Jake Gold

the welcome, Welcome, Welcome. I'm always curious as to why three welcomes. You know, it's a direct rip off from John Oliver. Okay, John, And as I say, this is something I say for those people who read me on a regular basis, I say, what kind of crazy fucked up world is it? Everyone thinks that I made that up. No, and I've even written this that people don't remember. That's Chris Rock. Chris Rock said fifteen years ago famously, what kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in?

Where the best golfer is black and the best rapper is white? Meeting Tiger Wood and eminem and and also you write what have we learned? Is that from Stern? No, no, no, what have we learned? It's my original. I don't know where I've gotten that, Stern, take that from you. That's original. Some of these things, like an attention economy. I saw a guy in Bill Maher who used to work for Google, talking about attention economy. I never saw that anywhere else.

What have we learned? I've been doing for about twenty years. Usually stopped people in our tracks. I remember I was backstage with Cats Stevens and the manager of Pearl, Jam Kelly, who's also uh Kelly Curtis, Yes, who's also co manager of Cat Stevens that I say, what if we're talking about Cat Stevens. Come back and I go, what have we learned? It looks at it goes, what do you mean learned? Because usually it's not people They give an answer,

but not that time. But it's interesting because Stern now all the time, near the end of his interviews, will say, what have we learned? I'm always worried, you know. I'm good with Howard. I hear from his buggety Jimmy Kimmel on a regular basis Jimmy Kimmel, who I've only met in real life once. You know, I had this issue. I was in the hospital. Can I send food? Just

an amazing guy. But I'm worried because Robert Plant was on Howard Stern and I talked about plants reluctance to answer in the play along with Howard, and since then, Howard hasn't mentioned me. So I wondered if what if Howard's pissed at me? Well, I think Howard's got thick skin, but he not really. You know, it's interesting because I heard you on the wrap up show a couple of times, and um, you know me, I've been bugging you for a long time. He needs to go on Howard, but

you won't do it. Well, it's funny. Uh. I did how Tony Hawks Serious XM show for Faction Talk two days ago. You had Tony here before, and Uh, Tony, we wanted to talk a lot of Stern and he was telling a lot of different stories. He said he wouldn't go on, and he said for the same reasons I told you I wouldn't want. Jake. I hear you're worth forty million dollars. Yeah, you say so, Jake do you get laid last night? He's not gonna ask you that, Sorry, Bob,

he's not gonna ask you that. Well, as I thank you overestimate that. I don't think he's gonna ask you that. Well, let's see if he actually asks me. I I think he's read enough of your stuff. The other side of it is is maybe you're a wrap up show guest. Maybe no disrespect to what you do because you reach so many people. But you look at what he's doing now,

and like everybody's famous, there's no like outliers anymore. There's like it used to be, like you'd hear about someone knew that you hadn't heard of, and scrippers and hookers and like porn started off. There's none of that anymore. It's all a listers all hawking their wares. How do you feel about that? Like he had Lily Tomlin and Jane fond On. Do you think that's good or you think that's about Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are pretty special people, and I think that's good. I think that's

good when he can go deep like that. I'm a little disappointed with some of the like the Daily Show for me today, you know, I watch it um as an example, it's just like everybody who's on mostly is just hawking their wares. Know anyway, just to be clear, you're talking about The Daily Show on Comedy Central. You're talking well, that's one of the things that bothers me is getting older. I know, you're approaching a big birthday, and when I came to that same big birthday, it's

just worse. Ship. I mean, the New York Times best newspaper in the world, right winners. You can argue with me, but that's a different podcast. You open the Hearts and Leisure section on Sunday, it's just all hype. I mean, if the movie is any good, I'll find out and I'll watch her. I won't, but I don't need to hear about Oh yeah, you know it's the best movie you ever had. Let me tell you what I ate

on set. You're just trying to you know, excitement. And then that's the thing about about I don't mind that, at least Stern does in depth interviews. But now you're watching The Daily Show. When when Jon Stewart was on, it was always more interesting to me when he had an author or someone that was doing something different that I didn't hear, didn't know as opposed to the next actor or comedians, because, as you know, Johnny Carson originally

was ninety minutes. He would always have an author, have people who weren't famous, and then David Letterman totally reconstructed the Paradigm into a comedy show. We literally had to come on and tell jokes are funny. Story And now it's funny. He's on Netflix doing Johnny's old show, going in depth with you know, first Obama and there's another episode, right, So it's funny that he is not reinventing the paradigm. It's how come in music, we haven't heard a new

sound in fifteen years. Well, it's funny. You know. We were discussing the Actually Will Botlin and I were talking about that. Botwin is a big manager red Light Management, right, he runs red Light. We were talking about that two nights ago, him and I would you uncover? Well, the problem is is the uh I think it has to do a lot with the access is is that there's so much stuff out there and it's so easy to get it out there, like to put it up there.

Very much entry is not existing, there's no there's no, but but the barrier to be found out is huge, huge. And he was talking to me about being at presentation of all this new music that was coming out and everything else, and he said it all sounded the same, and it sounds like an old guy's thing to say, but it didn't because he said, even the rock stuff is now starting to be produced like the pop stuff, just so it can get on the radio, just so

it can fit into playlists. You look at Spotify and now you know Apple Music is now about to pass Spotify in America for paid subscribers, which I think is an interesting concept in itself. But when you look at those things and you see that in order to get any traction, you've got to get on these playlists, and even those aren't going to give you fans guarantee. It's just gonna get you more exposure. I manage an accol common deer. See my plug I get my plug in.

I knew you would, Well, it's what I do. He's a manager and that's d e R. It's two words there from Canada. We're talking about the animal deer and as opposed to the guy on the ship, and they'll be a south By Southwest but you know they do. I wouldn't call super commercial. It's commercial, but I wouldn't call it super commercial music. We're getting played on playlists and things like that, but I wouldn't say we're blowing up around the world with the kind of numbers we're getting.

And and it's hard for us to get on the radio like we we'd have to be a million plays, like you know what our plays are combined so far in a Year's what Drake does in a minute, right. Well, the interesting thing there's this album for the soundtrack for the movie The Greatest Showman, and there's a track on there that is a hit. It was remade by Kesh I'm not about a hit if you hear it, and it's still not being played by Top forty radio because

it's not a hip hop track. Right, So there's a real transition going on for those people who are students of the game. It may not be that inside the music business goes where it gets the most exposure, and radio is where you reach the most eyeballs but or ears in this case, but it is diminishing and it will be slowly eclipsed by streaming. So it's funny that you know, you have these. You know, in terms of radio, it's really just urban hip hop now on top forty

certainly in America. Yeah, and dance. There's there's some dancing, but dances lesson it was a few years ago. The dances also evolved. There's like it's it's hybrid. Now it's like dance hip hop. Like there's they're mixing it all together. There was an interesting panel at Pollstar which I was just at, and they had that's a a conference for the touring industry, for the touring industry, but there was a panel and they had Pandora guy and Mark Cuban

was on. Our good friend Mark Iiger was moderating and agents were dropping names. But there was women from My Heart Radio there and uh, you know, the the numbers still show that more people are still learning about music from from radio. That's at least what what she says. But they're going to get into the streaming business. I mean they're already in it. They have an app you can listen to their stations. Whether it will succeed is another issue, right, But everybody wants to be in every place,

you know, everybody wants to be everywhere. They had Scott Greenstein from Serious XM. There right, and you know they have an app too, so you're kind of streaming that. What was interesting is they were talking about the connectivity, you know, because really what drives music on radio is the car. You know, it's the car. When you're at home, you have your Spotify, you have your other options, but when you're in the car, most people cars are equipped with FM AM and you click it and that's it.

Especially in cities like Los Angeles, were a lot of people spending a lot of time in cars. You've given up your car, right, yes, I gave up my car. You had an accident a few months back, October one, and you live in Toronto and I lived downtown And now that you're ubering lifting, whatever, what's your experience? Great? No downside. I rent a car on weekends because my mom has been ill and she lives in the north end of the city, so I try and go up every Sunday to see her. And I also play tennis

on a team that travels on Saturday. So I usually rent a car Saturday afternoon and give it back Sunday afternoon. And you read it from a traditional agency or no, no, I I go to like a budget. I have a deal with budget and you know, now, so did you handle a deal because your manager say I'm coming every weekend, give me a special rate. Well that's what we do. So for the people who don't know, I want to go back to this, we're gonna get there. Believe me,

We're not gonna forget the threat. Digression is a spice of light. Okay, okay, you know that you're gonna rent a car a certain amount, how do you go in and negotiate. I look at all the rates that are out there, right, and it's it's not so much negotiation because I'm going to argue with the guy's renting me in the car for forty five bucks for the day. I'm not gonna I'm gonna get five bucks off. So instead I'd rather say, you know, it's a snowy day,

you know, give me the four by four today. You know. It's like so I'm getting like, oh, you know what, I got to move some stuff? Can you give me this van today? And they just say, yeah, sure, here we got one. But you do rent a car every weekend. It's been like that for the last little while, only because because I've had to go up and and and not had to. I want to, but you know, my brother and I go up. So you know your brother doesn't have a car either. No, he's he's hasn't had

a car for a long time. But oh it's interesting. UH in Colorado, as with a promoter, and he wanted to store his stuff very close to the lift. So he goes up to the guy normally have to pay a stiff fee. He says, you like concerts, and then where you want to go in town, I can take care of you. Used to be the currency was the

actual physical products, the vinyl, the cassettes. Now it's like everybody's always trading something and well it's the live experience, right you know, Um, I don't have that kind of Uh. I don't have that kind of currency, but I do have um repeat businesses current and see. I actually I had to move some of my mother's stuff because she moved out of a home into uh and she was in the hospital. We had to find a new home for her. And it was like we got to move

her stuff out of the home. And I went to the budget to rent a van and a friend of mine was gonna take the bad and so I bought this mattress pad, and I bought some markers from Budget that they have there. We ended up not taking the bed, and we ended up not taking and and when we opened the markers, one didn't work. So I went to bring the car back. The next day. I had the receipt and I said, look, I didn't use the mattress pad, the markers. Look it doesn't it's broken, doesn't work. I

want my nine bucks back. And the guy said, uh. The guy said, we don't do refunds on that. I said, okay, good, Well there's an enterprise of block away. I'm here every week. Either want my business or you don't. Well, we can't do a refund. I said, then give me a nine dollar credit on the rental. Like he couldn't think of that, and he went, okay, I'll do that. I said, okay, good, here's your pat math. That's who you got, one of

the big boys. But going back to your point nine bucks there you going back to your point about the new music. Well, it's just it's interesting that I'm just talking about this the car connectivity. So they're all talking about you know when it finally gets connected and gets connected, Well, you know when I come here, I rent a car. Most of the cars today, if you have an iPhone or an Android, they come with Apple car Play or whatever the equivalent is for Android. You plug your phone in,

you're connected right now. I rent a car from a company that has the cars equipped with WiFi in the car. Well, I don't need the radio anymore. Do you listen to the radio? And they actually have serious XM in the car. But here's an interesting thing. I will now say the company's name since this will go out, because I text them about this. They're called Silver Car. I heard about them on Howard Stern and that's where they first started to promote their service. And I remember telling you about it.

And they had a code, a Howard one promo code. I came here and I thought, I'll try them out there in l A. I'll try them out there only in the US, and they ran out a four. So I used the promo code. I get the car. Great service, but I love the cars and it's got WiFi. When I was renting cars, then when you're roaming internationally, because you know Canada actually is a different country, you pay

more for roaming when you're roaming internationally. So if you had WiFi in the car, especially all the time I spend in the car in Los Angeles, you'd actually save you know, you'd save on using your data. So I thought this was a great thing. It had nav it had WiFi, and it had Serious XM with Howard Stern. So fast forward to now I'm in the car. I'm like, oh, I haven't had a car since October. I haven't really listened to Stern. Oh I'm gonna be able to listen to Stern while I'm in l A. I go to

the hite, press the button on the radio. It's a premium. It's not included in the car anymore. So you texted them and what they say? I texted them and I said, why isn't Howard Stern included in the car anymore? And the guy said, ever since our sponsorship ended with Serious x M, we just have this basic serious XM. And I wrote them back. I said, well, that's funny because I discovered your company from Howard Stern using the Howard promo phone. Guess what, crickets no response to that chose

the power of Howard. Okay, so what have we established? I firmly believe, but no, But back to the streaming thing. So the connectivity, My point is, I now have the option to listen in this car, specifically that has WiFi. If I'm worried about data, I can stream my Spotify if even if it's unsaved, I can literally stream my Spotify. It's an icon that comes up on the screen. And when you have Apple car play, um Deezer comes up on the screen, Apple Music comes up on the screen.

So I can stream all of those via my phone in the car and all that the the icons are all there. I just dialed them, impress it and Siri connects to it so I can ask the question through SERI. Okay, so is your opinion how's this going to impact radio? Well, I just think it's it's gonna impact it. Like they're all talking. But when full connectivity comes, well it's here. I was surprised that no one brought it up on the panel, Like, nobody brought it up all the people

you're talking about it, you get screwed by full connectivity. Well, no, it could help Serious. I mean people are listening to Serious. I guess there. There's their main business is still the car, you know, I I don't know, do you listen only in the car. Do you actually have the thing that sits in I listen, uh, pretty much everywhere, depending on my needs. If I'm in the car and there's something I'm very interested in, I'll go home and listen to it.

Certainly with Howard. I use the app for certain interviews that I want to hear while go hiking in the mountains. I'll listen to those primarily. And you pay for serious you know, as a friend of the company, I do not write, so I pay or I paid. And it used to be you could go online for free so I could have it on in my office's and extra money, and it wasn't. It wasn't aount of money. It piste

me off because they raised the price. It was almost it was over two hundred dollars a year in Canada, right, Canadian dollars. And then there was like, now you're gouging me for even though it was it was it wasn't. It was ten bucks in Canada for the online and I just went, I'm done, okay, But without making it about seriously, going back to the music and how we why do you believe we haven't gotten a new sound?

I think there's tons of new sounds out there. I don't think they've been discovered yet, and that's the problem. How do we find them? How do we find them? And I were saying that, and how are we going to find these? There's a couple of subjects going on here. First and foremost, I believe we live in a hip hop dominated nations through the degree we do because they embrace new technologies, they embrace giving it away for free, they embrace soundclothe, they brace Spotify. The other genres have

resisted streaming. The rock people they have all the acts are saying streaming sucks, it doesn't pay, all the old acts, etcetera, such that their fans don't get on streaming. You know, we were talking the other week with Jason Flam about is that Greta van Fleet went to number one in the active rock format. When I went to number one for a couple of weeks, still had under a million streams on Spotify. It's got more now because that audience

is not on there. So I believe when all the genres ultimately moved to streaming, there will be more of an equalization of different types of formats that we have now, as opposed to if you go to the Spotify Top fifty, it's almost all hip hop, so it's therefore it's everything else is marginalized, and it's hard to even become aware of it. Well, I mean, the country was last. The country is ahead of rock. I'm streaming. I don't know why,

but they're embracing it more than rock. Well, I think I think part of it is that I think a lot of people didn't realize there were a lot of country fans outside of the South. Listen, Patty said, country is the rock music of the seventies, and if you're someone who loved rock, you hated country that kind of rock and you hated country. Believe the dash Philly is

your sound at this point. These are not twangy people know, oh no, no no. And Nashville isn't just country anymore, that's for sure, the land of Land of musicians like Chris Tapleton. I watched him on Saturday Night Live and I was like, this is as heavy as anything I've ever But the funny thing about Chris Stapleton a couple of years ago that was like heavy all right. A couple of years ago he won Album of the Year

whatever they're calling it. The c m A Awards, and if you look at the statistics, he is the biggest acting country music in terms of consumption, in terms of sales and streams, not on radio. But that's a fascinating thing because he's the most credible acted country So they all agree this is what they want. By the same

time they're putting up problem. Well, it's interesting you say that because even in the non country fans love Chris Stapleton because like I see it on Twitter, like after the Saturday Night Live performance, all these people who I know that we're traditionals, you would see them more as rock people or or not not pop, not pop people, right, even as far is like alternative music, people all flipped

out over Chris Tableton on Saturday Night Live. Listen. You gotta flip, you know, when he leans back and he bellows and he picks, it reminds you of what it once was. Yeah, and it gives you hope. Yeah it was, and it was cooler than Leonard skinnerd It was like it was cooler than fog. It was cooler than those kinds. Was cooler. But by the same token, the progenitor there is the Almond Brothers, and they were always cool, right, they were always cool. Yeah, you're right. It's definitely more

Almond Brothers than anything else. But it's interesting. You know, I was with Wayne Wayne Forte, who's a big agent. Right. You know you used to represent David Bowie big amongst others, right David. Now as to Dusky trucks and trucks, that thing is just blowing up everywhere. But it's interesting because Metallica, which sold out stadiums in America, and he's doing arenas right now and Europe and he's going back to stadiums. I was discussing with some people involved to say, no

one knows used to be decades past. If you were some ing out stadiums, everybody in the marketplace new. In addition, the double album was successful. Now you can be very successful, but no one outside of your genre or your fans will even okay. So then the real question is doesn't matter? Why it only matters to okay? Who does it matter to? No? No, No No, let me let me be very specific. There's

this band called DAWs. I really there's a hit off the first album, the second album I really love with Million Dollar bill its and I became friendly with the guys they're in their mid twenties, okay. And older people, whether it be jen X or baby boomers, have the belief that millennials can multitask, can cope with all the information. I was talking to the drummer. They can't either. Everybody is overwhelmed with information. So how we make sense of

it is a very interesting question. I believe, like the Internet at large, we will go to winners and losers. Like if you talk about serious. There's a serious station called x MU, which is like their college station. And when I listened to that, I'll hear good stuff and I say, WHOA. Then I say to myself, am I the only person in America listening to this? Because it doesn't translate, you know, to everywhere except except When I was growing up, it was a badge of honor to

be the only person listening. But there was a circle. It would be like in your own village. And I watch this TV show broad Church, which is great. Everybody knows everybody, Okay, So when everybody knows everybody, how you look, how you hold yourself where This is one of my big things. Okay, In the seventies and eighties to hate the mainstream, to be into your independent alternative bands and we're all black was part of the ethos today there's

so much information. Don't waste your time. You don't like it. Forget if everybody's into their own thing. If you're reacting, you're forgotten. Yeah, but you know you think about it like you say, I'm a prague guy. I love the progue music. Back then it was outside music, was outsider music, and we were stoners and but by the only thing is, if you look back, it was only outsider music for

like two years. I don't know about that. Yes, came out in the first album in America, Very end of sixty nine, and Roundabout was a hit two years later. Now all the other bands, Genesis, General, Giant, whatever. The interesting thing is, as you get now two years, we haven't had a new sound of fifteen years. Well, if you think about the prod from that era, first of all, in Canada they were way bigger than they were in America earlier. Why do you think that is? We always

embraced English bands. I guess it was a Commonwealth thing or whatever, but we always embraced like even the alternative bands that were big on k rock, they were already big in Canada. By the time they got here, Genesis was playing stadiums in Toronto and playing the Greek Theater here, which is the best of the prog bands for me. When Peter Gabriel was in Genesis by a mile and

we've noticed none of those albums are on streaming services. Well, no they are, but the Lamb Lights down on Broadway isn't. And I had asked about that because one day I went, come, I can't listen to the Lamb Light Sun on Broadway And I asked the head of Warner and he got back to me and he said that they don't want people to sample that record. I don't mean sample for using other pieces. They don't want people to hear that

record in pieces. But the only thing about it is, if you have caught the announcement, best Buy is gonna stop selling CDs. So where the hell they gonna hear the album? Exactly? Where are you going to get it? On Amazon? You're gonna buy Let's Come Back? Did you watch the Super Bowl? Yes? Did you see the Steven Tyler ad? Yes? What are your thoughts? Was he saying dream on because he wishes he was the younger stealing let people didn't know he's on a race track. He's

going backwards and he become who he used to be. Right, that's like that old joke about country music. What happens when you play country music backwards? Your dog comes back, your wife comes back. Pick up. So I didn't understand it. I really didn't understand it, and they don't understand it or not. Back in the heyday of classic rock, it was anathema to do a commercial endorsement. Now forgetting that. Steven Tyler already was on American Idol, which was a

huge step at this late date in age seventy. Is it a mistake to do that commercially? I think it doesn't matter anymore. But exactly when you're Steven Tyler, it doesn't matter, it does Does it matter for anybody? Does it matter for Neil Young? If Neil Young thinks it matters? Different question? Okay, what we've lived long enough to see a great percentage of our music be forgotten. Okay, let's step back, just one step. Does it matter to me as a person? Yeah? Does it matter to Stephen that's

his business? No, No, let's let's use the definition. Ozzy Osbourne was a cult thing, Okay, he was a Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath was a hip hop of its day. There people would never listen to that. Then he hooks up with Randy Rhodes. He becomes an FM rock staple, okay, and then he puts out an album No More Chairs. Very successful, but it's a narrow niche relative to the world at large in an error prior century. Right, he has his show The Osborne's on MTV. He and his

family literally become household names, cultural icons. His live business went down, tendance went down, os Fest to everything, everything went down. So the question is if you are one of these acts, especially something like oz who stood for a certain ethos, do you have to worry about this relationship with your fans? Oh? I think you always have to. I think. And funny, I was telling this story the other day about the hip and I was talking about how you know I had that band online doing stuff

with the Internet before anybody was, Like, nobody was. They wrote about in Time magazine, right wrote about it in a Newsweek news Newsweek. Because we were the first sell our records directly to our fans. They were CDs, we were shipping them, but no one else was doing that and the fact the title of the article was, you know the tragically turned their back on the industry. You know, I had the band online before anybody. The record companies

didn't have websites. The didn't even understand it. They were letting me build database with their money because they didn't understand what what it was to have a database and the mailing list and all that kind of stuff. I mean, the model for me was the Grateful Dead. It was just a different way to access the same thing. Right. But I was talking to someone the other day and they were saying, yeah, I know you used to give a ship all the time because you insisted there was

a promoter. And they said, because you insisted that the fans had to have the information before anybody else. And I said, yeah, because that was our strategy. Our strategy was always fan first strategy. And that's always been my strategy. Fan first, fan first, fan first. And when you have a fan first strategy, you have to think about what they are going to think, and you have to think about what do you stand for, what do you represent? And every time you make a decision, the decision in

my mind was always what's that decision gonna mean? In five years. What's that decision gonna mean in ten years? And if that decision doesn't fall into your ethos in five years and in ten years, then you shouldn't do it, regardless of the money. There are a lot of subjects here, but the reason I was bringing up Steven Tyler. First thing I had to do was look up the car. And if you look up the car, the Kia Stinger is actually competes with sixties seventy dollar Mercedes, Benz and BMW.

They say it's a great car. So in this case and rock stars historically we're attached to cars. They say it's a great car. But my question is it age seventy? Does it turn? And are you better off a taking the money and be getting your music exposed because it might be forgotten by doing commercial endorsements. Well, the thing is it's and he's not getting new music exposed, but no one can get new music exposed. Let's let's separate out the issues. It's not like he's using it to

launch a single. It was dream on. But the point is the old cliche used to be, oh, Paul McCartney's and wings. You know they don't know that he was in the Beatles, if you go back decades, they're making new people every day. So are you better off using the tools that are at your fingertips, which are associated with corporations and other enterprises to get your name out there?

Or should you play to the hardcore fan? In my mind, if you have a fan, if you have that kind of base, I think you should always play to the fan. So if you're seventy years old and you have fans, and chances are most your fans are fifty or sixty years old, Okay, does it hurt you if you do with a commercial endorsement. I don't. I don't think when you're seventy and your fans and that old, it hurts you. I don't think they care, and they I think their

past caring about that stuff. They just want to go to the show and they just want to get a decent ticket. I mean that. So let's go to the next point, which is the tickets. I knew we were going there, which is why I said it. So you're a band, should you charge what the ticket is worth or should you charge a price that is fan friendly? I think you've got to find the happy media, which is what it's tough man, because you like to price

your tickets to be affordable. It's an interesting thing. And I had this argument with uh with at Aspen this year, which you were sorely missed, but they were talking about how that's the conferences a touring conference, and asked for the beginning of December Aspen Live. When that's where you and I met. That's how long it was twenty two years ago, bonding over Genesis so exactly, yeah, over dinner.

So when you think about it, there's some laws now where Jared from Ticketmaster was there and he said, in some markets you have to put the total price when you post the ticchen on this, including fee. They can't be add ons that driving people crazy. They see you know, uh, you know, ninety nine dollars by the time they check out, it's one fifty. Right, you can't do that anymore. But what he didn't understand is is the acts don't want

to be seen as charging one of course, right. They want to be able to say to the fan, the only thing we're getting is the nine nine and we're not even getting all of that. All that other stuff needs to be itemized, So you know that there's this tax there's this ticket fee. There's this fee. Remember at first they used to have a printing fee, which always completely fucking freaked me out. It was like, wait a second, why am I being charged to print my own ticket?

Like wait, I have to buy the printer and the paper and the ink and everything else, and they're charging me for that. That they got rid of. That's gone. So the act never wanted to have an all in price because they want to make sure people know what they're charging. And I remember I used to have to deal with that with the stop for a second. For those who are unsure a knowledgeable of the history of touring, a roll up. The company is presently called Live Nation.

There used to be a lot of independent promoters because of competition in the business. Assuming you are a successful hustlehold name act, almost all of the money goes to the act and the only profit to the promoter is in those extras. So it's a little bit of a subterfuge. Ticket Master, you're talking. They're taking the heat for the act. The act is saying, hey, it's only nine dollars. But if it really were only ninety nine dollars, the show

couldn't even happen. Well, there's that side of it, but that that's assuming it's a big, big act and and and and the big promoters are doing the whole tour.

But when you're going into one market like you know, for instance, if I have a young band like the bands I work with right now, and I go into a market and play a four hundred c club and I want to charge fifteen dollars for the ticket, and I want to I can't put the tickets and price them accordingly on Ticketmaster because the fans will go I'll just wait to buy it the day of. So it's harder to sell out when by the time you had your fees, and the fees are fifty percent of the

ticket price. You know, that's an issue of leverage. Just so you're saying, are you saying if you go to the door, you don't have to pay the fees because you can't. You know, I haven't priced it totally, but I've seen it, like so a lot of us are using these sort of secondary ticketing. Was charged to fifty a ticket on a fifteen dollar ticket, so you you price your tickets as fifteen in advanced seventeen fifty at the door, so you're not being penalized for buying in advance.

So when they check out, they see it's a seventeen fifty ticket, which is the same as the door price. But the incentive to get it early is for the fact that there may not be any left. Right. But but the other thing about it is there was a while there where the ticketing fees were so high. You know, I have that with with merch. The cost to ship vinyl from our website is so expensive that a lot of people just rather go to the show and buy

it from us at the show because we can't. Because just want to say, of course, if you travel with your own merch, here's an issue of having enough product, paying shipping whatever. How about those economics you know at our level, when it's a baby band, you know, you put everything in a box and uh and you put in the van. It's just another going back. It's always an issue of leverage. Certainly, club business is historically bad business,

so they screw the developing act. But as you gain notoriety and fandom, the leverage switches over to the octave stif. I wouldn't call it screwing because the problem is is it's the same service. It's like I always used to say, you know, it costs the same amount of money to buy an AD in the new usepaper. If it's the same size ad that says the Whiskey a Go Go and the l a Colosseum, the ad costs the exact same right, So the margins are just way better when

you're playing. Okay, So I'm saying, so the service that Ticketmasters providing is the same service, I understand completely, but I have a better one than that. You have a recording deal, okay, and they recoup recording costs, recording costs

or recording costs or recording costs. If it costs the Superstar Band two and fifty grand or costs two grand, it's the same two grand, but you're recouping at your royalty rate, such as the Superstar Band will be in profits much earlier than the developing act on the hope that they actually sell. Well, let's just they are. I've always thought, you know, costs should be recouped at a standard rate. It's the same thing, but on the other side of it, having had a very successful act, it's

hold a lot of records. You keep reinvesting, so you want to make more videos. So we used to make four videos off every album. Nowadays, you know you're lucky if you get one or two if you're if you're brand new man, you're lucky if you get one. By the same token, you can buy a Hero five camera. You can shoot hide deaf on your iPhone. You couldn't do that before. I mean, this is another thing that people complain about. They complained, oh, you know, they took

all the money out of the music business. Well, first and foremost most you wouldn't have been in the music business because you couldn't afford to record on your lap which you can now do on your laptop. You can spam everybody on social media so you can get the word out. So people wanted on both sides. I don't want to sound like an old guy, but I'm gonna sound like an old guy for a second here. I've been saying this for a long time. Is the barrier

of entry. Back to what we talked about at the beginning, when record companies would go see bands, they would make sure like Jason and his podcast was talking about seeing bands that didn't have record deals, that we're playing the two thousand people. So there was a area of entry that you actually have done something. You had to have to have done something on your own, build a following, and then the record company would invest a significant amount of money in you. I'm not sure that that is

radically different. The point that what's different now is they want to see you having Nowadays, they'll make a single with you, and then and then, and they'll be I would explain this totally differently. I remember there was an act. I had a friend who I used to work in the movie business with, and he said, oh, he has these friends. They were in certain bands whatever. They're looking for a manager. A and M wants to sign them. You know, you live in Los Angeles long enough and

you're very jaded. So I went to these guys apartment and they played me a song. They played me three songs. First song was called Welcome to the Boomtown. This is an act called David and David had never played live, and A and R guy at A and M liked it. They signed it, they made the record, and it went gold. That's what doesn't exist anymore, though, is trolling for acts

that have not built it themselves. Today, they want you to build it themselves before they double down, right, or they'll give you a singles deal or a three song deal, and they won't give anybody a deal who hasn't doesn't come with their own audience, right. But I've seen it with young pop stars. They'll develop them, they'll find writers. I don't know, but there's always something starting it. Yeah, I've seen I've seen it and Justin Justin Bieber had

YouTube views. Katie Perry already had a deal with Sony Music. No one was built from ground zero that they're building the following differently. But the differences is now they can go and and make those records a lot cheaper iron and a lot of them are picking up existing records. But it costs so much to rise above the clutter, and there's so few shots. That's what people don't understand. They say, Okay, why doesn't the major label sign me?

This is a math situation. They only get certain opportunities that are such an investment. They want guaranteed success. Now, this killed pop. If you've been following pop for the last twelve months, Katie Perry stiffed, Kelly Clarkson stiffed Gaga. Stiff Gaga is a little bit different, but she did Stiff, Taylor, Swift, stiff, everybody who tried to massage with the usual suspects trying to make us. By the way, I'll take any four of those stiffs. You're talking relative terms stiffs. Let's be

very very clear. We let's break it down. It is relative relative to their previously. You know, none of them had significant radio success, but they're all doing continued live business that we would all like to commission. If you go back to the old days when it was reversed, when the money was in the record, you'd be freaking out. Well, here's the thing is I argue that point because I don't think the money was ever in the record unless

you sold millions and millions and millions. That's why so many of the classic rock acts are mortgage brokers or attorneys, et cetera. We used to we used to coop against our records that we get rich off our records. No, but of our money was always from touring emerge. Who made most of the money then was the record companies. That's what's come out of the business. That's what Will and I were talking about. What we don't get anymore.

And this is the most important part is we can get the we can make a record inexpensively, we can go on the road and play. But we don't get is we don't get the marketing dollars they used to put behind records that will enable us to reach more people just with the marketing dollars. That's ass. We gave you those marketing dollars today, where would you want to

spend them? I would be spending them on YouTube, I'd be spending them on on m I'd be spending them on building a mailing list, and I'd be spending them on on Facebook all ads like I would be buying and targeting. You would buy ads on YouTube. I'd be targeting and and and it wouldn't necessarily be I would be targeting YouTube. Back to watching our videos, I'd be I would put a lot of money into making sure that we were creating a lot different kinds of content

that wasn't just music that could reach people. And I would build a mailing list. But but those kind of marketing dollars don't like, you can't even get posters. What are you gonna do with posters? Because people still look at posters. I'm talking about for your shows. This is what I'm talking about you know, when you would go on tour and you were a band, the record company would put up posters like you'd get posters up in the market that would have your your data in the

market with the mini and the record. That doesn't exist anymore, But was it just a stroke for those who didn't live in Los Angeles. In the seventies, Sunset Boulevard from La Suianaga to Beverly Hills was plastered with billboards for records. Everyone agrees didn't sell any records. It was just an ego thing. When you're touring and you're going into markets, look at posts. That was then, right? Does that matter today? Oh?

You still need you still need boots on the ground because especially when you're turning out because you're again you're not getting through the clutter with with the clarifying. But did you get through via virtual or physical? You're better off spending those dollars or that effort online as opposed to going out and putting the poster. I think you gotta do both. I think you know, there's that theory that someone's got to hear it three times from three

different mediums. I think it's true that has to happen I think you have to be able to you know, if you're playing a bunch of clubs, those clubs have to have posters up in the clubs because you want to reach other people going to the club that seems want to advertise, whether or in the club. But in terms of snipe, but you used to be able to get money. Even if you were able to get money, I don't think that money is efficiently spent. There are

a lot of things. Someone will email me about a record, Okay, can I send you the c D? I said, no, can I You know, if you send me a c D, it makes you feel good. But like both of my main computers now, they don't have a CD drive. I don't own a CD. You know, as I say, But they want to send you something physical because it makes them feel good. But it's inefficient in terms of marketing. But that has nothing to do with stuff I think. I think at this point in time, Okay, it's like

the movie business. Okay, Oscar season is upon us. Okay, I've seen essentially none of the movies, not because I'm an anti movie, but I'm not getting you know, we're living an on demand culture. I don't want to plan my whole day to go to a movie. I don't know what a mood I'm gonna be whatever. The distribution is killing it. It's about being in the home where people have. Maybe you should take your girl out to a movie one night. I would rather spend my money elsewhere.

At least if you make reservation at a restaurant, it'll be here at the same time. I enjoy the movie. I enjoy the popcorn in the movie. I actually enjoy the experience, and I think people do. My point is different. My point is a lot of what we used to do no longer applies. It's no longer effective. An example is name one act who was on late night TV this week. That's my point. People are still fighting to

be on these varying shows. If you get a video out that you can put on YouTube, whatever, more power to you. Know, nothing moves thee doesn't move the needle. No, it's if you're if you're looking for marketing dollars, and believe me, they're looking for them. Let me fly the band, let me get here and make up, go to New York, Relly to be on the show. I'd say save the money. The money is much better spent elsewhere. Well, it also

depends on your audience. You know, Facebook just came out with their numbers and time spent on the on the platform is down, but money's up for them, right well, because to reach anybody, you gotta pay it. But what they didn't give us was demos and it's aging. Absolutely, But let's not forget that Facebook going Instagram, which is the big KNA right becoming. Yeah, but interestingly enough, like I work with the children's act called Splashing Boots, here's

another plok at one left. Yeah, that's that's as far as that does. Um, I'm not sure their audience is listening, but it's O no, no, But you'd be surprised because I know one thing for sure. Grandparents spend more on grandchildren than parents do. Is that a statistically. That is a statistic, and we see it at the shows. It's the touring children's So the key is to reach the grandparents and face. Facebook is a place to meet reach them. This is what I'm trying to say. And so some

of your audience maybe grandparents, I'm sure they are. So then don't discount the fact that I'm not talking to your audience, because the group's audience is one and a half to six. Okay, but you were making a bigger point. My point is is Facebook's not releasing their demos because they don't want anyone to know the audience is aging. Like I'm trying to get the demos. When those figures came out, I went to all my friends who were in media and everything else, I said, where are the demos?

Can you get me demos? And none of my friends could get me demos. They could not get the demos from that new stats that they just put it. I don't trust anything they say anyway, because they're those not following. They've been criticized for missing the fact that their platform was invaded by foreign interests i e. Russia and theoretically I believe affected the US election in they finally admit after about nine months and now they say they're focusing

on the individual to the detriment of news. They only pray to one thing, which is the almighty dollar. I stock they're gonna change whatever it is to make it work for them, So whenever they whip sauce, I just

don't believe it. Well, YouTube, their algorithm was serving up erroneous stories about Hillary Clinton in the markets those three markets where she lost, where she lost in the three states where she lost by eighty thousand votes, and she never went to those states, so she never actually got a chance to refute what was being served up to these people. Hi, everyone, this is Bob left Sets. If you stumbled upon this podcast on iTunes or tune in,

you may be wondering who is this guy. Well, my story of the story of my blog, The left Sets Letter was told in episode one. Please check it out. If you like what you hear, subscribe to the podcast today and you'll hear my interviews with songwriters, reformers, music industry and tech executives. First. Also, I'm open to feedback.

What do you like? What do you hey? Emailed me at Bob and left sets dot com and now more with Jake Gold Let's go to somewhere you know some of the more general topics today's music visa VI the old music as good as the old music? Some of it is you know, I was never I did. I didn't grow up as a hip hop fan on the name name Two acts you think today are as good as the acts of your I think Drake is That's It's Canadian started off on a on a high school show.

The GROSSI who cares anybody tweets me nothing bad to say about guys doing great stuff and he's he's almost heflon. Okay, why do all the great acts come from Canada? We have a great system for developing acts and allowing because we we support the arts, will be a little more specifically support the arts, and we support the arts through funding. We we have UM we support the arts who tax credits,

we support the arts through UM access. We we live beside the greatest exporter of culture in the world, and we need to make sure that we have a voice. So our government believes in supporting it. And that's not just federally, it's it's provincially, which for those who don't know, that means like states. Now, I'm not saying every artist that's come out of Canada that's been successful has had

that support, but it's a culture that supports. You know, Drake's TV show probably wouldn't have got made when he was on TV if he hadn't if there hadn't been support for the arts, because those TV shows and all of those things Degrassi we're getting made with tax credits and all kinds of you know, grants and loans and participation, that's how it was made. I mean, we we we

we are behind in in the movie business. There hasn't been a lot of big Canadian movies outside of maybe uh David Cronenberg, who's We've had some big Canadian directors who are l a base now. You know Paul Hagas and um Um what's his name who did The Titanic and uh cameraon ca. Yeah. Yeah, Well listen, people don't know Neil Young's Canadian anything, right, A lot of a lot of the Canadians have moved to the US. We're

we're gradually taking over its stealth. It's like, you know who who just bought the l A Times from South Africa? Japanese doctor Nobody's originally from South Africa, Africa. That's he's Asian inheritage, but he wasn't born in Asia, right, you know, I think there's a stealth thing going on. It's like the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown l A where the conference was of the Pulstar conference was owned by Korean Airlines? Okay, is the world at large taking over America just Canadians?

I think the world at large is, But it's all being done stealth like no one. Okay, so play this out what ultimately happens. Well, you're asking me to be a soothsayer. I so you think that while we're sleeping, we're watching our Netflix, our country is being taken over by foreign interests. Hey, listen. One of the greatest shows on Netflix that I've been watching lately is a show called Dark and it's from Germany, right, right, So there's

the culture is coming in. So you know, we were talking before we started this about this place I was at earlier today before I came here, that does all the dubbing and subtitle and subtitling and dubbing too, and they were saying that the demand for dubbing is so big now because the over the top platforms, the Hulus, the Amazons and Netflix are buying programming from all over

the world. And they said, in the urban centers subtitles okay, But in the non urban centers in the middle of Iowa and then let's call him the Red States for lack of a better term, subtitling is not okay. You gotta dub it. Really. Yeah, that's fascinating. There was a David Brooks editorial or opinion piece last week of the New York Times. And he's a right wing guy for those people don't know, certainly not a Trump fan. And he was saying that, you know, mimigrants come to the cities.

Everything's thriving in the cities now and what they're fighting for in the hinderlands. They're being left behind because of all the progress in the cities, right, which is what you know. Your current president's whole m O was right was I'm not going to leave you behind. Everyone else has left. Okay, since we're on this topic for since you're from Canada, I was here about I remember I was born in New Jersey. But I'm asking a specific question in terms of your residency in Canada. What is

the bottom line with the Canadian healthcare service? Anything you read that says it's negative or it's bad is bullshit. It's it's it's based on need. Let's start from the begining. Like I've had I've had both my knees operated on, right, Okay, it wasn't death. So when my when there was an appointment and it was like in other words, I couldn't say I want my knees operated on tomorrow. Right, we're here. I guess you could pay and get it done right away. And I'm not a pro athletes, so there was no

reason to do it right away. So it was like, you know, in August, I meet with the surgeon and he says, Okay, you're gonna get your knees operated on in October and that's when it happened. And I didn't pay a dime. Okay, let's start for the beginning, totally transparent. Essentially, you're paying no money for healthcare other than your taxes. Correct him, undo, and you get a card. Yes. Let's assume you wake up one day and you say, I don't feel that well and you go to the emergency room.

Is there a charge? No, zero zero. Let's just assume you want to do that. You go to the emergency room. Is it readily accessible, and how long do you have to wait? Depending on the day and time and where you go, it could take a long time. You could be there a long time. Well, the same in America, right, you could be if it's emergency, you could be there a long time. Like that's the dread, I gotta go to the emergency. But that's the same thing in America.

Believe me. And then do you ever have an issue where you have a health problem and the doctor says no, I don't believe you need treatment, and you want treatment. I haven't had that issue. But remember the doctors are still independent, so the more they see you, the more they can build back the system. It's how does that work economically? Well, it's no different than building the insurance company syce, the insurance work in America goes to insurance

company overhead and profit. Listen, I think the health care systems aren't perfect, so I don't know the economics of I can't tell you the economics on our health care system. I can tell you how that the doctor gets paid when he builds Like a lot of doctors, for instance, will not give you results over the phone in Canada, you have to go in and see them. But I have a doctor that deals with people in our industry and knows that they travel all the time and stuff

like that. So he's allowed to charge a premium, and he charges a couple hundred dollars a year, And the couple hundred dollars a year allows you to get a prescription called in without him coming in to see you. Allows you to him to call you and give you your test results over the phone. If you had blood tests on and all that other stuff, and you pay

that yourself, that's your choice. We also have Medican, which is like a place where you pay fifteen hundred dollars a year and they do like full on body scans and they're they're the level of your yearly check up is you know, let's just say it would be better than normally what a doctor would be. Okay, if I didn't pay the fife, I can still get a check up. No, you get your check up, but what they do is

take it to the end degree. Okay. So they're partly subsidized and you're paying the extra for all the rest of it. Anybody can pay if you want to go to Medican. Okay, So let's say your home and and again, and guess where their offices are right in the heart of our equivalent in Toronto of Wall Street, Bay Street. So it's like you know, it's it's definitely there. There is a foe two tiered system. In other words, if you want to pay, there are ways to pay that

will get you better treatment. The key is it's no one's going bankrupt, No one's gonna die broke because they got sick. That's the most important thing. As an example, I had a friend he passed away. He was an American, got a job working in Canada in the business. Been in Canada for ten years. Uh, you know, once you're there for for three months, you get the card. Three months, three months, you get the card. If I have to have pledge fealty, do I have to landed immigrant? Three months,

there's your card. He got cancer. He got lung cancer. It wasn't a smoker, but got lung cancer, one of those things. Diagnosed it was bad, you know, stage four. His parents living live in the States, they thought, well, we're gonna take him to Sloan Cantering in New York, gonna take him to the best cancer hospital. And he was being treated out of hospital in Toronto called Princess Margaret Hospital, which has the reputation of maybe being in

the top five in the world. And his doctor was a woman doctor, and uh, it's took him to New York and they went to slunk Henery and they looked, they did all the tests and they said, look, everything they're saying is what it is. Who's your doctor? He says it's this woman, and they said, well, what are you doing here? You have the best doctor for what you have in the world. The best doctor is where

you are. And it cost him anything. If that had been in the US, his parents probably had to mortgage their house and everything just and he unfortunately passed away two years later, but just just for the chance on the hope that he would have lived kind of costs. So I think that that you have to you have to look at it as as you know, are people dying, Are people um going bankrupt because they're sick. That should never happen, and that's our culture and even our conservative

politicians will never touch that. They will never touch that. That is like, that's off the table. Well, since we're this deep, you now have a liberal prime Minister Trudeau. How's that working out. I think there's a lot of Uh, there's a lot of people who who probably don't think he's doing an amazing job. I think he's great. My life hasn't changed that much in some way, it's changed

for the better. In the arts world, there was there was a while there where they were cutting back on our CBC, which is our you know, the equivalent of PBS. But it's publicly funded, meaning through the government. Um, like the BBC in the UK, there was a chance that some of the funding to the arts was gonna was to uh, you know, music and film and TV was maybe going to get cut back with the previous government. He came in and refunded everything. That's great, So let's go.

Let's assume you come home, you come home from work, or you work out, your house made, it's six o'clock. You're not gonna work anymore. You turn on music, or you turn on television TV. What do you watch? Um, I watched the best reality show on television that is CNN. So what is the Canadian viewpoint about what's going on here? We shake our heads a lot. We definitely shake our heads a lot. I used to have it on during the day because it was on all that it was

in my office, I had it on. I can't have it on anymore. It's just, um, even that it's getting to me to the point of I can't believe this is like, what what's going on here? It's like, so I I put music on, I'll watch uh. I record a lot of shows instead of going to the on demand part of the HBO or any of those, I'll record them and then when I come home, I'll watch them sometimes early in the morning. Like if I don't watch The Daily Show at night, I'll watch it first

thing in the morning. Um, it's a couple of TV shows. I like Netflix. I go to Netflix a lot, but I'll watch it on Netflix. I just finished watching Dark, which is a really good I've only watched the first episode. That's like a German Stranger Things. So is it worth it? Yeah, it's great. It all sort of comes to fruition, but it leaves it open for of course, which is you know, it's it's always good and it's always bad. Um, I'm always looking for new stuff. So you recommend anything though

that you see. I like Black Mirror. Black Mirror is good. You can start at any any point in the series. You can watch season for you. It's it's the modern twilight Zone for those of us those people never saw that Twilight Zone. That's what it is, right, it's you know, although there's this whole sort of take on social media. Um, I'm digging that. What are you watching. I'm just finishing the third season Abroad Church, which is phenomenal. I gotta

start that. I think I watched this episode and don't remember if I did. Okay, I mean, where does it take place? Uh, Ireland, didn't know, and it's coastal UK Coast London, England first and foremost used to be in the seventies, all good movies had subtitles. Those were the best movies. But when you have English shows, it is not based on the person being good looking so or European shows. It's about the quality of the acting, which

is so much higher. Even Meryl Streep, who I'm not the hugest fan of it's very hard to watch the show, would say I'm not watching Meryl Streep, Whereas you watch these English TV shows and they blend into the character and it seems much more realistic. They're much more regular people. I really love that. I mean, okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a theory on it. Okay, you don't know these people, some of them do. Some of them you do only because you've seen them as

actors and other things. Okay, So it used to be let's we'll talk about selling out right. It used to be al Pacino. You never saw him on a talk show. Robert de Niro. You never saw him on a talk. There were certain people wouldn't do it, but they wouldn't. Now they all do it. De Niro. The theory was they used to be the only way you saw them was in character, so you only knew them as those characters. You never got a chance to know them as people.

It's harder for someone to be believable if you know them. I think that maybe true. But a lot of these American movie starts are just shitty actors. Yeah, I think, I think. I think that some of that is true. Let's let's let's bring this over to music. Some of that is true too. To what degree music a manager

would create an image and create mystery. You can't even do that anymore, no, I mean there's the I always used to say, don't pull the curtain back from the Wizard, you know, And then I had other friends that would say, well, it's either mystique or mistake. That's a good one. I never heard that for them. So, but in today's marketplace, how do you address that? I think each act is different.

I've never really worked in the pop world, so I don't really I'm not that guy that kind of like, oh, I'm gonna make you a star, you know, and find you songs and dancers and dress you up and everything else. I look for people that that that have their own vision, that have their own sound, that are you know, have a sort of sense of self and try and make that happen. For it's a long haul. That's all I can tell you is you have to commit. It's a commitment.

Like even with the Tragically Hip we signed them in six We told them when we signed them, you will play your first arena in ten years now. Most bands would hear that and go I'm out, I'm out. They were like cool. Nine and a half years later they played their first headline shown in arena. Well, because we made the plan. But what was the plan? The plan was build it fan first, build it, builded building. So

in retrospect, what were the key elements? Listen, I can't deny that the record company helped because they actually backed up our plan. They backed up our plan. It was our plan, mine of my partners. But amazing live act. Gore Downey as as far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest front men that's ever lived, without a doubt, So in the moment, in the moment all the time. And I've told this story before, but I might as well tell it now. The first time I saw them

was August. We had given a cassette tape. We went and saw the band that we set up a gig, went and saw a week later. He walks on stage, he opens his mouth, he does this jump thing and chills, and I just went to my partner, were signing these guys tonight, Like I knew that moment, and I had thought i'd seen it before that, and I hadn't seen it until then, And so now I'm always looking for it.

And if you have found it again, this band Common Deer has it individually, there's they don't have Gore Downey, But I don't think you know he's He's a whole other level of of it. And I really do believe he's right up there with the Leonard Cohen's and the Bob Dylans and the John Lennons, and in places around the world, like you go to Holland and they revere him that way, like they see him as a poet,

as that kind of person. I mean. He was honored at the Grammys this year, which was quite surprising in the in in Memoriam. I wasn't surprised that he was, because he deserved to be. But I was surprised because, you know, he never had that huge mainstream success in the United States, but they had a lot of influence

I think. Okay, staying on this scene, you know, in the last four or five months, there's been the whole Me Too movement and there's been a lot of well you've been kind of involved, right, but I wanted to make it less about sexual harassment and more about female opportunity. Are there more women in the business in Canada than there are in the United States. I wouldn't say that's true. I mean, I know a lot of women in the business.

Like uh, I sit on the Canadian Independent Music Station Association. I sit on the board and our chairman the last two chairmen have both been women. Chairwomen both been women. Um I'm on the board of the MMF, which is Music Manager's Form, which is a manager's trade group that has chapters all over the world that started in England. Our chairman of the board as a woman. Well, that would that's I can't say the equivalent in the United States. I would say that would be ahead of America. But

it was interesting for a while there. I remember when the Hip were signed to Atlantic. You know the three most powerful people at Atlantic. Powerful people were women at the time. You know who's the head of promotion? Then you remember and right and you know and uh and Vicky Germay's and they had a publicity was was a woman like. They were pretty. They weren't the top, but man, they can make a difference to make get your record

broke right. And there was Sylvia Rhne like. There was a lot of women in power then that I think there may have been more women in power positions then than there are now. So do you believe we need more women in power? And how do we do that? And I think you have to engage. I think you have to. You have to empower them to feel empowered. Boots on the ground level. What do we do. It's

a tough question because we're all dealing with it. But for instance, I had at one point I had an office when I had a bigger office, I had six people working for me. They were all women, and I gave every single one of them an opportunity to be a manager. You want to be a manager, but here's here's the rules for being a manager, no different than any guy that I would bring in to be a manager.

I'm not gonna pay you as much as you're getting now, but you're gonna get a huge upside if you sign an act and you bring and you get a commission, because now you're now your versus a commission, right, And every single one of them wouldn't take the deal, then why do you think that was? Maybe they just wanted to security. I don't know, but I remember even my assistant for twenty two years, Shelley, She's and you know, Shelly, she said, I just rather be your right hand I

don't want to be managed. I don't want to be Do you think they were not entrepreneurial or they like this? Probably not entrepreneurial. So I think that and that that's a whole other thing. You know, there's some really great entrepreneurial women in Canada that I do business with, that are really really good, that really know there's stuff that are running independent record labels and everything else. And I'm sure there's some here. I don't know as many here

as I would there. But I think that being an entrepreneur is a whole other thing. I don't think you can teach entrepreneurship. I believe that you're it's born or learn from your family. So finally, what are the challenges you see for your both yourself and the music business today? I don't know getting upgraded tomorrow when I fly back to my immediate uh my immediate challenges fighting l A traffic today, I personally would I'm always searching for that arc.

You know, every day when you're a manager, you sit down at your desk or wherever it is, and you

hope you get some good news. Right. You want like a couple of pieces of good news, even one piece of good news that you can just build off of, because your job is to tell everyone else, look what just happened, right, So you need that and some of it you can create, but some of it, you know, it's it's left up to Like I've been watching with common Deer, I've been watching the Spotify numbers go up every day for the past month and really climb like we've had We've had growth in the last month, and

and I'm seeing more fans and more saves and saves. It's big because they're actually saving the music into their library. Those are indicators to me. Okay, now, I'm starting to get some real fans. But it's been a year later now, I forget that. With the Tragically Hip, I toured them for two years before we even put a record out, And that's part of the education with the bands, you know.

I think I think people always say, what's your most important job as a manager, And I'm like, manage expectations because you have to sit these bands down, and you say, look like, this is how long it takes if you want to have that kind of career. You know, It's like I've said this to you the you know, it's physics, right. The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of refraction.

If you're playing that for the scientifically, if your career trajectory is straight up, it's likely going to be straight down. And if you shine a light on a mirror, as you change the angle of that light on the mirror, the angle on the reflection of the light on the mirror changes also. So if you shine it straight up to the mirror, that light comes straight back down. If you shine it at forty five, the reflections at forty five.

And I think if you want to have a long career, you need the forty five Okay, are we saying don't go for the brass ring because it might be over quickly. Yeah. I always believe are you gonna bet on yourself or you're betting against yourself. It's like, are you gonna take the big publishing advance when you're early part of your career because you think you're gonna fail. You better get the money me now, or there are other people that say, oh, take the money and then you can do stuff with

that money. So it's both. But there's no big I mean, let's talk about there's no big publishing advances anymore until you're already big, you know. But in terms of longevity, what are the keys to longevity? You have to do a fan for a strategy. If you're a banned if you're putting out pop singles, then you're only as big as your last single. Anyways, Like you know, you earlier in our in our conversation said, you know, Kelly Clarkson stiffed uh KT Swift because they didn't have a hit.

Right now, you can say, well, it's pop music, it's the way it is. But they didn't have a hit. There are hits out there, they just didn't have a hit. So they picked the wrong song or they recorded the wrong song. Well, Neil Young had four hit records in his career. He put out thirty albums, right, he put out thirty, How many were huge? Four? Five? Like huge? Right, the big records. So if you want to have a career, you have to accept that there's gonna be hills and valleys.

You have to accept it's gonna take a long time to get there. With the thought process that you're gonna be around a lot longer than everybody else. Why do you stay alive though? In the process you talk about the early days of the Tragically Hip. Did they have day jobs? No? No, they were young, they lived at home. They were smart enough because by and large they were pretty conservative in terms of like their lifestyles. They weren't extravagant.

It's pretty Canadian to to not be extravagant. You get shouted out if you're too extravagant. You know, I always said, you know, certainly in terms of music business, Canada is like a giant high school. And then everybody knows everybody, everybody's and everybody's even you look at Drake, I mean, Drake's super popular. He's not in the tabloids that often he's not on red carpets. He wasn't at the Grammys, Like he doesn't care, and you talk about you said

it earlier. You know, the Metallica sells out stadiums and no one knows. Drake feels the same way. I don't care. Drake shows up into the school in Miami the other day. He shows up at the Raptors games. You know, they're the Toronto Raptors basketball team. He's sitting in first row. He's an ambassador for the team, but he's cheering for them because he just wants to be a guy. You know, he just wants to be the guy. That's a very

Canadian thing. At one point we had in the nineties, we had five women who basically owned their genres who were all Canadian. We had shan I, Twain, Lindon, Sarah McLaughlin, Avril Levine, Atlantis, all five around the same time, all Canadian. None of them at the time, right, let's not talking about what happened with sh and I after. None of them tabloid people, none of them, because it's a Canadian thing.

They're they're less concerned about. Look at me, look at me, Look at me, it's more like, here's my work, here's my work. Who's the greatest Canadian musical artist of all time? Single? The greatest Canadian music artists of all time? Oh that's tough. H Niel's probably right there. Leonard Neil and Leonard Joni Mitchell, Joanie, Yeah, I mean five is easy. Uh. Gored Downey, I think he's the greatest Canadian frontman of all time. I think he may be one of the greatest front men ever period.

And for those of you, and I'm going to give this plug for those of you who aren't familiar, there's a documentary it's on Netflix now called Long Time Running and it's about their final tour. For those who don't know, Gord was tragically diagnosed with brain cancer and undertook one final tour before he did pass away a year later. And this chronicles the tour from when you know, with the band talking about seeing him when he couldn't even form the words after his operation. It kind of puts

the whole world into perspective. It's about triumph, it's about you know, overcoming adversity, and it's about someone and the prime ministers in it. Did you see it? Of course? I saw, and how would you describe it? Now? I think your description is accurate, certainly if you know the band or you know Canada. The interesting thing for an American viewer who is unaware of the hip or has never seen the hip, when you see the rabidity of

the arena audience is it's almost astounding. You know that the people are mouthing every word, They're very excited about it. They're crying there, people are walking out of the out of the shows with tears in their eyes. I mean, you know, I went to six of those shows, of the final shows, and I hadn't worked with the band a long time. In fact, I hadn't seen them live for thirteen years. Since the time I stopped working with them,

I hadn't seen them. So they take Victorian and they did two nights in Vancouver, and I went out to Vancouver and that show was the first time I've seen them in thirteen years. And Bitter Sweet, No, not at all. I actually really I sat in the crowd. I wanted to see the show as a fan. I had a great time. I was completely moved. After you stopped working with them, did you still listen to the new records? Okay, just switching gears before we wrap it up. Tell us

what you learned being a judge Junknnadian idol. I learned how to pronounce a lot of different kinds of names, a lot of ethnicity, and we heard a lot about ethnicity, honestly, Like I can now see someone know someone's name and know where they're from. And I can like, you know, your conversations with Uber drivers, right, and you used to write about them all the time. You should write more about those. I miss those. Your conversations with Uber drivers

are are interesting. Where are you from Sri Lanka? Are you from uh? From from India? From Pakistan? Uh? You know? And then you get into the food thing and are you from Belarus or are you from Ukraine? Like you know, it's like that kind of stuff you can buy by names, right, because well they do. Say. I had a cab driver back in the days before Uber in Toronto told me they're more ethnicities in Toronto than any other country in the world. That's correct. It's more multicultural than any and

it's getting more and more multicultural. Um, it's a great place to live. I mean Toronto's It was Steve Martin that says Toronto's New York without all the ship nothing like that. Say it was on thirty Rock. I think it was he when he was on thirty Rock he said that it's uh, it's a great place to live. I mean, I've lived in other places and I keep going back there. Okay, but once again, anything other lessons from Canadian Idol. Yeah, it reinforced that I didn't want

to be in the pop music business. But I learned a lot about the TV business and I gained some new relationships from the TV business, and I actually enjoyed doing it. It was it was really fun and it was the best non job job I ever had, because because I never had a job, Like, the only person has ever written me a check is me. So there was the one time in my life where I actually, you know, showed up and got paid to you know. Basically, I remember I'd sit at my desk and I look

at my watch, thinking when does my vacation start. My vacation was going in to do the Idol shows, and you legendarily aligned your other judges to negotiate for salaries. You were the manager there more or less. I was sort of like the union rep. But but no, but a lot of times they would take our pieces and they would do these like worldwide shows, the best of the worst and all the other stuff. And so there would be a call come in and they'd have to

get approval. So I wouldn't negotiate that rate for the other four and I'd say, hey, guys, I just got us each fifteen hundred bucks. They're using this clip from here, you know, or something like that. I was the senior business guy on the panel, so more likely to be the one to do the job. Once a manager, always a manager. You've been listening to manager extraordinary Jake Gold getting the opinion and viewpoint from north of the border,

the Great White North. Uh, this is how it is we go to dinner, that we argue a little more heavily. It's even a little more difficult for me to get a word in edgewise. I hope you've enjoyed it. Until next time, it's Bob left Sets and Jake Gold on the Bob Left Sets Podcast. Thanks Bob, thanks for listening to this week's edition of the Bob Left Sets Podcast. If you haven't subscribed yet, I highly recommend you do.

I've already interviewed a ton of great guests, legends of the music business with stories galore, and you know there's more to come. So subscribe on tune in, Apple Podcasts and everywhere you listen to podcasts, choose your favorite. If you can't find the podcast and you preferred Apple, let me know and we'll make it happen. Remember, distribution is king. Can think of me reas don't know exactly must be its out, don't