CHAPTER 20
1991 - Rapid Evolution
The term Alternative was becoming a throw-away line to help create a parallel universe so the mainstream could keep us in our box.
John from They Might Be Giants cleared up the definition when he was referred to as, ‘one of the worlds’ biggest Alternative acts’, when interviewed while touring Australia in late 1990. He compared the description to like being, ‘the worlds’ tallest midget’. That pretty much summed it up. We were all getting tired of the title and lines were becoming blurred.
We were becoming serious players in the touring business, while still being able to work with artists I believed in, musically, intellectually, and culturally. The problem was that at the same time as the independent scene was exploding, the mainstream music world was imploding. Tours that could have been ours such as REM, PUBLIC ENEMY & JANES ADDICTION were being taken by Frontier & Coppell. The alternative was becoming profitable.
I cried when I lost the June 91 Jane’s Addiction tour. Expat Australian Ted Gardner (RIP) was now the manager & our proposal was spot on. When I called him to ask if he liked the run, he said it was exactly what he wanted. However, the next day, I got the call from Frontier Touring to release my venue holds for the tour to them. I couldn’t work out what we had done wrong until the first print ads & it all clicked. It was Ted Gardner & Frontier Touring presents.....They had obviously offered to share with him the promoter's fee. At the time I wasn’t aware that Ted and Gudinski went back a long way. I had been used and I was angry.
Apparently, Ted had recently lost his legal claim on management, with the result that the previous manager, Gary Kurfirst was entitled to retain his commission until the end of his contract. This meant that Ted would have virtually no income unless he found another source.
I believe Ted's situation probably had more to do with the creation of Lollapalooza than a musical vision of ‘oneness’. When the first Lollapalooza tour, starting June 18, 1991, was announced, the penny dropped.
I believe Lollapalooza was driven by Ted so he could be paid as a promoter, not a manager.
I wasn’t angry anymore but realised that from now on it wasn’t enough to just be good, you had to be able to offer something the other promoters didn’t have.
The short story of Ted, as I understand it. Ted Gardner was once I believe a bouncer at Chasers Nightclub in Melbourne in the early 80s, then tour manager for Frontier touring, and eventually, his path somehow leads him to tour managing Janes Addiction, for manager Gary Kurfirst, a wonderful human being with his own amazing story. RIP.
So, Teds touring a bunch of heavy users that look like they are about to go big. Instead of solving the problems he most likely blames Gary, his boss, and finally, the band enlist him to take over.
BAD IDEA – the band are contracted to Gary and Ted probably contracted to him as well. Ted's job was to represent the manager, not replace the manager. In 1990 the court sided with Gary.
This now means he is the manager of Janes Addiction but can't earn anything until the terms of the old management contract are complete. Ted was screwed, so tick, tick, tick - you see what I see, don’t you. Create a travelling festival/event that locks Jane's to a fee with the management commission going to Gary and the profits of the festival going to the producers, Perry, Ted and a few others. And thus, Lollapalooza was born…….genius. At least that was how I understood it going down. It was all clear to me now. I knew time was against me.
We hated the cattle auctions and were now in serious competition with the big players with deep pockets. The other problem was that to get tours both the guarantee and the commission were under pressure. The creative process was starting to suffer. I was also feeling I couldn’t just keep repeating the same old formula. To make matters worse Coppel had started getting desperate & was offering big guarantees at a reduced promoter commission. In other words, instead of a 15% of the gross commission he was prepared to do it for 15% of net, the equivalent of 7% of gross. This didn’t make any sense to me. You could never make enough from the winning tours to cover the losers.
At one stage I even thought my personal safety was an issue, we were costing these guys a lot of money and at least for Gudinski, the image was gangster. My biggest problem however was on a creative front, touring was losing its charm. The role of a promoter on a public level may be glamorous but the reality is that once you commit your money you are technically under the artists’ managements’ control. They needed to approve all costs, promotions, artwork, hotels, venues & the support bands, and the bigger the act, the less power you had. Where was the creative process in that? Something had to give and for me and it did in a big way.
June 91 - It all started with RATCAT.
A young, in some ways, revamped version of the Ramones except with gorgeous Simon Day out front. It was almost grunge, but the lyrics weren’t angry enough. They went from a few hundred to massive when the Album Blind love came out, supported INXS and was now commercial Pop. The ravenous mainstream media and teen magazines couldn’t get enough of them until the fans they originally played to moved on, then the pop world spat them out. We produced the Blind Love tour and they were fantastic shows, everyone knew the words, I even named the Hordern show, 'Invasion of the Dinosaur Killers’, with UK band Ride, Falling Joys and the Clouds, prophetic. Within the next 6 months Nirvana changed everything and RATCAT had just missed the boat. Slowly, but surely, they were not part of the new scene.
Mystery sells….mass media kills.
© Ken West January 2022