Welcome to Music Matters Podcast with Darrell Craig Harris, talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders and more. Tim, Walter, how are you doing today? Doing great. Awesome. So you were joining us from Maryland and are you a Maryland native? Is that where you kind of grew up? I am. I'm in Frederick, Maryland right now and I grew up in Ellicott City, Maryland. So yeah, I've been here my whole life. I went away to college for four years to James Madison and came back. Yeah, that's a beautiful area. And there are a lot of festivals there this summertime of which some of the biggest ones you're actually responsible for. When did you start the All Good Now festival? Well, the first festival I ever did was called the Full Moon Music Festival. I guess to go back a step. So I toured with The Grateful Dead. I did like 52 shows with The Grateful Dead. And I was there when Jerry passed away. I had been going to a lot of shows at that point. We kind of all looked around like what are we going to do now? The Grateful Dead's no more. Yeah, yeah. And I was, at the time I was already doing street promotion for some bands. And I got inspired, but I was going to these festivals at one of our farting brandy wine in Maryland, their camp out music festivals. And they weren't being produced very well. They weren't being run very well. They weren't being attended very well. And I just like, you know, hey, maybe I can do this. Basically by myself and a couple hundred bucks. I don't know how I did it, but I got started with Full Moon Music Festival. I realized on the second year of the Full Moon Music Festival, I couldn't have the Full Moon on a weekend every year because obviously it changes where it lands. So I decided to call it the Olga Music Festival and that was that ever since. And those festivals have been very successful. Along with that, you're the manager for Dark Star Orchestra, which is a very popular band. Tell me how you got into the jam band scene. You mentioned touring with the dead. What was your original inspiration for that? Were you a big music fan of those kind of that genre when growing up or how did that happen? I don't know. It seems like it all goes back to Grateful Dead. You know, I was a sophomore in college and my friends were going to the cap center in DC and they were like, Hey Tim, you want to go along? And like, what are you doing? We're going to see the Grateful Dead. And to me, the Grateful Dead was like a country band. I didn't really know anything about them. Didn't have interest in them. But I went anyway and I really went for the party and, you know, I put a square piece of paper on my tongue and then everything changed. You see, you see music a little differently. Exactly. Yeah. I think that that scene and people don't realize, I mean, they know the dead musically, the people that are actually who followed the dead for decades. It was really a big family, right? Absolutely. I mean, that family has, it's odd how it's grown, you know, even after they passed. I mean, Bobby Weir just passed back in February. He's like the last, you know, frontman member of the Grateful Dead and, you know, so the Grateful Dead will never be what it was. You know, but back in the day, it was like we were the, you know, we were the drugies, the guys that were out of control, the partyers. You know, like we didn't get any respect from any community, you know, if anything, the police hassled us and gave us hard time. And, you know, somehow over the years, it became a lore and it became popular and it became accepted by mainstream. I think when Ted Koppel had something to say about it on ABC, when you put the Grateful Dead in the Good Light, I was like, wow, we made it to some kind of mainstream appeal here. Yeah. And I know of at least, I know one of, one big kind of a big pop hit that was an MTV hit. What was the scene? What did the people in the Dead family feel about that when they kind of started getting that kind of attention? Was it a good thing? How was that perceived? Well, the radio song that came along was called The Touch of Gray, right? That's the song you're talking about. And that's exactly when I got on tour with them in 1987. That's when they broke out that song. And, you know, it certainly wasn't, you know, when I got to the scene, people had already been on the scene for 15, 18 years. And I was called The Touch of Gray. Tell me about, obviously, with the passing of Jerry and Bob Weir, where have those fans tended to migrate to? Because I know there's other bands like Widespread Panic. There's different bands in the same genre. I remember a lot of those fans gone, in your opinion, kind of headed towards. Yeah, I feel like the late 60s created the jam band scene, and the Grateful Dead was part of that. And so were a lot of other bands. And so I feel like the jam band, well, the jam band scene really came around the 90s as far as being coined the jam band scene. But I think it stemmed from all that kind of psychedelic rock from late 60s and early 70s. And the Grateful Dead really brought together the light on the jam band scene. And bands started kind of spinning off of that back in the mid-90s and the 2000s. And there's probably 50 kind of 50 jam bands right now. And I work with probably 48 of them. But the big ones are Billy Strings right now, and Goose, and Fit. And these are bands that are keeping the scene alive in that way. But there's a lot of smaller bands often coming, ones like Dan was not, it was kind of like Country, Kits and Dwellers, Dogs in a Pile. It's just, it's feel good, feel good dance music, families get together, the coolness together, just good stuff. And it's nice to see, like you mentioned Billy Strings, who's somebody who's really exploded on the scene. And it's nice to see that vibrance of younger artists coming into it and keeping it alive and also even like growing in different directions. And that's a big part of your festivals. You mentioned working with a lot of those bands. But talk about some of the people that are on your festivals coming up because it's a who's who of that scene. Yeah, sure. The Dark Star Jubilee is, you know, three nights at Dark Star. They close the show and Little Feet's there and Melvin, Melvin Seals and JGB are there. Melvin used to play with Jerry Garcia and the Jerry Garcia band. So he's still out there doing this thing and doing it really well. You know, we got Little Feet playing their final tour. You know, so we're one of the last shows they're going to do, probably the last show ever in Ohio. And then when you get to All Good Now, it's two nights widespread and Les Claypool's doing this really cool thing. It's called Claypool Gold, where he's playing, three of his bands are going to play each individually within a 90 minute set. So it's Primus is going to put in like a 30 minute set. And Les Claypool's for overgated is going to put in a 30 minute set. And then Sean Lennon and Les Claypool are going to put their Lennon delirium set together. And it's going to be pretty wild. It's going to be interesting to see how that all takes place. And then we've got Green Sky Bluegrass and the Wood Brothers and Larkin Poe and, you know, rather than 40, the All Good Now can be a good mix. And where is the All Good Festival? Where's that held? It takes place in Merriwether Post-Pavilion. Yeah, it's right here in Columbia, Maryland. 10 minutes from where I grew up. It's the funnest part about doing these festivals, because obviously the festival thing for people who haven't done those, I'm a musician as well, but people haven't done the festivals. It's quite an undertaking. It's a lot like hurting kittens and cattle all at the same time. Tell me about the challenges of putting together those kinds of large festivals. Well, you know, I started with, you know, two people on a staff and like we did a thousand people for our first festival and I was pulling friends out of cars and like, hey, can you help me do the outbreak tickets, that kind of stuff. And it was a learning process. So, you know, my original goal was when I started in the festival world was like, you know, I can get to 10,000 people in 10 years, you know, and so the building process of, you know, 924 people to 1,800 people next year to 3,200 people the next year to 4,000 next year to 5,000 to 6,000 to 8,000 to 10,000. And that was like me growing the Jam Band Festival along with the Jam Band. Seeing that, you know, so it was like the bands were growing. I was growing. I was in the right place at the right time. You know, I had potentially, I may have had the largest Jam Band Festival, Marvin's Mountain Top. We did like 23,000 people on top of the mountain for three days of camping. I had like 1200 employees and all kinds of all kinds of fun there. I was able to manage it myself, just kind of using common sense and working with some people that had some knowledge about how this all works up until about 10,000 people. And then I brought in the professionals that could really take it to the next level because it's a lot to handle. It was a lot to handle at 10,000. I was like, OK, I can't, you know, I need some help. There's a lot of a lot of just business stuff, just the insurance and all that stuff that we all know the Woodstock story. Real chance for us is getting 23,000 people up on top of the mountain down a one laying country road. Plus you're hoping for good weather. That's the other thing. When you do these outdoor festivals, you add the nature as a way of making its own decision about how that's going to go, right? As part of the story, how have you maintained your passion for all this? Because obviously there's a lot of business, a lot of parts and pieces. Is that it's something that still it seems like something you're still very passionate about? Talk a little bit about that and about just the music in general. Well, I've always been fortunate that the Jam Band scene, the music that I promote and the bands that I work with are music that I like. You know, so I don't really book. I still don't book bands that I don't really care for. Like even the agents that I work with that have 20 bands on there, 20 bands on the roster. There'll be four or five bands I work with and then I don't work with the rest. And it gets kind of annoying for them. But like, you know, I am fortunate that I've had enough business with the bands I like to be able to move forward with that and be successful. So, I mean, what I get out of it is introducing these bands to the fans, you know, and I'm kind of the go to guy here in the Baltimore DC market for the Jam Band thing. And I worked with 12 different venues in Baltimore DC and fans go to my website to find out what's going on in the Jam Band world as opposed to going to the venues to find out who's playing in their venue. So, you know, and that helps me like build my situation with the bands. They want to be in touch with their fans in this market. You know, they want to go through me kind of thing. A lot of that is trust too for the band. You mentioned building relationships. Talk about how important that is because the bands have to trust you. There's obviously the money part of it, but also just the organizational aspect. They don't want to sign on to a big festival if it's going to be a mess. And obviously you have a huge track record and a very long track record. Talk about the trust aspect in building relationships. Yeah. I mean, it's the same as in, you know, in the rest of my life. Yeah, I've never canceled a show. You know, I've done 70 festivals. I've done 2,025 hundred club shows. Some bands have canceled me due to weather or due to something else, but I've never canceled a show. It's kind of like, it's a promoter. I don't know what do you call it? It's a number one rule as a promoter. Like the show must go on. Right. And that's a huge deal because people don't realize how often that does actually happen. So that's quite an accomplishment. Yeah. And I'm sorry. Get back to your question again. Can you repeat that? Just saying in terms of building trust and relationships with the bands and the managers, I don't know how important is that for what you do? Yeah. It's really delivering on what they expect and what you tell them you're going to do. And, you know, since I do have a good relationship or a good reputation for throwing these successful festivals for them being well-run for the bands, I try to look at, I try to set the stage the best I can for both the bands and the fans. You know, from the time we announce, you know, the fans are getting, you know, kind messaging from us, you know, they're getting schooled on what these fans are all about and what's going to happen at the festival and how it's going to be. And then the bands are the same way. It's like we're taking the best care of them that we can as they get to the festival, when they're at the festival, you know, when the band's excited and happy backstage and they feel like they're taking good care of, they're going to go out there and give it their best. And when the fans are out there waiting for them to get on stage and they've been treated as best as they can, you know, then the magic happens between the bands and the fans. And that's where my excitement comes in. When I'm at the festival and I can see that connection happening and, you know, just feel good about being a part of bringing it together like that, that's, you know, that's what makes it all worthwhile. That's the excitement and the love that you get to, you get a chance to share that with the fans. When you put together a festival, because a lot of, there's a lot of made like we have the festivals that just happen in India and all that stuff, but putting together the lineup, talk about, if you could, about the alchemy of that, like it's kind of like baking a cake. And you have to have a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and not all the same ingredients. Talk a little bit about that aspect of putting together what you do. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you start with the headliners, you know, because they kind of craft your whole festival. So you headliners and you book everything else to support the headliners, you know, so I try to book the headliners and then book the band right below the headliner, the band that's going to, you know, spin the best right into that next band, and so forth all the way down, you know, and you don't want a bluegrass band and the bluegrass band or funk band and the funk band. It's like, you know, tend to tend to just kind of mix it off. And I've always had my own recipe. I don't know how unique it is, but it seems to be something that attracts bands and, you know, it's a mix of different types of jam bands. And, you know, it's like when you go out there and you go to these events and you go to these club shows or I go to these club shows and I get a feel for the band and their energy. And then I can say, well, this energy and this style of music feels good with this energy and this style of music, you know, so I can just kind of imagine how that's going to melt together. You know, because it's not just the music, I think it's the energy that these bands put forth as far as, you know, what energy you should run into the next level of energy. Being a great band, but also being a live performance, those are not always the same thing. They don't sustainly translate, hopefully they do, but if you could maybe give some advice to young bands because there's a lot of bands that, you know, they love the jam bands saying they're trying to break into that, or maybe they approach you, I'm sure that happens all the time as well. What are some of the things that you look for when bands approach you and young artists? The band doesn't really get to me until they've been around probably for five years or so. I mean, the jam band scene, it takes, you know, outside of a Billy Strings or a Goose, you know, these bands that in three or four years went from zero to a thousand, which is a really, you know, really successful run. And then they went from a thousand to 10,000 in the next four years, that kind of thing. But the standard jam band might take 10 years to get to the point where they're doing four or 500 people. You know, so I might get them at year five when they're worth 150 tickets. And, you know, so it's like certain bands, they have to graduate to the point where they're drawing, you know, most bands start in a local front or regional front, and they can go out and do some business locally or regionally, you know, for them to break out of that situation where they're doing three to 500 local regional situation and then go to the national playing field is just a whole, whole nother ballgame. And it's tough. I mean, I think that I have so much respect for the artists. And, you know, like I've always had the privilege of, you know, if this band doesn't work for me, I can go to the next band. You know, the artists don't have that privilege. And, you know, I think the only way, if I was to give any advice to the young artist, I would say, if this is what you want to do, and this is what you want to do for the rest of your life, and you're willing to do whatever it takes, if it takes five years, 10 years, or 20 years to to make a living, that's the only way you're going to make it. You can't just say, oh, I want to be a rock star. I'm going to go out there and make some money, you know, it just doesn't work that way. That's sort of you have to be all in. And do you, like obviously Billy Strang is a big part of his story is social media. He kind of really blew up on social media. Is that something that you pay attention to when you're looking at an ax? Does that matter for you or not? It does. I mean, social media can be very misleading. Sometimes a band can have, you know, 100,000 monthly followers or whatever on Spotify and be worth 10 tickets, you know, it's just like, in the jam band scene, it's very organic in these bands, you know, they have to, they have to really have the fans. If a jam band has a really large amount of social following, I think it says something because their music doesn't necessarily go out to the mainstream and just, you know, tick up and likes and stuff all around the world kind of thing, you know. And so yeah, it's interesting. I mean, like, I think that's something that you mentioned, like they could be very popular on social media, but not necessarily, that doesn't necessarily translate to ticket sales. And I think the jam band role, they seem like they make you want, they want you to really earn it more than the pop world. Yeah, absolutely. You know, brought up Billy Strang and it reminded me of during COVID I did a showtime at the drive-in here in Frederick Merrill, just like a mile from my house and it was really successful. I was the only one doing music in the Baltimore, DC, Metropolitan, you know, but bands like Goose and like Billy Strang, they were worth 500 tickets going to COVID and coming out of COVID, they're worth like 2,000 tickets. You know, it's just like they built themselves by social media, by playing, you know, playing shows in their living room for their fans and putting it up, you know, putting it out to the world. And it was amazing to see those two bands in particular, they really launched their careers during COVID. Like, you know, a lot of bands, you know, if you did the opposite and you just shut down during COVID and you were banned, you know, you came out behind where you left off, you know, and a lot of bands, a lot of bands lost their situation and actually never recovered from it. So, yeah, a lot of venues closed and never reopened. That's another part of that. I was in a band that was touring quite heavily on the East Coast, a lot of those little clubs sadly didn't reopen, so that that's affected the routing and, you know, for tour routing, as you know, that's always a big challenge for booking groups and that kind of thing. But it's great to see, for me, like, to see guys like Billy Strang or you mentioned these other bands, it's really exciting to see new fresh blood coming onto the scene, not only in the Jam Band world, but just in general, I think it's exciting. And I like the fact that the Jam Band world, they expect you to really earn it. It's not just because you have a million followers, they still expect you to show up and do the gigs. The other side of that is that when you, you know, when you earn the Jam Band fan and, you know, they're into your music and they're coming to your shows, they're with you for life. Like, they're very loyal, you know, where other types of bands might come out, they have a hit song or something like that and people are all excited about it and they're getting their friends and they're going, but then when that band comes back and they don't have that pop hit or whatever turned them on, then, you know, those fans are fair weather fans, I guess you would call them. Many years ago, I worked with White Sped Panic during production and I had not heard of them at that point and I showed up to this gig and there were so many people with all the recording, the show and doing that whole thing. And I was like, yeah, this is a whole scene, I didn't even know anything about. I obviously tell you about the band, of course, but and there's a lot of great musicians in these bands as well, which is it's really fun to see. Tim, how could people get a hold of you and also check out the schedules for the festivals and all that information? Well, then go to allgoodpresents.com and, you know, we have everything on there from our three festivals, all in one place and all of our club shows and that kind of thing. They can also go to allgoodnow.com and darkstarjubilee.com and 4848festival.com. Each festival has a different, has their own website and that kind of thing, but the hub is at all good presents. Okay, awesome. And I'll include that in the podcast description so people can find you. I love what you're doing. I think it's really awesome. Audia, Averspurs, the hasn't done festivals, maybe don't have really an idea of what it takes to do that. And the fact that you've done this for so many years really speaks to you and also your team. We should talk about that because it's not a one man operation. I'm sure it's a big team. Talk about the importance of that, building the team over the years. You know, the team is everything. Like right now, I have, it's really about six people that just do everything besides what the undercard does. Like I've got a VIP person that just kicks ass on VIP, cross the board and then I've got a staff person and a tech person and marketing guy. And it's like, you know, when marketing guys would've been with me for 15 years, my production guys been with me for 20 years. So we all, we're all just kind of like a fine tune machine. They know what I need from them before I do. And it's a family thing. I couldn't do what I'm doing any longer without this team because I couldn't, you know, it's been around too long to start over with these things, basically. So these people are really part of the family and part of the success for sure. And when you go to go to war, so to speak, on the festivals, you need everybody you can count on, you trust and that, that's super important. And it takes years to build that, as you mentioned. So that's, that's very awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. I know you're a very busy guy, and it took a little bit to get this together, but I really appreciate your time. I appreciate it too. Thanks so much. Awesome. Have a great day, Tim. Thanks for joining us. And please consider subscribing to our podcast and follow us on our social media pages for guest announcements.
