Danny Zelisko

Danny Zelisko has been a concert promoter for nearly fifty years, and except for an interlude working for Live Nation, they've all been spent as an independent. Danny's got a new book, "All Excess," which details his career in words and pictures. Listen to hear how Danny broke into the Phoenix market and established a toehold in Las Vegas, where over the millennium weekend he lost...a million dollars. Loved by all, Danny is vibrant and engaging and still in the game.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Left That podcast. My
guest today is consa promotor. Danny's a list of who's
got a brand new book all excess Danny. Good to happen,
Great to be here, Bob. How are you? I'm good.
Let's start with the most important thing first. How do
you become a member of the White Castle Hall of Fame? UM?

(00:30):
Last year, You're good friend. Toby Mamis made me aware
of the fact that Alice was going to get an
Alice Cooper's corner at the new White Castle in Scottsdale.
There has never been other than the Vegas White Castle
on the Strip. Uh, There's never been another White Castle

(00:52):
franchise in Arizona anywhere west of the Mississippi. UM, there
are no franchises. They're all family owned. I tried to
buy one forty years ago and they said we're family owned,
forget it. And I ended up meeting up with these
people and and and working with them with Alice for
this uh grand opening. And it was no big deal,

(01:14):
was just a couple of phone calls and so forth.
But I ended up showing up there with them. I
met the family, the white Castle family, that's the real
last name white Castle family. And they ended up becoming
friendly with me, and then I said, well, hell, John
Prine should go into the Hall of Fame. I mean,
he's a major white Castle lover. And and then Tommy

(01:36):
Shaw came to town in January and we had a
show and after the show, I had a crave case backstage,
which the bands just go crazy for when you have
White Castles. After the show for him and Tommy Shaw
went crazy. So I talked to this guy at White
Castle and I said, we'd like to do another Hall
of Fame thing. I got John Prine and I got
Tommy Shawn and I'll do it too if you want.

(01:59):
And he he loved me, and I met him with
the Alice thing, and one thing led to another, and
we had this little induction ceremony in the Nashville White
Castle because that's where both Tommy and Fiona Prime live.
Um and uh. It was a great, great experience. So
to to enhance that, they sent me out these things

(02:23):
called Crave clutch boxes that you can go to White
Castle and it's like a little suitcase and they'll put
twenty Hamburgers in there for you and you walk away
like it's a little briefcase. They sent me a thousand
of those to send out my book into the people
who are buying it online. And then they gave me
coupons to to get free uh uh frozen burgers and

(02:48):
and if you're in the town that's got real White Castle,
you can go there. And they had a coupon for
three burgers. So I called the dinner in a show.
I sent a couple of little wine tasting glasses in
the box along with the book. And everybody's really enjoyed
the presentation. Yeah, the presentation is great. I was surprised.
You don't normally get someone putting that much thought into it.

(03:09):
But just to go back, the national headquarters of White
Castle are were It's in Columbus, Ohio. Columbus, Ohio. So
did you grow up eating White Castle? I did? Um,
you know, back in the fifties. Uh, you know, six kids,
eight people in the house, small house. Um. Dad's an electrician.

(03:30):
We don't go out for dinner very often. But when
you can get a dozen burgers for a buck, he
can be a stud and take his family out to dinner.
And that's the whole idea behind that restaurant. I've always
loved them for that, They've the family thing about it,
and and and just the fact that they're always open
and ready to feed you. I just love them. Okay.

(03:50):
You know, I've heard from varying people about pulling all
miters and going to White Castle, and they would tell
you how many burgers they ate at that time. What's
the greatest numbumber of white Castle burgers? You've eaten it?
One time? I would have to say the one and
only time I did ten was in a white Castle
eating contest that Adam west Batman was the judge of.

(04:14):
And I tied with a local TV celebrity and Phoenix,
a news guy, and and immediately following the show, I
went on too. He had a tour bus for a
dressing room was out out in this place called Fountain Hills,
and they brought a semi of white castles out there.
And afterwards I said, Adam, can I use your bus?
He goes, remember No number two? And I said how

(04:38):
about a number three? And and out they went. Um.
But you know, nowadays I'm a two or three White
Castle guy. Those things just they're so delicious, but they
ripped me up. Okay, let's switch gears again. You are
a controvermot of longstanding winner shows coming back. You know, Uh,

(05:00):
as soon as they can figure out how to do
it a rapid test. Um, I think we could have shows.
I don't know why it's not been done already. UM.
I think it's gonna be a while before there's an
antidote or a vaccine. UM. I think you know instead
of like some places where you go, they'll they'll push

(05:20):
a temperature gun at you and Okay, you've got a
good temperature, and they allow you in, like that's all
that matters. And we all know that that's not enough.
You've got to know whether or not you're carrying that
stuff or if people next to you are carrying it.
And most people don't have it. I mean I personally
would go to a concert or a baseball game if

(05:41):
on the way in, uh, if somebody points something to
me or says, here's a swab, and my swab turns
a different color like a pregnancy test, and it says
whether or not you're carrying. If you're not carrying, go in.
If you are carrying stuff over here, we'll tell you
what you need to do. Here's your money back, um,
And until that can happen. I mean, right now, what

(06:03):
are we looking at Memorial Day at this point? And
that's just a guess, just like it was back in
March when we started guessing for June. Nobody had any
idea back then, and to sit here right now, I
don't know that anybody's got any idea even better at
this point. But the bottom line is for us, our
economy is about selling tickets and having people working in

(06:26):
halls and radio stations and secretaries and ushers and security
and stage hands and all the rest our economy that
that that runs the concert business is sitting here waiting
to move. And uh, my guess is as good as
yours as far as when the will happen. But it
seems to me that as soon as we can get

(06:49):
some sort of a gauge on whether or not people
are carrying this terrible disease or not, and most people aren't,
it's the ones that do in these small spaces that
seem to spread it everywhere like wildfire. And now those
are the people we got to sort out. Okay, Now,
if I speak with agents, and I do, they're constantly

(07:10):
rebooking gigs, putting holds on as a promoter. Is that
something you've been doing in the last seven months. Yes, Um,
we've rebooked shows and I have my best year lined
up this year. And you know, I had all the travel,
all the hotels, all the radio, everything's booked, and we

(07:31):
had a systematically tear it down one by one, starting
with the shows in March and April and move those
because nobody knew what was going on. We moved him
to June July. The next thing, you know, we're moving
him to September, October, and then they're moving to next year,
and now they're next summer and now their next fall.

(07:52):
It seems ridiculous to me, um, that that this is
all we're doing, and nobody's saying. I mean, when they're
talking about the economy, they're talking about Wall Street, they're
not talking about regular people. Regular people don't participate in
Wall Street. They go to concerts, they go to restaurants,
you know, And and and we we've got to be able

(08:14):
to determine whether or not people are sick or not
so that we can have some sort of life. That
what we're doing right now is a half life. You know,
it's okay, So how many full time people let's talk
prior to the virus. How many full time people did
you have at Dennis Alescope Presents, UM just six and

(08:34):
now we have five. One guy left and he went
on to do something else, but everybody else uh is
still there. Uh. They accepted reduced pay and and all
of a sudden, finishing this book became a priority for me.
And I didn't want to let everybody go. I mean

(08:55):
I was. I was hoping I wouldn't lose them, like
so many people have lost rate employees because of this.
They got to eat. So Fortunately, I think they haven't
told me different that I'm giving them enough to live on,
and I hope it is enough, UM, because I'd like
to keep things going as it is. I'm not going

(09:16):
to learn how to do books UM and and art
and and all different kinds of stuff that I still
have to do while I'm maintaining these shows that have
been postponed one time after another. We still got to do,
you know, dealings with the ticketing people at halls and
and you know advertising and website stuff, and you know,

(09:39):
it's like we're still open to a degree, but we're
just not working putting on shows the way that we
used to. We're waiting to be able to do that now.
Right now, you're in Maui. How long have you been
in Maui? I got here last Friday. Okay, you weren't
afraid to get on a plane. No, no, you know,

(10:02):
I mean I we weren't able to come to Maui
at all this year. We uh, we own a place
over here in Hannah with a few friends, and we
haven't been able to come here since February because they
wanted a two week quarantine. Now what they do is
you have to have a test within seventy two hours

(10:24):
and you can um come over here as long as
it's negative and you don't have to go through the
quarantine process. Um. No, I'm not afraid to get on
a plane. They I've been on a number of planes
people who have been spaced around. Um, everybody's got their
mask on and and and I think for by and large,

(10:45):
people aren't traveling if they're not feeling well. And they
ask you straight up, of course you could lie, but
what good would that do? Kind of like lying about
a golf score. It doesn't help. Um. So yeah, I
had no problem. I had no problem getting on a plane. Um,
we're pretty much sequestioned here. While we're here, there's there's
nobody here. There's no tourism happening either. And okay, but

(11:09):
Mami is known for having a lot of residents from
the music business, both business people and creative people. Chef
Gordon seems to be the straw that stirs the drink.
So is there anything going on with those people? And
if not, tell us the way it used to be. Well, Um,
you know, chef just had a baby and and uh,

(11:31):
he's the he's the youngest seventy five year old daddy
I've ever met. Um. As a matter of fact, Friday,
we're going over to the other side and staying with
him for two days. His wife said, has decided, I'm
I'm clean, and let's leave my wife. We're clean and
we can stay with them for a couple of days. Um.

(11:54):
You know, uh, things, you know, I mean, things have changed,
your ob Just think because we can't go back and
forth the way that we used to. Um, shop isn't
having this Christmas show this year for the first time
and I don't know how many years. Uh, it's kind
of a reboot the whole thing, you know. Okay, do

(12:18):
you still get as excited about a show as you
did at the beginning. For the most part, yes, because
a lot of the people that I'm working with after
all these years are people that I've worked with for
so long. This is our chance to get together and
be together. We like Jackson Brown or Alan Parsons, for example,

(12:41):
or Gordon Lightfoot or Willie Nelson. They're always touring and
and these are some of the guys that I do
a lot of shows with. They're always on the road.
They're not the kind of people that you just call
up and go out to dinner with because they're all
of us are always working, We're always somewhere, we're always
doing something. So our way of getting together is doing concerts.

(13:01):
So every time I get a chance to see one
of these guys and be with them for more than
one night, two nights, three nights. I mean, I've been
going all over the country with Parsons and Frankie Valley. Um,
you know, I had eighteen shows on sale Frankie Valley
when all this took place, and and we're both chomping
at the bed to go back and do these shows.
He's another one of the youngest eighty five year old

(13:22):
people I've ever met. Um, you know, we're we're all
just we're all just chomping at the bed to go
to work. And uh, I love getting around with these guys.
It's it's really a great way to go through life. Okay,
so you talk to a lot of promoters of our vintage.
You're a little older who came of age with the Beatles,

(13:42):
and a lot of them at this point had a
younger person in the office who books talent because they
don't believe they're in touch other than with the legendary
acts that you just mentioned. Is that the case with
you in your office and some of the shows you do, well, No,
I mean I'm the only one that really does the
booking and and prior to this, I did most of

(14:05):
my own booking. Um yeah, I mean I get terribly
excited about shows. I love the whole process. Um. I
love that people come to these shows and this is
their their escape and it's their release and and being
with friends or even just musicians, great ones. It's so

(14:26):
great to bring all that together and have these people
under one roof and and explode together, you know, like
coming together as one. It's uh. I think it's one
of the greatest, greatest things you can do. Okay, So
at this point you're presenting under Danny's Alisco presents. Is
it all your money or do you have any partners

(14:47):
because you've had partners in the past. I have had
partners in the past. No, this is this is all
my money. Um. In two thousand and eleven, I went
back on my own after five years with Live Nation,
in five years with the Clear Channel, which also included SFCX,
who I originally sold to, and and nowadays there I

(15:10):
don't really have the need for the younger guy in
the office, although I would love one, because there's been
a couple of other people who used to work for
me who have put up some really cool clubs in Phoenix.
Charlie Leavy did the Crescent Ballroom and the Van Buren,
both of which I've booked shows in, and he does

(15:32):
such an amazing job. It would be stupid for me
to compete with a guy like him, who knows everything
I know and everything he knows, and he has the venues.
So there there's no point in me doing that anymore.
When when something comes up and somebody wants me to
work with them, of course I'll do it, and I
want to do it. I love discovering new bands, but

(15:52):
at this point it's sixty six years old. I'm happy
to be doing the business that I'm doing, with the
you know, with the ends that I'm doing. It's like
everybody's kind of left me alone in this little genre
of promoting um and and I'm having a really good
time doing it. I'm generally into small halls five up

(16:14):
to say, four thousands, and and that's that's where I'm
working these days. I can't afford to be in the
game with people who are getting million dollar guarantees every night,
and they'll write him a check for thirty million dollars
for a tour as a deposit. You know that. That's
what those guys do. God bless them. Good for them.
I used to do that, but I'm afraid, you know

(16:36):
that part of my life is pretty much over. Okay.
Prior to the roll up, the acts and agents had
special relationships with the promoters such that they might on
a losing show, they might the act might give money back.
Now that you're independent in this post roll up world,
does that apply? Because no one gives money back to

(16:57):
Live Nation. Okay, it's a public company. They don't and
only not to age either. But does that still happen today?
If you have a losing show, it has happened, you know.
You know, most people aren't really willing to give up money,
especially especially after all this. But prior to this, UM,

(17:18):
it was very well, it was very rare that I
ever had to ask. Not to brag, but generally speaking,
I mean, if if I lose money on five shows
in a year, that's a lot. I don't make stupid
mistakes like I used to because I don't have all

(17:38):
of the arena shows to cover my ask for taking
unnecessary risks to do favors for people, for example. So nowadays,
I mean I looked at it the recently. I don't
you know, a couple of months ago, and in the
last couple of years, I'd only had a handful of
losers and they were small ones. I haven't been eaten

(18:00):
up badly in a long time where I would really
genuinely need to go ask somebody for reduction in your
forty year career, Um, what was your biggest loser? I
would have to Yeah, well, there's there's no question h

(18:21):
New Year's pre New Year's weekend at the millennium. I
did December with the Eagles and December thirty one in
January one, which is a Friday Saturday with Bette Midler.
Both of them were excuse me, both of them were
at Mandalais Bay, and this is when Mandalai wasn't owned

(18:46):
by MGM, so they were on their own. MGM was
on their own and was great to have both buildings
there because one would often be booked and you'd have
to go to the other one. Now, what were what
were the capacities for those of two who don't know, Well,
MGM is uh fourteen fifteen thousand, that's the biggest one,

(19:07):
and Mandalay if you went all the way around, would
be about eleven thousand, but front and sides about nine thousand.
So you could charge more for tickets at Mandlake because
he had less to sell um but it was still,
you know, a high, highly regarded building. So Barbara Streisand

(19:28):
was booked into MGM on New Year's Eve and UM
I started with Tina Turner. Tina Turner was gonna be
my show, was booking with Carol Keincel at Cia and
suddenly Howard Grows got into the picture and it went
from me doing Tina Turner on one night New Year's
Eve in Vegas. That was the only thing I was

(19:49):
gonna do, and it would have been perfect. Tina was
as hot as could be in Vegas, just absolutely perfect
mix of rock and show business. And uh, Howard got involved,
and the next thing you know, he rapped Elton and
Teena together and sold it to Caesar's Palace for an
unheard of amount of money. And I stepped aside and said, sorry,

(20:13):
I gotta get out of this. It was just too much.
Um So then the Bette Midler came along and and
the Eagles had already passed on and offer we made,
and then they came back in the picture. Uh, and
both of them came back for more money, and I
was already guaranteeing them a huge amount of money, but

(20:33):
they added more and and we were so bullish on
the Millennium at that time that we went along with it.
And that's about what I ended up losing, close to mill,
close to to mill. Okay, where was the mistake. The

(20:53):
mistake was not knowing that in Las Vegas that they
were going to do a four night minimum to stay
there on New Year's and they were gonna triple or
quadruple the room rate charges. Back in the late nineties,
you know, you could you could go to MGM or

(21:14):
Mandalay and get a room for a hundred and fifty bucks,
maybe less if you had a special um. These rooms
were now five hundred apiece. Uh, and you had a
four in some places five night minimum. Um. My feeling
at the time was that that whole week between Christmas
and New Year's was me one of the greatest weeks

(21:37):
in in our life history, much less Vegas history. I mean,
what's bigger than a New Year's even Las Vegas, much
less a millennium. Well that's the cool laid I drank anyway,
I felt bulletproof. And uh, we didn't know. We didn't
know that that they were going to do that with
the hotel rooms. We didn't know that about y two K.

(22:01):
We didn't know about terrorist threats. I didn't know Barbara
streisand was booked on New Year's Eve already at the MGM.
Um and we went booked two nights with bet because
it was a Friday and Saturday. To me, this is like,
who doesn't want to be in Vegas? For Bette Midler
on New Year's at the Millennium. It just seemed like

(22:22):
such a frivolity written thing. And and then there's Barbara
streisand and then on Streisand they added a second night
because they were filming these shows, and they ended up
paper in the house because they couldn't sell a second night.
But they only had the second night so they could
film the crowd shots and all that stuff. So they
paper the ship out of it. And you know, what

(22:46):
would you like to do? You want to go see
Barbara streisand for free? And January one, you want to
pay five hundred for Bette Midler. The tickets were also
very pricey. There were two fifty to five hundred for
each the Eagles and for Bet Um. And you know what,
the shows sold sold, Okay, they sold all right, Um,

(23:07):
they were doing well. But one of the worst things
that happened that could happen was Mandalay Bay held a
couple of thousand of the best seats for each show
for their high rollers. So they had a two thousand
for bet, two thousand for the Eagles at five hundred
a throw. And three weeks before the show they started

(23:32):
releasing tickets and I said, what do you guys doing release,
What where did these tickets come from? They when they
pulled the tickets back in May when we went on sale,
they were in the soul category on our on our audits,
as opposed to a wire a cop category, indicating these
are different tickets. So all along I thought we had

(23:54):
sold two thousand tickets per act more or you know,
and that's two million dollars each. Think about it, five
ticket times two thousand. Oh, I'm sorry, is a million
dollars each show? That Suddenly I went backwards on my
ticket count sheets and we had to make those up

(24:14):
in addition to what we were already selling. And it
just couldn't be done. It was too late. What did
you do with those good prime tickets? Well, we we
moved most of them. We ended up moving a lot
of them. But what happened was was instead of being
where we thought we were, we were two grand light
on each of the acts. So those tickets I still

(24:36):
had left that I was marketing and selling in early December,
those became the ones that ended up going to waste
because the good seats did end up getting blocked, but
there was only so many takers and so many buyers
under you know, the darrests of the hotel room situation
and the threat of all that other stuff. So we

(24:57):
weren't getting the response, you know, of people coming to
Vegas that we had anticipated due to all those reasons,
plus the ticket prices. On top of that, a lot
of people just stay at home and they had themselves
a big old party. Okay. I know a promoter in Vegas,
but a show promoter. He brings shows two buildings for
extended periods. And he told me, in Vegas, the sticker price,

(25:19):
the list price is just the beginning, and you can
always get the tickets to the discount from the hotel
or from a certain part that really the price is variable.
Is it the same for the shows that you do.
You know, Um, in the last year or two, I
became aware of these other people. I mean they're basically

(25:39):
seat fillers, um and and a lot of these people,
a lot of the marketers at the hotels in Vegas
goes straight to these people and and given a lotment
of tickets to those people right out of the box,
which I think is a horrific mistake. Why not just
price your tickets right to begin with. If that's what

(26:00):
you're gonna do or do less shows. But a lot
of these shows are there for their sit down, long,
extended type stage, and I guess they have to do that.
I try never to do that with any of my shows,
you know. Ever, I don't like using those discount platforms

(26:20):
or or the ticket I don't know. They're not necessarily scalpers,
they're brokers, um. I mean they're good for getting the
word out if you need to have uh, if you
need to have some extras people put into some seats.
But as a rule, I don't use them. But I'm
aware that a lot of people use them up there. Okay.
And do you ever paper a show when I have to?

(26:45):
You know? I mean i'll paper a show when it
usually always when the act is willing to say I
don't want to look like hell, you know, fill in
those blanks and well, will work it out and we'll adjust.
That does happen, um rarely, rarely that happens. But yeah,

(27:05):
I'll paper something to make somebody look better as long
as they're willing to soften the blow on my end.
And did you paper those uh New Year's Eve shows? No?
I didn't, Um, we didn't paper those at all. There
was a couple of glaring holes there that the accident like, Um,
but I had I had asked them both, should we

(27:27):
fill those in? Should we paper? They said, we don't care.
We're getting paid the same amount. I said, but I'm
not going to go out and give away five dollar
free tickets if you're not going to help me out
on the other side. And none of them wanted to,
so I didn't do it. Okay, So what kind of
deal do you get? Now? It's well known in the
business today that if you own the building, your profit

(27:50):
margins go up, and not owning a building or difficult
more difficult for you. So if you go to Vegas,
what kind of deals do you get with the whole
explain the numbers? Well, you know, it depends. Some places
will just pay me a commission to buy an act
for him. But when I'm at risk, when it's my

(28:11):
money in somebody else's building, you know, I I look
for whatever breaks that they could give me. For example, UM,
most hotels are still uh, casino hotels are generally still
very generous with rooms for the stars that around the Marquee. UM.
That's one of the old school perks that I still

(28:33):
like a lot um that because the groups like that,
they like getting more of a net income kind of
a date where they're not spending thousands of dollars on
hotel rooms for the night. So the groups like that,
they like coming in for a couple of nights. But
as far as the deals I get, you know, it
all depends on the hotel. Uh. If they're so hot

(28:56):
that they're getting all the big groups. I mean, they
charge you up the ying yang and you're paying you're
paying full retail. Uh, You're you're not getting any breaks,
you're not getting free rent um. They're they're charging ticket
search charges on top of their ticket search charges in
some cases. So I'm I'm a little bit larry about Vegas.

(29:19):
But I did manage to strike some decent deals with Westgate,
which used to be the Hope and where Elvis played,
and the people at Caesars, and I put a couple
of shows on sale right before all this happened at
paris Um and they're very nice people there, and I'm
hoping that we can resume when we picked back up again.

(29:41):
But in the meantime, you know, I mean, I started
in Vegas before any of the other current concert promoters
were there in the early eighties and now they're all there. Um,
you know, it's like any any other thing. When you
get a good idea, you've got a good thing going,
sooner or later, it's just a matter of when people
are gonna come after you, uh and take over or

(30:02):
try to take over that business because you've opened the
door for it. And in the eighties, you know, nobody
was coming to Vegas from from rock and roll. In
the early nineties we started doing those dead shows at
the Stadium there, which really broke open Vegas to two
younger people, and which is something we're all very proud
of it. Bill Graham and and and Me and Jam

(30:24):
and Evening Star and everybody that was part of those
things there created a real legend up there and really
broke open that market. But since then, um, you know,
eight between a G and Live Nation, they've got most
of the good rooms wrapped up big and small, So
it makes it difficult to to survive up there. Honestly, now,

(30:53):
as an independent promoter, wherever you do it show, whether
it be Vegas or Arizona or elsewhere, what are the
economics when they had the roll up been of uh
S f X ultimately sold to Clear Channel becomes Live Nation.
Michael Rapino tried to reduce guarantees into the amphitheaters. What
we know with many Oxiday forget club shows, But as
you move up the ladder, the act essentially gets all

(31:16):
of the phase value of the tickets and the promoter
makes his money on the ticketing fees and other charges.
What what's your situation with Danny's Alisco presents? You know,
I try to make deals with buildings where we share
uh and in the income. If generally speaking, if I

(31:43):
buy a show right, I'm gonna make money if I
do business, which is a high threshold to me. Um,
most buildings don't want to give up anything, you know,
like like any of their tickets or charges, food and drink, merchandise.

(32:03):
What have your rebates? Um, you gotta get creative with
them and figure out how to share whatever it is
you're making with them. I mean, at this stage of
the game, for me, my first my first inclination is
to try to hedge my bet and make sure that
if it does go south, I can I can curtail
the losses by making a deal with the building to say, look,

(32:27):
if this doesn't work out, as well as I want. Perhaps, uh,
you can help me out at the settlement, you know,
if we and and that's a great place where I'll
paper something um and again I haven't had to do
that so often. Bottom line is, you want to go
into every deal you can trying to get a piece

(32:47):
of everything that's available, especially if you're taking all the risk.
Otherwise you you find yourself at that juncture where you go,
I'm not going to do the show. There's too much risk,
and the building hats to keep all the money and
not share, So screw it. I won't do it. Okay,
under the best of circumstances, if you go clean, sell
out all the tickets to the four thousand UH cedar

(33:10):
with the acts you mentioned, how much can you net
net to to Danny's a LISTO irrelevant of paying your
people Underneath that, you know it's gonna all depend on
your ticket prices, what your deal is with the act.
But on on a low on a four thousand seater,

(33:31):
you should make at least twenty thousand dollars, and if
you cut your deal right, you should make forty Okay,
if you're in a thousand, If you're in a thousand
and fifteen hundred cedar, which is where a lot of
my shows go. And I'm happy about that because that's
where people in my age want to see shows. They
don't want to go to arenas and stadiums or festivals.

(33:52):
And and if you know, if I come out of
there with ten to fifteen thousand UM and and a
and a nice night with the Australian Floyd and Mace
Arts Center or Crosby Stills in nash or Jackson Brown
or you know any of these people, if I can
make in that vicinity of money, I'm I'm a happy guy.
And what are the guarantees for acts like that? They're

(34:15):
gonna go anywhere from thirty to a hundred a quarter? Okay, Now,
one thing, I've sat with promoters backstage, and they have
two sets of books, and frequently there is no idea
what you're talking about. They have no there's no overage. Basically,
the act gets its guarantee and unless everything is sold

(34:38):
and it's a good night, there's nothing after. What's your experience?
My experience, Bob is and and you're gonna laugh, but
it's true. I always try to strike as fair of
a deal as I possibly can with the agent or
the artist. Uh. Going in my goal, especially when I

(35:02):
get a fairer guarantee, what I consider the right guarantee.
My goal is to write them the biggest possible check
at the end of the night that I can, because
I want them to come back and visit me. I
know that if I do a good job with somebody
and the date, the results of the date get out
and around the very small group of people that promote

(35:24):
shows in my area. The next time they come around,
I'm not gonna have an easy time book on them,
and somebody's gonna say I want that act, and they're
gonna offer them more. So, the best way into a
band's heart is paying overage checks. And and uh, I
mean like with with Frankie Valley and Jackson Parsons. We

(35:47):
have shows that that break even. We have shows where
I make a little bit of money, and there shows
where I make a good deal of money and they
make even more money. Um. And and the the issue
that we never had of that I used to have
a lot as a promoter was that whole dual set
of books type of a mentality where they just feel

(36:09):
like you're out to fuck them, you know. And and
you're gonna add on this and add on that and
cheat them and so forth. My whole thing has always
been to write them as big of a check as possible,
and they know it. And he lets say, the business
has completely changed. One could say the modern business started
with Frank Barcelona, and he had his territories that ended

(36:30):
with the roll up of the consolidation. And what also
tended to end was the loyalty you used to play
an act in a club and as they were successful
all the way up to Arenas, the question I have
for you is, how do you get talent today, especially
with Live Nation y G with a lot of these
acts willing to make national or international deals. How do

(36:52):
you get dates? They're they're kind of they're there, these
mbtwe leaners, you know. Um. It seems to me that
a lot of the a lot of the acts I do,
people from the buying standpoint have either forgot about them

(37:14):
or in many cases, they're not even aware of who
they are. Because the buyers today around the country, I mean,
there's definitely a lot of independent buyers out there, but
most of the independent buyers and and and the buyers
that work for the ages and the live nations are younger,
and they're filling up their nightclubs, which I don't do. Um,

(37:39):
there's P A C groups, a lot of which I
work with, But I'm kind of like floating in between
a lot of these different client lists that these agencies
have where I'm going for people that I've worked with
for many years. UM, to me, they're still great, they're exciting,
they're fun. People still love to see him in the

(38:01):
right halls. They're willing to pay a little bit more money.
And unfortunately for me, a lot of a lot of
other promoters don't care about these groups. And that's I
don't I don't know what else to say. I mean,
I used to do. I did more John Prime shows
as an independent promoter prior to selling Das Effects than
any other show that I ever did. And it was

(38:23):
because nobody cared, Nobody got it, nobody understood. They weren't
willing to do the work. It took the promotium into
the grassroots marketing that it takes to make these people grow,
and it took years for John to grow and and
and sadly he was taken from us this year. But
this guy, he, I mean, he was he turned into
a six figure act. I used to pay him five

(38:45):
grand of nine and and it's he grew up with
his audience, and he got bigger as he grew up.
And uh, I mean, good for me that I'm hip
to these guys, bad for them that they're not. But
they got all the Taylor Swift Scenarian grand Days and
Billie Eilish's and all these hot groups, which I must
admit I'm a little envious that I don't get to

(39:07):
work with like I would if it was twenty or
thirty years ago. But I'm happy with what I got.
You know, I can't cry about what other people are
doing that I'm not that ain't right. How many shows
you do a year? Now? About and how far do
you go outside of Arizona in Vegas? I did? Um

(39:29):
uh farthest I went in the last year was I.
I had Gordon Lightfoot and Alan Parson's both at Town
Hall in New York City. I started doing shows in
Chicago as Scottie Gelman, who I met when he was
with Jam And we've been doing shows in a place
called the Copernicus Center as well as the Rosemont Theater,

(39:50):
which is a beautiful place. Um. We went to Green
Bay with Frankie Valley. We're going back there with Frankie Valley.
We're also going there with Bachman Cummings and Dave Mason,
which is a show that I put together. Um. Dave
Mason lives over here in Hawaiian to see him. This weekend,
I went to Atlanta and Houston with Alan Parson's. Um.

(40:15):
You know, I'll go as far as because because I
know these groups and I know how to promote them
and I know how to work with them, I can
do them in different places, even with a smaller office
like I have, And and to me, that's like the
most fun I've ever had is flying around with these guys,
staying in the hotels, having our dinners, having our shows,

(40:37):
having our after shows. It's really special. You know, it's
a lot of fun. How many dates will you do
with one act? What's the most you've done with one
act in the last couple of years, Frankie, Uh, Frankie
and I do a lot of shows, but in the
last year too. It just it just keeps getting a
little bit more and more. Same with Parsons, same with Gordon.

(41:00):
It's like they'll call me up and say, where do
you want to go, and I'll say to them, you
got the books on it, where do you need to go?
Where haven't you been? I never want to try to
poach an act from somebody in a market where they
already have history with them. I still pay attention to that,
although most people don't anymore. I think that kind of
stuff is important. You don't need things like that bite

(41:23):
me in the button, chasing you around. But there's a
lot of bands out there that don't have regular promoters
and a lot of good markets. Um, not just the
ones I'm talking about, there's plenty of others. And uh,
you know, I mean with with these bands that I'm
talking about. It takes enthusiasm on my end and the
hall's end and the local media. And to make that

(41:46):
important to the audience that's there who doesn't know or
care whether or not that's that comes until you bring
it to them and make it important for them to go.
And that's why people go to shows. How do you
market a show? What is your special loss? And there's
both behind the curtain in front of the curtain. What
about the experience? Do you give the audience that a

(42:07):
special that will help you build the band? So Hey,
how do you get the people in the building be
what do you do special when they're inside the building?
You know? UM, I don't know if im what our order,
I'll answer that in But how I get him in
the building is. I find that the the e blasts

(42:29):
UH emails UM to a database from a radio station
or the hall UH generally is a really great way
to get the word out because they already have tech
semitech savvy people who who are signed up and and

(42:51):
like getting notices about shows. Social media has been a
great help to getting the word out. UM. Doing the
pre sales is is a good thing in and making
sure good seats are available on both the pre sale
and the first day of sale is very important. UM.

(43:11):
You know, I mean on the on the first day.
Going into my first day of on sales with these
shows that hold a thousand, two thousand tickets, I like
going in with three or five tickets sold under the
radar without spending a dime before I've even started my
my spending money on media. UM. I I still like

(43:34):
print in some markets, as archaic as it sounds, and
it is in many cases. UM, I've been doing less
and less of that, But I was one of the
last guys to give up on print. I love billboards
for on sales and the week of shows. Um, getting
involved with three radio stations, just your regular FM stations,

(43:55):
if they're into it and they're willing to promote it
for you for a few days, just to get the
word out, you know, with my with my acts, the
acts that I promote, most of them are pretty well
known and when you hear their names, you know it
immediately or you don't. There's not a whole lot of
education involved as opposed to you know what, you've got

(44:17):
to jump through hoops and educating people about bands. I
like going to the I like going to the halls
that my audience likes to go to. I like to
make sure they get their tickets without any hassle. Um.
I'm always around at the shows, and I make myself
known presently so if they got a problem, they can
ask me about it or say something to me. Um

(44:39):
to me, UH, putting on the show on time, when
when you say you're gonna put the show on, uh
without a whole bunch of drama is the best time
that I think I can provide for somebody. When somebody
buys a ticket, to a show. I don't want them
to worry about that their seats there, or that it's clean,

(45:01):
or that there's a good parking space or a bathroom
or drinks to buy at the bar. All that kind
of stuff, like you're thrown a party has got to
be in order so that you can be a good
host for people. Um, there's there's not a whole lot
of bells and whistles and fireworks beyond that that that
I provide. Rather, I do try to provide a congenial atmosphere. Um.

(45:25):
I go out in front of every show and welcome
the audience and kind of make them feel like they're
part of it. That was something that I used to
see Bill Graham do all the time, and he was
the greatest at it. And I've always done that the
whole time. It's like one of the fun times of
the night where I get to say loo to our
customers and and they seem to really appreciate that, and

(45:47):
I loved I love doing it. Yeah, speaking of Bill Graham,
let's go back to the beginning, because that's when you
met Bill Graham. How did you meet Bill and what
was your relationship with him? As time went on and
his pluses and minuses. Um. I learned about him growing
up in Chicago in the late sixties early seventies. Back

(46:10):
at that time, you didn't have the Internet, but we
we had you know, Rolling Stone and you every now
and then something would be on TV or being Circus
magazine or or teen Beat. Uh, not that much with
Bill Gramm and Team Beat. So um, but you know,
I learned about him. And then there was all the

(46:32):
hubbub about the Fillmore's opening and closing, and and right
about the time that he closed them is when I
got out of high school and I went to San
Francisco with a couple of friends, and I was trying
to move there. I I brought my records in my
stereo with me and everything, and there was a lot
of them. Um. So I went to a show, uh,

(46:56):
and and I jumped onto an equipment truck and started
unloading some gear. And when I came down the ramp,
it was, yes, his equipment truck. I had an English
accent when I talked to the San Francisco guys, and
when I went back up the ramp, I talked like
the San Francisco guy to the English guys. So they
all thought I was working for the other the whole
day until Bill walked into catering and picked me up

(47:19):
by the car and said, who's this kid? You know?
And Uh. It went on from there. That was in
seventy two. By nineteens. In seventy four, he asked me
to move to Denver because he had a partner in
Denver that he was having a problem with. UM, a
long time promoter up there had some had something going on.

(47:41):
I don't know what. I didn't ask, but he offered
me four dollars a month, and I said, I'm not
going to starve even for you, Bill Um. So I passed,
and I started doing shows in Phoenix and one thing
led to another. Couple of years later, he's calling me
up for helping him out on the stars. Born answered
that he did for Barbara Streisan and John Peters. He

(48:04):
did the concert that brought the people into the stadium
to do the background shots for Chris and Barbara in
the in the movie, and we had a great time there.
I drove him around for a couple of weeks, met Christofferson,
became great friends with him. He lives down the street
from where I'm sitting right now. UM and Uh, I didn't.

(48:28):
I didn't actually get to do a show with Bill
until seven. I talked to him into doing The Grateful
deadic Compton Terrorist in Phoenix, which was owned by the
Knicks family Jess and his wife and brother and Stevie,
and we sold seventeen thousand tickets there. And Bill just
love that, and uh, it was way bigger than he

(48:51):
thought it would ever be. And we became very close,
and I thought would be for a very long time.
We would be very close. Um. I went visited with
him and stayed with him at Massada up in San Francisco,
and I maintained my relationship with Bob Barsodi, who was
the guy that kind of brought me in UM back
in that high school show with Yes, And we we

(49:15):
ended up starting together those Grateful Dead shows and and
unfortunately that was a few months later Bill was dead,
but we had we had a fantastic time. We were
two peas in a pond. Okay, what makes you successful?
Danny's alesko tenacity? You know, I like to think I

(49:40):
stay after it, Bob, it's um you know at this stage,
you know, like it's the same as it was was
was when I when I was a little kid. It's
one step after the other. If you find something good
with one step, there must be another one, and another
one and another one. Saying know to yourself is probably

(50:01):
the biggest hang up. I think that to turn to
get get some people's ways when they when they're trying
to do anything much less than the music business. It's
a very difficult business to break into. If I had
to do it over again, I would give it myself
a second thought about it. It was very rough. Uh.
It's been difficult at sometimes, but overall, on a score

(50:25):
of one to a hundred, I would give it nine.
Is a great career that I've been fortunate enough to have. Um.
My success comes from not taking no for an answer
when I know it should be yes, um, and doing
it in such a way where you're not a pain
the ask to people where they really don't want to
be around you, but rather you know, figuring out a

(50:48):
way to point out why it's a good thing to
do business with me. And and after all, fortunately after
all these years forty something years of doing all these shows,
somehow the good stuff stuck. Uh. As far as being
a fan, loving the music, trying to be fair, be

(51:09):
a good guy, Um, you know, I'm not a boy
scout by any means, but but when it comes to
this business, there's a lot of guys who are anything
but boy scouts. And and the the average lifespan of
a promoter isn't really that long the last time I checked.
So to be in it after all this time, you know,
it's it's a great failing believer. Now, if you read

(51:32):
your book, and I recommend it's certainly a tale from
a different viewpoint. It's very personal. But astounded me when
you grew up in Chicago, and it's a little bit
of an overstatement to say you knew every famous athlete
in Chicago, but almost so, you know, how did this happen?
And who did you mean? Well, in the early sixties,

(51:55):
Chicago was full of these eight sports stars. Ernie Banks
one of the greatest, first black player for the Cubs.
Um one of the nicest people I've ever known. There
was guys on the White Sox, like many men knows
so Joe Cunningham stretched cunning him the first baseman who

(52:17):
would do the splits when he when he reached out
for a ball at first base. There was the hockey players,
Bobby Bobby Holland, Stan Mikita Um and the Bears won
that championship in And that was right when I was
becoming aware of my surroundings and all these different people

(52:37):
who were really unattainable to me. I couldn't ever dream
of meeting these people, much less anything else. And I
had an older brother named Jimmy, and he was three
years older than me, and he started going down to
the ballpark, so this was in sixty three sixty four.

(52:57):
He taught my parents and let me go along with them,
and we'd gather our baseball cards you get signed, or
football cards, and one by one by one, we had
access to these players because they parked in parking lots
like normal people, across from the entrance to get in,
so we could have access to them. And after a
while they get to recognize us. They walk us into

(53:19):
the ball games. We never paid to get into a game,
they walked us in. We had everything with these guys,
and and we learned the mannerisms and the nature and
the ability to get along with not only older people,
but famous people, and and and and to realize when
when you're not being a groupie type, you're being more

(53:42):
like a friend and there were so many great athletes
in Chicago, and the fact that we got to be
around them and I and I would see other people
who would screw up and be stupid around them, and
you know, you've learned for yourself. You make yourself a
little note to your to yourself, and you don't be
an idiot, don't do that. And and you learn that

(54:04):
that speak celebrity speak, and and it's segued into music
in the late you know, in the late sixties. UM
and and it was I found it was the same
thing with them. People who have special abilities, whether it's
behaving a baseball or playing a guitar. In many cases,

(54:25):
because they're so special at one thing, they don't pay
attention to normal things. And that's kind of like where
I figured I could fit in. UM. I heard, you know,
like when Marilyn Monroe got killed her or or somebody
killed themselves in Hollywood, I thought to myself, they didn't
have anybody good to talk to. They needed a good
friend there. Right then, I didn't know about managers and

(54:47):
agents and personal assistance and all that stuff. But it
occurred to me that maybe that would have helped back then,
and the whole the whole study of the of the
personalities for me, and I didn't know it at the time.
I mean, I'm not no shrink. It was so fascinating

(55:09):
to me getting into these people's heads and and them
and realizing they actually would like me and we would
become friends. And you know, Brian Piccolo's calling me up
at home at dinner time about something and my dad
answered the phone. What was this Brian Piccolo? Yeah, sure
it is hold on wise guy and he can't be

(55:30):
the phone I got Dad. It was really Brian. You
should be nicer to him next time. Um. It was
you know, for for a middle class kid that that
whole thing was. When I think back on it, was
was astounding. But there was a reason for it. I
just didn't know what it was. A done. Okay, let's

(55:51):
go a little a little bit deeper. You know, most
people don't have the privilege to be able to meet
famous people, and as you say, they tend to be
group piece, but they also tend to pinch themselves. We've
all had that experience. Go I'm sitting here talking to
this world famous person. How did you check yourself such
that you could continue to be a friend. How did

(56:13):
you get yourself in that headspace. You know. It's like
you you don't just learn out of books. You you
learn from experience. You learn by paying attention to what's
happening right in front of you. And and you can
tell you can vide people out. And it was before
I knew what vibing people out meant, but as a

(56:33):
little kid um discovering things and being able to share
them with people. For instance, you know, like I wrote
about in the book about discovering the Beatles, uh, not discovering, discovering,
but discovering their record before anybody else did. In Chicago,
friends of mine, net Is and and I remember how

(56:54):
hard it was to turn people onto the Beatles until
the Alvan show happened, and then of course they forgot
that I had please please me for a year before that.
But I was very proud to myself about that. And
it's I didn't want to go Nona, not you know,
to everybody else, see I told you so, It's more
like I realized that I was onto something, and I

(57:16):
maintained that kind of presence with when talking to or
being around these people, like you belong, you fit in
as you belong. You're not there to be window dressing
or to be a hanger on, you know, or some
sort of a starfucker or something like that. You're you're

(57:38):
you're there because you like them and you're drawn to them,
and you figure out a way to be invited back,
and and doing that is by being subtle and not obnoxious. Okay,
you know, you go on. You have a special relationship
with Ernie Banks. Can you tell a little us a
little bit more about that? Sure? Um, Ernie Uh, Ernie

(58:00):
was always kind to the kids. My brother and I
became friendly with him, um and and special friends to him.
I felt he would call in on us. He would
call us at home and check on us. Make sure
every now and then, not all the time, but once
every few months. You guys doing your homework? Are you

(58:20):
practicing your baseball when you come into the park. Do
you need some tickets? I mean this is four or five, six, seven?
And after he left baseball in the early seventies, my
brother was a publicist PR guy. He was working for
the Illinois Entertainer at the time, UM and some other

(58:44):
and he did some stuff for Scarlett Rivera you know,
hurt um and and he got around doing that. But Unfortunately,
he had a heart disease which killed him in We
thought he was gonna live till he was five or six,
and he lived to his thirty So he had a
great life and that was fantastic. But you're talking about

(59:07):
your brother here, not Ernie Banks. I'm talking about my brother, Jimmy. Yeah.
So he started doing pr for Ernie after Ernie got
out of baseball, and and they would get together and
they would try to drum up some business. This was
before you know, the classic ball players were able to
make a great living signing autographs. Ernie made so much

(59:31):
more money signing autographs than he ever did as a player.
But being a player enabled him to be that guy
that can make thousands for signing his name, and Jimmy
would help him with that. And uh, and we always
stayed in touch. When he came to Arizona every year
for for spring training, we would have a golf game

(59:52):
or some drinks. And in fact, one one time he
was going to do one of those brand camp for
old people and he decided he didn't want to do
it once he got to Phoenix, so he gave me
his uniform and he says, go be Ernie Banks. For me.
I'll be back at the end of the week. And
and uh that was fun. Uh. Me showing up with

(01:00:15):
Ernie Banks's uniform drooping on me was was quite a picture,
but it worked. Um. One of the last things that
ever happened with Ernie with me. Ernie asked me if
I could get Lady Gaga to play at Wrigley Field,
And I called Jerry Barrett and and asked him about that,
but he said there was no no availability, sadly, and uh,

(01:00:37):
we never got to do that show. But he he
was just one of those He became family. When my
brother died, he came to the wake and he ended
up signing holy cards in front of his casket for
an hour. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen,
but it was beautiful. He was so weird it out
about it. I said, Ernie, think about it. How many

(01:00:59):
times did he stand next to you while you signed
and waited for you so that you could go do
your business? He goes all the time. I said, don't
worry about it, He'll be happy. So it was an
eerie scene, but it made sense. Okay, So what musicians
are you fans of? And what musicians are you not
fans of personally? Um, I'm a I'm a very big

(01:01:26):
Pink Floyd fan. Um. I liked all the versions, but
especially of course the Dark Side and the Uh the
Wall and and Animals were three of my favorites. But
Uma Goma was my record big King Crimson fan. Um
some product rock, not a lot, but general giant, Yes,

(01:01:50):
Caravan Family. I love British bands. Uh. In America, I
love Frank Zappa, and I love John Prime, and I
love Joni Mitchell. I loved Laura Nero. I love all
of the the great great musicians that not not even

(01:02:10):
just ones that I've worked with, I've worked with most
of them. But um, you know, when when I first
got to do Roxy music, you know, I loved Brian Ferry,
one of my absolute favorites doing that That that David
Byrne show, that that Ben Schiffer and Mark Geiger sold
me in Vegas and in Phoenix. Uh. That the one

(01:02:32):
that's on TV right now that you didn't like. I
love that show on stage. I haven't seen the TV show. Um.
But also I want you to know not about the
act but the actual people, because as a promoter, it's
kind of like hanging with Ernie Banks. Who do you
have a special relationship with. Well, Roger Waters and I
are especially close. We have we have phone video calls

(01:02:55):
all the time. Well, we'll have a happy hour together
once in a while, but he hasn't been drinking, so
we haven't been having happy hours lately. But I love Roger. Um.
He was I was one of the first promoters to
buy a show with him after he left Floyd and
his first people. Forget his first go around. He didn't

(01:03:15):
do all that great. It was tough selling tickets back
in the eighties for a guy who left the band
that big and was also blamed for breaking it up.
So um, I love him. And I mentioned John Prime.
It's uh, definitely. You know, one of my very very
best friends, Al Diniola and I are are very close. Um,

(01:03:40):
Sean Phillips, Ian McDonald, all these other guys that I
that I've been talking about, Frankie Valley and Alan Parsons
and his family. Uh, Dave Matson lives over here. We're
we're getting together tomorrow. He's fantastic. Um. It's an amazing
group of people that we grew up with, you know,

(01:04:00):
in the sixties, in the seventies. I mean, there will
never be another time period like that as far as
I can tell you. Okay, So you ultimately sold your
additional company, Evenings Evening Star Productions to SFX Clear Channel,
But you were not one of the early sellers. Certainly
the early sellers got a big buck. Uh. How did

(01:04:20):
you do when you finally sold? Well, I was different
than than say B G P or Pace UM. I
didn't own any real estate. So like IRV Zuckerman he
had the amphitheater Um. You know, most of the big
guys that that sold their companies in the late nineties

(01:04:44):
in the early two thousand's like I did, most of
them were real estate owners. So I think based on
on what I was doing, I felt like it it
was a fair price, truth be told. I was gonna
do it originally with Ja Marciano, who was at House
of Blues at the time, and then they had that

(01:05:05):
big crash there in two thousand and and they they
decided they were going to go up against these effects
and become you know, the Yang to the Yang, and uh,
they closed down that idea, and that's what I made
the deal with. It originally started with Louis Messina at
Pace and then it ended up with Rodney Eckerman and

(01:05:27):
and and all of them. Um, I didn't want to
do it, but you know, I I started seeing all
my favorite best acts like Tina Turner and even right
while Roger Waters never had me cut out at Santana
and and a number of bands that I built myself
up to doing three four five cities with on each tour.

(01:05:50):
Suddenly now I'm getting a third or a half of
the show in Phoenix. Only after I've gone through several
tours building those markets up for those bands. Now suddenly
there's one promoter and and I don't get a piece
of those shows anymore. Um, that's when the writing was
on the wall. And then that you know, at the

(01:06:12):
end of nine at Eagles and Bette Midler thing happened
as well. So two thousand was a year for me.
It took me all year long to raise the money
to pay back Mandalais Bay for those shows. Um. It
ended up becoming a much more reasonable number when it
was all said and done, but it was still an

(01:06:32):
excess of a half a million bucks, which was a
lot of money for for people like us to lose. Um,
all those things combined made it necessary. I wasn't going
out of business, I wasn't not a money but mentally
for me, I I just I didn't feel like I

(01:06:52):
was going to be able to withstand even more pressure
from consolidated buying. You know, I I just and I
I would get wiped out. I was already seeing that
riding on the walls when I'm getting a half of
a Santana show. And I had been other than the
Bill Graham people. I was his most regular loyal promoter

(01:07:13):
in in my part of the country. That's just an example.
I'm not picking on them, but you know, when when
you're getting it, like I said earlier, when you get
a check for an entire tour up front, the person
given that checkout isn't really happy to have baggage like
me along for the ride. And uh, that's what happened.
So how did you do financially? I did great enough

(01:07:37):
enough to not work again if you've chosen too. Yeah,
you know, that's what I thought was gonna happen. And
Rodney said to me, hey, we're not buying you to
retire you. We're buying you to make money for us.
So part of the deal had some money in it
that if I quit earlier, I wouldn't get all of it.
But that never happened, of course. Um you know, I

(01:08:01):
did well with it. I saved a good deal of it.
I didn't go out and go crazy. I had already
bought the house that I still live in with my
own money and my own earnings prior to selling. I
was I was set. Prior to selling the company. It
seemed like a really good time to to take some

(01:08:21):
cash off the table and and see what happened. Because
even though I didn't know what was gonna happen, the
way that it did happen, you know, it was clear
that something completely different was going on. Then the Frank
Barcelona days or doing shows wherever you want to do
if nobody else is doing them in that market. Uh,
it changed dramatically, and and looking back, I'll never know

(01:08:45):
if it was a good idea or a great idea
or not, but I like to think I made I
made the right uh decision doing that. And then um uh,
you know, getting the opportunity in two thousand eleven to
go back out and do it again starting from scratch
was very difficult, not impossible, obviously, and I've had. I've

(01:09:10):
made more money each year since I started over again
than I was making on salary from Live Nation. And
so why did it really why did it really not
work out for you in Live Nation? Well, a number
of reads. I absolutely loved uh when micro Ropino took
over the what was the name of the company before

(01:09:32):
they came up with Live Nation, It was clear Channel, right, Well,
there was a name they were calling it for a
like sound Co or show Co. Oh yeah yeah, but
that was just a temporary name, right, okay, right until
they had a name. But I love the the excitement
of when he took over, um, you know, but it
just turned into a completely different animal. He did great.

(01:09:57):
I mean, he's done greater than anybody I've ever known
in the business. I mean he went he went from
being a somebody in Canada to to be a you know,
and not even a big somebody like Michael Cole who
we worked for, but he turned into the biggest somebody
in the music business, live music business. I Mean, I

(01:10:22):
can't say enough about how great it is that he
was that successful. He did great for him. But in
in our in our in our world, in Phoenix, they
they made a deal to take over the Dodge Theater. UM.
And we had already we already had a great deal

(01:10:44):
with the Dodge Theater in place. UM. And unfortunately when
they took it over with the deal they made, it
cost uh everybody a lot of money. UM. And there
was there was definitely some some weird feelings about that
because you know, over in l A, they thought that

(01:11:06):
we should be able to overcome the fact that they
made one of the dumbest deals in the history of
life when they signed on for that building. For ten years. UM,
my company, Evening Star, which is what they were calling,
you know, our little unit for Vegas, Albuquerque and Phoenix
was making millions of dollars each year. Um. And then

(01:11:28):
when they when they made the Dodge Theater deal, it
turned us into a loser. And there were times where
they would call us out for being losers. Although we
weren't the ones that made the deal for this building.
The deal we had in place prior to that, we
were making a couple of million dollars a year from
just from that deal. So bottom line, UM, they didn't

(01:11:53):
think much of Phoenix. Uh. Some of the people at
Live Nation, they thought it was a losing market without
paying attention to the fact that they just made one
terrible deal that screwed that market up. So what was
happening was they decided as a rule that we couldn't

(01:12:14):
book concerts outside of the Dodge Theater or the Amphitheater,
which is twenty thousand seats and the Dodge was five thousand.
But there's all these clubs and the bands that would
play the thousand and two thousand theaters. I wasn't allowed
to book any of those groups. All I could book

(01:12:36):
at at Live Nation was groups that could go into
the Dodge Theater. So I'm finding myself doing Ray Davies
and five thousand seats when he's gonna draw seven people. Um.
That was aggravating and and passing on shows and watching
other promoters, even though I wouldn't make any more or

(01:12:56):
less money because I was on salary right, uh, and
there's no bonuses or anything like that. So when I
would see these shows that I would want to do
my friends or people that I'm used to working with
it make money, and then I'd have to pass on
them because they wouldn't let me do shows outside of
those theaters. You know. Uh. It made me nasty and

(01:13:20):
it was depressing, and and I just didn't feel like
I was I was doing anything of worth to these people.
Every year, more and more the deals came out of
l A. They bought tours, they went to the amphitheaters,
they went to the arenas, and we would end up
going to our shows and I would feel like a
second class citizen. Um, you know, it's not my show anymore.

(01:13:43):
Even though it's a company that I worked for, it
wasn't the same, you know. And anyway, towards the towards
the end of that, UH, I was talking with Bob
rue about making a new deal where I could go,
I can start booking some of those type of groups
and and maybe have like a more of a partnership

(01:14:05):
deal with them then being an employee and do what
they needed done and then do my own thing. And
then at one point it just broke down and we
both just said fuck it, and I was left to
my own devices. Yeah, and and and it worked, it
worked out, Okay, you know, I really didn't know if

(01:14:26):
I was going to continue. But right when that happened,
if you recall it's almost ten years ago, there is
that terrible shooting in Tucson where Gabby Gifford's got shot
in the face, and and Ron Barber and there is
that that terrible you know thing that happened down there
shop and Alice and Cree Miller and Jackson and Buddha. Uh,

(01:14:49):
we've decided at the same time they wanted to do
something in Tucson about this, and and we ended up
putting together a show and and it was the Cree
running the show. And uh, she goes, so, what what
name should we put on the poster? And I said,
I don't know, And she goes, well, you gotta come
up with a company name like Evening Star. Why don't

(01:15:11):
she use Evening Stars? Well, Live Nation owns it and
they won't give it back. So she goes, all right,
We'll put Danny's Aletsco Presents on the poster. So that's
how Danny's Altsco Presents was started and named Um. I
went out and registered it and got the website and
did all the stuff. He turned on telephones, open new
bank accounts, which is about the biggest pain, and he

(01:15:33):
asked stuff to do. Uh, because I hadn't had to
do that, like in forty years. Everything just kind of
kept on moving forward with time you know, getting more modern,
and I got a fax machine, I got a cell phone.
You know, I didn't have to have a Watts line anymore.
Remember Wat's line. You know, all that stuff is is

(01:15:54):
the thing in the past, and now they don't even
have CDs anymore. Hardly final. Yeah, okay, So a couple
of your favorite shows that you promoted in no particular order.
Roger water shows for me were always brilliant, doing the

(01:16:15):
John Prime shows. John Prime with Bonnie right one of
the best shows I did. We used to we used
to tour around the Midwest together. Um, I love that.
I told you that David Byrne show was one of
the best live events I've seen in recent years. Um.
You know the groups I was talking about before, basically

(01:16:38):
or are probably that show we did, the Jackson and
Alice Cooper show. That benefit was fantastic. Um it had
David Crosby and Nils Loughburn and Graham Nash and Sam
Moore and KEB mo just a fantastic lineup. Um. I

(01:17:00):
had a guy in Phoenix called Jerry ria Pel who's
uh like Elvis Presley and Phoenix. He died a couple
of years ago. Unfortunately, never got as big as he
should have gotten. Um, but I'm I'm pretty much generally
very um loyal to those names. When I when anybody
asked me that, okay, so why write a book? You know,

(01:17:25):
like you were talking before about maybe pitch yourself. I
pinched myself. I realized some years ago. I mean I
I've known forever. I mean I didn't just wake up
one day and say, wow, Wow, this is great. I
mean when Jerry Garcia comes up to you and thanks
you for getting him into Siegfried and Roy, I mean,

(01:17:45):
that's pretty crazy. Um. You know, when when Kirk Gibson
and Bob Melvin from the Diamondbacks come to a uh
who show and and come backstage and they're sitting around
drinking with you, that's that's a great deal. When Gayl
Sayers chases me down in Vegas and tells me I

(01:18:07):
have to meet Bob Seeger after the show, and I
bring Bob Seeger a meet and greet. I got Bob,
I gotta meet and greet for you. Oh yeah, you know,
not easily impressed, And and he was. They were all
blown away. The whole band surrounded Gayle Si. Those moments
are you know, their genius seeger uh one of my

(01:18:31):
one of my favorite guys ever, um of all time.
And the shows what we did were just magic, just
magic what he did. So but why why write the book?
And why right now? He said? Is it sort of
an advertisement? You were talking about pitching yourself? You know it?

(01:18:53):
I pinched myself when I think about all the various
things that have happened. And I'm a collector, you know,
I'm not a harder, but kind of a harder, but
a collector. I love all these years I've been getting
people to sign things and posters and settlers and guitars
and and and all these things that I have around me.

(01:19:14):
It's turned into tens of thousands of items over forty
years and over ten thousand shows. So I've got all
this stuff and going what am I going to do
with this? So, you know, I thought about, I'd love
to have a museum. I'd love to have people be
able to walk through and see all this stuff and
enjoy it. And and that's a very expensive, difficult proposition. Um.

(01:19:36):
So one night in two thousands sixteen, I'm watching Shark Tank,
which is a show that I like, and this guy
comes out. It was the Bill Walton episode. Bill Walton
was helping a friend of his pitch something and the
guy that came on after him was a guy who
called himself a ghostwriter, and he said he could help

(01:19:57):
you write a book, and I needed so direction. Um,
you know, I we've had we've had a couple of
exchanges about that, and and the hardest thing for me
to get going with was just putting down a story
or two and seeing what it read like and seeing
what it looked like without thinking about what order it

(01:20:19):
had to go in. But you just you had to
come up with your own thoughts, uh, comprising of history
and whatever you can summon up to feel how you
felt at that time, and try to recall that. I
wish I had kept a journal all these years, because
it would really really be great. Um, But I unfortunately
have enough pictures and enough memorabilia and enough history around

(01:20:42):
me where I can just look at a picture or
or a piece of something and it can summon up
a story for me. So this guy got me reciting
recording stories. He would ask me, interview me much the
same way that you're doing. And but we talked about
just one topic for an hour and we'd hang up

(01:21:04):
and he'd get it transcribed, send it to me, and
we edited back and forth. And that's that's how I
got started with it. I wish I had known to
do that years before, because so many, so many great
stories have gone by me that you know, I mean,
I have to be triggered to be reminded of that.
So I had a much bigger book than what you

(01:21:25):
have right now, because I took out a bunch of
stories thinking they weren't good enough, or I'd save it
for another time. As it is, it's a very long
book at three pages, and and then I had all
these pictures, and I wanted to figure out what to
do with the pictures. So what I hated doing when
I read a book is I don't like to see

(01:21:45):
fifty pages of words and then six pages of photographs,
and then another fifty pages of words and another photo section.
I wanted to make this book so that you didn't
have to remember anything or go back to reference it
while you're reading it, with those other types of books
which are pretty much standard. And I wanted my my

(01:22:08):
story to be told with the pictures as part of
the words to enhance the story. And I hope I
was successful at that I feel like I was. And
then then there were so many other people I wanted
to write about. You can't write a story about everybody.
So I was able to put some photos sections in there,
and and I took a lot of time on the captions.
I tried to make them funny or topical, or informative

(01:22:31):
or humorous or all the above. Um So I ended
up with seven hundred pictures in there, and and and
I still got seven dred more i'd like to share.
So that's that's what made me do it. It's just
having all the stories and and all this stuff around,
and it's like, I know that people love this stuff.
Music freaks, rock and rollers, the people that buy the

(01:22:54):
t shirts at the shows, the people that buy the
tickets when they first go on sale, the people who
buy the tickets at the door of the night of
the show. They're they're all different types of people, but
we've all got one thing in common. We love music,
and we love the people who make them and and
the music and and there's nothing like seeing them live.

(01:23:14):
And fortunately for me, the facilities that I use are
generally the ones that people like to go to the
most for that type of group. And hopefully when you
know that moment when you're about to hear an announcement,
you know Alan Parson's is coming to town, you're going
if you're an Alan Parsons fan, I hope it's going
to be at this one place, whatever you like. And

(01:23:38):
I strive to make the right place click so that
when people hear it, they go, That's where I would
do the show if I was putting it up. For
those who haven't seen the book yet, it's really kind
of unique because there are a lot of people who
write books that get caught up in detail, and as
Danny says, ultimately the pictures are in the back or
in the middle. This is like kind of a cross

(01:24:00):
between it with conventional book and a coffee book, coffee
table book, and that the pictures are there, and you really,
you know, other than Bill Wyman who's a legendary collector
and just sold some of this stuff. You are looking
in the book, he go, how does he have this?
Where does he get it from? And it really is
the scrap book of our lives. It's not only Danny.

(01:24:20):
You remember those eras as you got older and went
to see those bands. In any event, Danny, thanks so
much for doing this. Hopefully we'll be going to show soon.
No kidding that I won't be soon enough Until next time.
This is Bob left sex