Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Danny Zelisko

Transcript

Danny Zelisko · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Left That podcast. My
0:12
Speaker 1: guest today is consa promotor. Danny's a list of who's
0:16
Speaker 1: got a brand new book all excess Danny. Good to happen,
0:20
Speaker 1: Great to be here, Bob. How are you? I'm good.
0:23
Speaker 1: Let's start with the most important thing first. How do
0:26
Speaker 1: you become a member of the White Castle Hall of Fame? UM?
0:30
Speaker 1: Last year, You're good friend. Toby Mamis made me aware
0:35
Speaker 1: of the fact that Alice was going to get an
0:38
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper's corner at the new White Castle in Scottsdale.
0:44
Speaker 1: There has never been other than the Vegas White Castle
0:48
Speaker 1: on the Strip. Uh, There's never been another White Castle
0:52
Speaker 1: franchise in Arizona anywhere west of the Mississippi. UM, there
0:57
Speaker 1: are no franchises. They're all family owned. I tried to
1:01
Speaker 1: buy one forty years ago and they said we're family owned,
1:03
Speaker 1: forget it. And I ended up meeting up with these
1:07
Speaker 1: people and and and working with them with Alice for
1:10
Speaker 1: this uh grand opening. And it was no big deal,
1:14
Speaker 1: was just a couple of phone calls and so forth.
1:16
Speaker 1: But I ended up showing up there with them. I
1:18
Speaker 1: met the family, the white Castle family, that's the real
1:21
Speaker 1: last name white Castle family. And they ended up becoming
1:28
Speaker 1: friendly with me, and then I said, well, hell, John
1:31
Speaker 1: Prine should go into the Hall of Fame. I mean,
1:33
Speaker 1: he's a major white Castle lover. And and then Tommy
1:36
Speaker 1: Shaw came to town in January and we had a
1:39
Speaker 1: show and after the show, I had a crave case backstage,
1:42
Speaker 1: which the bands just go crazy for when you have
1:45
Speaker 1: White Castles. After the show for him and Tommy Shaw
1:48
Speaker 1: went crazy. So I talked to this guy at White
1:51
Speaker 1: Castle and I said, we'd like to do another Hall
1:53
Speaker 1: of Fame thing. I got John Prine and I got
1:56
Speaker 1: Tommy Shawn and I'll do it too if you want.
1:59
Speaker 1: And he he loved me, and I met him with
2:02
Speaker 1: the Alice thing, and one thing led to another, and
2:05
Speaker 1: we had this little induction ceremony in the Nashville White
2:09
Speaker 1: Castle because that's where both Tommy and Fiona Prime live.
2:13
Speaker 1: Um and uh. It was a great, great experience. So
2:18
Speaker 1: to to enhance that, they sent me out these things
2:23
Speaker 1: called Crave clutch boxes that you can go to White
2:26
Speaker 1: Castle and it's like a little suitcase and they'll put
2:29
Speaker 1: twenty Hamburgers in there for you and you walk away
2:32
Speaker 1: like it's a little briefcase. They sent me a thousand
2:35
Speaker 1: of those to send out my book into the people
2:38
Speaker 1: who are buying it online. And then they gave me
2:41
Speaker 1: coupons to to get free uh uh frozen burgers and
2:48
Speaker 1: and if you're in the town that's got real White Castle,
2:51
Speaker 1: you can go there. And they had a coupon for
2:53
Speaker 1: three burgers. So I called the dinner in a show.
2:56
Speaker 1: I sent a couple of little wine tasting glasses in
2:59
Speaker 1: the box along with the book. And everybody's really enjoyed
3:03
Speaker 1: the presentation. Yeah, the presentation is great. I was surprised.
3:06
Speaker 1: You don't normally get someone putting that much thought into it.
3:09
Speaker 1: But just to go back, the national headquarters of White
3:12
Speaker 1: Castle are were It's in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio. So
3:17
Speaker 1: did you grow up eating White Castle? I did? Um,
3:21
Speaker 1: you know, back in the fifties. Uh, you know, six kids,
3:25
Speaker 1: eight people in the house, small house. Um. Dad's an electrician.
3:30
Speaker 1: We don't go out for dinner very often. But when
3:33
Speaker 1: you can get a dozen burgers for a buck, he
3:36
Speaker 1: can be a stud and take his family out to dinner.
3:38
Speaker 1: And that's the whole idea behind that restaurant. I've always
3:42
Speaker 1: loved them for that, They've the family thing about it,
3:45
Speaker 1: and and and just the fact that they're always open
3:48
Speaker 1: and ready to feed you. I just love them. Okay.
3:50
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard from varying people about pulling all
3:53
Speaker 1: miters and going to White Castle, and they would tell
3:56
Speaker 1: you how many burgers they ate at that time. What's
3:59
Speaker 1: the greatest numbumber of white Castle burgers? You've eaten it?
4:02
Speaker 1: One time? I would have to say the one and
4:06
Speaker 1: only time I did ten was in a white Castle
4:09
Speaker 1: eating contest that Adam west Batman was the judge of.
4:14
Speaker 1: And I tied with a local TV celebrity and Phoenix,
4:18
Speaker 1: a news guy, and and immediately following the show, I
4:21
Speaker 1: went on too. He had a tour bus for a
4:23
Speaker 1: dressing room was out out in this place called Fountain Hills,
4:27
Speaker 1: and they brought a semi of white castles out there.
4:30
Speaker 1: And afterwards I said, Adam, can I use your bus?
4:33
Speaker 1: He goes, remember No number two? And I said how
4:38
Speaker 1: about a number three? And and out they went. Um.
4:44
Speaker 1: But you know, nowadays I'm a two or three White
4:47
Speaker 1: Castle guy. Those things just they're so delicious, but they
4:50
Speaker 1: ripped me up. Okay, let's switch gears again. You are
4:53
Speaker 1: a controvermot of longstanding winner shows coming back. You know, Uh,
5:00
Speaker 1: as soon as they can figure out how to do
5:02
Speaker 1: it a rapid test. Um, I think we could have shows.
5:06
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's not been done already. UM.
5:09
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a while before there's an
5:12
Speaker 1: antidote or a vaccine. UM. I think you know instead
5:17
Speaker 1: of like some places where you go, they'll they'll push
5:20
Speaker 1: a temperature gun at you and Okay, you've got a
5:23
Speaker 1: good temperature, and they allow you in, like that's all
5:25
Speaker 1: that matters. And we all know that that's not enough.
5:28
Speaker 1: You've got to know whether or not you're carrying that
5:30
Speaker 1: stuff or if people next to you are carrying it.
5:34
Speaker 1: And most people don't have it. I mean I personally
5:38
Speaker 1: would go to a concert or a baseball game if
5:41
Speaker 1: on the way in, uh, if somebody points something to
5:44
Speaker 1: me or says, here's a swab, and my swab turns
5:47
Speaker 1: a different color like a pregnancy test, and it says
5:50
Speaker 1: whether or not you're carrying. If you're not carrying, go in.
5:53
Speaker 1: If you are carrying stuff over here, we'll tell you
5:56
Speaker 1: what you need to do. Here's your money back, um,
5:59
Speaker 1: And until that can happen. I mean, right now, what
6:03
Speaker 1: are we looking at Memorial Day at this point? And
6:06
Speaker 1: that's just a guess, just like it was back in
6:09
Speaker 1: March when we started guessing for June. Nobody had any
6:12
Speaker 1: idea back then, and to sit here right now, I
6:15
Speaker 1: don't know that anybody's got any idea even better at
6:19
Speaker 1: this point. But the bottom line is for us, our
6:22
Speaker 1: economy is about selling tickets and having people working in
6:26
Speaker 1: halls and radio stations and secretaries and ushers and security
6:32
Speaker 1: and stage hands and all the rest our economy that
6:35
Speaker 1: that that runs the concert business is sitting here waiting
6:38
Speaker 1: to move. And uh, my guess is as good as
6:43
Speaker 1: yours as far as when the will happen. But it
6:46
Speaker 1: seems to me that as soon as we can get
6:49
Speaker 1: some sort of a gauge on whether or not people
6:52
Speaker 1: are carrying this terrible disease or not, and most people aren't,
6:56
Speaker 1: it's the ones that do in these small spaces that
6:59
Speaker 1: seem to spread it everywhere like wildfire. And now those
7:03
Speaker 1: are the people we got to sort out. Okay, Now,
7:07
Speaker 1: if I speak with agents, and I do, they're constantly
7:10
Speaker 1: rebooking gigs, putting holds on as a promoter. Is that
7:13
Speaker 1: something you've been doing in the last seven months. Yes, Um,
7:17
Speaker 1: we've rebooked shows and I have my best year lined
7:22
Speaker 1: up this year. And you know, I had all the travel,
7:26
Speaker 1: all the hotels, all the radio, everything's booked, and we
7:31
Speaker 1: had a systematically tear it down one by one, starting
7:34
Speaker 1: with the shows in March and April and move those
7:38
Speaker 1: because nobody knew what was going on. We moved him
7:40
Speaker 1: to June July. The next thing, you know, we're moving
7:44
Speaker 1: him to September, October, and then they're moving to next year,
7:49
Speaker 1: and now they're next summer and now their next fall.
7:52
Speaker 1: It seems ridiculous to me, um, that that this is
7:57
Speaker 1: all we're doing, and nobody's saying. I mean, when they're
7:59
Speaker 1: talking about the economy, they're talking about Wall Street, they're
8:02
Speaker 1: not talking about regular people. Regular people don't participate in
8:06
Speaker 1: Wall Street. They go to concerts, they go to restaurants,
8:09
Speaker 1: you know, And and and we we've got to be able
8:14
Speaker 1: to determine whether or not people are sick or not
8:16
Speaker 1: so that we can have some sort of life. That
8:19
Speaker 1: what we're doing right now is a half life. You know,
8:21
Speaker 1: it's okay, So how many full time people let's talk
8:26
Speaker 1: prior to the virus. How many full time people did
8:29
Speaker 1: you have at Dennis Alescope Presents, UM just six and
8:34
Speaker 1: now we have five. One guy left and he went
8:38
Speaker 1: on to do something else, but everybody else uh is
8:41
Speaker 1: still there. Uh. They accepted reduced pay and and all
8:47
Speaker 1: of a sudden, finishing this book became a priority for me.
8:53
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to let everybody go. I mean
8:55
Speaker 1: I was. I was hoping I wouldn't lose them, like
8:58
Speaker 1: so many people have lost rate employees because of this.
9:02
Speaker 1: They got to eat. So Fortunately, I think they haven't
9:07
Speaker 1: told me different that I'm giving them enough to live on,
9:11
Speaker 1: and I hope it is enough, UM, because I'd like
9:14
Speaker 1: to keep things going as it is. I'm not going
9:16
Speaker 1: to learn how to do books UM and and art
9:20
Speaker 1: and and all different kinds of stuff that I still
9:23
Speaker 1: have to do while I'm maintaining these shows that have
9:26
Speaker 1: been postponed one time after another. We still got to do,
9:31
Speaker 1: you know, dealings with the ticketing people at halls and
9:34
Speaker 1: and you know advertising and website stuff, and you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: it's like we're still open to a degree, but we're
9:43
Speaker 1: just not working putting on shows the way that we
9:46
Speaker 1: used to. We're waiting to be able to do that now.
9:49
Speaker 1: Right now, you're in Maui. How long have you been
9:51
Speaker 1: in Maui? I got here last Friday. Okay, you weren't
9:58
Speaker 1: afraid to get on a plane. No, no, you know,
10:02
Speaker 1: I mean I we weren't able to come to Maui
10:06
Speaker 1: at all this year. We uh, we own a place
10:10
Speaker 1: over here in Hannah with a few friends, and we
10:15
Speaker 1: haven't been able to come here since February because they
10:17
Speaker 1: wanted a two week quarantine. Now what they do is
10:21
Speaker 1: you have to have a test within seventy two hours
10:24
Speaker 1: and you can um come over here as long as
10:28
Speaker 1: it's negative and you don't have to go through the
10:30
Speaker 1: quarantine process. Um. No, I'm not afraid to get on
10:34
Speaker 1: a plane. They I've been on a number of planes
10:37
Speaker 1: people who have been spaced around. Um, everybody's got their
10:41
Speaker 1: mask on and and and I think for by and large,
10:45
Speaker 1: people aren't traveling if they're not feeling well. And they
10:48
Speaker 1: ask you straight up, of course you could lie, but
10:50
Speaker 1: what good would that do? Kind of like lying about
10:53
Speaker 1: a golf score. It doesn't help. Um. So yeah, I
10:57
Speaker 1: had no problem. I had no problem getting on a plane. Um,
11:01
Speaker 1: we're pretty much sequestioned here. While we're here, there's there's
11:05
Speaker 1: nobody here. There's no tourism happening either. And okay, but
11:09
Speaker 1: Mami is known for having a lot of residents from
11:12
Speaker 1: the music business, both business people and creative people. Chef
11:17
Speaker 1: Gordon seems to be the straw that stirs the drink.
11:20
Speaker 1: So is there anything going on with those people? And
11:23
Speaker 1: if not, tell us the way it used to be. Well, Um,
11:28
Speaker 1: you know, chef just had a baby and and uh,
11:31
Speaker 1: he's the he's the youngest seventy five year old daddy
11:34
Speaker 1: I've ever met. Um. As a matter of fact, Friday,
11:37
Speaker 1: we're going over to the other side and staying with
11:40
Speaker 1: him for two days. His wife said, has decided, I'm
11:46
Speaker 1: I'm clean, and let's leave my wife. We're clean and
11:49
Speaker 1: we can stay with them for a couple of days. Um.
11:54
Speaker 1: You know, uh, things, you know, I mean, things have changed,
11:59
Speaker 1: your ob Just think because we can't go back and
12:01
Speaker 1: forth the way that we used to. Um, shop isn't
12:05
Speaker 1: having this Christmas show this year for the first time
12:08
Speaker 1: and I don't know how many years. Uh, it's kind
12:13
Speaker 1: of a reboot the whole thing, you know. Okay, do
12:18
Speaker 1: you still get as excited about a show as you
12:21
Speaker 1: did at the beginning. For the most part, yes, because
12:26
Speaker 1: a lot of the people that I'm working with after
12:29
Speaker 1: all these years are people that I've worked with for
12:32
Speaker 1: so long. This is our chance to get together and
12:35
Speaker 1: be together. We like Jackson Brown or Alan Parsons, for example,
12:41
Speaker 1: or Gordon Lightfoot or Willie Nelson. They're always touring and
12:45
Speaker 1: and these are some of the guys that I do
12:47
Speaker 1: a lot of shows with. They're always on the road.
12:49
Speaker 1: They're not the kind of people that you just call
12:51
Speaker 1: up and go out to dinner with because they're all
12:54
Speaker 1: of us are always working, We're always somewhere, we're always
12:57
Speaker 1: doing something. So our way of getting together is doing concerts.
13:01
Speaker 1: So every time I get a chance to see one
13:03
Speaker 1: of these guys and be with them for more than
13:05
Speaker 1: one night, two nights, three nights. I mean, I've been
13:07
Speaker 1: going all over the country with Parsons and Frankie Valley. Um,
13:12
Speaker 1: you know, I had eighteen shows on sale Frankie Valley
13:15
Speaker 1: when all this took place, and and we're both chomping
13:18
Speaker 1: at the bed to go back and do these shows.
13:20
Speaker 1: He's another one of the youngest eighty five year old
13:22
Speaker 1: people I've ever met. Um, you know, we're we're all
13:27
Speaker 1: just we're all just chomping at the bed to go
13:29
Speaker 1: to work. And uh, I love getting around with these guys.
13:33
Speaker 1: It's it's really a great way to go through life. Okay,
13:36
Speaker 1: so you talk to a lot of promoters of our vintage.
13:38
Speaker 1: You're a little older who came of age with the Beatles,
13:42
Speaker 1: and a lot of them at this point had a
13:45
Speaker 1: younger person in the office who books talent because they
13:48
Speaker 1: don't believe they're in touch other than with the legendary
13:51
Speaker 1: acts that you just mentioned. Is that the case with
13:53
Speaker 1: you in your office and some of the shows you do, well, No,
13:58
Speaker 1: I mean I'm the only one that really does the
14:00
Speaker 1: booking and and prior to this, I did most of
14:05
Speaker 1: my own booking. Um yeah, I mean I get terribly
14:08
Speaker 1: excited about shows. I love the whole process. Um. I
14:13
Speaker 1: love that people come to these shows and this is
14:16
Speaker 1: their their escape and it's their release and and being
14:21
Speaker 1: with friends or even just musicians, great ones. It's so
14:26
Speaker 1: great to bring all that together and have these people
14:30
Speaker 1: under one roof and and explode together, you know, like
14:34
Speaker 1: coming together as one. It's uh. I think it's one
14:37
Speaker 1: of the greatest, greatest things you can do. Okay, So
14:41
Speaker 1: at this point you're presenting under Danny's Alisco presents. Is
14:45
Speaker 1: it all your money or do you have any partners
14:47
Speaker 1: because you've had partners in the past. I have had
14:50
Speaker 1: partners in the past. No, this is this is all
14:52
Speaker 1: my money. Um. In two thousand and eleven, I went
14:56
Speaker 1: back on my own after five years with Live Nation,
15:00
Speaker 1: in five years with the Clear Channel, which also included SFCX,
15:05
Speaker 1: who I originally sold to, and and nowadays there I
15:10
Speaker 1: don't really have the need for the younger guy in
15:12
Speaker 1: the office, although I would love one, because there's been
15:15
Speaker 1: a couple of other people who used to work for
15:18
Speaker 1: me who have put up some really cool clubs in Phoenix.
15:23
Speaker 1: Charlie Leavy did the Crescent Ballroom and the Van Buren,
15:28
Speaker 1: both of which I've booked shows in, and he does
15:32
Speaker 1: such an amazing job. It would be stupid for me
15:35
Speaker 1: to compete with a guy like him, who knows everything
15:38
Speaker 1: I know and everything he knows, and he has the venues.
15:42
Speaker 1: So there there's no point in me doing that anymore.
15:45
Speaker 1: When when something comes up and somebody wants me to
15:47
Speaker 1: work with them, of course I'll do it, and I
15:49
Speaker 1: want to do it. I love discovering new bands, but
15:52
Speaker 1: at this point it's sixty six years old. I'm happy
15:56
Speaker 1: to be doing the business that I'm doing, with the
15:59
Speaker 1: you know, with the ends that I'm doing. It's like
16:01
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of left me alone in this little genre
16:05
Speaker 1: of promoting um and and I'm having a really good
16:09
Speaker 1: time doing it. I'm generally into small halls five up
16:14
Speaker 1: to say, four thousands, and and that's that's where I'm
16:18
Speaker 1: working these days. I can't afford to be in the
16:20
Speaker 1: game with people who are getting million dollar guarantees every night,
16:24
Speaker 1: and they'll write him a check for thirty million dollars
16:27
Speaker 1: for a tour as a deposit. You know that. That's
16:30
Speaker 1: what those guys do. God bless them. Good for them.
16:33
Speaker 1: I used to do that, but I'm afraid, you know
16:36
Speaker 1: that part of my life is pretty much over. Okay.
16:39
Speaker 1: Prior to the roll up, the acts and agents had
16:43
Speaker 1: special relationships with the promoters such that they might on
16:47
Speaker 1: a losing show, they might the act might give money back.
16:51
Speaker 1: Now that you're independent in this post roll up world,
16:55
Speaker 1: does that apply? Because no one gives money back to
16:57
Speaker 1: Live Nation. Okay, it's a public company. They don't and
17:00
Speaker 1: only not to age either. But does that still happen today?
17:03
Speaker 1: If you have a losing show, it has happened, you know.
17:07
Speaker 1: You know, most people aren't really willing to give up money,
17:12
Speaker 1: especially especially after all this. But prior to this, UM,
17:18
Speaker 1: it was very well, it was very rare that I
17:21
Speaker 1: ever had to ask. Not to brag, but generally speaking,
17:26
Speaker 1: I mean, if if I lose money on five shows
17:30
Speaker 1: in a year, that's a lot. I don't make stupid
17:35
Speaker 1: mistakes like I used to because I don't have all
17:38
Speaker 1: of the arena shows to cover my ask for taking
17:41
Speaker 1: unnecessary risks to do favors for people, for example. So nowadays,
17:47
Speaker 1: I mean I looked at it the recently. I don't
17:51
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of months ago, and in the
17:54
Speaker 1: last couple of years, I'd only had a handful of
17:56
Speaker 1: losers and they were small ones. I haven't been eaten
18:00
Speaker 1: up badly in a long time where I would really
18:03
Speaker 1: genuinely need to go ask somebody for reduction in your
18:07
Speaker 1: forty year career, Um, what was your biggest loser? I
18:16
Speaker 1: would have to Yeah, well, there's there's no question h
18:21
Speaker 1: New Year's pre New Year's weekend at the millennium. I
18:28
Speaker 1: did December with the Eagles and December thirty one in
18:34
Speaker 1: January one, which is a Friday Saturday with Bette Midler.
18:38
Speaker 1: Both of them were excuse me, both of them were
18:40
Speaker 1: at Mandalais Bay, and this is when Mandalai wasn't owned
18:46
Speaker 1: by MGM, so they were on their own. MGM was
18:49
Speaker 1: on their own and was great to have both buildings
18:52
Speaker 1: there because one would often be booked and you'd have
18:56
Speaker 1: to go to the other one. Now, what were what
18:58
Speaker 1: were the capacities for those of two who don't know, Well,
19:01
Speaker 1: MGM is uh fourteen fifteen thousand, that's the biggest one,
19:07
Speaker 1: and Mandalay if you went all the way around, would
19:10
Speaker 1: be about eleven thousand, but front and sides about nine thousand.
19:15
Speaker 1: So you could charge more for tickets at Mandlake because
19:18
Speaker 1: he had less to sell um but it was still,
19:22
Speaker 1: you know, a high, highly regarded building. So Barbara Streisand
19:28
Speaker 1: was booked into MGM on New Year's Eve and UM
19:34
Speaker 1: I started with Tina Turner. Tina Turner was gonna be
19:37
Speaker 1: my show, was booking with Carol Keincel at Cia and
19:41
Speaker 1: suddenly Howard Grows got into the picture and it went
19:44
Speaker 1: from me doing Tina Turner on one night New Year's
19:47
Speaker 1: Eve in Vegas. That was the only thing I was
19:49
Speaker 1: gonna do, and it would have been perfect. Tina was
19:52
Speaker 1: as hot as could be in Vegas, just absolutely perfect
19:57
Speaker 1: mix of rock and show business. And uh, Howard got involved,
20:02
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, he rapped Elton and
20:06
Speaker 1: Teena together and sold it to Caesar's Palace for an
20:09
Speaker 1: unheard of amount of money. And I stepped aside and said, sorry,
20:13
Speaker 1: I gotta get out of this. It was just too much.
20:16
Speaker 1: Um So then the Bette Midler came along and and
20:20
Speaker 1: the Eagles had already passed on and offer we made,
20:23
Speaker 1: and then they came back in the picture. Uh, and
20:26
Speaker 1: both of them came back for more money, and I
20:29
Speaker 1: was already guaranteeing them a huge amount of money, but
20:33
Speaker 1: they added more and and we were so bullish on
20:36
Speaker 1: the Millennium at that time that we went along with it.
20:41
Speaker 1: And that's about what I ended up losing, close to mill,
20:47
Speaker 1: close to to mill. Okay, where was the mistake. The
20:53
Speaker 1: mistake was not knowing that in Las Vegas that they
21:00
Speaker 1: were going to do a four night minimum to stay
21:04
Speaker 1: there on New Year's and they were gonna triple or
21:08
Speaker 1: quadruple the room rate charges. Back in the late nineties,
21:12
Speaker 1: you know, you could you could go to MGM or
21:14
Speaker 1: Mandalay and get a room for a hundred and fifty bucks,
21:17
Speaker 1: maybe less if you had a special um. These rooms
21:21
Speaker 1: were now five hundred apiece. Uh, and you had a
21:25
Speaker 1: four in some places five night minimum. Um. My feeling
21:30
Speaker 1: at the time was that that whole week between Christmas
21:34
Speaker 1: and New Year's was me one of the greatest weeks
21:37
Speaker 1: in in our life history, much less Vegas history. I mean,
21:41
Speaker 1: what's bigger than a New Year's even Las Vegas, much
21:44
Speaker 1: less a millennium. Well that's the cool laid I drank anyway,
21:48
Speaker 1: I felt bulletproof. And uh, we didn't know. We didn't
21:54
Speaker 1: know that that they were going to do that with
21:55
Speaker 1: the hotel rooms. We didn't know that about y two K.
22:01
Speaker 1: We didn't know about terrorist threats. I didn't know Barbara
22:05
Speaker 1: streisand was booked on New Year's Eve already at the MGM.
22:11
Speaker 1: Um and we went booked two nights with bet because
22:14
Speaker 1: it was a Friday and Saturday. To me, this is like,
22:17
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to be in Vegas? For Bette Midler
22:20
Speaker 1: on New Year's at the Millennium. It just seemed like
22:22
Speaker 1: such a frivolity written thing. And and then there's Barbara
22:27
Speaker 1: streisand and then on Streisand they added a second night
22:30
Speaker 1: because they were filming these shows, and they ended up
22:34
Speaker 1: paper in the house because they couldn't sell a second night.
22:37
Speaker 1: But they only had the second night so they could
22:40
Speaker 1: film the crowd shots and all that stuff. So they
22:42
Speaker 1: paper the ship out of it. And you know, what
22:46
Speaker 1: would you like to do? You want to go see
22:48
Speaker 1: Barbara streisand for free? And January one, you want to
22:50
Speaker 1: pay five hundred for Bette Midler. The tickets were also
22:54
Speaker 1: very pricey. There were two fifty to five hundred for
22:57
Speaker 1: each the Eagles and for Bet Um. And you know what,
23:01
Speaker 1: the shows sold sold, Okay, they sold all right, Um,
23:07
Speaker 1: they were doing well. But one of the worst things
23:11
Speaker 1: that happened that could happen was Mandalay Bay held a
23:15
Speaker 1: couple of thousand of the best seats for each show
23:19
Speaker 1: for their high rollers. So they had a two thousand
23:23
Speaker 1: for bet, two thousand for the Eagles at five hundred
23:27
Speaker 1: a throw. And three weeks before the show they started
23:32
Speaker 1: releasing tickets and I said, what do you guys doing release,
23:35
Speaker 1: What where did these tickets come from? They when they
23:38
Speaker 1: pulled the tickets back in May when we went on sale,
23:41
Speaker 1: they were in the soul category on our on our audits,
23:46
Speaker 1: as opposed to a wire a cop category, indicating these
23:50
Speaker 1: are different tickets. So all along I thought we had
23:54
Speaker 1: sold two thousand tickets per act more or you know,
23:58
Speaker 1: and that's two million dollars each. Think about it, five
24:03
Speaker 1: ticket times two thousand. Oh, I'm sorry, is a million
24:08
Speaker 1: dollars each show? That Suddenly I went backwards on my
24:11
Speaker 1: ticket count sheets and we had to make those up
24:14
Speaker 1: in addition to what we were already selling. And it
24:16
Speaker 1: just couldn't be done. It was too late. What did
24:19
Speaker 1: you do with those good prime tickets? Well, we we
24:23
Speaker 1: moved most of them. We ended up moving a lot
24:25
Speaker 1: of them. But what happened was was instead of being
24:29
Speaker 1: where we thought we were, we were two grand light
24:32
Speaker 1: on each of the acts. So those tickets I still
24:36
Speaker 1: had left that I was marketing and selling in early December,
24:40
Speaker 1: those became the ones that ended up going to waste
24:44
Speaker 1: because the good seats did end up getting blocked, but
24:47
Speaker 1: there was only so many takers and so many buyers
24:50
Speaker 1: under you know, the darrests of the hotel room situation
24:54
Speaker 1: and the threat of all that other stuff. So we
24:57
Speaker 1: weren't getting the response, you know, of people coming to
25:00
Speaker 1: Vegas that we had anticipated due to all those reasons,
25:04
Speaker 1: plus the ticket prices. On top of that, a lot
25:06
Speaker 1: of people just stay at home and they had themselves
25:08
Speaker 1: a big old party. Okay. I know a promoter in Vegas,
25:12
Speaker 1: but a show promoter. He brings shows two buildings for
25:15
Speaker 1: extended periods. And he told me, in Vegas, the sticker price,
25:19
Speaker 1: the list price is just the beginning, and you can
25:22
Speaker 1: always get the tickets to the discount from the hotel
25:25
Speaker 1: or from a certain part that really the price is variable.
25:28
Speaker 1: Is it the same for the shows that you do.
25:32
Speaker 1: You know, Um, in the last year or two, I
25:35
Speaker 1: became aware of these other people. I mean they're basically
25:39
Speaker 1: seat fillers, um and and a lot of these people,
25:44
Speaker 1: a lot of the marketers at the hotels in Vegas
25:48
Speaker 1: goes straight to these people and and given a lotment
25:51
Speaker 1: of tickets to those people right out of the box,
25:54
Speaker 1: which I think is a horrific mistake. Why not just
25:57
Speaker 1: price your tickets right to begin with. If that's what
26:00
Speaker 1: you're gonna do or do less shows. But a lot
26:03
Speaker 1: of these shows are there for their sit down, long,
26:05
Speaker 1: extended type stage, and I guess they have to do that.
26:10
Speaker 1: I try never to do that with any of my shows,
26:13
Speaker 1: you know. Ever, I don't like using those discount platforms
26:20
Speaker 1: or or the ticket I don't know. They're not necessarily scalpers,
26:24
Speaker 1: they're brokers, um. I mean they're good for getting the
26:28
Speaker 1: word out if you need to have uh, if you
26:31
Speaker 1: need to have some extras people put into some seats.
26:35
Speaker 1: But as a rule, I don't use them. But I'm
26:37
Speaker 1: aware that a lot of people use them up there. Okay.
26:40
Speaker 1: And do you ever paper a show when I have to?
26:45
Speaker 1: You know? I mean i'll paper a show when it
26:50
Speaker 1: usually always when the act is willing to say I
26:53
Speaker 1: don't want to look like hell, you know, fill in
26:56
Speaker 1: those blanks and well, will work it out and we'll adjust.
27:00
Speaker 1: That does happen, um rarely, rarely that happens. But yeah,
27:05
Speaker 1: I'll paper something to make somebody look better as long
27:09
Speaker 1: as they're willing to soften the blow on my end.
27:12
Speaker 1: And did you paper those uh New Year's Eve shows? No?
27:17
Speaker 1: I didn't, Um, we didn't paper those at all. There
27:20
Speaker 1: was a couple of glaring holes there that the accident like, Um,
27:24
Speaker 1: but I had I had asked them both, should we
27:27
Speaker 1: fill those in? Should we paper? They said, we don't care.
27:30
Speaker 1: We're getting paid the same amount. I said, but I'm
27:32
Speaker 1: not going to go out and give away five dollar
27:35
Speaker 1: free tickets if you're not going to help me out
27:37
Speaker 1: on the other side. And none of them wanted to,
27:40
Speaker 1: so I didn't do it. Okay, So what kind of
27:43
Speaker 1: deal do you get? Now? It's well known in the
27:46
Speaker 1: business today that if you own the building, your profit
27:50
Speaker 1: margins go up, and not owning a building or difficult
27:53
Speaker 1: more difficult for you. So if you go to Vegas,
27:56
Speaker 1: what kind of deals do you get with the whole
27:58
Speaker 1: explain the numbers? Well, you know, it depends. Some places
28:05
Speaker 1: will just pay me a commission to buy an act
28:07
Speaker 1: for him. But when I'm at risk, when it's my
28:11
Speaker 1: money in somebody else's building, you know, I I look
28:15
Speaker 1: for whatever breaks that they could give me. For example, UM,
28:20
Speaker 1: most hotels are still uh, casino hotels are generally still
28:25
Speaker 1: very generous with rooms for the stars that around the Marquee. UM.
28:31
Speaker 1: That's one of the old school perks that I still
28:33
Speaker 1: like a lot um that because the groups like that,
28:37
Speaker 1: they like getting more of a net income kind of
28:40
Speaker 1: a date where they're not spending thousands of dollars on
28:43
Speaker 1: hotel rooms for the night. So the groups like that,
28:46
Speaker 1: they like coming in for a couple of nights. But
28:48
Speaker 1: as far as the deals I get, you know, it
28:51
Speaker 1: all depends on the hotel. Uh. If they're so hot
28:56
Speaker 1: that they're getting all the big groups. I mean, they
28:59
Speaker 1: charge you up the ying yang and you're paying you're
29:02
Speaker 1: paying full retail. Uh, You're you're not getting any breaks,
29:06
Speaker 1: you're not getting free rent um. They're they're charging ticket
29:10
Speaker 1: search charges on top of their ticket search charges in
29:14
Speaker 1: some cases. So I'm I'm a little bit larry about Vegas.
29:19
Speaker 1: But I did manage to strike some decent deals with Westgate,
29:23
Speaker 1: which used to be the Hope and where Elvis played,
29:25
Speaker 1: and the people at Caesars, and I put a couple
29:29
Speaker 1: of shows on sale right before all this happened at
29:33
Speaker 1: paris Um and they're very nice people there, and I'm
29:38
Speaker 1: hoping that we can resume when we picked back up again.
29:41
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, you know, I mean, I started
29:45
Speaker 1: in Vegas before any of the other current concert promoters
29:48
Speaker 1: were there in the early eighties and now they're all there. Um,
29:52
Speaker 1: you know, it's like any any other thing. When you
29:54
Speaker 1: get a good idea, you've got a good thing going,
29:57
Speaker 1: sooner or later, it's just a matter of when people
29:59
Speaker 1: are gonna come after you, uh and take over or
30:02
Speaker 1: try to take over that business because you've opened the
30:04
Speaker 1: door for it. And in the eighties, you know, nobody
30:08
Speaker 1: was coming to Vegas from from rock and roll. In
30:10
Speaker 1: the early nineties we started doing those dead shows at
30:13
Speaker 1: the Stadium there, which really broke open Vegas to two
30:17
Speaker 1: younger people, and which is something we're all very proud
30:21
Speaker 1: of it. Bill Graham and and and Me and Jam
30:24
Speaker 1: and Evening Star and everybody that was part of those
30:27
Speaker 1: things there created a real legend up there and really
30:30
Speaker 1: broke open that market. But since then, um, you know,
30:34
Speaker 1: eight between a G and Live Nation, they've got most
30:38
Speaker 1: of the good rooms wrapped up big and small, So
30:42
Speaker 1: it makes it difficult to to survive up there. Honestly, now,
30:53
Speaker 1: as an independent promoter, wherever you do it show, whether
30:55
Speaker 1: it be Vegas or Arizona or elsewhere, what are the
30:58
Speaker 1: economics when they had the roll up been of uh
31:02
Speaker 1: S f X ultimately sold to Clear Channel becomes Live Nation.
31:05
Speaker 1: Michael Rapino tried to reduce guarantees into the amphitheaters. What
31:09
Speaker 1: we know with many Oxiday forget club shows, But as
31:12
Speaker 1: you move up the ladder, the act essentially gets all
31:16
Speaker 1: of the phase value of the tickets and the promoter
31:20
Speaker 1: makes his money on the ticketing fees and other charges.
31:25
Speaker 1: What what's your situation with Danny's Alisco presents? You know,
31:31
Speaker 1: I try to make deals with buildings where we share
31:36
Speaker 1: uh and in the income. If generally speaking, if I
31:43
Speaker 1: buy a show right, I'm gonna make money if I
31:46
Speaker 1: do business, which is a high threshold to me. Um,
31:53
Speaker 1: most buildings don't want to give up anything, you know,
31:57
Speaker 1: like like any of their tickets or charges, food and drink, merchandise.
32:03
Speaker 1: What have your rebates? Um, you gotta get creative with
32:07
Speaker 1: them and figure out how to share whatever it is
32:09
Speaker 1: you're making with them. I mean, at this stage of
32:12
Speaker 1: the game, for me, my first my first inclination is
32:16
Speaker 1: to try to hedge my bet and make sure that
32:19
Speaker 1: if it does go south, I can I can curtail
32:22
Speaker 1: the losses by making a deal with the building to say, look,
32:27
Speaker 1: if this doesn't work out, as well as I want. Perhaps, uh,
32:31
Speaker 1: you can help me out at the settlement, you know,
32:34
Speaker 1: if we and and that's a great place where I'll
32:36
Speaker 1: paper something um and again I haven't had to do
32:41
Speaker 1: that so often. Bottom line is, you want to go
32:45
Speaker 1: into every deal you can trying to get a piece
32:47
Speaker 1: of everything that's available, especially if you're taking all the risk.
32:53
Speaker 1: Otherwise you you find yourself at that juncture where you go,
32:56
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do the show. There's too much risk,
32:59
Speaker 1: and the building hats to keep all the money and
33:01
Speaker 1: not share, So screw it. I won't do it. Okay,
33:04
Speaker 1: under the best of circumstances, if you go clean, sell
33:07
Speaker 1: out all the tickets to the four thousand UH cedar
33:10
Speaker 1: with the acts you mentioned, how much can you net
33:14
Speaker 1: net to to Danny's a LISTO irrelevant of paying your
33:17
Speaker 1: people Underneath that, you know it's gonna all depend on
33:23
Speaker 1: your ticket prices, what your deal is with the act.
33:26
Speaker 1: But on on a low on a four thousand seater,
33:31
Speaker 1: you should make at least twenty thousand dollars, and if
33:33
Speaker 1: you cut your deal right, you should make forty Okay,
33:38
Speaker 1: if you're in a thousand, If you're in a thousand
33:40
Speaker 1: and fifteen hundred cedar, which is where a lot of
33:43
Speaker 1: my shows go. And I'm happy about that because that's
33:46
Speaker 1: where people in my age want to see shows. They
33:49
Speaker 1: don't want to go to arenas and stadiums or festivals.
33:52
Speaker 1: And and if you know, if I come out of
33:54
Speaker 1: there with ten to fifteen thousand UM and and a
33:58
Speaker 1: and a nice night with the Australian Floyd and Mace
34:01
Speaker 1: Arts Center or Crosby Stills in nash or Jackson Brown
34:05
Speaker 1: or you know any of these people, if I can
34:07
Speaker 1: make in that vicinity of money, I'm I'm a happy guy.
34:11
Speaker 1: And what are the guarantees for acts like that? They're
34:15
Speaker 1: gonna go anywhere from thirty to a hundred a quarter? Okay, Now,
34:23
Speaker 1: one thing, I've sat with promoters backstage, and they have
34:26
Speaker 1: two sets of books, and frequently there is no idea
34:31
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. They have no there's no overage. Basically,
34:34
Speaker 1: the act gets its guarantee and unless everything is sold
34:38
Speaker 1: and it's a good night, there's nothing after. What's your experience?
34:44
Speaker 1: My experience, Bob is and and you're gonna laugh, but
34:48
Speaker 1: it's true. I always try to strike as fair of
34:52
Speaker 1: a deal as I possibly can with the agent or
34:56
Speaker 1: the artist. Uh. Going in my goal, especially when I
35:02
Speaker 1: get a fairer guarantee, what I consider the right guarantee.
35:06
Speaker 1: My goal is to write them the biggest possible check
35:10
Speaker 1: at the end of the night that I can, because
35:13
Speaker 1: I want them to come back and visit me. I
35:15
Speaker 1: know that if I do a good job with somebody
35:18
Speaker 1: and the date, the results of the date get out
35:21
Speaker 1: and around the very small group of people that promote
35:24
Speaker 1: shows in my area. The next time they come around,
35:27
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have an easy time book on them,
35:29
Speaker 1: and somebody's gonna say I want that act, and they're
35:32
Speaker 1: gonna offer them more. So, the best way into a
35:36
Speaker 1: band's heart is paying overage checks. And and uh, I
35:42
Speaker 1: mean like with with Frankie Valley and Jackson Parsons. We
35:47
Speaker 1: have shows that that break even. We have shows where
35:50
Speaker 1: I make a little bit of money, and there shows
35:53
Speaker 1: where I make a good deal of money and they
35:54
Speaker 1: make even more money. Um. And and the the issue
35:59
Speaker 1: that we never had of that I used to have
36:02
Speaker 1: a lot as a promoter was that whole dual set
36:05
Speaker 1: of books type of a mentality where they just feel
36:09
Speaker 1: like you're out to fuck them, you know. And and
36:12
Speaker 1: you're gonna add on this and add on that and
36:15
Speaker 1: cheat them and so forth. My whole thing has always
36:18
Speaker 1: been to write them as big of a check as possible,
36:21
Speaker 1: and they know it. And he lets say, the business
36:23
Speaker 1: has completely changed. One could say the modern business started
36:26
Speaker 1: with Frank Barcelona, and he had his territories that ended
36:30
Speaker 1: with the roll up of the consolidation. And what also
36:34
Speaker 1: tended to end was the loyalty you used to play
36:36
Speaker 1: an act in a club and as they were successful
36:38
Speaker 1: all the way up to Arenas, the question I have
36:41
Speaker 1: for you is, how do you get talent today, especially
36:46
Speaker 1: with Live Nation y G with a lot of these
36:48
Speaker 1: acts willing to make national or international deals. How do
36:52
Speaker 1: you get dates? They're they're kind of they're there, these
36:59
Speaker 1: mbtwe leaners, you know. Um. It seems to me that
37:06
Speaker 1: a lot of the a lot of the acts I do,
37:09
Speaker 1: people from the buying standpoint have either forgot about them
37:14
Speaker 1: or in many cases, they're not even aware of who
37:16
Speaker 1: they are. Because the buyers today around the country, I mean,
37:22
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of independent buyers out there, but
37:26
Speaker 1: most of the independent buyers and and and the buyers
37:30
Speaker 1: that work for the ages and the live nations are younger,
37:34
Speaker 1: and they're filling up their nightclubs, which I don't do. Um,
37:39
Speaker 1: there's P A C groups, a lot of which I
37:42
Speaker 1: work with, But I'm kind of like floating in between
37:46
Speaker 1: a lot of these different client lists that these agencies
37:51
Speaker 1: have where I'm going for people that I've worked with
37:54
Speaker 1: for many years. UM, to me, they're still great, they're exciting,
37:58
Speaker 1: they're fun. People still love to see him in the
38:01
Speaker 1: right halls. They're willing to pay a little bit more money.
38:04
Speaker 1: And unfortunately for me, a lot of a lot of
38:08
Speaker 1: other promoters don't care about these groups. And that's I
38:11
Speaker 1: don't I don't know what else to say. I mean,
38:13
Speaker 1: I used to do. I did more John Prime shows
38:16
Speaker 1: as an independent promoter prior to selling Das Effects than
38:20
Speaker 1: any other show that I ever did. And it was
38:23
Speaker 1: because nobody cared, Nobody got it, nobody understood. They weren't
38:27
Speaker 1: willing to do the work. It took the promotium into
38:30
Speaker 1: the grassroots marketing that it takes to make these people grow,
38:33
Speaker 1: and it took years for John to grow and and
38:36
Speaker 1: and sadly he was taken from us this year. But
38:40
Speaker 1: this guy, he, I mean, he was he turned into
38:42
Speaker 1: a six figure act. I used to pay him five
38:45
Speaker 1: grand of nine and and it's he grew up with
38:48
Speaker 1: his audience, and he got bigger as he grew up.
38:51
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean, good for me that I'm hip
38:54
Speaker 1: to these guys, bad for them that they're not. But
38:57
Speaker 1: they got all the Taylor Swift Scenarian grand Days and
39:00
Speaker 1: Billie Eilish's and all these hot groups, which I must
39:05
Speaker 1: admit I'm a little envious that I don't get to
39:07
Speaker 1: work with like I would if it was twenty or
39:09
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. But I'm happy with what I got.
39:12
Speaker 1: You know, I can't cry about what other people are
39:15
Speaker 1: doing that I'm not that ain't right. How many shows
39:18
Speaker 1: you do a year? Now? About and how far do
39:23
Speaker 1: you go outside of Arizona in Vegas? I did? Um
39:29
Speaker 1: uh farthest I went in the last year was I.
39:33
Speaker 1: I had Gordon Lightfoot and Alan Parson's both at Town
39:38
Speaker 1: Hall in New York City. I started doing shows in
39:41
Speaker 1: Chicago as Scottie Gelman, who I met when he was
39:44
Speaker 1: with Jam And we've been doing shows in a place
39:47
Speaker 1: called the Copernicus Center as well as the Rosemont Theater,
39:50
Speaker 1: which is a beautiful place. Um. We went to Green
39:54
Speaker 1: Bay with Frankie Valley. We're going back there with Frankie Valley.
39:58
Speaker 1: We're also going there with Bachman Cummings and Dave Mason,
40:01
Speaker 1: which is a show that I put together. Um. Dave
40:05
Speaker 1: Mason lives over here in Hawaiian to see him. This weekend,
40:09
Speaker 1: I went to Atlanta and Houston with Alan Parson's. Um.
40:15
Speaker 1: You know, I'll go as far as because because I
40:18
Speaker 1: know these groups and I know how to promote them
40:21
Speaker 1: and I know how to work with them, I can
40:23
Speaker 1: do them in different places, even with a smaller office
40:26
Speaker 1: like I have, And and to me, that's like the
40:30
Speaker 1: most fun I've ever had is flying around with these guys,
40:34
Speaker 1: staying in the hotels, having our dinners, having our shows,
40:37
Speaker 1: having our after shows. It's really special. You know, it's
40:41
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. How many dates will you do
40:44
Speaker 1: with one act? What's the most you've done with one
40:46
Speaker 1: act in the last couple of years, Frankie, Uh, Frankie
40:51
Speaker 1: and I do a lot of shows, but in the
40:53
Speaker 1: last year too. It just it just keeps getting a
40:56
Speaker 1: little bit more and more. Same with Parsons, same with Gordon.
41:00
Speaker 1: It's like they'll call me up and say, where do
41:02
Speaker 1: you want to go, and I'll say to them, you
41:05
Speaker 1: got the books on it, where do you need to go?
41:07
Speaker 1: Where haven't you been? I never want to try to
41:10
Speaker 1: poach an act from somebody in a market where they
41:13
Speaker 1: already have history with them. I still pay attention to that,
41:16
Speaker 1: although most people don't anymore. I think that kind of
41:20
Speaker 1: stuff is important. You don't need things like that bite
41:23
Speaker 1: me in the button, chasing you around. But there's a
41:25
Speaker 1: lot of bands out there that don't have regular promoters
41:29
Speaker 1: and a lot of good markets. Um, not just the
41:32
Speaker 1: ones I'm talking about, there's plenty of others. And uh,
41:35
Speaker 1: you know, I mean with with these bands that I'm
41:38
Speaker 1: talking about. It takes enthusiasm on my end and the
41:42
Speaker 1: hall's end and the local media. And to make that
41:46
Speaker 1: important to the audience that's there who doesn't know or
41:49
Speaker 1: care whether or not that's that comes until you bring
41:52
Speaker 1: it to them and make it important for them to go.
41:54
Speaker 1: And that's why people go to shows. How do you
41:57
Speaker 1: market a show? What is your special loss? And there's
42:02
Speaker 1: both behind the curtain in front of the curtain. What
42:04
Speaker 1: about the experience? Do you give the audience that a
42:07
Speaker 1: special that will help you build the band? So Hey,
42:10
Speaker 1: how do you get the people in the building be
42:12
Speaker 1: what do you do special when they're inside the building?
42:16
Speaker 1: You know? UM, I don't know if im what our order,
42:21
Speaker 1: I'll answer that in But how I get him in
42:23
Speaker 1: the building is. I find that the the e blasts
42:29
Speaker 1: UH emails UM to a database from a radio station
42:37
Speaker 1: or the hall UH generally is a really great way
42:41
Speaker 1: to get the word out because they already have tech
42:45
Speaker 1: semitech savvy people who who are signed up and and
42:51
Speaker 1: like getting notices about shows. Social media has been a
42:55
Speaker 1: great help to getting the word out. UM. Doing the
42:58
Speaker 1: pre sales is is a good thing in and making
43:03
Speaker 1: sure good seats are available on both the pre sale
43:06
Speaker 1: and the first day of sale is very important. UM.
43:11
Speaker 1: You know, I mean on the on the first day.
43:14
Speaker 1: Going into my first day of on sales with these
43:17
Speaker 1: shows that hold a thousand, two thousand tickets, I like
43:20
Speaker 1: going in with three or five tickets sold under the
43:23
Speaker 1: radar without spending a dime before I've even started my
43:27
Speaker 1: my spending money on media. UM. I I still like
43:34
Speaker 1: print in some markets, as archaic as it sounds, and
43:37
Speaker 1: it is in many cases. UM, I've been doing less
43:41
Speaker 1: and less of that, But I was one of the
43:42
Speaker 1: last guys to give up on print. I love billboards
43:46
Speaker 1: for on sales and the week of shows. Um, getting
43:50
Speaker 1: involved with three radio stations, just your regular FM stations,
43:55
Speaker 1: if they're into it and they're willing to promote it
43:57
Speaker 1: for you for a few days, just to get the
44:01
Speaker 1: word out, you know, with my with my acts, the
44:04
Speaker 1: acts that I promote, most of them are pretty well
44:08
Speaker 1: known and when you hear their names, you know it
44:11
Speaker 1: immediately or you don't. There's not a whole lot of
44:13
Speaker 1: education involved as opposed to you know what, you've got
44:17
Speaker 1: to jump through hoops and educating people about bands. I
44:21
Speaker 1: like going to the I like going to the halls
44:23
Speaker 1: that my audience likes to go to. I like to
44:26
Speaker 1: make sure they get their tickets without any hassle. Um.
44:30
Speaker 1: I'm always around at the shows, and I make myself
44:33
Speaker 1: known presently so if they got a problem, they can
44:36
Speaker 1: ask me about it or say something to me. Um
44:39
Speaker 1: to me, UH, putting on the show on time, when
44:44
Speaker 1: when you say you're gonna put the show on, uh
44:47
Speaker 1: without a whole bunch of drama is the best time
44:51
Speaker 1: that I think I can provide for somebody. When somebody
44:54
Speaker 1: buys a ticket, to a show. I don't want them
44:58
Speaker 1: to worry about that their seats there, or that it's clean,
45:01
Speaker 1: or that there's a good parking space or a bathroom
45:04
Speaker 1: or drinks to buy at the bar. All that kind
45:07
Speaker 1: of stuff, like you're thrown a party has got to
45:10
Speaker 1: be in order so that you can be a good
45:12
Speaker 1: host for people. Um, there's there's not a whole lot
45:15
Speaker 1: of bells and whistles and fireworks beyond that that that
45:20
Speaker 1: I provide. Rather, I do try to provide a congenial atmosphere. Um.
45:25
Speaker 1: I go out in front of every show and welcome
45:28
Speaker 1: the audience and kind of make them feel like they're
45:31
Speaker 1: part of it. That was something that I used to
45:33
Speaker 1: see Bill Graham do all the time, and he was
45:35
Speaker 1: the greatest at it. And I've always done that the
45:38
Speaker 1: whole time. It's like one of the fun times of
45:40
Speaker 1: the night where I get to say loo to our
45:42
Speaker 1: customers and and they seem to really appreciate that, and
45:47
Speaker 1: I loved I love doing it. Yeah, speaking of Bill Graham,
45:50
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning, because that's when you
45:52
Speaker 1: met Bill Graham. How did you meet Bill and what
45:56
Speaker 1: was your relationship with him? As time went on and
46:00
Speaker 1: his pluses and minuses. Um. I learned about him growing
46:06
Speaker 1: up in Chicago in the late sixties early seventies. Back
46:10
Speaker 1: at that time, you didn't have the Internet, but we
46:13
Speaker 1: we had you know, Rolling Stone and you every now
46:17
Speaker 1: and then something would be on TV or being Circus
46:20
Speaker 1: magazine or or teen Beat. Uh, not that much with
46:25
Speaker 1: Bill Gramm and Team Beat. So um, but you know,
46:29
Speaker 1: I learned about him. And then there was all the
46:32
Speaker 1: hubbub about the Fillmore's opening and closing, and and right
46:36
Speaker 1: about the time that he closed them is when I
46:38
Speaker 1: got out of high school and I went to San
46:41
Speaker 1: Francisco with a couple of friends, and I was trying
46:44
Speaker 1: to move there. I I brought my records in my
46:47
Speaker 1: stereo with me and everything, and there was a lot
46:49
Speaker 1: of them. Um. So I went to a show, uh,
46:56
Speaker 1: and and I jumped onto an equipment truck and started
47:00
Speaker 1: unloading some gear. And when I came down the ramp,
47:03
Speaker 1: it was, yes, his equipment truck. I had an English
47:06
Speaker 1: accent when I talked to the San Francisco guys, and
47:09
Speaker 1: when I went back up the ramp, I talked like
47:11
Speaker 1: the San Francisco guy to the English guys. So they
47:13
Speaker 1: all thought I was working for the other the whole
47:15
Speaker 1: day until Bill walked into catering and picked me up
47:19
Speaker 1: by the car and said, who's this kid? You know?
47:21
Speaker 1: And Uh. It went on from there. That was in
47:25
Speaker 1: seventy two. By nineteens. In seventy four, he asked me
47:32
Speaker 1: to move to Denver because he had a partner in
47:34
Speaker 1: Denver that he was having a problem with. UM, a
47:38
Speaker 1: long time promoter up there had some had something going on.
47:41
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I didn't ask, but he offered
47:44
Speaker 1: me four dollars a month, and I said, I'm not
47:47
Speaker 1: going to starve even for you, Bill Um. So I passed,
47:51
Speaker 1: and I started doing shows in Phoenix and one thing
47:54
Speaker 1: led to another. Couple of years later, he's calling me
47:57
Speaker 1: up for helping him out on the stars. Born answered
48:00
Speaker 1: that he did for Barbara Streisan and John Peters. He
48:04
Speaker 1: did the concert that brought the people into the stadium
48:07
Speaker 1: to do the background shots for Chris and Barbara in
48:11
Speaker 1: the in the movie, and we had a great time there.
48:14
Speaker 1: I drove him around for a couple of weeks, met Christofferson,
48:18
Speaker 1: became great friends with him. He lives down the street
48:21
Speaker 1: from where I'm sitting right now. UM and Uh, I didn't.
48:28
Speaker 1: I didn't actually get to do a show with Bill
48:30
Speaker 1: until seven. I talked to him into doing The Grateful
48:34
Speaker 1: deadic Compton Terrorist in Phoenix, which was owned by the
48:39
Speaker 1: Knicks family Jess and his wife and brother and Stevie,
48:43
Speaker 1: and we sold seventeen thousand tickets there. And Bill just
48:47
Speaker 1: love that, and uh, it was way bigger than he
48:51
Speaker 1: thought it would ever be. And we became very close,
48:55
Speaker 1: and I thought would be for a very long time.
48:57
Speaker 1: We would be very close. Um. I went visited with
49:00
Speaker 1: him and stayed with him at Massada up in San Francisco,
49:03
Speaker 1: and I maintained my relationship with Bob Barsodi, who was
49:07
Speaker 1: the guy that kind of brought me in UM back
49:10
Speaker 1: in that high school show with Yes, And we we
49:15
Speaker 1: ended up starting together those Grateful Dead shows and and
49:21
Speaker 1: unfortunately that was a few months later Bill was dead,
49:24
Speaker 1: but we had we had a fantastic time. We were
49:27
Speaker 1: two peas in a pond. Okay, what makes you successful?
49:32
Speaker 1: Danny's alesko tenacity? You know, I like to think I
49:40
Speaker 1: stay after it, Bob, it's um you know at this stage,
49:45
Speaker 1: you know, like it's the same as it was was
49:47
Speaker 1: was when I when I was a little kid. It's
49:50
Speaker 1: one step after the other. If you find something good
49:54
Speaker 1: with one step, there must be another one, and another
49:57
Speaker 1: one and another one. Saying know to yourself is probably
50:01
Speaker 1: the biggest hang up. I think that to turn to
50:04
Speaker 1: get get some people's ways when they when they're trying
50:08
Speaker 1: to do anything much less than the music business. It's
50:11
Speaker 1: a very difficult business to break into. If I had
50:14
Speaker 1: to do it over again, I would give it myself
50:16
Speaker 1: a second thought about it. It was very rough. Uh.
50:20
Speaker 1: It's been difficult at sometimes, but overall, on a score
50:25
Speaker 1: of one to a hundred, I would give it nine.
50:27
Speaker 1: Is a great career that I've been fortunate enough to have. Um.
50:32
Speaker 1: My success comes from not taking no for an answer
50:37
Speaker 1: when I know it should be yes, um, and doing
50:41
Speaker 1: it in such a way where you're not a pain
50:42
Speaker 1: the ask to people where they really don't want to
50:45
Speaker 1: be around you, but rather you know, figuring out a
50:48
Speaker 1: way to point out why it's a good thing to
50:50
Speaker 1: do business with me. And and after all, fortunately after
50:54
Speaker 1: all these years forty something years of doing all these shows,
51:00
Speaker 1: somehow the good stuff stuck. Uh. As far as being
51:04
Speaker 1: a fan, loving the music, trying to be fair, be
51:09
Speaker 1: a good guy, Um, you know, I'm not a boy
51:13
Speaker 1: scout by any means, but but when it comes to
51:16
Speaker 1: this business, there's a lot of guys who are anything
51:18
Speaker 1: but boy scouts. And and the the average lifespan of
51:22
Speaker 1: a promoter isn't really that long the last time I checked.
51:26
Speaker 1: So to be in it after all this time, you know,
51:29
Speaker 1: it's it's a great failing believer. Now, if you read
51:32
Speaker 1: your book, and I recommend it's certainly a tale from
51:34
Speaker 1: a different viewpoint. It's very personal. But astounded me when
51:37
Speaker 1: you grew up in Chicago, and it's a little bit
51:40
Speaker 1: of an overstatement to say you knew every famous athlete
51:43
Speaker 1: in Chicago, but almost so, you know, how did this happen?
51:48
Speaker 1: And who did you mean? Well, in the early sixties,
51:55
Speaker 1: Chicago was full of these eight sports stars. Ernie Banks
52:03
Speaker 1: one of the greatest, first black player for the Cubs.
52:06
Speaker 1: Um one of the nicest people I've ever known. There
52:11
Speaker 1: was guys on the White Sox, like many men knows
52:13
Speaker 1: so Joe Cunningham stretched cunning him the first baseman who
52:17
Speaker 1: would do the splits when he when he reached out
52:20
Speaker 1: for a ball at first base. There was the hockey players,
52:23
Speaker 1: Bobby Bobby Holland, Stan Mikita Um and the Bears won
52:28
Speaker 1: that championship in And that was right when I was
52:33
Speaker 1: becoming aware of my surroundings and all these different people
52:37
Speaker 1: who were really unattainable to me. I couldn't ever dream
52:41
Speaker 1: of meeting these people, much less anything else. And I
52:44
Speaker 1: had an older brother named Jimmy, and he was three
52:49
Speaker 1: years older than me, and he started going down to
52:52
Speaker 1: the ballpark, so this was in sixty three sixty four.
52:57
Speaker 1: He taught my parents and let me go along with them,
53:00
Speaker 1: and we'd gather our baseball cards you get signed, or
53:02
Speaker 1: football cards, and one by one by one, we had
53:05
Speaker 1: access to these players because they parked in parking lots
53:08
Speaker 1: like normal people, across from the entrance to get in,
53:12
Speaker 1: so we could have access to them. And after a
53:16
Speaker 1: while they get to recognize us. They walk us into
53:19
Speaker 1: the ball games. We never paid to get into a game,
53:22
Speaker 1: they walked us in. We had everything with these guys,
53:26
Speaker 1: and and we learned the mannerisms and the nature and
53:31
Speaker 1: the ability to get along with not only older people,
53:34
Speaker 1: but famous people, and and and and to realize when
53:39
Speaker 1: when you're not being a groupie type, you're being more
53:42
Speaker 1: like a friend and there were so many great athletes
53:47
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and the fact that we got to be
53:49
Speaker 1: around them and I and I would see other people
53:52
Speaker 1: who would screw up and be stupid around them, and
53:55
Speaker 1: you know, you've learned for yourself. You make yourself a
53:57
Speaker 1: little note to your to yourself, and you don't be
54:00
Speaker 1: an idiot, don't do that. And and you learn that
54:04
Speaker 1: that speak celebrity speak, and and it's segued into music
54:09
Speaker 1: in the late you know, in the late sixties. UM
54:13
Speaker 1: and and it was I found it was the same
54:15
Speaker 1: thing with them. People who have special abilities, whether it's
54:20
Speaker 1: behaving a baseball or playing a guitar. In many cases,
54:25
Speaker 1: because they're so special at one thing, they don't pay
54:28
Speaker 1: attention to normal things. And that's kind of like where
54:31
Speaker 1: I figured I could fit in. UM. I heard, you know,
54:35
Speaker 1: like when Marilyn Monroe got killed her or or somebody
54:39
Speaker 1: killed themselves in Hollywood, I thought to myself, they didn't
54:42
Speaker 1: have anybody good to talk to. They needed a good
54:45
Speaker 1: friend there. Right then, I didn't know about managers and
54:47
Speaker 1: agents and personal assistance and all that stuff. But it
54:51
Speaker 1: occurred to me that maybe that would have helped back then,
54:55
Speaker 1: and the whole the whole study of the of the
55:01
Speaker 1: personalities for me, and I didn't know it at the time.
55:04
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not no shrink. It was so fascinating
55:09
Speaker 1: to me getting into these people's heads and and them
55:12
Speaker 1: and realizing they actually would like me and we would
55:16
Speaker 1: become friends. And you know, Brian Piccolo's calling me up
55:21
Speaker 1: at home at dinner time about something and my dad
55:24
Speaker 1: answered the phone. What was this Brian Piccolo? Yeah, sure
55:28
Speaker 1: it is hold on wise guy and he can't be
55:30
Speaker 1: the phone I got Dad. It was really Brian. You
55:33
Speaker 1: should be nicer to him next time. Um. It was
55:38
Speaker 1: you know, for for a middle class kid that that
55:42
Speaker 1: whole thing was. When I think back on it, was
55:45
Speaker 1: was astounding. But there was a reason for it. I
55:48
Speaker 1: just didn't know what it was. A done. Okay, let's
55:51
Speaker 1: go a little a little bit deeper. You know, most
55:54
Speaker 1: people don't have the privilege to be able to meet
55:57
Speaker 1: famous people, and as you say, they tend to be
55:59
Speaker 1: group piece, but they also tend to pinch themselves. We've
56:03
Speaker 1: all had that experience. Go I'm sitting here talking to
56:05
Speaker 1: this world famous person. How did you check yourself such
56:10
Speaker 1: that you could continue to be a friend. How did
56:13
Speaker 1: you get yourself in that headspace. You know. It's like
56:17
Speaker 1: you you don't just learn out of books. You you
56:20
Speaker 1: learn from experience. You learn by paying attention to what's
56:24
Speaker 1: happening right in front of you. And and you can
56:28
Speaker 1: tell you can vide people out. And it was before
56:30
Speaker 1: I knew what vibing people out meant, but as a
56:33
Speaker 1: little kid um discovering things and being able to share
56:38
Speaker 1: them with people. For instance, you know, like I wrote
56:41
Speaker 1: about in the book about discovering the Beatles, uh, not discovering, discovering,
56:46
Speaker 1: but discovering their record before anybody else did. In Chicago,
56:50
Speaker 1: friends of mine, net Is and and I remember how
56:54
Speaker 1: hard it was to turn people onto the Beatles until
56:59
Speaker 1: the Alvan show happened, and then of course they forgot
57:02
Speaker 1: that I had please please me for a year before that.
57:05
Speaker 1: But I was very proud to myself about that. And
57:07
Speaker 1: it's I didn't want to go Nona, not you know,
57:10
Speaker 1: to everybody else, see I told you so, It's more
57:12
Speaker 1: like I realized that I was onto something, and I
57:16
Speaker 1: maintained that kind of presence with when talking to or
57:22
Speaker 1: being around these people, like you belong, you fit in
57:27
Speaker 1: as you belong. You're not there to be window dressing
57:31
Speaker 1: or to be a hanger on, you know, or some
57:34
Speaker 1: sort of a starfucker or something like that. You're you're
57:38
Speaker 1: you're there because you like them and you're drawn to them,
57:42
Speaker 1: and you figure out a way to be invited back,
57:45
Speaker 1: and and doing that is by being subtle and not obnoxious. Okay,
57:50
Speaker 1: you know, you go on. You have a special relationship
57:53
Speaker 1: with Ernie Banks. Can you tell a little us a
57:54
Speaker 1: little bit more about that? Sure? Um, Ernie Uh, Ernie
58:00
Speaker 1: was always kind to the kids. My brother and I
58:05
Speaker 1: became friendly with him, um and and special friends to him.
58:09
Speaker 1: I felt he would call in on us. He would
58:12
Speaker 1: call us at home and check on us. Make sure
58:15
Speaker 1: every now and then, not all the time, but once
58:18
Speaker 1: every few months. You guys doing your homework? Are you
58:20
Speaker 1: practicing your baseball when you come into the park. Do
58:24
Speaker 1: you need some tickets? I mean this is four or five, six, seven?
58:29
Speaker 1: And after he left baseball in the early seventies, my
58:33
Speaker 1: brother was a publicist PR guy. He was working for
58:40
Speaker 1: the Illinois Entertainer at the time, UM and some other
58:44
Speaker 1: and he did some stuff for Scarlett Rivera you know,
58:48
Speaker 1: hurt um and and he got around doing that. But Unfortunately,
58:53
Speaker 1: he had a heart disease which killed him in We
58:58
Speaker 1: thought he was gonna live till he was five or six,
59:00
Speaker 1: and he lived to his thirty So he had a
59:03
Speaker 1: great life and that was fantastic. But you're talking about
59:07
Speaker 1: your brother here, not Ernie Banks. I'm talking about my brother, Jimmy. Yeah.
59:11
Speaker 1: So he started doing pr for Ernie after Ernie got
59:15
Speaker 1: out of baseball, and and they would get together and
59:20
Speaker 1: they would try to drum up some business. This was
59:22
Speaker 1: before you know, the classic ball players were able to
59:26
Speaker 1: make a great living signing autographs. Ernie made so much
59:31
Speaker 1: more money signing autographs than he ever did as a player.
59:34
Speaker 1: But being a player enabled him to be that guy
59:37
Speaker 1: that can make thousands for signing his name, and Jimmy
59:41
Speaker 1: would help him with that. And uh, and we always
59:44
Speaker 1: stayed in touch. When he came to Arizona every year
59:48
Speaker 1: for for spring training, we would have a golf game
59:52
Speaker 1: or some drinks. And in fact, one one time he
59:58
Speaker 1: was going to do one of those brand camp for
1:00:01
Speaker 1: old people and he decided he didn't want to do
1:00:04
Speaker 1: it once he got to Phoenix, so he gave me
1:00:06
Speaker 1: his uniform and he says, go be Ernie Banks. For me.
1:00:08
Speaker 1: I'll be back at the end of the week. And
1:00:11
Speaker 1: and uh that was fun. Uh. Me showing up with
1:00:15
Speaker 1: Ernie Banks's uniform drooping on me was was quite a picture,
1:00:19
Speaker 1: but it worked. Um. One of the last things that
1:00:24
Speaker 1: ever happened with Ernie with me. Ernie asked me if
1:00:27
Speaker 1: I could get Lady Gaga to play at Wrigley Field,
1:00:30
Speaker 1: And I called Jerry Barrett and and asked him about that,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: but he said there was no no availability, sadly, and uh,
1:00:37
Speaker 1: we never got to do that show. But he he
1:00:42
Speaker 1: was just one of those He became family. When my
1:00:45
Speaker 1: brother died, he came to the wake and he ended
1:00:47
Speaker 1: up signing holy cards in front of his casket for
1:00:50
Speaker 1: an hour. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: but it was beautiful. He was so weird it out
1:00:56
Speaker 1: about it. I said, Ernie, think about it. How many
1:00:59
Speaker 1: times did he stand next to you while you signed
1:01:02
Speaker 1: and waited for you so that you could go do
1:01:04
Speaker 1: your business? He goes all the time. I said, don't
1:01:07
Speaker 1: worry about it, He'll be happy. So it was an
1:01:10
Speaker 1: eerie scene, but it made sense. Okay, So what musicians
1:01:16
Speaker 1: are you fans of? And what musicians are you not
1:01:19
Speaker 1: fans of personally? Um, I'm a I'm a very big
1:01:26
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd fan. Um. I liked all the versions, but
1:01:30
Speaker 1: especially of course the Dark Side and the Uh the
1:01:34
Speaker 1: Wall and and Animals were three of my favorites. But
1:01:39
Speaker 1: Uma Goma was my record big King Crimson fan. Um
1:01:44
Speaker 1: some product rock, not a lot, but general giant, Yes,
1:01:50
Speaker 1: Caravan Family. I love British bands. Uh. In America, I
1:01:56
Speaker 1: love Frank Zappa, and I love John Prime, and I
1:02:00
Speaker 1: love Joni Mitchell. I loved Laura Nero. I love all
1:02:04
Speaker 1: of the the great great musicians that not not even
1:02:10
Speaker 1: just ones that I've worked with, I've worked with most
1:02:12
Speaker 1: of them. But um, you know, when when I first
1:02:16
Speaker 1: got to do Roxy music, you know, I loved Brian Ferry,
1:02:20
Speaker 1: one of my absolute favorites doing that That that David
1:02:24
Speaker 1: Byrne show, that that Ben Schiffer and Mark Geiger sold
1:02:28
Speaker 1: me in Vegas and in Phoenix. Uh. That the one
1:02:32
Speaker 1: that's on TV right now that you didn't like. I
1:02:34
Speaker 1: love that show on stage. I haven't seen the TV show. Um.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: But also I want you to know not about the
1:02:40
Speaker 1: act but the actual people, because as a promoter, it's
1:02:44
Speaker 1: kind of like hanging with Ernie Banks. Who do you
1:02:46
Speaker 1: have a special relationship with. Well, Roger Waters and I
1:02:50
Speaker 1: are especially close. We have we have phone video calls
1:02:55
Speaker 1: all the time. Well, we'll have a happy hour together
1:02:58
Speaker 1: once in a while, but he hasn't been drinking, so
1:03:00
Speaker 1: we haven't been having happy hours lately. But I love Roger. Um.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: He was I was one of the first promoters to
1:03:08
Speaker 1: buy a show with him after he left Floyd and
1:03:11
Speaker 1: his first people. Forget his first go around. He didn't
1:03:15
Speaker 1: do all that great. It was tough selling tickets back
1:03:19
Speaker 1: in the eighties for a guy who left the band
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that big and was also blamed for breaking it up.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: So um, I love him. And I mentioned John Prime.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: It's uh, definitely. You know, one of my very very
1:03:34
Speaker 1: best friends, Al Diniola and I are are very close. Um,
1:03:40
Speaker 1: Sean Phillips, Ian McDonald, all these other guys that I
1:03:44
Speaker 1: that I've been talking about, Frankie Valley and Alan Parsons
1:03:48
Speaker 1: and his family. Uh, Dave Matson lives over here. We're
1:03:52
Speaker 1: we're getting together tomorrow. He's fantastic. Um. It's an amazing
1:03:58
Speaker 1: group of people that we grew up with, you know,
1:04:00
Speaker 1: in the sixties, in the seventies. I mean, there will
1:04:03
Speaker 1: never be another time period like that as far as
1:04:06
Speaker 1: I can tell you. Okay, So you ultimately sold your
1:04:09
Speaker 1: additional company, Evenings Evening Star Productions to SFX Clear Channel,
1:04:14
Speaker 1: But you were not one of the early sellers. Certainly
1:04:16
Speaker 1: the early sellers got a big buck. Uh. How did
1:04:20
Speaker 1: you do when you finally sold? Well, I was different
1:04:25
Speaker 1: than than say B G P or Pace UM. I
1:04:30
Speaker 1: didn't own any real estate. So like IRV Zuckerman he
1:04:35
Speaker 1: had the amphitheater Um. You know, most of the big
1:04:39
Speaker 1: guys that that sold their companies in the late nineties
1:04:44
Speaker 1: in the early two thousand's like I did, most of
1:04:47
Speaker 1: them were real estate owners. So I think based on
1:04:52
Speaker 1: on what I was doing, I felt like it it
1:04:54
Speaker 1: was a fair price, truth be told. I was gonna
1:04:57
Speaker 1: do it originally with Ja Marciano, who was at House
1:05:01
Speaker 1: of Blues at the time, and then they had that
1:05:05
Speaker 1: big crash there in two thousand and and they they
1:05:09
Speaker 1: decided they were going to go up against these effects
1:05:12
Speaker 1: and become you know, the Yang to the Yang, and uh,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: they closed down that idea, and that's what I made
1:05:19
Speaker 1: the deal with. It originally started with Louis Messina at
1:05:23
Speaker 1: Pace and then it ended up with Rodney Eckerman and
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and and all of them. Um, I didn't want to
1:05:30
Speaker 1: do it, but you know, I I started seeing all
1:05:33
Speaker 1: my favorite best acts like Tina Turner and even right
1:05:39
Speaker 1: while Roger Waters never had me cut out at Santana
1:05:42
Speaker 1: and and a number of bands that I built myself
1:05:45
Speaker 1: up to doing three four five cities with on each tour.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: Suddenly now I'm getting a third or a half of
1:05:53
Speaker 1: the show in Phoenix. Only after I've gone through several
1:05:58
Speaker 1: tours building those markets up for those bands. Now suddenly
1:06:02
Speaker 1: there's one promoter and and I don't get a piece
1:06:06
Speaker 1: of those shows anymore. Um, that's when the writing was
1:06:10
Speaker 1: on the wall. And then that you know, at the
1:06:12
Speaker 1: end of nine at Eagles and Bette Midler thing happened
1:06:16
Speaker 1: as well. So two thousand was a year for me.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: It took me all year long to raise the money
1:06:23
Speaker 1: to pay back Mandalais Bay for those shows. Um. It
1:06:28
Speaker 1: ended up becoming a much more reasonable number when it
1:06:30
Speaker 1: was all said and done, but it was still an
1:06:32
Speaker 1: excess of a half a million bucks, which was a
1:06:35
Speaker 1: lot of money for for people like us to lose. Um,
1:06:40
Speaker 1: all those things combined made it necessary. I wasn't going
1:06:45
Speaker 1: out of business, I wasn't not a money but mentally
1:06:49
Speaker 1: for me, I I just I didn't feel like I
1:06:52
Speaker 1: was going to be able to withstand even more pressure
1:06:56
Speaker 1: from consolidated buying. You know, I I just and I
1:07:00
Speaker 1: I would get wiped out. I was already seeing that
1:07:03
Speaker 1: riding on the walls when I'm getting a half of
1:07:05
Speaker 1: a Santana show. And I had been other than the
1:07:09
Speaker 1: Bill Graham people. I was his most regular loyal promoter
1:07:13
Speaker 1: in in my part of the country. That's just an example.
1:07:15
Speaker 1: I'm not picking on them, but you know, when when
1:07:19
Speaker 1: you're getting it, like I said earlier, when you get
1:07:21
Speaker 1: a check for an entire tour up front, the person
1:07:25
Speaker 1: given that checkout isn't really happy to have baggage like
1:07:28
Speaker 1: me along for the ride. And uh, that's what happened.
1:07:32
Speaker 1: So how did you do financially? I did great enough
1:07:37
Speaker 1: enough to not work again if you've chosen too. Yeah,
1:07:41
Speaker 1: you know, that's what I thought was gonna happen. And
1:07:44
Speaker 1: Rodney said to me, hey, we're not buying you to
1:07:47
Speaker 1: retire you. We're buying you to make money for us.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: So part of the deal had some money in it
1:07:53
Speaker 1: that if I quit earlier, I wouldn't get all of it.
1:07:57
Speaker 1: But that never happened, of course. Um you know, I
1:08:01
Speaker 1: did well with it. I saved a good deal of it.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: I didn't go out and go crazy. I had already
1:08:07
Speaker 1: bought the house that I still live in with my
1:08:09
Speaker 1: own money and my own earnings prior to selling. I
1:08:13
Speaker 1: was I was set. Prior to selling the company. It
1:08:18
Speaker 1: seemed like a really good time to to take some
1:08:21
Speaker 1: cash off the table and and see what happened. Because
1:08:25
Speaker 1: even though I didn't know what was gonna happen, the
1:08:28
Speaker 1: way that it did happen, you know, it was clear
1:08:30
Speaker 1: that something completely different was going on. Then the Frank
1:08:34
Speaker 1: Barcelona days or doing shows wherever you want to do
1:08:37
Speaker 1: if nobody else is doing them in that market. Uh,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: it changed dramatically, and and looking back, I'll never know
1:08:45
Speaker 1: if it was a good idea or a great idea
1:08:47
Speaker 1: or not, but I like to think I made I
1:08:50
Speaker 1: made the right uh decision doing that. And then um uh,
1:08:56
Speaker 1: you know, getting the opportunity in two thousand eleven to
1:08:59
Speaker 1: go back out and do it again starting from scratch
1:09:03
Speaker 1: was very difficult, not impossible, obviously, and I've had. I've
1:09:10
Speaker 1: made more money each year since I started over again
1:09:14
Speaker 1: than I was making on salary from Live Nation. And
1:09:17
Speaker 1: so why did it really why did it really not
1:09:19
Speaker 1: work out for you in Live Nation? Well, a number
1:09:24
Speaker 1: of reads. I absolutely loved uh when micro Ropino took
1:09:30
Speaker 1: over the what was the name of the company before
1:09:32
Speaker 1: they came up with Live Nation, It was clear Channel, right, Well,
1:09:36
Speaker 1: there was a name they were calling it for a
1:09:38
Speaker 1: like sound Co or show Co. Oh yeah yeah, but
1:09:42
Speaker 1: that was just a temporary name, right, okay, right until
1:09:44
Speaker 1: they had a name. But I love the the excitement
1:09:48
Speaker 1: of when he took over, um, you know, but it
1:09:52
Speaker 1: just turned into a completely different animal. He did great.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: I mean, he's done greater than anybody I've ever known
1:10:02
Speaker 1: in the business. I mean he went he went from
1:10:04
Speaker 1: being a somebody in Canada to to be a you know,
1:10:11
Speaker 1: and not even a big somebody like Michael Cole who
1:10:13
Speaker 1: we worked for, but he turned into the biggest somebody
1:10:17
Speaker 1: in the music business, live music business. I Mean, I
1:10:22
Speaker 1: can't say enough about how great it is that he
1:10:24
Speaker 1: was that successful. He did great for him. But in
1:10:28
Speaker 1: in our in our in our world, in Phoenix, they
1:10:34
Speaker 1: they made a deal to take over the Dodge Theater. UM.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: And we had already we already had a great deal
1:10:44
Speaker 1: with the Dodge Theater in place. UM. And unfortunately when
1:10:48
Speaker 1: they took it over with the deal they made, it
1:10:51
Speaker 1: cost uh everybody a lot of money. UM. And there
1:10:57
Speaker 1: was there was definitely some some weird feelings about that
1:11:01
Speaker 1: because you know, over in l A, they thought that
1:11:06
Speaker 1: we should be able to overcome the fact that they
1:11:09
Speaker 1: made one of the dumbest deals in the history of
1:11:11
Speaker 1: life when they signed on for that building. For ten years. UM,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: my company, Evening Star, which is what they were calling,
1:11:19
Speaker 1: you know, our little unit for Vegas, Albuquerque and Phoenix
1:11:23
Speaker 1: was making millions of dollars each year. Um. And then
1:11:28
Speaker 1: when they when they made the Dodge Theater deal, it
1:11:31
Speaker 1: turned us into a loser. And there were times where
1:11:36
Speaker 1: they would call us out for being losers. Although we
1:11:40
Speaker 1: weren't the ones that made the deal for this building.
1:11:43
Speaker 1: The deal we had in place prior to that, we
1:11:45
Speaker 1: were making a couple of million dollars a year from
1:11:47
Speaker 1: just from that deal. So bottom line, UM, they didn't
1:11:53
Speaker 1: think much of Phoenix. Uh. Some of the people at
1:11:57
Speaker 1: Live Nation, they thought it was a losing market without
1:12:01
Speaker 1: paying attention to the fact that they just made one
1:12:04
Speaker 1: terrible deal that screwed that market up. So what was
1:12:08
Speaker 1: happening was they decided as a rule that we couldn't
1:12:14
Speaker 1: book concerts outside of the Dodge Theater or the Amphitheater,
1:12:19
Speaker 1: which is twenty thousand seats and the Dodge was five thousand.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: But there's all these clubs and the bands that would
1:12:27
Speaker 1: play the thousand and two thousand theaters. I wasn't allowed
1:12:31
Speaker 1: to book any of those groups. All I could book
1:12:36
Speaker 1: at at Live Nation was groups that could go into
1:12:40
Speaker 1: the Dodge Theater. So I'm finding myself doing Ray Davies
1:12:43
Speaker 1: and five thousand seats when he's gonna draw seven people. Um.
1:12:50
Speaker 1: That was aggravating and and passing on shows and watching
1:12:54
Speaker 1: other promoters, even though I wouldn't make any more or
1:12:56
Speaker 1: less money because I was on salary right, uh, and
1:13:01
Speaker 1: there's no bonuses or anything like that. So when I
1:13:05
Speaker 1: would see these shows that I would want to do
1:13:08
Speaker 1: my friends or people that I'm used to working with
1:13:10
Speaker 1: it make money, and then I'd have to pass on
1:13:13
Speaker 1: them because they wouldn't let me do shows outside of
1:13:15
Speaker 1: those theaters. You know. Uh. It made me nasty and
1:13:20
Speaker 1: it was depressing, and and I just didn't feel like
1:13:23
Speaker 1: I was I was doing anything of worth to these people.
1:13:28
Speaker 1: Every year, more and more the deals came out of
1:13:31
Speaker 1: l A. They bought tours, they went to the amphitheaters,
1:13:35
Speaker 1: they went to the arenas, and we would end up
1:13:37
Speaker 1: going to our shows and I would feel like a
1:13:39
Speaker 1: second class citizen. Um, you know, it's not my show anymore.
1:13:43
Speaker 1: Even though it's a company that I worked for, it
1:13:47
Speaker 1: wasn't the same, you know. And anyway, towards the towards
1:13:54
Speaker 1: the end of that, UH, I was talking with Bob
1:13:57
Speaker 1: rue about making a new deal where I could go,
1:14:00
Speaker 1: I can start booking some of those type of groups
1:14:02
Speaker 1: and and maybe have like a more of a partnership
1:14:05
Speaker 1: deal with them then being an employee and do what
1:14:08
Speaker 1: they needed done and then do my own thing. And
1:14:11
Speaker 1: then at one point it just broke down and we
1:14:14
Speaker 1: both just said fuck it, and I was left to
1:14:20
Speaker 1: my own devices. Yeah, and and and it worked, it
1:14:23
Speaker 1: worked out, Okay, you know, I really didn't know if
1:14:26
Speaker 1: I was going to continue. But right when that happened,
1:14:30
Speaker 1: if you recall it's almost ten years ago, there is
1:14:33
Speaker 1: that terrible shooting in Tucson where Gabby Gifford's got shot
1:14:37
Speaker 1: in the face, and and Ron Barber and there is
1:14:40
Speaker 1: that that terrible you know thing that happened down there
1:14:44
Speaker 1: shop and Alice and Cree Miller and Jackson and Buddha. Uh,
1:14:49
Speaker 1: we've decided at the same time they wanted to do
1:14:52
Speaker 1: something in Tucson about this, and and we ended up
1:14:56
Speaker 1: putting together a show and and it was the Cree
1:15:00
Speaker 1: running the show. And uh, she goes, so, what what
1:15:04
Speaker 1: name should we put on the poster? And I said,
1:15:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, And she goes, well, you gotta come
1:15:09
Speaker 1: up with a company name like Evening Star. Why don't
1:15:11
Speaker 1: she use Evening Stars? Well, Live Nation owns it and
1:15:14
Speaker 1: they won't give it back. So she goes, all right,
1:15:17
Speaker 1: We'll put Danny's Aletsco Presents on the poster. So that's
1:15:20
Speaker 1: how Danny's Altsco Presents was started and named Um. I
1:15:23
Speaker 1: went out and registered it and got the website and
1:15:27
Speaker 1: did all the stuff. He turned on telephones, open new
1:15:30
Speaker 1: bank accounts, which is about the biggest pain, and he
1:15:33
Speaker 1: asked stuff to do. Uh, because I hadn't had to
1:15:36
Speaker 1: do that, like in forty years. Everything just kind of
1:15:40
Speaker 1: kept on moving forward with time you know, getting more modern,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: and I got a fax machine, I got a cell phone.
1:15:47
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't have to have a Watts line anymore.
1:15:50
Speaker 1: Remember Wat's line. You know, all that stuff is is
1:15:54
Speaker 1: the thing in the past, and now they don't even
1:15:56
Speaker 1: have CDs anymore. Hardly final. Yeah, okay, So a couple
1:16:06
Speaker 1: of your favorite shows that you promoted in no particular order.
1:16:11
Speaker 1: Roger water shows for me were always brilliant, doing the
1:16:15
Speaker 1: John Prime shows. John Prime with Bonnie right one of
1:16:19
Speaker 1: the best shows I did. We used to we used
1:16:23
Speaker 1: to tour around the Midwest together. Um, I love that.
1:16:27
Speaker 1: I told you that David Byrne show was one of
1:16:29
Speaker 1: the best live events I've seen in recent years. Um.
1:16:34
Speaker 1: You know the groups I was talking about before, basically
1:16:38
Speaker 1: or are probably that show we did, the Jackson and
1:16:43
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper show. That benefit was fantastic. Um it had
1:16:49
Speaker 1: David Crosby and Nils Loughburn and Graham Nash and Sam
1:16:54
Speaker 1: Moore and KEB mo just a fantastic lineup. Um. I
1:17:00
Speaker 1: had a guy in Phoenix called Jerry ria Pel who's
1:17:03
Speaker 1: uh like Elvis Presley and Phoenix. He died a couple
1:17:06
Speaker 1: of years ago. Unfortunately, never got as big as he
1:17:09
Speaker 1: should have gotten. Um, but I'm I'm pretty much generally
1:17:16
Speaker 1: very um loyal to those names. When I when anybody
1:17:20
Speaker 1: asked me that, okay, so why write a book? You know,
1:17:25
Speaker 1: like you were talking before about maybe pitch yourself. I
1:17:30
Speaker 1: pinched myself. I realized some years ago. I mean I
1:17:34
Speaker 1: I've known forever. I mean I didn't just wake up
1:17:36
Speaker 1: one day and say, wow, Wow, this is great. I
1:17:40
Speaker 1: mean when Jerry Garcia comes up to you and thanks
1:17:42
Speaker 1: you for getting him into Siegfried and Roy, I mean,
1:17:45
Speaker 1: that's pretty crazy. Um. You know, when when Kirk Gibson
1:17:50
Speaker 1: and Bob Melvin from the Diamondbacks come to a uh
1:17:54
Speaker 1: who show and and come backstage and they're sitting around
1:17:58
Speaker 1: drinking with you, that's that's a great deal. When Gayl
1:18:03
Speaker 1: Sayers chases me down in Vegas and tells me I
1:18:07
Speaker 1: have to meet Bob Seeger after the show, and I
1:18:10
Speaker 1: bring Bob Seeger a meet and greet. I got Bob,
1:18:14
Speaker 1: I gotta meet and greet for you. Oh yeah, you know,
1:18:17
Speaker 1: not easily impressed, And and he was. They were all
1:18:20
Speaker 1: blown away. The whole band surrounded Gayle Si. Those moments
1:18:24
Speaker 1: are you know, their genius seeger uh one of my
1:18:31
Speaker 1: one of my favorite guys ever, um of all time.
1:18:35
Speaker 1: And the shows what we did were just magic, just
1:18:40
Speaker 1: magic what he did. So but why why write the book?
1:18:44
Speaker 1: And why right now? He said? Is it sort of
1:18:46
Speaker 1: an advertisement? You were talking about pitching yourself? You know it?
1:18:53
Speaker 1: I pinched myself when I think about all the various
1:18:57
Speaker 1: things that have happened. And I'm a collector, you know,
1:19:00
Speaker 1: I'm not a harder, but kind of a harder, but
1:19:03
Speaker 1: a collector. I love all these years I've been getting
1:19:07
Speaker 1: people to sign things and posters and settlers and guitars
1:19:11
Speaker 1: and and and all these things that I have around me.
1:19:14
Speaker 1: It's turned into tens of thousands of items over forty
1:19:17
Speaker 1: years and over ten thousand shows. So I've got all
1:19:21
Speaker 1: this stuff and going what am I going to do
1:19:23
Speaker 1: with this? So, you know, I thought about, I'd love
1:19:26
Speaker 1: to have a museum. I'd love to have people be
1:19:28
Speaker 1: able to walk through and see all this stuff and
1:19:30
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And and that's a very expensive, difficult proposition. Um.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: So one night in two thousands sixteen, I'm watching Shark Tank,
1:19:41
Speaker 1: which is a show that I like, and this guy
1:19:44
Speaker 1: comes out. It was the Bill Walton episode. Bill Walton
1:19:47
Speaker 1: was helping a friend of his pitch something and the
1:19:50
Speaker 1: guy that came on after him was a guy who
1:19:53
Speaker 1: called himself a ghostwriter, and he said he could help
1:19:57
Speaker 1: you write a book, and I needed so direction. Um,
1:20:01
Speaker 1: you know, I we've had we've had a couple of
1:20:04
Speaker 1: exchanges about that, and and the hardest thing for me
1:20:08
Speaker 1: to get going with was just putting down a story
1:20:12
Speaker 1: or two and seeing what it read like and seeing
1:20:15
Speaker 1: what it looked like without thinking about what order it
1:20:19
Speaker 1: had to go in. But you just you had to
1:20:21
Speaker 1: come up with your own thoughts, uh, comprising of history
1:20:25
Speaker 1: and whatever you can summon up to feel how you
1:20:29
Speaker 1: felt at that time, and try to recall that. I
1:20:32
Speaker 1: wish I had kept a journal all these years, because
1:20:34
Speaker 1: it would really really be great. Um, But I unfortunately
1:20:38
Speaker 1: have enough pictures and enough memorabilia and enough history around
1:20:42
Speaker 1: me where I can just look at a picture or
1:20:46
Speaker 1: or a piece of something and it can summon up
1:20:49
Speaker 1: a story for me. So this guy got me reciting
1:20:54
Speaker 1: recording stories. He would ask me, interview me much the
1:20:58
Speaker 1: same way that you're doing. And but we talked about
1:21:01
Speaker 1: just one topic for an hour and we'd hang up
1:21:04
Speaker 1: and he'd get it transcribed, send it to me, and
1:21:06
Speaker 1: we edited back and forth. And that's that's how I
1:21:10
Speaker 1: got started with it. I wish I had known to
1:21:13
Speaker 1: do that years before, because so many, so many great
1:21:17
Speaker 1: stories have gone by me that you know, I mean,
1:21:19
Speaker 1: I have to be triggered to be reminded of that.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: So I had a much bigger book than what you
1:21:25
Speaker 1: have right now, because I took out a bunch of
1:21:28
Speaker 1: stories thinking they weren't good enough, or I'd save it
1:21:32
Speaker 1: for another time. As it is, it's a very long
1:21:35
Speaker 1: book at three pages, and and then I had all
1:21:38
Speaker 1: these pictures, and I wanted to figure out what to
1:21:40
Speaker 1: do with the pictures. So what I hated doing when
1:21:43
Speaker 1: I read a book is I don't like to see
1:21:45
Speaker 1: fifty pages of words and then six pages of photographs,
1:21:51
Speaker 1: and then another fifty pages of words and another photo section.
1:21:56
Speaker 1: I wanted to make this book so that you didn't
1:21:58
Speaker 1: have to remember anything or go back to reference it
1:22:01
Speaker 1: while you're reading it, with those other types of books
1:22:04
Speaker 1: which are pretty much standard. And I wanted my my
1:22:08
Speaker 1: story to be told with the pictures as part of
1:22:11
Speaker 1: the words to enhance the story. And I hope I
1:22:14
Speaker 1: was successful at that I feel like I was. And
1:22:17
Speaker 1: then then there were so many other people I wanted
1:22:19
Speaker 1: to write about. You can't write a story about everybody.
1:22:22
Speaker 1: So I was able to put some photos sections in there,
1:22:25
Speaker 1: and and I took a lot of time on the captions.
1:22:28
Speaker 1: I tried to make them funny or topical, or informative
1:22:31
Speaker 1: or humorous or all the above. Um So I ended
1:22:34
Speaker 1: up with seven hundred pictures in there, and and and
1:22:37
Speaker 1: I still got seven dred more i'd like to share.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: So that's that's what made me do it. It's just
1:22:43
Speaker 1: having all the stories and and all this stuff around,
1:22:46
Speaker 1: and it's like, I know that people love this stuff.
1:22:49
Speaker 1: Music freaks, rock and rollers, the people that buy the
1:22:54
Speaker 1: t shirts at the shows, the people that buy the
1:22:56
Speaker 1: tickets when they first go on sale, the people who
1:22:59
Speaker 1: buy the tickets at the door of the night of
1:23:01
Speaker 1: the show. They're they're all different types of people, but
1:23:04
Speaker 1: we've all got one thing in common. We love music,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: and we love the people who make them and and
1:23:10
Speaker 1: the music and and there's nothing like seeing them live.
1:23:14
Speaker 1: And fortunately for me, the facilities that I use are
1:23:19
Speaker 1: generally the ones that people like to go to the
1:23:21
Speaker 1: most for that type of group. And hopefully when you
1:23:24
Speaker 1: know that moment when you're about to hear an announcement,
1:23:27
Speaker 1: you know Alan Parson's is coming to town, you're going
1:23:31
Speaker 1: if you're an Alan Parsons fan, I hope it's going
1:23:33
Speaker 1: to be at this one place, whatever you like. And
1:23:38
Speaker 1: I strive to make the right place click so that
1:23:41
Speaker 1: when people hear it, they go, That's where I would
1:23:45
Speaker 1: do the show if I was putting it up. For
1:23:47
Speaker 1: those who haven't seen the book yet, it's really kind
1:23:49
Speaker 1: of unique because there are a lot of people who
1:23:52
Speaker 1: write books that get caught up in detail, and as
1:23:54
Speaker 1: Danny says, ultimately the pictures are in the back or
1:23:57
Speaker 1: in the middle. This is like kind of a cross
1:24:00
Speaker 1: between it with conventional book and a coffee book, coffee
1:24:03
Speaker 1: table book, and that the pictures are there, and you really,
1:24:06
Speaker 1: you know, other than Bill Wyman who's a legendary collector
1:24:09
Speaker 1: and just sold some of this stuff. You are looking
1:24:11
Speaker 1: in the book, he go, how does he have this?
1:24:15
Speaker 1: Where does he get it from? And it really is
1:24:17
Speaker 1: the scrap book of our lives. It's not only Danny.
1:24:20
Speaker 1: You remember those eras as you got older and went
1:24:23
Speaker 1: to see those bands. In any event, Danny, thanks so
1:24:26
Speaker 1: much for doing this. Hopefully we'll be going to show soon.
1:24:29
Speaker 1: No kidding that I won't be soon enough Until next time.
1:24:33
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sex