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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That's podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Bill High. Bill, tell me about

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Speaker 1: your vinyl business.

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Speaker 2: We have a vinyl factory in Poland. Although you know

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Speaker 2: we are a US company, we have a Polish subsidiary.

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Speaker 2: We work with a Polish company that was already in

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Speaker 2: the media business, primarily optical media, CD, DVD. When they

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Speaker 2: expanded into vinyl some years ago, they invited US and

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Speaker 2: a few other parties to buy vinyl presses and work

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Speaker 2: with them, and that's how we got going. We're now

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Speaker 2: up to fourteen vinyl presses. We can run up to

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Speaker 2: about a million vinyl discs a month.

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Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit slower. This company in Poland before

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Speaker 1: they call you they're making media. Were they making vinyl

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Speaker 1: at the time?

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Speaker 2: They had just well, they had been doing it for

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Speaker 2: a few years. They started in the mid twenty tens.

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Speaker 2: I don't know what we call decades anymore.

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Speaker 1: I know, it's sort of amazing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the twenty teams, so that the decade before this one.

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Speaker 2: And it's interesting how they got started. They started getting

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Speaker 2: calls from their CD and DVD customers wanted to know

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Speaker 2: if they could do vinyl. This was a time when

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Speaker 2: vinyl was coming back, but most of the vinyl factories

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Speaker 2: had closed down, machines had been scrapped. No one was

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Speaker 2: making new vinyl presses, so you couldn't just you know,

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Speaker 2: google vinyl press manufacturer by a few presses and go

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Speaker 2: into business. There were none to be had. They found

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Speaker 2: someone in Zimbabwe selling some Swedish Swedish made TOOLIXELFA presses,

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Speaker 2: electroplating baths and annoyment cutting lathe all very valuable, highly

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Speaker 2: regarded equipment on eBay. So one of the executives there, Andre,

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Speaker 2: who is the first guy I met at this company,

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Speaker 2: he went to Zimbabwe. He verified it was all for real.

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Speaker 2: They negotiated a deal. They bought essentially an entire turnkey

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Speaker 2: vinyl pressing plant that had been mothballed for a long time,

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Speaker 2: put it in shipping container, sent it to Poland. The

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Speaker 2: factory engineers got the equipment going and they were in

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Speaker 2: the vinyl business. Now. These were old manual machines that

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Speaker 2: have relatively low output. But nice thing about the vinyl

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Speaker 2: presses is they're eternal. I know, vinyl plants using machines

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Speaker 2: that were made in the fifties still working just fine.

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Speaker 2: So that was probably ten years ago. We got in

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Speaker 2: business with them about five years ago.

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Speaker 1: And okay, so tell the difference between a manual and

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Speaker 1: an automatic machine.

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Speaker 2: Well, manual machine, someone has to stand there form the

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Speaker 2: well what the Europeans call it cake and what North

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Speaker 2: Americans call a puck, but just a glob of PBC.

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Speaker 2: Take it out of the extruder. It's warm, it's melted,

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Speaker 2: stick it in the press, manually hit a button. The

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Speaker 2: vinyl record is pressed. After approximately twenty five to thirty seconds,

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Speaker 2: the pressing is done, you manually remove the disc. You

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Speaker 2: put it in a trimmer that trims the excess vinyl,

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Speaker 2: and then you set it aside on a spindle to cool.

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Speaker 2: That's a manual machine. And also the disc labels for

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Speaker 2: the A and B side are manually put into the press.

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Speaker 2: Automatic machine automates most of that. One operator can look

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Speaker 2: after several automatic machines, just make sure they're up and running,

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Speaker 2: and everything I just described is essentially automatic. You do

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Speaker 2: have to have a human in the room though, because

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Speaker 2: things go wrong you want to monitor the quality. But

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Speaker 2: generally the output is oh at least double with an

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Speaker 2: automatic machine.

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Speaker 1: Okay, they go to Zimbabwe, they buy one machine.

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Speaker 2: Now they bought I don't know, I think seven or eight,

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Speaker 2: one of which I think ended up getting used for

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Speaker 2: parts and so that.

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Speaker 1: How did they get to fourteen?

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Speaker 2: Well, we have fourteen, so we bought myself, my two partners,

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Speaker 2: we bought fourteen presses. By this time you can buy

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Speaker 2: new presses, although the waiting was eighteen months two years

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Speaker 2: to actually get a machine, to get brand new machines,

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Speaker 2: we ordered fourteen. We took delivery of them starting around

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Speaker 2: three years ago. Slightly before that, we found some used

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Speaker 2: automatic machines in Salina, Kansas and we went out and

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Speaker 2: bought four of them. That was in the middle of COVID.

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Speaker 2: It was an interesting road trip. We packed those up,

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Speaker 2: ship those to Poland. We kept too, and our Polish

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Speaker 2: partner took too. So those were the first presses we

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Speaker 2: actually owned. Also two Alex Alpha machines originally from Sweden.

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Speaker 2: Best we can tell, those machines originally were installed in

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Speaker 2: the UK, then went to Brazil. From Brazil they went

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Speaker 2: to Salina, Kansas. Now they're in Poland. Vinyl presses all

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Speaker 2: have a history. They're very interesting machines.

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Speaker 1: So let's say I decide to go into the vinyl

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Speaker 1: business today? Are there old machines available? Two? Can I

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Speaker 1: get a new machine? Three? How long would I have

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Speaker 1: to wait for? What would be the cost?

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Speaker 2: You can't get new presses now there's I think four

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Speaker 2: companies making new presses. The cost you just say ballpark

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Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars, but probably this same amount of

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Speaker 2: money again to build the infrastructure. You don't just plug

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Speaker 2: them into the wall. You need cold water, you need steam,

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Speaker 2: you need a lot of electricity, and you need a

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Speaker 2: very stable environment. You need the factory to be a

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Speaker 2: stable temperature and at stable humidity.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the company in Poland, ghost is Zimbabwe buys machine.

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Speaker 1: Did they contact you about up on their machines before

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Speaker 1: you purchased dr own machines? How did you make the

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Speaker 1: connection originally?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a funny story. I have a

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Speaker 2: good friend who runs a record label called Moonjune Records.

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Speaker 2: It's jazz, progressive world music. Label was in New York.

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Speaker 2: He's now in Spain. He had been making his CDs

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Speaker 2: at this plant in Poland. He contacted me one day

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Speaker 2: he said, Bill, I have a friend in Poland. His

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Speaker 2: name is Andre. You and him you both love King Crimson.

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Speaker 2: You'll get along great. Maybe you can help him build

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Speaker 2: his business. And I thought, okay, that sounds interesting. I

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Speaker 2: was not doing a whole lot in music at the time.

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Speaker 2: I'd stepped away from music business for a couple of years,

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Speaker 2: and that just sounded like fun. And I had been

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Speaker 2: following the growth of vinyl and thought, this will be

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Speaker 2: interesting if nothing else. And originally we were just going

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Speaker 2: to help I drafted my business partner Andy. It was

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Speaker 2: a local you know, has a radio show here in Boulder,

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Speaker 2: plays punk rock where Gems and he and I were

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Speaker 2: working on a company called Amazing Radio. So I'm kind

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Speaker 2: of going off on a tangent, but I invited him in.

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Speaker 2: He said, help me put together a vinyl business. Originally

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Speaker 2: we were just going to help them find customers in

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Speaker 2: the US. But then when he said it, we need

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Speaker 2: more presses. We have more demand than we know what

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Speaker 2: to do with, we stepped up and said, well, we'll

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Speaker 2: buy some presses. And that's how we got into the business.

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Speaker 1: Is this self funded or did you raise money? How

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Speaker 1: did you pay for the presses?

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Speaker 2: Right now, it's entirely well, I would say it's ninety

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Speaker 2: percent self funded. We've got a handful of investors, but

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Speaker 2: most of the money has come from the principles and

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Speaker 2: the business.

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Speaker 1: And how many principles are there?

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Speaker 2: Three of us Andy Zicklin, myself and Fred Goldring who

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Speaker 2: joined us.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so in Poland now they still have their manual presses.

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Speaker 1: They have your fourteen presses. Are there any other vinyl

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Speaker 1: presses there? Or is that the totality of their footprint there?

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Speaker 2: I think there's forty three presses. There are three other

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Speaker 2: companies that have similar arrangements to ours where they own

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Speaker 2: a couple of presses there. Those companies tend to have

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Speaker 2: three or four presses each. So we're the largest owner

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Speaker 2: of presses there. But we've got some company. It's kind

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Speaker 2: of like a dominium, I guess, or co op of sorts.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so at this point in time, what are you pressing?

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Speaker 2: Well, lots of vinyl records.

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Speaker 1: You have your own company. Are they for the majors?

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Speaker 1: Are they for indie's? Are they domestic or are they international?

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Speaker 1: Is it everything? If I call you and I say

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Speaker 1: I want to produce twenty thousand of X, so you're

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Speaker 1: going to say, yeah, here's what it costs.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly what we would do. We've got a

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Speaker 2: full sales team here in the US. You know, our

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Speaker 2: focus right now is building up our US business. We

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Speaker 2: have customers all over the world. We do work for

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Speaker 2: major labels, we do work for independent labels, we do

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Speaker 2: work for independent artists. We've run jobs as small as

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Speaker 2: one hundred discs and we've done it. We had a

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Speaker 2: one po last year for a million discs, half million

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Speaker 2: in double albums.

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Speaker 1: Okay, we heard for years that there wasn't enough capacity.

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Speaker 1: What's the status of capacity today in the vinyl production world.

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Speaker 2: There's plenty of capacity.

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Speaker 1: So let's just say I want to get the records

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Speaker 1: in the store for Thanksgiving. When am I going to

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Speaker 1: have to get you masters? When am I going to

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Speaker 1: have to make the commitment? Not this Thanksgiving but a

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Speaker 1: year from now?

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Speaker 2: Well it depends, you know. Are you selling through band

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Speaker 2: camp yourself? Are you working with a distributor. What's the

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Speaker 2: distributor's lead time? We like to work on a nineteen

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Speaker 2: week lead which provides lots of contingencies, but generally four

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Speaker 2: weeks to make a test pressing is a good role thumb.

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Speaker 2: We can go fast uster and four weeks once the

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Speaker 2: test pressing is approved to final goods being ready. Now

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Speaker 2: the factory in Poland does print in house, can cut

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Speaker 2: lacquers in house, can do all the electroplating in house,

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Speaker 2: which is unusual. I think there's two hundred vinyl pressing

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Speaker 2: plants in the world. The amount that can do everything

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Speaker 2: vertically integrated as a single digit number. So that helps

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Speaker 2: us with logistics. Everything's under one roof.

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Speaker 1: What are the toxes, etc. Financial advantages and disadvantages of

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Speaker 1: it being in Poland.

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Speaker 2: Well, a couple answers to that. Poland is a very

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Speaker 2: good place to run a business. In general, any kind

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Speaker 2: of business. Workforce is motivated, hard working, very well educated.

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Speaker 2: It is a very good business environment. I think Poland,

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Speaker 2: since communism fell, I think is the second fastest growing

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Speaker 2: economy in the world. You know, it's very impressive. I

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Speaker 2: was there in the nineties visiting a friend who had

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Speaker 2: started up a record label in the mid nineties, and

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Speaker 2: then I didn't go there again until we started pressing business,

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Speaker 2: and I was astonished at the difference in the country.

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Speaker 2: But it really comes down to I think we're able

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Speaker 2: to get a really excellent workforce from factory workers all

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Speaker 2: the way through executive ranks, and the general cost of

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Speaker 2: doing business is very attractive and a lot of things.

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Speaker 2: Poland is very well located in Central Europe. If you're

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Speaker 2: going to ship goods to the US by a sea freight,

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Speaker 2: you've got a lot of options nearby. Almost everything in

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Speaker 2: Europe is one day trucking. So there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: positives about doing business in Poland, But the biggest one

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Speaker 2: is Polish people.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you've been to Poland how often? You know. We

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Speaker 1: live in a country in America, the United States where

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Speaker 1: so many people don't even have passports. You talked about

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Speaker 1: a little bit about Poland. But what do people not

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Speaker 1: understand about Poland today?

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Speaker 2: Well, what I just said pretty much, it's a very modern,

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Speaker 2: very European country. I think a lot of Americans have

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Speaker 2: this notion that it's still kind of very bunch in

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Speaker 2: Eastern European backwater. That's very much not true. And again,

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Speaker 2: people are very well educated. They're very cosmopolitan. You know,

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Speaker 2: they watch the same TV shows we do. The show

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Speaker 2: Yellowstone is very popu you're there. A lot of my

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Speaker 2: Polish friends would ask me, Bill, is is Montana really

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Speaker 2: like it is in Yellowstone? Is it pretty much little

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Speaker 2: less killing, but otherwise it's pretty accurate. You know, they're

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Speaker 2: very aware of American pop culture, they're very aware of

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Speaker 2: world events. Hy it's a nice place. I live there

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Speaker 2: mostly the last two years. I came back in January.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the economics of vinyl forgetting your

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Speaker 1: you know, sun costs with presses and people, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: How much does it cost to make a record? How

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Speaker 1: much you charge people, because ultimately this point a vinyl

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Speaker 1: record goes for retail thirty plus dollars.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't I think that's changed much from you know,

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Speaker 2: the sixties or seventies. Cost of goods for manufacturing has

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Speaker 2: always been, from my experience, runs fifteen twenty percent, between

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Speaker 2: ten and twenty percent of your retail price. So you're

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Speaker 2: looking at three to six dollars to make a vinyl record.

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Speaker 2: There's lots of variables. How fancy is it is an

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Speaker 2: unsplatter vinyl? Is it a gatefold? Do you have embossing

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Speaker 2: or debossing? You know, you can make a record, you know,

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Speaker 2: you can press a record jacket for a little bit

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Speaker 2: over two bucks, or you can do something that's very deluxe,

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Speaker 2: that's you know, approaches ten dollars.

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Speaker 1: So, okay, is this a competitive market? Is someone going

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Speaker 1: to call you for a quote and say, I spoke

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Speaker 1: to your competitor it was cheaper, and you have to

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Speaker 1: convince them your company is better or make a cheaper price.

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Speaker 1: Because in the old days, just getting capacity it was difficult.

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Speaker 1: What's it like now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that used to be the sales pitch.

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Speaker 2: Do you have any capacity? And if you said yes,

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Speaker 2: you've got the po I'm exaggerating, but only a little.

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Speaker 2: Quality matters. Customer service matters, especially with the independent labels.

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Speaker 2: They want to work with someone who will be, you know,

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Speaker 2: what's the best way to describe it, you know, culturally

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Speaker 2: attuned to what they're doing. You know the fact that

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Speaker 2: I've spent much my life at independent labels, I think

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Speaker 2: doesn't hurt. I understand what an independent label needs as

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Speaker 2: far as service, quality and so on. I think that helps.

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Speaker 2: You know, everyone cares about. I would say quality tops pricing.

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Speaker 2: Pricing matters. If we were a dollar more expensive than

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Speaker 2: everyone else, that would not help us. But I don't

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Speaker 2: really see people changing manufacturers to save a dime.

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Speaker 1: You know, a disk Okay, In the old days, when

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Speaker 1: Vinyl was king sixties and seventies. The records were warped,

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Speaker 1: the records had surface noise, sometimes skipped. Then, of course,

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Speaker 1: in the seventies we started to have Japanese vinyl, we

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Speaker 1: had half speed Master, We get all this stuff. It's

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent virgin. As opposed to regrind, What is

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Speaker 1: the status of manufacturing a record today? To what degree

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Speaker 1: are there rejects or problems? To what degree is a

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Speaker 1: higher quality component?

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Speaker 2: Well, I would say in general the quality of vinyl

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Speaker 2: records is better today than it was let's say, forty

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Speaker 2: fifty years ago. More discerning consumer. Consumer now has lots

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Speaker 2: of choices about it listen to music. Vinyl is one

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Speaker 2: of them. So, you know, when in the seventies, when

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Speaker 2: I start, you know, in the late sixties, early seventies,

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Speaker 2: I started buying records. When you buy records or eight tracks,

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Speaker 2: and it wasn't really a much of a choice. If

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Speaker 2: you cared about sound quality, you bought vinyl records. I

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Speaker 2: think the quality across the board generally is very, very good.

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Speaker 2: We do very you know, what I consider fairly extreme QC.

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Speaker 2: You know, we probably reject between three to twelve percent

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Speaker 2: of the pressings. They don't even go out the door.

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Speaker 2: They're going to recycling. We're constantly pulling records randomly out

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Speaker 2: of manufacturing runs and listening to them in a QC room. Yes,

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Speaker 2: there are people whose jobs it is to sit around

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Speaker 2: with headphones and listen to vinyl records all day. And

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Speaker 2: there's also a visual check because we've manually assembled the discs.

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Speaker 2: The disc going in our slave, the inner sleep goes

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Speaker 2: in a jacket. That person putting the disc in the

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Speaker 2: inner sleeve is flipping the record over and visually inspecting

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Speaker 2: both sides before it goes into package. So yeah, I'm

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Speaker 2: it's very unusual for us to get a complaint for quality,

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Speaker 2: and you know it's I would say, sometimes weeks go

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Speaker 2: by where I don't hear about a QC issue. When

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Speaker 2: I was working in record stores in the seventies, that

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Speaker 2: was not the case. People were returning records every day,

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Speaker 2: So I would have to say quality today is very

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Speaker 2: very good.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you have these two partners in this pressing business.

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Speaker 1: Is that the only business of these three people, because

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Speaker 1: you also have a record label. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it's the same people, but are these three people we

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Speaker 1: got a business? We're pressing or are they are going

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Speaker 1: to go into other or have gone into other areas well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Andy and Fred Andy Zeckl and Fred gold Ring

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Speaker 2: are also business partners in our two record labels, which

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Speaker 2: are run by the same people but two different label identities,

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Speaker 2: And we started that about early last year, so we're

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Speaker 2: about coming up on our second anniversary of the record labels.

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Speaker 2: So same people, but separate company, okay, and nothing beyond

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Speaker 2: the record pressing in the record labels envisioned at this point.

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Speaker 1: Music publishing, Okay, So why two labels as opposed to one.

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Speaker 2: I've always liked labels that seem to have kind of

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Speaker 2: an identity musically, and the initial batch of artists we're

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Speaker 2: looking to work with didn't seem to fit into one

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Speaker 2: sort of and I don't want to say genre be

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Speaker 2: could both labels span several genres. But the idea is

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Speaker 2: whether the labels is called label fifty one. If you

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Speaker 2: like one thing on label fifty one, we hope you

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Speaker 2: notice what label is on and are curious about other

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Speaker 2: things on label fifty one. I got into this business

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Speaker 2: as a record collector, and I was always very conscious

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Speaker 2: of labels. I remember the Charisma label. I would pick

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Speaker 2: up anything on the Charisma label. The early years of Virgin,

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Speaker 2: I would buy anything that was on Virgin, the Vertigo label,

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Speaker 2: the stuff that was on Vertigo out of the UK

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Speaker 2: I was very keenly interested in. So it's just we've

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Speaker 2: just decided to sort the artists into two labels. And

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Speaker 2: sometimes we'll ask a signees which label do you think

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Speaker 2: is more suitable for you? Let them choose.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So you came up in the old days of

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Speaker 1: physical distribution. So what do we have. We have the

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Speaker 1: three major companies minting cash based on catalog. Okay, what

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Speaker 1: are the economics of an independent label today? Are they

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Speaker 1: as good or worse than they used to be in

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Speaker 1: the old days when you started with Enigma, Is it

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Speaker 1: something like, well, we love this, We're going to do this,

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Speaker 1: or are there real financial opportunities here?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's just different. I don't know if it's better

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Speaker 2: or worse. I think that's a matter of perspective, but

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Speaker 2: it is different. On one hand, the cost to record music

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Speaker 2: now is very low. I mean, you can build a

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Speaker 2: very nice studio in your bedroom and make very high

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Speaker 2: quality recordings. That's new access, you know, the way to

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Speaker 2: connect with fans potential fans is very inexpensive now compared

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Speaker 2: to what it used to be. You know that has

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Speaker 2: been oh what's the word. You know, all the direct

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Speaker 2: the fan tools, pretty much the internet, everything the Internet

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Speaker 2: has brought. But the other side of that is there's

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Speaker 2: so much music out there, just you know, separating yourself

347
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Speaker 2: from the herd is a significant challenge these days. But

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Speaker 2: I enjoy it now. I think there's great opportunities now.

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Speaker 2: There were opportunities when Enigma started. There were opportunities in

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Speaker 2: the nineties when I was had a label Restless, there

351
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Speaker 2: were opportunities even in the whatever the first decade of

352
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:53,479
Speaker 2: this century was called the oughts, even though the business

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Speaker 2: was shrinking ten percent a year. There's always opportunities if

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Speaker 2: you have great music and you're willing to work card

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Speaker 2: and you know, have a little luck.

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Speaker 1: We hear from the independent artists complaining about how much

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Speaker 1: money they're not making on streaming services. You are the

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Speaker 1: label selling independent artists. Is that where most of the

359
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,479
Speaker 1: money comes from streaming? Do you have a piece of

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Speaker 1: other revenue streams from these acts and what is your

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Speaker 1: viewpoint in terms of the share of streaming you're getting.

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Speaker 2: Well, I like streaming I'm listening to My favorite is Cobas.

363
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Speaker 2: I'm listening to Koba's every day, listening to Apple Music

364
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:46,680
Speaker 2: every day. I check Spotify a lot. I really enjoy streaming.

365
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: It's amazing to, you know, pick up a new Mojo magazine,

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Speaker 2: see review something and instantly pull it up and listen

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Speaker 2: to it. I do tend to follow up, and if

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Speaker 2: I really like something, I'll buy the vinyl. But I

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Speaker 2: think it's a phenomenal tool for our labels. The majority

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Speaker 2: of our revenue is physical product, and I think that's

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Speaker 2: probably the kind of artists we're working with, as artists

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Speaker 2: who overweight in physical product. We work very hard to

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Speaker 2: grow our digital revenue. We take it very seriously, but

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Speaker 2: we also view it as a way almost like free

375
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Speaker 2: advertising or advertising, where we get paid a few pennies

376
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Speaker 2: here and there. And you know, our digital revenue is growing,

377
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Speaker 2: but if that's all we had, we wouldn't have much

378
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Speaker 2: of a business.

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Speaker 1: And are you happy with the way the revenue is

380
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Speaker 1: split or do you think it needs to be reconstructed.

381
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Speaker 2: I'm going to let other people worry about that. I mean,

382
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 2: the business is the way it is, and my attitude

383
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Speaker 2: on whether we're getting fair payment from Spotify, whatever, just

384
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Speaker 2: doesn't matter. So I just put my energy into getting

385
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 2: the music out to as many people as possible. And

386
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Speaker 2: you know, the royalties are what they are.

387
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Speaker 1: Okay, So you sign an act. The majority of revenue

388
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Speaker 1: comes from physical product. Let's assume the act doesn't have

389
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Speaker 1: any significant history. Where do you sell the product? How

390
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: hard is it to get into retail stores. It's more

391
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Speaker 1: sold at gigs.

392
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Speaker 2: Well, depends on the artist. We've just released an EP

393
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: by ban sixpence None the Richard. They're out on first

394
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 2: big tour. They've been on a long time. They were

395
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Speaker 2: more or less inactive for almost two decades, had a

396
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 2: big hit the end of the nineties. Their big hit

397
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 2: still streams a million streams a day on Spotify alone,

398
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Speaker 2: So there's an audience for that song, and the band

399
00:27:56,119 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 2: doesn't have fans. We're selling good quantity of CDs and

400
00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 2: vinyl on the road. We're streaming pretty well with the

401
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 2: new music, and we're out of retail and doing decently.

402
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I'm satisfied with where we are,

403
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 2: and I see this as building momentum. We're reintroducing a

404
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 2: band that had sort of been on hiatus for a

405
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 2: long time, which is its own challenge. You don't know

406
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 2: if the audience is still there even when you look

407
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: and you see the streaming of the catalog is you know,

408
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 2: in their case Gigantic, you don't know if the fans

409
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 2: are going to turn out at the shows. I want

410
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 2: to hear the new music. In this case, people do.

411
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 2: So that's in that case we're reintroducing the band, you know,

412
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 2: and working with the band and working with their management. Obviously,

413
00:28:55,720 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 2: we don't do this alone to a fan that we

414
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 2: hope is still there and finding new fans. What's interesting

415
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 2: is I'm seeing the demographics of their Spotify.

416
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Speaker 1: Are we talking still about sixpences?

417
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's really interesting there Their biggest demographic I think

418
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 2: is like nineteen to twenty four, twenty five to twenty

419
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 2: nine on Spotify, So it's a it's a younger audience.

420
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 2: So that's that's really interesting. So that's on one side,

421
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: taking a band that has almost no existing audience. That's

422
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 2: really hard now and you know, honestly, it's kind of

423
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: a criteria for us working with an artist is what

424
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: is the current fan base? Do you tour? You know,

425
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 2: and you know, where are we starting from? It's hard

426
00:29:54,040 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 2: to start from zero.

427
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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back for a second. You have two

428
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: record labels A. Are you only signing active acts or

429
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: are you putting out any catalog product.

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Speaker 2: We're putting out some catalog product and sort of reissues.

431
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 2: We're doing a Wall of Voodoo archive project, a band

432
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 2: I first worked with in like nineteen eighty one. They had,

433
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Speaker 2: even though they're not an active band anymore, they had

434
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 2: some really good vault material that we're putting out next year.

435
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 2: We're working at the band rain Pread, another band I

436
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: worked with in the eighties, so I've always just loved

437
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 2: their music and jumped at the chance to work with

438
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 2: them on new music. They reacquired the rights to some

439
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: of their old albums. We're reissuing them with bonus tracks remastered,

440
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 2: so that's kind of a catalog project, but in sync

441
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: with the band out touring and releasing new music as well.

442
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 2: We did a Dream Syndicate live record earlier this year

443
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 2: that spanned their entire career, like forty years worth of music.

444
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 2: So we are but not as we tend not to

445
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 2: do it as a straight reissue. We want to add

446
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 2: something to it, remaster, new material, something so that it's

447
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: it's worthy of being in the marketplace.

448
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: Okay, stepping back for a second, you have an act.

449
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: They're on the road. They're selling product on the road.

450
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: Where else can you distribute it. In the old days,

451
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 1: there was a plethora of retail. There's indie retail. Now

452
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: there's retail that's not in the music business selling vinyl.

453
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: So how hard is it to get records and stores?

454
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: And where are those stores?

455
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 2: Well, independent retail is pretty good shape in the US

456
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 2: right now, and you know overseas as well and growing.

457
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 2: I live in Denver now and there's a couple of

458
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 2: really great independent stores here, you know, and I I will.

459
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 2: I stood in front of Twist and Shout earlier this

460
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 2: year for Record Store Day and the snow for two

461
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 2: hours before getting in, So you know, there's a good

462
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 2: there's an avid audience for buying vinyl here in Denver, certainly.

463
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 2: And we see new independent record stores popping up all

464
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 2: the time. And what's different now is they're not competing

465
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 2: with the chain stores. The music lands, warehouses, towers are gone.

466
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 2: If you're pure music retail, you're an independent now.

467
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: And I like that.

468
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 2: Quite a bit. We find the independence will champion music.

469
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 2: They love and you know that's really important. We work

470
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 2: with a distributor in the US called AMPT and they're

471
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 2: very good. They're very well connected, particular to the independent

472
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 2: retail base. We use bandcamp for a direct to consumer sales,

473
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,959
Speaker 2: and we've got a Shopify store and we've just started

474
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 2: linking our Shopify stores with Spotify. Spotify has a feature

475
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 2: where you can connect your Shopify store to the artist

476
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:32,479
Speaker 2: page in Spotify and that's very promising. We've only been

477
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 2: doing that for a couple of months. But again it

478
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: goes to what you asked about DSPs digital distribution. What

479
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: do I think of them? And I think I think

480
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 2: of it a way of reaching hundreds of millions of people.

481
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: Okay, how much of the business is non traditional media retail,

482
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: non music stores.

483
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 2: For the overall market, I don't know. You know, you've

484
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 2: got some clothing stores and a lot of people carrying

485
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:11,399
Speaker 2: fairly limited selections, so I don't really have a good

486
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 2: handle on that.

487
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: Okay. When Vinyl started to research, everything was sold one way,

488
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: because all your products still only sold one way, mostly

489
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 1: mostly so in order to return the product. What would

490
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:28,840
Speaker 1: that situation be?

491
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 2: I don't think we've had anyone try to return product.

492
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 2: We're pretty careful on what we lay out and retailers

493
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 2: are pretty careful what they bring in out because of

494
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 2: the one way factor. CDs are returnable, and our CD

495
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: business is decent. I mean, it's not like what it

496
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 2: was thirty years ago, but CDs still sell they self

497
00:34:53,440 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 2: returing bands. They're selling it retail. So I think if

498
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: we tried to push out a lot of vinyl for

499
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 2: one reason or another, we would probably have to allow

500
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 2: for returns. We haven't had to do that yet. Maybe

501
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 2: it's coming, maybe it's not.

502
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: What is the future of the overall vinyl market? We've

503
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:24,800
Speaker 1: had this resurgence, you know, we hear numbers wholesale, retail.

504
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:28,240
Speaker 1: What do you see coming down the pike? A forget

505
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: the overall dollars relative to streaming. I don't want to

506
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole. Just the business in terms

507
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: of units. Is it just a steady business? Is it

508
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: going to go up? Is it spiking? What do you think?

509
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 2: At retail? It's still growing and everything I've read by

510
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 2: credible authors and researchers believe it's going to be growing

511
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: for several more years. So that's great. I think a

512
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: lot of people during COVID over ordered at the label level.

513
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,759
Speaker 2: I think there was a lot of label overstocks that

514
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 2: are getting sold down. You know, we all know there

515
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 2: was a temptation when it took a year to get

516
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 2: a vinyl po filled to order years worth of vinyl.

517
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 2: And now with you know, you can get turned around

518
00:36:24,360 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 2: in four weeks after test pressings. There's no need to

519
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:32,360
Speaker 2: have a year's supply. So there was a lot of overstock.

520
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:35,800
Speaker 2: I think that's going away. But if you look at retail,

521
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything that say retail is going flat.

522
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 1: Okay, how many acts have you signed? How many acts

523
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 1: do you plan on signing?

524
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 2: We have about fifteen artists on the two labels, and

525
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,480
Speaker 2: that feels pretty good. I don't We're not really chasing

526
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 2: much new right now. We might have one or two

527
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 2: more signings, but we're feeling like we've got really good

528
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 2: rosters and we've got our work cut out for us

529
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: for next year in the years to follow.

530
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: Okay, we decide to make a deal, what kind of

531
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: deal you're going to offer me?

532
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 2: Fifty to fifty profits split based on real revenue and

533
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 2: real costs.

534
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: Just that easy? Yeah? And will I get an advent?

535
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: We try not to pay advances, and we very seldom

536
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:45,719
Speaker 2: have paid advances. We sometimes helped cover recording costs, but

537
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 2: most of the artists we work with are self sufficient already.

538
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 2: We're not you know, we're not working with the latest

539
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 2: TikTok sensation or K pop bands or really what you

540
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:05,840
Speaker 2: would consider pop music. We're dealing with bands that have

541
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 2: been around in some cases for a while, that are

542
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 2: touring that not how to make their records. We are

543
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 2: definitely not getting involved on the recording and we have

544
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 2: very light hand on an r generally, let the artists

545
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 2: do what they want to do and then bring us

546
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 2: the results when they're ready. So, yeah, we avoid is

547
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 2: when you pay in advance, that's less money to put

548
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 2: into marketing.

549
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,720
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, since you're not paying

550
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:41,560
Speaker 1: an advance, am I going to own the record? Or

551
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: you go own the record?

552
00:38:43,640 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 2: If we don't pay an advance, you own the record?

553
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: And how long do you have it? For?

554
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 2: Seven years? Ten years? Something? Negotiating?

555
00:38:54,880 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: Okay, So we live in a market where the big

556
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:05,800
Speaker 1: streamers are hip hop and pop, but statistically they're going

557
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 1: down in marketshare. We hear rock is dead. You're in

558
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: these other rock alternative markets what's the status of those markets.

559
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you know, I look at the hits chart

560
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 2: every week, the top fifty hits chart, and I don't

561
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 2: see much rock and roll in there. When I do,

562
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 2: it tends to fall off the chart pretty quick. So

563
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 2: if you have that perspective, rock is definitely not much

564
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 2: of a forest anymore. But on the other hand, there's

565
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 2: very dedicated audience out there, very loyal, and for what

566
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 2: we're doing, it's more than enough. In the past few weeks,

567
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 2: I've seen the Beat Show with Tony Levin, mader In Blue,

568
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 2: Danny Carey and Steve I twice once in denav just

569
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,760
Speaker 2: a few days ago. In thousand notes, sell out house,

570
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 2: people losing their minds. I think they've sold out fifty

571
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 2: nine of the sixty five shows, and I believe they're

572
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: going to keep the tour going into next year. So

573
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 2: I don't know, a very happy audience. And you know,

574
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 2: we've got Tony Levin's album out now. It's doing really

575
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 2: well sales wise. It's streaming, you know, if you measure

576
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 2: it against what you would expect for an album like

577
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 2: Tony's to stream, it's doing very well. Physical sales are

578
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 2: excellent on it. We've held back the vinyl for records

579
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,840
Speaker 2: store Day Black Friday, so the vinyl will be available

580
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 2: a week from tomorrow. So we're very happy that audience exists,

581
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 2: and that's enough to keep us going. You know, we're

582
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: not but if you dial back to the seventies and

583
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 2: eighties when rock and roll ruled the world, it's very different.

584
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 2: Rock and roll does not rule the world anymore, but

585
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,920
Speaker 2: there's a big, loyal, super enthusiastic audience, and we're happy

586
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 2: to keep releasing records for this world, for this market.

587
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: You have a long history with Striper. What's the status

588
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: of Striper today.

589
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 2: Well, they just wrapping up their fortieth anniversary tour. I

590
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 2: caught them when they came through Denver. It was a

591
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 2: great show. They're playing better than ever. They have one

592
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 2: of the most avid fan bases any band ever. We've

593
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 2: released an unplugged acoustic album a few months ago of

594
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 2: theirs that I'm very happy with. It's a pleasure to

595
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 2: be working with them again again. A couple of the

596
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 2: artists of my label I have relationships going back forty years.

597
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: It's just delightful that they're still making great music and

598
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 2: I still get to work with them. It's one of

599
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 2: the things that just keeps me in this business. It's

600
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 2: an absolute pleasure.

601
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. Where'd you grow up?

602
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 2: Born in Nebraska, but moved to California when I was

603
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:17,399
Speaker 2: pretty young?

604
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: Pretty young, two, pretty young? Eight?

605
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: Moved to Bay Area when I was two, and San

606
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 2: fernetto Valley when I was five?

607
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: And would your parents do for a living?

608
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 2: Father was a lawyer, longtime general counsel for La City Schools.

609
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 2: My mother fifth grade giacher.

610
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family?

611
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 2: Three of us?

612
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: And where are you in the hierarchy?

613
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 2: I'm the old guy.

614
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,439
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're going to school. What kind of kid

615
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: are you? Good student? Bad student? Popular athlete? How do

616
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: you describe yourself?

617
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 2: I think I was a pretty good student. I was

618
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 2: on the track and cross country teams, so that means

619
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 2: I was not a popular student or popular with my peers. Yeah,

620
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 2: you know. I was an avid music fanatic from about

621
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 2: age nine onwards. Yeah, I would say it was an

622
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:28,879
Speaker 2: normal kid.

623
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: Where did your music interest percolated.

624
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 2: From the radio and TV to a certain extent. I

625
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 2: can remember still seeing Beatles on Ed Sullivan I was nine.

626
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 2: My whole family, you know, watched it on TV. My parents,

627
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 2: you know, relatively conservative midwesterners. We're curious about this phenomenon,

628
00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 2: the Beatles, and you know, I know you remember this.

629
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 2: The whole world was curious about the Beatles. Our family

630
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 2: even went to see A Hard Day's Night in the

631
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 2: theater and I was electrified by that. But I was

632
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 2: already curious about music before then. I loved Jan and Dean.

633
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Do I love Jan and Dean?

634
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh I do too. And that might have been

635
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:31,919
Speaker 2: my gateway drug into music fandom. And I discovered Top

636
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 2: forty radio. Top forty radio in LA was fantastic in

637
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 2: the sixties. You had a couple of choices KFWB, KHJ, Carola.

638
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 2: I used to go between Carola and cage J and

639
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:51,719
Speaker 2: I pretty much listen for hours every day, and I

640
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 2: took a real keen interest in charts. I would listen

641
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 2: to the chart countdown shows and I was fascinated how

642
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 2: records would go up the charts, down the charts. I

643
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:05,280
Speaker 2: used to collect the playlist that you could printed playlists

644
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 2: you can get at the local record store, and now

645
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 2: I wish I still had those. Actually, never should have

646
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 2: thrown those out. So it was just a fascination with music,

647
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 2: but also kind of the business of music and the

648
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 2: personalities of the artists. It wasn't just the music, it

649
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 2: was everything around the music.

650
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: And will you an avid collector?

651
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got the record collecting bug bad.

652
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: And where did you buy your records in La.

653
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 2: Well? When I was like, you know, before I had

654
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 2: a car, you know, it was the Wallocks music city

655
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 2: that I could get to on my bicycle, and you know,

656
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 2: later there was a warehouse store. I was in Woodland

657
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 2: Hills at the time. I didn't discover independences until early seventies.

658
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:04,800
Speaker 2: And when I discovered import records.

659
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: When you were going to Wallacks, did they still have

660
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: the listening booths?

661
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,160
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that was awesome.

662
00:46:12,400 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: And how about going to shows?

663
00:46:15,640 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, started going to shows probably around seventy two, and

664
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 2: a great time to be going to concerts.

665
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 1: Anything especially memorable. You remember what the first one.

666
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 2: Was, Yeah, Pink Floyd at Hollywood Bowl. Wow, very memorable.

667
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 2: But I think you were talking in one of your

668
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:46,920
Speaker 2: podcast orsthing about Santa Monica Civic. Maybe it was a

669
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 2: ten CC show there. Yeah, maybe? Remember how many great

670
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 2: shows I sawt Santa Monica Civic.

671
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 1: Oh, Kinks used to play every year.

672
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, well Debock Deluxe and Golden Earring on this same bill,

673
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 2: you know, or craft worker David Bowie or I saw Emerson,

674
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 2: Lake and Palmer there. I bet I saw twenty five

675
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 2: shows there.

676
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,879
Speaker 1: So what was your first job in music a.

677
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 2: Record store clerk at the warehouse.

678
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:26,839
Speaker 1: And how old were you and how did you get

679
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: that job?

680
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 2: I was twenty and I was in college at u

681
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:39,320
Speaker 2: C Irvine. There was someone in economics class of mine

682
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 2: was always asking to copy my class notes because he

683
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 2: would miss a lot of lectures. Finally, one day and

684
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,439
Speaker 2: I was I find doing that. Finally one day I said,

685
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 2: you know, Mark, where are you? How come you missed

686
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,279
Speaker 2: so many classes? Well? Now he was a manager of

687
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:04,400
Speaker 2: Warehouse Records store in Coasta Mason, the back Bay Warehouse

688
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 2: record store. And I said, okay, here's the deal. I

689
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 2: want a job. If you're going to keep copying my

690
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 2: class notes, I want a job. And I got a

691
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 2: part time job working at the Warehouse Records and I

692
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: was in heaven. You know, I would have worked for free.

693
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 1: So now you're on the other side of the counter.

694
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 1: What did you learn being on the other side of

695
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: the corner?

696
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: Most people didn't buy the records I liked, and I

697
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 2: think that's a pretty normal experience for records store employees. Yeah,

698
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:46,760
Speaker 2: this is around the time you started having some really

699
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 2: big records. You know, Frampton Comes Alive, it was around

700
00:48:51,360 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 2: that time.

701
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, just it was.

702
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 2: It was my school. It was my music business school.

703
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 2: The store had subscriptions to Record World, cash Box and Billboard,

704
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 2: and I read all of them cover to cover. Mark

705
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 2: the store manager would let me take the trade magazines

706
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 2: home and I would just read every work and I

707
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 2: would study the charts and I was I would look

708
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 2: at the advertisements. You know, what records are being advertised,

709
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 2: Why what records are going up the track? What records

710
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,399
Speaker 2: are charting high? But we're not selling in our local store.

711
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,360
Speaker 2: I mean, there was just so much to absorb, you know,

712
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 2: seeing the business side of the business. It was a

713
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 2: great education.

714
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: What was their plan if any going to college?

715
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:47,319
Speaker 2: I went to use Cervine because it was the only

716
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 2: college to you know, express interest me being on the

717
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 2: track team. So it was easy decision.

718
00:49:58,160 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: Okay, were you planning to study anything? You say, I'm

719
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: putting in my four years. I'll graduate, I'll figure it out. Then.

720
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started as an engineering student and thinking I

721
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 2: would like engineering, and I really didn't. I switched to

722
00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:20,359
Speaker 2: computer science for a quarter, didn't really like that, and

723
00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:22,799
Speaker 2: I switched to economics, and I really liked that, so

724
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 2: I stuck with economics. I found that fascinating.

725
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: And you graduate from college, what's your first step in

726
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 1: the work world.

727
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 2: I didn't graduate from college.

728
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 1: How long did you go and why didn't you graduate?

729
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:44,280
Speaker 2: Well? I went five years and didn't graduate well, partially

730
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 2: because I kept changing my major. I would have to

731
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:52,840
Speaker 2: start over on my classes. I switched from Warehouse to

732
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 2: Music Plus when story manager brought me in Mark and

733
00:50:57,520 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 2: I should name him Mark Wesley, a very important person.

734
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 2: Without Mark, I would not be in the music business,

735
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 2: So thank you Mark. Mark went to Music Plus and

736
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: brought me along. Music Plus was getting started then, and

737
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,280
Speaker 2: a lot of people from the Warehouse went to Music Plus.

738
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 2: It was just a better music retailer and at the

739
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:21,959
Speaker 2: time fairly innovative. And what was really cool about Music

740
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 2: Plus is they had a really good import section. And

741
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 2: I loved import records. So by time nineteen seventy eight

742
00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 2: world around, I had this idea. I had to start

743
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 2: an import record company, a distributor by vinyl from overseas

744
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 2: sell it to record stores in the US. There was

745
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 2: one company doing that in the US on any scale,

746
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 2: company called Gem Records, and I thought there was a

747
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that they weren't importing that could be

748
00:51:59,920 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 2: the basis for a business to kind of compliment what

749
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:07,239
Speaker 2: they were doing. So I wrote in my brother, who

750
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 2: was still in high school at the time, and the

751
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,280
Speaker 2: guy Steve Bideaux, who is the import buyer at Music Plus,

752
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:18,800
Speaker 2: to join me in the venture. And I had finished

753
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 2: all my economics class work, and I had had to

754
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 2: do basically two electives like two art history classes would

755
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 2: have got me my diploma, and I just figured i'd

756
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 2: do it later. I still haven't done.

757
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:38,440
Speaker 1: It, So, okay, you're ever going to do it? Then,

758
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: what did your parents say?

759
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 2: My parents are very supportive, you know. My mother and

760
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 2: father could not have been more supportive. I'm not sure

761
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 2: they thought I was going to be successful, but I

762
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:55,319
Speaker 2: figure they thought either I had to get it out

763
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 2: of my system and it would be a good experience,

764
00:52:57,800 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 2: or maybe it would work. I don't really know.

765
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: Okay, you started independent. How much money does it take?

766
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: Are you fumbling finding things out by accident? Is your

767
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 1: business plan and instinct, right, how does it go?

768
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:18,800
Speaker 2: It was like two steps forward, one step back, which

769
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 2: I think is you know, pretty much typical of businesses.

770
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,840
Speaker 2: You would rather be that than two steps back and

771
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 2: one forward. You know. We start with fifty thousand dollars capital.

772
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 1: Where did it come from?

773
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 2: Some from I sold a car, I borrowed a few

774
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 2: dollars from my mother. My brother actually had adequate savings

775
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,359
Speaker 2: even though he's high school kid. And Steve Burdo kicked

776
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 2: in some money. So we raised fifty grand then, which

777
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:52,879
Speaker 2: is actually a ridiculously small amount of money to start

778
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 2: a business. We had two thousand square foot warehouse in

779
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 2: Torrents and a telics machine and an essential tool then

780
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:04,440
Speaker 2: to be in the import business.

781
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:07,240
Speaker 1: So how did you start?

782
00:54:09,080 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 2: Well, we already had some Steve was the import buyer music,

783
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 2: plus he already had some connections overseas. I had basically

784
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 2: just studied the business, learned everything I could, and we

785
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:29,360
Speaker 2: basically just jumped on the telics machine and started sending

786
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 2: out requests like hey, can we import records from you?

787
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:34,520
Speaker 2: Will you sell to us? You know, what are your prices?

788
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 2: And because Jim was really strong bringing in stuff from

789
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 2: the UK, we concentrated on places like Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands,

790
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 2: you know, picking up stuff from those markets, and we

791
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 2: did do some from the UK as well, and it

792
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:54,319
Speaker 2: grew from there.

793
00:54:55,600 --> 00:55:00,360
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have these records, they say, yes, was

794
00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 1: it tending to be from the companies? Was it from

795
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: what we call in the US rap job? Or is

796
00:55:05,960 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 1: where were you actually getting the product?

797
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 2: Some cases directly from the labels. In many cases in

798
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 2: Japan you would deal with the exporter. None of the

799
00:55:17,520 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 2: labels there would deal with you directly, but they would

800
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 2: direct you to an exporter they would work with. In

801
00:55:25,520 --> 00:55:28,919
Speaker 2: the UK, we ended up actually setting up our own

802
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 2: office in the UK because around this time there was

803
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: an explosion in very small but very interesting record labels

804
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 2: in the UK like Rough Trade, Mute for a D

805
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 2: just on and on and on, and to be viable

806
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 2: you would need someone there locally, you know, getting the

807
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:52,640
Speaker 2: orders from ten different labels, consolidating them and then shipping

808
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:54,840
Speaker 2: the air freight to Los Angeles.

809
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:59,319
Speaker 1: Let's say I'm selling to you, When am I going

810
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:00,200
Speaker 1: to get paid.

811
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 2: Well? Back in those days, yeah, NET thirty was typical.

812
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 1: Okay, so you'll get the product. Who did you sell

813
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 1: to retailers one stops what.

814
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:25,800
Speaker 2: Early days almost exclusively independent retail like in LA would

815
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 2: be Rhino, Westwood, Moby Disc. There were a lot of

816
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:33,920
Speaker 2: really good independent stores, and then we built a network

817
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:37,720
Speaker 2: around the country stores. You know. The cool record stores

818
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,439
Speaker 2: in those days was the stores that had imports. That's

819
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 2: how you knew it was a cool, cool store, you know,

820
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:46,879
Speaker 2: and not a mall store, but the cool store near

821
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 2: a college campus. Quite frequently. Also, Music Plus had a

822
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 2: good import selection. They were probably our best early customer.

823
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:03,319
Speaker 2: Eventually we started sellingelling more and more to larger chains,

824
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:08,160
Speaker 2: you know, people like Record Bar. Music Land was always

825
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,359
Speaker 2: hard to get into. Tarer was a good customer. Tower

826
00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:15,359
Speaker 2: would order a lot, but Tara was challenging to do

827
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 2: business with for many reasons.

828
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: What are a couple of reasons.

829
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:22,680
Speaker 2: Well, they would pay you in net ninety if you

830
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:26,800
Speaker 2: were lucky, and they would make a lot of deductions

831
00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 2: and you had no leverage to argue with them. But

832
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 2: on the other hand, they sold a lot of records,

833
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 2: so people tended to go along with it.

834
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, how hard was it to get paid?

835
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 2: I don't remember any serious traumas. I mean you know,

836
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:49,120
Speaker 2: we seldom have money in the bank. It would go

837
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 2: back out as fast as it came in. I know

838
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 2: GEM Records who had been selling to as kind of

839
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: a subdistributor, they went bankrupt and we took a hit

840
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 2: on that. Really, it was never that big a problem,

841
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 2: and I might be just conveniently forgetting some bad debt

842
00:58:11,920 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 2: we experienced, but generally we were okay, okay.

843
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:21,840
Speaker 1: The biggest import record of that time was Cheap Tricks

844
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: Budicon record. Originally it's over for a long time as

845
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:27,920
Speaker 1: an import before it's released domestically. Were you in on that.

846
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, every importer was bringing that in. We did pretty well,

847
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 2: but that was not our best selling import.

848
00:58:37,680 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: What was your best selling input?

849
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 2: The Australian ac DC records that were not out in

850
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 2: the US. We killed with those. I don't think anyone

851
00:58:46,760 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 2: else was bringing them in.

852
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how many of sold?

853
00:58:53,720 --> 00:58:58,959
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, Bright, between High Voltage and TNT probably total

854
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand more for import record. That that's the

855
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:06,200
Speaker 2: important version of a platinum record.

856
00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:09,840
Speaker 1: And what's the markup on an import record?

857
00:59:09,880 --> 00:59:13,959
Speaker 2: Then we would work on about a fifteen to twenty

858
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 2: percent margin, So it was tight, and the dollar was

859
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 2: going all over the place. There. We got hammered a

860
00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 2: couple of times when you know, to hear the Japanese yen,

861
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 2: you know, we would get an order in sell the goods,

862
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:29,959
Speaker 2: and by the time it came to pay the bill,

863
00:59:30,040 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 2: the dollar had lost eight percent against the yen, and

864
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:35,120
Speaker 2: there goes half our margin.

865
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: So Jim went bankrupt, patted it in with Green World.

866
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 2: At some point, you know, and Ignoral Records came out

867
00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 2: of Green World. It was just sort of a natural progression.

868
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 2: But there was something that happened before in the import

869
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:57,800
Speaker 2: business I think is notable, and the independent label businesses

870
00:59:57,840 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 2: that existed in the eighties in the US came out

871
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 2: of the import record distributors. Those were the distributors started

872
01:00:08,200 --> 01:00:14,840
Speaker 2: handling people like Frontier and sst Epitaph. You know, the

873
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 2: old traditional independent regional distributors that handled Chrysalis Island weren't

874
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:24,520
Speaker 2: really interested in sort of the new punk rock and

875
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 2: heavy metal labels, so they gravitated to going to the

876
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:33,800
Speaker 2: importers because we were dealing with the stores that would

877
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 2: stock a Frontier, sst or Metal Blade record. And gradually

878
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 2: the import business, as a percentage of turnover for these distributors,

879
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 2: including Green World, became less and less and the domestic

880
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 2: independent labels became more and more and out of this,

881
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:55,400
Speaker 2: Green World decided to start its own in house label,

882
01:00:55,440 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 2: which ended up being Enigma. At some point, Steve, the

883
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 2: third partner with my brother and myself at Green World,

884
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:10,680
Speaker 2: decided he wanted to take full ownership of Green World

885
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 2: and he bought us out, so he gave us Enigma.

886
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 2: He bought out our shares in Green World, and Enigma

887
01:01:20,680 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 2: then was independent company. Around that time, Jim Marton joined us,

888
01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 2: so it was three of us again.

889
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: Now Enigma. The first thing I remember is the re

890
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:39,120
Speaker 1: release of the early Alice Cooper records that were on

891
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa's label. Were those the first releases?

892
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 2: Or oh no, you're about seven years It's about seven

893
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 2: years to fill.

894
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 1: In there, okay, So tell me what were the first ones?

895
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:55,760
Speaker 2: Well, the first one came out before we had the

896
01:01:55,840 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 2: name Enigma. It was Motley Crue Too Fast for Love,

897
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:04,920
Speaker 2: right right right, and that was a rocket ship. That

898
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:07,160
Speaker 2: was a nice start. Too bad they all didn't go

899
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 2: that way, you know. And as the story on that is,

900
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 2: they had pressed up a thousand copies of the album

901
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 2: and sold them right away, and there was a buzz

902
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 2: on the band. You know, they were playing the clubs

903
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:30,440
Speaker 2: around LA and they had a real following. So we

904
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 2: were trying to chase down someone in the band to

905
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:35,440
Speaker 2: see if we could get some just a distribute. Finally

906
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:37,560
Speaker 2: got a hold of someone. They said, we'd love to

907
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:39,480
Speaker 2: sell you some, but we're sold out. I said, well,

908
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 2: can you make some more? I said, well we could,

909
01:02:41,920 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 2: but we haven't paid the pressing plant yet. So we said,

910
01:02:46,440 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 2: we'll pay the pressing plant, will you give us an exclusive?

911
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 2: And that led to us basically being a label, and

912
01:02:54,880 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 2: we later sold our rights Motley Crue to Elector Records.

913
01:03:00,200 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 2: Tom Zutet was the A and R guy then and decided, Hey,

914
01:03:06,600 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 2: this label thing is kind of cool, let's do more

915
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 2: of this. We soon signed. We did a deal for

916
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 2: the Wall of Voodoo EP, which came out on Index Records,

917
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 2: distributed through Enigma. Band called the Fibonacci's, a great local band.

918
01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 2: And then the next big record for us was the

919
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:33,800
Speaker 2: first Berlin record just later that same year, which again

920
01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:37,080
Speaker 2: did really well out of the box. We got a

921
01:03:37,080 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 2: lot of k rock play early on the first record

922
01:03:39,880 --> 01:03:43,000
Speaker 2: to get any kind of real Radio and then Geffen

923
01:03:43,080 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 2: bought on our rights, so we it's kind of this pattern.

924
01:03:45,560 --> 01:03:49,600
Speaker 2: We find something, sell, some have some heat, and major

925
01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 2: label comes in and writes us a check and we

926
01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:54,480
Speaker 2: move on to the next thing. At that point we

927
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:57,120
Speaker 2: were determined not to do that so much to actually

928
01:03:57,160 --> 01:04:03,920
Speaker 2: start building a roster, and yeah we did. We actually

929
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,720
Speaker 2: had a joint venture around that time with EMI America

930
01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 2: because there were some things we wanted to do that

931
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 2: we couldn't afford to do on our own, So through

932
01:04:12,080 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 2: that we had Red Hot Chili Peppers was on Enigma

933
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 2: EMI America SSQ, which it's where Stacey Q came from,

934
01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 2: was there, and then that deal expired, was not renewed.

935
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 2: Garry Gersh had been our big supporter edd EEMI American.

936
01:04:34,200 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 2: He had left and I kind of discovered what happens

937
01:04:38,360 --> 01:04:41,400
Speaker 2: when your big supporter at a major label goes away.

938
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 2: But soon after that we connected with Capital and we

939
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 2: created a new joint venture for just certain artists with

940
01:04:49,800 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 2: Capital and that worked very well for several years. We

941
01:04:57,280 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 2: did the Smither Rains with them, we did Poison with them.

942
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:02,560
Speaker 2: Both were very successful.

943
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the Motley Crue. The first

944
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 1: record you make the deal. Yeah, it was upstream to Elektra.

945
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 1: What did you actually have the rights to? Did you

946
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:25,960
Speaker 1: have a few albums? You only have rights to that album?

947
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: Did you just have rights to distribution?

948
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 2: We had two record deals, so we got the rights

949
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 2: long term. I have to remember. I think it was

950
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 2: a long term licensed for Too Fast for Love and

951
01:05:40,240 --> 01:05:44,040
Speaker 2: then an option for a second album. I don't think

952
01:05:44,040 --> 01:05:46,600
Speaker 2: our contract was written that well, but it was written

953
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 2: well enough that Electra was motivated to bias out and

954
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 2: then they remixed the album. My opinion, I liked the

955
01:05:58,560 --> 01:05:59,720
Speaker 2: original mix still.

956
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of independence at this point that people

957
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 1: were writing their own contracts. Did you have a lawyer

958
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: or did you do the contracts hush?

959
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:15,040
Speaker 2: I think we might have used Don Pieterman at that

960
01:06:15,120 --> 01:06:18,600
Speaker 2: point we had met through the wall of Voodo deal

961
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 2: when we started. We later our longtime lawyer was Peter Paterno,

962
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 2: and I don't remember exactly when we started using Peter,

963
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:36,280
Speaker 2: but our contracts in the Peter era were very good,

964
01:06:37,040 --> 01:06:39,240
Speaker 2: fair I think. But Peter was a great lawyer.

965
01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:48,280
Speaker 1: Okay, in your history, have you ever had to sue anybody?

966
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:54,480
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've ever sued anyone, we've gone

967
01:06:54,520 --> 01:07:03,680
Speaker 2: into arbitration and maybe once I don't know, nothing comes

968
01:07:03,680 --> 01:07:04,600
Speaker 2: to mind.

969
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:08,120
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had all these acts that were hot

970
01:07:08,160 --> 01:07:11,600
Speaker 1: locally that the majors wouldn't pick up. As you say,

971
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:15,440
Speaker 1: you had Motley Crue, had Berlin, you had Poison. What

972
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: do you think was going on there? Because as soon

973
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: as you made him successful, everybody else came looking. Why

974
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:23,480
Speaker 1: did they not see what you saw or what did

975
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:24,040
Speaker 1: you see?

976
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:28,680
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I mean I think they eventually saw

977
01:07:28,720 --> 01:07:31,800
Speaker 2: what we saw, or they saw the numbers. I know

978
01:07:32,840 --> 01:07:37,320
Speaker 2: when we did the Capitol deal, the Capital salespeople, the

979
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:40,640
Speaker 2: local salespeople were very aware we had one of the

980
01:07:40,640 --> 01:07:46,240
Speaker 2: best selling records in Los Angeles, and you know that

981
01:07:46,280 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 2: didn't hurt us doing the deal at Capitol. But you know,

982
01:07:49,800 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 2: smither Rings came out of New Jersey. We signed bands

983
01:07:52,520 --> 01:07:57,680
Speaker 2: from all over. I don't know. I mean, we kind

984
01:07:57,680 --> 01:08:00,160
Speaker 2: of business people like Berlin because we just like we

985
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 2: liked the music. This is a great record, let's put

986
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:04,960
Speaker 2: it out. Same with Poison.

987
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 1: There was the impression that no one else was authoring

988
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:10,600
Speaker 1: him a deal. Was that true?

989
01:08:12,600 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm sure there were people sniffing around,

990
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:17,799
Speaker 2: because there's always A and R guys sniffing around, certainly

991
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,559
Speaker 2: in those days, and we're the first ones to step

992
01:08:20,640 --> 01:08:22,600
Speaker 2: up and say let's go, let's make a record.

993
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: Okay, And as I say, you do start putting out

994
01:08:27,160 --> 01:08:31,120
Speaker 1: some reissue records. I mentioned the Alice Cooper Records. How

995
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:34,360
Speaker 1: much of a business was that and was that financially successful?

996
01:08:35,640 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a licensing deal with Herb Cohen, who

997
01:08:40,920 --> 01:08:44,680
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know was Frank Zappa's business partner, to

998
01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:48,559
Speaker 2: re issue some catalog records that when he separated his

999
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:52,720
Speaker 2: business from Frank, some of the titles went to him

1000
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:59,160
Speaker 2: and some of the Zappa's stuff went to Frank. Yeah,

1001
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:06,800
Speaker 2: it was notfensive. The Tim Buckley Liven London record, which

1002
01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:12,240
Speaker 2: had not been released before, did really well. I wouldn't

1003
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:16,760
Speaker 2: say we still tens of thousands of it, which for

1004
01:09:16,880 --> 01:09:20,280
Speaker 2: a title like that, we were very happy with. The

1005
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:25,280
Speaker 2: Cooper Records did okay. The Ted Nugent records did pretty well.

1006
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:28,679
Speaker 2: People forget that Ted Nugent was signed to a Frank

1007
01:09:28,800 --> 01:09:30,479
Speaker 2: Zappa label once upon a time.

1008
01:09:31,960 --> 01:09:36,120
Speaker 1: So you have some serious hits, are you making any

1009
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:38,760
Speaker 1: money or you just plowing it back into the business.

1010
01:09:39,720 --> 01:09:41,560
Speaker 2: Plowing it back into the business.

1011
01:09:42,840 --> 01:09:46,840
Speaker 1: So how does it end in Enigma and turn into Restless?

1012
01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:51,559
Speaker 2: At some point I think we're in nineteen eighty six.

1013
01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:57,080
Speaker 2: You know, we wanted to keep a We wanted to

1014
01:09:57,160 --> 01:10:04,160
Speaker 2: keep in business, the independent distributors, and we didn't think

1015
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 2: everything we were doing was suitable to go through Capital's

1016
01:10:06,960 --> 01:10:11,400
Speaker 2: distribution arm, which then was called SEMA, right, So we

1017
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:15,720
Speaker 2: created a separate imprint just to be distributed independently and

1018
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:19,360
Speaker 2: had some pretty good success there. Flaming Lips were assigned

1019
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:24,080
Speaker 2: to Restless. There was some really good stuff on Wrestless

1020
01:10:27,200 --> 01:10:30,679
Speaker 2: and Restless grew shared a lot of the same staff,

1021
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:35,000
Speaker 2: and we were basically one company distributing one label through Independence,

1022
01:10:35,000 --> 01:10:39,599
Speaker 2: another label through Capital's major label system. And I should

1023
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:44,519
Speaker 2: point out that we did have two artists joint ventured

1024
01:10:44,560 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 2: with Capital, Poison and Smitherings. Everything else we did through

1025
01:10:48,200 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 2: them was one hundred percent hours bands like Hurricane and

1026
01:10:54,720 --> 01:10:59,960
Speaker 2: many many more. So you know, I said what how?

1027
01:11:00,160 --> 01:11:03,719
Speaker 2: And at Emi America and Gary Gersh left and Jamie

1028
01:11:03,720 --> 01:11:05,960
Speaker 2: Cohen left, who had been our big supporters. There, we

1029
01:11:05,960 --> 01:11:09,720
Speaker 2: were just kind of adrift. No one really understood what

1030
01:11:09,760 --> 01:11:12,080
Speaker 2: the hell we were doing with Red Hot Chili peppers,

1031
01:11:12,120 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 2: and you know, what is this music? Or are these

1032
01:11:14,960 --> 01:11:22,960
Speaker 2: people at Capital? We had some great supporters, Tom Wally certainly,

1033
01:11:23,080 --> 01:11:25,000
Speaker 2: and you know, we got on really well there. But

1034
01:11:25,040 --> 01:11:29,760
Speaker 2: then Tom leaves. He goes to Interscope where he was

1035
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:33,599
Speaker 2: very successful later to Warner, and some of the other

1036
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:38,840
Speaker 2: people we knew there who were great supporters left and

1037
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:42,679
Speaker 2: the world was changing. You know, by now it's nineteen ninety,

1038
01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:48,280
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, Charles Koppaman is in there, and you know,

1039
01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 2: he's very influential, and he's bringing in some big, big records,

1040
01:11:52,439 --> 01:11:54,800
Speaker 2: and I think people were looking at us and going,

1041
01:11:55,600 --> 01:11:58,639
Speaker 2: you know, why are we business with these guys. Let's

1042
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:01,720
Speaker 2: just double down on the speak and some of this

1043
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:05,479
Speaker 2: other stuff we're doing. So we had an amicable divorce

1044
01:12:05,600 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 2: with Capital. We kind of split the baby. They got poisoned,

1045
01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:15,639
Speaker 2: they got Smithereens, they got a couple other things. They

1046
01:12:15,680 --> 01:12:18,400
Speaker 2: got the Enigma name, and I had something to do over.

1047
01:12:18,680 --> 01:12:20,559
Speaker 2: I would have thought to keep that name, because they

1048
01:12:20,600 --> 01:12:25,640
Speaker 2: immediately abandoned the trademark. We got Restless, We got a

1049
01:12:25,640 --> 01:12:28,120
Speaker 2: lot of the catalog, and we started a new business

1050
01:12:29,840 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 2: wholly independent again.

1051
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:36,880
Speaker 1: Okay, how did Restless and and what ended up happening

1052
01:12:36,880 --> 01:12:39,479
Speaker 1: to all the assets from Enigma and Restless that you'd

1053
01:12:39,479 --> 01:12:40,160
Speaker 1: built up.

1054
01:12:41,280 --> 01:12:44,040
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, some of the Enigma assets are owned

1055
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:53,000
Speaker 2: at by Capital now Universal. Restless went through some ownership

1056
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:56,360
Speaker 2: changes at the end of the nineties, was acquired by

1057
01:12:56,560 --> 01:13:02,720
Speaker 2: New Regency Productions or Non Millshones company. He wanted to

1058
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:06,240
Speaker 2: do more with soundtracks. He wanted to control the soundtracks

1059
01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:10,360
Speaker 2: to his films because he had had some very big soundtracks,

1060
01:13:10,800 --> 01:13:14,800
Speaker 2: like Pretty Woman was a huge album, and he was

1061
01:13:14,920 --> 01:13:18,840
Speaker 2: very keen on music. So he bought Wrestless and we

1062
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:23,440
Speaker 2: did some really interesting soundtracks there. I have great memories

1063
01:13:23,520 --> 01:13:28,240
Speaker 2: of La Confidential. That was a great album. It was

1064
01:13:28,280 --> 01:13:33,439
Speaker 2: absolutely a pleasure working on that project. The director's name

1065
01:13:33,520 --> 01:13:36,479
Speaker 2: just jumped on my head. One of the nicest people

1066
01:13:36,479 --> 01:13:40,519
Speaker 2: I've met my life. He's since passed away, but what

1067
01:13:40,640 --> 01:13:44,800
Speaker 2: a brilliant man. Fight Club was a blast. You know,

1068
01:13:44,880 --> 01:13:50,120
Speaker 2: imagine sitting down and watching rough cut of Fight Club

1069
01:13:50,120 --> 01:13:52,760
Speaker 2: and being asked what you think? Right? So that was

1070
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:56,599
Speaker 2: that was fun. We'd done some soundtracks in the eighties

1071
01:13:57,280 --> 01:14:01,519
Speaker 2: Terminator soundtrack, Return a Living Dead, a few others, but

1072
01:14:01,600 --> 01:14:03,559
Speaker 2: this was on a whole different scale. I mean, you know,

1073
01:14:03,880 --> 01:14:10,800
Speaker 2: new agency was the major Leagues. Eventually that relationship didn't

1074
01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:15,400
Speaker 2: really go anywhere, and again we had another amicable divorce.

1075
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:19,679
Speaker 2: My business partner Wrestless to Regis, and I bought back

1076
01:14:19,720 --> 01:14:23,400
Speaker 2: the assets to Restless and we turned around did a

1077
01:14:23,439 --> 01:14:27,560
Speaker 2: deal with rykod Disc. This is around two thousand and two.

1078
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:32,800
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back in these varying chapters up to

1079
01:14:32,840 --> 01:14:35,320
Speaker 1: your end up to it, including your deal with right Go.

1080
01:14:35,880 --> 01:14:37,480
Speaker 1: Did you have any big paydays?

1081
01:14:38,640 --> 01:14:44,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we actually sold half of Enigma and then

1082
01:14:44,560 --> 01:14:49,920
Speaker 2: the second half to Capital Emi, and that was like

1083
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:53,920
Speaker 2: about the first time I ever really had money in

1084
01:14:53,960 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 2: the bank of any sort. We'd never had big paychecks.

1085
01:14:58,920 --> 01:15:00,799
Speaker 2: We always paid ourselves very modestly.

1086
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: Were those seven figure deals.

1087
01:15:05,760 --> 01:15:09,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to say they. If we'd sold

1088
01:15:09,320 --> 01:15:14,080
Speaker 2: a few years later, we would have got considerably more.

1089
01:15:14,120 --> 01:15:17,519
Speaker 2: The value of independent record labels in like It nineteen

1090
01:15:17,560 --> 01:15:23,600
Speaker 2: eighty nine versus Like nineteen ninety five, hugely different. So

1091
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:25,519
Speaker 2: we missed the run up.

1092
01:15:26,760 --> 01:15:32,960
Speaker 1: Okay, Reiko is started primarily because they have pressing capability

1093
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:35,439
Speaker 1: in Japan when no one can get that, certainly on

1094
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:38,960
Speaker 1: independent label. You know Don Rose is running it. How

1095
01:15:38,960 --> 01:15:41,759
Speaker 1: do you end up selling and running Reicho.

1096
01:15:42,840 --> 01:15:47,360
Speaker 2: Well, Reiko had gone through some changes. I'd been friendly

1097
01:15:47,400 --> 01:15:49,640
Speaker 2: with the Reiko guys from the early days. I was

1098
01:15:49,680 --> 01:15:53,360
Speaker 2: a big fan of theirs. I bought every single Reiko release. Well,

1099
01:15:53,360 --> 01:15:55,240
Speaker 2: I'd buy it if I couldn't convince them to send

1100
01:15:55,280 --> 01:15:58,639
Speaker 2: me a promo copy. And I was just an avid fan.

1101
01:15:58,720 --> 01:16:01,719
Speaker 2: I love them, I love the likeicism, I love the curation.

1102
01:16:04,400 --> 01:16:08,439
Speaker 2: At some point, Reiko took on a lot of debt

1103
01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:13,519
Speaker 2: to acquire the Zappa catalog and to set up a

1104
01:16:13,520 --> 01:16:20,760
Speaker 2: distribution business, and eventually that debt repayment schedule they just

1105
01:16:20,760 --> 01:16:25,839
Speaker 2: couldn't handle. You know, things are happening, Napster was happening,

1106
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:32,640
Speaker 2: and they were forced into you might call it a

1107
01:16:32,680 --> 01:16:37,040
Speaker 2: shotgun wedding with Palm Pictures, And I don't really know

1108
01:16:37,120 --> 01:16:39,640
Speaker 2: the inside story, so maybe it was a friendly engagement.

1109
01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:42,759
Speaker 2: Who knows, one way or another. Palm Pictures in Reicho

1110
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:49,040
Speaker 2: were merged together and that didn't really work, and the

1111
01:16:49,120 --> 01:16:53,920
Speaker 2: people with the money behind it, a private equity group,

1112
01:16:55,360 --> 01:17:00,320
Speaker 2: decided that they would shake things up. Sam Holdsworth was

1113
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:04,439
Speaker 2: put in as a head of Raycho Disc. He came

1114
01:17:04,439 --> 01:17:09,200
Speaker 2: from Billboard, so he knew the music business, but he

1115
01:17:09,240 --> 01:17:11,639
Speaker 2: had been working in private equity for a while, so

1116
01:17:11,680 --> 01:17:14,120
Speaker 2: he kind of bridged the gap between the private equity

1117
01:17:14,200 --> 01:17:18,240
Speaker 2: people and you know, the Rykodisc music people. And I

1118
01:17:18,240 --> 01:17:22,120
Speaker 2: think he should be credited with keeping Reicho alive. It

1119
01:17:22,160 --> 01:17:24,880
Speaker 2: could have easily have been sold for scrap right around

1120
01:17:24,880 --> 01:17:28,080
Speaker 2: that time. He wanted to beef it up, so one

1121
01:17:28,080 --> 01:17:31,040
Speaker 2: of the things he did was by restless and merch

1122
01:17:31,080 --> 01:17:33,880
Speaker 2: it in. You know, Joe and I were looking for

1123
01:17:33,920 --> 01:17:37,040
Speaker 2: a partner at that point, you know, either distributor or

1124
01:17:37,080 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 2: a partner or something a home for Reiko. So it

1125
01:17:40,120 --> 01:17:43,800
Speaker 2: was it was you know, it was very happy with that.

1126
01:17:43,840 --> 01:17:45,360
Speaker 2: We had good years at Rykodisc.

1127
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:47,200
Speaker 1: And how did it end at Reiko?

1128
01:17:48,479 --> 01:17:52,559
Speaker 2: Well, because as private equity owned, private equity owned businesses

1129
01:17:52,600 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 2: are always sold, so we knew there was a fuse

1130
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:59,880
Speaker 2: that had been lit. And the mission was let's make

1131
01:17:59,880 --> 01:18:02,000
Speaker 2: it as much great music as we can, take care

1132
01:18:02,000 --> 01:18:04,840
Speaker 2: of the artists here, and get a good deal when

1133
01:18:04,880 --> 01:18:08,240
Speaker 2: it is sold, and try to preserve you know, what

1134
01:18:08,600 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 2: made recod as special and I do think it was

1135
01:18:11,360 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 2: a very special company. Just have to remember those were

1136
01:18:15,280 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 2: weird times those early years, this decade, record business was

1137
01:18:20,520 --> 01:18:24,120
Speaker 2: shrinking ten percent a year. Retail stores were going bankrupt

1138
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:28,320
Speaker 2: left and right. There were layoffs everywhere, So you were

1139
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:32,679
Speaker 2: navigating turbulent waters running the record label then, and Reiko

1140
01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:36,080
Speaker 2: was not just a label. They had a music publishing company,

1141
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:39,799
Speaker 2: they had a distribution company, they had an international operation

1142
01:18:39,920 --> 01:18:44,160
Speaker 2: based in London though, you know, for an independent, it

1143
01:18:44,280 --> 01:18:46,200
Speaker 2: was a big vertically integrated business.

1144
01:18:47,200 --> 01:18:51,960
Speaker 1: Who is it ultimately sold to again, Warner? Okay, you're

1145
01:18:52,000 --> 01:18:53,760
Speaker 1: out of a job. Where does that leave you?

1146
01:18:55,560 --> 01:19:00,240
Speaker 2: Well, I was offered a job to stay and I

1147
01:19:00,280 --> 01:19:04,919
Speaker 2: thought about it, and you know, Warner is a wonderful company,

1148
01:19:05,120 --> 01:19:09,599
Speaker 2: a legendary company. Warner actually had interest in buying Enigma

1149
01:19:10,240 --> 01:19:14,320
Speaker 2: in the eighties. We were locked into the capital deal

1150
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:19,880
Speaker 2: and you know, we weren't able to go forward with that,

1151
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:23,960
Speaker 2: but you know, that's not the worst thing in the world.

1152
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:28,760
Speaker 2: But I was about that time offered a job to

1153
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:35,200
Speaker 2: run Caroline for EMI, and that looked really interesting to me,

1154
01:19:36,360 --> 01:19:40,080
Speaker 2: and I took that offer. So just really moved across town.

1155
01:19:40,120 --> 01:19:41,680
Speaker 2: I was living in New York at the time, and

1156
01:19:41,720 --> 01:19:44,640
Speaker 2: so it was just shifting a few blocks from the

1157
01:19:44,680 --> 01:19:47,840
Speaker 2: Reicho office to the Caroline office.

1158
01:19:48,040 --> 01:19:49,920
Speaker 1: And how was your experience of Caroline?

1159
01:19:52,640 --> 01:19:58,599
Speaker 2: Both good and weird again. I have a great love

1160
01:19:58,720 --> 01:20:02,840
Speaker 2: for the em My Company, as you know, the whole

1161
01:20:02,920 --> 01:20:08,840
Speaker 2: worldwide organization, Capitol Records, Blue Note, Harlophone. I mean, you

1162
01:20:08,920 --> 01:20:12,120
Speaker 2: go through the history of that company and what they've

1163
01:20:12,120 --> 01:20:15,479
Speaker 2: done in places like France and Germany, and it's an

1164
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:19,280
Speaker 2: amazing history. And so I was very you know, to

1165
01:20:19,280 --> 01:20:22,040
Speaker 2: be running a unity am I I took very seriously

1166
01:20:22,680 --> 01:20:28,439
Speaker 2: and I considered an honor. Caroline was on kind of

1167
01:20:28,479 --> 01:20:33,439
Speaker 2: the decline then companies like Adya, which I had been

1168
01:20:33,439 --> 01:20:38,200
Speaker 2: involved in setting up, and Sony's independent arm Red we're

1169
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:42,080
Speaker 2: kind of eating their lunch. So the mission was to

1170
01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:45,320
Speaker 2: get it back on its feet, get it rolling again.

1171
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:51,600
Speaker 2: We folded the Astroworks label into Caroline, and you know

1172
01:20:51,760 --> 01:20:56,320
Speaker 2: Astworks again, what a great label with chemical brothers, so many,

1173
01:20:56,520 --> 01:20:59,680
Speaker 2: so much good music on Asterworks, and we got the

1174
01:20:59,680 --> 01:21:03,240
Speaker 2: business going again. It was losing considerable amount of money

1175
01:21:03,280 --> 01:21:06,679
Speaker 2: every month when I came in. It was profitable within

1176
01:21:06,800 --> 01:21:13,479
Speaker 2: six months. And then the weirdness started. Right my hands

1177
01:21:13,520 --> 01:21:18,640
Speaker 2: came in. That didn't really work out, and you know,

1178
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:20,519
Speaker 2: the chessboard was getting shook up again.

1179
01:21:22,400 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 1: Did you get pushed to walk? No.

1180
01:21:27,200 --> 01:21:30,040
Speaker 2: I had a very good fortune of being offered a

1181
01:21:30,120 --> 01:21:33,840
Speaker 2: job right around that time. We're good fortunate, so you.

1182
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:37,000
Speaker 1: Go to work with Cole. How did they just call

1183
01:21:37,040 --> 01:21:38,920
Speaker 1: you out of the blue? Do you know Cold? You

1184
01:21:38,960 --> 01:21:39,519
Speaker 1: know Ezrin?

1185
01:21:40,400 --> 01:21:44,639
Speaker 2: Well, I know I know Bob. I first met Ezren

1186
01:21:45,520 --> 01:21:49,920
Speaker 2: when it brought him in to rescue album by Ben

1187
01:21:50,040 --> 01:21:56,680
Speaker 2: Hurricane in the eighties. The producer left to work in

1188
01:21:56,720 --> 01:22:01,639
Speaker 2: another project, and Bob came in and finished the album,

1189
01:22:01,680 --> 01:22:03,960
Speaker 2: did a great job, and I found him to be

1190
01:22:05,520 --> 01:22:10,000
Speaker 2: a very interesting person. You know, you're never bored with

1191
01:22:10,160 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 2: Bob Ezrin, and he's got such a keen mind. So

1192
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:22,000
Speaker 2: we just have that connection. And years later, my brother

1193
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:26,960
Speaker 2: and I and one other partner, we're starting a company

1194
01:22:27,439 --> 01:22:30,200
Speaker 2: that we ended up calling a Enigma Digital. This is

1195
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:33,640
Speaker 2: when I took a couple of year break from Restless,

1196
01:22:34,200 --> 01:22:38,519
Speaker 2: and it was a streaming radio business, but with a

1197
01:22:38,640 --> 01:22:43,360
Speaker 2: community component. Today you would call it a social network.

1198
01:22:43,920 --> 01:22:48,360
Speaker 2: This was in ninety eight and you told Bob about it.

1199
01:22:48,439 --> 01:22:50,640
Speaker 2: He found it very interesting. He joined on as a

1200
01:22:50,680 --> 01:22:54,960
Speaker 2: founding partner. So we did a Enigma Digital for a

1201
01:22:55,000 --> 01:22:58,600
Speaker 2: couple of years. You might be interested to know the

1202
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:04,880
Speaker 2: company that bought Nigma Joel's Clear Channel. That was in

1203
01:23:04,920 --> 01:23:08,479
Speaker 2: around two thousand and one. So you know, we went

1204
01:23:08,479 --> 01:23:11,439
Speaker 2: through that whole dot com thing. We did have a

1205
01:23:11,439 --> 01:23:15,320
Speaker 2: great business. We got the rights to k and A

1206
01:23:15,479 --> 01:23:20,160
Speaker 2: C went off the air. We all the DJs or

1207
01:23:20,200 --> 01:23:23,680
Speaker 2: many of the DJs had started a streaming radio business

1208
01:23:23,720 --> 01:23:26,439
Speaker 2: called Kanac dot Com. We acquired and folded that in

1209
01:23:27,360 --> 01:23:33,200
Speaker 2: and that was a blast. So that's you know, that

1210
01:23:33,360 --> 01:23:38,320
Speaker 2: was my second go round with ezrind. So Bob was

1211
01:23:39,680 --> 01:23:42,559
Speaker 2: running Live Nation Artists, which was just getting off the ground,

1212
01:23:43,240 --> 01:23:48,320
Speaker 2: and it was, you know, under Michael Cole within the

1213
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:52,559
Speaker 2: Live Nation organization. Cole was based in Miami, so Live

1214
01:23:52,680 --> 01:23:56,160
Speaker 2: Nation Artist was in Miami. So Bob said, you know,

1215
01:23:56,240 --> 01:23:59,200
Speaker 2: come down work with me. You don't want to work

1216
01:23:59,200 --> 01:24:01,479
Speaker 2: with guy hands, And you know he was not wrong

1217
01:24:01,520 --> 01:24:06,920
Speaker 2: about that. So I left EMI, moved to Miami and

1218
01:24:07,720 --> 01:24:09,960
Speaker 2: went to work for Live Nation Artists.

1219
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:14,960
Speaker 1: Well, ultimately Repino shuts that down. Where does that leave you?

1220
01:24:16,760 --> 01:24:20,680
Speaker 2: Well, without a job, And that wasn't very long and

1221
01:24:20,760 --> 01:24:27,719
Speaker 2: it's you know, regrets aren't really useful, and I don't

1222
01:24:27,840 --> 01:24:30,200
Speaker 2: tend to dwell on things, but Live Nation Artists could

1223
01:24:30,200 --> 01:24:33,800
Speaker 2: have been really great. One of the first things we

1224
01:24:33,840 --> 01:24:38,559
Speaker 2: did was sign Zach Brown. Zach Brown band. It is

1225
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:42,240
Speaker 2: seven year old rights deal with Zach Brown band, and

1226
01:24:42,680 --> 01:24:45,479
Speaker 2: we had that first album and we knew it was

1227
01:24:45,560 --> 01:24:50,160
Speaker 2: a monster, and we knew he was a monster. And

1228
01:24:52,120 --> 01:24:55,760
Speaker 2: you know, Bob and I actually continued working with Zach

1229
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:59,799
Speaker 2: but outside Live Nation artists. So it was a great idea.

1230
01:25:00,080 --> 01:25:01,720
Speaker 2: Maybe it was ahead of its time. I don't know,

1231
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:05,479
Speaker 2: but I'm I have some sadness when I think about that.

1232
01:25:05,520 --> 01:25:07,960
Speaker 2: It could have been a really special company. I mean,

1233
01:25:08,040 --> 01:25:13,320
Speaker 2: Live Nations resources are immense then, they're even more immense now.

1234
01:25:14,080 --> 01:25:18,120
Speaker 2: So having, you know, the idea to use something like

1235
01:25:18,200 --> 01:25:24,559
Speaker 2: Live Nation for an artist development tool is was. Yeah.

1236
01:25:24,720 --> 01:25:27,280
Speaker 2: I wish we could have gone on with that. So

1237
01:25:28,479 --> 01:25:29,400
Speaker 2: the one that got away.

1238
01:25:31,280 --> 01:25:32,519
Speaker 1: So where do you go from there?

1239
01:25:33,920 --> 01:25:39,800
Speaker 2: Nashville. I met a couple of people through the Zach

1240
01:25:39,840 --> 01:25:46,120
Speaker 2: Brown deal. Keith Stegaal a great producer who produced Zach

1241
01:25:46,200 --> 01:25:53,320
Speaker 2: Brown and you know they were he was based in Nashville,

1242
01:25:53,960 --> 01:25:59,080
Speaker 2: his business partner Alan Kates. So Ezra moved to Nashville.

1243
01:25:59,120 --> 01:26:02,080
Speaker 2: I moved to Nashville, formed a business with Keista Gall

1244
01:26:02,160 --> 01:26:06,840
Speaker 2: and Alan Kates, and you know, we were doing the

1245
01:26:06,920 --> 01:26:11,519
Speaker 2: radio promotion for Zach Brown country radio. We had eight

1246
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:16,560
Speaker 2: number one hits. We helped Zach do deal with Atlantic,

1247
01:26:18,400 --> 01:26:22,559
Speaker 2: which was very successful. We signed a couple other bands,

1248
01:26:24,080 --> 01:26:26,200
Speaker 2: none of which really hit all that big. We did

1249
01:26:26,200 --> 01:26:30,800
Speaker 2: an Alice Cooper project, which was fun, but eventually I

1250
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:34,240
Speaker 2: got a little tired of it. It was probably too

1251
01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:38,120
Speaker 2: many cooks in the kitchen. We had other partners, so

1252
01:26:38,640 --> 01:26:42,080
Speaker 2: Ezern drifted away from it. I left. I moved back

1253
01:26:42,120 --> 01:26:46,200
Speaker 2: to Colorado. But it was fun. I really enjoyed being

1254
01:26:46,200 --> 01:26:49,960
Speaker 2: in Nashville. And you know, now, seeing what Nashville has

1255
01:26:50,000 --> 01:26:53,600
Speaker 2: become and the music business is not a surprise to me.

1256
01:26:54,520 --> 01:26:55,080
Speaker 2: I felt it.

1257
01:26:55,120 --> 01:27:00,360
Speaker 1: Then, Okay, you said, went back to Colorado. When had

1258
01:27:00,360 --> 01:27:01,440
Speaker 1: you been in Colorado?

1259
01:27:02,000 --> 01:27:09,080
Speaker 2: Well, when Enigma, when Restless split from Enigma and the

1260
01:27:09,560 --> 01:27:16,640
Speaker 2: capital of my deal ended, I moved to Durango area.

1261
01:27:16,800 --> 01:27:17,840
Speaker 1: Why Durngo.

1262
01:27:18,960 --> 01:27:22,160
Speaker 2: I just liked Durango. I visited there and I just

1263
01:27:22,240 --> 01:27:27,080
Speaker 2: loved it. I burnt out a little on California. I

1264
01:27:27,120 --> 01:27:30,920
Speaker 2: grew up in California, loved growing up in California, but

1265
01:27:31,080 --> 01:27:34,920
Speaker 2: I wanted to do something different. I had a fax machine,

1266
01:27:35,520 --> 01:27:41,200
Speaker 2: I had America Online email. I had a twelve hundred

1267
01:27:41,200 --> 01:27:45,840
Speaker 2: Botom modem. I could work remote. I would drive to

1268
01:27:45,960 --> 01:27:48,800
Speaker 2: La oh, about once a month, maybe stay a week.

1269
01:27:49,479 --> 01:27:51,559
Speaker 2: Rest time I was on the fax machine, the phone,

1270
01:27:51,640 --> 01:27:58,599
Speaker 2: or on America Online email, so I know, early remote working.

1271
01:28:06,680 --> 01:28:09,679
Speaker 1: Okay. So, for that period of time between bigger picture

1272
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:13,000
Speaker 1: and then getting into the pressing, you're involved in non

1273
01:28:13,120 --> 01:28:16,519
Speaker 1: music business. Did you basically say I don't want to

1274
01:28:16,560 --> 01:28:19,160
Speaker 1: work in the music business, or there's no opportunities in

1275
01:28:19,200 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 1: the music business, or I'd rather do something different. Uh.

1276
01:28:26,240 --> 01:28:29,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like I should do something different. I'd

1277
01:28:29,000 --> 01:28:34,799
Speaker 2: also felt a little disenfranchised. You know, I've never stopped

1278
01:28:34,840 --> 01:28:39,639
Speaker 2: following Billboard magazine. You know, I look at the Hits

1279
01:28:40,080 --> 01:28:43,560
Speaker 2: website all the time and stay in touch with a

1280
01:28:43,600 --> 01:28:46,559
Speaker 2: lot of my music business friends. I just felt out

1281
01:28:46,560 --> 01:28:50,519
Speaker 2: of touch with what music people were interested in, and probably,

1282
01:28:50,560 --> 01:28:53,040
Speaker 2: looking back, I wasn't looking hard enough. So maybe I

1283
01:28:53,080 --> 01:28:55,559
Speaker 2: was just ready for a break. But I'd look at

1284
01:28:55,600 --> 01:28:58,760
Speaker 2: the music that was selling and just think I never

1285
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:05,720
Speaker 2: would have picked that. I don't understand that, So I

1286
01:29:05,760 --> 01:29:10,160
Speaker 2: think I doing it over again. I would probably have

1287
01:29:10,160 --> 01:29:12,600
Speaker 2: stayed in the business. But you know, I had a

1288
01:29:12,680 --> 01:29:16,000
Speaker 2: nice little vacation for music business, and what had my

1289
01:29:16,040 --> 01:29:18,400
Speaker 2: appetite to get back in and.

1290
01:29:18,360 --> 01:29:21,000
Speaker 1: Of the other enterprises you were involved in any of

1291
01:29:21,040 --> 01:29:22,080
Speaker 1: them successful.

1292
01:29:24,400 --> 01:29:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was managing well the leading cannabis businesses in Colorado.

1293
01:29:30,840 --> 01:29:37,400
Speaker 2: That's respectable business here in the state, and that was interesting.

1294
01:29:37,439 --> 01:29:39,919
Speaker 2: I find a lot of the personalities in the cannabis

1295
01:29:39,920 --> 01:29:44,920
Speaker 2: business similar to people I worked with in the music business,

1296
01:29:46,520 --> 01:29:49,519
Speaker 2: and it was something I would just remark upon all

1297
01:29:49,560 --> 01:29:52,920
Speaker 2: the time, the same kind of personality. It's kind of

1298
01:29:52,960 --> 01:29:57,360
Speaker 2: a wildcat. If you think of an oil wildcatter. You

1299
01:29:57,439 --> 01:29:58,760
Speaker 2: have to be a little insane to go in the

1300
01:29:58,800 --> 01:30:01,360
Speaker 2: music business. Yet to be a little insane to go

1301
01:30:01,439 --> 01:30:02,679
Speaker 2: into the cannabis business.

1302
01:30:02,960 --> 01:30:04,200
Speaker 1: How did you actually get in?

1303
01:30:07,280 --> 01:30:11,040
Speaker 2: My brother was when he left the music business. He

1304
01:30:11,120 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 2: was at Hollywood Records after Enigma, working Peter Paterno, and

1305
01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:20,240
Speaker 2: then he left music business after Hollywood, and he is

1306
01:30:20,320 --> 01:30:25,559
Speaker 2: a leading executive in California cannabis business. And he made

1307
01:30:25,600 --> 01:30:29,720
Speaker 2: some introduction. He knew someone in Colorado looking for a

1308
01:30:31,120 --> 01:30:34,000
Speaker 2: senior executive to help turn around a business and recommended me.

1309
01:30:34,720 --> 01:30:36,800
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people who lost a lot

1310
01:30:36,840 --> 01:30:44,679
Speaker 1: of money in the cannabis business. What was your experience, Well,

1311
01:30:47,040 --> 01:30:51,400
Speaker 1: I never had much personal capital in the business. Well, yeah,

1312
01:30:51,439 --> 01:30:54,000
Speaker 1: as I say, I'm more talking about your running a business.

1313
01:30:54,439 --> 01:30:57,679
Speaker 1: What they always found was there always a heavier player

1314
01:30:57,720 --> 01:31:01,120
Speaker 1: who came in. I know a couple of exceptions. What

1315
01:31:01,200 --> 01:31:03,320
Speaker 1: was the experience you had with the company.

1316
01:31:03,000 --> 01:31:06,280
Speaker 2: You worked for? Well, I worked with two. One was

1317
01:31:06,760 --> 01:31:12,839
Speaker 2: actually a supplier of materials grow Materials, a wholesale supplier

1318
01:31:13,360 --> 01:31:19,519
Speaker 2: with some retail outlets that sold to private growers. It

1319
01:31:19,600 --> 01:31:22,519
Speaker 2: did really well and it was sold for a pretty

1320
01:31:22,520 --> 01:31:25,599
Speaker 2: good amount of money. And then the retailer I worked with,

1321
01:31:27,000 --> 01:31:30,599
Speaker 2: which also had its own grow operation, is the number

1322
01:31:30,640 --> 01:31:36,400
Speaker 2: one store in Boulder and maybe the first, first or

1323
01:31:36,479 --> 01:31:42,599
Speaker 2: second legal cannabis store in Colorado and locally a legend.

1324
01:31:43,840 --> 01:31:47,800
Speaker 2: So and David Crosby was a customer whenever he was

1325
01:31:47,840 --> 01:31:48,240
Speaker 2: in town.

1326
01:31:49,720 --> 01:31:51,720
Speaker 1: Someone sitting at home they say they want to get

1327
01:31:51,720 --> 01:31:55,439
Speaker 1: into the cannabis business. Colorado I think literally the first

1328
01:31:55,520 --> 01:31:59,040
Speaker 1: to legalize it. What would you advise them? Opportunities or

1329
01:31:59,080 --> 01:31:59,679
Speaker 1: stay out?

1330
01:32:00,920 --> 01:32:04,320
Speaker 2: Now I would say stay out. The opportunities are gone.

1331
01:32:05,360 --> 01:32:09,600
Speaker 2: Some things have changed. When Colorado was the first to

1332
01:32:09,640 --> 01:32:16,840
Speaker 2: have recreational in California was earlier with medical, there was

1333
01:32:16,880 --> 01:32:19,720
Speaker 2: such thing as cannabis tourism. People would come here for

1334
01:32:19,760 --> 01:32:23,160
Speaker 2: a weekend to buy a legal pot, you know, smoke

1335
01:32:23,200 --> 01:32:26,800
Speaker 2: a legal joint get high, and there were companies that

1336
01:32:26,840 --> 01:32:33,200
Speaker 2: would do cannabis tours. You'd visit a grow. Now that

1337
01:32:34,000 --> 01:32:37,479
Speaker 2: majority of states have at least medical cannabis tourism is

1338
01:32:37,479 --> 01:32:41,160
Speaker 2: not a thing you would. Also, you know, people don't

1339
01:32:41,520 --> 01:32:45,240
Speaker 2: drive from New Mexico to buy cannabis anymore. There's legal

1340
01:32:45,280 --> 01:32:53,320
Speaker 2: cannabis in New Mexico, there's legal cannabis in Arizona. So

1341
01:32:54,360 --> 01:32:57,120
Speaker 2: some of the business has gone away that came from

1342
01:32:57,160 --> 01:33:02,599
Speaker 2: out of state people visiting Colorado and the market there's

1343
01:33:02,720 --> 01:33:06,800
Speaker 2: too many dispensaries and the market is resetting itself. Some

1344
01:33:06,920 --> 01:33:10,320
Speaker 2: of the dispensaries are going out of business. You know, markets

1345
01:33:10,320 --> 01:33:14,000
Speaker 2: always find their level. They're equal every point, and Colorado's

1346
01:33:14,040 --> 01:33:19,000
Speaker 2: doing that. We don't have quite the problems that with

1347
01:33:19,200 --> 01:33:23,639
Speaker 2: enforcement that say California does, where California has more illegal

1348
01:33:23,680 --> 01:33:28,640
Speaker 2: dispensaries than legal, creating all sorts of problems there. That

1349
01:33:28,920 --> 01:33:31,080
Speaker 2: is relatively under control in Colorado.

1350
01:33:33,400 --> 01:33:36,759
Speaker 1: So how does it end with the cannabis business getting

1351
01:33:36,800 --> 01:33:39,640
Speaker 1: into the business now of pressing and labeled.

1352
01:33:40,439 --> 01:33:45,960
Speaker 2: Well, I just you know, serve my time and said

1353
01:33:46,280 --> 01:33:50,280
Speaker 2: I'd like to leave. I'm going to go start making

1354
01:33:50,600 --> 01:33:53,559
Speaker 2: final records and I kind of overlapped the business for

1355
01:33:53,600 --> 01:33:56,360
Speaker 2: a little while because they needed me to do some

1356
01:33:56,400 --> 01:34:02,719
Speaker 2: things at the retailer. But I wrapped up my business

1357
01:34:02,720 --> 01:34:04,240
Speaker 2: there and got going in Vinyl.

1358
01:34:05,840 --> 01:34:10,800
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about all these moves living in Poland.

1359
01:34:11,720 --> 01:34:14,439
Speaker 1: Do you have a significant other, have you been married,

1360
01:34:14,439 --> 01:34:15,360
Speaker 1: do you have children?

1361
01:34:17,720 --> 01:34:23,320
Speaker 2: Well, yes to all those questions. I was married first

1362
01:34:23,360 --> 01:34:28,320
Speaker 2: time in the mid eighties. For about a year. I

1363
01:34:28,439 --> 01:34:31,439
Speaker 2: was working probably one hundred hour weeks, never taking a

1364
01:34:31,479 --> 01:34:35,120
Speaker 2: day off, never taking a vacation. Then, so you know,

1365
01:34:35,840 --> 01:34:42,360
Speaker 2: I never give that marriage a chance. Ended relatively amicably,

1366
01:34:43,000 --> 01:34:48,120
Speaker 2: no kids. Then I was in a relationship later marriage

1367
01:34:48,800 --> 01:34:54,479
Speaker 2: for thirty years till twenty eighteen. My wife passed away

1368
01:34:54,520 --> 01:34:59,559
Speaker 2: in a car crash. We have a twenty year old

1369
01:34:59,640 --> 01:35:03,799
Speaker 2: daughter to durn twenty one, who is delightfully a huge

1370
01:35:03,880 --> 01:35:09,120
Speaker 2: music fan. Love going to shows with her. She's got

1371
01:35:09,200 --> 01:35:12,640
Speaker 2: great musical tastes, so you know that's a delight.

1372
01:35:14,120 --> 01:35:18,519
Speaker 1: Okay, we are at the age where spouses of dying

1373
01:35:18,560 --> 01:35:20,599
Speaker 1: of cancer. I have some very close friends, even when

1374
01:35:20,600 --> 01:35:24,640
Speaker 1: in the Denver area. This was an accident. You know,

1375
01:35:24,680 --> 01:35:28,479
Speaker 1: it's a touchy subject, but how does one cope with

1376
01:35:28,600 --> 01:35:31,120
Speaker 1: this and how does one March forward. A lot of

1377
01:35:31,120 --> 01:35:33,960
Speaker 1: people say, oh, so sad, but then they move on.

1378
01:35:34,640 --> 01:35:37,040
Speaker 1: Some people go to grief groups. Some people never get

1379
01:35:37,040 --> 01:35:39,800
Speaker 1: over it. What has been your experience and what would

1380
01:35:39,800 --> 01:35:42,760
Speaker 1: you give insight to people who unfortunately might be in

1381
01:35:42,760 --> 01:35:43,520
Speaker 1: this situation.

1382
01:35:45,240 --> 01:35:48,680
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it leaves the hall in your life, but

1383
01:35:49,000 --> 01:35:53,760
Speaker 2: life goes on. And that sounds tripe, but it's true.

1384
01:35:54,000 --> 01:35:57,720
Speaker 2: You can never bring that person back. The fact that

1385
01:35:57,840 --> 01:36:01,519
Speaker 2: I have a daughter with my wife is you know,

1386
01:36:02,040 --> 01:36:05,800
Speaker 2: a reminder of the life I had with her, and

1387
01:36:05,920 --> 01:36:10,160
Speaker 2: I think I remember the good things. Probably harder on

1388
01:36:10,240 --> 01:36:15,680
Speaker 2: my daughter than on me. She was thirteen when her

1389
01:36:15,680 --> 01:36:20,479
Speaker 2: mother passed, so you know, that's a rough time for

1390
01:36:20,560 --> 01:36:25,120
Speaker 2: a teenager with a normal you know, with two parents, right,

1391
01:36:25,479 --> 01:36:28,720
Speaker 2: losing one that was rough, and then she had to

1392
01:36:28,720 --> 01:36:30,600
Speaker 2: go through the whole COVID thing where she was in

1393
01:36:30,680 --> 01:36:35,000
Speaker 2: high school. So she's a great kid. She's turning twenty one.

1394
01:36:35,040 --> 01:36:38,760
Speaker 2: I shouldn't call her kid, but it was hard on her,

1395
01:36:38,800 --> 01:36:42,200
Speaker 2: but she's come through. I think what helped us is

1396
01:36:42,760 --> 01:36:47,960
Speaker 2: we have a wonderful, supporting family. Supportive family, family's very close,

1397
01:36:48,160 --> 01:36:50,960
Speaker 2: you know, we're spread out all over the country, and

1398
01:36:51,120 --> 01:36:53,120
Speaker 2: very supportive friends. That makes the difference.

1399
01:36:55,520 --> 01:36:58,799
Speaker 1: A while back, you talked about being partners with somebody

1400
01:36:58,800 --> 01:37:00,920
Speaker 1: in Boulder and a radio business. Can you tell me

1401
01:37:00,920 --> 01:37:01,280
Speaker 1: about that?

1402
01:37:02,000 --> 01:37:05,960
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that was Andy Zicklund, who is now my

1403
01:37:06,280 --> 01:37:11,160
Speaker 2: partner in the manufacturing company, pressing business and the two labels,

1404
01:37:11,640 --> 01:37:18,160
Speaker 2: along with Fred Goldring. Amazing Radio is an English streaming

1405
01:37:18,400 --> 01:37:25,160
Speaker 2: radio business with DJs that plays primarily unsigned music. And

1406
01:37:26,840 --> 01:37:30,879
Speaker 2: I was first approached to set up Amazing Radio America.

1407
01:37:32,200 --> 01:37:40,240
Speaker 2: I eventually passed. Andy took the job, and Andy ran it

1408
01:37:40,320 --> 01:37:42,280
Speaker 2: for a while I think did a real good job,

1409
01:37:42,280 --> 01:37:46,360
Speaker 2: and eventually he decided he would rather do the manufacturing

1410
01:37:46,400 --> 01:37:50,360
Speaker 2: business pressing business with me, and he signed his position

1411
01:37:50,479 --> 01:37:54,320
Speaker 2: Amazing Radio. It's still going. It's a really interesting business.

1412
01:37:56,160 --> 01:37:59,000
Speaker 2: It's a great way to discover new music. A lot

1413
01:37:59,000 --> 01:38:02,080
Speaker 2: of really interesting artists have come through that, like du

1414
01:38:02,160 --> 01:38:04,720
Speaker 2: A Loupa. Anymore.

1415
01:38:05,880 --> 01:38:10,719
Speaker 1: So, you live in Denver, that's a very active music market.

1416
01:38:11,000 --> 01:38:13,639
Speaker 1: For those people not Denver savvy, what are they missing?

1417
01:38:16,000 --> 01:38:20,000
Speaker 2: It's a great life here. I live downtown. I can

1418
01:38:20,080 --> 01:38:24,880
Speaker 2: walk to several music venues. I can walk to Union

1419
01:38:24,920 --> 01:38:28,880
Speaker 2: train station, take a twenty minute ride to the airport.

1420
01:38:29,720 --> 01:38:35,960
Speaker 2: Great restaurants in the neighborhood, most touring bands, but a

1421
01:38:36,040 --> 01:38:41,000
Speaker 2: Denver stop on the tour. There's some great venues. Everyone

1422
01:38:41,080 --> 01:38:44,040
Speaker 2: knows Red Rocks, of course, but there's lots of other

1423
01:38:44,080 --> 01:38:50,640
Speaker 2: great venues here. You know, it helps the You know,

1424
01:38:52,360 --> 01:38:55,760
Speaker 2: Denver was early in booking bands like The Doors and

1425
01:38:55,800 --> 01:38:58,920
Speaker 2: the Jefferson Airplane, very early days. So I think it

1426
01:38:58,960 --> 01:39:02,320
Speaker 2: gave the town a taste for live rock and roll

1427
01:39:03,240 --> 01:39:06,960
Speaker 2: and new and exciting music very early on. That's never

1428
01:39:07,040 --> 01:39:10,520
Speaker 2: gone away. And part of that was there was a

1429
01:39:10,600 --> 01:39:13,800
Speaker 2: legendary tour promoter here. His name just jumped out as

1430
01:39:13,840 --> 01:39:17,000
Speaker 2: my head, but Live Nation acquired his business.

1431
01:39:18,880 --> 01:39:23,320
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think you're referencing Chuck Oh yeah, Chuck Morris.

1432
01:39:23,080 --> 01:39:27,599
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Chuck Morris. People like Chuck Morris leave a legacy,

1433
01:39:27,600 --> 01:39:30,800
Speaker 2: and the legacy is a lot of music fans here,

1434
01:39:32,840 --> 01:39:35,719
Speaker 2: a lot of people that live music's part of their life.

1435
01:39:37,360 --> 01:39:39,760
Speaker 1: When you were with a Nigmahnu in La, it was

1436
01:39:39,800 --> 01:39:42,759
Speaker 1: a free flowing let's call it, not a free flowing party,

1437
01:39:42,760 --> 01:39:45,840
Speaker 1: but a free flowing high school. Everybody was in La.

1438
01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:48,479
Speaker 1: There was also a business in New York. You're living

1439
01:39:48,520 --> 01:39:53,120
Speaker 1: in Denver now, a are you basically saying you can

1440
01:39:53,200 --> 01:39:56,479
Speaker 1: live anywhere or b are you the type of person

1441
01:39:56,479 --> 01:39:59,680
Speaker 1: who's in your business but tends not to integrate with

1442
01:39:59,840 --> 01:40:01,040
Speaker 1: X terminal businesses.

1443
01:40:05,280 --> 01:40:09,880
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how to answer that. Certainly, in nineteen

1444
01:40:09,920 --> 01:40:15,360
Speaker 2: eighty one, I couldn't have run Enigma from Denver. I mean,

1445
01:40:15,360 --> 01:40:19,120
Speaker 2: there have been really good independent labels from places like

1446
01:40:19,200 --> 01:40:26,920
Speaker 2: Denver forever, but you know, having so many of the

1447
01:40:27,000 --> 01:40:30,639
Speaker 2: bands based in LA and if they weren't from LA,

1448
01:40:30,760 --> 01:40:37,840
Speaker 2: they were like poison moving from Pennsylvania to LA. But yeah,

1449
01:40:38,000 --> 01:40:41,639
Speaker 2: look at Minneapolis labels like Twin Tone helped grow that scene.

1450
01:40:42,400 --> 01:40:45,240
Speaker 2: So I don't know. It's hard to say. I do

1451
01:40:45,360 --> 01:40:49,559
Speaker 2: have to travel a lot, but you know, I have

1452
01:40:49,640 --> 01:40:53,200
Speaker 2: no issue working from Denver. It's a worldwide business now.

1453
01:40:53,200 --> 01:40:56,160
Speaker 2: And one of the most fascinating things for me is

1454
01:40:56,240 --> 01:41:00,360
Speaker 2: to look at the Spotify data and Apple Music data

1455
01:41:00,400 --> 01:41:06,120
Speaker 2: where you know, I love seeing how many countries listened

1456
01:41:06,120 --> 01:41:09,880
Speaker 2: to someone like Tony eleven. Tony eleven album is about

1457
01:41:10,400 --> 01:41:12,960
Speaker 2: two months old. People in one hundred and ninety six

1458
01:41:13,040 --> 01:41:16,880
Speaker 2: countries have listened to it. Wow, That's that's mind blowing me.

1459
01:41:16,960 --> 01:41:19,479
Speaker 2: And that's not unusual. I think you can get up

1460
01:41:19,479 --> 01:41:21,759
Speaker 2: to two hundred and five. So we've got a couple

1461
01:41:22,080 --> 01:41:27,000
Speaker 2: to go. You know, music business didn't used to be

1462
01:41:27,120 --> 01:41:32,799
Speaker 2: that way. I saw thirty seconds from Mars just played

1463
01:41:33,040 --> 01:41:39,680
Speaker 2: like the former Republic of Georgia Kazakhstan. Who's Bekistan on

1464
01:41:39,720 --> 01:41:43,800
Speaker 2: a tour? That's just that's just mind blowing to me

1465
01:41:43,880 --> 01:41:50,519
Speaker 2: because for the longest time, the music business was North America, Japan, Australia, UK,

1466
01:41:51,160 --> 01:41:54,680
Speaker 2: a couple of European countries, and it is truly a

1467
01:41:54,680 --> 01:42:00,479
Speaker 2: global business. Now there are music fans everywhere, so I

1468
01:42:00,479 --> 01:42:04,000
Speaker 2: think it's less important where you are because the business

1469
01:42:04,040 --> 01:42:07,160
Speaker 2: is everywhere and the bands are everywhere. We've signed a

1470
01:42:07,160 --> 01:42:15,280
Speaker 2: band from Belarus who are fantastic, you know, you know,

1471
01:42:15,280 --> 01:42:17,640
Speaker 2: who would have thought you'd find great music in Belarus.

1472
01:42:17,640 --> 01:42:22,479
Speaker 2: It's there and I'm, you know, very curious to see

1473
01:42:22,479 --> 01:42:25,759
Speaker 2: what else pops on. I was at a music festival

1474
01:42:25,800 --> 01:42:30,120
Speaker 2: in Spain recently and I saw a band from Tehran

1475
01:42:31,320 --> 01:42:36,920
Speaker 2: who were tremendous instrumental band. They sound like something that

1476
01:42:36,960 --> 01:42:39,200
Speaker 2: could be on the ECM label, except for they also

1477
01:42:39,320 --> 01:42:44,920
Speaker 2: covered a King Crimson song. Again, who would have thought

1478
01:42:44,920 --> 01:42:48,240
Speaker 2: that you would hear music like that coming out of Iran.

1479
01:42:48,479 --> 01:42:54,320
Speaker 2: So if there's anything that keeps me interested in music,

1480
01:42:54,400 --> 01:42:57,439
Speaker 2: it's you don't know what's coming next. All you know

1481
01:42:57,560 --> 01:42:59,519
Speaker 2: is something really interesting is going to come next. You

1482
01:42:59,560 --> 01:43:01,599
Speaker 2: have no idea where it's going to come from, and

1483
01:43:01,640 --> 01:43:02,599
Speaker 2: it's going to be exciting.

1484
01:43:03,800 --> 01:43:07,320
Speaker 1: Okay, we're of the similar vintage. So in the pre

1485
01:43:07,439 --> 01:43:10,200
Speaker 1: internet era, we would look at the chart. We literally

1486
01:43:10,280 --> 01:43:13,120
Speaker 1: knew every record. We might not have heard it, but

1487
01:43:13,160 --> 01:43:15,800
Speaker 1: we knew it. We knew the story. Today you can

1488
01:43:15,840 --> 01:43:18,240
Speaker 1: look at the Spotify top fifty and only know a

1489
01:43:18,280 --> 01:43:21,559
Speaker 1: couple of records. Do you feel, as I say, you're

1490
01:43:21,600 --> 01:43:24,599
Speaker 1: in your lane because you come from an era where

1491
01:43:24,600 --> 01:43:26,840
Speaker 1: you're working a record stores that had everything, they have

1492
01:43:27,080 --> 01:43:31,200
Speaker 1: three trades? Do you try to be comprehensive? Do you

1493
01:43:31,240 --> 01:43:34,600
Speaker 1: think it's impossible and do your best? Or and you

1494
01:43:34,640 --> 01:43:35,880
Speaker 1: say that's just not what I do?

1495
01:43:37,520 --> 01:43:41,760
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you can't keep up on everything. You know,

1496
01:43:42,479 --> 01:43:45,479
Speaker 2: every Friday, you know, part of my routine on Friday

1497
01:43:45,640 --> 01:43:49,360
Speaker 2: is to check the new music on Spotify and Apple.

1498
01:43:50,120 --> 01:43:52,600
Speaker 2: You know, see what the algorithms think I should be

1499
01:43:52,640 --> 01:43:55,160
Speaker 2: interested in. You know, I do come across some stuff.

1500
01:43:55,200 --> 01:43:57,680
Speaker 2: Then I come across some stuff. I go, why is

1501
01:43:57,720 --> 01:44:00,840
Speaker 2: this being recommended to me? This is horror? But I

1502
01:44:00,960 --> 01:44:03,080
Speaker 2: come across some amazing stuff that I've never heard of.

1503
01:44:05,600 --> 01:44:09,120
Speaker 2: I discover more new music. However're just friends, you know,

1504
01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:12,080
Speaker 2: pinging me saying hey, check this out. That's probably my

1505
01:44:12,240 --> 01:44:20,560
Speaker 2: number one music discovery source. But I do love the Internet,

1506
01:44:20,080 --> 01:44:22,719
Speaker 2: and you know the tool gives you to discover music,

1507
01:44:23,320 --> 01:44:28,599
Speaker 2: you know, discocks. I'm constantly checking discogs, you know, on

1508
01:44:28,640 --> 01:44:30,840
Speaker 2: some of the re issues we do. It's like, let's

1509
01:44:30,880 --> 01:44:33,360
Speaker 2: go check discogs. How many people have this in the collection,

1510
01:44:33,880 --> 01:44:35,960
Speaker 2: how many people are looking at it? What's the resale

1511
01:44:36,080 --> 01:44:40,760
Speaker 2: value this? You know, what a great tool. I think

1512
01:44:40,800 --> 01:44:44,200
Speaker 2: back when my record collecting days. I used to have

1513
01:44:44,240 --> 01:44:48,160
Speaker 2: a list fold, a piece of paper that I would

1514
01:44:48,520 --> 01:44:50,479
Speaker 2: keep with me when I would go to record stores,

1515
01:44:50,840 --> 01:44:54,200
Speaker 2: when i'd go to Errand's or Tower, you know, or

1516
01:44:54,360 --> 01:44:58,000
Speaker 2: movie disc or Rano Westwood, and I've had written down

1517
01:44:58,080 --> 01:45:01,040
Speaker 2: records I was looking for, and there were records it

1518
01:45:01,120 --> 01:45:06,479
Speaker 2: took me two years to find. Oh yeah, and that

1519
01:45:06,720 --> 01:45:09,880
Speaker 2: was when you would find it. What a feeling, What

1520
01:45:09,960 --> 01:45:12,960
Speaker 2: an endorphin rush? Oh my god, I can't believe I'm

1521
01:45:12,960 --> 01:45:15,880
Speaker 2: holding this in my hand. Or I would trade. I

1522
01:45:15,960 --> 01:45:19,360
Speaker 2: used to look at the trouser press ads and trade

1523
01:45:19,520 --> 01:45:24,840
Speaker 2: records with people. I once got a stash of New

1524
01:45:24,920 --> 01:45:28,719
Speaker 2: Zealand pressings of Split Ends records when the New Zealand

1525
01:45:28,720 --> 01:45:32,240
Speaker 2: pressings were different and I bought ten of each just

1526
01:45:32,280 --> 01:45:37,840
Speaker 2: to trade. You know. Now you just sit down at

1527
01:45:37,840 --> 01:45:41,600
Speaker 2: your computer type away, you know, and like magic, it

1528
01:45:41,680 --> 01:45:45,439
Speaker 2: pops up. It's a different experience. I can't say it's

1529
01:45:45,479 --> 01:45:48,840
Speaker 2: as rewarding as finding something you look for for two years,

1530
01:45:49,320 --> 01:45:51,920
Speaker 2: but you know, there's something to be said for instant gratification.

1531
01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:56,720
Speaker 1: So you've had a very successful career. Why do you

1532
01:45:56,760 --> 01:45:57,599
Speaker 1: think you were.

1533
01:45:57,479 --> 01:46:02,120
Speaker 2: Successful right place, right time?

1534
01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:06,840
Speaker 1: Okay, there are certain people. You meet them, they've been

1535
01:46:06,880 --> 01:46:10,040
Speaker 1: successful in the music business. They could have been successful

1536
01:46:10,080 --> 01:46:13,800
Speaker 1: doing anything that was their personality. So you've worked in

1537
01:46:13,840 --> 01:46:16,760
Speaker 1: other verticals and you've worked through different eras in the

1538
01:46:16,840 --> 01:46:20,519
Speaker 1: music business. You must have some special sauce that you

1539
01:46:20,640 --> 01:46:23,360
Speaker 1: bring to it. Because there are people who get lucky.

1540
01:46:23,360 --> 01:46:26,280
Speaker 1: They get lucky ones, whether they're financially rewarded or not.

1541
01:46:26,760 --> 01:46:33,320
Speaker 1: They don't continue to go decade after decade.

1542
01:46:33,560 --> 01:46:36,439
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. Look first of our right team,

1543
01:46:36,520 --> 01:46:40,840
Speaker 2: right place, you know, starting an independent record label, just

1544
01:46:40,880 --> 01:46:46,120
Speaker 2: when independent music is exploding in LA and there's great

1545
01:46:46,200 --> 01:46:49,439
Speaker 2: bands and who are not immediately getting signed by major

1546
01:46:49,520 --> 01:46:55,200
Speaker 2: labels that you can sign and that's good timing. Yeah.

1547
01:46:55,800 --> 01:46:59,519
Speaker 2: I would say having good business partners is if I

1548
01:46:59,560 --> 01:47:02,400
Speaker 2: have a sick, that's it. I have good business partners.

1549
01:47:03,320 --> 01:47:05,280
Speaker 2: I've never had a business that I didn't have great

1550
01:47:05,320 --> 01:47:10,480
Speaker 2: business partners. At Enigma was my brother Wes Jim Martone

1551
01:47:11,240 --> 01:47:14,360
Speaker 2: who went on to Trauma Records where he was very

1552
01:47:14,400 --> 01:47:20,679
Speaker 2: successful at Restless Joe Regis. I worked with really great

1553
01:47:20,680 --> 01:47:23,640
Speaker 2: people at Raiko disc and at Caroline of course Live

1554
01:47:23,760 --> 01:47:28,599
Speaker 2: Nation Artists, working with Bob Ezrin and now with Fred

1555
01:47:28,640 --> 01:47:33,200
Speaker 2: Goldring and Andy Zicklin. So I've never done anything by myself.

1556
01:47:33,560 --> 01:47:35,200
Speaker 2: I've always had a great business partner.

1557
01:47:37,160 --> 01:47:42,360
Speaker 1: Okay, it's hard to tell just talking to you. Are

1558
01:47:42,400 --> 01:47:46,200
Speaker 1: you more of an introvert, extrovert loaner. Are you the

1559
01:47:46,200 --> 01:47:49,040
Speaker 1: type of person who's out with friends, calling friends, or

1560
01:47:49,120 --> 01:47:51,759
Speaker 1: you know every day? Are you pretty much just doing

1561
01:47:51,800 --> 01:47:54,960
Speaker 1: what you're doing and whoever you run into, you'll interact

1562
01:47:55,000 --> 01:47:57,840
Speaker 1: with them.

1563
01:47:58,240 --> 01:48:01,720
Speaker 2: I'm not not social, but I don't mind staying in

1564
01:48:01,760 --> 01:48:04,920
Speaker 2: and reading a book. In fact, I've got quite a

1565
01:48:04,960 --> 01:48:11,599
Speaker 2: backlog of like music biographies and music histories to read,

1566
01:48:12,040 --> 01:48:14,240
Speaker 2: and so if I have a night when I don't

1567
01:48:14,240 --> 01:48:18,599
Speaker 2: have to do something. Hey, you know, grab a beer,

1568
01:48:18,920 --> 01:48:22,600
Speaker 2: open a book. It's a golden age of rock and

1569
01:48:22,720 --> 01:48:26,519
Speaker 2: roll books and music history books. Every week something's coming

1570
01:48:26,520 --> 01:48:28,400
Speaker 2: out and it's like, Oh, I have to have that.

1571
01:48:29,320 --> 01:48:33,439
Speaker 2: Just bought the Red Cross book. Can't wait to see that.

1572
01:48:33,479 --> 01:48:37,960
Speaker 2: I've seen the forward which makes it tells a funny

1573
01:48:37,960 --> 01:48:40,880
Speaker 2: story about Poison, Striper and Enigma records.

1574
01:48:41,520 --> 01:48:42,679
Speaker 1: What is the funny story?

1575
01:48:44,960 --> 01:48:51,960
Speaker 2: Apparently the Red Cross Boys the McDonald's, when they were teenagers,

1576
01:48:52,000 --> 01:48:55,839
Speaker 2: were making prank calls to Enigma, pretending to be Poison,

1577
01:48:56,120 --> 01:48:58,800
Speaker 2: complaining that they couldn't find the records anywhere, but they're

1578
01:48:58,800 --> 01:49:03,080
Speaker 2: finding Striper records were They also claimed they were apologizing

1579
01:49:03,120 --> 01:49:06,200
Speaker 2: to Brett Michaels for pretending to be him and calling

1580
01:49:06,240 --> 01:49:08,880
Speaker 2: his vocal coach. So I don't know if it's a

1581
01:49:08,880 --> 01:49:16,920
Speaker 2: true story. Probably. It's also a golden era for music documentaries.

1582
01:49:16,960 --> 01:49:22,479
Speaker 2: That's another thing where I have a large backlock. There's

1583
01:49:22,560 --> 01:49:25,400
Speaker 2: so many great music documentaries that you can stream now,

1584
01:49:25,439 --> 01:49:29,880
Speaker 2: it's overwhelming. I just watched one on the cow Sills,

1585
01:49:30,800 --> 01:49:34,880
Speaker 2: which was fairly astonishing. I'm working on a project with

1586
01:49:35,000 --> 01:49:39,880
Speaker 2: John Cowtill and Vicki Peterson. That's you know, I think

1587
01:49:39,960 --> 01:49:41,760
Speaker 2: we're going to win a Grammy next year with it.

1588
01:49:41,760 --> 01:49:46,200
Speaker 2: It's so good. And so for homework I went and

1589
01:49:46,240 --> 01:49:49,439
Speaker 2: watched the cow Sils documentary. I kind of knew the story,

1590
01:49:49,479 --> 01:49:53,720
Speaker 2: but I didn't really know the story. So that you know,

1591
01:49:54,000 --> 01:49:57,960
Speaker 2: I occupy my off hours working in the music business,

1592
01:49:58,080 --> 01:50:01,639
Speaker 2: reading about music or watching documentaries about music.

1593
01:50:02,320 --> 01:50:06,080
Speaker 1: So, okay, you mentioned the Council documentaries before we go,

1594
01:50:06,840 --> 01:50:09,439
Speaker 1: recommend one rock biography.

1595
01:50:12,520 --> 01:50:17,160
Speaker 2: Steve Winn's book. I found very interesting Steve from the

1596
01:50:17,240 --> 01:50:24,840
Speaker 2: Dream Citcate, really good book. Gosh, you give me a second. No.

1597
01:50:25,520 --> 01:50:28,000
Speaker 2: Bill Brufford's book. I just finished that.

1598
01:50:28,600 --> 01:50:31,559
Speaker 1: It's about the one that came out like fifteen years

1599
01:50:31,600 --> 01:50:32,240
Speaker 1: ten years ago.

1600
01:50:32,479 --> 01:50:35,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, for some reason, I had never read it. But

1601
01:50:36,720 --> 01:50:40,640
Speaker 2: he was speaking at this music festival I went to

1602
01:50:40,680 --> 01:50:44,080
Speaker 2: in Spain in September and I met him there and

1603
01:50:44,120 --> 01:50:46,479
Speaker 2: so his book was for sale them. Oh I've been

1604
01:50:46,520 --> 01:50:48,920
Speaker 2: meaning to read that. I picked it up, couldn't put

1605
01:50:48,960 --> 01:50:53,160
Speaker 2: it down. And what was interesting, not only his music

1606
01:50:53,200 --> 01:50:57,160
Speaker 2: career is very interesting. He's a very good writer, and

1607
01:50:58,240 --> 01:51:03,200
Speaker 2: his insights on being in big bands like you Yes,

1608
01:51:04,080 --> 01:51:10,120
Speaker 2: King Crimson, and being in his little jazz band that

1609
01:51:10,200 --> 01:51:13,880
Speaker 2: he tours around the economics between him. He lays out

1610
01:51:14,280 --> 01:51:18,280
Speaker 2: a pretty interesting detail. I'm very familiar with the economics

1611
01:51:18,320 --> 01:51:22,439
Speaker 2: of record labels, economics of a band is still kind

1612
01:51:22,479 --> 01:51:25,680
Speaker 2: of a mystery to me, so that was fascinating. But

1613
01:51:26,320 --> 01:51:29,000
Speaker 2: ultimately he's such a good writer. I would recommend that

1614
01:51:29,000 --> 01:51:32,880
Speaker 2: book to people who aren't even Yes or Crimson fans.

1615
01:51:33,640 --> 01:51:35,720
Speaker 1: Okay, Bill, I think we've come to the end of

1616
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:39,720
Speaker 1: the feeling we've known. Certainly covered your career. There's a

1617
01:51:39,760 --> 01:51:44,080
Speaker 1: lot of roadway in the vinyl business we'll be watching.

1618
01:51:44,120 --> 01:51:46,080
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking this time to talk to

1619
01:51:46,120 --> 01:51:46,679
Speaker 1: my audience.

1620
01:51:47,800 --> 01:51:52,880
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Bob. Your podcast is a regular companion

1621
01:51:53,160 --> 01:51:56,080
Speaker 2: on bike rides and hikes in Colrad, so thank you

1622
01:51:56,120 --> 01:51:56,280
Speaker 2: for that.

1623
01:51:57,280 --> 01:52:21,840
Speaker 1: Till next time, This is Bob Lefts sh