This week In the Hot Seat with Larry LeBlanc: Steve Martin, co-founder, Paladin Artists.
Steve Martin is revered in the global live music sphere.
Consistently over nearly five decades with the most genre-bending artist rosters of any North American agent, he may well be one of the shrewdest talent agents in the sector with clients renowned for helping redefine contemporary music.
In 2021, Martin and fellow booking veteran Andy Somers launched Paladin Artists, an independent talent and literary agency that was strengthened with strategic partnership alliances with Wayne Forte of Entourage Talent Associates, and Karrie Goldberg of The Kagency.
Focusing on music touring, live events as well as theatrical and literary representation, Paladin Artists has offices in New York, Los Angeles, and London.
Martin got his professional start in music in 1979 with New York concert promoter New Audiences which booked Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Dire Straits, Weather Report, and Miles Davis in New York, Boston, and Washington.
He then briefly worked as an agent at Magna Artists in New York in 1982 before starting his own independent Manhattan shop, The Music Business Agency (MBA).
While American booking agencies mostly balked at booking at what they considered niche acts in the ‘70s, Martin established a different business model with MBA signing Billy Bragg, Jimmy Cliff, Fela, Yellowman, Toots, and the Maytals, author Robert Hunter, Jorma Kaukonen, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Hot Tuna.
He operated MBA for 7 years before selling to the William Morris Agency (WMA) in 1989 and becoming one of WMA’s principal booking agents.
He left William Morris in 1994 to spearhead the fledgling New York office for the UK-based The Agency Group as president of its North American operations.
In 2013, Martin became VP, World Wide Concerts at APA Talent and Literary Agency, working alongside Bruce Solar and Steve Lassiter, after being named partner in 2015.
Veteran agent Andy Somers founded Bandwagon in 1984, and repped artists such as the Circle Jerks, Megadeth, and many others. He reopened Bandwagon in 1998. He also worked at Frontier Booking International in 1987, Triad Artists in 1990, ICM in 1992, The Agency Group in 2000, becoming a senior VP, co-helming its Los Angeles operation, leaving just prior to the company being acquired by United Talent Agency in 2015; and then joined the APA Agency as president of concerts in 2014.
Paladin Artists’ valued team also includes: Dave Kaplan, Chyna Chuan-Farrell, Seth Rappaport, Steve Ferguson, Kath Buckell, Sara Schilevert, Brandon Zmigrocki, Winston C. Simone, Kath Buckell James Bauman, Christian Ellett, Andy Howie Gold, and Katie Gamelli who leads the company’s Theatrical Literary division.
Martin’s personal roster consists of Billy Bragg, BLKBOK, Crash Test Dummies, Bruce Cockburn, Chris Difford, David Gilmour, Rick Wakeman, Robert Fripp, King Crimson, Surfbort, Buster Poindexter / David Johansen, Dream Theater, Hot Tuna, Janis Ian, Jools Holland / Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Jorma Kaukonen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lewis Watson (shared with Steve Ferguson) Loreena McKennitt, Porcupine Tree, Ray Davies, Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul, The Bizarre World of Frank Zappa, and The Estate of Robert Hunter.
In the face of the global touring business contracting and consolidating, as well as agencies increasingly seeking to offer clients ancillary services, you are working alongside people who have gone through similar multi-layered business situations. You have worked in specific different genres for years, but others at Paladin Artists have done so as well.
We definitely have. Somebody was asking me about the company, and I said that it is a combination of Seal Team Six and The Bad News Bears. That is who we are here. It is Andy, Wayne, Karrie, and I with a lot of young scrappy, energetic people who don’t know how to fail, and we are going to show them how not to fail.
There’s a wealth of talented staff and headliners at Paladin Artists, but it is essentially a boutique-styled agency on steroids.
We aren’t for everybody, and everybody is not for us. We do a very specific job incredibly well, and that is how we look at it. We want to be Tiffany’s, not Kmart.
Paradigm Talent Agency’s delivered a shock wave to the industry with its mid-March 2020 layoffs followed by the unprecedented shutdown/postponement of live entertainment that followed, and then as Paradigm severed its music operation, the American agency world was blown apart.
Among the newly formed agencies that emerged following this eruption of changes in the talent world were: Reliant Talent Agency TBA, MINT Talent, Arrival Artists, the Golden Gate Talent Agency, and Wasserman Music—with many involving agents previously with WME, CAA, and Paradigm Talent Agency.
We have many friends at all of these indie agencies, We want all of them to succeed. I’m rooting for them all. The more the merrier. There’s also Madison House, and High Road (Touring). I want everybody to do well.
Of course, you and Andy Somers both left APA and launched Paladin Artists in 2021. Then you quickly made strategic partnerships with Wayne Forte’s Entourage Talent Associates, and The Kagency, founded by Karrie Goldberg.
You ultimately work in a very small industry with a lot of big personalities, and I think you and Andy are naturally drawn to people that do business in a similar way. It’s sort of like. “We’ve all been struggling in this COVID world for 18 months, why don’t we work with people that we want to really work with? People that we respect and have similar visions as us.”
Is that what it really came down to in bringing Entourage Talent, and The Kagency into the fold?
You just summed it up. We don’t have to do the rest of the interview. You just very articulately, and simply said exactly what we are doing.
At the time of the pair of linkup, Andy Somers said, “Paladin, Entourage, and The Kagency share similar visions, and will each benefit by the sharing of information, experiences, and common goals; exploring new means of improving the future of artist and brand representation while remaining independent at a controllable scale of operation.”
Entourage Talent was established by Wayne Forte in 1993 as a boutique-styled international booking, talent agency, and consulting firm. Previously, Forte was a founding partner, president, and CEO of International Talent Group, (ITG).
Among Entourage Talent’s clients are Tedeschi Trucks Band, Joe Satriani. and Steve Hackett.
The Kagency, founded by Karrie Goldberg in 2004, is one of the first venue representation businesses in North America. It includes project management, talent representation, event-related media buying, and project consulting. It manages event, film, and photo shoot bookings for a portfolio of 500+ traditional and non-traditional venues in the U.S. and the UK. This includes retail pop-up locations, photography studios, restaurants, nightclubs, galleries, penthouses, and outdoor spaces – as well as – talent bookings. Its roster of clients has included Nike, Givenchy, Cartier, Under Armour, Maserati and Vogue as well as such talent as Duran Duran, and Beyoncé.)
The role of a talent agency has unquestionably evolved. At one time agencies soothed clients about their careers or took their fees and moved on. Today, it’s focused on music touring, live events, theater, literary representation, and touring exhibitions while managers seek to establish careers for their clients that will go on for years.
I think as the big talent agencies somewhat imploded what emerged from the ashes are more entrepreneurial independent agencies. A manager may not have the tools to do all of those career matters, but those tools are more readily available now to a talent agency like Paladin Artists.
Yes, and that is either something that you are kind of born with or you are not. There are still people working at larger corporations. I don’t care if it’s CAA or IBM. People find comfort in those institutions, and that’s fine. They are institutions that exist for a reason, and they are good institutions, and I tip my hat to them. But that is not where we aim to be. We want to be an independent agency. We look forward to exploring some other areas. We have a theatre and literary person, Katie Gamelli, who is doing wonderfully. And we have a diverse roster, and it is really the younger acts that are very exciting, and also the classic clients who we lall ove that I have been representing for 20, 30 or 40 years. They still have an audience and still enjoy playing.
What Paladin Artists is doing in focusing on different cultural opportunities isn’t all that different from Wasserman although they work on a grander scale.
They have a lot of money.
Still, Wasserman is also filled with independent,entrepreneurial agents and management executives like Paladin Artists.
That’s very true.
You mentioned bringing in Katie Gamelli to lead the company’s Theatrical Literary division.
Katie Gamelli spent the last 9 years working in the literary division of A3 Artists Agency, and was named by the Broadway Women’s Fund as one of the 2020 Women to Watch on Broadway, She has also worked for The Kleban Foundation, and taught master classes at Sewanee Writers Conference, the Yale School of Drama, and Montclair State University.
Her talent roster of playwrights, composers, lyricists, directors, and designers includes Shakina Nayfack, Daniel Alexander Jones, Carson Kreitzer, and the Estate of Maria Irene Fornés.
Katie’s role at Paladin Artists, in essence, is to discover where the points of intersection lie between the theatrical and music worlds—to look at artists and evaluate the opportunities available to them in the theatrical and literary worlds–and to funnel opportunities between both sectors, while continuing to grow the company’s overall roster.
Well, it’s interesting because Katie has been working in Broadway, and she has a great eye for looking at the roster, and seeing what could evolve legitimately. As you know, it’s a tricky business, whether it’s Off Off Broadway or Off Broadway or Broadway.
Talk to our mutual friend Michael Cohl, founder and chairman, S2BN Entertainment, about the intricacies of Broadway.
(Laughing) Don’t get me started on Michael Cohl and Broadway.
With a track record unmatched by any impresario in entertainment history, Michael Cohl may well also be Broadway’s biggest gambler, ever. He co-produced Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Bombay Dreams,” and was involved with the Monty Python musical “Spamalot” in New York. He salvaged “Spider-Man” from a premature death when money ran out. He scuttled a “Jesus Christ Superstar” tour, which was to star Johnny Rotten. He was a co-producer of “Bat Out Of Hell,” one of the lead producers of both the jukebox musical “Rock of Ages,” and Asi Wind’s magic show “Inner Circle.” Cohl is also a co-owner of the Big Apple Circus with Arny Granat and Nik Wallenda of the famous Wallenda family highwire act.
Theatre is a tricky terrain but one of your clients is Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland who is well-versed in theatre and TV as well.
There are Broadway stories I could tell you.
The one thing that we have which is a hit right now Off-Broadway is “David Blaine Presents Asi Wind’s Inner Circle” and my associate Winston Simone works on it. As the guy who represented (celebrity magician and magic historian) Ricky Jay for 15 years, I can say that Asi is truly in the one percent.
I’m certainly aware of late Ricky Jay and his extraordinary work as both a historian and practitioner of illusions and cons. I know him also from his film appearances including “House of Games” (1987), “Boogie Nights” (1997), and the James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997).
The “Asi Wind’s Inner Circle” show opened in September, and the show immediately clicked in, and it has become a hot ticket in a small theater (The Judson Theatre at Washington Square South) where we are selling out 7 shows a week right now. And that’s fun.
After its launch, Paladin Artists soon recruited a number of veteran talent agents including Dave Kaplan who brought with him 20 clients including high fliers Spacey Jane, the Black Angels, Gary Numan, the Kills, Melody’s Echo Chamber, and Allah-Las.
With more than two decades in American live music, Dave Kaplan got his start as a concert promoter and talent buyer in San Francisco before launching his own booking agency, Easy Action Industries which merged with The Agency Group in 2002. There, he served 13 years including as VP of its New York office. He left TAG in 2015 just weeks after it was confirmed that the company had been acquired by United Talent Artists (UTA). He also had a tenure at Paradigm where he spent 5 years in the music department before moving to ICM Partners in 2020.
Dave has known and worked with you and Andy for over 20 years.
We were together at The Agency Group. He had a little club band called the White Stripes. Dave has great instincts on signings. and he’s really a good complement to Brandon (Zmigrocki) who you probably don’t know. He was at Dynamic Talent, and at ICM and CAA before that. CAA as an assistant and ICM as an agent
Brandon brought his roster including Anti-Flag, the Chats, Squeaky Jane and Thick.
Yes.
Prior to Dynamic Talent where he was VP of Live Talent, Brandon Zmigrocki was a territory agent at ICM Partners which he joined in 2013. While there, he oversaw the relaunch of Sinead O’Connor and developed Yuna, and the Chats. And he represented John Hiatt. Zmigrocki began his career in CAA’s Music Department, working his way up to Agent Trainee and Department Coordinator. Prior to ICM, he was the National Ticket Coordinator for AEG Live/Concerts West, working on tours including the Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars, and Enrique Iglesias.
With Brandon and Dave, I was really hoping that we could get them at a similar time because they work both ends of the spectrum in indie rock. Brandon has a lot of young up-and-coming bands; some that are starting to break like the Chats. And Dave has the Black Lips, the Black Angels, and a hot band out of Australia (formed in Fremantle in 2016), Squeaky Jane.
We have two Janes on the roster.
Brandon handles Squeaky Jane, and Dave Kaplan books Spacey Jane.
I know. It’s a lot of Janes.
Are Dave and Brandon your youngest staff members?
No Winston C. Simone would be. He’s in his mid-20s. Sara Schlievert is also a young agent. She has a hot young band called Yam Haus, and she works with me on Crash Test Dummies. Winston, working with Sara Schlievert, handles BLKBOK which we are very excited about. He’s a young classical pianist and composer (born and raised in Detroit’s inner-city with a name that echoes of one of the greatest pianists and composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach) in his late 20s or early 30s. And this is where Katie (Gamelli) looped back in conversation with The Pubic Theatre about BLKBOK doing a show (on Apr 28th, 2023). He is phenomenal. The New York Times gave him a review that we can’t buy. His manager Benton James said that “Nobody knew that they had their favorite black poet, and then they saw Amanda Gorman, and if people see BLKBOK, everybody will have their favorite classical piano player.”
BLKBOK (aka Charles Wilson III) found his calling at age 6 while performing a Mozart sonata at a piano recital in his hometown of Detroit. By the time he was 8, BLKBOK was an acclaimed piano prodigy, winning statewide accolades and college-level competitions. Since then, he has worked with Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Demi Lovato, Cirque Du Soleil, John Mayer, and others. He is co-managed by Benton James, Billy Mann, Annie Balliro, and Dee Dee Kearny.
BLKBOK – Michelle’s First Day At The White House
As Donna Lee Davidson wrote in the New York Times (June 30th, 2022) about “Black Book DLUX,” an expansion of BLKBOK’s debut album: “BLKBOK, the artist alias of Charles Wilson III, calls his music Neo-Classical, “but maybe call it characteristic classical: classical playing in articulation, embellishments, and style, but not classical in obligation. His music points directly to great composers — this album nods to Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and the waltz king, Chopin — but characterizes differently the look and feel of the institutions that contain them.
This recent release—-features poetry by Lauren Delapenha, spoken interludes that, woven with pianos, evoke dreams or memories turned into hard-to-bear realities. “(Poem) Cookie Waltz” narrates a Sunday afternoon dance between Wilson and his mother, who tells him that if he ‘danced real good, Mozart might show up.’ Although this is the only track titled as a waltz, most of the album evokes the style. ‘I Made Her Breakfast’ is looser than the dance with Cookie: melancholic, sometimes merely a triple-metered canvas for monochromatic painting.
Delapenha’s diction has sharp edges, cutting staccato phrases in ‘(Poem) The Hustle Is Real,’ in which she narrates a chaotic day with the speed of Busta Rhymes, a childhood favorite of Wilson’s. The piano chases her words, not just with fast notes, but also with scurrying embellishments surrounding a melody’s five descending notes. The pace eases into a moon-gazing stillness: Bach in his left hand, Debussy in his right.”)
You have kept the agency structure fairly lean with about 14 or 15 agents.
That’s not including Wayne and Karrie’s staff. Karrie is kind of one of our secret weapons. She’s in England. I’m sure you’ve read some of the press on the Outernet Live (the state-of-the-art, 25,000-square-foot, 2,000-capacity venue on Charing Cross Road, managed by Robert Buttersm and Karrie, founders of Green Light Development) that recently opened in London. It’s her project. It took a lot of time, and effort to launch that very successfully Most of her staff are here in our (New York) office. They work on really interesting things, putting projects into interesting spaces. The Basquiat Exhibit was theirs, for instance, here in New York.
While Paladin has an exceptional roster of heritage acts you have broadened the lineup with other opportunities to service an expanded roster for artists developing over the next decade.
That’s what we are hoping. Frankly, that playbook worked at The Agency Group. The Agency Group was very good in developing new bands. We have the same philosophy by having the classic rock artists that we really respect, and love that don’t get a lot of love at other companies necessarily because they aren’t in hip hop. Just like a baseball team, you hope that the veterans stay veteran, and you hope that some of the young rookies get hot in a couple of years. It’s the same.
A long-standing complaint of young agents coming into music has been about facing obstacles impeding them from developing newer acts, especially while breaking new genres of music.
Major American talent agencies passed over hip hop and rap acts for years much as they had done earlier with R&B-based music acts.
Earlier, older American talent agencies like the William Morris Agency (WMA) had no truck with rock and roll in the late ‘60s, and early ‘70s. Their attitude was, “See the Jeff Beck Group? Are you crazy? Liza Minnelli is opening downtown.”
That’s very funny. Then Premier Talent Agency’s Frank Barsalona came along and started making a lot of money with those (UK rock) acts.
The late Barbara Skydel was alongside him as senior VP, the first female principal of a major talent firm.
Oh yes. She was a powerhouse. She deserved more credit than she got.
For the most part, contemporary national music bookings in America operated on a model devised by Premier Talent Agency’s Frank Barsalona in the ‘70s. Regional promoters had their territory and mostly worked major markets. Over time, a number of savvy promoters realized they could successfully work smaller markets as destination attractions.
You work with many heritage acts including Billy Bragg, Rick Wakeman, Crash Test Dummies, Bruce Cockburn, Ray Davies, Janis Ian, David Johansen, David Gilmour, Chris Difford, Jools Holland, Hot Tuna, and Robert Fripp.
Absolutely.
In most cases, these acts are not making money from their recording catalogs any longer. That income stream has slowed to a trickle. This is almost the last hurrah for some of the heritage acts out there touring
You are right. The calendar is not their friend.
Touring is one of the few ways many of these acts can bring in significant money, particularly after being off the road for nearly two years due to COVID, but also in what may be the sunset years of their careers. Also touring on their own, like Billy Bragg, and Rick Wakeman often do, they can do really quite well financially.
Yep. The two examples that you brought up are interesting because they are two of the few artists that are lucky enough to be able to perform solo or as a duo and still draw audiences, and get paid. Rick and Billy don’t have the other overhead that other bands do. However, King Crimson we had out two summers ago on what was implied to be a “Farewell Tour,” and that was postponed twice. And just as you were talking about with COVID, there were Canadian dates confirmed but the border was still closed.
There was uncertainty and we had to pull those dates back.
That tour was like an “Indiana Jones” movie. The Delta variant was just coming on, and in that band two guys can’t get sick. They can’t do it without Robert (Fripp) or Tony (Levin). If one person or two people go down for three days, the tour financially is upside down. Now they made it through every show. played with 22 people on the road, in spite of hurricanes in Florida, fires in California, and floods in the North East. It was like playing through Biblical times on that tour—are locusts next? with every show played. But it’s very fragile. The financial system is very fragile, even for American bands.
Not your clients but the YES line-up of guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, keyboardist Geoff Downes, vocalist Jon Davison, and bassist Billy Sherwood, was recently forced to abandon a European and UK tour due to problems with acquiring insurance, but plan to return to the road in 2024.
Meanwhile, Rick Wakeman has announced “Return Of The Caped Crusader” live dates for 2024 In which he will perform a set that includes Yes classics and music from “Journey To The Centre Of The Earth,” his 1974 A&M album.
Well, we represented Jon Anderson, (Trevor) Rabin, and (Rick) Wakeman (ARW). The last time they performed it was pre-COVID. It was a more naive and optimistic time and not as fraught with danger. But it is a real problem with the current finances, and it applies to American bands too. For any touring artist, whether a ballroom theatre size or up, it is not unlike a promoter your profit is in that last week or the last two weeks of a tour. Like a promoter’s is in the last 20% of the house, and if you get three dates that go down in the middle of a tour, you are upside down financially.
It is impressive that the Crash Test Dummies were welcomed back last year with open arms in North America, the UK, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg following delays with touring due to COVID.
Surprisingly, there has been renewed interest in the Dummies with younger generations discovering its 1991 debut album “The Ghosts That Haunt Me” which led to its 30th Anniversary Tour.
The Crash Test Dummies are currently in a midst of an American run of dates with a career retrospective show with several Canadian dates after releasing a single “Sacred Alphabet” in March.
I saw the band recently in New York, and they were fantastic. It made me so happy. They were as good as they were in the ‘80s. and the audiences love them, their new material too. Brad (Roberts) has really become an amazing front man which was wonderful to see.
When will COVID be deemed absolutely over? The big question, eh?
That’s an interesting question. You look at the recent Bruce Springsteen tour and they kept as tight of a bubble as they could have.
With North American-based acts, if a member gets COVID, and the band is forced to cancel dates, the band can sit it out somewhere here or return home. For an international act, if that happens, the entire tour is jeopardized.
And with international acts, their visas only last so long.
Losing two or three shows on a tour could be a make-or-break proposition for a UK band.
Roger Daltrey recently told USA Today that the Who may not be able to tour the U.S. again due to high costs and financial risks.
“We cannot get insured and most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals, and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole. To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show.”
Daltrey concluded, “That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.”)
UK performers in the early to mid stages of their careers have often toured the US or Europe – the two biggest markets for British music – to build a fan base but usually lost money in the process.
Now the U.S. immigration service is threatening to raise visa costs from $460 to $1,615. For UK artists already struggling with Brexit red tape and the impacts of the pandemic lockdowns and inflation, such a hike in visa costs would make it almost impossible for anyone but the biggest stars to perform in America.
You are absolutely correct, and it has been a conversation that we have here now, and I’m sure other companies are having the conversation as well. Before we confirm dates, we are asking people to do a budget because some of the other tours that I know that were canceled. Didn’t Lorde postpone a bunch of her dates? Another big artist, they booked the dates, and then they did the budget. Then it was, “Oh my God, we are going to lose half a million dollars.”
A slew of artists have canceled shows in the past 18 months citing mental health concerns or admittedly scrapped dates due to costs. Among those canceling commitments have been Lewis Capaldi, Animal Collective, Rage Against the Machine Arlo Parks, Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Chloe Moriondo, and Santigold.
In her newsletter to fans, Lorde blamed “a storm of factors” largely stemming from the pandemic, and said for many acts, “touring has become a demented struggle to break even or face debt” – and for some, it is “completely out of the question.”
American singer, songwriter, and YouTuber Chloe Moriondo bluntly canceled her UK and European tour “due to the cost of touring” –according to a statement. The singer was set to tour her third album ‘Suckerpunch’ earlier this year.
What we are saying to everybody now is, “Do your budget. We will book the date and we will see if there’s a shortfall or not”—and I’m sure that you have heard this from many people, whether it is crew costs, bus costs, gasoline costs, hotel costs, it doesn’t matter, it is up 20% to 25%. The sound and light company too. Everybody is trying to recoup two years of lost income, and things are higher.
Meanwhile, there’s great sensitivity today about ticket pricing. Concerns that the live music industry may just be catering to a wealthy segment of the audience that can afford tickets, especially for superstar shows, and it is excluding those who can’t afford such shows. And there’s a growing concern from some in the live music industry that some fans may turn away from live shows in general, even though with smaller shows with less popular acts, promoters are offering tickets at more affordable pricing.
The Taylor Swift ticket-sale meltdown last year has spurred a wave of legislative action at the state and federal level in the U.S. but In most cases with superstar acts it’s not Ticketmaster setting the ticket price, it’s the artists.
Absolutely. I completely agree
Should we not be concerned about what pricing for music, sports, and theatre is doing in terms of changing audience habits? That their pricing is only reaching a certain audience demographic? That only certain people can afford to have a great experience at a show or game?
Furthermore, between COVID, and lack of affordability—or let’s call it competition for the dollar and high prices—perhaps, people who used to buy 4, 6, or 8 tickets a year in the $50 to the $70 range—maybe now they only buy one ticket to see an act at $300 because they can have a good seat.
Many people may never experience a live music show or a professional sports game or a theatrical show.
What I think is that they (artists and managers) don’t realize is if they don’t take care of the audience the audience will dwindle. They will think that it’s just a televised thing, and it’s not live.
Even with televised sports, you have to sign up for a significant fee.
Yeah for a subscription. You capture people when they are kids. In sports, in particular, but with music also. You capture them when they are in high school and college.
Steve, music and sports fans go to an arena, and a hot dog is $8 or $10, popcorn is $8, parking $25 to $40, beer ranging from $7.50 to $10.00. If you’re a big spender, you might opt for a 24 oz. King can of Heineken for a whopping $11.
Yep. You don’t even get nickel and dimed to death. You get $10 and $20 to death.
It’s common for a couple attending a concert to spend $120 on food and beverages
Yeah. It’s not healthy. It will be interesting to see at what point the audience pushes back.
After the Rolling Stones’ tour of 2016, with a standard pair of tickets being from $91 to $1,500–depending on where you sat, and what city the band was playing in— I thought that wasn’t going to ever fly again.
I was wrong.
When asked how to tell a ticket price is too high Canadian promoter Michael Cohl famously once said, “That’s easy. People don’t come.”
Yeah, and he’s right. Push back, you know.
Sarah McLachlan found that out with her final fourth women-centric Lilith Fair in 2010 with 10 canceled dates and performers like Carly Simon, Norah Jones, Kelly Clarkson, the Go-Go’s, and Queen Latifah bailing, fearing that they wouldn’t be paid.
They found that out with (Barbra) Streisand the second time around.
The “Barbra: The Music, The Mem’ries, The Magic” tour, presented by Live Nation Global Touring and S2BN Entertainment, began in 2017 and ran two years. Tickets prices ranged between $90 and $510.
The reality is you find out how far can you push ticket prices. The audience holds back for the ticket price to come down.
Have you had to caution some of your acts and their management over what can be pulled out of a market? Have you said, “This is a good ticket price. Your ticket price is not a good ticket price. You don’t want to go that high for specific markets.”
Do you have those kinds of conversations?
All of the time. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. I lost an argument on that recently with a manager and a client who wanted to go with a very aggressive P1 in theatres. I was like, “Let’s not do this.” Not big theatres. I said, “Guys, there’s a lot of competition out there.” It was relatively short notice that we put the tour together. It was the first time that this artist had toured on his own. I was like, “We have to invite people in, not give them sticker shock coming in.”
How did that turn out?
I was 100% wrong. The manager I love and the client also. We went back and forth, and I was 100% wrong. These tickets sold at a significant price. We were doing 60%-70% business in some places, and making percentage. In this case, it worked. You’ve got to pick your niche, and I was wrong. When you are wrong you better cop to it.
Over the years. you have worked with so many Canadian acts. After selling your company, The Music Business Agency to William Morris in 1989, you became one of WMA’s major booking agents, signing Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked Ladies, and The Band.
Today you represent Canadians Crash Test Dummies as well as Bruce Cockburn, Kiefer Sutherland, and Loreena McKennitt. What so attracts you to Canadian acts?
I never looked at it that way. I just do like Canadian artists going back to the ‘80s, I think that Kate & Anna McGarrigle were my first Canadian clients.
You were Kate & Anna’s agent for quite a long time.
I met (their sister manager) Jane McGarrigle. When I was a promoter, we promoted Kate & Anna at Carnegie Hall with Rick Danko opening. Then I went to Magna Artists, and Jane and I just became friendly.
I began working in music in Toronto’s Yorkville Village in the mid-60s alongside True North Records’ founder Bernie Finkelstein who managed the Paupers, Kensington Market, Murray McLauchlan, and of course, Bruce Cockburn for years.
(Laughter). God bless Bernie. I’ve worked with Bernie and Bruce for 35 years. It could be a little longer actually. And I love them both.
Will Paladin Artists eventually open an office in Canada?
I’m not going to say anything publicly about that right now.
You haven’t come to a decision to open an office in Toronto as of yet?
No. There’s some interesting chats going on. I see the complete viability of an office that goes across the board. There are some really good people up there that I enjoy talking to and working with. We have (previously) proven the model can work (with The Agency Group). I see great value in having a sister company office up there. Every now and then, you get really lucky; where a band is either doing well in Canada, and hasn’t broken through (in the U.S.) or vice versa. And once every couple of years, you get a Nickelback or City and Colour or the Arkells which still haven’t popped down here, but they are a great band. Or you get a Barenaked Ladies, a Crash Test Dummies. Or a Drake.
As an agent, you do get close to specific artists.Tell me about booking the legendary poet, and writer Robert Hunter who provided the Grateful Dead with many of their most enduring lyrics. He died in 2019.
While Hunter and Jerry Garcia played in a few bluegrass bands together, Robert passed on an offer to join Garcia’s pre-Grateful Dead jug band to focus instead on writing.
He became a rock and roll icon through writing lyrics for the likes of “Dark Star” and “China Cat Sunflower” and proceeding through “Uncle John’s Band,” “Box of Rain,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Touch of Gray,” “St. Stephen,” “China Cat Sunflower” and “Alligator.”
Robert performed only infrequently over the years.
He liked the concept of touring more than the reality of touring. Robert frequently rehearsed as if he was going to soon go out on the road, but it wouldn’t happen until years later. When I started working with him, it took me a few conversations to realize this isn’t a rock-and-roll guy.
He didn’t tour much. Was there a demand for him?
Well, it’s funny but there was a demand for him. He was reluctant about it. He enjoyed it.
Robert never played San Francisco although Hardly Strictly Bluegrass had a standing offer for him to play at its annual gathering in Golden Gate Park for a very respectable fee.
Yes. How do you know that?
He didn’t play San Francisco because he said he wanted to retain his anonymity.
Yeah, and I used to tease him about that. Maybe the story got into Relix Magazine because I spoke about it at his funeral. I did tell that story about Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, but I didn’t mention the number (fee). They would offer him $50,000 to $75,000, and every year he’d go, “Nope, I don’t want to do it.” That was for 10 years. And then one year, he said to me, “What do you think?” I said, “What do I think? You never asked me that question. I think that you have a nice breakfast. You drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. You have lunch at the site. You play for an hour. You are home for dinner. And you put a new addition on the home. That’s what I think.” He said, “I like my anonymity.” I said, “Bob, you never leave the house. It doesn’t matter. Nobody is going to see you anyways.”
And he never did do it.
He never did do it.
Yet Robert fell in love with performing at the City Winery
He did. That is absolutely true. He did. Did you see the Grateful Dead documentary where they sort of ambushed him at the City Winery in Napa? It is really funny because he gets really cranky when he gets thrown off track.
Ironically, his last shows at the City Winery in New York, which we obviously didn’t know were going to be his last shows, they were some of the best shows that he ever, ever did.
Is that when Robert performed Bruce Springsteen’s “Born To Run?”
Yes. I was there that night (July 23, 2014). He did both “Born To Run” and “Touch of Grey.” It was only in that last year or so that he started doing “Touch of Grey.” Then, at one of those solo shows, he not only did “Touch of Grey,” but he also did Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” I was talking to Robert and his wife Maureen after the show and I said, “You could have bet me $10,000 that Robert would do ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Touch of Grey’ tonight, and I would have taken that bet in a heartbeat. No problem.”
Robert Hunter’s songwriting didn’t end with Jerry Garcia’s death of from heart attack in 1995. In the years after, he went on to co-write songs with Elvis Costello, Bruce Hornsby, Jim Lauderdale, the Dead’s drummer Mickey Hart, and Bob Dylan.
At the time of his death, Hunter was starting to plan some West Coast shows, if not a tour, in November 2019, but he died on Sept. 29th at the age of 78 at his home in San Rafael, California. Maureen of 37 years was by his side holding his hand. He was also survived by a daughter, Kate Hunter; a stepdaughter, Lotte; and several grandchildren.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Queens, and then we moved out to Riverhead, Long Island in 1968. I was about 12.
That’s quite a change from Queens.
Oh, my gawd. it was quite a change. I was a semi-city kid, and Queens was hardcore and it could be very rural in that part of Eastern Long Island at the time. My dad was a car dealer. He started as a car salesman and he opened up a dealership in Riverhead with Volkswagen, Porches, and Audi which is a fun part of my job too sometimes.
You started in the music business in the ‘70s as a teenager, booking bands into Eastern Long Island venues including Hot Dog Beach, Artful Dodger, the legendary OBI, and The Barge which was the floating night club on Dune Road, East Quogue that was the best-known club in The Hamptons.
I was booking bands in ’73 and ’74 in clubs in the Hamptons yes. I used to put bands into the Artful Dodger and OBI. I wasn’t legally allowed to get into the clubs. I was 17. It was where I learned about the power of ancillary revenue. Hot Dog Beach was right across the street from The Barge, and it had an incredible extensive sandbar in the Atlantic Ocean. Hot Dog Beach-Dune Road was basically on a sandbar in the Hamptons.
Through the summer of 1965, the Rascal’s legendary residency at The Barge, with Adrian Barber manning the soundboard, sparked a bidding war among many record labels. Phil Spector’s Philles, Columbia, Capitol, RCA-Victor and Atlantic all wanted to sign the group. The group chose Atlantic.
I was just a kid who talked his way into booking bands for $100 a week which was a fortune. It was unbelievable. I had to mow 100 lawns to get a hundred bucks. The Barges’ owner Dave McKibben had a giant parking lot, He used to sit in this big parking lot all day. I would go, “Dave do you want a break?” It would be 95 degrees. He would say, “I’m fine. Make sure the band is playing.” I would bring him a beer, and ask if he wanted a break and he’d go “No, no., no. Make sure the band is playing. That is all you have to do.” It took me several months to realize that he was doing about 5,000 cars a day, in and out for 12 bucks each, which was like a fortune. He was doing 100 grand a weekend in cash in 1973 in the parking lot. That’s why he never gave a shit.
You booked concerts while attending State University of New York at New Paltz.
I was a terrible student, but I was really good at putting on shows. So they kept me around because I was bringing in Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Garcia, and Labelle and Patti Smith when they were hot. We were only 60 miles from New York, and we were the perfect routing date. I knew how to talk to agents. Because it was an hour and a half north of the city. It didn’t conflict with anybody.
New York agents would have the choice of doing a play in Philly or coming to you.
Or they could do both. On a Tuesday night, we didn’t care. We had a small auditorium – a gym. I really got the appetite for seeing if I could make a career out of this. I had no idea. There was no playbook or course. I just knew that I liked doing it, and I liked no weekend shows. My two favorite times of the day are 8 o’clock and 11 o’clock when the lights go down and everybody gets excited, and when the band leaves and everybody is stroked. It’s fun to be part of the circus.
What was your major at State University?
Economics and I barely scratched through that in university. I was there for 4 1/2 years. I was in a car accident that took me out for a while, and then another semester I lost just because I never went to class.
Did you graduate?
Oh yes, I did. I did, by the skin of my teeth.
Did your success as a teenager working in the Hamptons, and then booking shows while in college give you the confidence in 1979 to seek a job in New York with concert promoter New Audiences which booked Muddy Waters, Tom Waits, Dire Straits, Weather Report and Miles Davis in New York, Boston, and Washington?
College gave me the appetite. My first job. Two wonderful guys, Art Weiner, and Julie Lokin, and that was their company. I eventually booked shows for them like the McGarrigles/Danko show.
It was so sad seeing Weather Report’s (co-founder saxophonist and composer). Wayne Shorter’s passing in March (2nd). Weather Report was a special band, and he was a lovely guy.
Wayne Shorter recorded more than 20 albums as a bandleader. Noting his work for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Miles Davis’s Second Great Quintet, and then with the jazz fusion band Weather Report. New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as, “Probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer, and a contender for greatest living improviser.”
You then briefly worked as an agent at Magna Artists in 1982.
Magna, I loved being there. Ed Rubin was fantastic. Billy Hahn was the guy that hired me. Wayne Forte had ironically just left when I got there. I had a very important lesson there. At the time it was a really great agency, but through no fault of the agency it lost several great clients, Black Sabbath with Ozzy (Osbourne), ELO, and Chuck Mangione. Just the way the management things crumbled. I was 25, and I loved the office, and the people there were great. So Magna folded which really bugged me out. I really loved the job but there was the loss of a couple of major clients through no fault of theirs. It was just politics and happenstance, and they had to fold up. Ed Rubin went on to work for The Nederlander Organization, and I ended up going downtown and opened up MBA (Music Business Agency).
You operated MBA for 7 years before you sold it to the William Morris Agency (WMA) in 1989. Among your clients at MBA were Billy Bragg, Jimmy Cliff, Fela, Yellowman, Toots and the Maytals Robert Hunter, Jorma Kaukonen, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Hot Tuna.
You developed mostly niche acts that larger competitors might not have been drawn to.
It was an interesting group at the time. Reggae music and world music were happening, Fela was quite a story, and Toots and the Maytals, and Yellowman were really popular at the time. And Billy Bragg and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Jorma Kaukonen, and Hot Tuna did really well. It was an interesting amalgamation of people that I liked, and artistically respected. It was various interesting niches that came together.
Why was William Morris Agency so interested in bringing you into the fold?
At that time I was 28 or 29 and they wanted a younger person there with those up and coming acts which came out okay actually.
That was an interesting opportunity at the time. It was fascinating being at William Morris. I really learned there. It was as if I was getting my doctorate because it was really interesting and there were a lot of really smart people there. There are friends from there that I have to this day.
Historically talent agencies concentrate on servicing their star clients until the moment that they realize that they need to refresh their rosters with emerging acts.
That is ongoing today.
You stayed at William Morris for five years before leaving to spearhead the fledgling New York office for the UK-based, Neil Warnock-founded The Agency Group where you first served as president of North American operations.
The Agency Group really took off after it launched in North America with the New York office opening in 1992. Serving as TAG’S president of operations in North America. and becoming a member of the company’s Senior Global Management Team, you built the company from 4 to 40 agents in America.
You represented a personal roster of more than 60 artists, including Dolly Parton, Brian Wilson, Bob Geldof, Billy Bragg, Bruce Cockburn, David Gilmour, the Scorpions, the New York Dolls, Ray Davies, Squeeze, King Crimson, Dream Theater, and others.
The Agency Group seemed like an interesting opportunity to do something independent with a goal of growing music and we certainly did that. We had a great collection of people in time and place.
You stayed at The Agency Group for quite a while as it became a concert industry powerhouse. The world’s largest independent music agency. Despite its growth, many people continued to regard The Agency Group as a boutique agency.
Yeah, 19 years (until 2013). We had a good run.
It’s funny that there were people I hired at The Agency Group that were in their 20s and I’ve now known them for 20 years. They were single and now they have families. It is very nice. The collective memory seems to have a very nice golden glow around that time period for a lot of people. It’s very, very sweet. It was a fun time and a fun group of people who worked very hard and did good work.
Given that you and many of your Paladin Artists team have worked in all of these different talent agencies over the years are you each able to adapt to various scenarios because you’ve experienced them before?
That’s what we hope. I do have the playbook. I was quite fortunate with situations—- whether it was MBA and grew that to the point where someone else was interested—- to The Agency Group that had tremendous growth. And yeah that was due to the many individuals there too. Natalia (Nastaskin), Bruce Solar, Andy (Somers) and others and I’m so proud of what all these people are doing now.
With all of the ongoing buyouts and mergers of promoters over the decades coupled with the overriding roles of Live Nation and AEG Live, is there room today for independent promoters in the business in America?
Some independents are doing quite well like Disco Donnie, Another Planet, Beaver Productions, and Frank Productions.
There is definitely room for independent promoters. It’s always nice to have an independent point of view, but it depends on the project. It really does. Live Nation is certainly good at doing certain things, and a lot of the time it’s not the name of the company. It’s who is doing the work. Who am I talking to? Like Jodi Goodman in San Francisco or Mike Belkin in Cleveland. These are people I have had a relationship with throughout my career and their careers. We all started around the same time. It is not like I am dealing with Live Nation in San Francisco, I am dealing with Jodi Goodman (president, Northern California). I’m dealing with Michael. The company is interesting, but it’s the people there. Of course, Riley O’Connor is my (Canadian Live Nation) guy in Toronto
Larry LeBlanc is widely recognized as one of the leading music industry journalists in the world. Before joining CelebrityAccess in 2008 as senior editor, he was the Canadian bureau chief of Billboard from 1991-2007 and Canadian editor of Record World from 1970-80. He was also a co-founder of the late Canadian music trade, The Record.
He has been quoted on music industry issues in hundreds of publications including Time, Forbes, and the London Times. He is co-author of the book “Music From Far And Wide,” and a Lifetime Member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
He is the recipient of the 2013 Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, recognizing individuals who have made an impact on the Canadian music industry.
