philosophy, it is a full-circle interview.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Please enjoy Scott Skolko from Pinnacle Entertainment.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Very excited to have Scott Sokol joining us from Pinnacle Entertainment,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: one of the few agencies from upstate New York. And yet,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: of all of the agencies in the business, been a
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: boutique for decades and always in the forefront of the conversation.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: You guys always have a couple acts on the bigger
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: levels doing the circuits and have stayed relevant for years.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: So welcome to the podcast and thank you so much
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: for making time, Scott. Thank you for having me. So
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: early on, John Dipmore started Pinnacle and had great success, right?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: You're talking like Oasis and some of the biggest metal
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: bands in the world and the Spin Doctors. Great things
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: very early on when you saw a lot of those
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: size acts living at the William Morris' ICM, CAA, maybe Premiere.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Very few outside that world. John was able to build
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: an agency and bring in guys like yourself, And have
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: that success.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And random bands along the way of different skill styles.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of the metal bands, the white zombies,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: the Panteras, the descendants.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: The mighty, mighty Bostos. Is that right? That is correct.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: So how does that happen?
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: How does an agency survive the poaching lane of the
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: big agencies the way that Pinnacle has for so many decades?
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think we just really instilled loyalty from both,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: you know, the people that worked there and worked at
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Pinnacle and also the people, the managers that work with
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: us and the artists, you know, you mentioned the spin doctors,
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: the spin doctors got started. You know, when I started
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: working there and John started the agency in 1990, and
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: it was him, myself, and a woman named Vicki Wenzel.
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: The spin doctors are a good example where they worked
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: for two.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: Years, three years.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: And then we ended up doing a letter writing campaign
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: to radio stations, i.e. we had the band in probably
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: a dozen cities where they could sell out the 1,000-seater,
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: the 2,000-seater. So we went to the local radio stations
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: and asked them to write a letter that we would
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: send to, at the time, the president of Epic Records
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: was Richard Griffiths.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: And we would just fax. We were faxing stuff.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: All these letters saying, hey, the band sold out, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: this theater or that venue in our market. Can you
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: service us with a single to play? And we basically
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: did a letter writing campaign. Probably by the time we
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: were done, we had two dozen radio stations from coast
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: to coast sending letters. And David Sonnenberg, who was the
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: manager at the time, was like, you know, he was
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the one, you know, working with us and working with
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: Richard Griffiths and just saying, hey, Let's, let's take something
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: to radio. Look, look, look what the band is doing.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: People are asking for the song or for a song.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Let's give it to them. And so it just sort
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: of built off of that. But I mean, it was
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: the extra time and effort I think put into that
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: building it, getting people to do things that they wouldn't
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: normally do to get you know, the band to the
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: next level. And then it just sort of started rolling where,
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: you know, radio started playing, you know, the original two
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: dozen stations started playing and then it kind of spread
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: from there and then MTV and it just went and went.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: But that's a good example of something where it was
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: just the extra added thought going into it that we
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: had the time to do to make it work, you know, and,
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: you know, David Sonnenberg as well. And Richard Griffiths, everybody
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: was hand-in-hand responsible, but that kind of came, that whole
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: thing came from the road and from us coming up
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: in conjunction with Sonnenberg with something.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Different to do and to deliver to Richard. How did
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: you wind up at Pinnacle? How did you and Dittmar
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: come together?
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: I was coming out of college and when I was
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: in college, I was doing two things. I was writing
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: for the, I was the entertainment editor of our paper
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: and I was also working on the concert committee. And coincidentally,
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: on that concert committee was Larry Webben, who's over at
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: the team right now. And we just started going and
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: getting things done. In fact, I was looking for something.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: And also Mike Taylor, who unfortunately, he was the older,
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: the senior member.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, he passed away.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: And I was looking back in 2023, but he was
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: the senior guy over there.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: He was a year older. I was in the middle.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Larry was... Lyra was a year younger.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: But I was doing that and doing the paper. And
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: with the paper, I was basically getting free CDs and
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: free concert tickets. And just at the time, publicists asked
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: for a tear sheet if you reviewed a show. They
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: just wanted a thick book. They didn't care that it
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: was in a school newspaper that was, who knows, of
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: 10 people reading it or 10,000. And then when I
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: was graduating, I thought I wanted to write.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: a band that I was quote unquote managing that I
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: was friends with said, Hey, we just got an indie
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: record deal. And our publicist is this woman named Ida
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: Langsom and she's the publicist for the remotes. So I
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: heard that and I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: And then at the same time I had discovered the
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: band mother love bone. My entire universe was flipped on
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: its head because I was definitely one of those guys
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: where it was Metallica to Motley Crue and everything in between.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: And then I saw that. And I was like, okay,
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: this is something different. This is amazing. Life-changing experience. Met
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: those guys, hung with those guys.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: It was like 91-ish, give or take?
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: I was going to say, it had to be like 89, 90,
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: right in there.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Right before Ghost had it really happened.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Right. So I was still in school and I was
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: speaking with a woman over at Concrete Marketing and who
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: was the liaison for Mother Love Bone. And I had
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: gone to a bunch of their shows, followed them up
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: and down the West Coast, kind of became friendly with
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: the guys. And I said, when I was leaving school,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, it's amazing. You get to work with them.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: I want to do your job. And she said to me, no,
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: you don't. My job sucks.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, really? And she said, what do you like?
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: What's the thing that you like the most? And I said,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: go into the shows. She said, you should work at
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: an agency, which I had no idea what that was.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: And she said, I know a guy who's leaving an
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: agency and starting a new one. You should talk to him.
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: And she put me in touch with John. And here
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: we are for about, I want to say the better
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: part of the year I was working. There wasn't enough
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: work to be full time at either one. So I
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: did both. I split my week between the two for
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: the better part of a year.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: And then.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: At the end of the year, they both said, okay,
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: we have enough work, you know, got to come full-time
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: or it was less than a year. And which do
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: you want to do? And Ida had been in business
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: for a decade, maybe more. And John had been in
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: business for, you know, Pinnacle had been in business for
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: like six, eight months.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, you know what? I saw what the.
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: Publicity thing was, which is the Ramones were cool and
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: hanging out with the Ramones was cool. But the rest
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: of the artists, it was just a paycheck. And most
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: of them really weren't very good. And I want to say, I,
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: and I really had an awakening to that when I
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: was tasked with having an article written in billboard for
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: one of these artists that I was just like, oh,
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: this is bad.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: It's so bad.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: But I called the person who was supposed to write about,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: I called the writer and And I'm like.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know, can you get the story and whatever?
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: And he stopped me and he said, if you can
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: tell me one good thing about this artist, I will
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: write the article.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And I paused and I said, well, you know what?
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I can't.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: And he said, you know, I appreciate that. And because
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: you were honest with me, I'll write the article. But
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: at that point in time, I was like, you know what?
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: This is not for me. At least with the agency involved.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: you lived and died by your taste, but you, if
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: you were passionate about a band, then you got to
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: work with them.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: And there it was. And then, you know, live or
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: die by your own taste, basically.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: And I would rather, I'd rather gamble on my own
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: taste and gamble on just a random artist writing us
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: a paycheck.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: There it is.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: And then we just kept going the first couple of years.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: I remember looking on the walls and seeing gold and
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: platinum records from, like, Metallica, because John had worked on
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: the first two Metallica records.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: He was their agent. The Scorpions, when he.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: Was at FBI, he'd worked on the Scorpions, and there
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: might have been something from the police or Sting or something.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: So he had a handful of gold and platinum records.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: I remember thinking to myself, I want one of those. Someday,
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: one of those. And we just, we signed... We had
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: some established acts. We had two semi-established acts. One was Badlands,
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: which was Jakey Lee's band from Ozzy. And then the
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: other was a band called Savatage, which is still kicking around.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: They were managed by John Goldwater. I can't recall who
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: Badlands was managed by. And then we had these two
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: new bands that were just in the process of getting
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: record deals. The Spin Doctors had released... like a live EP.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: And Pantera had just had gotten the new singer and
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: just got signed to a brand new label called ATCO,
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: which was Division of Atlantic. And it was hard because
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: the Spin Doctors meant like 200 people in New York
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: and nothing anywhere else.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: But we just thought they were great.
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: And Pantera- It meant like four or 500 people in
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: Dallas and nothing anywhere else.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: It was just a slog.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: I remember getting told when we were pitching Pantera for
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: tours there, we would get told, eh, they're just like
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: a shitty Metallica. I don't even know why you're wasting
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: your time by other agents saying this.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And it was just, it, and.
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately, or fortunately, it kind of gave the wherewithal to,
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: all right, no matter what happens, I'm going to have
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: to make this go myself. That was always the attitude.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: And it's just, you know, even with White Zombie, I
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: can remember when it started, it was so out there.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: The first tour we pitched him for, you know, we
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: were like, okay, well, we meet a little bit of
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: people who are really cool and blah, blah, blah. And
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: I remember, I can't remember the act, but the agent
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: came back and said, you know what? If you guys
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: pay us $ 500 a show, we'll put you on the tour.
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: And I was just like, you know what?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Fuck this.
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: We just went out there and just built it, built
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: it on our own, did little packages and different things
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: till things just caught, you know, and with them, it
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: was sort of, it was building and building and building.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: And then the Beavis and butthead thing took it to
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: another level, you know, and it's been like that since
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: day one, just building something that people that you had
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: to get people to see your vision, to share your vision.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: You know, we can, if I think, in my opinion,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: no matter if it's a club, a theater, an arena,
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: a stadium, if you're passionate about an artist, you can
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: drive them to those levels. I feel that I believe
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: that because I've done it and everyone here's done it
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: and they've seen how it works. And it's just us
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: just driving it, you know, obviously along with management and
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: the artist, It's just everybody buying in and we'll drive
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: it and we'll worry about, you know, these days we'll
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: worry about if TikTok makes a thing out of it later.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: But at this, at this point, we're just going to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: drive it. And because we think they're awesome.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: And we always had the philosophy of, we just don't
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: want to sign a hundred acts and hope one of
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: them sticks. Let's sign the one that we really believe
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: in and make it stick.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: That's really. And so there, there's, there's a whole thing
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in a nutshell. Well, I got some questions based on
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: some of the stuff he said. So let's do some
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: background based on what you said. Where did you and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Webman apparently go to college?
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: We both went to college and Mike Taylor as well
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: Pretty much at that time. Love it. Okay.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: At the time, I thought it was normal because, hey,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: I didn't go anywhere else. We were so invested in
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: music that we had a pub that had a better
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: sound system than what was probably a hundred or 200
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: capacity venues should have. And we had to book it
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: twice a week with live acts. So, you know, we
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: college concert committee.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: College concert committee. So aside from that, you know, once
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: a semester, big show outside or whatever, uh, twice a week,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: you'd have this. I would, you know, Larry was way
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: more involved and Larry and Mike were way more involved
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: in that. I was there for, you know, a shorter
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: period of time doing that. But the fact that we
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: had to do it twice a week made it so, okay,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: we really had to know what our stuff, we had
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: to know people's tastes because if you had too many
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: times where the bands played and there was no one there, well,
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: then someone else was going to take over, you know,
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: and you had a budget. You know, so obviously no
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: school that I'm aware of does that anymore. But it
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: was very unusual at the time. We got lucky and
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: had no idea that that was something unusual. We thought
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: that's what everybody did.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: You made a comment about the fax machine being a thing.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And at the time I was thinking about the thermo paper,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, it's the last time we'd stock thermo
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: paper or turn on a fax machine.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: And every once in a while you see someone's signature.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: It still has the fax numbers.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: Get a venue, a new venue, a PAC or something
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that wants you to fill out an application the first
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: time you do a show with them. And they have
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: your fax number still on their form. And just like, really?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Is this form that old? That one hit me. The
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: idea of getting a hangout with the Ramones. I mean,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: obviously you're talking about this is 10 years after rock
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: and roll high school happened, but like, So how iconic
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: were they at that moment? Cause they're the original punk
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: band and they'd been at that level for a while.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: So they had to be the coolest thing in the world.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned it was, that was the one upside
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: was the Ramones, the rest of them you weren't into,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: but right. It still had to be just such a
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: huge thing hanging out with the Ramones.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: The weird thing was I was 22 years old and
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: really didn't appreciate it.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: It was like, okay.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: Joey's calling in, you got to talk to him and
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: then set them up for this interview and tell them,
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: you know, put it and stay online, blah, blah, blah.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: So you do that. Or I think it was Gary Kerfirst.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Was that the manager? It sounds right.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: I think I see if my memory may or may
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: not be correct on that. And then it'd be like, Oh,
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: Joey wants to go to the CBGBs. Can you go
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: with him? You know, see a show tonight. And it's
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: just like, it was like, cause it was.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Work and I was a kid and they were They
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: were putting out best of albums.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: They might have had volumes one, two, three, or something
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: like that. That was the campaign. It wasn't necessarily new music.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: I think they were obviously on a very upper momentum
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: for a long time and they just leveled out.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I think I was there when they had leveled out.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: It was just one of.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: Those things where I knew who they were, I appreciated
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: their music, but it was work. So I wish if
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: I could have gone back in time, I would have
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: spent way more time with them and just talked their
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: ears off way more than I actually did.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Just to clarify so people don't send me the emails
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: that I know are already coming, Danny Fields and Linda
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Stein originally managed.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: The Ramones and then Gary Kerfer. So please don't send
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the emails. I looked it up. When I was doing it,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: it was Gary Kerfer. Right, right, right. But I know
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get the emails from people telling me
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the timeline. Right, okay. Just to acknowledge it because... Save
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the emails. Don't fill my inbox. Right. This was 1990, 91,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: right in there. So I, and speaking of emails, one
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: of my favorite things early on with podcasts is John
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Dittmore would send me emails. And if we had a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: guest on and they told a story and he was
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: involved in any way in that story, he would say
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: not for publication, but that's not what happens. Here's what happened.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Or call it when you have a moment, I'll break
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: it down for you. Cause it's a little bit of
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: a long story, but. It's a good story, but they
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: only told a piece of it and they didn't really
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: get it right. And his version nine times out of
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: 10 was so detailed and so amazing that it was like, okay,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: like that was the, I wish, I wish we would
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: have aired that version of it. But like there was,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: and there's constantly this thing, everybody makes themselves the center
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: of the story a little bit. John was great about,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: that's not how it played out. And there were so
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: many legendary acts that broke in his tenure. So it was,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: there was a lot that came over that you get
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: a record guy on or a venue guy or a promoter. Or,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: you know, an agent or whatever telling a story about
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: an act. And if John was involved and he thought
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: that it was misrepresented, he'd send me the note.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, you know what? Maybe not exactly accurate. Right. Usually,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and this was kind of our ethos from day one,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: as much fun as this is, and as much as
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: basically what we're doing is bringing the party to town
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: as far as, you know, the artists go or whatever,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the show is.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: It's still a job. You know, it's, I guess it
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: kind of came natural. I don't remember an actual sit
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: down where this is how things are going to run,
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: but we, we never drank at shows. We never, you know,
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: we always, you know, dressed properly. It was always like, Hey,
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: as much as, you know, this is fun and it's
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: fun for everybody here.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: It's still a job.
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: So you have to act appropriately and look and act appropriately.
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: So a lot of times when, the record label guys
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: needs to be poured into the back of a taxi
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: cab or needs a ride home or the, or anybody
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: else involved. It was, you know, we were probably one
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: of the few sober people before and after the show.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Well, all of you. Yeah. That's, um, very on music industry. Yeah.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: It just, it was just a thing. You know what?
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I never wanted that to be a thing.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be on my toes in case anybody, uh,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: You know, something went in case something went wrong. You know,
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: I wanted to make sure that, you know, and I
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: always had that ingrained in me that I want to
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: be on my toes. And there's definitely been incidents where before, during,
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: after a show, there was a problem. And if I
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: would have been, you know, wasted, it never would have
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: gotten solved properly. And I think people, you know, you're
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: always looked at, you know, if you, I always think
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: about it like this, if I'm totally out of my
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: head at a show, An artist is going to remember
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: that when there's a problem that I can't fix. That's
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: in a lot of times, that's the only thing they
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: would remember, you know, you at your worst. So I
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: try not to do that. That's just, you know, I
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: instill that in everyone today. It's just like, don't get
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: wasted at a show. You want to get wasted on
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: your own time. Go, go, go to a different show.
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: If you want to get wasted, just don't go to
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: one of ours.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: So as an agency from the early get go, you
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: guys have always been on both sides and you were
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: talking about Pantera. And spin doctors. And even now it's
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: like you guys represent a spectrum and don't really compete
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: with yourself in a lot of cases.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: We definitely represent a spectrum of artists. My taste in
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: music is such that I'll, I'll go back to the first,
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: like when CD, I was always an audiophile and it
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: drove me crazy that when you would get a record,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: either eventually it's scratched or when you get a brand
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: new record and it was staticky.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: So you'd hear the static. it would drive me bananas.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: I was always like, I, so when CDs came out,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, holla frigging Luia.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: Something that doesn't have these issues. And the first seat,
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: two CDs that I bought one, it was Madonna's first
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: album and Ozzy Osbourne's second album. So that was always
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: my taste in music. I mean, some of my favorite
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: shows that I've seen, and just to give you an idea.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: Were, you know, I pink, Amazing. Ramstein, amazing.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: I just saw one of my top 10 shows that
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: I've ever seen two weeks ago. I saw Muse in Milwaukee. Amazing.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: I love a great performer, a great show. It doesn't
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: matter what type of music they do. They just have
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: to move me. The recording, and it doesn't matter. The
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: shows that I just mentioned are arena-sized shows, but it's
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: a club. I just need to be moved by it,
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: feel an emotion. doesn't make a difference what type of
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: music it is.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really big discrepancy between pop, metal, and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: different worlds. And it's obviously got to give you the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: ability to book a multiple of acts if you're legitimately
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: interested in different genres, which I think if you listen
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to most people's Spotify list, you'd see that they don't
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: tend to listen to the same thing all day long,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: that it tends to float genre to genre, that you'll
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: find a country fan that's also into pop music. Yeah,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: I listen to as much as my Spotify age, which
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: is hysterical, is 17. So I listen to as much
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Slayer as I listen to Miley Cyrus, and that will
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: be corroborated by anyone in my office. So it's just
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: one of those things. I just like great music. It
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily matter the genre. Well, and I think the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: bands that you book represent that, right? Like Keen, Hailstorm, Slayer,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: that pretty.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: Like, I mean, Hey, it's all these different things. I mean,
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: we have a new artist that Olivia, uh, in my
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: office was working on called bank holiday who are reminiscent
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: in my mind to that Brit pop movement, brand new
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: band that released one single so far. So probably most
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: people in the least in the U S really won't know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: but that's like that. You know, we have a band
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: from the UK also called panic shack, you know, it's,
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: just something different and it it moved us all you
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: know that that's the type of thing we like you
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: know it's really that simple you know does it move
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: us and that's i guess that's also something unique to
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: to the agency is that we work fully as a
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: team everything's a team effort everybody's bouncing stuff off each
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: other and we sign things as a team and i'm
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: not saying that okay you've got six people working on
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: a project what i'm saying is hey every person says
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: here's a new band what do you think And everybody
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: gives their input.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Hey, we really like this, we really don't. And that
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: kind of keeps.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Our roster small and focused. That's always been the philosophy,
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: literally going back to 1990.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm sheeting right now to look at a full-star roster.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: And it's got a lot of acts that you represent
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: for North America, but also shows South America for some, Asia, Australia.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: So it's a lot of global presence. So as a
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: boutique agency, you guys are... Working.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: The world in a lot of these cases, act for act,
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: does that create challenge when you're signing X and booking
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: them in different places across.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: The world where you may not know the routing as
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: well as you probably have it built into your head
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: on how to get to Toronto from Detroit?
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: Like the only territory that we don't really, uh, dip
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: into is Europe because it's sort of like here where
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: you gotta be at the ground level. you know, for
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: a new act to really know where the, the right
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: venue on the right night, the right promoter, you know,
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: et cetera. You know, when you get to arena level, whatever, Hey,
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: you're probably, you know, it's a handful of people that
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: are doing the artists in, in all the territories. So
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: that's what, that's one thing, but like South America, there's,
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: you know, it, it's, it's a, it's not even like here.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: There's just many people that I trust book artists through
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: South America that as I trust to book artists in
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: the state of New York. So it's a limited amount
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: of people or the state of California. It's like, it's
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: a limited amount of people that I actually trust to
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: shepherd our artists through the territory. Same thing with Australia,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: same thing in, in Japan. It's just after doing this
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: for 36 years, I've got the, I've got the people
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: that I a hundred percent can send them there and
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: not worry about it. I like to sleep at night. So,
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: I guess that's one thing. So it's a little bit easier.
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: I think Europe's a little different and the UK.
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: So Slayer reunited after breaking up and declaring.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: There would be no more shows. Well, I actually declared
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: that there would be no more tours.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: So they were very specific about that, which they have
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: not done.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Right. They've been, they picked some festivals and some big
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: one-off markets, right? Right. They've popped around, but I think
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: everybody thought they were done as far as the line. Right. So,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: It's it clearly seemed like Carrie wasn't ready to be
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: done and convinced the guys to come back is what
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: seemed like from the outside. But I think everyone's happy
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: that at least in the metal world, they're back together.
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: Right. I was going to say, and I don't think
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: it's any one person as much as it was a group.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: It's Carrie and Tom together, always operating together along with
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: Rick sales and Kristen Mulder and Ernie Gonzalez, who all
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: work on the project with us. And it's, it's a group.
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: decision with what they want to do. Plus, Carrie has
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: his own thing going, which is fantastic in its own right.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: They're clearly bigger now than they've ever been. The time
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: off has made fans very excited about them coming back.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: And clearly, the shows they're doing and the places they're
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: picking are working up very well. And they're definitely picking
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: their spots. It's got to be a great thing as
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: an agent to have a band that's done the farewell tour.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And you think maybe this maybe I've seen my last
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: commission on this band. And get the phone calls. Okay.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: We're actually ready to work again. Yeah. I mean, you
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: know what? They're great people and they just, it's one
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: of those things where, as you probably know, rock never
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: went away, but kids under, you know, people under the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: age of 40.
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: 40 really weren't paying attention to rock until about a
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: year or two ago. And then all of a sudden
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: it started coming back and kids under the age of
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: 30 were discovering rock music, you know, again, and whether
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: that be them going back to some of the you know,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: the foundations of rock like a Slayer or a System
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: of a Down or whatever, or finding new artists like
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: a Tsunami or a Knock Loose or these type of things, it,
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: you know, it's become a thing. And a Slayer's audience,
• 59:46
  Speaker 4: while still having the older fans that are in their
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: fifties and whatnot, suddenly have a new audience that's discovered
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: them that's in their twenties. And those are the people
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: that want to be in the pit because, The people
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: that are in their 50s have no desire to do
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: that anymore, for the most part.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: One of the bands you work with just is constantly
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: on the road, just workhorses. Can you talk about Hellstorm?
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're a very unique artist in the fact that
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: they're kind of game for anything. If it's got a guitar,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: or in some cases, even if it doesn't, they're up
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: for playing with it and just trying to expand into
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: new audiences. I'll give an example. Over the past 12 months,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: this has been their touring. They went out with Volbeat.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: Then they took out Lindsey Stirling. Then they're going to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: play Dates with Laney Wilson coming up. And then they're
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: going to go out with Babymetal in the fall. And
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: this is a band that over the course of their
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: career has literally toured with everyone from Eric Church to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: Avenged Sevenfold and everything in between just to continue to
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: expand their audience. I mean- I was at the Rock
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: and Roll Hall of Fame a week ago because we
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: worked on an exhibit with Lizzy Hale. It's called, I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: believe it's You Will Remember My Name. And it's basically
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: for women in hard rock. And they're a band that's
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: just kind of game from mixing it up to how
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: to expand their audience.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: When you're trying to create the next tour for an
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: act like that, knowing that they could do anything playing
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: with an Eric Church or one of the biggest metal
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: bands in the world, what's the plan of attack to
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: do something to keep it creative? We put together a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: hit list with them and management. I want to say
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: there was like 75 artists on the hit list and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: it was, it ranged.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: It was Iron Maiden to Lady Gaga and everything in between.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: And we knew that, hey, you know what? We're not
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: going to get a hundred yeses and we don't need
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: a hundred yeses.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: All we need is one. And that's what it was.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: And you know, the, the yes that we got this
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: upcoming tour is baby metal because we looked at their audience.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: We're like, okay, their audience is kind of fans of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: Japanese culture and bands of comic-con. So it's way different
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: than anything the hailstorms ever played in front of. It'll
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: continue to expand their audience. You know, we saw it
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: work with Lindsey Stirling. She plays violin. So definitely not
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: a rock artist at all. And it worked extremely well.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: So that's really the thought process behind it is, Hey,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: what can we do?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: That's different. The band doesn't want to play with two
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: other hail storms. They want to play with something different.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: You've had a career that's lasted decades in the business
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: and have worked with acts of all sizes.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite part of the process? Um, well, there's
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: two things really. The first one is, and you know what?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: And it, it comes, uh, an established artist said this
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: to myself or the manager about a month or two ago.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: And then another artist, a brand new artist said it
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: to me a about six or eight months ago. And
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: this is the thing that gets me going. It's you
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: made my dream come true. And when you look into
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: somebody's eyes and they say that, whether they're 50 or
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: whether they're 25, it's just, that's what makes it all worthwhile.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: That's it. That is it.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: You're doing that for those artists when you're transporting the fans,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: even for 90 minutes. that it's like the best feeling
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: in the world to see people going crazy for mastodon
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: or ministry or whoever, you know, it's just on, you know,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: it's unbelievable. And this, the younger artists that I mentioned
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: was as a band called guilt trip. And they, you know,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: they were a band that was heavily influenced by another
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: artist that we represent named machine head. And myself and
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: the singer went to the stage and, to see them
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: do their first ever us appearance. Cause they're from the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: UK and the look on their faces when one of
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 4: their heroes shows up to watch them play was just unbelievable.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: It was just such a great feeling. And then they
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: always end their set with a machine head cover. And
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: I looked to my right and the singer, uh, Rob
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: Flynn's no longer standing next to me. I'm like, damn,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: I wish he would have seen it. And I'm standing
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: at the back of the stage, just watching them play.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: And then after the show's over, they walk by me
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: and they're like, did you see it? I'm like, did
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: you see what, did I see what? It's like in
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: the Rob went into the pit when we played that song. Like,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: do you know what it's like to play that song?
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: And then one of your heroes is in the pit
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: while you're playing it, you're staring at him. And I'm
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: just like, I do not know what that's like, but
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: clearly from the smiles on your faces, it was pretty amazing.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: And just seeing, you know, that stuff, seeing mastodon play
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: with the melvins and them say this this was a
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: dream come true and they actually when they played this
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: was around sick new world they did a combined like
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: encore where the two bands played together so they rolled
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: out all the drum kits and all the guitar amps
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: and everything together and two bands played together and they
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: were just blown away but that that that happened like
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: that was a dream of theirs and i didn't even
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: know at the time that that was the dream of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: theirs and just seeing that look and all those things
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: happen within the last six, eight months. And you just
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: see it time and time again. You know, I mentioned
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: that band Pankshack, they did their first tour of America.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: Most of it sold out. They were like, this is unbelievable.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: This is what it's like. You know, they were in
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: a sprinter van. They're like, and this was the greatest
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: touring vehicle ever. I'm like, please tell me that 10
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: years from now.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: But you know, just that type of thing, seeing artists grow,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: seeing a band like a band out, heavier than heavy
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: named peeling flesh.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: That's all of a sudden selling out all of their,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: their shows. And you're just like, okay, this is something.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: I mean, and we're just seeing one after the other
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: bank called haywire from Boston. Their shows are all selling out.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: It's just insane.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: And it's just, or the Inova, this, a very unusual
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: band from Germany. And they're out merging almost everybody on
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the tour. And you're just like, okay, this is working
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: and just like the new bands, sorry, I diverged into
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: that lane.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: No, I think the idea that you're this excited about
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: your young artists is refreshing in this day and age
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: in our business.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: I love the young artists, but I also love putting
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: together the perfect package for Mastodon and then launching a
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: brand new record and just having, in my opinion, the
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: best album of their career and getting that tour launched.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Putting together the perfect bill for Slayer at the Forum
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: that I know fans will be talking about for years
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: to come and watching the shows just blow out in
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: less than 30 minutes. For next year, speaking of farewell tours,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: Ministry's gonna be doing a farewell tour with KMFDM and Pigface,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: and both of those artists are also doing their farewell tour.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: So it's like a triple farewell tour, which I don't
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: know if that's even been done before. And working with
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: Steve Davis and Al Uncle Al, as I refer to him,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: to put this stuff together and really make it work
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: and just make them, you know, just the joy that
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: not only are they're feeling from the fans and the
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: sold out shows and people going crazy, but the joy
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: the fans are feeling by being transported away for a
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: few hours from anything that's, you know, that's negative that's
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: going on with their lives, whether it be, you know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 4: the news or their their significant other or their job
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: or whatever it is that's not going well in their,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: their lives, they can be transported for at least a
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: portion of time.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: And that's what we do. That's our business. When I
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: was in high school ministry did it three nights, the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Gothic in Denver, the image of the chain link fence
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: across the front of the stage made them look so
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: fucking hardcore. I think maybe it was land of rape
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: and honey to her or something, but it was just like,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: the most intense, scary band in the world because of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: that fence. It was kind of funny because at Loadout,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: the fence came down in two seconds and it was
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: just like, it was a normal show again, but the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: show was over and it was just like, it's just
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the image. But knowing the image of the chain link
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: fence and the lighting was going to make it so dramatic,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: was so Broadway-esque and so genius. It was an amazing piece,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: but it stuck with me for 40 years. It was like,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: what a cool thing. That's it.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: That that's we're creating events. We're creating moments for people.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: And I had a moment in Detroit this earlier this week,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: I was with, um, Rick Franks and we were, I, and, uh,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: Rob Hoffman, the manager for extreme and here's extreme probably
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: close to four, you know, 40 years deep into their career.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: They're opening for Motley Crue, seeing them perform. And I
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: remember seeing them in college and, you know, and watching
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: those videos, all that stuff.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: And then seeing them be to look and sound just
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: like they did then and just blow people away. And,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and to quote Nuno, he's like, I hope
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: we are better than when you were in college with
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: 40 more years of experience under our belts. But just
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: to see that and just to see the excitement, even
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: from them, even though they've been doing this for so long,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: it was just, it's such an amazing feeling for me,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and also for the fans and just to see,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: to see fans appreciate a guitar hero again. And, and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: just great songs and a great performance to watch Gary
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: do splits off the frigging drum riser. And I'm just
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: sitting there going, he's older than me. How the hell
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: does he do that? So.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: The 35 years ago, more than words was the song
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: of the summer. Extremely hottest song.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Yup. It's gotta be a thing. Cause everybody remembers that
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: song exactly in time. It's gotta be one of those
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: things that if you're gonna perform it, you gotta nail
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: that of all of the songs. You gotta nail that one. Right. Right.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: Especially them opening Motley Crue Tesla. It's a really cool package.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: If you're in a hairband from the night, like that's
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: the chef.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Right. They're definitely, I don't have, I did a great
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: job with that package with you, Dennis and those guys.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Like that's, that's a great show. A hundred percent.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: I think they did a great job from top to bottom.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: They gave fans value. And I have to say Motley
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: Crue is performing as good as they did and sounding
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: as good as they did 10 years ago.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: More.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: I really thought they were great. I thought they had
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: a great set list and everything else. So kudos to
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 4: them for really putting something together that's special that I
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 4: think fans will remember.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Because you know what?
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: How long are these artists going to continue to go
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 4: out there and do 30-day tours?
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know. So see it while you can. It
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: was funny because I went to Denver and I bumped
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: into Pete and he was like, you staying for crew?
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm here for crew.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: He's just like, okay. He's just like, You should stay
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: for crew. I'm like, literally dude, I'm a huge Raleigh
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: crew fan. I'm here for crew. Like Def, Def Leppard
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: played earlier. They closed that show, but I thought poison
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: stole that show.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: To be honest. Oh, I'm right there with you. Poison
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: went for one of these artists that I, I thought
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, they had some hits and it
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: was a cool thing and, and whatever, but how many
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: diehard poison fans do you know?
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 4: And then seeing them perform like, okay. They're performing like
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: it's 1985. Brett Michael's voice is there.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: The band is great and they work their ass off. Right.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: The fans can act and they didn't have the production. Right.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: They played early and they smoked everyone. They totally did.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: I thought Def Leppard was way better than Motley Crue,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: but Motley Crue was the loudest show I've ever seen.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: The first time I saw Motley Crue, I want to
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: say it was on the girls, girls, girls tour. They
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: were the loudest show I'd ever seen at that point
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: in time. Like my ears were ringing for like two days.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: I remember my dad took me to see them on Dr.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Feel Good Tour because it was like the cassette. I'd
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: bought some music before, but that was the one I found.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: I became a Motley Crue fan and my dad took
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: me to the show. And I remember the next day,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: my ears were still ringing. Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: I remember I was in high school and we didn't
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: even go for Motley Crue. We went for Whitesnake because
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: Whitesnake at the time besides David Coverdale, and I can
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: remember this, it was Adrian Vandenberg on one guitar, it
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: was Vivian Campbell on the other guitar, it was Rooney
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: Sarzo on bass, and Tommy Aldridge on drums. So you
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: had the rhythm section, the infamous Ozzy Osbourne rhythm section,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: and then added to it Dio's guitar player and Adrian Vandenberg.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: So it was just like, this was a meeting of
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: the gods or whatever, as far as I was concerned.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: So I wanted to see that. And then we're like, well,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: we're here. We should stick around for Motley Crue because
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 4: Motley Crue was like, eh, that's like whatever. And then
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: saw them and we're like, whoa, wait a second.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: This is something. So packaging like that too leads to
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: what I will make the final question of the day.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: And that is when a band decides they're going to
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: tour and you get that phone call, what's the creative
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: process of where you're going to go How big are
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: you going to play? Are you going to support? Are
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: you going to headline? And where are you going to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: attack it from? How do you put that plan together?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: It basically starts with, you know, obviously the time period
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: or whatever. But if I can put, and it's more
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: of a gut feeling than anything else, because this is
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: when you're asking me for about what are the things
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: that really excite you? It's put one of the things,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: one of the top three things, putting together the perfect package,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: you know, which I kind of touched on with the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: Slayer shows that they're doing. But if you can put
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: together the perfect package, people will come. And while I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: still want to be ticket price sensitive, and one thing
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: that I drill into my guys or my people is
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: that ever since the all-in ticketing thing came around about
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: a year and a half ago, don't worry about the
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 4: ticket price that's on the offers. Just ask what the
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: ticket price is at checkout, because that's the only thing
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: the fans are going to see. So put together the package.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: strongest package that you can. The thing that the fans go,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: you know, right now artists only make money from two ways,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: ticket sales and t-shirts. So both of those fall on us.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: You know, those are the majority of the way people
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: are artists are making money. So, so they're on the
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 4: road all the time now, much more so than pre pandemic.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: So if there's 30 shows coming through, you know, name
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 4: the market Chicago, on any given month, what's going to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: make a fan go to our show over somebody else's? Well,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: the only thing better than one band that they like
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: is two bands that they like. And the only thing
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: better than two bands they like is three bands that
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: they like and so on and so forth. I used
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: to use the analogy that you got to think of
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: artists that are in someone's record collection. The record is
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: sitting next to that other record. Now it's on someone's playlist,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: but That's it. I mean, it's just really buckling down
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: and going, okay, what's going to be the package that
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: gets people so excited that it becomes an event? Because
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: ultimately that's our job is to create and help the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: artist create an event, you know, and management create this
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: event that people can't miss. And then, you know what,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: everything else will work itself out because somehow, some way,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: when you have an amazing package, the money works itself out.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: The ticket price works itself out. All the other things,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: the right venue, the right day of the week, they
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 4: all work themselves out because when, you know, and this is,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: I think, the key to everyone's success, you know, agents, promoters, managers, artists,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 4: it's all about the passion. If people can hear the
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: passion in your voice, even though maybe what you're selling
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: them may not be their favorite artist, you know, hey,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: not everyone's favorite artist is band XYZ. But if they
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: can hear it in your voice that you've put together
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: this amazing thing that you really feel it in your gut,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: they're going to go for it. They're going to go, okay,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: he believes in it. We believe in it too. And
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: they'll just go the extra mile. You know, I also
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 4: love getting my hands dirty in the marketing and the
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: look and everything else. You know, and while we do
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: have people that, you know, people that just work on
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: the marketing alone, I love getting my hands dirty in
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: marketing too, and trying to come up with ideas and promotions,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: et cetera, to help people along because you know what?
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: A promoter's got 30 shows that month. You give them
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: a little bit of help, you know, as much as
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: you can. We're all in this together as far as
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: trying to sell those tickets and sell out those houses.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: You know, it's the whole thing's a team effort.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Love that sentiment. I don't know that it's been a
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: while since I've heard an agent say something like that,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: but man, I love the philosophy. Right.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's, I mean, we're, we're in a relationship business.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, that's really what it is. So that whether
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: it's the artists, the managers, the promoters, whatever, it's all
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: about that. We're all trying to do the same thing.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: We're all brand building because the moment an artist decides
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 4: that I'm leaving the garage, you're a brand, you're building
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: your brand. That's what we're trying to do is help
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: build the brand, work on, you know, work as a
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: team effort. I mean, everybody that works at Pinnacle, the
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: one thing I can say is that we're all lifers,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 4: every single person.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: It's, as you know, because you obviously do this and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: you have a podcast dedicated to it.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: It's a 24-7 job.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you get that week off between Christmas and New
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: Year's where people usually leave you alone. But otherwise, it's 24-7.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: When are you on vacation fully where you can turn
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 4: off your phone and leave it somewhere?
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. So you have to be a lifer.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: Whether you're 25 or in your 50s, like me that's
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: it and you can make if you're a lifer and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: if you're enthusiastic about these things and passionate about these
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: things they will work that's that's just my belief i
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: love it i'll give you one parting thought that i
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: when people get too stressed out and i say this
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis internally and sometimes i say it
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: externally too like when i was growing up my best friend.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: Was a doctor. He became a doctor. He has a
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: real job, unlike the rest of us. We get to
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: Peter Pan ourselves forever. But at no point in time,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: there is never an issue where the patient dies on
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 4: the table.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: So we'll always, always be able to figure it out.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: It may take a little time, but we'll be able
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: to figure out any issue, any problem, any, anything that
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: comes up because realistically the only things we can control,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: because most of the stuff's not in our control. Um,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: but the only things we can control is our attitude
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: and our effort into putting into these things and getting
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: everybody on board, you know, with that, that's all. Gotta
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: love that. Nobody's dying. Right. At no point in time
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: have you ever worked on a show, Dan, where everybody
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: died if you did something a little bit wrong. A
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: lethal promoter, although it might be good for the ministry marketing.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: It is his final tour, so maybe on the last day,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: you never know.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: Scott, I can't thank you enough for making time for
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: us on Promoter 101.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I know I've been chasing you for a little while
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: for this, so I appreciate you agreeing to it. And
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: I'm thrilled that you had this conversation with me today
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: because it was fun. Thanks. Take care, Dan.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: This is Lenore Kinder. I work for AEG Presents, and
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: you're listening to Promoter 101. And now a quote for
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: this month, Luke. The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: This quote is brought to us by our friend Mark Twain.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Mark Twain, famous for eating frogs in the morning. You know,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: that's very in line with Mark Twain. Have you heard
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: that one, Dan? Really? Yeah. He never ate frogs in
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: the morning, but he would always say about getting started,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: if the worst thing you can do every morning is
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: swallow a frog, your day can't be that bad. An
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: analogy for doing the hard things first. Okay. I've never
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: heard that before, but I have a weird visual on
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: this one. Try it sometime. It's difficult. Going down on
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: a frog? Yeah, exactly. Jason made me try frog legs
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: when we were in Nice, and it was a little gamey. Yeah,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: a little chewy. I much preferred the gelato. By the way,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: one of the most romantic places I've ever been with
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Jason was Nice. It was summer. The sunsets were beautiful.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: People were drinking wine. Everybody was holding hands and making out.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I was with my business partner. Holding hands and maybe
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: making out. We've had some interesting moments together. This one
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: was one of the more intimate things. Although he did
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: once book us for a couple's massage in Montreal. Just
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: for laughs. It's like the regular massages are all booked,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: but they can get us in for a couple of massages.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: And that way we can both still get a good massage.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: When they write the book on you two at the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: end of it, I'm sure that'll make it somewhere in there.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: You two and Eddie Izzard and just for laughs, couples massage.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: Just for laughs in Montreal alone is its own story.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: Probably narrated by Daniel Glick.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: From Avenco when it comes together. Love it. And Nick Parkas.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: Some fun times in Montreal. This is Mary Claire Borgeli
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: from Live Nation, Promoter 101, best podcast in the music industry.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: Where in the world does the time go? Thank you
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in to this, the 247th episode
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: of Promoter 101. Until next time, friends, if you miss
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: us in between podcasts or you just want to catch up,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: drop us a line. You can hit us an email,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: steiny at promoter101. net. Thanks again so much for listening.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: We'll be back on September 24th and the last Thursday
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: of every month moving forward.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: Our September episode will feature City Winery's Michael Dorff. Hi,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: I'm Michael Dorff. I'm a founder of City Winery. I
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: also founded a little club a long time ago called
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: The Knitting Factory, and I'm excited to be on Promoter 101.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: Excited for that interview and excited for everything else. In
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: the meantime, wishing you sold-out shows for the month to come. Cheers!
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: Call your mother! All right. The buffet called Promoter 101. Oh,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: 101