#326 - John Procaccini - The Evolution of Touring and Stage Management - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Torch and a fellow by the name of Paco Zimmer. 2 icons from the
late 60s seventies in the Rock'n'roll business.
Owned a staging company called Vicom and it was probably the
first iteration of what mobile stages have become.
And their shop was a mile from my parents Deli, 2 miles maybe.

(00:24):
And Torch came in one day, got abunch of sandwiches for his crew
that was working, said, hey, youshould come down and see what
we're doing. And I said, yeah, I'll, I'll
take a ride down after work one day.
And I did. And there was a pair of overalls
hanging there. And next thing I knew, I was

(00:44):
cutting steel for this stage bill that they were doing.
And that was around 1977. Torch became the the rigor.
Paco became the advancement for Boston, which at that time
biggest album in the world. That was it, yeah.
And I kind of got recruited to become a ground rigger Carpenter

(01:07):
kind of person, and I had no idea what the hell I was doing
and my parents thought I was joining the circus.

(01:45):
Hello. And here we are, another episode
of Geysers of Gear. Thanks for joining me today.
As always, a lot of new things going on in our world.
First, I think you're probably aware that I have launched a new
business, Gearshare, which is a an AI search engine basically

(02:07):
for sub rental gear. It is working amazingly well.
It's a tool that we've taken almost a year to build at this
point and spent a fortune on AI products and stuff.
It's not only AI, but AI handlesthe bulk of the load.
It is doing a lot of the smart stuff in the background.
We've got a lot of companies onboarding.

(02:29):
Companies are being onboarded more quickly now.
We were very slow walking for the first couple of weeks, but
yeah, it's going really, really well.
We're probably up to about 7000 items now.
We want to push it to 1015 thousand really, really quickly.
We want to get it to 100,000 sort of within a few weeks.

(02:49):
So we are going to be onboardinga lot more companies.
And one thing I did want to mention, if you're listening to
this, you're probably the type of person we would want to add.
We are now adding what we're calling affiliates or affiliate
partners. And those affiliates basically
you can earn simply by saying tosomeone, hey, have you heard of

(03:12):
Gearshare? It's pretty cool.
It's a great way to find gear and you might want to sign up
and guess what? I've got a discount code.
You give them your discount code.
You can do this online, you can do it in person, you can do it
in a text message. You give them the discount code,
they sign up with that discount code and you get a fairly
significant little payment for that.

(03:32):
So obviously that scales really well.
You could make an extra three $4000 a month simply by
recommending a platform. And we've just decided that
instead of growing a large salesteam on our side, we'd rather
just take our own friends and, and network and have you guys

(03:54):
share this for us. In the past, I used to always
call this a sneezer. A person who buys like the
latest iPhone and tells everyoneabout it is in marketing terms,
it's a sneezer. It's a person who's going to
basically spread the virus, go out and tell people that, hey,
this thing's amazing, you shouldcheck it out.
And so we're looking to pay people to be sneezers for gear

(04:17):
share. So that's cool.
Secondly, I haven't talked to you about Four Wall in a while,
but I've been speaking with themdirectly with Wes, the CEO and
others. And I'm happy for them that
they've been funded, that they're out of those nasty dark
moments that they've been in forGod, what feels like a couple of

(04:38):
years. I know it's over a year anyways,
I'm sure for their entire team, it's it's just a massive exhale
and back to doing business, which is great.
And I think it's good for the entire industry.
When a company that size is on the sidelines and you know, it
causes ripples all the way through the system.

(04:58):
Vendors aren't getting paid on time, staff are getting
depressed or, or down or whatever.
We've all been through it and it's great to come out of those
situations. So congratulations to Forwall on
getting funded and let's keep aneye on that and see how it all
goes in the future. I'm sure they're going to get
back to acquiring other businesses and so we'll see.

(05:21):
One thing I didn't want to go without mentioning since we're
still in September here. It's now the 23rd of September
as I record this Cosmos annual Space Cannon installation for
911 in New York. If you listen to my podcast, you
probably also follow Cosmo Wilson and you know the guy is

(05:41):
just a St. for doing this every single year.
He some of the scheduling that he has to do just to get to New
York to do this in between touring dates and stuff.
Yes, this year he was off so it was a little bit easier.
But most years he's jumping from1 gig to another gig.
He'll come in, get the setup done and the focus done.
He'll fly back out to do a gig, fly back in to make sure

(06:03):
everything turns on OK. Like the commitment that this
guy puts into this every single year and he's so proud of it and
he's so happy to do it and he gets so many accolades and it's
all well deserved. So Attaboy Cosmo, you know,
super proud of you, super happy to be your friend and love
seeing you do it every year and love following the social media

(06:24):
posts with all the excuse me pictures and and stuff.
This year was extra special because Steven Tyler showed up,
which which was pretty wild. Steven Tyler showed up at the
9/11 thing, stood under the lights, got his picture taken
under the lights and a very funny moment.
Everyone knows if you know Cosmo, you know two things about

(06:48):
his wardrobe 1 is he's going to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt and
two, he's probably wearing a Beatles hat.
And so him and Steven Tyler switched hats.
If you haven't seen it, go to Cosmos social media, Scroll down
through about 8000 pictures. You'll get to 1 where Stevens
wearing The Beatles hat and and Cosmo's wearing Stevens hat.

(07:08):
So very, very cool. Love it.
Attaboy Cosmo, super proud and and happy to know you.
And you know, I know you love what you're doing there, but we
all love that you do it. And without getting political at
all, I wanted to mention this whole Charlie Kirk thing.
Not for any reasons that you think I might be mentioning it,

(07:30):
but does this create security concerns for our own industry?
Is there going to be more attention paid to the artists
who are on stage? And I know that we've always
been concerned with them gettinghit in the head with a beer
bottle or a, you know, a glass of water or whatever it is just
things projectiles from the audience.

(07:52):
We've always been paying attention to that.
But, you know, have we really been concerned about, you know,
call it a left wing or a right wing person on stage who has
very, you know, political views that one side loves, the other
side doesn't love. And someone now brings a gun to
that, to that event or brings a bomb to that event or brings a

(08:15):
projectile or whatever to that event or runs on stage and stabs
them in the face. You know, I know it's very
morbid sounding, but it's one ofthe things that I thought of
when I saw that all happening after the fact was does this
change our industry? Does this, you know, and one of
the things that made me think ofit is I saw the president's

(08:37):
speech at the Charlie Kirk thingthe other day and and the
president now doesn't speak without the big guard around him
now, and for obvious reasons. So are we going to start seeing
concerts where, you know, whoever the artist is has a

(08:58):
bulletproof shield in front of him so he's basically singing
from a box? I hope not, but who knows?
I mean, our world is is a littlenutty.
Let's face it. We've got some crazy shit going
on out there right now. And I would hate to see it come
to that because, you know, the the closeness and the sort of

(09:19):
romance of being at a show and being that close to the artist
and seeing him standing right there right in front of you or
her is such a big part of all ofthis.
And also, what will the fans think?
Like if Taylor Swift is is on stage behind a, a big, you know,
thing that covers the entire stage and the ramps and

(09:41):
everything, you know, I don't know what's that look like.
So I hope it doesn't become a problem.
I hope I'm not, you know, anticipating something that's
coming because if it does come, if it happens to one artist, it
it's going to cause significant change to our industry and we
don't need that kind of that kind of stuff right now.

(10:02):
So anyways, sorry to enter a dark and negative and morbid
topic, but I just, it's one of the things I thought of when
that all happened. So today's guest is I hope I get
his last name pronounced right, John.
I apologize now if I get it wrong.
John Procaccini is a veteran tour touring production manager

(10:26):
and entertainment executive withmore than 45 years in the live
events industry. Currently the tour production
manager for Peter Frampton, Johnhas worked with legendary
artists including Jefferson Starship, The Doobie Brothers,
REO Speedwagon, Boston and SammyHagar.
Beyond touring, John is also co-owner of the Nashville Social

(10:48):
Club and principal of Chili Bop Entertainment Group, with past
leadership roles at Base, Hologram, Base Experiential and
Stagecraft. Known for blending creative and
operational excellence, John continues to deliver
unforgettable experiences while shaping the future of live

(11:10):
entertainment. So let's go ahead and bring them
on. Well, hello John, how are you?
Great, Marcel. Thanks for having me.
No, thank you so much for doing it.
It's it's interesting to learn that somewhere out that back
window of yours that I can see behind you is John Wiseman's
probably sitting on his boat smoking a cigar or something.

(11:30):
He's not too far from me. He's I, I don't know exactly
where he lives, but he's up in Tahoe somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, he's not that far from me.
And I'm in the, I'm in the footage.
Oh, OK. Oh, so you're not real close to
the lake? About 20 minutes, 20 minutes due
east of South Lake Town, Yeah. You're probably you're probably

(11:51):
about $15 million from the lake.Exactly, exactly.
I'm about 15 million from the lake exactly.
Is that feet or miles? No dollars.
Yeah, it's funny, John was actually talking to me a few
weeks ago about about Tahoe Realty, a real estate and just
what some people are spending tobuild these massive, you know,

(12:14):
Silicon Valley mansions on the lake and, and.
It's just. Wild.
Actually, a mutual friend of John and mine is a landscape
designer. It's actually my wife's best
friend. She's a landscape designer in
Tahoe and the the billionaires are, as I said, the zillionaires

(12:35):
are coming into town buying $40 million lakeside properties and
knocking them down from buildingor, or knocking portions.
It's crazy. It's it's when.
When you're doing that, you've got, you know what I would call
a few money and. Yeah.
You know, it's just I see it in South Florida a lot too, and I'm

(12:57):
starting to see it where my house is up in Canada as well,
where people are buying, you know, 3 or $4 million houses,
tearing them down and building, you know, 20 million.
Dollar houses, Yeah, it's crazy.You know, my wife just doesn't
like the floor color so I'm going to tear the house down.
That's that's essentially what'sgoing on, you know?
It is wild. It is wild.
And certainly on the ocean and, and even on the intercoastal in

(13:20):
Florida, same thing. You know, it's, it's like you're
paying $10 million for the land and 2,000,000 for the house.
So who cares? I'm gonna tear down the house
and put up a better one. Exactly.
So yeah, whatever. So you're one of the, you're one
of the first of all, I'm super impressed with myself that I got
your last name right. I, I don't always do that.

(13:41):
So Prococini for me, I'm massiveItalian food fan and I just
thought if this was on the menu and I wanted to order it, how
would I order it And, and I got it right.
So. It's funny that you correlate it
to food because a little back story that kind of coincides
with the start of my career is my parents owned an Italian deli

(14:05):
in Providence, RI, OK. And back East they call
sandwiches grinders in Boston, Providence.
So I've had the I've had the nickname John the Grinder for 47
years now. Yeah, yeah.
I started started in 78 helping a a fella in, in New England.

(14:33):
He was a raver. His name was Torch.
Arthur Russo. Arthur Sylvia on the side and
another good German name, another good German name.
And Torch took me in. I started working in the shop,
but he coined the name John the Grinder and that stuck pretty
much. I think of the last probably 7

(14:55):
to 10 years, it's tapered off a little bit because it's got
other meanings and connotations.So we don't use, we don't use
the name Grind. Yeah, exactly.
Where maybe you do or do not want to be.
Associated to exactly so I haven't used it all that much,
but still recognized as as the grinder out there somewhere.

(15:19):
I. Like it, I like it.
That's, you know, there's been some really funny nicknames over
the years for for touring peopleand someday somebody has to do a
a book of the funny nicknames inthe touring business.
And it's such a great idea. You know, how did how did the
name get get brought up? Because I would love to even
hear the origin of that whole thing.
Like, when did somebody decide that everyone on a tour needed

(15:42):
to have a funny nickname? You.
Know, yeah. And who knows?
Like, I don't know when that started what the origin of the
whole concept is, you know, but it's cool.
It's. Funny it is.
It is this. Good luck.
That I don't even know their name, like I just.
Know their name, the. Torch or whatever.
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So. Exactly.

(16:03):
So, yeah, the, the, so I'm guessing you're Italian,
obviously. And so the, the deli, I've read
I think somewhere in either yournotes or some of the research
that we did, the deli in Rhode Island, you worked there, you
spent a lot of time there. When yeah, I mean my, my parents
opened it in probably 1970 and my siblings and I all worked

(16:30):
there. And in between me having a
garage band, not knowing I wanted to go on the road with a
touring act as a roadie, yeah, alot of my friends were came from
music and sandwiches, basically.Really.
Yeah, that's funny to go together, I guess, because
musicians are starving. Yes.

(16:51):
Are yummy. Yes, they are.
Yeah, Yep. Well, when when I was young and
playing in bands, it was musicians and and exotic
dancers. In Canada.
Because I couldn't afford guitarstrings and they could, you
know, and so, so that was just how it worked out.
And plus they usually had a car so they could drive you to the
music stores to get those guitar.

(17:11):
Strings. Yep, Yep.
And so, yeah, it was. It was always fun.
Yes. So how did you get from the deli
business to the rock'n'roll business?
It sounds like, it sounds like atypical story, which is I was in
a band, it wasn't going anywhere.
And somebody said, hey, you wantto be, you know, you want to do
this thing instead. Kind of close.
So Torch Torch and a fellow by the name of Paco Zimmer. 2 icons

(17:35):
from the late 60s seventies in the Rock'n'roll business.
Owned a stage in company called Vicon and it was probably the
first iteration of what mobile stages have become.
And their shop was a mile from my parents deli, 2 miles maybe.

(17:55):
And the torch came in one day, got a bunch of sandwiches for
this crew that was working, said, hey, you should come down
and see what we're doing. And I said, yeah, I'll, I'll
take a ride down after work one day.
And I did. And there was a pair of overalls
hanging there. And next thing I knew, I was

(18:15):
cutting steel for this stage build that they were doing.
And that was around 1977. And Yep, they were building this
mobile stage that I want to say the first show was Parliament
Funkadelic in Chicago. Yeah.
And then Torch, Paco, bunch of other folks that are some still

(18:40):
in business. I'm not this mobile stage wound
up working for a couple of yearsbefore I want to say that Mike
Brown staging in Los Angeles picked it up and put it as a
permanent big hunk of steel stage maybe at the Ventura Fair
somewhere, somewhere. Then anyway that that all those

(19:02):
staging contacts kind of led torch became the the rigor.
Paco became the advancement for Boston, which at that time
biggest album in the world. And I kind of got recruited to
become a ground rigger Carpenterkind of person.
And I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

(19:25):
And my parents thought I was joining the circus, so I left
the deli. Yeah, I were.
I was. So that was my foray into
rock'n'roll Is, is ground riggerCarpenter for torch.
And who is, you know, still to this day, dear friend and family
and mentor. And he's approaching 80 years

(19:49):
old, I think, and still in greatshape.
And, and you know, he and his family live still live same
house not far from Providence, RI.
And so that's that's the entree into Rock'n'roll too.
It's like Roy, who we had on theon the podcast.
Sure. Roy Bickel, Yeah.
And you know, he still goes out on jobs occasionally.

(20:12):
He's a pioneer. I mean, he's a pioneer.
I think he's. 82 or. 80, yeah, Probably, yeah.
And you know, the guy just blowsmy mind, blows my mind
completely. Well, that was the oh, I'm
sorry. Go ahead.
No. No, you go.
I was going to say Roy Torch fellow, the late Mike Grassley.

(20:35):
I mean, there's a Harry Donovan.There's a slew of rigors that
from that time, Branham, I'm sure Joe Branham slew of them
from that time period that that were truly pioneers.
And Roy, I still see via social media and you're right, taking

(20:56):
little projects that he just finished and he's in Las Vegas,
I believe. Yeah, yeah, no, it's wild.
It's, I love that because, you know, I was talking to somebody
the other day and I was whining about the fact that, you know,
at my age, I'm 61 now and, and at my age, I'm still working
probably harder than I have in the last 30 years.

(21:16):
And part of it is because there's just such new technology
that I'm getting involved in andreally, you know, digging into
and becoming a, an expert on. And, and part of it is because I
still need to make money, you know, and so the person said to
me, you know, you need to sort of flip that whole thinking

(21:38):
around because the fact that A, you're still relevant, B, you're
still doing something that you enjoy for the most part.
Everyone's going to do some things you don't like, but
you're doing something that you enjoy in an industry that you
love. He said, I'm never going to stop
working like you. You'll have to drag me away from
from work when I'm in my 80s because I love what I do.

(22:01):
And if I don't do it, you know, I'm either going to be spending
money or eating too much or probably living an unhealthy
lifestyle of some sort. And you know, I love what I do.
Why would I stop doing it? And there's some logic to that.
Yeah, I, you know, there certainly is.
And as I, I, I still am out occasionally with Peter Frampton

(22:23):
and the entire crew. I would say most of it, but I
shouldn't say it anytime. We're conscious of many things,
Peter. We don't work every day.
We work day on day off, day on, day off.
So a time in a hotel is a bit more than a, than a younger

(22:45):
touring act that's doing five ina row or fuck shows or whatever.
So you have to get up and do something, even if you're just
walking along the city or doing something and then eating.
All the choices of eating are certainly far more wider spread
than they were in the past. And so it's not just hamburgers

(23:08):
and fast food. You got lots of choices.
So it's all about the choices really, I think so the exercise
and the walk and. You're exactly right.
It's, you know, the whole healththing is about choices.
Like I know so many people who say, well, I'm on tour, so I, I
have to gain weight because that's just what happens, you
know, it's, yeah, you know, pizza in the back lounge after

(23:29):
the show every night or whatever.
What are you gonna do? And what you're going to do is
say no. Exactly salad.
Can you order me a salad please?Or I'm going to.
Go out and grab something to eaton my own or whatever, like, you
know, there's always a healthy option.
And it's just that usually, believe me, I'm in a constant
battle for do I grab that pizza or do I have some broccoli or

(23:52):
whatever, you know, like what? It's a, it's a constant battle
because I love pizza, you know, And I think I'm, I'm not
Italian, but I certainly must have some Italian in me
somewhere because I could eat Italian food for breakfast,
lunch and dinner every day. I agree.
I agree. And I think when, and you might
have some good insight on this, but when I'm in Italy, that

(24:16):
doesn't bother me. Like I don't feel bloated and
full and all that stuff. When I'm in America, if I have
pizza for lunch and pasta for dinner, I feel like I weigh
£450, you know? Yeah.
So understood. What what's what someone told
me, and I don't know if this is true or not, is that in the US
we use enriched flour, bleached flour, all of that kind of

(24:38):
stuff. And in in Italy they don't.
That's correct. Yeah.
So a lot more like ancient grains and stuff like that.
In Italy, it just comes down to real food versus fake food,
right? Yeah, I mean my my wife who's
Irish American moved to Japan mid 80s, I want to say spent

(24:59):
about 9 years there and worked there, moved back to the States
where I met her and she came back after nine years in Japan
and had to embrace a gluten freediet just because of the what
you got used to in. Right.

(25:19):
In Japan and when we went to Italy and she can eat pot, she
does not eat American made pastaanymore.
And even some of the Italian brands that probably are
manufactured now in the States, they may be a product of Italy,

(25:40):
but I'm not sure the 100%. Yeah, she she found the diet to
be tolerable when we were in Italy.
Yeah, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
It's like I can eat a whole loafof bread at lunch.
Yeah, in Italy and it doesn't bother me.
But if I have one piece of breadhere, I feel bloated and full
and all that stuff. So.

(26:00):
But. Yeah, Frankenly, Frankenly they
call it right? Right.
Yeah, well, it's just all the garbage that we put in bread
here. Like, you know, it's, it's
remarkable. My, my fiance and I were having
this conversation yesterday because, you know, I'm, I'm
finding that milk started bothering me.
And so I'm looking for alternative things to put in my

(26:20):
coffee 'cause I don't like blackcoffee.
And, you know, I've tried so many different things.
And yesterday I read how to makea healthy a pumpkin spice latte.
And I'm reading this and I go, oh, cool, I got all those
ingredients. And so I go to put in like fake
milk, nut milk of some sort. I think it was like an almond

(26:43):
mixed. And one of the things he said is
you got to make sure that whatever nut milk you're using
has no more than three ingredients.
And I look at the label and it'sgot like 30 ingredients.
And one of them is seed oils. And I'm like, you know, what are
you doing here? Like, why are you trying to kill
us? This is not supposed to have all
of these things. You.
Know. So I'm sure there's a reason and

(27:05):
it's usually about profit or longevity or whatever, right?
So they can get on the shelf longer.
So, yeah, but I did a lot of research on, on Italian, like
on, because I, I have like an uni pizza oven and I, I do a lot
of homemade pizzas And so I'm always looking for the perfect
dough. And so I've done a lot of

(27:26):
research on on flour and what's in different flours and stuff
and finding proper flour that doesn't that isn't enriched or
bleached. Caputo double lot.
That's what I use all the time. I use Caputo.
Yeah. But you know, the other thing is
like with pastas and stuff too, you know, like Durham wheat as

(27:48):
opposed to, you know, there's, there's so many different types
of things and it's just like thegovernment ain't taking care of
us from a health standpoint. You really have to do your own
due. Diligence and research.
Anyways, this kind of went off the rails.
No, that's OK Food's a great topic.
Oh yeah, I love well and especially Italian food.

(28:09):
I could talk to you about it allday and and not get bored
because it's one of the reasons I love going to Italy.
Is. Every region has their food,
every region has their wine. And I want to.
Explore it all. Absolutely.
You know, absolutely. Yeah, we're actually we, we just
got engaged about AI, don't knowa month.
And a half congratulations. And thank you.
My, my fiance's from England andwe're talking about getting

(28:33):
married either in England or Italy next year.
England because her mother's getting older and, and we'd love
to have her be able to be there.And she's like, I don't mind
going to Italy. So we're talking about maybe
Italy because it's my favorite country in the world.
And so yeah, we'll see. We'll see.
Oh good, last, wherever you land, I'm sure it'll be

(28:55):
enjoyable. Yeah.
And an epic Naples, all around Naples.
And we still have, we still havefamily in a little town called
Scopoli, which is due east of Naples, about 30 minutes, I
think, OK. Yeah, cool.
How often do you get there? Oh, it's been a few years.

(29:17):
It's it's been for my wife and I, it's been right before COVID.
So that's six years. Wow.
Yeah, I think I was there since COVID.
I. Think I was in.
Italy a few maybe two or three years ago, just for a few days
for business. Yeah, but so last we spoke about

(29:38):
work. We were.
On tour with Boston and you knowwhat a cool first tour like I
mean. You know, yeah, I mean, it was.
Somewhere, maybe at the top right.
It was a bit surreal. I was 18 years old.
Torch, my mentor, used to be as his ground rigger.
I got accustomed to getting yelled at from 110 feet in the

(30:00):
air. It was it was a learning,
learning, learning, learning experience.
And I learned a lot of differentdisciplines.
He would if we were done puttingthe rig up, which at that time
was 12 or 14 points sooner. There's nothing compared to
7080, a 120 points today, you know?

(30:22):
Yeah. And so we'd have time.
We'd have time after the rig wasup and he'd tell me get over
there, help him stack PA, get over there and help him push
bang gear on stage. And so I learned quite a few
different disciplines from Torchmentoring or bossing me around.

(30:44):
Yes, kicking my ass around exactly, exactly.
But it, it certainly created opportunities for me early on.
I as I learned many disciplines about what it takes to get in a
building on a stage. Up and running got me into stage
management pretty early after that tour.

(31:08):
That tour went forever. It seemed to be, I think he's
still going almost and I wound up Sammy Hagar was our opening
act for a lot 10 months, I want to say on and off.
And we a lot of us wound up getting hired from Sam.

(31:29):
So through the early 80s I spenttime with Sam, became a stage
manager for him prior to his VanHalen base.
Oh wow. So yeah, getting into it early
also got me into some level of management early and almost ever
since, since about 85. South How old were you when you
became a stage manager? In your early 20s, Right 23.

(31:52):
Wow, 23. That's impressive.
It, it sounds like like one of the things I hear.
I get to talk to a lot of peoplewho were sort of at the
foundation of our industry really.
And one of the things I hear over and over again is, is just
that can do attitude of like, you know, say yes and then go
figure it out. No, exactly and it.

(32:12):
Sounds like you did the exact same thing and and that ends up
making you a lot of friends and getting getting your phone
number pretty popular among its artists or managers or whatever.
Well, exactly. And a few years ago I did AI
spoke and did a little session, a little breakout session on
what they call breaking and entering.

(32:34):
It was about how to get into thebusiness.
The graphics that I used were kind of comical because coming
from Providence, RI and being Italian descent, we knew a lot
about breaking and entering around the town.
So but we the seminar was a few different topics on for up and

(32:57):
coming. Some of my panel were local
labor companies, a female tour manager and a well seasoned
production manager. We talked about different
aspects about breaking and entry, being in the right place
at the right time, taking all the calls.
Don't The minute you stop takingcalls from folks, you go to the
bottom of the list. I mean, it's just you got to

(33:19):
stay active, especially when you're first started possibly
working at a local theater or arena, being a runner, any
anything that got you close to the business was certainly a
factor in breaking an enter. Yeah, so.
Yeah, I mean, again, it starts with a particular attitude.

(33:39):
Like it starts with an attitude,you know, and I'm going to
really try hard to avoid pickingon younger people today.
But one of the things and even my own son, I struggle with this
sometimes. Like they don't necessarily
automatically have that, oh, letme give you a hand attitude,
right? Like it?
It's all very structured and very compartmental these days.

(34:01):
I was going to use the exact word.
Yeah, I mean, it's very compartmental.
So I was given this set of tasksto do.
I'm going to do those and then I'm going to go play PlayStation
or something, right? Like that's, that's just how it
goes, right? And so I've pushed since
probably he was 10 years old to push my own son out of that type

(34:22):
of mentality. And he does really well with it
some days, not so well other days.
But it's, it's just a weird cultural thing that didn't exist
when we were young. You know, you just, you hung
around until the gig was over. Right until the truck was
loaded, door was closed. And it was pulling away and now
it's playtime or whatever, right?

(34:42):
So, so, yeah, I mean, that's probably one of the big changes
that you've witnessed over the years is just the transition
from sort of that old school wayof doing things to to where
we're at today. And there's a lot of good about
where we're at today too. So I'm not just knocking.
People, I agree, but it's different.
I do my best not to say this is how we've done it for the past

(35:07):
47 years because that certainly creates A blockade for any young
personnel coming through, you know, but there are some
noticeable practices with the upand coming versus the.

(35:27):
IT goes the other way too, you know, get some older grumpy
fellas out there that this is how we do it and are not open to
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It it goes both ways. But you know what though, I use
some of that stuff as material to when I'm talking to younger

(36:57):
people. So like, for example, if I'm
talking to a young person who wants to become a touring
lighting designer or lighting operator or whatever, and I see
some of those newer habits, I might say to him, OK, so let me
ask you, how do you handle, you know, these few different
scenarios? And then I'll say, well, are you

(37:19):
familiar with Cosmo Wilson? And he'll say, yeah, I know I've
heard of him. I read some stories about him in
in Live Design magazine or something.
And I'll say, well, you know that Cosmo got there because he
said yes to everything. And if you don't believe me, go
listen to my podcast number, whatever number it is, and

(37:39):
you'll hear Cosmo telling you that right out of his own mouth
that I said yes to everything. And I just went and figured it
out to the best of my ability. And if I felt like it was a
safety issue or something, I might go to the production
manager and say, Hey, you know, I kind of made a mistake
volunteering to do this because I've never done it before and I
don't want to get hurt and I don't want to hurt anybody else.

(38:00):
So can I either get some education or maybe replace me
with someone who knows what they're doing?
But, you know, like I use that information to to tell younger
people about if you want to riseabove, you know, the people
around you, here's the ways to do it, you know, is not to make
yourself invisible, but make yourself visible in a very

(38:22):
positive way. Like, you know, I finished the
job that I was doing. Have you got anything else that
you'd like me to take care of? You know, that's the great
attitude to have. Yeah.
Well, I, I do remember it was probably about 1986, had about
three years of stage and production.
You don't remember that? Yeah, I don't.

(38:43):
Remember 1986, John? It was a good year, but I.
Don't. It was a good year yeah.
IA stage and production management gig wasn't available.
And of course those of us that are still touring, we just have
this feeling that we have to work for whatever reason where

(39:03):
it's not always money. It's just sometimes you just
feel like if it's my last movie,if the phone doesn't ring or
something. So I took a gig.
I was very friendly with the folks in San Francisco at the
time, Nocturne Nightmare Productions.
It was Journeys management company.
And so I was close with them andthey called one day and said,

(39:26):
hey, we got a lighting crew chief gig.
Do you want to do it? It's for a lover boy to wear, to
wear an 86. I said sure, I'll do it.
And, you know, it was, it was income, it was a paycheck.
And I remember running into someone that I had run into on
the tour, they go, oh, you're a lighting guy now.
I said, you know, I'm, I'm whatever will keep propelling me

(39:51):
for. And I think some of that may be
gone. I hate that I I don't want to
say that as a blanketed statement, but now because of
the formal training and. There's young folks graduating
from schools like Full Sail or Iwant to say it's the Crass is

(40:13):
the one in Phoenix, I want to say but.
Even just regular schools like traditional schools now have
you. Know classes on products?
Yeah, lighting. Consoles.
And yeah, and engineering. And stuff.
Which is, in my opinion, possibly what has created the
specialization or the compartmentalization in that

(40:37):
they come out of school going on.
I'm a lighting designer. I go, how about being a
truckload at first? That'll that, that'll.
True. Yeah.
So their expectations are set sohigh.
Plus, you know, again, another thing about today is that
everyone's special. You know, Johnny, you're
special, you know, so everyone comes out thinking they're a
lighting designer when they haven't designed anything yet,

(41:00):
you know, other than a test at school or whatever.
But I think part of the problem with with or not problem, but
part of the cause of compartmentalization today is
really also around how technicalthe gear has become.
You know, 'cause like I rememberwhen I was playing in bands in,
in the, would it be late 70s, early 80s, I could walk up to a

(41:27):
sound craft 24 channel board andbe able to figure out how to
make it sound half decent. And that wasn't that difficult.
I don't even know how to turn a console on today, an audio
console, I mean, and I'm lookingfor the outboard rack with all
the Eqs and stuff and it doesn'texist.
It's all plugins and all this stuff that I just, I don't

(41:48):
understand. Like, I don't have any idea what
Dante is or how it works or all of that stuff, you know?
And so I think it's just like for you to become a lighting
crew chief today would be a whole different challenge than
it was in the mid 80s when therewere no moving lights yet, or
very few. And if you did have moving

(42:09):
lights, you had Verilight and they had their own crew.
Exactly. Yeah.
So I mean, being a lighting crewchief, I'm not saying it was
easy, but it was a lot more easyto figure out than it is today
with, you know, like I mean, yougot to be an IT guy too the the
networking that's going on in rigs today because of the number
of channels that are being used.It's just you got to be a

(42:31):
networking. Expert as well as a lighting guy
as well as a digital this and that, you know.
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So. You speak about the the audio

(43:37):
console and not being able to turn me on.
My wife and I own a a restaurantplus A-250 seat venue in
Northern Nevada and we have AI don't know a digital N 32.
I think it is a Midas console and talk about not being able to
turn it on. I I I fall into that category
here I am in management when it comes to touring, but I think

(43:59):
the key now with management and leadership.
It used to be at at that point, I want to say when I was in the
in the sweet spot of my production management career.
If you still learning, still pushing boxes, everybody did
jump in and do different things.And with the specialization now

(44:24):
I'm, I think we're fortunate as production managers to have some
really knowledgeable crew chiefsthat really understand more than
their little, yeah, little space.
Yeah, because you even though they're specializing.
Right. You didn't just do one thing
really well or whatever you like.
I remember I think it was HowardUngerleider who told me that he

(44:46):
he used to do settlements for Rush in the.
Early, I'm sure. You know.
I'm sure. Designer and half the time he
was lighting designer, production manager.
He drove the van. Yeah, and.
And he did settlement, you know,and it's like, wow, that's
pretty crazy. But you know, I know a lot of I
know a lot of LDS who who were in that position where.

(45:07):
They handle settlement. Maybe just to make sure they got
paid. I don't know.
But you know, yeah, it's, it is a different world.
It's much more corporate now. There's a lot more money
involved, which means you're going to have more sort of
experts or, or like instead of generalists like many of the
touring people were back in the early days.

(45:28):
Today you do have more expertiseand stuff too.
But again, I think that it's created a version of, I won't, I
don't want to call it laziness, but in a sense it kind of is
laziness. Like when my particular job is
done, I'm going to walk away. I'm not going to.
And like, so if you see two lighting designers standing next

(45:50):
to each other, one guy's, you know, 30 and one guy's 60, I
think they're going to have a different approach to that.
The the 60 year old is going to be standing around until the,
the truck doors close. And the 30 year old might
already be off at, at, you know,a restaurant with his girlfriend
or with his buddies or something.

(46:11):
And it just is a different mentality.
Yeah, I agree. Seems like it anyway.
I agree. You know, the interesting part
about settlements now is, you know, they're, they're all
electronic. Used to be as a tour manager,
which I've, I've done as well, you'd be in a settlement room
for hours, you know, even if there was big discrepancies,

(46:34):
counting the drop, you know, counting the ticket drop to make
sure that the promoter wasn't stealing the income thing.
So that's all change. I mean, that's all change with
it's all electronic. And of course, you got one for
the most part, very few promoters now and the depth of

(46:55):
these promoters is pretty clear and trustworthy.
Yeah, live. In theory trying.
To nickel and dime you on. Additional expenses, probably
they're not. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah. But.
I agree with that. That makes a lot of sense.
So when did you transition like from the stage management into

(47:17):
other aspects of management? So interestingly enough, in
about 1987 I was in Italy with Sinatra and got home and I was
working for three bands at the same time.
I think I was production managerfor Night Ranger at the time,
Production manager from band from England called the outfield

(47:39):
bringing them over to the States.
And I was a site coordinator forNocturne on the Sinatra tour.
I got home by the way. Being in Italy with Sinatra.
Yeah, that was for. An Italian guy.
Yeah, that was OK. You know, you don't have to pay
me. I just want to do.
This it's, yeah, it was almost that.

(48:01):
Yeah, it was almost like that. But I got home within 48 hours
of my first son being born. And I said, boy, this is by this
time I'm in it 10 years, almost 10 years.
And he said I got to figure out somehow to stay home.
So I started a, a set construction company.

(48:23):
We were building risers and and things of that nature right here
in Northern Nevada. And our friends at Nocturne, who
was then run by the late Herbie Herbert.
I don't know if you've heard that mean Herbie managed
journey. I remember, I remember.
So Herbie was a friend and he said, I don't want you to start

(48:44):
building some stuff for me. And I think we built some
Michael Bolton stuff, some otherbands that he managed, Great
White at the time, few other bands.
And then what happened is Nocturne, Nocturne then
purchased all the lighting from Tate Towers when Tate Towers was
a lighting count, when Michael Tate was a lighting.

(49:07):
And he said, hey, we've got to Herbie Cosby.
He says, hey, Grinder, if something's changed, we've got
to give our set construction business the tape, and we're
taking their lighting construction.
But I still want you to build small stuff for me if need be.

(49:28):
Yeah. So I started the set
construction company. One thing led to another.
Tape, of course, was on this trajectory because they, you
know, they were, they were and are one of the finest set
fabricators just ever, of course, ever.
And anyway, my set construction business and one day Berby calls

(49:50):
me. He says we just got MC Hammer.
Tate doesn't want to do it, you want to do it.
And we said, sure, we'll build it.
And we our first very large stage set, multiple trucks stage
set that was 88 I want to say. Wow.
So I I then went into set construction business and opened

(50:11):
a business here in Northern Nevada and then one in
Nashville, TN few years later. And I won't say we weren't the
highly technological set construction company like Tate,
but we were very well known theatrical set construction
company. It was called Stagecraft and we
were Stagecraft Nevada, Stagecraft Nashville.

(50:33):
And we wound up coining the phrase MTV to Mickey Mouse, Pink
Floyd to the Pope because those are the sets that we built in
our 1518 year tenure. That's pretty cool.
And then early 2000s, we had a unfortunate demise, too big, too

(50:54):
fast kind of thing. And so I went back into tour
management. So over those 15 years, while I
did not tour is a production manager, I spent a lot of time
interacting with them productionmanagers and spent an awful lot
of time. So you didn't do a single tour

(51:15):
over that period of time? No, I did actually.
What I was a consultant to MTV and their touring properties.
So I would be out a lot. The, the, the notion of staying
home because I had a now a youngfamily didn't, didn't quite come
to fruition. I found myself in Nashville a

(51:36):
lot in New York a lot with the MTV and Viacom properties
because we started doing consulting to touring properties
for MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon and soI still toured, but I, I
wouldn't say I toured. I'd go out, do traveled, start

(51:57):
up dates and things like that. And we grew the company from my
garage basically to an $11 million year company.
And back in the 90s was a feat. Yeah, that's it was a feat,
yeah. That's a lot of steel.
It's a lot, well, a lot of aluminum.
We were aluminum, true. We got we got chastised for
using steel in the rock'n'roll, right?

(52:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then so you you came back out
of that in the early 2000s. Two, yeah or 2000 So a manager
from Sonoma, Bruce Cohn, who managed The Doobie Brothers for
40 years and managed Night Ranger and managed Bruce Hornsby
and managed Ambrosia. Olivia Newton John.

(52:42):
I wound up kind of helping him with some of these acts for
different projects. One became The Doobie Brothers
and then on and off for about 17years, I to a managed or
production managed The Doobie Brothers for Bruce, for Bruce.
OK. And then that was up until.

(53:06):
So that brought me to, I don't know, 2016.
I want to say what is it? Yeah, 2015.
I think I had a little change inmy life.
I lost a grandson in a car accident, and so I took some
time away from The Doobie Brothers and wound up getting a

(53:29):
call from Peter Frampton's camp,and I've been with them ever
since. So yeah, so about 10 years.
And I enjoy I enjoy working withlegacy ads because we're
typically we're typically, you know, 2-3 trucks, maybe 10 AM

(53:49):
load insurance. I, yeah, it is I, I boy, I
really respect these production managers that are out doing, you
know, 12 to 20 trucks. My friend Chad Guy.
Yeah, Marty telling. Me last was it last year when he

(54:11):
did all these stadium shows and he was like, you know, I'm, I'm
exhausted. Like, yeah, from from the stage
to the to to my office in the stadium could be, you know,
hundreds of yards or whatever. And I'm doing it 100 times a day
on multiple shows for, you know,an entire year of stadium shows.
It's exhausting you. Know well, I mean a dear friend,

(54:34):
Chad guy who you probably know. I'm not sure if you interviewed
Chad, He's from he's from he's from Canada.
He's was a promoter Rep up there.
He wound up he in the last five or six years kiss from kiss.
He goes to Morgan Wallin, which is, you know, one of the biggest
shows out there and he does a great job.

(54:57):
But I'm sure you know, he's got two daughters that are growing
and sure takes a toll out of it.But he's he's a great production
manager, but he's got, he's doing the stadium shows with, I
don't know, 30 trucks probably. Yeah, it's it's.
It's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of work.
Well, Marty. Marty, last year I think he had

(55:18):
Olivia, what's her name? Olivia.
Rodrigo. Rodrigo.
And Beyoncé and what's her name?The Colombian, Lebanese one.
Shakira. Shakira and something else, too,
like he had all these stadium shows going at the same time

(55:41):
practically, and I was like, you're a madman, you know?
He is. He works.
He works a lot and he still doesa few of the legacy acts I
believe that are still out there, but.
Stevie Nicks or. Stevie Nicks here.
Yeah. Yeah.
What? They're depending.
I was at that time. Yeah.
Yeah. Wild.
Yeah, it is. It is.

(56:02):
Peter Frampton though, like I remember one time, you know,
Donnie Carone from upstaging, I'm guessing?
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Donnie, one time I was talking to him saying you got to get
bored of doing James Taylor every year.
This was back when every single year he went out with James
Taylor and he said, are you kidding?
And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, number one,
we stay in the same hotel that James stays in.

(56:25):
And, you know, so it's not like James is at the Ritz and we're
at the, you know, Holiday Inn down the road or whatever.
He treats us amazing. He's an amazing guy.
It's it's a great crowd. It's pretty low stress.
We can do whatever we want as long as, you know, it's not
broken or something. And he said, I wish all tours

(56:47):
were like this. So.
Well, speaking, I'd have to concur.
I mean, Peter. And of course, our touring in
the last four years has changed.Peter is battling A muscular
disease that that prevents him from.
Yeah, And. But still playing like crazy.

(57:09):
It's it's it's amazing. But he treats us so well.
And he really respects each and every one of us for what we do.
He really, and I don't speak, I don't speak badly against any
other person that I've worked for.
But Peter, once you build a rapport with him, he, he trusts

(57:32):
you and believes you to be in charge of the business that he's
hired you to be in charge of, which I love that.
I mean, he's set in his ways. He knows what he wants.
He communicates it to you. But yeah, we're, we're in, we're
in Four Seasons of Ritz Carlton's with Peter.
We don't stay at separate hotels, rarely the busing, you

(57:53):
know, we're not 12 people on a bus anymore.
We're six or seven. And yeah, no, it's, it's what
it's what I think. Yeah, I think it's what will
allow me to stay out there untilmaybe, maybe 70.
I don't. Not even just allow you, but
inspire. You inspire me.
It's real. Enjoyable being out with and

(58:14):
he's just a class guy. Like yeah, he's a class.
Guy So what exactly happened with because I remember, and I
might be remembering this wrong because again, I'm getting
older, but didn't he like completely retire and stop
touring a few years ago and thensort of started it up again?
So 2018 was when I believe it was 2018 that it was detected

(58:41):
that he this could be very problematic for and so he did a
farewell tour. Right, that's what I'm
remembering. What he chose to do in the
interim was really pay attentionto this mitosis muscular
degenerative muscular disease and work with some really major

(59:08):
pioneers that was studying this.And he got involved with the
that organization. I believe there's been some
treatments that he found to be helpful and he realized one day,
hey, I really can still play. I might have a a little bit of
difficulty with some lower extremities, but I really can

(59:31):
still play. So we came back out and we came
back out, I want to say it's 2021 came back out and late 2021
and we've been doing these shortlittle stits.
I mean, we do three weeks at a time, maybe 3 or 4 * a year and

(59:54):
he fares very well. I mean what is?
His disease managed now or is itstill progressing or like how
does that all work? I don't know exactly.
I mean, I believe it's managed. I believe that he pays an awful
lot of attention to what helps keep it managed.
Diet, exercise, his training. He's got this beautiful service

(01:00:20):
dog that he spends a lot of timewith.
He has grandchildren, I think 2 grandchildren at the moment,
perhaps third one on the way. Really, really, really life
changing things for him that I believe keep him just ahead of
it. It's funny that sometimes not

(01:00:41):
funny, but it's interesting thatsometimes it takes something
like that to just change everything.
Like you get sustenance, you sustain your life longer because
something like that happens a little earlier in your life and
gives you a wake up call and makes you change your lifestyle
and start eating better and things like that.

(01:01:03):
Like I've known a lot of people who had, you know, a minor heart
attack and if they didn't have the minor heart attack, they
probably would have got diabetesand 15 other things and cancer
and everything else. Because it's, it's all those
lifestyle things contribute to all those different diseases,
right? And so once one of them gives
you a wake up call and you completely change your

(01:01:23):
lifestyle, you know, sometimes that gives you another 20 years
or. More, you know.
So yeah. I was at, I was at an industry
conference, must have been five years ago and they were offering
ACPR breakout where you can go get certified through CPR.

(01:01:44):
So I did it and. That which?
Which conference was that? Because I remember that.
It was. What do they used to call it?
Was it the one not perfect? Not the one in Palm Springs?
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. Jesus.
I should remember the name of. It but it's changed now to where
Mario educate in his company OSA, right?

(01:02:08):
They manage it now. What was it called before that?
LPL. PS:.
LP. Live Production Summit LP.
'S that is it. You're right.
Yep, so they did the CPR class and the and the instructor
started off by saying any of youthat work for legacy artists,

(01:02:30):
even if they stopped their viceswith drugs and alcohol 30 years
ago, what they did to themselvesis likely to take a toll on them
at some point. And the CPR will be necessary.
And while thank God, you know, alot of this didn't happen on the

(01:02:55):
road during the show or something like that, but you
could see where these artists that did beat themselves up in
the 70s and maybe even to the 80s.
What is it? What has happened to them
certainly is taking a toll, sortof what they put themselves
through. And yeah, I I'm happy I've not
had to pull out a defibrillator or use the CPR training.

(01:03:18):
Not yet anyway. Yeah, exactly.
But, you know, then there's Keith Richards.
Yeah. You know, like.
That there's the anomaly. Or, or you know, a guy you
mentioned earlier, Sammy Hagar. I mean, the guy loves tequila
still. He loves rum and he shows it
every day. He he has a good time in life,
and yet he still sings like a bird still.

(01:03:40):
Towards like. Crazy.
And works like crazy, I mean. It's awesome.
I love guys like that. I love, you know, Steven Tyler
is what is he now 76 or? Something.
Yeah, I think so. And I mean, I don't know if
you've seen him sing recently, but he did that thing with
Youngblood a couple weeks ago orsomething amazing like.
The guy just. Sounds incredible.

(01:04:01):
Looks like a rock star. At 76 years old, he's still
looks like Steven Tyler jumps around and does all the stuff he
does, you know, So I don't know,like the thing I think the bad
thing that this is saying to youth today is drugs and alcohol
are really good for you. And you should keep doing it
because it's going to make you look like you're 40 when you're

(01:04:23):
70, you know, because that's what you see from these guys.
But I think that they just have such, whether it's a strong
regimen somewhere else that's just offsetting all of that
stuff or whatever 'cause, you know, there's certainly nothing
good about drugs or alcohol froma health standpoint.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, I also think there's
there's some of these artists like Tyler, you know, that just

(01:04:46):
understand their role as leaders.
You know, they just understand it.
I mean, they may not have been successful at practicing it as
far as iconic leaders, but, you know, a funny story about
Steven. My wife and I were at the Cmas.
I don't know, a few years ago, The Doobie Brothers were invited

(01:05:09):
to play at the Cmas and we had this dressing room that we
shared with Tyler, Garth Brooks,Doobie Brothers, Keith Urban.
And Tyler was hilarious and, youknow, commanded the room quite
well. But the next morning, my wife
and I were getting on a plane togo to Boston, see my family and

(01:05:31):
Tyler's up front. And he remembered us.
He was, hey, hey, you guys, whatare you going to Boston for?
And he carried on this conversation as we were getting
on the plane. And we kind of held up the line
a little bit. He was getting in first class
with his dog. And my wife and I were right
behind him and not in first class, but, you know, not too

(01:05:53):
far back. But his mind, it just goes to
explain, goes to say what, you know, those that can keep their
mind in. Yeah.
You know, it's just how well, why?
How in the world would he remember us?
Yeah, that's. He did.
Yeah. It was impressive.
People that he meets? Exactly not.

(01:06:13):
Forgetting like we all do. Right, it's the number of.
People that he meets on a daily basis.
Yeah. Who feel like they're important,
but to him it's just another 10,000 people today or whatever.
Like the fact that he'd rememberyou is a pretty big deal.
And not only that, he there was a there was a discussion of us
going to Maui for New Year's Evebecause we're my neighbor and

(01:06:38):
dear friend is Dave Mason, he and his wife.
And yeah, yeah. And so anyway, we've been
friends for a while and since they moved here 12 years ago.
And anyway, somehow the discussion got you go on to New
Year's Eve for this event that happens in New Year's Eve.
And he remember that. He says, hey, we're going to see

(01:06:58):
you in in Maui on New Year's Eve.
And I'm going, how does he remember this?
There was had to be 100 people in the dressing room last night
or two nights ago. Something to impress him,
obviously, because he picked youout of a crowd.
My wife, she's she looks a lot better than I do for sure.
Oh, OK. Great, she can light up a room.

(01:07:21):
Well, that's like the rest of them.
That's. Like my fiance, you know, my
fiance's basically the same age as me, but she looks 25 years
younger than me or more and and she's stunningly beautiful.
So, you know, there you go. People talk to me now that
wouldn't have talked to me before because of her, you know.
And so, hey, if if, if it's helpful like that, you know, I'm

(01:07:44):
certainly not going to lend themout to you or anything, but you
know, if it's helpful in in thatsort of a conversation or
whatever, that's a great thing. So yeah, I think for me it's the
same reason. Yeah.
But so, you know, we we talked alot about young people, old
people, etcetera. And and by the way, thank you so
much that you're joining us for the dining with dinosaurs thing

(01:08:06):
this year. That's, it's going to be such a
blast. Like I looked over this list a
couple days ago, LDI sent me an updated list of of the people
who have signed up for it. And I'm just like, wow, what a
group of people this. Yeah, I was like, I couldn't
agree more. It's awesome and there's still
people banging on the door saying they want in.
Like we actually have a waiting list right now for some people

(01:08:28):
on that because LDI, of course, because of costs and things,
they're going to clip our wings at some number and we keep
trying to push it. Three more, five more.
Come on, let's go to this. Because, you know, at the end of
the day, there's a lot of legends in our industry.
And this whole thing is about people like yourself who are
willing to have conversations and share stories and share

(01:08:53):
teachings with younger people because our industry can only be
sustained if if we bring more people into it.
And COVID was a great lesson in that.
You. Know we.
We didn't have a strong bench. And so when she hit the fan, we
didn't have a pool to dig from and, and it became very
problematic where shows were struggling to get enough bodies

(01:09:15):
just to keep the show or get theshow out the door or whatever.
And so we have to, we have to create a stronger bench.
We have to have better coaching and training and mentoring to
bring people into the industry. And like you said at the very
beginning of this this podcast, you said your parents thought
you were joining the circus. And I think that that's still a

(01:09:36):
bit of a sort of, it's a, it's afeeling that people get when you
say, Hey, why don't you join thetouring industry or go out on a
tour? And I even said it to my son,
Hey, you know, do you want to gain some experience in the
world? I can talk to a few friends and
get you out on a tour doing something.
And he's like, well, why would Iwant to do that?

(01:09:58):
Like, you know, and he thinks that you sleep in the back seats
of, of vans and, and that you, you know, people are stoned and
drunk all the time. And he doesn't do drugs or drink
for some crazy reason. I don't even understand it
myself. And, and, you know, just that
perception is that it is a bunchof gypsies, you know, touring in

(01:10:21):
vans, you know, and it's like the circus coming to town,
right? And they all rape and pillage
all the girls. And it's different now, you
know, It's very different now. I also think the term tour has
gotten to be used so loosely. I mean, as I mentioned earlier,
my wife and I have a 250 seat venue and we by acts of all

(01:10:46):
different sizes and kinds and they use the term tour.
This act is on tour. Well because they're going from
Sacramento to Reno doesn't mean they're on tour.
I think the term touring is alsobeen kind of elevated to a
pretty loose, loose term, very broad, very broad.

(01:11:06):
So. Your venue is in Tahoe.
We are in Carson City, Carson City, NV the name of the place.
My wife and I have had a second home in Nashville, TN since 9495
I want to say. And so we watched this Nashville
culture change and while we liked it, we liked the change up

(01:11:31):
until recent. I think it's grown a little too
much, but too. Crazy now.
So we opened a venue in NorthernNevada called the Nashville
Social Club, which is got some private dining.
It's got, it's a restaurant, 250seat venue, a little bit on the
concept of a City Winery kind ofspace.

(01:11:53):
And we've been open three years and we have acts up, up and
coming baby acts. We have legacy acts.
We just had Pablo Cruz for two nights, Booker T Jones for two
nights. Yeah.
So we do all kinds of stuff and it's very intimate. 250 seats.
Interesting. And yeah.

(01:12:14):
Is it? Hard to get axe in a venue like
that though, when when it's sortof in the middle of nowhere.
And it's like, because again, normally when you have a venue
and you want to start getting axe, they're on tour and they
go, OK, yeah, we can, we can route that on our tour.
And it makes a lot of sense. But.
We're decent, yeah, in the middle of.

(01:12:36):
Nowhere. It sounds like it would be
harder to route Axe. We actually do about 60 shows a
year. So wow, that's pretty good of
all different levels. And we wind up finding Bay Area
heading back E via maybe Salt Lake.
So we're a good stop free Salt Lake City.

(01:12:57):
There's maybe one or two others stops.
So yeah, it's, it's actually we're the Reno Tahoe market and
we're a good size for baby Axe or like I said, legacy Axe that
could do 400 CS will maybe do 2 shows with them.
Interesting, So is there a Nashville social club in

(01:13:19):
Nashville too? No, no, that's interesting.
There isn't. Yeah.
No, it's, it's the concept was to build five of these on the
West Coast, but we're we're still trying to figure out how
to manage one. Yeah, well, I mean, big cohones
opening a venue right after COVID, you know, I mean,
obviously. Yeah, I'm reminded of that.

(01:13:39):
I'm reminded of that, Yeah. It's, you know, opening a venue
right after all the venues got crushed, you know, and got paid
well by being crushed in many places too.
But yeah, that's that's big, bigcohones, right?
There I like. That I like it.
That's very cool. Well, that's maybe, maybe

(01:14:00):
smaller brains. Yeah, yeah.
So you've told me about Stagecraft, and you've told me
now about Nashville Social Club,but what about Chili Bop?
So. Where's the name come from?
So my grandson, his name was Chili.
And as I said, we lost him in 2016, by the way.
So that's what I named my company because I used to call

(01:14:23):
him the Bopper. So that's where Chili Bop came
from. Oh wow.
Very personal. Yeah, most of what I did with
Chili Bop was consulting siblings.
I spent spent many years consulting to a few wineries up
in Sonoma for the little festivals that they would do.

(01:14:46):
I spent some time with a companycalled Bass Hologram out of LA.
They were owned by the Becker Becker family, which used to be
Pace Pace before Live Nation andPlayer Channel.
It was Pace Concerts, Pace Motorsports.
That was the Becker family. So Brian Becker was the

(01:15:07):
president of that company and sohe hired me as vice president of
operations, but I spent most of the time as as in doing that.
It was a startup developmental company and COVID kind of
crushed the hologram business. So base hologram did what?

(01:15:30):
Developed holograms of legacy, mainly deceased artists.
Like Michael Jackson could go out on tour.
Exactly. We are properties technology
exactly. And it's our our properties that
we had license to do was Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Whitney

(01:15:52):
Houston, Maria Callas, the operasinger we had and we did these
full length concerts. In fact, we were in Europe on
March 9th, I want to say right before the close shutdown of all
the airports with a Whitney Houston tour and we got

(01:16:14):
everybody home safely. Decked out and and how good was
the technology? Like were people fooled?
Yes, you know the suspension of disbelief, but it only lasts a
very short time. After you brought the 4th song
in, you go, I get it. And it's it's I think it kind of

(01:16:39):
tapered off as the show went on.The opening numbers were
fabulous. The effects in this hologram
appearing, Maria Callas, for instance, it was an opera show,
so it had a full orchestra and Maria as a hologram would walk
on stage from stage right to center stage.

(01:17:01):
And the effects that we did, theFoley effects, her footsteps,
because an opera is supposed to be an acoustic show, but we used
amplification and the acoustic, the Foley, we would track her
steps as she moved across stage.So it would pan that that those

(01:17:23):
kinds of things made you a believer.
But you get 30 minutes into the show and you go, OK, I've seen
it. So as a special effect, I saw a
special effect done with Queen where Brian May and Freddie did
a duo together. I.
Saw that that. Was.

(01:17:43):
And it was. And it was believable.
It was, and it was breathtaking.To be believable because you
weren't trying to, because you had, When I saw it, it was Paul
Rogers was touring with them andso you had Paul Rogers doing
most of the vocals. But then I think Brian and
Freddie did. I don't.
Remember love of my life I thinkit was.
Love of my life. Yeah.
And it was just beautiful. Like if you didn't have a tear

(01:18:06):
in your eye, there was somethingwrong with you.
But this was in the very early days of them doing that.
But the. But the video of I don't even
believe it was a hologram at thetime.
I think it. Was just, it was probably a LED.
Yeah, it was just him on the screen singing.
Along with Brian and Brian looking up at him the whole time
and stuff. And it was beautiful.
But now you're actually trying to get, you know, artists that

(01:18:30):
you're calling legacy artists, but they're.
Deceased duets, Yeah, you're getting.
Them doing duets, you're gettingthem.
Like, did you ever do anything with Paul Dexter on this?
Paul Dexter, Why do I know that?Lighting designer worked with
loads of different acts. He did the movie Rockstar.
He did some movies and and lots and lots of different bands, but

(01:18:53):
he did a Dio hologram. Oh, right, right.
That's why I know the name. Yeah.
So the DIO hologram was not us, but there was a DIO and a Zappa
one that was done. Zappa one as well.
That might be the company that Paul worked with.
Yeah, possibly. Yeah, well, and I don't know
where it's at right now, but I know Paul was also working on

(01:19:16):
one with Canadian band Triumph and where it was a little bit
different though, because you kind of had holograms playing
or, or acting or whatever you want to call it, creating a
visual for a band that was sort of behind the curtain that was
actually playing this stuff. And that band in itself was sort

(01:19:38):
of an A list of musicians as well.
And so I don't know where that'sat.
I was actually talking with Gil the drummer and Triumph about
it, and it was meant to go out sometime this year.
But I don't know whether it's a,a sales problem or a, you know
what it is, who knows? But you know, to do things like
that that are that ambitious, you obviously have to have a

(01:20:00):
buyer. And indeed, and you know, well
what happened was after COVID for motors of course needed sure
thing, yeah, kind of things to put out there.
They weren't in the money losingmood.
They weren't in the money losingmood so hologram hologram
attraction was not appealing to them.

(01:20:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's coming though.
Like, to me, the ABBA thing is ais a big deal and the length of
run that it's had already and itisn't showing any slowing down
here to see more of that I thinkis going to be it's going to
happen. Like you're going to see a
Beatles show at some point. You're going to see, you know,

(01:20:44):
Led Zeppelin show at some point,a Stones show at some point.
Because, you know, these bands have, have fans that go for
decades and decades and decades and, you know, like go to a
Stones or a Pink Floyd show backin the day at least, and you'd
see, I, I remember, I, I saw Pink Floyd.
I don't remember 90 something, 94 maybe?

(01:21:06):
In that was the division belt tour that like we stagecraft
built it. It was, yeah.
With Brickman. Yeah, Mark and Mark.
Actually, I brought Mark on to do one of our hologram tours.
He he was a lighting designer. Yeah, I.
Love Mark. Mark is Mark is a mad genius,
but he's got such a big heart and he's such a good guy and.

(01:21:27):
Mad Genius is a good good exploit.
He. Is a.
Mad genius description. Yeah, I mean, you know, he's,
he's perfect in that role. You know, that's exactly what he
is. And if you don't give him room
to be a mad genius, he's not going to deliver well and he's
going to be very grumpy and he'sgoing to be a bad fit for

(01:21:48):
whatever you're putting him into.
So if you've got a a vanilla box, don't put Mark Brickman in
it. You know he's.
Not going to agree he's. Going to drive you nuts, but if
you've got a a box of all kinds of different colors and styles
and tell you what, here's the budget, stick within that and do
whatever you want. That guy's going to create
something in we. When we did the holograms, we

(01:22:11):
actually I was able to bring on some really prominent designers,
brought Mark in to do Morea Callus and then a a 40 some odd
year friend. We were the last two people
hired on Boston. Leroy Bennett.
I I brought him on to do with you.

(01:22:32):
Wow. Yeah.
And. You must have some budgets if
you're bringing in Brickman and Roy Bennett.
Yeah. We, we, yeah, we did.
At the time we were, it was a start up.
No, no, we did at the time and that was all.
Then then your budgets went downa little.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it happened. But Roy, Roy and I, you know,
Roy was a Rhode Islander as well, so.

(01:22:55):
Yeah. Funny story, he worked, my uncle
was a security guard in the malland Roy worked in a clothing
store early in his career. And my uncle said, hey, there's
this guy with purple hair, you need to meet him.
And I thought, this is when I this was even before Boston.
Yeah. So it was 77 maybe, and I said,

(01:23:19):
oh, there's someday. And I never met him till here we
are in rehearsals for Boston andhere comes his purple hair
lighting tech. And that's where I've been.
Really. Yeah, 1978.
Same. Tour with you, Yeah.
Yeah, it's wild. Yeah.
And was that his first tour as well?
I possibly, possibly, yeah, I believe so.

(01:23:40):
Yeah, we were the we were the last two guys hiring, I think.
Wow. He was hired by Polical Lighting
and I was part of the rigging crew, so.
He's certainly gone on to do some things.
He continues to he's. A beautiful career designer.
Yeah. Brilliant, Brilliant, brilliant.
Designer and quite a fashionistanow too.
Yes, he is. Yeah, always has been.
Yeah, yeah, he's, he's got some interesting fashion for sure.

(01:24:04):
Yeah, but yeah. But nice guy.
Yes, he is. So what else was I going to ask
you? I just had something all lined
up to ask you and I forgot oh, what I was saying about Pink
Floyd earlier. The division bell thing is I
remember where my seats were theand there were a group of four
kids, like probably 1718 years old in front of me. 2 girls, 2

(01:24:28):
guys probably on date night or something, I don't know.
And they knew the words to everysingle song blew my mind.
It blew my mind. I was like, these songs are from
probably before your parents were born, let alone you, you
know, And that is wild It, it just was amazing to me and I
loved it. So that's why I think the whole

(01:24:49):
hologram thing or whatever technology replaces it at some
point. But I think we're going to see
Kiss go on forever. I think we're going to see the
Stones or Led Zeppelin or The Beatles go on forever.
Like there's going to be a load of these acts that people just
don't let disappear, you know, and, and sort of two-dimensional
movies don't do them justice. You know, you need it to be more

(01:25:12):
3 dimensional and more of a likethe ABBA thing, you know?
So I think there's going to be some real breakthrough
technology in that world at somepoint.
I couldn't agree more. I certainly enjoyed my three
years of trying to get it up andgoing.
Startups. Are hard.
Startups are hard, and I give a lot of credit to those that that

(01:25:36):
put their tail out on out there to get bits I'm.
On like my 6th one right now. And.
I've, I've just launched it and you know, you're, you're just
biting your lip every day hoping, you know, that you, you
run out of excuses before you run out of money, you know?
Or run out. Of run out of, you know,

(01:25:56):
naysayers or whatever before yourun out of money.
And fortunately, the one that we've just launched, it's, it's
AI and it's, it's exactly what the industry needs.
It's, it's built. I'm not doing a pitch here.
I'm just explaining to you what it is, but it's called gear
share and it's built around the lack of available inventory in
our industry. That's not a, a new problem, but

(01:26:19):
basically, instead of having to sit there and go, hey, John, you
got any of these? Hey, Bob, I need a hundred of
these. Hey, you know, I need this, I
need this, I need this instead of all of that.
Basically on one side we have people uploading a huge amount
of inventory from all over the world into this platform, and
it's always searchable and discoverable.
And then anywhere on Earth, someone can just type in that.

(01:26:41):
I need, you know, 400X moving lights for these dates in this
general vicinity. And it'll tell you what's
available everywhere in the world.
And it's connecting inventories from wherever, from whatever
rental software. It's completely software
agnostic. It's actually not, you know,

(01:27:03):
patting my own back. It's something that the industry
has needed for 20 years and it'sjust the technology wasn't good
enough to to make it seamless and, and without friction and
simple to use and all of that stuff.
And so, so yeah, we're, we're pretty proud of it.
But you know, again, it's, it's hard.

(01:27:23):
Like my budget was this and it ended up costing about this, you
know, And so there's that pain and and it was supposed to
launch in this period of time and it took this period of time
to launch. And so, yeah, stress of startups
and I keep doing it and I'm too old to be doing startups at this
point. So somebody needs to smack me in

(01:27:44):
the head and smart me up. Well, we we did a restaurant
startup, and that's restaurant entertainment startup.
I'm looking for someone to smackme in the head.
Yeah, so the restaurant, is thisthe 250 seat venue as well?
It's a. Restaurant.
Yeah, it's kind of the restaurants connected to the
200. So you, you could do dinner, not

(01:28:05):
dinner on a show together, but you can come into the restaurant
and and the nice part is, is that the entertainment component
fills the restaurant. So we we have quite a healthy
service on the nights that we have shows.
On the nights that we don't haveshows, we're a highly regarded
restaurant, but we're in a marketplace that's we kind of

(01:28:27):
overbuilt for I would say. But if we can, if, if we can get
to that Delta, like you said, the run out, don't run out of
excuses before you run out of money.
It will get over the hump. Yeah.
And you know what, like I think in a situation like that, like
one of the things I loved about the and I don't even know if

(01:28:49):
they still do it, but the House of Blues, I know they used to do
the Sunday Blues brunch and or gospel brunch.
It was called the Sunday Gospel Brunch, and I don't know if
you've ever done it, but it's amazing, like.
We did one the food. 'S good.
And the. And the the Bloody Marys are
amazing. Really good.
And the gospel acts that they get in there are just

(01:29:11):
tremendously good. And guess what?
You're filling a place on a Sunday when you know you had no
shot at doing that in the past, perhaps, right?
So just. Weird.
Yeah, we did it. We did an old school R&B brunch
and we did a gospel brunch and we every now and then throw them
into special events because as Isaid, the market, we're right

(01:29:32):
down in between Reno and Tahoe. And in the summer everybody goes
to Tahoe. So the Reno, Carson City market,
slow down. Yeah, maybe some transient
stuff, but. Yeah.
We're still learning. Three years figuring it out.
And what about also like corporate to get corporate

(01:29:54):
events in there where they've got keynote speakers and stuff
like? That Yep wait our 250 seat venue
is perfect for that. It's got full audio visual
support with large screen stuff and multiple televisions and.
So create a package with like a a couple of local hotels or
something. And where exactly?
You put a package together and then just start marketing it out

(01:30:16):
to every company out there saying, you know, beautiful
destination venue, half hour from the airport, blah blah
blah. 60% cheaper than doing it in Vegas or Reno.
Sure. You know, like that kind of
thing might work. Exactly.
You got your marketing chops going then.
I, it's, I can't help it. Like people come to me with

(01:30:37):
business problems and instantly I throw 20 ideas at them and
they're like, I never thought ofthat.
I never thought of that one. I never thought of that one, you
know. It's a great mind.
It's. Just how my brain works.
When you try to do them all yourself, though, tackle them
all on your own, it becomes a miserable life, you know,
because you're just endlessly thinking and building and

(01:30:59):
creating and La, La, la, you never get to actually just sit
back and spend the the fruits that that it's bringing you.
Yeah. So.
Well, did I miss anything? Have we missed?
No, I think that's I kind of touched on 47 years of all kinds
of things and I think. You've done more than the

(01:31:21):
average production manager, stage manager, tour manager.
I think the business what what what I like to think about is
the fact that I was fortunate tobe in family business, nowhere
to nowhere to keep an eye on costs.

(01:31:41):
And that kind of thing is made me somewhat valuable to an
artist, especially an artist that's, you know, on the tail
end of their career where, you know, the paydays aren't as what
they used to be. The cost of touring is where it
is. So the ability to manage, you
know, be fiscally responsible and not just hey, we need

(01:32:02):
another truck or we need anotherthis or we need another guy or
another person on tour. You just start getting so that
that fiscal responsibility, I think yeah, I.
Mean, I think the production managers and tour managers who
have business minds are, are extremely crucial to this
industry right now. Speaking of that, like, you

(01:32:23):
know, there's all kinds of problems to the sustainability
of this industry as a whole, youknow, and we keep figuring it
out along the way. So I'm not this isn't a doomsday
speech or anything, but like even one of the things I
mentioned in the intro, which you won't hear until you go back
to listen to this. But in the intro, I mentioned
the Charlie Kirk thing, not because of any kind of politics

(01:32:43):
or anything, because I don't give a damn what side anybody's
on. But as it relates to our
industry, Are we going to start seeing, you know, Keith Urban
playing behind a, you know, plexiglass box, you know, or,
or, you know, Taylor Swift walking with a Dome over her,
you know, as she goes out the ramps and stuff?
Or, you know, like, are we goingto need to start really worrying

(01:33:07):
about protecting artists, especially artists like a Kid
Rock who have taken a side. Yeah, or a Beyoncé who maybe has
taken the other side and then getting crazy, these crazy
people with guns who who decide I don't like your views and
therefore I'm going to become a martyr and and shoot you and or

(01:33:28):
a hero to my crowd and shoot you.
So you know, again, I'm not trying to be dark, but it's one
of the thoughts that immediately.
No, I don't think it's dark at all.
I think it's practical. I mean a few years ago Peters
management company who have a big roster of artists did this

(01:33:49):
phone in seminar for all the tour and production managers and
they had some security high kindof high-ranking security people
that were consultants to specialevents and political events and
all that. And this was right after there's

(01:34:10):
a young that, that explosion with Ariana, I think it was.
So there was maybe 200 people onthe on the call listening to
this. And the kind of things that we
were made aware of that we took for granted, for instance, LED
in a meet and greet, allowing people to carry Sharpies into

(01:34:34):
the meet and greet their own Sharpie pets because it was
discovered that they were takingthe felt out and putting razor
blades in the sharpies. Jesus, never.
I don't have a I'm a pretty aware of my surroundings guy
taught my kids. Never thought of that one.

(01:34:56):
I have a little bit of a background in martial arts that
I that I don't practice the way I used to.
So it makes me a little bit moreconscious of my surroundings.
But what we learned was in a case where someone wants to get
to somebody in a, in a public assembly, they're going.

(01:35:16):
So all your role becomes at thatpoint is to minimize, not not
prevent. I had a guy on my podcast at one
time, British guy, and I can't remember his name right now, but
he was a safety expert. That was a consultant hired by
whether it was tours or public events or companies or whatever

(01:35:37):
based on show security, you know, and he started hitting me
with some potential hazards and I was just blown away.
Like it made me never want to goto a show again.
You know, I was like I. Don't want to be in?
A crowd, you know? Hell no when you're telling me
all that stuff. I don't want to be in a crowd.
And yeah, it's just stuff that you didn't.
Think of, you know, like crazy stuff and you can't get rid of

(01:36:00):
it by just getting rid of guns or by just getting rid of, you
know, missile launchers or by just getting rid of.
Because like I remember right after 911, I was in London when
it happened and I was getting ona plane and they gave us in
first class 'cause I got upgraded, they gave us plastic
Ware on the plane, which they continued to do in first class

(01:36:22):
for a long time. I think they now use metal if I
remember correctly. But I remember just thinking how
stupid it was, and I said it to the guy next to me and he said,
well, why? They're just trying to keep you
from killing people. And I said I have a black
American Express card in my wallet right now.
That'll slice somebody. Sharpen the edge and it'd be

(01:36:43):
worse than a box cutter, becauseon a box cutter you'll break the
blade. On a titanium American Express
card, you're not going to break it.
And so I could slice him and himand him and him and him, and the
blade's still good and it's still sharp and everything's
good, right? So like we, we make people take
off their shoes for years, but other things will always get by.

(01:37:05):
Like we'll for bad people alwaysfind a way.
Absolutely. And that that was essentially
the, the whole moral of awareness is, is minimizing.
You could take all these precautions which you should
shouldn't let your guard down. But you're, you know, they used

(01:37:25):
an example. You remember when President
Reagan was shot was that 198182 the, the civil service officers
immediately raised their guns and were, you know, kind of
looking at their surroundings. It's been determined now that

(01:37:49):
the last thing you do is take out anything that makes you a
visible target in a in a large crowd like that, all of a sudden
you pull your guns and you're protecting one person, and now
you've become a target because you're.
Getting. Shot.
You're getting shot at, so it was just an interesting concept
as to what steps are taken to minimize stuff as opposed to

(01:38:14):
prevent. Because you're not you, it's
unlikely you will. He's successful at 100%
preventing. Yeah, well, I was just again
thinking about the Charlie Kirk thing.
And what what made me think about it is I saw a couple days
later Trump doing a speech and he had a a flexi bulletproof
plexi or whatever it is, box around him.

(01:38:37):
And that's OK when you got a president or somebody up doing a
speech or a Pope or somebody like that who really is a
massive target. But what about Keith Urban or
what about Beyoncé or what aboutwhoever, you know, is that our
future? Like, are we going to get to a
point where, you know, any high profile person is no longer able

(01:39:03):
to drive down the road in a car with regular windows anymore or
be on a stage without some sort of protection?
And what does that look like? How do you get lights, you know,
doing a look on a stage when there's all this plexi and stuff
like, I don't know why my mind went there, but it did.
Yeah, I get it. And but take take a stadium show
like like Taylor Swift's The Sphere, another one.

(01:39:27):
Your ability to see the artist close up and personal is is
diminishing. I mean, and Taylor Swift's show,
I did not go to it. I had some of my nieces went to
it, said yeah, you could barely see her with all the flash and
trash going on. It's if without the big screen.

(01:39:47):
So why not? Why not teleport her?
Why not put her in a safe environment?
Teleport her on big screens. What's you know?
Yeah, or, or just even. Play video you know have
incredible. Essentially, screens have
incredible. Video, just like EDM festivals,

(01:40:08):
you know what I mean? Like does an EDM festival at
some point know whether Tiesto'son the stage or somewhere
sitting in a bus, you know, not far from here or whatever?
Like I just, I think we're goingto see more and we're going to
see remote artists, you know, isprobably where it's going to end
up. And the show will be for people
who want to be together celebrating that artist.

(01:40:30):
But the artist isn't actually there.
The artist is piped in live, butthey're not actually there live.
So maybe that's where it's going.
I don't know. I don't know.
I'm not the audience, fortunately, I'm not the, I'm
not the customer. I'm not the target customer for
that product. So yeah, no am I?
Yeah. So when, when does when do you
go back out with Peter? We have a private in Los Angeles

(01:40:55):
next week with The Who Doobie Brothers, John Fogerty, Chief
Trick and Def Leppard. It's a.
White guy's birthday party. It's a.
It's a. It's not a birthday party, it's
a fundraiser for teen mental health awareness.
It's a great 'cause that's very good cause, yeah, but a similar

(01:41:17):
it's somebody's backyard, basically a big giant backyard.
Although that they're raising money as opposed.
To and then we we silicon. Valley billionaires or
something? Yeah.
And then we do a nine dates beginning October 17th starting
in New Orleans. Oh cool.
Fun. Yeah.
So. So yeah, nine dates before the

(01:41:38):
holidays. Fun.
Yeah, keeps him out there. Yeah, good.
Well, you enjoy it and I I look forward to.
Meeting you, Marcel. Yeah.
I look forward to it. So that's what December 6th is
that it is. Is that our targeted date?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.
The geezer dining with dining with dinosaurs, you know.
It's funny because when we came up with it, it, it was a concern

(01:42:01):
for me that people were going tobe offended to be called
dinosaurs, but even the women wecall dinosaurs.
So I was like, OK, we got away with it with a few men, but now
I'm going to invite Patty Thurston to come or, you know,
whoever to come. And we were saying, hey, I want
you to be a dinosaur at this thing called Dining with
Dinosaurs. And they loved it.

(01:42:23):
Everyone laughed and thought it was great and, and just loved
the whole concept and stuff. And again, it's transferring
knowledge and information and ideas from us to, to, you know,
these new people who were handing, handing the torches to.
Yeah. And it's so important so.
Well, I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
And Scott DeVos, who is our common.

(01:42:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think Scott, Scottconnected me and perfect.
Well, we look forward to it. All right.
Thanks again and thanks for doing this too.
Thanks and we'll see you soon all.
Right, John.

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#326 - John Procaccini - The Evolution of Touring and Stage Management

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#326 - John Procaccini - The Evolution of Touring and Stage Management