“Flaming youth, our flag is flying ”
I grew up in Rochester, NY, and have always loved music. When I was three or four I got a little acoustic guitar, but once I discovered the band KISS, I needed to rock. I took guitar lessons and begged for an electric guitar, which I eventually got for Christmas when I was 11. Then I got in to Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, and Journey. I played in bands throughout middle school and high school, and ended up at NYU for college. At that time, they’d just launched their music business and technology program. It was a very new Major for the school, and very expensive. So, even though I had a cool job working at the Bottom Line*, I transferred to SUNY Brockport where I majored in Communication.
*The Bottom Line was a music venue in Greenwich Village. During the 1970s and 1980s the club was a major space for small-scale popular music performances.
“Well we work all day”
I played music full time till I was 30. My Rochester band was called Officer Friendly and we were upstate New York’s version of Alice in Chains. We did pretty well. We had a tour circuit we did, DC, Boston, NY. I was supporting myself playing music, which was great. But, just before I turned thirty, I decided to move back to New York City to continue playing music, but to also get a “real job.” In New York, I started a band called Saccharine, and we were more pop/alternative leaning – think the Foo Fighters. Speaking of, in 1999, I was invited by Foo Fighters to audition for their guitar player spot. Got to play 4 songs with them, which was awesome, but didn’t get it because Dave didn’t want another singer in the band.
I got a job at Ticketmaster in client services and really learned the ticketing business. After 7 years, wanted to work more with artists, so I went to a then-new-company called Artist Arena. Artist Arena’s main function was to help artists go direct to their fans and give them the opportunity to buy concert tickets first. They could order exclusive merchandise and belong to a community of other fans of the artist. I worked with 311, Justin Bieber, Rhianna, Duran Duran. It was a great place for me because I worked directly with artists, promoters, managers, and agents, connecting with people in all different verticals. The company was eventually acquired by Warner, and got more corporate. I moved on to Accesso, a ticketing technology platform.
“I want to rock and roll all night and party every day”
First and foremost, I am a music fan and a musician. I am passionate about great music. I know how it feels when you’re in a band. There’s nothing more fun or gratifying then playing in front of 500 people who have paid to see you.
Whatever I do – whether it’s making music, managing an artist, putting together a music festival – I want to bring great music to people. I am always the guy who looks for new artists and posts about it. Nothing makes me happier than finding amazing bands that people don’t know about yet. Several years ago, I saw this band, Illiterate Light, and was blown away by them. I brought them to the festival I produce, Toonerville. They played through a torrential rainstorm and crushed it – so we are bringing them back this year because we feel like more people need to see them.
“Shout it, shout it out loud,”
During Covid my neighbor sent a text around to some other local musicians in my town and said, “We should get together and talk about how we can bring music to the community.” We threw around a lot of ideas and I thought, “Hey let’s have a musical festival.” The co-founder of the Fest, Jason Jeffries, was part of the Pelham Civic Association, and they said they’d underwrite it and then any money that was made would go back into the community.
At the first Toonerville (named for the Trolley that you could ride through Pelham, NY in the late 1800s), I ended up booking Fastball and Verve Pipe as co-headliners and rounded it out with some regional and local acts – and we made a little bit of money. Year 2 we had Living Colour headline and then Year 3 was the terrible rainstorm. We had Spin Doctors headlining, and even though the rain was severe, we went on with the show. Year 4 we had 10,000 Maniacs and for our 5th year, we have Soul Asylum and 15 other great acts, some local, some regional. It’s a really great event and I love that for some kids, it’s their first exposure to live music. I also love booking young bands, giving them their first shot. We have a very young group called Static Youth performing that we are looking forward to. Someday those kids will tell people they opened for Soul Asylum! Friends of mine who do festival bookings can’t believe we are profitable and get Grammy winning acts to come to our small town.
“I’ve never been afraid of the highest heights”
I feel like I’ve been in the music business for so long that when I started, it was really expensive to go into the studio to record your music, and the revenue streams we had were selling CDs, merch and touring. It was expensive to be in a band back then for different reasons. However, it was more organic compared to what artists have to do today to find success. I will say that being able to record at home, and being able to immediately put out your music, is great but since everyone can do it, it’s also not unique. People making music today really have to carve out what’s compelling about it. There are a lot of great bands who never get heard because they haven’t gone viral, it’s too expensive to tour and artists don’t own their fan data, social media channels do. That’s why I started a company called ArtistVerified, which connects artists and fans directly, while giving artists full ownership of data.
“Today’s musicians need to be their own record label, their own marketing company, their own publicist.”
A trend I really like is that artists are releasing one song at a time rather than a whole album, and they hammer that single to death looking for traction and seeing who is playing it and where. Labels can pay for influencers to stream your music, but it’s the artist than needs to connect with fans and grow that community. I tell musicians who ask for advice to be strategic. It’s about understanding what you can control and what you can afford. Understanding what your options are to market your music and being constantly proactive is imperative. Look at success stories and see what parts of it you can duplicate. Try and license your music. If you’re a live artist like Billy Strings or Goose or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, then use all your resources to tour. There are still opportunity out there, but it takes work and being open to all avenues that might bring you success.