Life As An Out-Of-The Loop Music Promoter (Part 1)

I’ve been a music promoter for most of my working life. It’s basically the same as being a theatrical impresario except, instead of plays, I organise rock ‘n’ roll shows. The wife likes to think of it as being something like a professional gambler, but that’s just her.

A music promoter hires a venue, finds an act people will (hopefully) pay to come and see, and sells tickets. Ideally, ticket money will exceed costs and so a profit is made. That’s the theory at least. In reality you are gambling that enough people will buy enough tickets to pay for everything. If it’s too hot, people won’t come; if it’s too cold, they won’t come either. A big sporting event on the television can ruin you. So too can another, bigger event somewhere else.

Does any Music Promoter ever Make any Money?

There’s a lot of money to be made in music. Problem is, 5% of the participants get to keep 90% of the loot. The rest of us have to scrabble around for what’s left. I can’t deny that there have been rare occasions when I’ve made relatively big money.

One such occasion was a Boomtown Rats concert in 1977. Afterwards, I couldn’t see the bed in my hotel room because it was literally covered in bank-notes. But don’t get too carried away celebrating my success. At the time I was living in my one-room office, sleeping on the floor. I’d lost hundreds of pounds practically every gig I’d put on that year. The only secret of promoting that matters is to win more than you lose.

Music Promoting Outside ‘The Loop”

Generally speaking, to make serious money you’ve got to be in ‘the loop’ and I’m not. Being ‘in the loop’ means being part of the music mainstream.

I’ve always been something of an outsider. I only got to promote the Rats in the first place because few promoters would sully their hands with Punk. Back then, the Sunday newspapers were full of stories of punk depravity and the end of civilisation.

I’d followed a hunch by booking this unknown Irish band for £250. Largely because I rated their début single, ‘Looking After Number One’, and it paid off. It could easily have been another flop. But, luckily for me, by the time the gig happened, the single was number 2 in the NME charts.

Usually putting money on bands you personally like is the kiss of death. At least it is in my case. My personal taste doesn’t often coincide with that of the general public. Big Brother, Susan Boyle, tabloid newspapers, obscure 1950s R&B, even more obscure British folk musicians, and Socialism are just some of the subjects the general public and I disagree on.

“Where’s There’s Muck, There’s Brass”

The big promoters, like major record company executives “invest” their cash on what they think other people will enjoy. They never ever put money on what they personally like. Invariably it’s the lowest common denominator that comes into play. Was it Barnum (perhaps paraphrasing H L Mencken) who said: “No one ever lost a fortune underestimating public taste”?

Popular music is one of Britain’s leading money-spinning businesses. And for the last 50 years or so, the biggest players have been major corporations. Led by lawyers and accountants with ponytails, masquerading as cool dudes, these outfits are not only in ‘the loop’ they pretty much are the loop. The players all know each other. They’ve all worked in one another’s offices at some time or other and they all go to each other’s parties. Maybe they’ve even got the same legal and accountancy qualifications.

Liars & Accountants

I first realised the situation had become critical some time in the early-1990s. I was a music journalist at the time (my ‘other job’ as a writer), working for Time Out magazine. A PR team took me out to dinner to meet the big cheeses of a major British record company. Every single one of them was a lawyer or an accountant and their collective knowledge of music was woeful.

A couple of the collected musos had great sport goading them with misinformation. Such as Jerry Lewis had turned to rock ‘n’ roll after dissolving his partnership with Dean Martin. He’d added the “Lee” as a tribute to US General Robert E Lee.

Prince Andrew is the name of a 70-year-old ska legend. Chuck Berry devoted his spare time to playing the Dixieland jazz trumpet after attending a funeral in New Orleans. These people knew how to maximise profits. They are all over downsizing and negative equity. But, when it came to music, they didn’t know their Associates from their Donnie Elberts. Literally.

From Rock ‘n’ Roll to Britain’s Got Talent

In my time as a music promoter, I’ve been in on the ground floor of quite a few movements in popular music. I arrived after the Gold Years of Rock & Roll. I also arrived too late for the British Beat Boom of the early 1960s. But Peace, Love and Hippydom inspired me in the early to mid-1970s. But I was getting mighty tired of it when the Punk and New Wave movement erupted in 1976. Punk really inspired me and I desperately wanted to be part of it from the first minute I heard it. And I was, in my small way. The same went for several other, smaller movements. Such as Pub Rock, Indie Rock and the Irish/ Country-punk explosion of the early 1980s. This is what blew the Pogues into an unsuspecting world.

The small independent promoter must make his or her money by promoting what the people in the loop don’t want. Or what they don’t yet know exists. Because I have always promoted in small venues, I tend to be part of the grass-roots. I get to see new acts coming up. I’ll be able to promote a ‘hot band’ only two or three times. That’s how long it usually takes for someone ‘in the loop’ to catch on. Sometimes I’m not even that lucky and only get one bite of the cherry.

You’ve got to get in there quick before the company-guys see what’s happening and kick sand in your face. But every year, it’s getting harder and harder to grab even a small slice of the pie.

The Music Promoter as Endangered Species

The trend among music promoters nowadays is to move acts to bigger and so more profitable venues way too soon. Before they’ve had chance to learn their craft and iron out their bumps. The Rolling Stones only became the Rolling Stones because they played nearly every day for years. They honed their craft in hundreds of small gigs before stepping up to play dancehalls, theatres, and town halls. Only then were they ready to move up to arenas and finally, huge stadiums. Back then there were literally hundreds, maybe thousands of people doing the job of ‘music promoter’. Now there are less than a hundred.

The same went for all of the true greats. Chuck Berry Jerry Lee Lewis. The Beatles. Bob Dylan. Johnny Cash. There are thousands.

That’s why witnessing an 81-year-old, arthritic, part-deaf Chuck Berry play a gig in London’s 300-capacity 100 Club, as I did recently, was an exciting, uplifting experience that totally beats going to see the latest manufactured stars play in a stadium or in a field in Somerset.

“That’s rock ‘n’ roll, man.” As they used to say.