Marty's performance last week in Tampa was much more intimate. Together with a small acoustic group he performed for an intimate crowd at the home of his lead guitarist for a Christmas party. My friend brought me along to watch him play hand percussion with the rock legend. On the way to the gig he asked me if I would run sound for the group.
Now, I have a degree in music business, and I have been on the road long enough to know my way around a soundboard. I possess "just enough" sound knowledge to know how to get the best possible mix for a band, as long as they are in a small room and there aren't too many wires or requests for "more of "me"" in the monitor. So I said yes, and for the entire evening I made sure Marty sounded as best as he possibly could.
I am not sharing this experience with you to tout my own sound engineer horn. I am sharing this with you to promote another point. A point about the evolution of the music business.
When Marty and Airplane were coming up in the early sixties there were no college trained music business majors, sound engineers, or even musicians to help them out. Bands during this era came together mostly through chance. When the Beatles needed a new drummer they didn't hold weeks of auditions. They just found the next closest guy with a kit and a decent voice. John Entwistle was asked to join Roger Daltrey when the future Who singer saw him walking down the street with a bass guitar hung over his shoulder.
And back in those days it was easier to find band mates than managers or sound engineers. Michael Jeffery went from a fledgling club owner to the manager of The Animals and Jimi Hendrix. Peter Grant went from a small time actor to the manager of The Yardbirds and eventually Led Zeppelin. And Owsley Stanley went from LSD supplier to sound man for The Grateful Dead.
These happenstances played heavily into every realm of the early development of rock and roll from performance to management. For now let's take a look at the management side of the equation.
When I started my first company, my business partner and I were just 20 years old. We had no idea how to properly run a business. What we did know was that we needed to "make money" so we did everything we could to get more customers, more orders, and thus more cash in than we were spending. Simply put, we were hungry.
These untrained managers shared those same traits. Many lacked formal business training and thus had to make up the difference with sheer determination and will. They probably didn't understand a balance sheet, or a profit and loss statement, but did know they needed to make more money than they spent for their artists. Like us they were hungry, and that hunger carried over to pushing their bands to play better, challenge the status quo, and perform as much as possible.
During the 80's large corporations started buying up record labels and replaced these "down and dirty" managers with stuffed suits concerned only with the bottom line. And with that the music business management style change drastically. Artists soon found themselves being managed by people who didn't necessarily enjoy their music, or even listen to it.
So how did this change the music business?
When your manager is so concerned with business and not as much with your music he, or she, will encourage you to do everything, but play out live. As someone who holds a degree in music business management, I can tell you we spent far more time on licensing, contracts, and balance sheets than on developing a great show, theory, or performance.
Those earlier managers lacked this formal training so they had to make up the difference in an other avenue of their business model. Because they truly loved the music they were representing they pushed their artist to make more of it, either live or in the studio. The net result was the development of superior musicians and songwriters because they had played more shows and recorded more albums.
Last weekend I was reminded about that fact. Watching a true rock legend from that era surrounded by people who absolutely loved his music trying to help him out. His manager was there running a video camera, his girlfriend decorating, fellow band mates brought food, and an unknown fan ran sound for the evening.
If you are in the music business I encourage you to take a moment and remember why you got into this gig in the first place. Hopefully it is for the love of the music. If that is the case than take a page from the history of rock and follow that down and dirty management style where managers wanted to see their bands play more and encouraged them to do it. You may be surprised by the end result.
Here are some Spotify links to some great Airplane!
Jefferson Airplane – White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane – Somebody To Love
Jefferson Airplane – Leaving On A Jet Plane
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