Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That's podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Bill High. Bill, tell me about
Speaker 1: your vinyl business.
Speaker 2: We have a vinyl factory in Poland. Although you know
Speaker 2: we are a US company, we have a Polish subsidiary.
Speaker 2: We work with a Polish company that was already in
Speaker 2: the media business, primarily optical media, CD, DVD. When they
Speaker 2: expanded into vinyl some years ago, they invited US and
Speaker 2: a few other parties to buy vinyl presses and work
Speaker 2: with them, and that's how we got going. We're now
Speaker 2: up to fourteen vinyl presses. We can run up to
Speaker 2: about a million vinyl discs a month.
Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit slower. This company in Poland before
Speaker 1: they call you they're making media. Were they making vinyl
Speaker 1: at the time?
Speaker 2: They had just well, they had been doing it for
Speaker 2: a few years. They started in the mid twenty tens.
Speaker 2: I don't know what we call decades anymore.
Speaker 1: I know, it's sort of amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the twenty teams, so that the decade before this one.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting how they got started. They started getting
Speaker 2: calls from their CD and DVD customers wanted to know
Speaker 2: if they could do vinyl. This was a time when
Speaker 2: vinyl was coming back, but most of the vinyl factories
Speaker 2: had closed down, machines had been scrapped. No one was
Speaker 2: making new vinyl presses, so you couldn't just you know,
Speaker 2: google vinyl press manufacturer by a few presses and go
Speaker 2: into business. There were none to be had. They found
Speaker 2: someone in Zimbabwe selling some Swedish Swedish made TOOLIXELFA presses,
Speaker 2: electroplating baths and annoyment cutting lathe all very valuable, highly
Speaker 2: regarded equipment on eBay. So one of the executives there, Andre,
Speaker 2: who is the first guy I met at this company,
Speaker 2: he went to Zimbabwe. He verified it was all for real.
Speaker 2: They negotiated a deal. They bought essentially an entire turnkey
Speaker 2: vinyl pressing plant that had been mothballed for a long time,
Speaker 2: put it in shipping container, sent it to Poland. The
Speaker 2: factory engineers got the equipment going and they were in
Speaker 2: the vinyl business. Now. These were old manual machines that
Speaker 2: have relatively low output. But nice thing about the vinyl
Speaker 2: presses is they're eternal. I know, vinyl plants using machines
Speaker 2: that were made in the fifties still working just fine.
Speaker 2: So that was probably ten years ago. We got in
Speaker 2: business with them about five years ago.
Speaker 1: And okay, so tell the difference between a manual and
Speaker 1: an automatic machine.
Speaker 2: Well, manual machine, someone has to stand there form the
Speaker 2: well what the Europeans call it cake and what North
Speaker 2: Americans call a puck, but just a glob of PBC.
Speaker 2: Take it out of the extruder. It's warm, it's melted,
Speaker 2: stick it in the press, manually hit a button. The
Speaker 2: vinyl record is pressed. After approximately twenty five to thirty seconds,
Speaker 2: the pressing is done, you manually remove the disc. You
Speaker 2: put it in a trimmer that trims the excess vinyl,
Speaker 2: and then you set it aside on a spindle to cool.
Speaker 2: That's a manual machine. And also the disc labels for
Speaker 2: the A and B side are manually put into the press.
Speaker 2: Automatic machine automates most of that. One operator can look
Speaker 2: after several automatic machines, just make sure they're up and running,
Speaker 2: and everything I just described is essentially automatic. You do
Speaker 2: have to have a human in the room though, because
Speaker 2: things go wrong you want to monitor the quality. But
Speaker 2: generally the output is oh at least double with an
Speaker 2: automatic machine.
Speaker 1: Okay, they go to Zimbabwe, they buy one machine.
Speaker 2: Now they bought I don't know, I think seven or eight,
Speaker 2: one of which I think ended up getting used for
Speaker 2: parts and so that.
Speaker 1: How did they get to fourteen?
Speaker 2: Well, we have fourteen, so we bought myself, my two partners,
Speaker 2: we bought fourteen presses. By this time you can buy
Speaker 2: new presses, although the waiting was eighteen months two years
Speaker 2: to actually get a machine, to get brand new machines,
Speaker 2: we ordered fourteen. We took delivery of them starting around
Speaker 2: three years ago. Slightly before that, we found some used
Speaker 2: automatic machines in Salina, Kansas and we went out and
Speaker 2: bought four of them. That was in the middle of COVID.
Speaker 2: It was an interesting road trip. We packed those up,
Speaker 2: ship those to Poland. We kept too, and our Polish
Speaker 2: partner took too. So those were the first presses we
Speaker 2: actually owned. Also two Alex Alpha machines originally from Sweden.
Speaker 2: Best we can tell, those machines originally were installed in
Speaker 2: the UK, then went to Brazil. From Brazil they went
Speaker 2: to Salina, Kansas. Now they're in Poland. Vinyl presses all
Speaker 2: have a history. They're very interesting machines.
Speaker 1: So let's say I decide to go into the vinyl
Speaker 1: business today? Are there old machines available? Two? Can I
Speaker 1: get a new machine? Three? How long would I have
Speaker 1: to wait for? What would be the cost?
Speaker 2: You can't get new presses now there's I think four
Speaker 2: companies making new presses. The cost you just say ballpark
Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars, but probably this same amount of
Speaker 2: money again to build the infrastructure. You don't just plug
Speaker 2: them into the wall. You need cold water, you need steam,
Speaker 2: you need a lot of electricity, and you need a
Speaker 2: very stable environment. You need the factory to be a
Speaker 2: stable temperature and at stable humidity.
Speaker 1: Okay, the company in Poland, ghost is Zimbabwe buys machine.
Speaker 1: Did they contact you about up on their machines before
Speaker 1: you purchased dr own machines? How did you make the
Speaker 1: connection originally?
Speaker 2: Well, that's kind of a funny story. I have a
Speaker 2: good friend who runs a record label called Moonjune Records.
Speaker 2: It's jazz, progressive world music. Label was in New York.
Speaker 2: He's now in Spain. He had been making his CDs
Speaker 2: at this plant in Poland. He contacted me one day
Speaker 2: he said, Bill, I have a friend in Poland. His
Speaker 2: name is Andre. You and him you both love King Crimson.
Speaker 2: You'll get along great. Maybe you can help him build
Speaker 2: his business. And I thought, okay, that sounds interesting. I
Speaker 2: was not doing a whole lot in music at the time.
Speaker 2: I'd stepped away from music business for a couple of years,
Speaker 2: and that just sounded like fun. And I had been
Speaker 2: following the growth of vinyl and thought, this will be
Speaker 2: interesting if nothing else. And originally we were just going
Speaker 2: to help I drafted my business partner Andy. It was
Speaker 2: a local you know, has a radio show here in Boulder,
Speaker 2: plays punk rock where Gems and he and I were
Speaker 2: working on a company called Amazing Radio. So I'm kind
Speaker 2: of going off on a tangent, but I invited him in.
Speaker 2: He said, help me put together a vinyl business. Originally
Speaker 2: we were just going to help them find customers in
Speaker 2: the US. But then when he said it, we need
Speaker 2: more presses. We have more demand than we know what
Speaker 2: to do with, we stepped up and said, well, we'll
Speaker 2: buy some presses. And that's how we got into the business.
Speaker 1: Is this self funded or did you raise money? How
Speaker 1: did you pay for the presses?
Speaker 2: Right now, it's entirely well, I would say it's ninety
Speaker 2: percent self funded. We've got a handful of investors, but
Speaker 2: most of the money has come from the principles and
Speaker 2: the business.
Speaker 1: And how many principles are there?
Speaker 2: Three of us Andy Zicklin, myself and Fred Goldring who
Speaker 2: joined us.
Speaker 1: Okay, so in Poland now they still have their manual presses.
Speaker 1: They have your fourteen presses. Are there any other vinyl
Speaker 1: presses there? Or is that the totality of their footprint there?
Speaker 2: I think there's forty three presses. There are three other
Speaker 2: companies that have similar arrangements to ours where they own
Speaker 2: a couple of presses there. Those companies tend to have
Speaker 2: three or four presses each. So we're the largest owner
Speaker 2: of presses there. But we've got some company. It's kind
Speaker 2: of like a dominium, I guess, or co op of sorts.
Speaker 1: Okay, so at this point in time, what are you pressing?
Speaker 2: Well, lots of vinyl records.
Speaker 1: You have your own company. Are they for the majors?
Speaker 1: Are they for indie's? Are they domestic or are they international?
Speaker 1: Is it everything? If I call you and I say
Speaker 1: I want to produce twenty thousand of X, so you're
Speaker 1: going to say, yeah, here's what it costs.
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly what we would do. We've got a
Speaker 2: full sales team here in the US. You know, our
Speaker 2: focus right now is building up our US business. We
Speaker 2: have customers all over the world. We do work for
Speaker 2: major labels, we do work for independent labels, we do
Speaker 2: work for independent artists. We've run jobs as small as
Speaker 2: one hundred discs and we've done it. We had a
Speaker 2: one po last year for a million discs, half million
Speaker 2: in double albums.
Speaker 1: Okay, we heard for years that there wasn't enough capacity.
Speaker 1: What's the status of capacity today in the vinyl production world.
Speaker 2: There's plenty of capacity.
Speaker 1: So let's just say I want to get the records
Speaker 1: in the store for Thanksgiving. When am I going to
Speaker 1: have to get you masters? When am I going to
Speaker 1: have to make the commitment? Not this Thanksgiving but a
Speaker 1: year from now?
Speaker 2: Well it depends, you know. Are you selling through band
Speaker 2: camp yourself? Are you working with a distributor. What's the
Speaker 2: distributor's lead time? We like to work on a nineteen
Speaker 2: week lead which provides lots of contingencies, but generally four
Speaker 2: weeks to make a test pressing is a good role thumb.
Speaker 2: We can go fast uster and four weeks once the
Speaker 2: test pressing is approved to final goods being ready. Now
Speaker 2: the factory in Poland does print in house, can cut
Speaker 2: lacquers in house, can do all the electroplating in house,
Speaker 2: which is unusual. I think there's two hundred vinyl pressing
Speaker 2: plants in the world. The amount that can do everything
Speaker 2: vertically integrated as a single digit number. So that helps
Speaker 2: us with logistics. Everything's under one roof.
Speaker 1: What are the toxes, etc. Financial advantages and disadvantages of
Speaker 1: it being in Poland.
Speaker 2: Well, a couple answers to that. Poland is a very
Speaker 2: good place to run a business. In general, any kind
Speaker 2: of business. Workforce is motivated, hard working, very well educated.
Speaker 2: It is a very good business environment. I think Poland,
Speaker 2: since communism fell, I think is the second fastest growing
Speaker 2: economy in the world. You know, it's very impressive. I
Speaker 2: was there in the nineties visiting a friend who had
Speaker 2: started up a record label in the mid nineties, and
Speaker 2: then I didn't go there again until we started pressing business,
Speaker 2: and I was astonished at the difference in the country.
Speaker 2: But it really comes down to I think we're able
Speaker 2: to get a really excellent workforce from factory workers all
Speaker 2: the way through executive ranks, and the general cost of
Speaker 2: doing business is very attractive and a lot of things.
Speaker 2: Poland is very well located in Central Europe. If you're
Speaker 2: going to ship goods to the US by a sea freight,
Speaker 2: you've got a lot of options nearby. Almost everything in
Speaker 2: Europe is one day trucking. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: positives about doing business in Poland, But the biggest one
Speaker 2: is Polish people.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been to Poland how often? You know. We
Speaker 1: live in a country in America, the United States where
Speaker 1: so many people don't even have passports. You talked about
Speaker 1: a little bit about Poland. But what do people not
Speaker 1: understand about Poland today?
Speaker 2: Well, what I just said pretty much, it's a very modern,
Speaker 2: very European country. I think a lot of Americans have
Speaker 2: this notion that it's still kind of very bunch in
Speaker 2: Eastern European backwater. That's very much not true. And again,
Speaker 2: people are very well educated. They're very cosmopolitan. You know,
Speaker 2: they watch the same TV shows we do. The show
Speaker 2: Yellowstone is very popu you're there. A lot of my
Speaker 2: Polish friends would ask me, Bill, is is Montana really
Speaker 2: like it is in Yellowstone? Is it pretty much little
Speaker 2: less killing, but otherwise it's pretty accurate. You know, they're
Speaker 2: very aware of American pop culture, they're very aware of
Speaker 2: world events. Hy it's a nice place. I live there
Speaker 2: mostly the last two years. I came back in January.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the economics of vinyl forgetting your
Speaker 1: you know, sun costs with presses and people, et cetera.
Speaker 1: How much does it cost to make a record? How
Speaker 1: much you charge people, because ultimately this point a vinyl
Speaker 1: record goes for retail thirty plus dollars.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't I think that's changed much from you know,
Speaker 2: the sixties or seventies. Cost of goods for manufacturing has
Speaker 2: always been, from my experience, runs fifteen twenty percent, between
Speaker 2: ten and twenty percent of your retail price. So you're
Speaker 2: looking at three to six dollars to make a vinyl record.
Speaker 2: There's lots of variables. How fancy is it is an
Speaker 2: unsplatter vinyl? Is it a gatefold? Do you have embossing
Speaker 2: or debossing? You know, you can make a record, you know,
Speaker 2: you can press a record jacket for a little bit
Speaker 2: over two bucks, or you can do something that's very deluxe,
Speaker 2: that's you know, approaches ten dollars.
Speaker 1: So, okay, is this a competitive market? Is someone going
Speaker 1: to call you for a quote and say, I spoke
Speaker 1: to your competitor it was cheaper, and you have to
Speaker 1: convince them your company is better or make a cheaper price.
Speaker 1: Because in the old days, just getting capacity it was difficult.
Speaker 1: What's it like now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that used to be the sales pitch.
Speaker 2: Do you have any capacity? And if you said yes,
Speaker 2: you've got the po I'm exaggerating, but only a little.
Speaker 2: Quality matters. Customer service matters, especially with the independent labels.
Speaker 2: They want to work with someone who will be, you know,
Speaker 2: what's the best way to describe it, you know, culturally
Speaker 2: attuned to what they're doing. You know the fact that
Speaker 2: I've spent much my life at independent labels, I think
Speaker 2: doesn't hurt. I understand what an independent label needs as
Speaker 2: far as service, quality and so on. I think that helps.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone cares about. I would say quality tops pricing.
Speaker 2: Pricing matters. If we were a dollar more expensive than
Speaker 2: everyone else, that would not help us. But I don't
Speaker 2: really see people changing manufacturers to save a dime.
Speaker 1: You know, a disk Okay, In the old days, when
Speaker 1: Vinyl was king sixties and seventies. The records were warped,
Speaker 1: the records had surface noise, sometimes skipped. Then, of course,
Speaker 1: in the seventies we started to have Japanese vinyl, we
Speaker 1: had half speed Master, We get all this stuff. It's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent virgin. As opposed to regrind, What is
Speaker 1: the status of manufacturing a record today? To what degree
Speaker 1: are there rejects or problems? To what degree is a
Speaker 1: higher quality component?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say in general the quality of vinyl
Speaker 2: records is better today than it was let's say, forty
Speaker 2: fifty years ago. More discerning consumer. Consumer now has lots
Speaker 2: of choices about it listen to music. Vinyl is one
Speaker 2: of them. So, you know, when in the seventies, when
Speaker 2: I start, you know, in the late sixties, early seventies,
Speaker 2: I started buying records. When you buy records or eight tracks,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't really a much of a choice. If
Speaker 2: you cared about sound quality, you bought vinyl records. I
Speaker 2: think the quality across the board generally is very, very good.
Speaker 2: We do very you know, what I consider fairly extreme QC.
Speaker 2: You know, we probably reject between three to twelve percent
Speaker 2: of the pressings. They don't even go out the door.
Speaker 2: They're going to recycling. We're constantly pulling records randomly out
Speaker 2: of manufacturing runs and listening to them in a QC room. Yes,
Speaker 2: there are people whose jobs it is to sit around
Speaker 2: with headphones and listen to vinyl records all day. And
Speaker 2: there's also a visual check because we've manually assembled the discs.
Speaker 2: The disc going in our slave, the inner sleep goes
Speaker 2: in a jacket. That person putting the disc in the
Speaker 2: inner sleeve is flipping the record over and visually inspecting
Speaker 2: both sides before it goes into package. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: it's very unusual for us to get a complaint for quality,
Speaker 2: and you know it's I would say, sometimes weeks go
Speaker 2: by where I don't hear about a QC issue. When
Speaker 2: I was working in record stores in the seventies, that
Speaker 2: was not the case. People were returning records every day,
Speaker 2: So I would have to say quality today is very
Speaker 2: very good.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have these two partners in this pressing business.
Speaker 1: Is that the only business of these three people, because
Speaker 1: you also have a record label. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's the same people, but are these three people we
Speaker 1: got a business? We're pressing or are they are going
Speaker 1: to go into other or have gone into other areas well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Andy and Fred Andy Zeckl and Fred gold Ring
Speaker 2: are also business partners in our two record labels, which
Speaker 2: are run by the same people but two different label identities,
Speaker 2: And we started that about early last year, so we're
Speaker 2: about coming up on our second anniversary of the record labels.
Speaker 2: So same people, but separate company, okay, and nothing beyond
Speaker 2: the record pressing in the record labels envisioned at this point.
Speaker 1: Music publishing, Okay, So why two labels as opposed to one.
Speaker 2: I've always liked labels that seem to have kind of
Speaker 2: an identity musically, and the initial batch of artists we're
Speaker 2: looking to work with didn't seem to fit into one
Speaker 2: sort of and I don't want to say genre be
Speaker 2: could both labels span several genres. But the idea is
Speaker 2: whether the labels is called label fifty one. If you
Speaker 2: like one thing on label fifty one, we hope you
Speaker 2: notice what label is on and are curious about other
Speaker 2: things on label fifty one. I got into this business
Speaker 2: as a record collector, and I was always very conscious
Speaker 2: of labels. I remember the Charisma label. I would pick
Speaker 2: up anything on the Charisma label. The early years of Virgin,
Speaker 2: I would buy anything that was on Virgin, the Vertigo label,
Speaker 2: the stuff that was on Vertigo out of the UK
Speaker 2: I was very keenly interested in. So it's just we've
Speaker 2: just decided to sort the artists into two labels. And
Speaker 2: sometimes we'll ask a signees which label do you think
Speaker 2: is more suitable for you? Let them choose.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you came up in the old days of
Speaker 1: physical distribution. So what do we have. We have the
Speaker 1: three major companies minting cash based on catalog. Okay, what
Speaker 1: are the economics of an independent label today? Are they
Speaker 1: as good or worse than they used to be in
Speaker 1: the old days when you started with Enigma, Is it
Speaker 1: something like, well, we love this, We're going to do this,
Speaker 1: or are there real financial opportunities here?
Speaker 2: Well, it's just different. I don't know if it's better
Speaker 2: or worse. I think that's a matter of perspective, but
Speaker 2: it is different. On one hand, the cost to record music
Speaker 2: now is very low. I mean, you can build a
Speaker 2: very nice studio in your bedroom and make very high
Speaker 2: quality recordings. That's new access, you know, the way to
Speaker 2: connect with fans potential fans is very inexpensive now compared
Speaker 2: to what it used to be. You know that has
Speaker 2: been oh what's the word. You know, all the direct
Speaker 2: the fan tools, pretty much the internet, everything the Internet
Speaker 2: has brought. But the other side of that is there's
Speaker 2: so much music out there, just you know, separating yourself
Speaker 2: from the herd is a significant challenge these days. But
Speaker 2: I enjoy it now. I think there's great opportunities now.
Speaker 2: There were opportunities when Enigma started. There were opportunities in
Speaker 2: the nineties when I was had a label Restless, there
Speaker 2: were opportunities even in the whatever the first decade of
Speaker 2: this century was called the oughts, even though the business
Speaker 2: was shrinking ten percent a year. There's always opportunities if
Speaker 2: you have great music and you're willing to work card
Speaker 2: and you know, have a little luck.
Speaker 1: We hear from the independent artists complaining about how much
Speaker 1: money they're not making on streaming services. You are the
Speaker 1: label selling independent artists. Is that where most of the
Speaker 1: money comes from streaming? Do you have a piece of
Speaker 1: other revenue streams from these acts and what is your
Speaker 1: viewpoint in terms of the share of streaming you're getting.
Speaker 2: Well, I like streaming I'm listening to My favorite is Cobas.
Speaker 2: I'm listening to Koba's every day, listening to Apple Music
Speaker 2: every day. I check Spotify a lot. I really enjoy streaming.
Speaker 2: It's amazing to, you know, pick up a new Mojo magazine,
Speaker 2: see review something and instantly pull it up and listen
Speaker 2: to it. I do tend to follow up, and if
Speaker 2: I really like something, I'll buy the vinyl. But I
Speaker 2: think it's a phenomenal tool for our labels. The majority
Speaker 2: of our revenue is physical product, and I think that's
Speaker 2: probably the kind of artists we're working with, as artists
Speaker 2: who overweight in physical product. We work very hard to
Speaker 2: grow our digital revenue. We take it very seriously, but
Speaker 2: we also view it as a way almost like free
Speaker 2: advertising or advertising, where we get paid a few pennies
Speaker 2: here and there. And you know, our digital revenue is growing,
Speaker 2: but if that's all we had, we wouldn't have much
Speaker 2: of a business.
Speaker 1: And are you happy with the way the revenue is
Speaker 1: split or do you think it needs to be reconstructed.
Speaker 2: I'm going to let other people worry about that. I mean,
Speaker 2: the business is the way it is, and my attitude
Speaker 2: on whether we're getting fair payment from Spotify, whatever, just
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. So I just put my energy into getting
Speaker 2: the music out to as many people as possible. And
Speaker 2: you know, the royalties are what they are.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you sign an act. The majority of revenue
Speaker 1: comes from physical product. Let's assume the act doesn't have
Speaker 1: any significant history. Where do you sell the product? How
Speaker 1: hard is it to get into retail stores. It's more
Speaker 1: sold at gigs.
Speaker 2: Well, depends on the artist. We've just released an EP
Speaker 2: by ban sixpence None the Richard. They're out on first
Speaker 2: big tour. They've been on a long time. They were
Speaker 2: more or less inactive for almost two decades, had a
Speaker 2: big hit the end of the nineties. Their big hit
Speaker 2: still streams a million streams a day on Spotify alone,
Speaker 2: So there's an audience for that song, and the band
Speaker 2: doesn't have fans. We're selling good quantity of CDs and
Speaker 2: vinyl on the road. We're streaming pretty well with the
Speaker 2: new music, and we're out of retail and doing decently.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I'm satisfied with where we are,
Speaker 2: and I see this as building momentum. We're reintroducing a
Speaker 2: band that had sort of been on hiatus for a
Speaker 2: long time, which is its own challenge. You don't know
Speaker 2: if the audience is still there even when you look
Speaker 2: and you see the streaming of the catalog is you know,
Speaker 2: in their case Gigantic, you don't know if the fans
Speaker 2: are going to turn out at the shows. I want
Speaker 2: to hear the new music. In this case, people do.
Speaker 2: So that's in that case we're reintroducing the band, you know,
Speaker 2: and working with the band and working with their management. Obviously,
Speaker 2: we don't do this alone to a fan that we
Speaker 2: hope is still there and finding new fans. What's interesting
Speaker 2: is I'm seeing the demographics of their Spotify.
Speaker 1: Are we talking still about sixpences?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's really interesting there Their biggest demographic I think
Speaker 2: is like nineteen to twenty four, twenty five to twenty
Speaker 2: nine on Spotify, So it's a it's a younger audience.
Speaker 2: So that's that's really interesting. So that's on one side,
Speaker 2: taking a band that has almost no existing audience. That's
Speaker 2: really hard now and you know, honestly, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a criteria for us working with an artist is what
Speaker 2: is the current fan base? Do you tour? You know,
Speaker 2: and you know, where are we starting from? It's hard
Speaker 2: to start from zero.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back for a second. You have two
Speaker 1: record labels A. Are you only signing active acts or
Speaker 1: are you putting out any catalog product.
Speaker 2: We're putting out some catalog product and sort of reissues.
Speaker 2: We're doing a Wall of Voodoo archive project, a band
Speaker 2: I first worked with in like nineteen eighty one. They had,
Speaker 2: even though they're not an active band anymore, they had
Speaker 2: some really good vault material that we're putting out next year.
Speaker 2: We're working at the band rain Pread, another band I
Speaker 2: worked with in the eighties, so I've always just loved
Speaker 2: their music and jumped at the chance to work with
Speaker 2: them on new music. They reacquired the rights to some
Speaker 2: of their old albums. We're reissuing them with bonus tracks remastered,
Speaker 2: so that's kind of a catalog project, but in sync
Speaker 2: with the band out touring and releasing new music as well.
Speaker 2: We did a Dream Syndicate live record earlier this year
Speaker 2: that spanned their entire career, like forty years worth of music.
Speaker 2: So we are but not as we tend not to
Speaker 2: do it as a straight reissue. We want to add
Speaker 2: something to it, remaster, new material, something so that it's
Speaker 2: it's worthy of being in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: Okay, stepping back for a second, you have an act.
Speaker 1: They're on the road. They're selling product on the road.
Speaker 1: Where else can you distribute it. In the old days,
Speaker 1: there was a plethora of retail. There's indie retail. Now
Speaker 1: there's retail that's not in the music business selling vinyl.
Speaker 1: So how hard is it to get records and stores?
Speaker 1: And where are those stores?
Speaker 2: Well, independent retail is pretty good shape in the US
Speaker 2: right now, and you know overseas as well and growing.
Speaker 2: I live in Denver now and there's a couple of
Speaker 2: really great independent stores here, you know, and I I will.
Speaker 2: I stood in front of Twist and Shout earlier this
Speaker 2: year for Record Store Day and the snow for two
Speaker 2: hours before getting in, So you know, there's a good
Speaker 2: there's an avid audience for buying vinyl here in Denver, certainly.
Speaker 2: And we see new independent record stores popping up all
Speaker 2: the time. And what's different now is they're not competing
Speaker 2: with the chain stores. The music lands, warehouses, towers are gone.
Speaker 2: If you're pure music retail, you're an independent now.
Speaker 1: And I like that.
Speaker 2: Quite a bit. We find the independence will champion music.
Speaker 2: They love and you know that's really important. We work
Speaker 2: with a distributor in the US called AMPT and they're
Speaker 2: very good. They're very well connected, particular to the independent
Speaker 2: retail base. We use bandcamp for a direct to consumer sales,
Speaker 2: and we've got a Shopify store and we've just started
Speaker 2: linking our Shopify stores with Spotify. Spotify has a feature
Speaker 2: where you can connect your Shopify store to the artist
Speaker 2: page in Spotify and that's very promising. We've only been
Speaker 2: doing that for a couple of months. But again it
Speaker 2: goes to what you asked about DSPs digital distribution. What
Speaker 2: do I think of them? And I think I think
Speaker 2: of it a way of reaching hundreds of millions of people.
Speaker 1: Okay, how much of the business is non traditional media retail,
Speaker 1: non music stores.
Speaker 2: For the overall market, I don't know. You know, you've
Speaker 2: got some clothing stores and a lot of people carrying
Speaker 2: fairly limited selections, so I don't really have a good
Speaker 2: handle on that.
Speaker 1: Okay. When Vinyl started to research, everything was sold one way,
Speaker 1: because all your products still only sold one way, mostly
Speaker 1: mostly so in order to return the product. What would
Speaker 1: that situation be?
Speaker 2: I don't think we've had anyone try to return product.
Speaker 2: We're pretty careful on what we lay out and retailers
Speaker 2: are pretty careful what they bring in out because of
Speaker 2: the one way factor. CDs are returnable, and our CD
Speaker 2: business is decent. I mean, it's not like what it
Speaker 2: was thirty years ago, but CDs still sell they self
Speaker 2: returing bands. They're selling it retail. So I think if
Speaker 2: we tried to push out a lot of vinyl for
Speaker 2: one reason or another, we would probably have to allow
Speaker 2: for returns. We haven't had to do that yet. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's coming, maybe it's not.
Speaker 1: What is the future of the overall vinyl market? We've
Speaker 1: had this resurgence, you know, we hear numbers wholesale, retail.
Speaker 1: What do you see coming down the pike? A forget
Speaker 1: the overall dollars relative to streaming. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole. Just the business in terms
Speaker 1: of units. Is it just a steady business? Is it
Speaker 1: going to go up? Is it spiking? What do you think?
Speaker 2: At retail? It's still growing and everything I've read by
Speaker 2: credible authors and researchers believe it's going to be growing
Speaker 2: for several more years. So that's great. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people during COVID over ordered at the label level.
Speaker 2: I think there was a lot of label overstocks that
Speaker 2: are getting sold down. You know, we all know there
Speaker 2: was a temptation when it took a year to get
Speaker 2: a vinyl po filled to order years worth of vinyl.
Speaker 2: And now with you know, you can get turned around
Speaker 2: in four weeks after test pressings. There's no need to
Speaker 2: have a year's supply. So there was a lot of overstock.
Speaker 2: I think that's going away. But if you look at retail,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen anything that say retail is going flat.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many acts have you signed? How many acts
Speaker 1: do you plan on signing?
Speaker 2: We have about fifteen artists on the two labels, and
Speaker 2: that feels pretty good. I don't We're not really chasing
Speaker 2: much new right now. We might have one or two
Speaker 2: more signings, but we're feeling like we've got really good
Speaker 2: rosters and we've got our work cut out for us
Speaker 2: for next year in the years to follow.
Speaker 1: Okay, we decide to make a deal, what kind of
Speaker 1: deal you're going to offer me?
Speaker 2: Fifty to fifty profits split based on real revenue and
Speaker 2: real costs.
Speaker 1: Just that easy? Yeah? And will I get an advent?
Speaker 2: We try not to pay advances, and we very seldom
Speaker 2: have paid advances. We sometimes helped cover recording costs, but
Speaker 2: most of the artists we work with are self sufficient already.
Speaker 2: We're not you know, we're not working with the latest
Speaker 2: TikTok sensation or K pop bands or really what you
Speaker 2: would consider pop music. We're dealing with bands that have
Speaker 2: been around in some cases for a while, that are
Speaker 2: touring that not how to make their records. We are
Speaker 2: definitely not getting involved on the recording and we have
Speaker 2: very light hand on an r generally, let the artists
Speaker 2: do what they want to do and then bring us
Speaker 2: the results when they're ready. So, yeah, we avoid is
Speaker 2: when you pay in advance, that's less money to put
Speaker 2: into marketing.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, since you're not paying
Speaker 1: an advance, am I going to own the record? Or
Speaker 1: you go own the record?
Speaker 2: If we don't pay an advance, you own the record?
Speaker 1: And how long do you have it? For?
Speaker 2: Seven years? Ten years? Something? Negotiating?
Speaker 1: Okay, So we live in a market where the big
Speaker 1: streamers are hip hop and pop, but statistically they're going
Speaker 1: down in marketshare. We hear rock is dead. You're in
Speaker 1: these other rock alternative markets what's the status of those markets.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you know, I look at the hits chart
Speaker 2: every week, the top fifty hits chart, and I don't
Speaker 2: see much rock and roll in there. When I do,
Speaker 2: it tends to fall off the chart pretty quick. So
Speaker 2: if you have that perspective, rock is definitely not much
Speaker 2: of a forest anymore. But on the other hand, there's
Speaker 2: very dedicated audience out there, very loyal, and for what
Speaker 2: we're doing, it's more than enough. In the past few weeks,
Speaker 2: I've seen the Beat Show with Tony Levin, mader In Blue,
Speaker 2: Danny Carey and Steve I twice once in denav just
Speaker 2: a few days ago. In thousand notes, sell out house,
Speaker 2: people losing their minds. I think they've sold out fifty
Speaker 2: nine of the sixty five shows, and I believe they're
Speaker 2: going to keep the tour going into next year. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, a very happy audience. And you know,
Speaker 2: we've got Tony Levin's album out now. It's doing really
Speaker 2: well sales wise. It's streaming, you know, if you measure
Speaker 2: it against what you would expect for an album like
Speaker 2: Tony's to stream, it's doing very well. Physical sales are
Speaker 2: excellent on it. We've held back the vinyl for records
Speaker 2: store Day Black Friday, so the vinyl will be available
Speaker 2: a week from tomorrow. So we're very happy that audience exists,
Speaker 2: and that's enough to keep us going. You know, we're
Speaker 2: not but if you dial back to the seventies and
Speaker 2: eighties when rock and roll ruled the world, it's very different.
Speaker 2: Rock and roll does not rule the world anymore, but
Speaker 2: there's a big, loyal, super enthusiastic audience, and we're happy
Speaker 2: to keep releasing records for this world, for this market.
Speaker 1: You have a long history with Striper. What's the status
Speaker 1: of Striper today.
Speaker 2: Well, they just wrapping up their fortieth anniversary tour. I
Speaker 2: caught them when they came through Denver. It was a
Speaker 2: great show. They're playing better than ever. They have one
Speaker 2: of the most avid fan bases any band ever. We've
Speaker 2: released an unplugged acoustic album a few months ago of
Speaker 2: theirs that I'm very happy with. It's a pleasure to
Speaker 2: be working with them again again. A couple of the
Speaker 2: artists of my label I have relationships going back forty years.
Speaker 2: It's just delightful that they're still making great music and
Speaker 2: I still get to work with them. It's one of
Speaker 2: the things that just keeps me in this business. It's
Speaker 2: an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning. Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2: Born in Nebraska, but moved to California when I was
Speaker 2: pretty young?
Speaker 1: Pretty young, two, pretty young? Eight?
Speaker 2: Moved to Bay Area when I was two, and San
Speaker 2: fernetto Valley when I was five?
Speaker 1: And would your parents do for a living?
Speaker 2: Father was a lawyer, longtime general counsel for La City Schools.
Speaker 2: My mother fifth grade giacher.
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family?
Speaker 2: Three of us?
Speaker 1: And where are you in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: I'm the old guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're going to school. What kind of kid
Speaker 1: are you? Good student? Bad student? Popular athlete? How do
Speaker 1: you describe yourself?
Speaker 2: I think I was a pretty good student. I was
Speaker 2: on the track and cross country teams, so that means
Speaker 2: I was not a popular student or popular with my peers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know. I was an avid music fanatic from about
Speaker 2: age nine onwards. Yeah, I would say it was an
Speaker 2: normal kid.
Speaker 1: Where did your music interest percolated.
Speaker 2: From the radio and TV to a certain extent. I
Speaker 2: can remember still seeing Beatles on Ed Sullivan I was nine.
Speaker 2: My whole family, you know, watched it on TV. My parents,
Speaker 2: you know, relatively conservative midwesterners. We're curious about this phenomenon,
Speaker 2: the Beatles, and you know, I know you remember this.
Speaker 2: The whole world was curious about the Beatles. Our family
Speaker 2: even went to see A Hard Day's Night in the
Speaker 2: theater and I was electrified by that. But I was
Speaker 2: already curious about music before then. I loved Jan and Dean.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Do I love Jan and Dean?
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh I do too. And that might have been
Speaker 2: my gateway drug into music fandom. And I discovered Top
Speaker 2: forty radio. Top forty radio in LA was fantastic in
Speaker 2: the sixties. You had a couple of choices KFWB, KHJ, Carola.
Speaker 2: I used to go between Carola and cage J and
Speaker 2: I pretty much listen for hours every day, and I
Speaker 2: took a real keen interest in charts. I would listen
Speaker 2: to the chart countdown shows and I was fascinated how
Speaker 2: records would go up the charts, down the charts. I
Speaker 2: used to collect the playlist that you could printed playlists
Speaker 2: you can get at the local record store, and now
Speaker 2: I wish I still had those. Actually, never should have
Speaker 2: thrown those out. So it was just a fascination with music,
Speaker 2: but also kind of the business of music and the
Speaker 2: personalities of the artists. It wasn't just the music, it
Speaker 2: was everything around the music.
Speaker 1: And will you an avid collector?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I got the record collecting bug bad.
Speaker 1: And where did you buy your records in La.
Speaker 2: Well? When I was like, you know, before I had
Speaker 2: a car, you know, it was the Wallocks music city
Speaker 2: that I could get to on my bicycle, and you know,
Speaker 2: later there was a warehouse store. I was in Woodland
Speaker 2: Hills at the time. I didn't discover independences until early seventies.
Speaker 2: And when I discovered import records.
Speaker 1: When you were going to Wallacks, did they still have
Speaker 1: the listening booths?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that was awesome.
Speaker 1: And how about going to shows?
Speaker 2: Yeah, started going to shows probably around seventy two, and
Speaker 2: a great time to be going to concerts.
Speaker 1: Anything especially memorable. You remember what the first one.
Speaker 2: Was, Yeah, Pink Floyd at Hollywood Bowl. Wow, very memorable.
Speaker 2: But I think you were talking in one of your
Speaker 2: podcast orsthing about Santa Monica Civic. Maybe it was a
Speaker 2: ten CC show there. Yeah, maybe? Remember how many great
Speaker 2: shows I sawt Santa Monica Civic.
Speaker 1: Oh, Kinks used to play every year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well Debock Deluxe and Golden Earring on this same bill,
Speaker 2: you know, or craft worker David Bowie or I saw Emerson,
Speaker 2: Lake and Palmer there. I bet I saw twenty five
Speaker 2: shows there.
Speaker 1: So what was your first job in music a.
Speaker 2: Record store clerk at the warehouse.
Speaker 1: And how old were you and how did you get
Speaker 1: that job?
Speaker 2: I was twenty and I was in college at u
Speaker 2: C Irvine. There was someone in economics class of mine
Speaker 2: was always asking to copy my class notes because he
Speaker 2: would miss a lot of lectures. Finally, one day and
Speaker 2: I was I find doing that. Finally one day I said,
Speaker 2: you know, Mark, where are you? How come you missed
Speaker 2: so many classes? Well? Now he was a manager of
Speaker 2: Warehouse Records store in Coasta Mason, the back Bay Warehouse
Speaker 2: record store. And I said, okay, here's the deal. I
Speaker 2: want a job. If you're going to keep copying my
Speaker 2: class notes, I want a job. And I got a
Speaker 2: part time job working at the Warehouse Records and I
Speaker 2: was in heaven. You know, I would have worked for free.
Speaker 1: So now you're on the other side of the counter.
Speaker 1: What did you learn being on the other side of
Speaker 1: the corner?
Speaker 2: Most people didn't buy the records I liked, and I
Speaker 2: think that's a pretty normal experience for records store employees. Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is around the time you started having some really
Speaker 2: big records. You know, Frampton Comes Alive, it was around
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just it was.
Speaker 2: It was my school. It was my music business school.
Speaker 2: The store had subscriptions to Record World, cash Box and Billboard,
Speaker 2: and I read all of them cover to cover. Mark
Speaker 2: the store manager would let me take the trade magazines
Speaker 2: home and I would just read every work and I
Speaker 2: would study the charts and I was I would look
Speaker 2: at the advertisements. You know, what records are being advertised,
Speaker 2: Why what records are going up the track? What records
Speaker 2: are charting high? But we're not selling in our local store.
Speaker 2: I mean, there was just so much to absorb, you know,
Speaker 2: seeing the business side of the business. It was a
Speaker 2: great education.
Speaker 1: What was their plan if any going to college?
Speaker 2: I went to use Cervine because it was the only
Speaker 2: college to you know, express interest me being on the
Speaker 2: track team. So it was easy decision.
Speaker 1: Okay, were you planning to study anything? You say, I'm
Speaker 1: putting in my four years. I'll graduate, I'll figure it out. Then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started as an engineering student and thinking I
Speaker 2: would like engineering, and I really didn't. I switched to
Speaker 2: computer science for a quarter, didn't really like that, and
Speaker 2: I switched to economics, and I really liked that, so
Speaker 2: I stuck with economics. I found that fascinating.
Speaker 1: And you graduate from college, what's your first step in
Speaker 1: the work world.
Speaker 2: I didn't graduate from college.
Speaker 1: How long did you go and why didn't you graduate?
Speaker 2: Well? I went five years and didn't graduate well, partially
Speaker 2: because I kept changing my major. I would have to
Speaker 2: start over on my classes. I switched from Warehouse to
Speaker 2: Music Plus when story manager brought me in Mark and
Speaker 2: I should name him Mark Wesley, a very important person.
Speaker 2: Without Mark, I would not be in the music business,
Speaker 2: So thank you Mark. Mark went to Music Plus and
Speaker 2: brought me along. Music Plus was getting started then, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people from the Warehouse went to Music Plus.
Speaker 2: It was just a better music retailer and at the
Speaker 2: time fairly innovative. And what was really cool about Music
Speaker 2: Plus is they had a really good import section. And
Speaker 2: I loved import records. So by time nineteen seventy eight
Speaker 2: world around, I had this idea. I had to start
Speaker 2: an import record company, a distributor by vinyl from overseas
Speaker 2: sell it to record stores in the US. There was
Speaker 2: one company doing that in the US on any scale,
Speaker 2: company called Gem Records, and I thought there was a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that they weren't importing that could be
Speaker 2: the basis for a business to kind of compliment what
Speaker 2: they were doing. So I wrote in my brother, who
Speaker 2: was still in high school at the time, and the
Speaker 2: guy Steve Bideaux, who is the import buyer at Music Plus,
Speaker 2: to join me in the venture. And I had finished
Speaker 2: all my economics class work, and I had had to
Speaker 2: do basically two electives like two art history classes would
Speaker 2: have got me my diploma, and I just figured i'd
Speaker 2: do it later. I still haven't done.
Speaker 1: It, So, okay, you're ever going to do it? Then,
Speaker 1: what did your parents say?
Speaker 2: My parents are very supportive, you know. My mother and
Speaker 2: father could not have been more supportive. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: they thought I was going to be successful, but I
Speaker 2: figure they thought either I had to get it out
Speaker 2: of my system and it would be a good experience,
Speaker 2: or maybe it would work. I don't really know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you started independent. How much money does it take?
Speaker 1: Are you fumbling finding things out by accident? Is your
Speaker 1: business plan and instinct, right, how does it go?
Speaker 2: It was like two steps forward, one step back, which
Speaker 2: I think is you know, pretty much typical of businesses.
Speaker 2: You would rather be that than two steps back and
Speaker 2: one forward. You know. We start with fifty thousand dollars capital.
Speaker 1: Where did it come from?
Speaker 2: Some from I sold a car, I borrowed a few
Speaker 2: dollars from my mother. My brother actually had adequate savings
Speaker 2: even though he's high school kid. And Steve Burdo kicked
Speaker 2: in some money. So we raised fifty grand then, which
Speaker 2: is actually a ridiculously small amount of money to start
Speaker 2: a business. We had two thousand square foot warehouse in
Speaker 2: Torrents and a telics machine and an essential tool then
Speaker 2: to be in the import business.
Speaker 1: So how did you start?
Speaker 2: Well, we already had some Steve was the import buyer music,
Speaker 2: plus he already had some connections overseas. I had basically
Speaker 2: just studied the business, learned everything I could, and we
Speaker 2: basically just jumped on the telics machine and started sending
Speaker 2: out requests like hey, can we import records from you?
Speaker 2: Will you sell to us? You know, what are your prices?
Speaker 2: And because Jim was really strong bringing in stuff from
Speaker 2: the UK, we concentrated on places like Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands,
Speaker 2: you know, picking up stuff from those markets, and we
Speaker 2: did do some from the UK as well, and it
Speaker 2: grew from there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have these records, they say, yes, was
Speaker 1: it tending to be from the companies? Was it from
Speaker 1: what we call in the US rap job? Or is
Speaker 1: where were you actually getting the product?
Speaker 2: Some cases directly from the labels. In many cases in
Speaker 2: Japan you would deal with the exporter. None of the
Speaker 2: labels there would deal with you directly, but they would
Speaker 2: direct you to an exporter they would work with. In
Speaker 2: the UK, we ended up actually setting up our own
Speaker 2: office in the UK because around this time there was
Speaker 2: an explosion in very small but very interesting record labels
Speaker 2: in the UK like Rough Trade, Mute for a D
Speaker 2: just on and on and on, and to be viable
Speaker 2: you would need someone there locally, you know, getting the
Speaker 2: orders from ten different labels, consolidating them and then shipping
Speaker 2: the air freight to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Let's say I'm selling to you, When am I going
Speaker 1: to get paid.
Speaker 2: Well? Back in those days, yeah, NET thirty was typical.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you'll get the product. Who did you sell
Speaker 1: to retailers one stops what.
Speaker 2: Early days almost exclusively independent retail like in LA would
Speaker 2: be Rhino, Westwood, Moby Disc. There were a lot of
Speaker 2: really good independent stores, and then we built a network
Speaker 2: around the country stores. You know. The cool record stores
Speaker 2: in those days was the stores that had imports. That's
Speaker 2: how you knew it was a cool, cool store, you know,
Speaker 2: and not a mall store, but the cool store near
Speaker 2: a college campus. Quite frequently. Also, Music Plus had a
Speaker 2: good import selection. They were probably our best early customer.
Speaker 2: Eventually we started sellingelling more and more to larger chains,
Speaker 2: you know, people like Record Bar. Music Land was always
Speaker 2: hard to get into. Tarer was a good customer. Tower
Speaker 2: would order a lot, but Tara was challenging to do
Speaker 2: business with for many reasons.
Speaker 1: What are a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2: Well, they would pay you in net ninety if you
Speaker 2: were lucky, and they would make a lot of deductions
Speaker 2: and you had no leverage to argue with them. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, they sold a lot of records,
Speaker 2: so people tended to go along with it.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, how hard was it to get paid?
Speaker 2: I don't remember any serious traumas. I mean you know,
Speaker 2: we seldom have money in the bank. It would go
Speaker 2: back out as fast as it came in. I know
Speaker 2: GEM Records who had been selling to as kind of
Speaker 2: a subdistributor, they went bankrupt and we took a hit
Speaker 2: on that. Really, it was never that big a problem,
Speaker 2: and I might be just conveniently forgetting some bad debt
Speaker 2: we experienced, but generally we were okay, okay.
Speaker 1: The biggest import record of that time was Cheap Tricks
Speaker 1: Budicon record. Originally it's over for a long time as
Speaker 1: an import before it's released domestically. Were you in on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every importer was bringing that in. We did pretty well,
Speaker 2: but that was not our best selling import.
Speaker 1: What was your best selling input?
Speaker 2: The Australian ac DC records that were not out in
Speaker 2: the US. We killed with those. I don't think anyone
Speaker 2: else was bringing them in.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how many of sold?
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, Bright, between High Voltage and TNT probably total
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand more for import record. That that's the
Speaker 2: important version of a platinum record.
Speaker 1: And what's the markup on an import record?
Speaker 2: Then we would work on about a fifteen to twenty
Speaker 2: percent margin, So it was tight, and the dollar was
Speaker 2: going all over the place. There. We got hammered a
Speaker 2: couple of times when you know, to hear the Japanese yen,
Speaker 2: you know, we would get an order in sell the goods,
Speaker 2: and by the time it came to pay the bill,
Speaker 2: the dollar had lost eight percent against the yen, and
Speaker 2: there goes half our margin.
Speaker 1: So Jim went bankrupt, patted it in with Green World.
Speaker 2: At some point, you know, and Ignoral Records came out
Speaker 2: of Green World. It was just sort of a natural progression.
Speaker 2: But there was something that happened before in the import
Speaker 2: business I think is notable, and the independent label businesses
Speaker 2: that existed in the eighties in the US came out
Speaker 2: of the import record distributors. Those were the distributors started
Speaker 2: handling people like Frontier and sst Epitaph. You know, the
Speaker 2: old traditional independent regional distributors that handled Chrysalis Island weren't
Speaker 2: really interested in sort of the new punk rock and
Speaker 2: heavy metal labels, so they gravitated to going to the
Speaker 2: importers because we were dealing with the stores that would
Speaker 2: stock a Frontier, sst or Metal Blade record. And gradually
Speaker 2: the import business, as a percentage of turnover for these distributors,
Speaker 2: including Green World, became less and less and the domestic
Speaker 2: independent labels became more and more and out of this,
Speaker 2: Green World decided to start its own in house label,
Speaker 2: which ended up being Enigma. At some point, Steve, the
Speaker 2: third partner with my brother and myself at Green World,
Speaker 2: decided he wanted to take full ownership of Green World
Speaker 2: and he bought us out, so he gave us Enigma.
Speaker 2: He bought out our shares in Green World, and Enigma
Speaker 2: then was independent company. Around that time, Jim Marton joined us,
Speaker 2: so it was three of us again.
Speaker 1: Now Enigma. The first thing I remember is the re
Speaker 1: release of the early Alice Cooper records that were on
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa's label. Were those the first releases?
Speaker 2: Or oh no, you're about seven years It's about seven
Speaker 2: years to fill.
Speaker 1: In there, okay, So tell me what were the first ones?
Speaker 2: Well, the first one came out before we had the
Speaker 2: name Enigma. It was Motley Crue Too Fast for Love,
Speaker 2: right right right, and that was a rocket ship. That
Speaker 2: was a nice start. Too bad they all didn't go
Speaker 2: that way, you know. And as the story on that is,
Speaker 2: they had pressed up a thousand copies of the album
Speaker 2: and sold them right away, and there was a buzz
Speaker 2: on the band. You know, they were playing the clubs
Speaker 2: around LA and they had a real following. So we
Speaker 2: were trying to chase down someone in the band to
Speaker 2: see if we could get some just a distribute. Finally
Speaker 2: got a hold of someone. They said, we'd love to
Speaker 2: sell you some, but we're sold out. I said, well,
Speaker 2: can you make some more? I said, well we could,
Speaker 2: but we haven't paid the pressing plant yet. So we said,
Speaker 2: we'll pay the pressing plant, will you give us an exclusive?
Speaker 2: And that led to us basically being a label, and
Speaker 2: we later sold our rights Motley Crue to Elector Records.
Speaker 2: Tom Zutet was the A and R guy then and decided, Hey,
Speaker 2: this label thing is kind of cool, let's do more
Speaker 2: of this. We soon signed. We did a deal for
Speaker 2: the Wall of Voodoo EP, which came out on Index Records,
Speaker 2: distributed through Enigma. Band called the Fibonacci's, a great local band.
Speaker 2: And then the next big record for us was the
Speaker 2: first Berlin record just later that same year, which again
Speaker 2: did really well out of the box. We got a
Speaker 2: lot of k rock play early on the first record
Speaker 2: to get any kind of real Radio and then Geffen
Speaker 2: bought on our rights, so we it's kind of this pattern.
Speaker 2: We find something, sell, some have some heat, and major
Speaker 2: label comes in and writes us a check and we
Speaker 2: move on to the next thing. At that point we
Speaker 2: were determined not to do that so much to actually
Speaker 2: start building a roster, and yeah we did. We actually
Speaker 2: had a joint venture around that time with EMI America
Speaker 2: because there were some things we wanted to do that
Speaker 2: we couldn't afford to do on our own, So through
Speaker 2: that we had Red Hot Chili Peppers was on Enigma
Speaker 2: EMI America SSQ, which it's where Stacey Q came from,
Speaker 2: was there, and then that deal expired, was not renewed.
Speaker 2: Garry Gersh had been our big supporter edd EEMI American.
Speaker 2: He had left and I kind of discovered what happens
Speaker 2: when your big supporter at a major label goes away.
Speaker 2: But soon after that we connected with Capital and we
Speaker 2: created a new joint venture for just certain artists with
Speaker 2: Capital and that worked very well for several years. We
Speaker 2: did the Smither Rains with them, we did Poison with them.
Speaker 2: Both were very successful.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the Motley Crue. The first
Speaker 1: record you make the deal. Yeah, it was upstream to Elektra.
Speaker 1: What did you actually have the rights to? Did you
Speaker 1: have a few albums? You only have rights to that album?
Speaker 1: Did you just have rights to distribution?
Speaker 2: We had two record deals, so we got the rights
Speaker 2: long term. I have to remember. I think it was
Speaker 2: a long term licensed for Too Fast for Love and
Speaker 2: then an option for a second album. I don't think
Speaker 2: our contract was written that well, but it was written
Speaker 2: well enough that Electra was motivated to bias out and
Speaker 2: then they remixed the album. My opinion, I liked the
Speaker 2: original mix still.
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of independence at this point that people
Speaker 1: were writing their own contracts. Did you have a lawyer
Speaker 1: or did you do the contracts hush?
Speaker 2: I think we might have used Don Pieterman at that
Speaker 2: point we had met through the wall of Voodo deal
Speaker 2: when we started. We later our longtime lawyer was Peter Paterno,
Speaker 2: and I don't remember exactly when we started using Peter,
Speaker 2: but our contracts in the Peter era were very good,
Speaker 2: fair I think. But Peter was a great lawyer.
Speaker 1: Okay, in your history, have you ever had to sue anybody?
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've ever sued anyone, we've gone
Speaker 2: into arbitration and maybe once I don't know, nothing comes
Speaker 2: to mind.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had all these acts that were hot
Speaker 1: locally that the majors wouldn't pick up. As you say,
Speaker 1: you had Motley Crue, had Berlin, you had Poison. What
Speaker 1: do you think was going on there? Because as soon
Speaker 1: as you made him successful, everybody else came looking. Why
Speaker 1: did they not see what you saw or what did
Speaker 1: you see?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I mean I think they eventually saw
Speaker 2: what we saw, or they saw the numbers. I know
Speaker 2: when we did the Capitol deal, the Capital salespeople, the
Speaker 2: local salespeople were very aware we had one of the
Speaker 2: best selling records in Los Angeles, and you know that
Speaker 2: didn't hurt us doing the deal at Capitol. But you know,
Speaker 2: smither Rings came out of New Jersey. We signed bands
Speaker 2: from all over. I don't know. I mean, we kind
Speaker 2: of business people like Berlin because we just like we
Speaker 2: liked the music. This is a great record, let's put
Speaker 2: it out. Same with Poison.
Speaker 1: There was the impression that no one else was authoring
Speaker 1: him a deal. Was that true?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm sure there were people sniffing around,
Speaker 2: because there's always A and R guys sniffing around, certainly
Speaker 2: in those days, and we're the first ones to step
Speaker 2: up and say let's go, let's make a record.
Speaker 1: Okay, And as I say, you do start putting out
Speaker 1: some reissue records. I mentioned the Alice Cooper Records. How
Speaker 1: much of a business was that and was that financially successful?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a licensing deal with Herb Cohen, who
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know was Frank Zappa's business partner, to
Speaker 2: re issue some catalog records that when he separated his
Speaker 2: business from Frank, some of the titles went to him
Speaker 2: and some of the Zappa's stuff went to Frank. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was notfensive. The Tim Buckley Liven London record, which
Speaker 2: had not been released before, did really well. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say we still tens of thousands of it, which for
Speaker 2: a title like that, we were very happy with. The
Speaker 2: Cooper Records did okay. The Ted Nugent records did pretty well.
Speaker 2: People forget that Ted Nugent was signed to a Frank
Speaker 2: Zappa label once upon a time.
Speaker 1: So you have some serious hits, are you making any
Speaker 1: money or you just plowing it back into the business.
Speaker 2: Plowing it back into the business.
Speaker 1: So how does it end in Enigma and turn into Restless?
Speaker 2: At some point I think we're in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: You know, we wanted to keep a We wanted to
Speaker 2: keep in business, the independent distributors, and we didn't think
Speaker 2: everything we were doing was suitable to go through Capital's
Speaker 2: distribution arm, which then was called SEMA, right, So we
Speaker 2: created a separate imprint just to be distributed independently and
Speaker 2: had some pretty good success there. Flaming Lips were assigned
Speaker 2: to Restless. There was some really good stuff on Wrestless
Speaker 2: and Restless grew shared a lot of the same staff,
Speaker 2: and we were basically one company distributing one label through Independence,
Speaker 2: another label through Capital's major label system. And I should
Speaker 2: point out that we did have two artists joint ventured
Speaker 2: with Capital, Poison and Smitherings. Everything else we did through
Speaker 2: them was one hundred percent hours bands like Hurricane and
Speaker 2: many many more. So you know, I said what how?
Speaker 2: And at Emi America and Gary Gersh left and Jamie
Speaker 2: Cohen left, who had been our big supporters. There, we
Speaker 2: were just kind of adrift. No one really understood what
Speaker 2: the hell we were doing with Red Hot Chili peppers,
Speaker 2: and you know, what is this music? Or are these
Speaker 2: people at Capital? We had some great supporters, Tom Wally certainly,
Speaker 2: and you know, we got on really well there. But
Speaker 2: then Tom leaves. He goes to Interscope where he was
Speaker 2: very successful later to Warner, and some of the other
Speaker 2: people we knew there who were great supporters left and
Speaker 2: the world was changing. You know, by now it's nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, Charles Koppaman is in there, and you know,
Speaker 2: he's very influential, and he's bringing in some big, big records,
Speaker 2: and I think people were looking at us and going,
Speaker 2: you know, why are we business with these guys. Let's
Speaker 2: just double down on the speak and some of this
Speaker 2: other stuff we're doing. So we had an amicable divorce
Speaker 2: with Capital. We kind of split the baby. They got poisoned,
Speaker 2: they got Smithereens, they got a couple other things. They
Speaker 2: got the Enigma name, and I had something to do over.
Speaker 2: I would have thought to keep that name, because they
Speaker 2: immediately abandoned the trademark. We got Restless, We got a
Speaker 2: lot of the catalog, and we started a new business
Speaker 2: wholly independent again.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did Restless and and what ended up happening
Speaker 1: to all the assets from Enigma and Restless that you'd
Speaker 1: built up.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, some of the Enigma assets are owned
Speaker 2: at by Capital now Universal. Restless went through some ownership
Speaker 2: changes at the end of the nineties, was acquired by
Speaker 2: New Regency Productions or Non Millshones company. He wanted to
Speaker 2: do more with soundtracks. He wanted to control the soundtracks
Speaker 2: to his films because he had had some very big soundtracks,
Speaker 2: like Pretty Woman was a huge album, and he was
Speaker 2: very keen on music. So he bought Wrestless and we
Speaker 2: did some really interesting soundtracks there. I have great memories
Speaker 2: of La Confidential. That was a great album. It was
Speaker 2: absolutely a pleasure working on that project. The director's name
Speaker 2: just jumped on my head. One of the nicest people
Speaker 2: I've met my life. He's since passed away, but what
Speaker 2: a brilliant man. Fight Club was a blast. You know,
Speaker 2: imagine sitting down and watching rough cut of Fight Club
Speaker 2: and being asked what you think? Right? So that was
Speaker 2: that was fun. We'd done some soundtracks in the eighties
Speaker 2: Terminator soundtrack, Return a Living Dead, a few others, but
Speaker 2: this was on a whole different scale. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: new agency was the major Leagues. Eventually that relationship didn't
Speaker 2: really go anywhere, and again we had another amicable divorce.
Speaker 2: My business partner Wrestless to Regis, and I bought back
Speaker 2: the assets to Restless and we turned around did a
Speaker 2: deal with rykod Disc. This is around two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back in these varying chapters up to
Speaker 1: your end up to it, including your deal with right Go.
Speaker 1: Did you have any big paydays?
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we actually sold half of Enigma and then
Speaker 2: the second half to Capital Emi, and that was like
Speaker 2: about the first time I ever really had money in
Speaker 2: the bank of any sort. We'd never had big paychecks.
Speaker 2: We always paid ourselves very modestly.
Speaker 1: Were those seven figure deals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to say they. If we'd sold
Speaker 2: a few years later, we would have got considerably more.
Speaker 2: The value of independent record labels in like It nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine versus Like nineteen ninety five, hugely different. So
Speaker 2: we missed the run up.
Speaker 1: Okay, Reiko is started primarily because they have pressing capability
Speaker 1: in Japan when no one can get that, certainly on
Speaker 1: independent label. You know Don Rose is running it. How
Speaker 1: do you end up selling and running Reicho.
Speaker 2: Well, Reiko had gone through some changes. I'd been friendly
Speaker 2: with the Reiko guys from the early days. I was
Speaker 2: a big fan of theirs. I bought every single Reiko release. Well,
Speaker 2: I'd buy it if I couldn't convince them to send
Speaker 2: me a promo copy. And I was just an avid fan.
Speaker 2: I love them, I love the likeicism, I love the curation.
Speaker 2: At some point, Reiko took on a lot of debt
Speaker 2: to acquire the Zappa catalog and to set up a
Speaker 2: distribution business, and eventually that debt repayment schedule they just
Speaker 2: couldn't handle. You know, things are happening, Napster was happening,
Speaker 2: and they were forced into you might call it a
Speaker 2: shotgun wedding with Palm Pictures, And I don't really know
Speaker 2: the inside story, so maybe it was a friendly engagement.
Speaker 2: Who knows, one way or another. Palm Pictures in Reicho
Speaker 2: were merged together and that didn't really work, and the
Speaker 2: people with the money behind it, a private equity group,
Speaker 2: decided that they would shake things up. Sam Holdsworth was
Speaker 2: put in as a head of Raycho Disc. He came
Speaker 2: from Billboard, so he knew the music business, but he
Speaker 2: had been working in private equity for a while, so
Speaker 2: he kind of bridged the gap between the private equity
Speaker 2: people and you know, the Rykodisc music people. And I
Speaker 2: think he should be credited with keeping Reicho alive. It
Speaker 2: could have easily have been sold for scrap right around
Speaker 2: that time. He wanted to beef it up, so one
Speaker 2: of the things he did was by restless and merch
Speaker 2: it in. You know, Joe and I were looking for
Speaker 2: a partner at that point, you know, either distributor or
Speaker 2: a partner or something a home for Reiko. So it
Speaker 2: was it was you know, it was very happy with that.
Speaker 2: We had good years at Rykodisc.
Speaker 1: And how did it end at Reiko?
Speaker 2: Well, because as private equity owned, private equity owned businesses
Speaker 2: are always sold, so we knew there was a fuse
Speaker 2: that had been lit. And the mission was let's make
Speaker 2: it as much great music as we can, take care
Speaker 2: of the artists here, and get a good deal when
Speaker 2: it is sold, and try to preserve you know, what
Speaker 2: made recod as special and I do think it was
Speaker 2: a very special company. Just have to remember those were
Speaker 2: weird times those early years, this decade, record business was
Speaker 2: shrinking ten percent a year. Retail stores were going bankrupt
Speaker 2: left and right. There were layoffs everywhere, So you were
Speaker 2: navigating turbulent waters running the record label then, and Reiko
Speaker 2: was not just a label. They had a music publishing company,
Speaker 2: they had a distribution company, they had an international operation
Speaker 2: based in London though, you know, for an independent, it
Speaker 2: was a big vertically integrated business.
Speaker 1: Who is it ultimately sold to again, Warner? Okay, you're
Speaker 1: out of a job. Where does that leave you?
Speaker 2: Well, I was offered a job to stay and I
Speaker 2: thought about it, and you know, Warner is a wonderful company,
Speaker 2: a legendary company. Warner actually had interest in buying Enigma
Speaker 2: in the eighties. We were locked into the capital deal
Speaker 2: and you know, we weren't able to go forward with that,
Speaker 2: but you know, that's not the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 2: But I was about that time offered a job to
Speaker 2: run Caroline for EMI, and that looked really interesting to me,
Speaker 2: and I took that offer. So just really moved across town.
Speaker 2: I was living in New York at the time, and
Speaker 2: so it was just shifting a few blocks from the
Speaker 2: Reicho office to the Caroline office.
Speaker 1: And how was your experience of Caroline?
Speaker 2: Both good and weird again. I have a great love
Speaker 2: for the em My Company, as you know, the whole
Speaker 2: worldwide organization, Capitol Records, Blue Note, Harlophone. I mean, you
Speaker 2: go through the history of that company and what they've
Speaker 2: done in places like France and Germany, and it's an
Speaker 2: amazing history. And so I was very you know, to
Speaker 2: be running a unity am I I took very seriously
Speaker 2: and I considered an honor. Caroline was on kind of
Speaker 2: the decline then companies like Adya, which I had been
Speaker 2: involved in setting up, and Sony's independent arm Red we're
Speaker 2: kind of eating their lunch. So the mission was to
Speaker 2: get it back on its feet, get it rolling again.
Speaker 2: We folded the Astroworks label into Caroline, and you know
Speaker 2: Astworks again, what a great label with chemical brothers, so many,
Speaker 2: so much good music on Asterworks, and we got the
Speaker 2: business going again. It was losing considerable amount of money
Speaker 2: every month when I came in. It was profitable within
Speaker 2: six months. And then the weirdness started. Right my hands
Speaker 2: came in. That didn't really work out, and you know,
Speaker 2: the chessboard was getting shook up again.
Speaker 1: Did you get pushed to walk? No.
Speaker 2: I had a very good fortune of being offered a
Speaker 2: job right around that time. We're good fortunate, so you.
Speaker 1: Go to work with Cole. How did they just call
Speaker 1: you out of the blue? Do you know Cold? You
Speaker 1: know Ezrin?
Speaker 2: Well, I know I know Bob. I first met Ezren
Speaker 2: when it brought him in to rescue album by Ben
Speaker 2: Hurricane in the eighties. The producer left to work in
Speaker 2: another project, and Bob came in and finished the album,
Speaker 2: did a great job, and I found him to be
Speaker 2: a very interesting person. You know, you're never bored with
Speaker 2: Bob Ezrin, and he's got such a keen mind. So
Speaker 2: we just have that connection. And years later, my brother
Speaker 2: and I and one other partner, we're starting a company
Speaker 2: that we ended up calling a Enigma Digital. This is
Speaker 2: when I took a couple of year break from Restless,
Speaker 2: and it was a streaming radio business, but with a
Speaker 2: community component. Today you would call it a social network.
Speaker 2: This was in ninety eight and you told Bob about it.
Speaker 2: He found it very interesting. He joined on as a
Speaker 2: founding partner. So we did a Enigma Digital for a
Speaker 2: couple of years. You might be interested to know the
Speaker 2: company that bought Nigma Joel's Clear Channel. That was in
Speaker 2: around two thousand and one. So you know, we went
Speaker 2: through that whole dot com thing. We did have a
Speaker 2: great business. We got the rights to k and A
Speaker 2: C went off the air. We all the DJs or
Speaker 2: many of the DJs had started a streaming radio business
Speaker 2: called Kanac dot Com. We acquired and folded that in
Speaker 2: and that was a blast. So that's you know, that
Speaker 2: was my second go round with ezrind. So Bob was
Speaker 2: running Live Nation Artists, which was just getting off the ground,
Speaker 2: and it was, you know, under Michael Cole within the
Speaker 2: Live Nation organization. Cole was based in Miami, so Live
Speaker 2: Nation Artist was in Miami. So Bob said, you know,
Speaker 2: come down work with me. You don't want to work
Speaker 2: with guy hands, And you know he was not wrong
Speaker 2: about that. So I left EMI, moved to Miami and
Speaker 2: went to work for Live Nation Artists.
Speaker 1: Well, ultimately Repino shuts that down. Where does that leave you?
Speaker 2: Well, without a job, And that wasn't very long and
Speaker 2: it's you know, regrets aren't really useful, and I don't
Speaker 2: tend to dwell on things, but Live Nation Artists could
Speaker 2: have been really great. One of the first things we
Speaker 2: did was sign Zach Brown. Zach Brown band. It is
Speaker 2: seven year old rights deal with Zach Brown band, and
Speaker 2: we had that first album and we knew it was
Speaker 2: a monster, and we knew he was a monster. And
Speaker 2: you know, Bob and I actually continued working with Zach
Speaker 2: but outside Live Nation artists. So it was a great idea.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was ahead of its time. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I'm I have some sadness when I think about that.
Speaker 2: It could have been a really special company. I mean,
Speaker 2: Live Nations resources are immense then, they're even more immense now.
Speaker 2: So having, you know, the idea to use something like
Speaker 2: Live Nation for an artist development tool is was. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wish we could have gone on with that. So
Speaker 2: the one that got away.
Speaker 1: So where do you go from there?
Speaker 2: Nashville. I met a couple of people through the Zach
Speaker 2: Brown deal. Keith Stegaal a great producer who produced Zach
Speaker 2: Brown and you know they were he was based in Nashville,
Speaker 2: his business partner Alan Kates. So Ezra moved to Nashville.
Speaker 2: I moved to Nashville, formed a business with Keista Gall
Speaker 2: and Alan Kates, and you know, we were doing the
Speaker 2: radio promotion for Zach Brown country radio. We had eight
Speaker 2: number one hits. We helped Zach do deal with Atlantic,
Speaker 2: which was very successful. We signed a couple other bands,
Speaker 2: none of which really hit all that big. We did
Speaker 2: an Alice Cooper project, which was fun, but eventually I
Speaker 2: got a little tired of it. It was probably too
Speaker 2: many cooks in the kitchen. We had other partners, so
Speaker 2: Ezern drifted away from it. I left. I moved back
Speaker 2: to Colorado. But it was fun. I really enjoyed being
Speaker 2: in Nashville. And you know, now, seeing what Nashville has
Speaker 2: become and the music business is not a surprise to me.
Speaker 2: I felt it.
Speaker 1: Then, Okay, you said, went back to Colorado. When had
Speaker 1: you been in Colorado?
Speaker 2: Well, when Enigma, when Restless split from Enigma and the
Speaker 2: capital of my deal ended, I moved to Durango area.
Speaker 1: Why Durngo.
Speaker 2: I just liked Durango. I visited there and I just
Speaker 2: loved it. I burnt out a little on California. I
Speaker 2: grew up in California, loved growing up in California, but
Speaker 2: I wanted to do something different. I had a fax machine,
Speaker 2: I had America Online email. I had a twelve hundred
Speaker 2: Botom modem. I could work remote. I would drive to
Speaker 2: La oh, about once a month, maybe stay a week.
Speaker 2: Rest time I was on the fax machine, the phone,
Speaker 2: or on America Online email, so I know, early remote working.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, for that period of time between bigger picture
Speaker 1: and then getting into the pressing, you're involved in non
Speaker 1: music business. Did you basically say I don't want to
Speaker 1: work in the music business, or there's no opportunities in
Speaker 1: the music business, or I'd rather do something different. Uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like I should do something different. I'd
Speaker 2: also felt a little disenfranchised. You know, I've never stopped
Speaker 2: following Billboard magazine. You know, I look at the Hits
Speaker 2: website all the time and stay in touch with a
Speaker 2: lot of my music business friends. I just felt out
Speaker 2: of touch with what music people were interested in, and probably,
Speaker 2: looking back, I wasn't looking hard enough. So maybe I
Speaker 2: was just ready for a break. But I'd look at
Speaker 2: the music that was selling and just think I never
Speaker 2: would have picked that. I don't understand that, So I
Speaker 2: think I doing it over again. I would probably have
Speaker 2: stayed in the business. But you know, I had a
Speaker 2: nice little vacation for music business, and what had my
Speaker 2: appetite to get back in and.
Speaker 1: Of the other enterprises you were involved in any of
Speaker 1: them successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was managing well the leading cannabis businesses in Colorado.
Speaker 2: That's respectable business here in the state, and that was interesting.
Speaker 2: I find a lot of the personalities in the cannabis
Speaker 2: business similar to people I worked with in the music business,
Speaker 2: and it was something I would just remark upon all
Speaker 2: the time, the same kind of personality. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a wildcat. If you think of an oil wildcatter. You
Speaker 2: have to be a little insane to go in the
Speaker 2: music business. Yet to be a little insane to go
Speaker 2: into the cannabis business.
Speaker 1: How did you actually get in?
Speaker 2: My brother was when he left the music business. He
Speaker 2: was at Hollywood Records after Enigma, working Peter Paterno, and
Speaker 2: then he left music business after Hollywood, and he is
Speaker 2: a leading executive in California cannabis business. And he made
Speaker 2: some introduction. He knew someone in Colorado looking for a
Speaker 2: senior executive to help turn around a business and recommended me.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people who lost a lot
Speaker 1: of money in the cannabis business. What was your experience, Well,
Speaker 1: I never had much personal capital in the business. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: as I say, I'm more talking about your running a business.
Speaker 1: What they always found was there always a heavier player
Speaker 1: who came in. I know a couple of exceptions. What
Speaker 1: was the experience you had with the company.
Speaker 2: You worked for? Well, I worked with two. One was
Speaker 2: actually a supplier of materials grow Materials, a wholesale supplier
Speaker 2: with some retail outlets that sold to private growers. It
Speaker 2: did really well and it was sold for a pretty
Speaker 2: good amount of money. And then the retailer I worked with,
Speaker 2: which also had its own grow operation, is the number
Speaker 2: one store in Boulder and maybe the first, first or
Speaker 2: second legal cannabis store in Colorado and locally a legend.
Speaker 2: So and David Crosby was a customer whenever he was
Speaker 2: in town.
Speaker 1: Someone sitting at home they say they want to get
Speaker 1: into the cannabis business. Colorado I think literally the first
Speaker 1: to legalize it. What would you advise them? Opportunities or
Speaker 1: stay out?
Speaker 2: Now I would say stay out. The opportunities are gone.
Speaker 2: Some things have changed. When Colorado was the first to
Speaker 2: have recreational in California was earlier with medical, there was
Speaker 2: such thing as cannabis tourism. People would come here for
Speaker 2: a weekend to buy a legal pot, you know, smoke
Speaker 2: a legal joint get high, and there were companies that
Speaker 2: would do cannabis tours. You'd visit a grow. Now that
Speaker 2: majority of states have at least medical cannabis tourism is
Speaker 2: not a thing you would. Also, you know, people don't
Speaker 2: drive from New Mexico to buy cannabis anymore. There's legal
Speaker 2: cannabis in New Mexico, there's legal cannabis in Arizona. So
Speaker 2: some of the business has gone away that came from
Speaker 2: out of state people visiting Colorado and the market there's
Speaker 2: too many dispensaries and the market is resetting itself. Some
Speaker 2: of the dispensaries are going out of business. You know, markets
Speaker 2: always find their level. They're equal every point, and Colorado's
Speaker 2: doing that. We don't have quite the problems that with
Speaker 2: enforcement that say California does, where California has more illegal
Speaker 2: dispensaries than legal, creating all sorts of problems there. That
Speaker 2: is relatively under control in Colorado.
Speaker 1: So how does it end with the cannabis business getting
Speaker 1: into the business now of pressing and labeled.
Speaker 2: Well, I just you know, serve my time and said
Speaker 2: I'd like to leave. I'm going to go start making
Speaker 2: final records and I kind of overlapped the business for
Speaker 2: a little while because they needed me to do some
Speaker 2: things at the retailer. But I wrapped up my business
Speaker 2: there and got going in Vinyl.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about all these moves living in Poland.
Speaker 1: Do you have a significant other, have you been married,
Speaker 1: do you have children?
Speaker 2: Well, yes to all those questions. I was married first
Speaker 2: time in the mid eighties. For about a year. I
Speaker 2: was working probably one hundred hour weeks, never taking a
Speaker 2: day off, never taking a vacation. Then, so you know,
Speaker 2: I never give that marriage a chance. Ended relatively amicably,
Speaker 2: no kids. Then I was in a relationship later marriage
Speaker 2: for thirty years till twenty eighteen. My wife passed away
Speaker 2: in a car crash. We have a twenty year old
Speaker 2: daughter to durn twenty one, who is delightfully a huge
Speaker 2: music fan. Love going to shows with her. She's got
Speaker 2: great musical tastes, so you know that's a delight.
Speaker 1: Okay, we are at the age where spouses of dying
Speaker 1: of cancer. I have some very close friends, even when
Speaker 1: in the Denver area. This was an accident. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a touchy subject, but how does one cope with
Speaker 1: this and how does one March forward. A lot of
Speaker 1: people say, oh, so sad, but then they move on.
Speaker 1: Some people go to grief groups. Some people never get
Speaker 1: over it. What has been your experience and what would
Speaker 1: you give insight to people who unfortunately might be in
Speaker 1: this situation.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it leaves the hall in your life, but
Speaker 2: life goes on. And that sounds tripe, but it's true.
Speaker 2: You can never bring that person back. The fact that
Speaker 2: I have a daughter with my wife is you know,
Speaker 2: a reminder of the life I had with her, and
Speaker 2: I think I remember the good things. Probably harder on
Speaker 2: my daughter than on me. She was thirteen when her
Speaker 2: mother passed, so you know, that's a rough time for
Speaker 2: a teenager with a normal you know, with two parents, right,
Speaker 2: losing one that was rough, and then she had to
Speaker 2: go through the whole COVID thing where she was in
Speaker 2: high school. So she's a great kid. She's turning twenty one.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't call her kid, but it was hard on her,
Speaker 2: but she's come through. I think what helped us is
Speaker 2: we have a wonderful, supporting family. Supportive family, family's very close,
Speaker 2: you know, we're spread out all over the country, and
Speaker 2: very supportive friends. That makes the difference.
Speaker 1: A while back, you talked about being partners with somebody
Speaker 1: in Boulder and a radio business. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, that was Andy Zicklund, who is now my
Speaker 2: partner in the manufacturing company, pressing business and the two labels,
Speaker 2: along with Fred Goldring. Amazing Radio is an English streaming
Speaker 2: radio business with DJs that plays primarily unsigned music. And
Speaker 2: I was first approached to set up Amazing Radio America.
Speaker 2: I eventually passed. Andy took the job, and Andy ran it
Speaker 2: for a while I think did a real good job,
Speaker 2: and eventually he decided he would rather do the manufacturing
Speaker 2: business pressing business with me, and he signed his position
Speaker 2: Amazing Radio. It's still going. It's a really interesting business.
Speaker 2: It's a great way to discover new music. A lot
Speaker 2: of really interesting artists have come through that, like du
Speaker 2: A Loupa. Anymore.
Speaker 1: So, you live in Denver, that's a very active music market.
Speaker 1: For those people not Denver savvy, what are they missing?
Speaker 2: It's a great life here. I live downtown. I can
Speaker 2: walk to several music venues. I can walk to Union
Speaker 2: train station, take a twenty minute ride to the airport.
Speaker 2: Great restaurants in the neighborhood, most touring bands, but a
Speaker 2: Denver stop on the tour. There's some great venues. Everyone
Speaker 2: knows Red Rocks, of course, but there's lots of other
Speaker 2: great venues here. You know, it helps the You know,
Speaker 2: Denver was early in booking bands like The Doors and
Speaker 2: the Jefferson Airplane, very early days. So I think it
Speaker 2: gave the town a taste for live rock and roll
Speaker 2: and new and exciting music very early on. That's never
Speaker 2: gone away. And part of that was there was a
Speaker 2: legendary tour promoter here. His name just jumped out as
Speaker 2: my head, but Live Nation acquired his business.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think you're referencing Chuck Oh yeah, Chuck Morris.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Chuck Morris. People like Chuck Morris leave a legacy,
Speaker 2: and the legacy is a lot of music fans here,
Speaker 2: a lot of people that live music's part of their life.
Speaker 1: When you were with a Nigmahnu in La, it was
Speaker 1: a free flowing let's call it, not a free flowing party,
Speaker 1: but a free flowing high school. Everybody was in La.
Speaker 1: There was also a business in New York. You're living
Speaker 1: in Denver now, a are you basically saying you can
Speaker 1: live anywhere or b are you the type of person
Speaker 1: who's in your business but tends not to integrate with
Speaker 1: X terminal businesses.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how to answer that. Certainly, in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, I couldn't have run Enigma from Denver. I mean,
Speaker 2: there have been really good independent labels from places like
Speaker 2: Denver forever, but you know, having so many of the
Speaker 2: bands based in LA and if they weren't from LA,
Speaker 2: they were like poison moving from Pennsylvania to LA. But yeah,
Speaker 2: look at Minneapolis labels like Twin Tone helped grow that scene.
Speaker 2: So I don't know. It's hard to say. I do
Speaker 2: have to travel a lot, but you know, I have
Speaker 2: no issue working from Denver. It's a worldwide business now.
Speaker 2: And one of the most fascinating things for me is
Speaker 2: to look at the Spotify data and Apple Music data
Speaker 2: where you know, I love seeing how many countries listened
Speaker 2: to someone like Tony eleven. Tony eleven album is about
Speaker 2: two months old. People in one hundred and ninety six
Speaker 2: countries have listened to it. Wow, That's that's mind blowing me.
Speaker 2: And that's not unusual. I think you can get up
Speaker 2: to two hundred and five. So we've got a couple
Speaker 2: to go. You know, music business didn't used to be
Speaker 2: that way. I saw thirty seconds from Mars just played
Speaker 2: like the former Republic of Georgia Kazakhstan. Who's Bekistan on
Speaker 2: a tour? That's just that's just mind blowing to me
Speaker 2: because for the longest time, the music business was North America, Japan, Australia, UK,
Speaker 2: a couple of European countries, and it is truly a
Speaker 2: global business. Now there are music fans everywhere, so I
Speaker 2: think it's less important where you are because the business
Speaker 2: is everywhere and the bands are everywhere. We've signed a
Speaker 2: band from Belarus who are fantastic, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: who would have thought you'd find great music in Belarus.
Speaker 2: It's there and I'm, you know, very curious to see
Speaker 2: what else pops on. I was at a music festival
Speaker 2: in Spain recently and I saw a band from Tehran
Speaker 2: who were tremendous instrumental band. They sound like something that
Speaker 2: could be on the ECM label, except for they also
Speaker 2: covered a King Crimson song. Again, who would have thought
Speaker 2: that you would hear music like that coming out of Iran.
Speaker 2: So if there's anything that keeps me interested in music,
Speaker 2: it's you don't know what's coming next. All you know
Speaker 2: is something really interesting is going to come next. You
Speaker 2: have no idea where it's going to come from, and
Speaker 2: it's going to be exciting.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're of the similar vintage. So in the pre
Speaker 1: internet era, we would look at the chart. We literally
Speaker 1: knew every record. We might not have heard it, but
Speaker 1: we knew it. We knew the story. Today you can
Speaker 1: look at the Spotify top fifty and only know a
Speaker 1: couple of records. Do you feel, as I say, you're
Speaker 1: in your lane because you come from an era where
Speaker 1: you're working a record stores that had everything, they have
Speaker 1: three trades? Do you try to be comprehensive? Do you
Speaker 1: think it's impossible and do your best? Or and you
Speaker 1: say that's just not what I do?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you can't keep up on everything. You know,
Speaker 2: every Friday, you know, part of my routine on Friday
Speaker 2: is to check the new music on Spotify and Apple.
Speaker 2: You know, see what the algorithms think I should be
Speaker 2: interested in. You know, I do come across some stuff.
Speaker 2: Then I come across some stuff. I go, why is
Speaker 2: this being recommended to me? This is horror? But I
Speaker 2: come across some amazing stuff that I've never heard of.
Speaker 2: I discover more new music. However're just friends, you know,
Speaker 2: pinging me saying hey, check this out. That's probably my
Speaker 2: number one music discovery source. But I do love the Internet,
Speaker 2: and you know the tool gives you to discover music,
Speaker 2: you know, discocks. I'm constantly checking discogs, you know, on
Speaker 2: some of the re issues we do. It's like, let's
Speaker 2: go check discogs. How many people have this in the collection,
Speaker 2: how many people are looking at it? What's the resale
Speaker 2: value this? You know, what a great tool. I think
Speaker 2: back when my record collecting days. I used to have
Speaker 2: a list fold, a piece of paper that I would
Speaker 2: keep with me when I would go to record stores,
Speaker 2: when i'd go to Errand's or Tower, you know, or
Speaker 2: movie disc or Rano Westwood, and I've had written down
Speaker 2: records I was looking for, and there were records it
Speaker 2: took me two years to find. Oh yeah, and that
Speaker 2: was when you would find it. What a feeling, What
Speaker 2: an endorphin rush? Oh my god, I can't believe I'm
Speaker 2: holding this in my hand. Or I would trade. I
Speaker 2: used to look at the trouser press ads and trade
Speaker 2: records with people. I once got a stash of New
Speaker 2: Zealand pressings of Split Ends records when the New Zealand
Speaker 2: pressings were different and I bought ten of each just
Speaker 2: to trade. You know. Now you just sit down at
Speaker 2: your computer type away, you know, and like magic, it
Speaker 2: pops up. It's a different experience. I can't say it's
Speaker 2: as rewarding as finding something you look for for two years,
Speaker 2: but you know, there's something to be said for instant gratification.
Speaker 1: So you've had a very successful career. Why do you
Speaker 1: think you were.
Speaker 2: Successful right place, right time?
Speaker 1: Okay, there are certain people. You meet them, they've been
Speaker 1: successful in the music business. They could have been successful
Speaker 1: doing anything that was their personality. So you've worked in
Speaker 1: other verticals and you've worked through different eras in the
Speaker 1: music business. You must have some special sauce that you
Speaker 1: bring to it. Because there are people who get lucky.
Speaker 1: They get lucky ones, whether they're financially rewarded or not.
Speaker 1: They don't continue to go decade after decade.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. Look first of our right team,
Speaker 2: right place, you know, starting an independent record label, just
Speaker 2: when independent music is exploding in LA and there's great
Speaker 2: bands and who are not immediately getting signed by major
Speaker 2: labels that you can sign and that's good timing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would say having good business partners is if I
Speaker 2: have a sick, that's it. I have good business partners.
Speaker 2: I've never had a business that I didn't have great
Speaker 2: business partners. At Enigma was my brother Wes Jim Martone
Speaker 2: who went on to Trauma Records where he was very
Speaker 2: successful at Restless Joe Regis. I worked with really great
Speaker 2: people at Raiko disc and at Caroline of course Live
Speaker 2: Nation Artists, working with Bob Ezrin and now with Fred
Speaker 2: Goldring and Andy Zicklin. So I've never done anything by myself.
Speaker 2: I've always had a great business partner.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's hard to tell just talking to you. Are
Speaker 1: you more of an introvert, extrovert loaner. Are you the
Speaker 1: type of person who's out with friends, calling friends, or
Speaker 1: you know every day? Are you pretty much just doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing and whoever you run into, you'll interact
Speaker 1: with them.
Speaker 2: I'm not not social, but I don't mind staying in
Speaker 2: and reading a book. In fact, I've got quite a
Speaker 2: backlog of like music biographies and music histories to read,
Speaker 2: and so if I have a night when I don't
Speaker 2: have to do something. Hey, you know, grab a beer,
Speaker 2: open a book. It's a golden age of rock and
Speaker 2: roll books and music history books. Every week something's coming
Speaker 2: out and it's like, Oh, I have to have that.
Speaker 2: Just bought the Red Cross book. Can't wait to see that.
Speaker 2: I've seen the forward which makes it tells a funny
Speaker 2: story about Poison, Striper and Enigma records.
Speaker 1: What is the funny story?
Speaker 2: Apparently the Red Cross Boys the McDonald's, when they were teenagers,
Speaker 2: were making prank calls to Enigma, pretending to be Poison,
Speaker 2: complaining that they couldn't find the records anywhere, but they're
Speaker 2: finding Striper records were They also claimed they were apologizing
Speaker 2: to Brett Michaels for pretending to be him and calling
Speaker 2: his vocal coach. So I don't know if it's a
Speaker 2: true story. Probably. It's also a golden era for music documentaries.
Speaker 2: That's another thing where I have a large backlock. There's
Speaker 2: so many great music documentaries that you can stream now,
Speaker 2: it's overwhelming. I just watched one on the cow Sills,
Speaker 2: which was fairly astonishing. I'm working on a project with
Speaker 2: John Cowtill and Vicki Peterson. That's you know, I think
Speaker 2: we're going to win a Grammy next year with it.
Speaker 2: It's so good. And so for homework I went and
Speaker 2: watched the cow Sils documentary. I kind of knew the story,
Speaker 2: but I didn't really know the story. So that you know,
Speaker 2: I occupy my off hours working in the music business,
Speaker 2: reading about music or watching documentaries about music.
Speaker 1: So, okay, you mentioned the Council documentaries before we go,
Speaker 1: recommend one rock biography.
Speaker 2: Steve Winn's book. I found very interesting Steve from the
Speaker 2: Dream Citcate, really good book. Gosh, you give me a second. No.
Speaker 2: Bill Brufford's book. I just finished that.
Speaker 1: It's about the one that came out like fifteen years
Speaker 1: ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for some reason, I had never read it. But
Speaker 2: he was speaking at this music festival I went to
Speaker 2: in Spain in September and I met him there and
Speaker 2: so his book was for sale them. Oh I've been
Speaker 2: meaning to read that. I picked it up, couldn't put
Speaker 2: it down. And what was interesting, not only his music
Speaker 2: career is very interesting. He's a very good writer, and
Speaker 2: his insights on being in big bands like you Yes,
Speaker 2: King Crimson, and being in his little jazz band that
Speaker 2: he tours around the economics between him. He lays out
Speaker 2: a pretty interesting detail. I'm very familiar with the economics
Speaker 2: of record labels, economics of a band is still kind
Speaker 2: of a mystery to me, so that was fascinating. But
Speaker 2: ultimately he's such a good writer. I would recommend that
Speaker 2: book to people who aren't even Yes or Crimson fans.
Speaker 1: Okay, Bill, I think we've come to the end of
Speaker 1: the feeling we've known. Certainly covered your career. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of roadway in the vinyl business we'll be watching.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking this time to talk to
Speaker 1: my audience.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Bob. Your podcast is a regular companion
Speaker 2: on bike rides and hikes in Colrad, so thank you
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Till next time, This is Bob Lefts sh