Marc Geiger

but hey, um, these are temporary stockcapt solutions. So for me, economically, they're scale garth. That a very interesting thing, basically the pay per view right to other drive ins. I think there's a feeling that what I called during the what I call the germophobia economy, that almost anything will sell because they're saying it is dying to get out of the house. So for me, it's not really a great experience. Well that begs the question, uh, when the economics are broken,

so let's you know, let's get real. People are doing things to do them, not to make a living, right, So when do you think concerts returned. My guess is late twenty one, more likely twenty two. I think that this is going to be Look, the whole thing is a ship show. You write about it, everybody knows whether it's testing organ as a government that let's not. It's too infinite of a well to go down. But in

my humble opinion, it's gonna be twenty two. It's gonna take that long for what I call the germophobia economy to be slowly killed off and be replaced by what I call the claustrophobia economy, which is it really wants to get out and go back to dinner and have their life and go to festivals, go to shows. And my instinct is that's just going to take a while because as you can see, these super spreader events, sports shows, anything classroom ain't gonna do too well. And while the

while the viruses this present. So my my instinct is the world has a very long forced time out. A lot of people see the positives in it, um, whether it's climate, whether it's pollution, whether it's traffic, whether it's nature, whether it's animals, whether it's our own beings, and taking a pause, um, and I know it's frustrating, maddening and um economically you know, destructive, but ah, you know this

is bigger than us. And if you study history, things like this have happened in history and been super disruptive to normal society. So here's a biggie for our lifetime. Let's go drill down for those people are not experts like you, to what degree is insurance and liability of factor and restarting? Well, there is no insurance against COVID currently offered, and even normal insurance policies are pretty scarce and hard to come by. The insurers are sitting on

the sideline because there's infinite liability. I don't know what's tested not tested. Luss Hey, I got COVID at this event, how do you approve it? Etcetera. I think the biggest companies can maybe self insure UM and they can start. Everybody else has to wait till the insure industry feels good. So that's one of many many roadblocks in the way of restarting this vibrant economy that got put down right.

So there's probably twenty of them when you drill into why can't you the virus and the illness being one, you know, all the spacing. The density insurance is a biggie and I don't know when that comes back either. Now, needless to say you're no longer with wm ME, but uh, certainly there's no live business. Mean, there's no income for

agents and agencies they work for. What we've learned over the past week is a lot of these touring entities got money, The Eagles got money for the road business, ETCETERA question I'm asking is to what degree will sitting on the sidelines for two years affect the economics of the industry. Can these companies survived? Michael Rapino says he can borrow money, there's no not an issue. But being in the heart of an agency, can these agencies and

these other support elements survived two years off? Look um, no matter what anybody says, it's economically devastating, Okay, So I recognize that, and I don't think any excuse um can be made. And there will be a huge amount if I'm right on the timetable right, there's gonna be a massive amount of blood shed and ankruptcies and it will not be good for the majority industry. I think Michael or Pino is right. You know, he's he's big, he is great backing, people want to buy his stock, um,

he's got liberty, he has a great business. When it comes back, so you can borrow against that and it's not a great outcome. But your question is can they survive? I think people who have access to really good financing credit facilities can definitely survive. Right, I know, the costs of carrying over some of these businesses agencies are actually relatively cheap. Michael Orpine has got a much bigger issue and a much bigger staff. The biggest agencies are again

the cheapest relative word. Right. But if something's gonna cost fifty or a hundred million dollars to bridge for a moment um, again, that sounds huge. But in today's world, when you have access to capital, you can borrow against that for a year or two, and the businesses were quite profitable and they can pay down the debt service. It's a short term mortgage, okay. And when it does come back, how does the landscape change? Sure billion dollar question?

I mean, I guess, let me be specific. I think, Bob, that's a really tough question to answer. I think if the if we're in the second or third inning of the ball game of destruction. UM, I don't know what the game looks like at the end. I think the next six months maybe more painful than the last batch, and maybe the next six months after that might be even more so. So I think one of the things that happened for me after leaving was, UM, I was

able to look at the pandemic two ways. I was overseeing or part of a team of industry people who oversee, oversaw this destruction, this cancelation, postponement, etcetera, etcetera, tried to have order out of it, but was sort of trapped in that viewpoint. Um, now I get to look at COVID is a bit of an opportunity. But the question of where to exactly look and who's not gonna make

it and who's going to be under distress. You start bottom up, small people with no access to capital, people have high overheads, people who have staff that they can't easily go into shutdown mode and they're gonna get the viscerated and they're gonna need help. So in any event, recapping here, Mark, you said, Uh, when we look at the future, we're talking from the bottom up. People at

the bottom or squeeze for capital please continue. I think that again, people with infrastructure and more overhead and lack of access to capital, it's a perfect storm for them. Um. When you start talking about the big companies of Live Nation, eight g CTS, Ossessa and others, they have access to facilities and credit and debt facilities. They're public companies. The investors. A lot of investors look at them as value because they think, oh, when the claustrophobia economy kicks in and

world restarts, everybody's gonna want to we participate in. These companies will be in a good position to take advantage of it. So I believe that is going to rule the day and people will make smart investments into business as they think they'll come back. But the bigger the better there if you're small, if you're medium sized, it's

going to be tricky. If you know, like NIVA, the organization who represents is a trade organization for the clubs is trying to appeal to the government for money for obviously a loan or a grant to the clubs. So I think at the end of the day, Um, the economic devastation is going to be bigger than people think they Reshaping is going to be bigger than people think, and we all have to watch and conserve our capital and just take a pause and try obviously not spend

just to get to the other side. I know that sounds very basic, but I think it's true. Question becomes when we come out the other side, do the big get bigger? It depends how they act. They can. I mean they have to get small. Larder worries is overhead.

But you know, people with real access to capital. Again, if you think about it, like a bigger version of two thousand eight in the real estate crash, if you owned a bunch of office buildings or apartment buildings or hotels or houses and you had to sell them, or you had a cash crunch, you were screwed, right, you

were on the bad side. If you were a real estate funder private equity a hundred billion in cash or ten billion in cash, and you waited till all the foreclosures showed up on your street, which we all saw and you could swoop in. It was an unprecedented opportunity. Um certain banks and others made a fortune during that time. So I think it's how you look at the world and if you have access to capital. But I do.

I do think there'll be a lot of different owners uh and people who have equity in the music business infrastructure when you come out of this, well, liberty is capped in terms of how much they can own of Live name. But if you look historically in two thousand and eight, uh, they invested in Serious and ended up

with control of that company. So staying on this same tip, we grew up in the pre internet era where you were a band, you started in clubs, you worked your way up, and in addition, the record company supported the clubs. Let's talk about what that was like prior to this crisis. Um, okay, which part to you omans? The question is is that paradigm broken? It's more important than ever. I think that there's just because the world switched to streaming and there's

a different distribution system. Artist developments not that different. You have more tools, all right, You have more connectivity, you have more ability to be globally, use multiple platforms to communicate with your audience, and your music can get distributed better. You're not held out of a record store. But the

development process the same the touring press. Yeah, but it But but as I say, if we go back to the club are critical, they're more They're more packed today than they were back in our club era by a lot. But are there as many Yeah, there's more, many more clubs. Music has infinitely more genres than the period you're talking about, a right, popular genres. Kids have much more access kids, everybody has much more access to music, and so music

is thriving. Um. You know, you can argue long tail, but from a genre standpoint, you have much more access. They're much deeper. I mean, the electronic nightclubs alone outnumbered the amount of rock clubs than in total when we were growing up. So I think it's a um and globally, um, there's a ton more. So I think the supplies up and the demand is up. Um, which ones last, how they get transformed, that's all a big question. But yeah, I think the development process is healthier than ever and

bigger than ever. And by the way, the upside is bigger than ever. It's just there's more noise. It's a signal noise, right, there's there's how many new releases, remember what was back in the era you're talking about. There is only x amount of music that could come out that's dwarfed in a week Okay, let's let's go to this specific issue. Hey, when you're working at William Morris, would you sign an act, Let's assume the right act

had no record recording representation of any significance. Would you sign an act that did not have a live head? Uh, you know, could not sell tickets by themselves already, So how would you break an act like that? Okay? You breaking an act would imply that we were that powerful. You know, we're just team member, subcontractor on the team of building a house. That's the way I look at it all right, from any position. So part of it is how well is the team and the work together.

How great is the manager obviously? How great is the artist? How greatest in music? Um, Listen, when you sign an artist, if you really love them and you believe in them, it's not about breaking them in a record. It's about laying a base so they grow, they happen to break, they break. The industry wants. It's you know, immediacy, and it's stadium this and so and so that, and it's pop metaphor. I typically, you know, my taste is outside

pop metaphor. So you don't have a choice. You're five ten years to grow and break artists over time, especially depending on how they how they record, and how frequently. So part of it is packed tour packaging. Part of it is festivals, part of his getting great publicist. Part of it is calling favors if you can to whoever it might be that can promote stream etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. If you have that kind of leverage and and hope

that others are making the same calls. From our standpoint when you were on the agency and by the way, you work well with the manager and the manager had how how's their social media? How are they on? Are they are they frequent posters? Are they infrequent posters? Is it? Are they creating content more frequently than the other There's a lot of What changed was the ability to post content in different places and different types. So if you were not an artist that generates a lot of content,

you were a significant disadvantage in the digital area. If you're somebody who could post a lot of content, assuming you didn't turn into a commodity, you had a big advantage. So you know, it's all different, and you have to look at every artist, genre, level of interest, critical acclaim, uh, all of it and create a custom strategy, just like you know a good UM tutor or teacher does for a student. Their all individuals, so part of his can you get other artists to love them and recognize what

you love about him and and champion them. There's a lady I signed before before I left, called Jensen McCrae, and she is my favorite. She's Joni Mitchell meets Tracy Chapman, and I think she's absolutely spectacular. A couple of songs on Spotify, the albums should be Best New Album, Best Artist on the Grammys. Um, she's a social media monster and she's hyper genius. So she's very different than some

of the other people who don't post. They're not political, they're not trying to build an audience that way, and her music is more viral than others. So I think there's a lot to all of this, and it's very custom and there is no one. What we have now as an open system like technology where everything getting an app can be made for any platform because there are open systems. Now leave Apple out of this for a minute. UM,

generally open systems. I think music is the same, and so people who create more content know how to communicate with their audience to do a little better. But that was part of the job, was giving them opportunities, getting the right slot on Coachella, lallapaos at this festival, that festival, this opening slot, this so and so, this right night. It's all of it. And if you do it all right, you know, people think you do but that's okay. So, speaking of the signal to noise, it also applies on

the agency level. There are more people making music, more people looking for your time and your abilities to work with them too. How does someone reach you or w when you worked at or an agent at W M E or do they have to be involved with someone who knows you because there's just too much product? You know,

it's an interesting thing. First of all, everybody's reachable because I'm pretty easy to get too, as there are most people out there if you try, if you don't know anybody and don't can't figure an email address or to post or what to do. I understand that, but I do think when you look at things that are income and you have a lower hit rate than when you look at things when you're proactive, so let's call them reactive.

I get twenty million artists coming at whether it's Wan in the old you know, in my past, or any other agency or any other label, or I'm trolling blogs, criticalist, all music Guide, Consequences, sounds, stereogum, whatever it might be. Other filters that I trust, and I proactively go after the records, all right, or the the artists. That's the difference between success rate and a ten percent success rate. So a lot of times you don't want the incoming,

even though that story sounds good. Hey, somebody got to me, they were fantastic, whatever, And I think that the bottom line is to try to prioritize your trusted filters over just incoming noise. Would be how I'd answered that question, so I didn't care that much about that. It's kind of like you, by the way, you're the one who writes, hey, if you pitch me on a record, I'll never play it, and then I have to read every way every three letters and some random rant on a record you discovered,

and you wouldn't write it. If I told you to listen to it, you wouldn't, absolutely, man, But there's so much incoming. It affects the business so on so many levels. Since you were in a different vertical than I am. That's why I asked question. You know what the truth is, we had to process more than you did. You could be more selective because of what you did. We had to process hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of artists and try and make intelligent decisions whoever you are

in any business thousands and what can I say? You try to make you try to narrow down your decisions over time and get more fine in your filtering. Well generally, you know, I would say this is ninety nine percent. I don't respond to email from people I do not know unless they're famous, because ten percent of the public is literally insane and you don't know what ten percent it is. Have you had that issue where there are people who relentless and coose problem for you to get

rid of what? Yes, but that's a few people. You know, you didn't lose my music. You don't know what are you're talking about it? So you get judged on ultimately, get judged on the artists you work with, not the failed attempts and the who wanted to get into the party and you didn't sign them. It's did you find were you able to identify good artists. Could you grow them and develop them? Did others on your team do the same? Could you be collaborative? Could you figure out

more intelligent filtering systems? Could you figure out more intelligent marketing promotion systems or whatever it is or artists development systems in our case, So you know that's what it is. By the way, Debra Newman Hart South Side did a great one and it was great for New Jersey. They're just one off. But even though they're successful. Sorry, I'm

reading the chat high kids. Okay. Now, in the old days, pre internet days, the developing act would essentially borrow money from the record company to stay alive until hopefully they broke. How do you how do you do it today if there's no record company involvement. Well, here's the good news. In the old days you needed a record company. Today you don't, right, I mean you know that you write about it all the time, of course. Okay, So there's now.

In the old days, there were two ways to get on the freeway, right, record company or you had to be allowed INDI right, and even the indies developed over time, but they had them right back on the pop days. You can a VJ. You could have this, you could have that Concorde rounder, subpop, etcetera. And not it or

is There are many many of them. Those were your two on ramps and the rest of the time you were kind in the demo in Nowadays, there are multiple platforms for all the way up to Spotify and artist program from sound that that that, and you can break on TikTok or something all right, so you have options didn't happen before. You also have scale options, global scale options. You also have CRM see rum technical term for identifying your audience and figuring out how to keep them right

and keep them interested. And that is what record companies tried to do without the actual communication directly with an individual. So you can be a record company and there's a billion indies. So the options are dramatically different. It's back to how great is your art? How does it cut through? You know? Is it Jensen McCrae one listen, holy shit? Or is it something else? Right? Um? And I think it's how intelligent how can you act given the new

tool set? Well, I'm plugging specifically about cash frequently it's a it's make a bunch of videos, you get some traffic, you get viral and you get some ad sense from YouTube, and you know if people are if you read about it, you can make money that way, you could. You need a lot of you sift. What I understand. My point is that there is ad revenue. There didn't used to be, Okay, ever, there is ad revenue across a bunch of platforms if

you can generate traffic. If you were look, Bob, I cannot answer you to tell you that all the two trillion artists who want to make it in this world are gonna make money. They're not. That's not how the system works. Okay. No matter what system, and no matter how open it is, there's a bunch that get through, have traffic, listeners and fans that make money from the bottom of the pyramids. Let me let me be very specific.

In all these days, you put a band on the road, they need a van, they might need hotel rooms and usually, and usually there was short full. In the old days, it was the label, assuming there was a label, or the manager. If there is not a label, is it still the manager's taking care of that shortfall? Necessity is the mother of invention. I know a lot of artists to sleep on couches who make phone calls to work the networks. I was talking to Jim Casey who came

out of defying his so far sounds. They do shows in people's living rooms. People just scale down. They released records, they put it on band camp. They sell twenty records at ten dollars each and they make they make do, and they make do with the costs they have. Like everybody else, you can create a home to which you couldn't use to. Yeah, they find a way. If you talk to people who sell clubs, and of course clubs

have been redefined. It used to be really under four hundred, but now you know you have the Wiltern that is fifteen hundred. But if you talk to acts that consistently go clean in those venues, they are bitching at infinitum about the ticket master fee and they can't make money. Needless to say, on the other end, the stars dictate.

Are they bitching? Do they have a legitimate point that they cannot make enough in these buildings and they cannot keep ticket prices low or they just you know, wankers who were complaining. Hold on, are you saying the bands are to air Live Nation at those relates to the Weltern and you confuse me said the capacity. Let's not make that specific. Let's just talk under five hundred capacities. Look, ticket fees, you know what they are? You right about them,

all right? Right? Most people, most artists don't get ticket rebates. That's wrong. You write about it all the time. You write about the top few people who are have that kind of leveraging cloud and you know, or grandfather deals. Most people don't get them. I can tell you that, right, and I know that world well, they don't. They don't. So it's not the artist dictating ticket fees. Ticketing was a profit center for a promoter that we're all promoters, frankly,

all promoters. They were lifelines and not just the big ones took advances from et cetera. Because in world with no downside, promoters can't make money. Okay, they can't. It's not a fair fight. So the reality is a little different than you write, okay, because there's a sensationalism. Um no, no,

I agree with hold hold okay. You know you talk about the big people who are able to get a ticket rebate here and there that for the most part, okay, there weren't rebates, and ticketing is what helped promoting companies grow as sad as it sounds. So in an all in ticket it might be a more fair economic percentage. And then for whatever reason, people don't want it all in ticket because the artists then thinks ticket brice to you. Whatever. Okay, this will find its feet at the end of the day,

no matter what have been. Anybody says there were more tickets selling in two thousand nineteen and there were going to be in two thousand twenty as a record year than ever before in history. Buy a lot. So the ticketing fees as however you feel about them, and obviously I'm trying to answer you in a political fashion. Wait, wait, didn't affect consumption. Let's talk about then you is it are under five hundred, which is a complet There are

acts that consistently sell those. They say, we want to sell the ticket for it's forty and we're not making enough money. That's true. That that's true, and they have to negotiate a reduced ticketing deal, which is possible, especially if you have good connections. You can do it. If you can't, you might be a little screwed. There's some

truth there, Okay, So let's go to the future. What do we know which you which you illuminated, which essentially is the acts take all the revenue, and therefore the promoter and the biggest promoters you talk to them. Yes, they make their money on the ticketing. But also let's get real the acts again. I'm not taking the pro artist pro anything here. I'll just try to be a realist.

The artists have expenses, forget commissions. That question. Okay, listen, if the promoter doesn't make money, you know, Live Nation would be out of business, like question becomes when it comes back. Already, the promoters are trying to lower the percentages. They're trying to make deals a more advantageous to themselves. Do you do you think those will stick? I think, Look,

I don't want to be a prognosticator. My instinct is is that the artists and their representatives have always had the leverage and they exact it as balanced as they can be. Okay, So I don't think any of this stuff lasts to be fair to promoters to have additional risk when people are trying to reschedule dates when you may be reschedulinguntil next May, which is going to get canceled?

Okay or whatever? And the promoter can't get insurance and has to hire that more doctors, temperature checks and all the other crap they have to put up with, let alone that they don't know. Which mayor governor county official will say, you can only sell half the people half the capacity and they're supposed to be on the hook for a guarantee is insane, all right, I'm just insane. The risk is infinite, So promoters are absolutely not wrong.

They should say everybody should share the risk. We don't know what the futures like, certainly in the immediate short term, right, and everybody does need to pitch in UM. And I think for the most part before I got before I exited UM, most people were and most people when you really think about how much risk the promoter does carry and what they have to deal with and the lack of food and beverage or sponsorship and all the things that canceled out of any of these people's lives. From

a nancialer revenue standpoint, they're getting pounded. So to just think, oh, they should bridge their companies and then they should make minus minus dollars isn't really fair. So that was sort of in my two cents. What I would say back to you, I think it is needed in the short term, like any help is needed for anybody, whether there's governmental assistance or whatever. Talent fees are high, and they'll find

their way back. It's like the stock market. You know, it goes way up, then it goes back down, then it crawls back up, and if you're an investor, you're kind of used to it. And I think artists, we'll have to play that way. And not every artist. Remember this is too easy of an argument, because not every artist sells the same amount of tickets and means the same gross. So there's levels of risk just of promoting

artists in general. And maybe if the overall markets down and half the artist sold sixty, now they're down forty. You know, there may be down to forty or something like that, and so the promoter has to deal with that too. Let's let's go back to the agent used to be for Historically the agent got a straight ten percent. Assuming you have an agent, the people who can go clean the p selling the big buildings are not paying ten percent, So give us the landscape there. Well, listen,

ten percent. Business is different if you're in theater books, acting, film, television, etcetera. Let's talk about music. I got it, but I want to explain it because it's important for people to realize it's about effective margin, Okay. And I tried to explain this to a lot of people in Hollywood so they understood it because a lot of people in Hollywood felt that music people were disruptive and disrespectful of a commission system,

which is not true. It is totally different. Okay. If you're a director or an artist, you get or an actor or whatever it is, writer, you get paid your fee, and you pay either an attorney or an agent or both, and you keep roughly of the hall. If you're an artist and you get a gig, you may be thirty thirty five percent, maybe forty of the net. Okay, that's your net of a guarantee. So commission off the top, which is a gross number, is a big number to that.

It can vary the net by a good amount, and when you have million dollar guarantees or higher, commissions can be very high at ten. So there's been a natural arc I should say um over time in the music industry because of this, and arc is as the artist gets bigger, they pay less commission, right, and they make it a more digestible piece of their fee structure. And I think they do that with a lot of the professionals on their team as they have more leverage. And

I think that's historic. Okay, when you get to the level we're making a touring deal with Torpedo and certainly Rapino or Concerts West under age you want to do that? Why does an act need an age? By the way, did want to do that? Right now? You're you're the

one who mentioned that they have all this money out. Yeah, I'm sure they would like to have a lot of it back right now and keep some employees, uh and some other infrastructure, versus having it sitting an artist bank account that can't be recouped at the moment, so that will find it's it's day two, right, and who has that much advanced capital and sitting out and for how long? And thought that all? Right? Back to your question because I I took a side road, Okay, it was the agency's.

The question is if you're making a touring deal with like just simplify there, why do you need an agent? A lot of people don't A lot of a lot of the lot of the managers do those deals directly? Um? And look, there's a whole bunch of reasons. Uh, you don't know what you don't know. So are you paying for professional advice? Paying for people that know the market? Why don't people list their houses more on their own? Tell me why it's cost five or whatever it is?

Do they think they know the price? Do they think they know the deals? Do they know the comps? Do they know how to do it? Um? Can they market? Can they get well? Hang on? No? No, no, these are specific answers to the same thing in music And can they get on that festival? Oh, they make a deal with Ropino and now they want to play glaston Barrier, they want to play Coachella and that's a e g. Then how do you manage all of that stuff? Right? Um?

And the truth is there's loyalty in this. People grow bands from inception and here's a big deal and you're gonna cut people out there. There's a lot in this. It's not one answer, all right. Sometimes when it whether it's reading your articles or other um people's take on the industry, it's very simple and black and white. And I don't think any of these answers are okay, because there are millions of artists, or at least tens and tens of thousands, and they're all different. So I would

say you should. If you ask ten managers that question, they would give you ten different answers, including I don't need an agent, or I would only pay them a reduced amount, or you know what, they deserved it and they earned it, or I think they got me double the money, or they got rid of an earnout provision in the deal that would have lengthened you know, wouldn't

make it a fine ideal. There's a lot of answers there or there or you know what, I don't need to pay them on this, But the private corporates and the college gigs or the fair dates or the festivals outside of so and so are we're so much to me and that's where I make the money I'll pay them are reduced on it. Again, it's there's a lot of answers here. Okay, let's say you're an act. A lot of these festivals have three to five stages. If it act plays with two in the if they played

two in the afternoon. Other than saying I played that gig, okay, I played Lollapaloosa. Is there a benefit to them? Can they break? I think so. I mean, listen, I've said for years and made it a real point to say

festivals or the new record stores. All right, when those poet, when that gets announced, most people that are going and others, because there's such a massive cultural force, go do research like you would up anything back in the day, all right, on all the people playing the festival, including who knows what band, what artists, what friend of theirs? Who? Why are they not know that band? They're not hip enough? And so there there's a hastened discovery process on the announced.

Then the app comes out and you're making your schedule of where to go and what to do, and you're basically continually sifting through a lineup whether it's a hundred X, and you are making choices and you're in it. Okay, it's like what party do I go to? It's like your school um day, all right? What classes do I take? And where do I go and win to my lunch?

So I think festivals are infinitely more than that. And I think the one o'clock and two o'clock slots I've I've been involved with fifty acts that are breaking broken starting there. In fact, as it relates to signal to noise, Bob, if you have a big show at two in the afternoon, you own that period. By seven, the whole festivals rocking, and you don't, you might not make a sound, right,

So I'm not sure it's a disadvantage. We've purposely put artists in the old days early in the slots to avoid competition, so they got all the attention, Amy Winehouse is four o'clock on purpose. Okay, let's to what degree you've talked about this over the last fifteen years or so, expanding the purview of the agency into advances into promotion of concerts. Are these venues that agencies will continue to

forage in or will they ultimately just be arbiters of gigs? Listen, I can't I don't want to tell you what other people are gonna do moving forward post COVID. What I would tell you is the market's going to get and when that happens, typically things can be more formless and opportunity drives. Nobody's going to be worrying about regulation at the moment, you know, if not for years until this

thing comes back. So the answer really is where do people see opportunities and where they're willing to go and do, including the agencies, right, labels could go start agencies or management companies. Michael Ropino is all and and a g of invested in management companies and other things and venues. I know, Core and cap Show. He went and spent or went and invested in a lot of different um

vertical markets around touring. A lot of people have, so I think it's a The one thing that everybody's learning through this is how complex ecosystem is and how many pieces get affected right when the revenue stops and artists can't play, including even labels. Right people think labels are okay, Well, really all the indies depend on the artist touring getting pressed putting out records in order for they don't spend

that much in marketing promotion. They don't have it. So UM and the major says you know, have reduced their flow of new releases in it because people don't want to just lose the record in a week for the most part. Again, so I think everything is on the table. Everybody is going to make some choices where they think the opportunities are best and where they should invest and what they should grow. The great news unlike past disasters.

I don't know there's everyone like this, but but is that the music economy is way bigger and way more healthy than people know. So wherever you invest, you've got a good chance of making money or striking gold because, as you know, value copyrights is going up. Look at the Warner I P O Spotify price. Everything in the copyright I P business is skyrocketing. Look at merk mercuriotis is multiples on its publishing. That world is going nuts.

You read the Goldman Report, it's how you four to six times and you're talking a hundred billion dollar recorded music industry minimum, and then the touring industry and how vast it is, and it was just really growing, especially globally. You know it's gonna go through at least a double could be fifty billion a year, bigger than the movie business and all the associated pieces. I think it will come back, will come back big, and it will be healthy.

The questions can people get through and then where they spend their time agencies? Yeah, everybody can remake themselves. Now, okay, let's go into genre. You were saying that generally speaking, you are not personally into what is on the chart, so to speak, how strong hip which charts we're talking about Spotify, Spotify Top fifty, which okay, the Spotify Top fifty, which is basically hip hop and pop. Does that do as well as the top fifty of your live They've

always been disconnected. I mean I remember reading poll Star in the eighties and looking at Pink, Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Bob Seeger. You know, they weren't on any chart of recording music ever, right, Pink, etcetera, etcetera. And the same was true later in the all rock, you know, grunge revolution. There's a lot of it. Look, I think pop and ticket sales can converge and do probably more today than ever.

And saying with hip hop hip hop, it was part of the development period for people to really take the touring infrastructures um and invest in it as as the rap and hip hop community grew. And that took a lot of time. I was part of it and I watched it um. I think the same is true for

the electronic music industry. Took a while for people to really shake their metaphor of what being a DJ was and put it into a live you know, Greena or other conte festival context, and I think over time all of them grow and that's why I have such a robust business at the moment um. So the chart is

the charts. The recorded charts are again not today when the touring market is shut, but it's more in line than it was in the past in my opinion, and there's more surprises than ever because there are touring surprises that are not on the chart, and there's huge recording artists that don't really affect the touring, but I would say a large percentage of it. The holy grail is people to switch on all the revenue streams, okay, and

they understand what they are today. So whether it is the ad rev ad share that you discounted but I think is bigger than you do, or direct e commerce or merchandise which is an all time high, publishing and sinks and you know all the different uses of publishing and splits and remixes and data touring and all the touring besides merch all the touring ancillaries. I think today people realize there's ten revenue streams in the music history. I gotta turn at least six to ten of them

to to really be in the game. So I think everybody's trying to learn. So you have history in different areas, you have history at a record company. Let's just assume there's not my best one. It's like, okay, but I'm going to give you a liberty here. There are three major record companies at this point in time. If I were to put you in charge of one of them, forget which one, what would you do besides take it public? Yes, okay, well that's the first thing, all right, um, and I

think that will be happening. Well, really, Sony is part of a Sony Music is part of Sony International, Warner just Win Public and right now it used to be that, you know, if you were content, you're driving the machine. There's an argument to be made that Sony Music's valuation is getting crushed by being part of the bigger But you have to but you have to assume that. Okay, Now, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I think that you

know it's a separate stock. Um. Universal obviously is under Vendy, and I think Universal at some point goes public and will be massive and good for all of them. They've done a ridiculously great job building look I think record companies have the next eighteen months where they have a lot more staying power. They have the market with them. If you're public and a lot of capital, they could

be the great consolidators right now. If I were driving one, I would be really building out my tentacles of infrastructure to have more pieces of the music industry and the what I'll call the supply value chain. If you if you call Spotify pipeline and the label is oil will supply. I would be um doing a lot around the oil

supply and the healthy parts of the music industry. Because I have capital on flush, I can do artists felt you could buy clubs, you could be a label, you could do a lot right They started merged companies, they started agencies, They've invested in managing companies. I know Vivendi is doing a ton in Africa. I saw a presentation that was fascinating there in like fifteen cities and Africa.

Why is there not They're investing in the music industry, infrastructure, their French company, there's a lot of French territories and so it's sort of fascinating. I think they are. They have the most opportunity right now. My two cents and they have publishing, so they're already covered two ways to Sunday, right, okay, but what do we know about major labels today. They are releasing fewer records and fewer genres than ever before in an arrow where there's more music and more genres

both being distributed in that type of music. So they're pausing the new release piece to but remember, the new release pieces at least profitable for them. So in some ways, by cutting that all right and getting more catalog revenue as a blend, they're actually profitability is going to go up in some ways, okay, and the valuations are skyrocketing at the same time. I think they will be fine. I don't think that their DIP is going to be

bad invested. Let me put it slightly different way. Uh, they are missing out on genres uh that don't do well on the Spotify quickly because certainly you get paid on consumption. This could ultimately the be the bane of their existence. I don't think, because they certainly want to take a big piece, I don't agree. I think what happens is after every format change, the majors just buy

up what they don't have. Historically, they've started labels, bought labels, consolidated labels, because when there's a new profitable model and streaming is the most profitable and the best one, they just buy more of the Spotify. It's a it's a math formula. Okay, it doesn't stream as much as a hip hop record maybe or a pop record. But you know these labels are they have very smart people in there who know the value of an indie record, electronic record,

hip hop, hop, pop record. They have a different value and multiple assigence, and they still want to buy them. The end of the day, the game is going to be buying up as much as the Spotify streaming revenue as you can get, and the majors will be able to do that. So I think that's gonna be unprecedented in the next five to ten years because they're losing market share, you know of that, because the exactly, yeah,

they're gonna buy it up. They're gonna be flushed cash like a lot bo bob sixty billion dollars the Universe I said forty, they're gonna go out at sixty. Okay, if anybody's listening from Universal, I'm sure you whatever, you'll say something, but it's good what do we know if you have good what do you think they could do with five billion dollars in cash with indies a rabbit hole. Now he's got a side because let me go to

a slightly different point. Okay, if you have incredible traction, if you're a little naz X, you can write your ticket at the label. But if you're not someone with incredible streaming numbers, at first, the record company, the traditional label is not going to give you a good deal. Whereas you go to direct to spotify the others and get it more than of the recording revenue. Someone who is young and leverages that, why do they need the

major labels? The major label is a great percentage of their distribution market share is based on they distribute all these little labs to them. Signal to noise, you don't first of all, you have efficient back ends and systems. If usually because you get a cash advance, because you get bought out, and you don't get a cash advance otherwise. So that's the majority of why people do this, right.

It's not like they take your records of the store and rebrand them with a label on it and sent in as a nice price that no longer happens, so nobody knows what happens because the I P stays in Spotify or Apple Music. It never changes. It's always accessible to customer. There's no label there anyway, So it's just who gets paid the royalties, right, that's it. It's an invisible transaction. So if somebody's wait, so if somebody's gonna make a margin on it, they're gonna buy more of it.

It's like factoring. So if I think that you know, the indie label deal is this, and I'm gonna pay him a million dollars to take over this, and I get thirty nine cents and might pay out to them, was factor to thirty three cents and I make six cents. They're gonna do it all day long. It's just math. Okay, let's go to the other side of the equation. The artist. Of course, there's a decision whether it take that deal. But in the heyday of classic rock, when this business

was built, artists were worried about their credibility. They did not want to do endorsement, sponsorships. There were very few private To what degree is that a factor it acts today? It feels very like an old topic from back from the seventies and eighties. To me, I think that that that ship sailed. There are a few people that still feel that way. My good friend Paul to Let feels that way about Coachella, and more power to him. Um. Look, my view is this, Uh, sponsorship is one revenue stream

most people can't get. Okay, it's easy to say, oh, you're selling out, and a lot of people feel that way. I don't know what that means anymore. I mean, Trump's using people's music without authorization for his ship, and artists are fucking freaking out over that. You think they should care about a commercial they got paid for. That's much worse. So anyway, Look, here's what I say. It's a it's

an older, overblown topic. Of the artists I think would take it and think it's no hit to their credibility. The truth is that in their Instagram feeds there's advertising everywhere. Just like when MTV played their videos there was ads before and afterwards they couldn't do anything about it. The same was true on radio, the same is true on social media, and I think it's an overblown topic. Music is surrounded by advertising almost no matter what platform. Again,

you know Pandora and streaming services aside their concerts. They go play a venue where they don't take a sponsor, and there's a spot three sponsors at the venue. Who the funk knows? You think the consumers like, Nope, that band has credibility because they're playing the Chevy Concert Series. It's not them. I don't buy it. I think we're way past that. But sell by date. Sorry, Okay, let's talk about you for so people get where you're coming from.

Where did you grow up near you, buddy Stanford? I know all your history this Connecticut. Okay? And uh, were you the type a kid who was the straw that s uh stirred the drink? Or were you alone? Or what kind of kid were you? What is the straw that started to drink social? No, yes, that's someone. When uh Reggie Jackson came to the New York Yankees, he says, I'm the straw that stirs the drink, the leader of the band. I try not to have that kind of

a thought about myself. I think I was a normal, you know, first generation immigrant kid who was a jock and I was into music. I was I used to call myself a geek jock because my dad is an engineer, and I was pretty mad, and I was into genetics and immune therapy and gene there. You know, I'm a bit of a geek and I'm a computer nerd. Was gonna be a here science miner. In college, I was writing compilers. That was probably the first guy in the

industry use a computer or spreadsheet. Most people know that. And I was one of the first people to talk about online services the Internet before the Internet, right when it's commercial online services. So I don't know. I'm a geek, music freak, you know, jock, kind of normal, normal guy that doesn't it isn't any I don't want to be one of the big personalities in perfect Okay. So we're okay, okay, I know this, But from my audience, where do you

go to college? You see San Diego? Why pre med only? And I was gonna go to Berkeley. Sere used to buy records on telegraphic Leopold's and rescuing. It was my nirvana. Right, I'd be shopping for C. T. I Jazz all the way through the latest indie whatever. I was a freak, and um Berkeley had a ship med school and no housing In nineteen eighty and you had to pick three schools if you were in the UC and I looked online. Still, UCSD was beautiful and at the best med school. I

flew down there and it was out of control, gorgeous. Okay, just at what point do you at what point do you move from Connecticut to San Francisoto junior junior year? Okay, that must have been very hard and social. No, no, I was. I was a baseball player, so it was easy. What happened? You got? How good a base that was pretty good? My kid's good too. But here's the bottom line. You get accepted. I wasn't an outcast athletics or other

special interests. Uh allow you acceptance in ways that you know, the normal outcast slash. I don't know, anybody doesn't. And you know I tried to be so much social. Okay, So to go to UCSD, how do you get involved in the music program? There's a fun story. So um, it's some fun fun dormates by the way, my judge with the dormate was at the time, So they had a campus record store and I signed up to work

at it. It started the year before and once again, what once you get what ye're we in And I ended up running the record store within two months, I think maybe a month, and that was really fun. I had I managed a band out of the record store. I called their number on the back of the vinyl. What was called the church, so what I was at that point. Then the campus radio station came calling. I

joined the campus radio station and I took that over. Um. I then joined the concert committee and that went really really well, and I end up promoting shows on campus and then a little bit slower because usually there's a hierarchy in college. You're the newbie and there's not a UCSD everybody. It's a nerd school. It was you know, yeah, no, and I kind of I don't. I don't want to say anything here, but let's just put it this way. I was lucky enough to have an idea of what

to go do and that led the day. So what did you say to do well in the concert area? Buy more shows and put on more shows. And I convinced the administration then call just did enough fear calling agents back in the day. I remember this day calling Andy Waters and my first show and Joel Harrisman on the second show. I promoted and trying to remember who did spyro Gyra at the time, Paul la Monica on bb King, you know, Joel Parrisman on King, Crimson, Andy

Waters and Ian Hunter, and it just rolled. I I don't even know what to say. My friends said to me, Yeah, this is what you're always destined to funk that doctor ship. That was a bunch of bullshit cover for your mother, and this is what you were going to do. But I didn't know that. So it just went and I ended up having a lot of success down there, and I was on ninety one excellent Radio. I started humphreezing.

It blew up and I a little bit slower. How many shows did you do at ucsday four to start? Then started a company, did four more and then got hired by what is was Avalon Attractions Mark Berman that then got bought and is now Live Nation. But and then hundreds of shows the junior and senior year. Hundreds. Okay, so we say you started home Free. You tell us about that um To venue in San Diego. It's been going thirty something thirty up thirty seven years probably the

Potters Venum say, do you get one of them? But what happened was we were. I promoted Carla Bonoff, Bonnie Rait and John Anderson from Yes at the old Globe Theaters in San Diego and which are gorgeous, all right, lar theaters, but they were union houses and you couldn't make any money, okay, and no, Bob, I did not church twenty dollars a ticket to make money on top ticket fees. But uh, you couldn't. So we were looking

for a cheaper venue. And I happened to go with the production manager to a radio station um event where they were giving out drinks and promoting some advertiser, and it was at a hotel and they laid it out well, Jasmine was playing on this lawn, and I said, Hey, I bet you this looks cheap. We could do shows here. And I went and met with the hotel manager and he said sure, and I cut a deal with him

on the spot. And I think the first show we did there was David Lindley and El rayo X and I think we did The Crusaders and then four nights of Jimmy Buffett, and Jimmy Buffett sold that in ten minutes. There were three thousand boats trying to watch the show. From next to Humphries and it broke and it never looked back, so okay, And whose money was it? It was the company I worked for at the time, which

was the promoter who part of it before. It was a partnership between a San Diego promoter named Mark Burman and Avalon Attractions, so it was both of their money's. I think Avalon was floating the cash and Mark Berman had done some stuff and Avalanche it wasn't nice, and Avalone said, we're gonna throw you out and take our money back. So there was a big show that they

captured the entire box office and settled the score. And then I was asked to choose which one was I going to work for, and I and I was still in school and Humphries was my baby at the time, so I stayed with the Mark Burman guy for a moment. It's a whole funny story. He was funded by a drug dealer and it was just wacky. And I lasted there about another nine months, and then I made a decision to go to l A and become an agent.

I was pursued. Funny story, the guys who were triad than William Morris, Richard Rosenberg and Peterboroughs like great guys, dear friends and great people. God rest, Peter salt Um. I sold out a Sergio Mendez date. I think ine and Richard Rosenberger was one of Sergio Mendez his best friends at Bellafante, and all these people had loved del Mar, who's a horse guy, so he would go down to Delmar all the time. So here's this excuse, Sergio Amende

is actually selling out somewhere, which never happened. He's like, I gotta meet the guy that's selling out, Sergeion Amendez, And I got to go to del Mar. He came down, we became friends, and I went to work for him after that. And and it's, uh, you know, that was the start of post college and what point do you decide you're not going to be a doctor. And what

do your parents say about that? She's still pissed. Um. I don't know that my parents ever figured out what I actually did or do truly, they're ritchen press, but I don't know if they know. Um. I was really getting my ass handed to me into sophomore year in Kem classes and down there, Okam and Pekem were really really hard there, and I just got killed. I was distracted, so that made it made my choice easy. Then management

science became came calling, which is a joke, but whatever. Okay, So you you moved to l A. You work for Triad Agency at the time, got merged into Triad, went to nine one, okay, and in ninety one you go Rick Rubin, here's here's here's a fun story. So incredible years. They were all incredible years. So those are incredible. I mean the music that was coming out, whether it was beginning hip hop, where it was grunge, all rock, it didn't matter whatever you call it, you know, indie data

da da. But it culminated kind of in Lollapalus and I left and I was really upset. I got a shitty bonus one year and it really bummed me out. And then the other thing that bumped me out was product manager and Electra Record just had all the say and the promotion people over the Pixies, who are one of my favorites, and I was a Pixies fanatic, and they were putting out I think it was Trump Lamont and they picked the wrong single and you should appreciate this.

You mass was the hit, and they never put out as a single and I went crazy. I was like, the Pixie are finally gonna have a huge hit. They get something they deserve in the world, and the record is gonna suck it all up because some radio programs like the of this record I was living. So I realized right then and there, between the bonus and that I gotta go on the record business. That's what the

power is. Every agents are nothing, live business on the bottom of somebody's shoot, which is no longer the case. And you've written about that too, but it was at the time. So Irving had offered a job to me, and um somebody worked in me and said, you know, instead of you being reactive, you should be proactive. How did you know? How did you know Rick Rubin? Well, I worked as Dan's exagent and we were friends. We

were friends from before that. Um and I wrote down my three heroes at the time and the record business. One was Iva Watch Russell for a d but it couldn't work for him, um Rick, Reuben, Gary Kerr First and Seymour Stein and they were when when when this person said be proactive, you gotta work your your mark, Igor, you gotta don't take the first whatever, go work where you want to work. And I went and met with all of them. I was they were heroes to me.

And Rick felt the best and I spent five years with him. That we're amazing. I learned a ton he was, He's amazing. Uh too much for the podcast. But I watched him and George de Culius and Brendan O'Brien and Dave Sarrty and all these people make records, and I didn't know how to make a record. I'm watching recruit and make records. I helped them sign Johnny Cash and Mr Funt Delly Kind. I'm the guy that flew down to sign Johnny. You know on behalf of Rick It's huge, Branson,

Miss Already and Nata It's ridiculous. Chili Peppers, Bloodshirt, Sex mensh, Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic, Wildflowers, Tom Petty. All made during that time, Mick Jagger, plus plus plus, Plus, Plus plus plus plus, Slayer, this that. In the next I signed fifteen bands that I loved. All failed, but you know,

not failed great records. Mary Jane, I'm Sea, Jesus Medicine, Julian Cope, Frank Black, just artists that people didn't care about commercially but I loved but I learned a lot and then I bought a couple of websites when I was with him that I had a real vision for and he became a partner and artist Direct. So that was kind of so tell us when Artists Direct started. What the viewpoint was in the development thereof the viewpoint was pretty simple. It's funny. Okay, So here's a funny story.

I saw Mark cats Is somewhere here, but um so this is relevant. If you haven't seen the Beastie Boys documentary on Apple TV, I highly recommended watch Linda run Stats too. It's amazing. But the Beastis brought me back to um a story. Ian Rodgers and I met in Detroit at Pine Knob I think was a beast show. It wasn't La La it was Beast Show and John Silva was there and I was freaking out at that period over the Internet and what it meant. And I just to be clear, what what year are we in?

Do you remember? Ninety? True? Good question? It was not. The Internet was commercial online services, so it must have been earlier two okay okay? And Ian and I were explaining the Beasts and Silva what was going to change about the world and fast forward. I was in the car with Rick explain maybe it was when the browser came out, uh, explaining that right now, I didn't understand how if I was a fan and I used the

best boys with Rick obviously because he was instrumental there. Um, why I have to go to a concert to buy the band's T shirt? And why when I want to find out what they're doing on their new album, I have to wait and buy ten magazines to see who's going to write about them. And I want to buy go to the records from buy their records, but I can't buy their ticket there. I have to go somewhere else. And so what the fund is that? It's like the

worst organization system you could even think about. It makes a scavenger hunt look good, right because it's random. I said, it's impossible to be a fan. What terrible? So again, I've been in commercial online services, a well compy serve Prodigy. You know Delfi, my buddy from college, was one, was probably number two in siliconality. They made a movie about him because it was such a forward thinker, uh, in terms of home automation and networking. And I said to Rick.

When the browser hit, I said, the world has to be reshaped. Everybody has to go to the artist for everything, their tickets, their t shirts, their information, their tour dates, their music, their videos, and it should be in one place. Why do you have to fucking jump around the digital This internet thing is going to allow for that to happen. I want to build a company that builds the home base where everything is at, so when people go there

they get everything. It's a stupid organizational system. This is a reorgan okay, with the artist around the center. This is before the concept of commercial online streaming services, which then is a platform where you have a lot of artists, right, but then hopefully you link to these centers and now there's multiple centers, multiple channels. But at the time it

was built trying to build the first one. So the real thought behind it was trying to centralize the artist content and their goods right and their information and not make it, you know, a road trip to have to figure out how to get that ship. It was. It was maddening and for me, who was a super fan of Indian underground music, um, it was double bad because those artists didn't get enrolling stuff or on MTV or on the radio. So now you had to dig and wait.

For god, it was written in a musician magazine, or did option to a story or trouser pressed do something or cream or this or that, or depending what you were doing, or oh, I gotta wait till the enemy comes in three weeks late and Sounds and Melody Maker

to see if they write about them right. And I'm representing the Order and the Bunnymen, and you know, Smith's for a moment and cocked out Twins, the Pixies and Dead Can Dance and nobody's did They're not on the fucking radio, kay rock whatever some of them, And how are you going to find out about that? And then what really bothered me was I said, Okay, now I'm an agent. I'm working with these bands. I'm in New

York for the bunny Man. They sell out Roseland and Radio City ten thousand freak Bunnymen fans, and after the show's over, nobody knows who they are and how to get to them again. And I go, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I have to fix this. This is so stupid that things with this kind of fandom where those fans would kill to have Ian McCulloch say here's a new song or anything right, kill crush, and there's no system for that. So those

two thoughts is what I went to try to do. Okay, so you leave deaf American, which becomes American at some point what year beginning of what do you? What do you do for cash? On this startup? Start an agency? We made cash right away, had chili peppers, rage, pearl jam b York, you know, ninety we had a lot of them. Okay, Well, just to be clear, was the agency part of artists to direct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the

whole way. That was the concept. We didn't take financing for a year and a half and then we raised very little. We didn't need it, and we built. I built the first system and FileMaker e commerce. Both the booking system and the e commerce system was built in FileMaker. I wrote it, I coded it. So we were doing FileMaker transactions and what happened. Here's a funny story. So I was good friends with Norman Perry from Periscope Vancouver promoter,

great guy, hyper smart, dear friend. He went to work I think in Toronto for Michael Cole and then he opened up one of the merchant companies called Brockham with Peter Lubin and got sold that got pushed out whatever, and then started a new company and he had David Bowie, he had the Rolling Stones, you know, he had some real heavyweight folks and he was a big friend and fan for another mutual friend. But we were dear friends.

We still are to this day. And when we were opening Artists Direct, the Rolling Stones are a huge business for him, but he couldn't sell anything online and this e commerce thing was new, and I called him up. In fact, my Frankie said you should call Norman see if you can get the Stones. And I actually the first band Artist Direct ever signed with the Stones ever. Norman is like, I'm gonna set you with Mick bless you. You go meet with Mick if you can convince him,

and he's an online freak. O you go. And I went back with Mick in the Four Seas Hotel in Beverly Hills one morning, came out the bathrobe. He's the smartest motherfucker anyway. He understands understood the Internet. He's like, I'll give you this, but you gotta get me my cricket. I want my cricket every city I'm in. Now, this

was in nineties six or ninety seven. There's no cricket online being streamed anywhere when most streaming and his bandwidth was terribly You couldn't a well, graphics are still downloading slow, right, so forget songs. And he wanted to watch cricket everywhere he went. And he was furious that he wasn't running. He was like, that's what the Internet is gonna be. Fast forward. He was right, um, and he said absolutely, And we built the Stone Store and it, you know,

did a million dollars of e commerce pretty quickly. And then we went from there and it was a hell of woy to start. Um sort of proved the concept. Although it was early. There weren't banner ads. I mean, we're the very first implementation of s A P RP system on the whole internet. So you just think about what area you were in. There was no programming languages.

You couldn't program a database. Everything is in Tickle, which ran CEN that and you had to hire Tickle engineers T I C L. And there were none of them. So it was you know, today it's everything's plug and playing. You could do anything on multiple platforms. So it was a very different era. Okay, now we know the end of artists directors, It goes public and it goes bus But what happens between what happened to be in siding the stones and then built like we built like motherfuckers.

We signed a hundred twenty five artists, did their websites, their e commerce, their direct marketing, their email, you know, marketing to their fans. We ended up selling tickets, We ended up selling albums. So whether it was beck or share or it didn't. You know, we worked with a number of brilliant artists and they had records that didn't that the labels didn't want to count a commitment records, so we sold them direct a fan and we'd sell fifty twenty thousand direct a fan of a record that

you never heard of. Now, this is before digital, so it's still C D S or whatever, vinyl or whatever um at the time. And obviously then the file business changed things. Um it's kind of gone or close to gone by then. But we grew, we built, we grew bigger, we built bigger, we did more stuff. Um. We failed on a couple of record labels, which weren't really a

big part of the business. We had a couple of other websites, the Ultimate Band List, which was the first one, UBL dot Com, which was you know, we were trying to grow the traffic. But you know, at that point you had MP through dot Com, then Napster, you know, prior to that music Boulevard CD now than the introduction of Amazon. So for historical sake, that's what you were

dealing with. And nobody knew the difference between Napster and MP through dot Com and US or Launch, poor David Goldberg, and they didn't know, and they were all radically different. And but it was version one point of the Internet with Ultivist and asked Jeeves an Excite and Yahoo and Infoseek and micos and not many people made it past

wave one. And you know, our story was legendary because I went We went public the week of the market crash, which was interesting and Starbanes Oxley and I had to be a public company CEO for you know a couple of years after getting completely beaten up and not knowing what to do. So I can I feel for public executives right now? Um, you know, twenty years later they have to face a version of a completely decimated business and market. But listen, it was the greatest learning experience

of my life. So I don't know what else to say. You know, it happened, it's history, and we built a company. We were doing million dollars in internet revenue, which you know, in today's numbers, who knows what they'd be mostly e commerce we started. We were one of the first people, Mark Whites and a few others in the internet advertising business. People figure out what's a bann or how does it work? What's a mouse over? What's you know when flash doesn't

work here? So and so there. You know, I think we took a lot of blues and built one of the first websites ever for a festival. It was really fun. Remember his little carnival. Okay, you're painting such a positive picture. Why did it fail? There's a bunch of reasons. Number one, I fucked up number two fifteen years early, probably for the real market. Number three, I fucked up number four.

What do you mean terrible market? Meaning you had to for me to be an inexperienced public company executive when the markets closed for three years and run and Starvings Oxley and me trying to figure out what the fuck to do. I should have just shut down and thought about it and waited. I it was too when I say fucked up, Bob, it was ship was swirling in my head. People were happy the internet was over. It wasn't you know who old media's see all you young upstarts.

You you were in a hard as you thought. You know, you're dealing a lot of crap. I didn't know what to do, and I was lost. I went and met with everybody or trying to sell our companies had a lot of cash. I was still lost, but I was an idiot. I should have held out in my cash and just got through it. Definitively, Were you too early and it could never work? Or was there something I don't wait at the bust up son for fifteen years,

you'll do better? And that was a cutting, fucking blow. Um. You know, I was so into being in the next system that I forgot that people have to transition into the next system. It was all about what I thought was possible, not what was gonna happen all right, or or consumer habits hadn't evolved, or technology hadn't been laid in or the waves of the Internet had to happen. I was enamored by this idea, and I just imagine time didn't exist and everybody's going to convert like they

have today. Right, So now that I'm supposed to be older and wiser, definitely older. Whether I'm wiser and that's a different story. But once you look back pindeslight being, you go schmuck. There were massive societal changes that had to take place before your vision could come through. Who the funk are you? And what were you thinking? Asshole? Right, Like, everybody's just gonna, you know, have their browsers handle this kind of add thing, or they're gonna feel comfortable with

their credit cards on the internet or any of that stuff. Right, those are all hurdles society has to get through or people will go to the web. There were no mobile devices. Is fucking blackberries? Right? I mean the bricks so um and is an air of palm pilots. So I was a moron that way, and today I try to think, am I doing something that takes massive societal adoption? Is there technology that has to get laid in place? Oh?

Do they have to lay in bandwidth for the ship to work, you know what, like I should be the one that's out they're experimenting. So that was a lot of it. The answers, Yeah, it's a schmuck. Okay, so ay when it crashes, how does that affect you emotionally? Be how long does it? How long does it take you ultimately to segue back into the business, and how do you decide to go back into the agency? Three years I was bloodied in bankrupt and had to get

a job that paid me a salary. I was paying myself a hundred and fifty grand a year as a public executive because I Don Muller and I were very worried about that that we were we wanted to be looked at ethically. We're taking the public's money, investors. We weren't going to get ourselves rich. We weren't gonna do this, do that. And I was crushed. Had some kids during that time, two boys, and you know, ah, so I

was going personally bankrupt. You know, I lost sixty three million on paper and two million in cash, and thank god for a couple banker friend of mine who basically got me credit and helped me work my way out of it. And then Peters hired me back. I went to see we had sold the talent agency to see a done wanted to go. We wanted to get off the scary ride. I don't blame him at that time.

And we had a great staff and most of those people went to see a lot of me stayed there and the artist want We closed that piece down and I kind of high. I made a mistake and I hired ted Field because I was beaten. I was a beaten man, and he basically turned into the label for the last gap and it wasn't great. It was terrible, actually, but whatever it is what it is. Mistakes made, and I put myself to bid to the agency because they were the only people who are gonna pay me. I

didn't want to go back and be an agent. I went to go run a tech company. But nobody's gonna hire me and run a tech company. I just got beaten up. They didn't pay. It was all back end. The record label was gonna have me. I was a failure there uh and wasn't proven manager. I didn't have clients. They didn't really want to do that. I tried to go back to be an agent, totally bummed out. At the time, and Peter said, Geiger, come on back, I'll

pay you, and that's what as I started. Okay, so that episode at the agency business which turned into w m ME is now over and needles to say, there's a little bit of a pause, but certainly in the live business. But what do you see for yourself personally going forward? Business was Um, I'll be honest, um, curly, somebody should read that comment. Damn straight good good left midfielder. Sorry, I'm reading the text. Um. I think it's the best time in history to start something. So I think I'm

going to start something. I mean, listen, there were some rumors planted out there about what I was doing, and this, that and the next thing weren't true. You know, well I never got a call from Daniel Ack. He's a friend of mine, so uh, you know, I don't have a job to be a mocker at YouTuber, Apple Music, Amazon or Spotify or any of those places, and they don't or anything close. If you were offered those gigs,

I don't know. I don't know, but I don't have them, so it doesn't matter, and it depends what the gig is. I got inquired about a position at SoundCloud that wasn't very interesting, but still, um, there's nothing really there. There's a few other big jobs I might consider in the rest of the traditional music industry, and they're not there.

And and that's so, that's okay. But the truth is, when I sat out here over the last four months and thought about what made me happy because I'm getting older, what do I want to do? Damn on this old what do I really want to do? It came to a couple of fun conclusions. One is I am what I am. I love tech, but there's no Roman tech right now. I don't see it. Everything that I talked about happened, and it's big, big I've said it, You've seen my speeches. It's the big player time, the very

little room for disruption right now. Okay, it's hard. Everything is being built onto the big platforms, and new media is in some way. It's not the same becoming old media again, right They just is and it's bound to be that way. Um, systems don't change that much, even

though the distribution of pricing changed. Um. So I looked in I said, what turns me on another in tech and being forward is artist development and discovering music and I'm a music freak, and the underbelly of the industry, the ground up golden voice, you know, clubs, indie labels, developing artists. You know, Jenson McCrae is an example, right, So that's what gets me the most excited and gives

me some purpose. And I could and and there's some part of me and my friends know this, and I think they're the same that feels young by staying very current in music and the music business and tech. Okay, if you're sort of I'm into e sports, my son's and the sports, I'm very on top of that. I'm deep in the digital world, so kind of keeps you young, and so I want to stay there. So I'm probably gonna start up focused in those areas. Okay, just looking at the business and large. Once we get to the

end of this pandemic, Uh, what do we know? The record companies ruled until the internet. The Internet came along a great percent Other than the tippity top tier of streaming artists, most artists make the majority of their income live, which has changed the paradigm, and that the live business A funds these acts and B can break these acts. Do what do you see going forward in terms of where the power lies. Well, this is gonna be not that sexy and answer. I think building an artist's career

is like building a house. The reason I use the housing metaphor is because the manager is really like a general contractor to me. They have to manage the owner i e. The artist, right, and they have to look after all the subs, the record company, the publishing, the agency, touring, the merchandise that this that you know, everything right, advertising, the content creation, and they have to do all those

deals or manage all of those things. So I think it's similar to a g C. And then I think all of the other pieces of the building the house, I either the artist is um actually important so in a weird way, you know, can the electrician do the roof and the hardscape? You know, I eat, can the promoter do this that in the next short in certain cases. But there's a lot of artists and there's a lot of specialized pieces to all of this. So as much as people want to label me a disruptor, I've never

actually been a disruptor. I have tried to identify disruptive disruption, but from a disruptor, either dropped price or you collapse and consolidate people into or companies and jobs into into you know, you consolidate them. Do you disintermediate? Okay, sorry,

I was searching for the word. And I actually think that when the business comes back, every piece of the subcontracting universe and general contractor will be more needed than ever because every artist will be hurting for money or success. Every club will, every venue will, every promoter will, every agency will, every label will want to get back to where it was, and I think it will be all

hands on deck and more activity than ever before. So I'm not sure that I see there's consolidation opportunities, Like I talked about, if Universal or Warner went on a tear and wanted to do some stuff and got really smart about it. I can see that, um. I can see new money coming in like that real estate investry doesn't have office buildings during the crash, but they have new capital and and and buying things. But I think

every part of the industry is gonna be vibrant. I think agents are gonna be more vibrant than ever and needed. I think promoters are going to be very high on the on the value chain. I think labels will continue to be high on the value chain only increase because again, everybody wants success, Bob, and they want money, and so yeah, there's a very powerful mental force to look at big artists and go who works on their team? And they don't. They're not devoid of a manager and ageent or a

record company. There's not that many of those stories. So I think when you look at the most successful artis in the world, is who's on who is their team? And I want to be with them. So I think the aspirational you know called Lemming theory. Aspiration drives the business. So I think every piece of the industry is going to be there and healthy and not disrupted. Weirdly, I'm not talking about radio or or record stores or those pieces which get wiped out. I'm talking about professional services.

I don't see it. I think it actually got more complex. I don't think promoters know how to break you worldwide for the most part. I've national Age a little different.

They are worldwide, and they have tentacles. They can keep them for the most part, and with good players, so they are as close and the labels have similar that they are as close to filled out networks is as you can find now whether they give a funk about your little artist or not, and would give you the You know, this is where the theory is different, interacting for the superstar and then for anybody else. But there you go, Okay for getting the pandemic. What how do

you do that? Sorry, it's not that hard when the question is ultimately reviewed. What what advice would you give to a new artist today just starting out? Number one, make a lot of content. I mean, the one thing I would say to artists starting out or not is right now, okay, here's the left SIPs. You know, back in the day, the Rolling Stones made three albums a year, The Beatles made three albums a year, The Beach Boys made three whatever. Okay, you know what I'm saying about

two albums with a minimum relief. Steely Dan. I remember we went on Steely Dan listening binge. First three albums came out in like a year and a half. It was crazy, right, and they were genius. So you sit there and go, what the funk? Weren't they touring? Oh yeah, they actually Steely Danton, But for the most part they did. Actually, um, I had no idea. Michael McDonald was in Steely Dan. I just learned that and Jeff Baxter, and that's how they do. Jeff Baxter was a regular member. You know,

Michael even more than you think. But anyway, pre dubies anyway. I think artists to do that again right now, right create. I think that the elongation of the marketing period where you can tour the world for two or three years, you know, and not put out a record and come back and then have to spend a year making a record discycles too long. So I think the number one thing people need to do is make a lot of

content right now. I don't care what it is, but store it up for winter and don't release it all because the distribution systems give you credit for constantly releasing, whether it's YouTube or Spotify. The way the new releases are set up, the way the playlist work. You know, you have your one week to one month honeymoon period and if and then it's gone up in the Library of Congress in the FOURT floor, nobody know you wrote the book. So to me is okay, how do I switch?

I may still put out albums, maybe it's the end for whatever, but how do I consistently work the system in the way the system works which just have new releases on a constant basis. So that's my answer. Okay, And what advice would you give to someone once again forgetting the pandemic disruption? What advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the music business? Not the greatest time. Um, Look, there's so many people that are getting laid off by the music business. Yet I gotta

I won't get there. I just right now? Is I just I can't? It's a ship time, Um, manage the band? No barrier to entry. I mean you want to learn how to build a house. Start on the smallest house and build it. Figure out how to you know, that'd be one thing you know is no getting on the radio, you know, put together play list for your friends. Uh, but managing man is the lowest barrier to entry if you think about it. You can't get a job at a record company or an agency. It's not that easy.

You can, by the way, you can try agencies were an easy point of entry. You go in milrone. Uh, gonna be somebody's assistant that you respect, UM and write him a personal note. Do some research. You know. The biggest thing I found about young people is they don't do much research. I read everything coming up. I read every Rolling Stone Guide cover to cover, fifteen times, Trouser Press, Gude fifteen times, Option magazine. Fucking print was six point

font and I would read Option magazine reviews. If you remember Scott Becker and every bit of it. I was just a freak. I listened to everything. I the way I used to sign artists. I go to England, I talked and talked to the indie label head and they would say to me, Wow, you know more about my artists in my label than I do. And you're a kid from America, right, So do your research. Figure out who's your favorite. Write him a note. Nobody ever does that.

There's a lot of ways to enter, but find somebody and manage them. Mark. This has been wonderful, Thanks so much for your insight by pleasure until next time. This has been the Bob Left Sets Podcast