Speaker 1: This watt me up ken breast, Kevin, this partner did
Speaker 1: you started to pick out? And this is doctor typical
Speaker 1: contect promoter who references Christo. He's really an artist underneath.
Speaker 1: It's really intrigued. It's like, Kevin, how did you become
Speaker 1: up from contract propos um? I don't know if he
Speaker 1: ever became a concert promoter. The probably the simple answer
Speaker 1: that is that in the round eighteen made seven, Uh
Speaker 1: went to art school where all the dysfunctional people. So
Speaker 1: it's just like uk t um and I soon discovered
Speaker 1: that I didn't like the idea of producing art and
Speaker 1: hoping somebody bought it. Didn't feel very good about selling myself.
Speaker 1: But then I did notice a lot of music came
Speaker 1: out of art school in those time. That's just generally
Speaker 1: how most of the modern movement kind of happened. And
Speaker 1: I did notice straight away there were some people with
Speaker 1: incredible talent that couldn't tie their shoelaces, probably because they
Speaker 1: were so tunnel visioned about what they were producing. Um.
Speaker 1: Probably the earliest one to come along really was was
Speaker 1: Nick Cave when We're both one Um and that Gravitator
Speaker 1: and Ed Cooper from the Saints how did you know
Speaker 1: Nick Cave? Uh? I got involved with Ed Cooper, who
Speaker 1: was the songwriter guitarist for the Saints, because I got
Speaker 1: invited down by a friend to hear them rehearse, because
Speaker 1: they were rehearsing for six months for their first shows,
Speaker 1: the Laughing Clowns, And they had a very strong connection
Speaker 1: with Nick Cave, so that when they went down to Melbourne,
Speaker 1: they supported what was then the Boys next Door, and
Speaker 1: when Poison next Door came up to Sydney, they'd support
Speaker 1: the Laughing Clowns Mutual Appreciation Society. Okay, we rassed a
Speaker 1: chapter there. You would going to art school? Yeah, you said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't want to promote myself. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be victimized by the public. Was Nick Kieve a friend
Speaker 1: then became a friend pretty quick because when you're that young,
Speaker 1: you're working together, there's no real structure anything, no real
Speaker 1: management structure around the place. Uh. It just very quickly
Speaker 1: snowball party to do with amazing person called Keith Glasses
Speaker 1: started missing link records and started signing all these acts
Speaker 1: and so as he's running an independent record store and roster.
Speaker 1: Then I started to move into the factor that I
Speaker 1: knew how to. I was originally enlightening and then went
Speaker 1: into producing shows, and then was booking the shows bearing
Speaker 1: a mind. In those days, there was no such thing
Speaker 1: as somebody purchasing the show of this sorts of things.
Speaker 1: So it was renting halls, it was taking door deals
Speaker 1: at venues. But I want to go back to the
Speaker 1: beginning or at school. Yeah, how do you say I'm
Speaker 1: going to promote a show? I'm gonna how how do
Speaker 1: you just say I'm gonna go to the jump to
Speaker 1: the other side and be a business person. Okay, I'll
Speaker 1: take it back to the simple thing. UM. At the
Speaker 1: round at the age of nineteen, the artist Christo came out,
Speaker 1: you mean the Christal of the guy who does you
Speaker 1: know umbrellas? And he had wrapped Shelly Beach for years earlier,
Speaker 1: had just completed running fence UM and similar situation. I
Speaker 1: suppose he did a talk at what was to become
Speaker 1: COVID wasn't called co for at the time. UM. Only
Speaker 1: four people turned up. There's only two of us were interested.
Speaker 1: I just kind of had him for two hours and
Speaker 1: just talked through everything, and he talked in terms of
Speaker 1: what I needed to do running fence it was going
Speaker 1: to cost six million dollars and it took me five
Speaker 1: months to get that money together. You also mentioned that
Speaker 1: he never used volunteers. He tried to use volunteers, but
Speaker 1: they were hopeless, so it was easier for him to
Speaker 1: find more money than use volunteers. Talked about the tribalism
Speaker 1: of say, running fence, where you'd end up with ten
Speaker 1: teams that were kind of competing against each other, all
Speaker 1: again pre mobile phone, and running in isolation like isolated tribes,
Speaker 1: and he'd be holding that thing together. And then I
Speaker 1: pretty much became the cornerstone of understanding of the concept
Speaker 1: of being about humanity more than making something to hang
Speaker 1: in the gallery. That impermanence can be more permanent, uh,
Speaker 1: And that the the real point of it comes down
Speaker 1: to is that you can amplify something great a lot
Speaker 1: easier than something that's not great. And you don't need
Speaker 1: to be the most aware person to notice that there's
Speaker 1: something special going on with Nick Cave and he's twenty
Speaker 1: one when he's producing very very angry. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we got to see Kristi and you're very inspired, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: inspired in a way that there's another way of doing
Speaker 1: things okay, and then does it What what's your thought
Speaker 1: process to say, Hey, I might want to have a
Speaker 1: music event which would be kind of like an evanescent
Speaker 1: event like running fans of the umbrellas or you know,
Speaker 1: surrounding the lakes the islands in Miami, et cetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was already done. So Uh. The point of it was,
Speaker 1: as I found that if there was a great subculture
Speaker 1: that was going on, that could be um pulled together
Speaker 1: to make a bigger statement. Also found that the performances
Speaker 1: when say, the group Laughing Clowns played with a normal
Speaker 1: support were pretty shabby. When the Boys next Door played
Speaker 1: become the birthday party later when they performed with an
Speaker 1: average kind of opening act, didn't really give it everything
Speaker 1: they had. But when you put two competing bands on
Speaker 1: the one show on an equal bill, the their sets
Speaker 1: are on fire. Okay, that's something great. But you are
Speaker 1: an artist, Yeah, how do you literally become a businessman
Speaker 1: because they had to be a business Okay, but you
Speaker 1: woke up one day and say the answer is contro promotion. No, no,
Speaker 1: it was just a natural progression. That line of it is.
Speaker 1: As they spent four years in art school, primarily to
Speaker 1: borrow the equipment because it was an electro media of course,
Speaker 1: thing that gave us access to lighting, film, sound, very
Speaker 1: low tech, a lot of it, some high tech. We
Speaker 1: collaborated with many other things. Were collaborated with the Conservatory
Speaker 1: of Music with Martin Wesley Smith, who was the just
Speaker 1: pioneering the electronics division of the of the Conservatory of Music.
Speaker 1: We worked on various things outside, such as architecture review
Speaker 1: and things like that, where the arts end of things,
Speaker 1: of different parts of it was on a similar path um.
Speaker 1: And in that process I found that the real art
Speaker 1: was because I was saying friends at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the point of art? Now? Warholes killed everything, so
Speaker 1: we're starting to repeat ourselves all over again. And I
Speaker 1: just tried to follow the art, and the art was
Speaker 1: moving out of the visual arts world into the musical world,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be more part of the future art,
Speaker 1: not the past art um. And as that grew in
Speaker 1: that process and the experiments worked, there was the people
Speaker 1: that are around at that time didn't want to We're
Speaker 1: in seventy six, you said, seventy seventy nine when I
Speaker 1: did the first silly show that did not work out
Speaker 1: very well, and then so tell me about the two.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the first silly show. It was
Speaker 1: cheaper to hire a band with a p A than
Speaker 1: the p A, and the band I hired was shipped.
Speaker 1: But I actually put it on because I wanted the
Speaker 1: band that I was living with at the time to
Speaker 1: play with a good PA. But it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: I learned my lesson, didn't I always stop whenever I failed,
Speaker 1: and then regroup. Sometimes I've stopped for a six months.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I've stopped for a couple of years. Um stop
Speaker 1: now for five. I don't have any hunger to go
Speaker 1: back to it. There's better being on the outside than
Speaker 1: the inside at the moment, and I don't have that
Speaker 1: compulsion to keep doing it because I think the arts
Speaker 1: moved again now into science. Science you mean tech just
Speaker 1: science in general. Two examples what you consider science. There's
Speaker 1: the scientific process of trying to solve problems in a
Speaker 1: futuristic sense that is needing the imagination of the artists
Speaker 1: to get it there, that it needs to have people
Speaker 1: around with the political and financial strength to make them happen.
Speaker 1: In the speculative world of it at the moment, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of failures. And I won't say that all
Speaker 1: disruptive technology is good. Disrupted good technology. But I think
Speaker 1: in terms of you're a young creative person, you're going
Speaker 1: to drive more to war Woods a bigger picture, uh
Speaker 1: attitude to life than I'm going to get a band.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be an artist in paint. It's more
Speaker 1: the hard end of the stick to go. I want
Speaker 1: to do something that's important. So to use the old
Speaker 1: term from the rate stuff and Chuck Yeager, you're all
Speaker 1: about pushing the envelope. You're supposed to just money. I
Speaker 1: prefer to throw out the envelope. Okay, But the point
Speaker 1: is you're not. The way you're saying is money is important,
Speaker 1: but that's not the number one driver. It's more about
Speaker 1: impacting the culture. Well, money could never be important because
Speaker 1: it's I've only ever seen even in in when living
Speaker 1: in a squad and not being able to basically have
Speaker 1: enough money to eat um. It hasn't been about money.
Speaker 1: It's a bit the need to do it. Okay. So
Speaker 1: so I think I've said two things about it in
Speaker 1: time that the money for in most situations, created process
Speaker 1: is your tools to achieve your goal. It's not the
Speaker 1: end results, and if you do a good job in
Speaker 1: the simplest of terms, someone will send your check. Not nowadays,
Speaker 1: of course, but that's you can't be. If you're focusing
Speaker 1: on that aspect of it, you're probably gonna fail just
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. If let's say I have an endeavor, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I certainly hope that it pays off. Should I
Speaker 1: forget about the money completely. You need to get paid
Speaker 1: for what you're worth. And if you can put something
Speaker 1: in structure there that you're going to get paid for
Speaker 1: what the value of you bring, then that will happen
Speaker 1: down the path. If you're wanted to get paid on
Speaker 1: a week by week basis, then you're beholding to somebody.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. You grow up where
Speaker 1: in Sydney, Yeah, cover matters, and then what do your
Speaker 1: parents do for your living? For a living? Father was
Speaker 1: a paymaster, mother was a chronic epileptic. She worked sometimes,
Speaker 1: didn't work sometimes. So the intuitive side of it with
Speaker 1: me was that we ended up about in cabramattic was
Speaker 1: and father fought World War Two and grew up in Ramwick,
Speaker 1: went to Sydney Boys High. His brother died in World
Speaker 1: War two as a Lancaster bomber navigator over France moved
Speaker 1: to Cabra matter on the basis that if Japan invades
Speaker 1: next time, we're further away from the very logical at
Speaker 1: the time. Okay, how many kids in the family, just
Speaker 1: my sister and your sister was older, younger, No, she's gone,
Speaker 1: she's older. She wasn't particularly healthy. And did she pursue
Speaker 1: what we would call a street life a civilian she
Speaker 1: became an art teacher? Or really, so, where was the
Speaker 1: influence for art? How did you know? How did you
Speaker 1: get it? Was all there is latently in there? Um.
Speaker 1: I could tell him the father painted the house seven
Speaker 1: different colors, that there was something going on. Um, But
Speaker 1: you know it wasn't. I grew up in the concept
Speaker 1: of which is some of the things that championed along
Speaker 1: the way was the skating, was the fact that hot
Speaker 1: right art, um, the the idea of the of the
Speaker 1: working class artist more than the I'm going to be
Speaker 1: an artist, you know, the the when Big Daddy Roth
Speaker 1: was making his start about cars for those people, I
Speaker 1: found a lot of things really and in fact, he
Speaker 1: did the cover for the Birthday Party Junk Guard album,
Speaker 1: of which he got really angry about because he finally
Speaker 1: listened to it and said that how dare you put
Speaker 1: my art work on this album? Because they told him
Speaker 1: it was a rockabilly band. Um, good old days. You
Speaker 1: could hide that, okay. So your parents were fine with
Speaker 1: you going to art school? No, they hated the idea.
Speaker 1: They actually hid my sceptance until I quit the Commonwealth
Speaker 1: Bank after three days and then I said, oh this
Speaker 1: turned up so I would have never even gone there
Speaker 1: if I had stayed another week. Okay, And how did
Speaker 1: you pay for art school? I got a twenty eight
Speaker 1: dollar a month living away from home allowance. I worked
Speaker 1: part time and I lived in a squad. Okay, so
Speaker 1: now you have it. You put on a gig we'll
Speaker 1: call a gig because you wanted the band to have
Speaker 1: the p A. Was that for like your arts? Was there?
Speaker 1: Was there a show? Did you charge admission? What was admission?
Speaker 1: I also produced a long form video for the entry
Speaker 1: and tried to make it installation peace kind of thing
Speaker 1: based on Kitel products, and called it ken Talent was
Speaker 1: ken Tell's Show. I worked under alias is all the time.
Speaker 1: It was much more fun. Um. The first touring company
Speaker 1: I set up was Edwards Zimblis and syndicate Briebery Limited
Speaker 1: Um because I just thought that's better to work that way,
Speaker 1: and to the point where in nine and January eighty
Speaker 1: five when brought out Lou Reid and dealt with Eric Kranfeld,
Speaker 1: who was the Rolling Stones attorney as well as managing Lou,
Speaker 1: he was convinced that this twenty six year old or
Speaker 1: whatever it was at the time, that I worked for
Speaker 1: Edward Zimbliss. And that was fine until he found out
Speaker 1: in Australia when he was telling the head of security
Speaker 1: that he'd had a meeting with Edward and John Miller.
Speaker 1: The head of security said, you know, he doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: So it was a good front because I was too
Speaker 1: young to be me. Okay, so you put on this concert,
Speaker 1: you made the video, you were having fun where you're
Speaker 1: getting any traction? No, No, that's what I started. I
Speaker 1: had to move out of the friend's house and move
Speaker 1: home again for six months with my parents accepted de
Speaker 1: Selm carr Um. Then it just kind of went back
Speaker 1: into doing shows for people. There's more of an agent
Speaker 1: position because I knew how to do stuff, and that's
Speaker 1: when I started creating one off events I didn't like
Speaker 1: during much. I like one off events. What kind of
Speaker 1: events were those? Uh? Um? The first birthday party shows
Speaker 1: were Birthday Party Love and Clowns Go Betweens at Paris Theater.
Speaker 1: Um the first time two parents foolishly put five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in my bank account to so they get the
Speaker 1: pension better. Which a week later I was on a
Speaker 1: flight to London. UM stayed at Nick Squad, Nick Cave
Speaker 1: Squat and Paddington in London. That was pretty good. Um.
Speaker 1: The third floor was stairs with missing so we had
Speaker 1: to use the ladder up that part and the taps
Speaker 1: were leaking out the sides a bit, but but it
Speaker 1: was good. Got a train up to Manchester, stayed on
Speaker 1: Marquee Smith's floor. I didn't realize he took a lot
Speaker 1: of speed. That's running away. He was talking all night.
Speaker 1: And then went to the Hassie Endo to meet UM
Speaker 1: to see a new Order plays like the sixth of
Speaker 1: a show. It was a free from members night, so
Speaker 1: a new order free for members night. UM. And the
Speaker 1: weird thing was the connection with Nick kind of opened
Speaker 1: doors because when well, you're in our you're in our world.
Speaker 1: You know that's you. He's he we respect him. If
Speaker 1: he respects you, then you get the time. Um ended
Speaker 1: up securing the New Order tour by sculling a cocktail
Speaker 1: with Rob Britain because Bernard had ordered some blue cocktail
Speaker 1: backstage after the show and Rob said, here's this guy
Speaker 1: from Australia wants to come to Australia and said, Bernard said,
Speaker 1: I thought we were going to South America. He said, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to choose which one and burn and
Speaker 1: said we'll scull this cocktail and we'll go to Australia.
Speaker 1: And I thought he was joking, but then I sculled
Speaker 1: it and he said, okay, we're going to Australia. And
Speaker 1: I said the rubbull, can I come past tomorrow we'll
Speaker 1: work out the deal. He said, don't worry about the deal.
Speaker 1: That's factory records. Yeah, that's factory records all the way through,
Speaker 1: which is kind of how became the Manchester specialist of
Speaker 1: Manchester Think. So a lot of these things were event
Speaker 1: driven in that. So the five thousand dollars your parents
Speaker 1: gave you, you said, I'm gonna use this to put
Speaker 1: on a show. He said, I gotta live and I
Speaker 1: told me not to use it for that kind of okay.
Speaker 1: And so but when you went to the UK, you
Speaker 1: in the back of your mind said, I want to
Speaker 1: do a show that the first time the UK yet Okay.
Speaker 1: I clearly went there on the basis that they were
Speaker 1: acts that I wanted to see and I thought people
Speaker 1: needed to see, and I thought the traditional music industry
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to do it. Okay, So you secure
Speaker 1: this deal with New Water, Yeah, and the factories legendarily untogether.
Speaker 1: How long thereafter they actually show up in Australia Not
Speaker 1: that long after. It was November toward the fall before that,
Speaker 1: and that did really well. Turned up. It was the
Speaker 1: sound guy didn't get through because he filled out his
Speaker 1: visa form wrong and the studio engineer was there, not
Speaker 1: Martin had the other studio engineer was there, did a
Speaker 1: terrible show at the Capital Theater because he kept saying
Speaker 1: I was looking for the rewind button. Is he never
Speaker 1: mixed live great help, totally top end sliced it, but
Speaker 1: his heads off. UM And then ten shows, so I
Speaker 1: got from like nine to of the first shows of
Speaker 1: New Order in the world. Um came friends that created
Speaker 1: the process of trying to create the goal for me
Speaker 1: was to go, if they're in safe hands, if they
Speaker 1: feel her in safe hand, the money doesn't matter that much.
Speaker 1: And that was the foundation of what I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: You're in safe hands. I will back you up on anything.
Speaker 1: I need to back you up. I can't guarantee you're
Speaker 1: going to make a lot of money. Okay. So they
Speaker 1: came to Australia, they did ten gigs. Yeah, you make
Speaker 1: money or lose money. Lost thirty dollars. Who's money kind
Speaker 1: of ours but it was borrowed. Um, So I stopped
Speaker 1: for a year, moved out of Sydney, moved down to Melbourne,
Speaker 1: shared a house with business partner of that time, Vivian Lee's.
Speaker 1: Eventually did the final convince the birthday party to come
Speaker 1: back to do a show. It's a series of shows
Speaker 1: that didn't do much more than break even. That was
Speaker 1: the end of the Birthday Party. Um, it was just
Speaker 1: hand to mouth. Did other things, but not class things.
Speaker 1: Whose money was it? Oh, it's a friend of Vivian's
Speaker 1: who was a dope dealer environ. Okay, so we didn't
Speaker 1: want to lose You don't want to lose the money.
Speaker 1: But he had the money. It didn't really care that much? Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you're living hand to mouth. He got paid
Speaker 1: back how much later? Okay? So what happened in that year?
Speaker 1: How do you end up making the money back? Brought
Speaker 1: back John Cooper Clark through all the weirdest things to
Speaker 1: pay a lot of money. They just cleaned up um
Speaker 1: single person again a heroin addict but kind of everything.
Speaker 1: Just to go back to New Order because at this
Speaker 1: point they're legendary when you bring necessarily, but when you
Speaker 1: when you bring them to Australia with the advent of
Speaker 1: their career, anybody, how do you why would people go
Speaker 1: to see him? Were they playing on the radio? What
Speaker 1: would drive tickets? Sale? Us stuy division? And the music
Speaker 1: is great, the first album was sensational, right so, but
Speaker 1: they would have to be word of mouth for people
Speaker 1: to know to go oh yeah. But I had a
Speaker 1: lot of ways of promoting things as well, Like I
Speaker 1: did a Hunters and Collectors show at Sydney University Refectory
Speaker 1: that's sold out at tickets. Instead of announcing the tour
Speaker 1: of the usual way, I got a stamp made that
Speaker 1: said New Order on sale date and stamped everybody coming
Speaker 1: in with that. So everybody at the event was stamped
Speaker 1: with the on sale announcement, which meant that the Capital
Speaker 1: Theater sold out in an hour when it happened, and
Speaker 1: we added extra days. But because the sound was so
Speaker 1: bad at the first one I returned, it didn't do
Speaker 1: very well. I wanted to do two shows, but then
Speaker 1: they said, we don't like playing the same venue twice.
Speaker 1: They just make things up. Okay, remember how much ticket
Speaker 1: prices were on that first show fifteen dollars ninety Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you end up, Meggi, you moved to Melbourne,
Speaker 1: you end up making the money back. You do those shows.
Speaker 1: What happens after that? Just slowly picked myself up and
Speaker 1: started doing it again with it. No, you just go
Speaker 1: through a series of the violent fems. I was. We're
Speaker 1: going to basis that the it was much more mathematical
Speaker 1: than what it sounds. The independent seen and the important
Speaker 1: record model where you're paying more for an imported vinyl
Speaker 1: album and a local president on the theory that it's
Speaker 1: a better quality. You've got to go if they're selling
Speaker 1: three thousand copies of an album through the independent stores,
Speaker 1: because I can ask them and they say, we've sold
Speaker 1: five copies of this Violent Fem's album here on impoard
Speaker 1: and you go. Most of them are in share houses.
Speaker 1: That means it's got a much bigger reach. It's not
Speaker 1: in the charts, it's not there, but you know that
Speaker 1: the people are buying that are going to come to
Speaker 1: the show, and not only just them, but they will
Speaker 1: drag friends along. Um. If they're a social act that
Speaker 1: that you want to show off to your friends that
Speaker 1: they're great, then they will be your spokesperson as well.
Speaker 1: Plus a good relationship with Double J Radio before it
Speaker 1: went to Triple J and became national. Um, there was
Speaker 1: the beginning of the street press movement that was really
Speaker 1: championing a lot of these things. That was the beginning
Speaker 1: of the hunger for information tree Internet that they wanted
Speaker 1: to consume more and so they consumed everything that was available. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that was your next big The Violent Fams were
Speaker 1: your next big thing. Yeah, okay, so the Violent Fams came.
Speaker 1: How many deeds did you do with them? About and
Speaker 1: how they do solid at every date? Um? No few
Speaker 1: of a thousand people out front. So you meet Bummy
Speaker 1: Maw and then I took a manic to in America
Speaker 1: for four months and that's when things ramped up a
Speaker 1: little bit. Wait, wait, so you went as the tour
Speaker 1: manager in the States. I wanted somebody with an accent,
Speaker 1: makes some sound more international. This was when blister in
Speaker 1: the sun, when it's happening for the violent thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So it was like a one thousand to two thousand
Speaker 1: see you know, okay, I guess one of post being
Speaker 1: Salt Lake City because I swear, okay, a little bit slower,
Speaker 1: the biggest shower of the American tour at that point
Speaker 1: in time, and three four whatever it was three for
Speaker 1: it was Salt Lake City. They saw about three thousand
Speaker 1: tickets in a big hole because they swear okay, because
Speaker 1: it is very Gordon's a Christian okay, Methodist. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: when they ask you to be the tour manager, because
Speaker 1: you've been a promoter before that you immediately say yes
Speaker 1: or you have to think about it. Well, the deal
Speaker 1: wasn't great. It was two dollars a week and I
Speaker 1: had to get my way there. But um I had
Speaker 1: an experience on road in America and so allowed me
Speaker 1: to understand America a lot more. That everyone's the same everywhere.
Speaker 1: If if you take the party to town, you'll find
Speaker 1: all the widows. So you finished with violent fams. Then
Speaker 1: one came back. Then did the Low Read tour that
Speaker 1: was that successful? No, it covered. But um, I had
Speaker 1: a falling out with my business partner at the time
Speaker 1: Vivian and I parted ways. We're also managing a band.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of an experiment, I suppose in seeing
Speaker 1: what the pop world was like. But I'm talking because
Speaker 1: they were credible artists that I wanted to make pop
Speaker 1: music originally from rup best in an airport and things.
Speaker 1: So they were friends all doing operates and philosophies and
Speaker 1: things like that, so it wasn't the dumb end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. Um, but I had falling out, so I
Speaker 1: didn't time what was it falling out about? Um? I
Speaker 1: guess the simplest thing to say is that I I
Speaker 1: was meant to be the creative one and Vivian was
Speaker 1: meant to be the harder those businessman because who was
Speaker 1: doing no Masters in economics minash um. And then when
Speaker 1: somebody like Eric crime felt, I said, if we don't
Speaker 1: get the money by this afternoon, we're going home. The
Speaker 1: rest the money before the first show. No, Vivian um
Speaker 1: uh imploded and my attitude was um I looked it
Speaker 1: up and came to the the suite and said, there's
Speaker 1: two flights out tonight, one at eight and one at ten.
Speaker 1: Which one do you want? And and you still won't
Speaker 1: get the money, And then there it went. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean that were right, but then he said, I never
Speaker 1: want to see that guy again. So I had to
Speaker 1: kind of tell Vivian not to cause trouble, and so
Speaker 1: I had to take over the tour and do it
Speaker 1: that way, because in in that hard end of the world,
Speaker 1: especially with a no a New York heavyweight attorney who's
Speaker 1: the representing the rolling Stones and things, is that the
Speaker 1: they're bluff and bravado is if you don't stand up
Speaker 1: against it, especially when you know that you hadn't told
Speaker 1: Lou yet. Okay, at the end of the day, did
Speaker 1: he make his money? Did he get us paid? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was all on no tweaking things. Ok if
Speaker 1: you tweaked things, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you lost money, no remain money. Okay, so you know
Speaker 1: ar made but I made money, like by selling the
Speaker 1: choir seats behind Lou read in Perth on a fifty
Speaker 1: fifty cash deal with the manager. Never saw the money.
Speaker 1: I do deals with the sound and lights crew, saying
Speaker 1: if you can cut the lights down a bit, I'll
Speaker 1: give you half the money back. Do you want to
Speaker 1: double up in rooms, I'll give you half the room.
Speaker 1: Did you give them the money back? Yeah? Okay, So
Speaker 1: the louse ain't been paid in two months. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the lou Read tour ends. Where does that leave you?
Speaker 1: Just in a world of start again? And what was that? Well?
Speaker 1: I was managing the band I'm talking for a while
Speaker 1: and I managed time Kate Sobrano when the band broke up.
Speaker 1: Um at the same time ended up starting up a
Speaker 1: festival in Melbourne called the Melbourne Melbourne Music Show, which
Speaker 1: ended up being a bicentennial thing for Jen eight at
Speaker 1: the Melbourne Showgrounds. And what was the skill there? Um?
Speaker 1: The scale was kind of weird. They wanted to be
Speaker 1: ten days long and I wanted to be one weekend.
Speaker 1: They tried to drag it out to that. We had
Speaker 1: a big power meeting with everybody at the table, Hugodynsky's
Speaker 1: and couples and everybody who is anybody at the time,
Speaker 1: and I was saying, oh yeah, I could get you too,
Speaker 1: and I could get this, and I could get that. No,
Speaker 1: it's with the Victorian government and Irvan Rockman, which doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything to you, but I know he had the
Speaker 1: Rockman Hotel and he used to be the Lord Mayor
Speaker 1: of Melbourne. He was the chairman of it and said
Speaker 1: I need to be the chairman of this because my
Speaker 1: name's Rockman Um. And it was all fun except that
Speaker 1: the polem. Once I said, none of these people get along.
Speaker 1: No one's going to give their act to someone else
Speaker 1: to do this. So I became the like the talent
Speaker 1: director of it, and I handled so his works up
Speaker 1: seminars schools, talking about pretty big numbers, like a thousand
Speaker 1: people in some of them during the day and at night.
Speaker 1: Had had the music and I had skating in and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff with it all on like
Speaker 1: a four hundred thousand dollar budget with a free venue.
Speaker 1: That was it. I got Nick Cave and got go
Speaker 1: Betweens down, I've got the Divinyls just generally friends I
Speaker 1: could ring up and trying to say can you want
Speaker 1: to do this? And then they stuffed it up at
Speaker 1: the end by running out of money and taking two
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars off the government Health Department to making
Speaker 1: it a no smoking, no drinking music festival, which of
Speaker 1: course then stopped the rest of any sales that might
Speaker 1: have happened. Uh. And that's what I got sick of
Speaker 1: it and just said, oh, I'm going to do my
Speaker 1: own thing one day, okay. So it was the government's
Speaker 1: money the four yeah, yeah, yeah, paid twenty tho dollars okay.
Speaker 1: So that that please? And that's just success. No find
Speaker 1: it right? So are you now intrigued the I want
Speaker 1: to do festivals. I always wanted to do an event
Speaker 1: and I don't like the term festival. I like the
Speaker 1: Chilip Festival, but I don't like rock festivals as such. Um,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's an event, that it has a
Speaker 1: wider parameter than being the festival. So that was always
Speaker 1: the dream. Yet, okay, so you do this thing from Melbourne?
Speaker 1: What's your next up? Uh? Then I decided to drop
Speaker 1: out of managing anybody, moved back to Sydney because I'm
Speaker 1: still a moment at that point in time, and by
Speaker 1: then would patch things up with Vivian. And when I'm
Speaker 1: going back to Sydney is in Melbourne where we should
Speaker 1: start the touring company again. So it was three reasonably
Speaker 1: healthy to have a three years break from each other
Speaker 1: at any rate on that point, because that was tough
Speaker 1: enough as it was. And then it just went back
Speaker 1: to back to back to back, starting with Jesus Marriage
Speaker 1: I and Parkes returning new Order. Um, Deborah Harry, no
Speaker 1: smaller things that I'm up john Stone Rose is long
Speaker 1: the way all that kind of like about six two
Speaker 1: is a year. They never have a laps, Okay, So
Speaker 1: you gave up management because it's really unrewarding. Of course
Speaker 1: if you deal with these people, the ungrateful and you
Speaker 1: don't make any money to boot, No, it's like a
Speaker 1: license to starve. Yeah, okay, getting back to that, I've
Speaker 1: managed like eight acts of the whole time, and every
Speaker 1: time I've quit, right, So I don't have a good
Speaker 1: track record and management in that way. This guy, that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. Okay. So were you now known
Speaker 1: as the alternative promoter? I was alternative promoter the okay?
Speaker 1: And then who was your competition if any, um, some
Speaker 1: smaller promoters, people like Tim Pittman, not many, not really,
Speaker 1: It's like it was more like a we had some
Speaker 1: good international agent friends. Um, they understood us. We had
Speaker 1: we just had supporters and I just want to send
Speaker 1: their act down with somebody that could trust. It's a
Speaker 1: long way. And at this point you're making money, yeah,
Speaker 1: making very good money. Then Billy Bragg was a big winner.
Speaker 1: Some of the scenes ago Billy Bragg, who have thought
Speaker 1: he was going to sell out five two thousand theaters
Speaker 1: in Sydney. He sold that many. Really I have sold
Speaker 1: that more. Okay, So you continue to do this like
Speaker 1: six tours a year until what uh? I was trying
Speaker 1: to get the festival together because I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm taking an event together at any rate based on
Speaker 1: what I did right in and get rid of the
Speaker 1: things that were done wrong. We'd had a massive tour
Speaker 1: of the Violent Firms in nine where they got seven
Speaker 1: thousand people at one show at Fisherman's Wharf on the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast, which is pretty out there. We'd do two
Speaker 1: nights at Selena's which held two a half thousand. There'd
Speaker 1: be fus around the corner because they still had a
Speaker 1: door ticketing situation from a lot of it all hard tickets,
Speaker 1: so you'd only sell half maybe more in advance. The
Speaker 1: things I learned from it were that if you'd sell
Speaker 1: out at two and a half thousand capacity venue License
Speaker 1: Venue in Sydney, that the main act goes on at midnight,
Speaker 1: no one turns up to eleven thirty because it's cheaper
Speaker 1: to drink at the local pub. So that's when I
Speaker 1: started to pull the show together. Then Lollapaloosa got announced
Speaker 1: for for the August and I went our ship. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to pull my socks up here
Speaker 1: and get this going now, otherwise the horse is going
Speaker 1: to bolt. The Violent Femins were scheduled to come back.
Speaker 1: I knew they were too big for some of the stages,
Speaker 1: Like as an act, they were too big for some
Speaker 1: of the stages. You know, they're fragile because when I
Speaker 1: put when I put them on, when I wrote at Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: it's Summerfest and it was a big stage there. I
Speaker 1: ended up taking all the furniture out of the house
Speaker 1: and setting it up on stage, so the couch and
Speaker 1: the TV and the fridge and wives and friends were
Speaker 1: just sitting on stage during the show. This is its
Speaker 1: summer Fest. Summerfest. Yeah, this was That's the legendary like
Speaker 1: ten d event was I learned a bit of that.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot of that. Okay, that was when
Speaker 1: you were the rude Manager of the Year. But they're
Speaker 1: from Milwaukee, so I was there for the whole ten days.
Speaker 1: So in excess with supporting the go goes, um UH
Speaker 1: had to talk to R. E. M. Because they were
Speaker 1: thinking that Violet Fans and R. E. M were the
Speaker 1: two acts at that point in time that we're going
Speaker 1: somewhere um and I just understood all the sound spill
Speaker 1: aspects of it, that you could have jazz pointing that
Speaker 1: way and ballroom dancing or blues pointing the other way.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of like the principle of it was,
Speaker 1: as I said, is that you do the Easter show
Speaker 1: it's called here or the Royal Agricultural Show and just
Speaker 1: get rid of the animals and put bands in. And
Speaker 1: that was pretty much the simplest thing to do. Because
Speaker 1: those venues were wide elephants um, they were a lot
Speaker 1: of governments wanting to develop them because it was an
Speaker 1: obsolete thing of having a rural show there. So in
Speaker 1: Melbourne and in fact both sides of the political party
Speaker 1: were to redevelop the Flemington showgrounds kind of by us
Speaker 1: upset in the apple cart. The venues were kept um
Speaker 1: and so no longer shot it was is that then
Speaker 1: the violent fms just trust me whatever I tell him
Speaker 1: that I was doing. So I just told him this
Speaker 1: is what I'm doing. Um. And then because I did
Speaker 1: get asked to manage them, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: manage them because I didn't want to live in America.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know how much fun management is, um,
Speaker 1: and I thought that will stop me from doing other things.
Speaker 1: So it was working with them as more as a
Speaker 1: managerial than a promoter role, saying this is what you're doing. Um.
Speaker 1: It started off as a four or five band bill.
Speaker 1: I had to explain it just a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: While the blues announcements, the violent fems sell out business.
Speaker 1: You then in your mind stake we're going to go
Speaker 1: to these agricultural venues. You just put that together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and how okay, but there's only one in Sydney to
Speaker 1: start with. Okay, so the one in Sydney, what would
Speaker 1: be theoretical capacity? Uh? Well, A beautiful thing about the
Speaker 1: showgrounds these places is they have no theoretical capacity, um,
Speaker 1: which is what I've said many times. What I thank
Speaker 1: God it was me um because we utilize the horn
Speaker 1: and Previnion, which had a capacity of six thousand. We
Speaker 1: utilize some outdoor areas to put some extra stages in,
Speaker 1: put a big skate ramp, try and find some decent
Speaker 1: restaurants to put some reasonable food in. UM sorted out
Speaker 1: to deal with the venue that was I'll take the door,
Speaker 1: I'll take the merchandise. UM, we'll just pay a flat fee.
Speaker 1: You take the bar. Let's just do that. Well, how
Speaker 1: about the restaurants who's gonna They're gonna keep their own
Speaker 1: money just for sake, they keep the fast food money.
Speaker 1: I would run as a kind of a lost basis
Speaker 1: the quality food a restaurant and said, do you want
Speaker 1: to come down to a festival, even if it's Laurie's
Speaker 1: Vegetarian or whatever it could trying to at jar and
Speaker 1: food in I had clinton walk of a friend who
Speaker 1: was riding for Rolling Stones set up a chili store
Speaker 1: because he made good chili. UM and and that was it.
Speaker 1: There was no backstage and cility structure anything with it.
Speaker 1: So that the process came about by really going if
Speaker 1: I can just do the horn and pavilion with a
Speaker 1: six band bill and run it longer. Then the pressure
Speaker 1: won't be all on the violent fans that they've gotten
Speaker 1: too big or whatever. Okay, and in terms how many
Speaker 1: people did you need to sell tickets to to break even? Well,
Speaker 1: they kept changing because band's kept bringing me, until I
Speaker 1: ended up with twenty one acts and three stages. I
Speaker 1: go all all right, okay, I can find a spot
Speaker 1: for you. And but they didn't know what a festival was.
Speaker 1: I'm signing back to Churn Festival. They didn't know how
Speaker 1: a festival work. I didn't know what it was. And
Speaker 1: the whole principle of the Australian probably the same in
Speaker 1: a national music scene, is that you don't play Beneathan
Speaker 1: act that's smaller than you. No, you've fought a hard
Speaker 1: road to get that spot. And so certain bands would
Speaker 1: go but they didn't understand three stages, so no big,
Speaker 1: small medium dang. So I'm going to friends going no,
Speaker 1: we won't play before that band on the second stage,
Speaker 1: and I go, but that means you'll be playing against Nirvana.
Speaker 1: That doesn't matter, Okay, it mattered. Um So this whole
Speaker 1: idea that like with Nirvana in there and Stranger, you're
Speaker 1: the indie played after them if I didn't care where
Speaker 1: they played. This is before they broke big well thore
Speaker 1: Nobe one in the world the week. Okay, so your
Speaker 1: four days earlier there in countries. Okay, So you've had
Speaker 1: a very fortunate booking the budget for this. Whose money
Speaker 1: is this now? It's always been my money. Okay, our money.
Speaker 1: My money doesn't make it giff in your heart. You
Speaker 1: say this is gonna work, or you say, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna throw it up against the wall. Oh, I knew
Speaker 1: it would work. I knew it to work. I knew
Speaker 1: it had sell out. The main problem because the violent
Speaker 1: firms are already that strong that they could do that.
Speaker 1: For an actual fact. I used to complain about it
Speaker 1: because because Nirvana became on the show, because Stephen Pavlovich
Speaker 1: is the friend was bringing them out. Um, I said,
Speaker 1: what they like to play on the show, said, I'll
Speaker 1: check with them. He said, no, Nevana loved the fems.
Speaker 1: That would be great. Now they've played the Phoenician Club
Speaker 1: a few nights before. It was a bit of chaos.
Speaker 1: Thousand capacity club of Phoenicians. I don't know where the
Speaker 1: Phoenicians live nowadays, but then right, that's the uh. It
Speaker 1: was all kind of who cares? Okay, so the dates play.
Speaker 1: Is it chaos up to the last minute or is
Speaker 1: it is it pretty much go according to plan? Well,
Speaker 1: you find out things you don't organize. I mean, I
Speaker 1: hadn't had any sleep because I realized I realized they
Speaker 1: hadn't put up fences, so I had to start putting
Speaker 1: up fences during the night. Not luckily, I found two
Speaker 1: people in a tree at about two o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning trying to get in for free. And I had
Speaker 1: gave him the choice of helping me put the fences
Speaker 1: up or leaving. So you want to put the fences
Speaker 1: up to keep our friends out so they can't get in,
Speaker 1: or we have to leave? And I said yeah, So
Speaker 1: they chose to put the fences up with me. Um.
Speaker 1: I got through it. It was fine. The exciting thing
Speaker 1: was is that ten o'clock in the morning there's two
Speaker 1: or three thousand people out front. The main horror I
Speaker 1: had was what happens if they don't turn up till
Speaker 1: five in the afternoon or six tickets? Had you thought?
Speaker 1: I sold fifty two tickets the first day with violent
Speaker 1: Fences and Nirvana on the bill, and I kept adding
Speaker 1: bands because it was a ten week campaign and I
Speaker 1: sent oh well fifty two tickets. I guess they don't
Speaker 1: know what it is um and still very much. And
Speaker 1: then eventually as it started to click, uh, then it
Speaker 1: just started to ramp up. And then when it ramped
Speaker 1: up to I think the ten days out, it's all
Speaker 1: like six d and fifty tickets on that day and
Speaker 1: would have probably gone to thirty thousand if it had
Speaker 1: had it. Okay, So ultimately it gets dark, everybody shows up, no, no,
Speaker 1: At nine am they all turned up. I think, so
Speaker 1: there're two thousand A yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're worth it.
Speaker 1: But then by the guy at time, the guy's time
Speaker 1: to ten thirty, it was it was everyone was there,
Speaker 1: so just a question of getting everybody in. By midday,
Speaker 1: everybody was in, okay. Was there an issue of over
Speaker 1: capacity only with Namana, which I did complain about because
Speaker 1: I had to stop selling tickets because Navanah got too popular.
Speaker 1: If I could have balanced it out more, I could
Speaker 1: have made more sense of it when you've got one started,
Speaker 1: So we stopped it at nine and a half when
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to ten. So i've also which
Speaker 1: of course then I had to renegotiate the deal because
Speaker 1: Nirvana confirmed for five thousand dollars um, so I changed
Speaker 1: that to four dollars ahead, so they got right thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars. So because it was unfair the deep, well,
Speaker 1: that's rock and roll. The deal is never the deal. No,
Speaker 1: it was. They were going to do it, but I
Speaker 1: just thought, okay, well the d please mega success. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and was it called Big Day Out. It was originally
Speaker 1: called ken Fest. I booked everybody on ken Fest. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a name, and then first Artworks ken Fest,
Speaker 1: Richard Aland was doing Mambo worked with me on and
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. Because a friend of dare,
Speaker 1: I thought you weren't a self promoter, huh. I thought
Speaker 1: it was gonna be ken Fest, right, yeah, But that
Speaker 1: wasn't That was just the I didn't want to call
Speaker 1: it something that was obviously going to be wrong later,
Speaker 1: so it was something that was obviously wrong now, and
Speaker 1: then eventually had to go with the Big Day Out,
Speaker 1: the idea that it's mine but um And that was
Speaker 1: partly to do with the fact that I'm worried that
Speaker 1: people won't turn up early. So that was the basis
Speaker 1: behind that, is to go it's a day out. It's
Speaker 1: not no something that says it's cool to turn up
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock and miss most of the things. Um.
Speaker 1: And that really worked. It worked really well. Um And
Speaker 1: what can I say it? Um? It all held together.
Speaker 1: It was madness, it was dangerous. Um. You could drive
Speaker 1: a truck through the middle of it when Nevada were
Speaker 1: on no without even having to open your eyes. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: run over anybody because everybody was either in or trying
Speaker 1: to get in. Um. And and that success created a
Speaker 1: few more problems for me, which were well the mainstream industry,
Speaker 1: because I've never considered myself part of the music industry
Speaker 1: for a start. I can't stand the term industry. Always
Speaker 1: see that and lawyers get practice my music practice. Um.
Speaker 1: The is that the money people will go, we need
Speaker 1: one of those. That's the ultimate problem with success. We
Speaker 1: need a Nevana, we need a festival like this, we
Speaker 1: need this. We can't have this scene. So they want
Speaker 1: somebody else doing a work to build a scene up
Speaker 1: and then they can cannibalize it after that. So at
Speaker 1: the same time, Triple J Radio is about to go national,
Speaker 1: which means that they would be lowering their profile in Sydney,
Speaker 1: so an actual factor. It was only one off event.
Speaker 1: Next time it might not get much profile. And also
Speaker 1: at the same time, we're a touring company now, we
Speaker 1: didn't know we might have toured people on the road
Speaker 1: on a big tour that that would be one act
Speaker 1: and maybe a support act. But it's a big step
Speaker 1: up to say, twenty people on the road, um. And
Speaker 1: the infrastructure and the trucking and the budgeting um. So
Speaker 1: I did all the budgets m through in a five
Speaker 1: percent contingency for theft as I figured, once you get
Speaker 1: to that point, we're going to steal everything because it's
Speaker 1: not like the corner Shop anymore. It didn't happen that much,
Speaker 1: but it started to happen a bit um and you
Speaker 1: just find that it was organic. But it was almost
Speaker 1: it was kind of like organic on speed. It was
Speaker 1: like it was all logical, it was all natural. That's
Speaker 1: the way it went. No, you go, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: put this party together now, and the party is not
Speaker 1: for the audience. The parties for the band and so
Speaker 1: so moving into say it was like I really want
Speaker 1: to get Iggy Pop back out because the tour he
Speaker 1: did with Frontier was stupid. It was supporting Jimmy Barnes,
Speaker 1: did some pub shows, went home halfway through it with
Speaker 1: a nervous breakdown, had a book for eight shows a week.
Speaker 1: It wasn't fun, so reached out for Eggy to do
Speaker 1: this UM. At the same time, we already basically had
Speaker 1: Sonic Youth ready to go UM and then mc harvey
Speaker 1: called me and said, don't you don't you think you
Speaker 1: need a well dressed, good looking band on the show.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know what he meant, so went, oh,
Speaker 1: you meant the Bad Seeds you basically you know? He
Speaker 1: said yeah, he said, oh okay, because they love Diggie.
Speaker 1: So then this system of no coming back to Nevana
Speaker 1: likes the violent fems, is that the artist really built
Speaker 1: the lineup. They'd say, why didn't gets on, and so
Speaker 1: they'll bring them for you and then they could hang
Speaker 1: out with their mates. So that became the cornerstone if this.
Speaker 1: Everybody knew what everybody was getting paid. There was no
Speaker 1: big deal. It was like there were some overages for
Speaker 1: the top acts, rest of them on flat fees. It
Speaker 1: was a question to keeping the guarantees down. Uh. It
Speaker 1: just kind of held together on the basis that it
Speaker 1: was if it works out, well, you will give me
Speaker 1: some more money, Okay, A couple of things. So the
Speaker 1: first year you do the one show. Next it's the
Speaker 1: following year that you do multiple shows. Yeah, how many shows?
Speaker 1: The following went to four? Okay, and now it's up
Speaker 1: and running. Yeah, and you continue to do it for
Speaker 1: year after year after year, not necessarily every year, as
Speaker 1: I don't know we're going to do it again. Um.
Speaker 1: It grew pretty quick. It became the alternative scene kind
Speaker 1: of became the mainstream. The record labels gobbled up the
Speaker 1: independent labels so they could get the main ax cheap
Speaker 1: without paying them. Don't why buy the app when you
Speaker 1: can buy the label for the same price and then
Speaker 1: just not put the other artists out. A bit of
Speaker 1: a sad moment. Um, no offspring goes off to mainstream
Speaker 1: land and other people don't, and so it started to
Speaker 1: fracture a bit already with it. The the the the
Speaker 1: strengths of the show. It seemed to be for me
Speaker 1: was just trying to produce as a bringing of the
Speaker 1: tribes together, so that I didn't know much difference between
Speaker 1: techno and metal because it had the same bpm to
Speaker 1: a lot of extent, so exposed metal bands to techno
Speaker 1: and as it's exposed techno people to metal people. And
Speaker 1: they were just talking stuff all day, swapping numbers. No
Speaker 1: had fear Factory asking later on fear Factory asking Prodigy
Speaker 1: how do they get their drum sounds? So it's like
Speaker 1: this weird integration of what's happening backstage and when you're
Speaker 1: taking it on the road. Uh, that it's not possible
Speaker 1: to do that on a one off event, it's not
Speaker 1: possible to do it on a three day camp out.
Speaker 1: Is that the interaction of the artists really only happened
Speaker 1: on their days off. We organized bull games, boats now bowling.
Speaker 1: It was that that was the thing that and if
Speaker 1: the bands wanted to play an extra ten nights to
Speaker 1: the fans, they could. Okay, But you talked earlier about
Speaker 1: somebody establishes the paradigm and the vultures come in after.
Speaker 1: So to what degree were people competing into Why did
Speaker 1: you not get run off by the usual suspects? Um
Speaker 1: they didn't know what they're doing? Did they try? I tried?
Speaker 1: I tried a few times. I tried then, in which
Speaker 1: I said, was a bit of a mistake because they'd
Speaker 1: left it too long, so I was surprised about UM.
Speaker 1: And it was a really good lineup, but it was
Speaker 1: the three Michaels, Mac, Michael Dnsky, Michael Copple and they
Speaker 1: did Alternative Nation, thinking this will work. Great line up
Speaker 1: except a few problems, like they had the Chili Peppers
Speaker 1: on who had canceled, but they kept promoting it for
Speaker 1: two weeks like they were on, switched them with nine
Speaker 1: inch nails ten days out, UM Flaming Lips and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of good bands on, but it was
Speaker 1: out at right out in the western suburbs. It didn't
Speaker 1: kind of sound right. It wasn't quite a marketed right.
Speaker 1: I tried to do it with the Triple M commercial
Speaker 1: radio station, thinking will alternatives crossed over in the mainstream now,
Speaker 1: so that'll be fine. They did some ridiculous things like
Speaker 1: like UM I used to put on the Artwork International
Speaker 1: Food Fair. They did it as a slight type of
Speaker 1: by mistake and called it a multinational food Fair, so
Speaker 1: we're joking about the McDonald's and KFC. UM. It just
Speaker 1: didn't gell right now? Did it hurt your business? And
Speaker 1: it was a failure. I started to wear me down
Speaker 1: because the checkbooks were starting to come out, and so
Speaker 1: therefore what was initially a thing of going all we
Speaker 1: had to do in the initial stages that that was workout.
Speaker 1: We'd do a full tool prop for the act as
Speaker 1: if they were touring on their own, which we were
Speaker 1: well aware of how to do, would work out what
Speaker 1: that would do. Then that would be the basis of
Speaker 1: the fee for the big day out of what we
Speaker 1: think they'd work at the net and allow them to
Speaker 1: add a few extra shows so that even if they
Speaker 1: performed in daylight, they could do their own nighttime show
Speaker 1: at a thousand capacity pub or or later on at
Speaker 1: the entertainment center of their big acts. So they've still
Speaker 1: got their fan base, they could still do their do
Speaker 1: our show. The record company can buy as many tickets
Speaker 1: as they want to that they've still got their own
Speaker 1: spot in the sun. That also allowed for the other
Speaker 1: bands to go and see them, so they'd still have
Speaker 1: the same fun back stage from all the other bands
Speaker 1: with the day off coming to see them at their shows.
Speaker 1: Um uh. And then so ninety year that was a
Speaker 1: bit messy. That was kind of We've had a really ugly,
Speaker 1: highly successful, very ugly year and where it pushed the
Speaker 1: envelope a little bit too hard. Had Ministry headlining and
Speaker 1: Courtney and uh silver chair had just broken, which thanks Owen.
Speaker 1: And they played the skate stage because it was great
Speaker 1: to be on the skate stage little stage at a
Speaker 1: skate route next to it, and so but that was pandemonium.
Speaker 1: It was around the time of the pandemonium in the
Speaker 1: was was considered cool, like you go and do a
Speaker 1: show downtown l A in a comment park and ten
Speaker 1: thousand people had turned up and it was chaos. And eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, as there's the same guy's all it's all
Speaker 1: fun and a game. Still somebody loses an eye and
Speaker 1: that became very precarious. So we had to start pulling
Speaker 1: back on that mayhem because it was heading to dangerous levels. Okay,
Speaker 1: now ultimately over this run you break up with Vivian
Speaker 1: once more. No, No, we just stopped. We just stopped
Speaker 1: in In We got through. Was really difficult because Stephen
Speaker 1: Pablovic had decided to do his own festival. He used
Speaker 1: his contacts because he was supplying some acts, which I
Speaker 1: like to be inclusive with everybody. Anybody could bring an
Speaker 1: act in that to a manage it they'd promoted every
Speaker 1: act we ever put on a big day out. We
Speaker 1: put on our own tour manager. Well they had their
Speaker 1: own tour manager locally, because I didn't want to hear
Speaker 1: about problems afterwards, and I thought as a touring company
Speaker 1: we'd automatically like normally I would have been the tour
Speaker 1: manager and things with it. But everybody was there and
Speaker 1: so ninety six had ended up very difficult to put
Speaker 1: the line up together. Um. I went with the strength
Speaker 1: of Australian Earnest and Steve and had a great lineup
Speaker 1: with food fighters and back and oh Beastie Boys and
Speaker 1: all of sets of stuff that we're going on and
Speaker 1: that we had an argument over one act and it
Speaker 1: was over raged against the machine and no one way
Speaker 1: or the other, um, and we ended up getting raged
Speaker 1: against the machine and they were on it in a
Speaker 1: bit of the Nirvana spot. They're on it like six thirty,
Speaker 1: which was pretty good fun, especially when the police are
Speaker 1: got guns in the audience and yelling out the chant
Speaker 1: lines in fact, you don't do it, I won't do
Speaker 1: what you tell me, and the police are getting roughed
Speaker 1: up by the audience and you kind of go, this
Speaker 1: is getting bad, but it was a phenomenal show. But
Speaker 1: then I decided that the pressures of doing this, the
Speaker 1: the money train that's going on, um, it was wearing
Speaker 1: away at me emotionally, physically. I had it in my
Speaker 1: head seven um and I wanted to end that chapter,
Speaker 1: which Vivian, for a better of worse agreed with it,
Speaker 1: so we could go back to a nine show and
Speaker 1: go with the farewell show. I'm not planning to do
Speaker 1: this again, regardless of what everybody think. I had no
Speaker 1: intention of doing it again. We were losing the Sydney
Speaker 1: venue because they were converting it into the Fox Studios.
Speaker 1: They were building an Olympic precinct which was two years away. Um.
Speaker 1: Every council I spoke to said your show is too big,
Speaker 1: so we had no venue. I said, let's just call it.
Speaker 1: So I called it. And about a year later we
Speaker 1: tried another show with Prodigy to try and go more
Speaker 1: of a dance event. Chancel it because it wasn't really working,
Speaker 1: and then we had to look at the new show
Speaker 1: grounds and when all right, no, if I don't do it,
Speaker 1: somebody else is going to do it. It is when
Speaker 1: you're billing. We did the Big Day Out at the
Speaker 1: Olympics side two years before the Olympics, so they were
Speaker 1: still building right up until then. So we were pretty
Speaker 1: much in the concrete jungle of it. Okay, after the Olympics,
Speaker 1: you continue to do it. Yeah, then it was then
Speaker 1: it was unstoppable. Okay, At what point is kenn out?
Speaker 1: I mean, is Vivian out? Um? Lots of times, probably
Speaker 1: just as many as me um the final out, because
Speaker 1: we had lots of outs along the way, like let's
Speaker 1: not do this. It's like, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, this is not coming together. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous having the idea that everything you've earned your
Speaker 1: entire life has been put back on the table every
Speaker 1: year because if it goes wrong, you're out, like really out,
Speaker 1: which is no it can be unlimited. I mean literally
Speaker 1: every dollar you me was every year. Yeah, if you're honorable,
Speaker 1: if you pay your debts, you can warm your way
Speaker 1: out of things. But if you're honorable, you're gonna pay everything.
Speaker 1: There's no other financial backers. There was never any other
Speaker 1: financial backers. In two thousand, Live Nation, which was clear
Speaker 1: channel did they more for I don't know, offered twenty
Speaker 1: million dollars for the show, and I said, why would
Speaker 1: I do that? Um? And then I told Michael Godnsky
Speaker 1: that about it a year or so later any um
Speaker 1: in public. He went down and he said, I just
Speaker 1: can't do that. I'd have to take the money. So
Speaker 1: you had the respect thing of saying knocking back the money,
Speaker 1: But it was more like the control. I couldn't hand
Speaker 1: control over to if aaseless corporation because I knew it
Speaker 1: would die if that. For start, everybody has sold well
Speaker 1: if he's got doubled as soon as the agents knew
Speaker 1: it was owned by like right, we want twice as
Speaker 1: much money and you're not going to give any givebacks
Speaker 1: if it doesn't go. Yeah. So if you're an independent operator,
Speaker 1: it's simply think if you're a corporate company. It's a
Speaker 1: different story to sing a song from McDonald's. It's a
Speaker 1: bit different to something else, isn't it. Um. So the
Speaker 1: end crunch really came for the for the Vivian was
Speaker 1: over it and I was over it, and we didn't
Speaker 1: have a break. I always wanted to have a break
Speaker 1: every five or six years, have a fellow year like Glastonbury.
Speaker 1: But he was set in his mind that if you
Speaker 1: stopped it once, you'll never be able to bring it
Speaker 1: back again. You had your chance once, you can't do
Speaker 1: it nowadays there's so many competitors and yeah, he's right,
Speaker 1: and year he's wrong. Um, if it's taken away, yes
Speaker 1: the void might be filled. And if it's filled that
Speaker 1: much then we shouldn't bother to bring it back. But
Speaker 1: if it isn't, we can. So the crunch came that
Speaker 1: going from six shows which was called six and out
Speaker 1: from to getting to the point with the next time
Speaker 1: around it's the four year straight after death and two
Speaker 1: thousand and one with it going through a full comonial
Speaker 1: after trying to book a lineup in September eleven, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one for the two thousand and to show
Speaker 1: all the metal bands canceled cowards. Um. Luckily we've got
Speaker 1: convinced assertion systems are down to do it. Because the
Speaker 1: world trade downs went down and all that chaos theory
Speaker 1: going on. Um, it was just one thing after another
Speaker 1: that was becoming harder and more expensive and bigger and
Speaker 1: everybody demanding more. At the same time. The everybody's starting
Speaker 1: the sources, apprentices people working with us setting up their
Speaker 1: own festivals realizing they really can't compete with the Big
Speaker 1: Day Out in that way, so they created their niche festivals,
Speaker 1: which meant that everybody they needed I had five stages
Speaker 1: that needed headliners for there was five different festivals that
Speaker 1: needed a headliner. So instead you want to be on
Speaker 1: stage four at the Big Day Out, or you want
Speaker 1: to be a headliner on our festival. So we're being
Speaker 1: chipped away from the underneath. The mainstream wasn't causing any trouble.
Speaker 1: It was the new upswing that was wearing away at it. Uh,
Speaker 1: everybody who we said we can't repeat just went to
Speaker 1: our opposition. Well, you've been on three times, I can't
Speaker 1: put you on a fourth time. Great, so the Chemical
Speaker 1: Brothers in our future festival, or Prodigies over it there,
Speaker 1: or or you know, Queens of the Stone Age go
Speaker 1: and play sound way because I've really done a Big
Speaker 1: Doubt three times, and so you're not delivering the show
Speaker 1: you'd like to deliver because you don't want to look
Speaker 1: like you're repeating yourself. At the same time, you're fueling
Speaker 1: your opposition. The crunch came for two thousand and UM.
Speaker 1: The crunch was kind of happening in two thousand and eleven,
Speaker 1: and we managed to put on probably our strongest show ever,
Speaker 1: which sold out like six minutes, which was a bit
Speaker 1: different to fifty two tickets UM with no things like
Speaker 1: Nick Kave Branham and like on the green stage we
Speaker 1: see her playing before and no, and that's with Tool
Speaker 1: and Ramstein and the main stage with Iggy Pop. Before that,
Speaker 1: it was it was a really really massive line up.
Speaker 1: But by then people didn't even look at that anymore.
Speaker 1: This went there's X amount of bands here and there's
Speaker 1: X amount of bands there. It's the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: like when people were buying entertainment by the meter. Um.
Speaker 1: Vivian was over it. I was over It was the
Speaker 1: twentieth year. We're trying to get Prince. We kept saying,
Speaker 1: if Mark Igher was going, you're trying to do a
Speaker 1: deal with the devil. I was aware of know how
Speaker 1: difficult it was. Uh are alternatives weren't great. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do the show. Even said if we don't
Speaker 1: do it now and they'll be doing it again. I
Speaker 1: was kind of okay with that. He wanted to push
Speaker 1: it forward. I said, I've got my backpack for Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Let me know if the shows on or not, And
Speaker 1: then we ended up settling on Kanye and Sound Garden,
Speaker 1: who had only recently been there for Splendor. I tried
Speaker 1: to get watched the Throne, but that was two two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty person during party, jay Z and Kanye
Speaker 1: together that even Beyonce be Cheap wouldn't work for us
Speaker 1: at any rate, because it was two out there to
Speaker 1: start with, and it just wasn't coming together. And and
Speaker 1: the point of it was, I said it, so if
Speaker 1: we go on, if we announced and go and say,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to go through with this, and
Speaker 1: and he either didn't hear that I didn't want any
Speaker 1: of that. As soon as it went on sale, he
Speaker 1: wanted me to come to Melment to cancel it. And
Speaker 1: we couldn't agree on what to do about that. And
Speaker 1: that's when we've been departed building. I had to work
Speaker 1: out what to do with everybody that was left, all
Speaker 1: the staff. It's a problem when you hire your friends,
Speaker 1: you gotta fire with your friends. So foolishly to a
Speaker 1: certain point went forward, n went out for a dollar
Speaker 1: no with with his costs covered from where he spent
Speaker 1: so far. Unhappy or happy with that doesn't matter. Then
Speaker 1: C three became involved, we talked to the other players.
Speaker 1: UM I didn't really want to work with the competitors
Speaker 1: after all his years, not that I considered charge didn't
Speaker 1: scure anybody competitors. I never worked with Michael Cobble. No
Speaker 1: offense Michael, but I never would. He's a bit too
Speaker 1: corporate for me. UM and that the the C three
Speaker 1: opportunity was there because of the relationship Lollapalus and a
Speaker 1: new Perry and who was trusted. And then we went
Speaker 1: into this weird world of trying to rebuild the Ark,
Speaker 1: but it didn't come together. It did, for one, it
Speaker 1: did the two thousand and third and Big Day Out
Speaker 1: was a really really fantastic lineup which I'm really happily
Speaker 1: put together. Houston was incredible from C three. UM we
Speaker 1: got the right prices, we got the right acts that
Speaker 1: fell into place pretty well. It did a little bit
Speaker 1: over break even maybe a little bit more than that.
Speaker 1: UM No. I did two hundred and thirty thousand people
Speaker 1: over the six shows, the five shows in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: so it was two hundred thousand because we didn't do
Speaker 1: New Zealand that year. We should have, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: UM no, that was There was some really difficult acts
Speaker 1: to get, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, it's hard
Speaker 1: to get you know. I really had to talk to
Speaker 1: people about about nurturing it and working out who else
Speaker 1: was on. It's like a dating game. It's like people,
Speaker 1: it's like gonna you're you're putting people in a camper
Speaker 1: van for a long ride, so they're gonna like the
Speaker 1: people they're going to be in there. Um So that
Speaker 1: was all consensus and everybody thought that would be great,
Speaker 1: that would be that, that would be great. That worked well.
Speaker 1: Um then um uh no, thanks to Peter minch Uh.
Speaker 1: He then sold Metallica to sound Wave, which I thought
Speaker 1: was just totally stupid because he's managing both acts. And
Speaker 1: then it was Metallica versus the Tili Peppers and kind
Speaker 1: of nobody won. Like he oversold the event for Unwave
Speaker 1: to the point where it was excruciating for everybody. Um
Speaker 1: Our sales, which should have been easily a clean sell out, no,
Speaker 1: ran a bit short. Sydney sold out right at fifty
Speaker 1: five thousand. That was great, and then Sydney unfortunately had
Speaker 1: the hottest day ever an Australian record at forty seven
Speaker 1: point five degrees centigrade. I know you double it down too, right,
Speaker 1: um And then UM, so that was a bit of
Speaker 1: a ship fight. We nearly lost the show. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do. It's like the occupation health and
Speaker 1: safety standards nowadays, they don't write up about what to
Speaker 1: do if it's too hot, but they need to, UM,
Speaker 1: because it's that's an ongoing, real issue with climate change
Speaker 1: and the realities of what we're dealing with. And then
Speaker 1: so we got through that, that was all fine, and
Speaker 1: then it just went from all over the shop. Um.
Speaker 1: Pearl Jam were interested in doing two thousand and fourteen. UM,
Speaker 1: Charlie James good friends. They were pretty expensive. But then
Speaker 1: we tried to put a lineup together that might work.
Speaker 1: Realizing I went, okay, Pearl Jam, A lot of people
Speaker 1: I know won't want to go because the Pearl Jam.
Speaker 1: I need to counteract that. How do we counteract that?
Speaker 1: That side of it was coming together all right. We
Speaker 1: had some other great acts were involved in it. We
Speaker 1: had Kendrick Lamar locked in, we had various other start
Speaker 1: no Mackael Moore was in there too. It was all
Speaker 1: looking old and young at the same time. Then, because
Speaker 1: of the winter Olympics in Russia. They moved the Grammys
Speaker 1: onto the middle of our tour for one year, which
Speaker 1: meant six months out before we'd announced, anybody who wanted
Speaker 1: to go to the Grammys, I couldn't do our show.
Speaker 1: So all of the cooler acts trim but they gone yeah,
Speaker 1: well okay, Drick went no whatever. Um So then the
Speaker 1: heart got pulled out of it and it didn't and
Speaker 1: fear bad decisions mine and it just didn't connect, and
Speaker 1: it was it was already out. And then the final
Speaker 1: icing on the cake was when the feedback from the
Speaker 1: Pearl Jam fans said, we're not going to go to
Speaker 1: the Citty Big day Out. We don't want to go
Speaker 1: and see him there. So even Pearl Jam was a
Speaker 1: negative because they fans didn't want to see Pearl Jam
Speaker 1: at the big day out. Okay, so pretty simple. When
Speaker 1: C three came in, did you take some money off
Speaker 1: the table? No? No, non't no, no, Now it's fifty
Speaker 1: fifty So was there any eventing on the line all
Speaker 1: the time? Okay? So you played it out to the end.
Speaker 1: Other than doing the shows, you didn't get a big
Speaker 1: pay day selling. No, I paid a million dollars to
Speaker 1: go home by who I paid. I paid a minut exactly.
Speaker 1: So in retrospect, you wish you'd take the Live Nation money?
Speaker 1: Taking what taking the Live Nation money? No, no way,
Speaker 1: wouldn't have lasted more than three years. Okay, So it
Speaker 1: ends are you when it does have this five years out?
Speaker 1: You're cool with it? What are you saying? And of course,
Speaker 1: oh when it when it's in, Oh, it's just business
Speaker 1: when it's the reality, is it it? It had no venues,
Speaker 1: it didn't own any property. It was it couldn't protect
Speaker 1: it's venues, even though I wrote contracts up decide they
Speaker 1: couldn't put other shows in a similar style. I said,
Speaker 1: you can't put two car shows in the same place.
Speaker 1: Why not? You know, like you know the things going on.
Speaker 1: So when other promoters could use the same venue, I
Speaker 1: had the same cruise, the same security, the same middle management.
Speaker 1: It was just too many choices for people to narrow
Speaker 1: an experience. Okay. So it was business. It was over
Speaker 1: it probably It surprised me it lasted that long, okay.
Speaker 1: And would you say the festival business in Australia is
Speaker 1: healthy now? I don't think the New South Wales government's
Speaker 1: helping that very much. But I think it's healthy to
Speaker 1: a level. It's it's it's healthy if you don't put
Speaker 1: your head over the fence. Okay, and you know what
Speaker 1: happens next you get punched. Have you outgrown it or
Speaker 1: are you still paying attention? And if there were an
Speaker 1: opportunity you'd get back in now. No, that's a time capsule. Um,
Speaker 1: there's much more interesting things in life doer than that.
Speaker 1: Because I said I went into the process more, is
Speaker 1: it a there's an artistic statement that needed to not
Speaker 1: lose money. They don't have any to lose, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't lose money. It's a much easier way to do business.
Speaker 1: It's so because your meaning dollars said don't lose money,
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose it. Um. If you don't have any
Speaker 1: money to lose, but you have nothing, you got nothing
Speaker 1: to lose. You have to make money. Okay, but uh,
Speaker 1: you it was profitable enough over the run that you're set. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. I don't have any problems in life. I've
Speaker 1: done really well. Um. The real point of the issue
Speaker 1: is I feel like I'm always been more of an
Speaker 1: educator than an entertainer. But yeah, but it's easy to
Speaker 1: educate people if you're entertaining them at the same time. Okay,
Speaker 1: So for the last five years, you've been on your
Speaker 1: own personal journey, or I suppose so I called it.
Speaker 1: I tried the Quentin Tarantino approach, which was which he
Speaker 1: did before kill Bill, which was to lie on the
Speaker 1: couch of his stone for a year, um, and then
Speaker 1: he got up and did kill Bill. But then after
Speaker 1: the end of that year, I I thought, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to change the story now, so I went
Speaker 1: into sabbatical no um, and then started to reconnect with
Speaker 1: what I think is important and not important um Um.
Speaker 1: I'm working on a more of a textbook, and it's
Speaker 1: an old term, an educational book in regards to large
Speaker 1: scyle events. This would be about what the textbook would
Speaker 1: be about what it's not necessarily how too, it's more
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to do it in two parts. So
Speaker 1: one it's called the Nuts. Now that's called the Bolts.
Speaker 1: So there's two books. So because and that the bolts
Speaker 1: part of it is more to do with the the
Speaker 1: longer history of the process. Okay, but we're talking about
Speaker 1: music business and we're talking about festival. What you learned
Speaker 1: are you talking about the world at large both okay,
Speaker 1: so back to the Ryman Coliseum okay, and the fact
Speaker 1: that you've got to entertain the poor people that they'll
Speaker 1: rise up and kill you. Okay. Now you started at
Speaker 1: the advent of the alternative era and you wrote it.
Speaker 1: So going back to what you said earlier about science,
Speaker 1: is it over? It's it's no more over than fashion's over.
Speaker 1: It's no more over than visual arts over. But the
Speaker 1: big bang moments if you look at the simple music
Speaker 1: hit a stole point until sampling, and then sampling kind
Speaker 1: of upset the hall Apple card um. And now you're
Speaker 1: at this weird point where you can put music on
Speaker 1: now and you have no idea where it's from timeline. No,
Speaker 1: it just there's the boxes are. So if you don't
Speaker 1: know who it is or what it is is, say,
Speaker 1: have a list't to theirs and it could be from
Speaker 1: the seventies, it could be from last week. Um. That
Speaker 1: confuses the arts process. There's the timeline, the natural progression
Speaker 1: of it. I don't think there's I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any form of it being over, because it's been consumed
Speaker 1: more than ever. But the problem I have with it
Speaker 1: is that music has a sense as a distraction from
Speaker 1: working on your computer is not the same as a
Speaker 1: experiential process of listening to music. And so do you
Speaker 1: still have a dream? Lots of nightmares? Let's pass but no, no,
Speaker 1: my nightmares? And when my best ideas got from? But
Speaker 1: is there something you need to achieve either personally or
Speaker 1: business wise artistic before you, you know, exit, there's a
Speaker 1: few things, but I probably I'm still in a personal
Speaker 1: explanation of what's important. So I think that what is important?
Speaker 1: What have you? What have you learned? I've learned youve
Speaker 1: got to challenge yourself more than your capable of UM.
Speaker 1: You've got to work everything out in your head before
Speaker 1: somebody starts telling you you're wrong. You you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a chess plan or to checkers plan. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Okay? Long game? Okay, UM, You've there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that need some nurturing that will be there.
Speaker 1: But if it's if it's just entertainment, I'm not interested.
Speaker 1: What are you? What are you most proud of it?
Speaker 1: In your career? Shaking up the foundations UM, standing up
Speaker 1: for use, being able to be used, UM, Helping artists
Speaker 1: to grow in some case survive. Just let let them
Speaker 1: reach their full potential. Um there's a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but I don't think in terms of that are kind
Speaker 1: of you know, I was in a I was in
Speaker 1: a position I could do something that I did. Well.
Speaker 1: You've been wonderful, Ken, you would We could go on forever,
Speaker 1: but this has been great to hear your history. Until
Speaker 1: next time, Ken West, thy good.