May 6-12, 2004

music

What does House of Blues have planned for Philly?

Q&A: Kevin Morrow of House of Blues

Interview by Patrick Rapa

The Philly music scene gasped a little two weeks ago when Jon Hampton, longtime booker at the Trocadero and North Star, left the company he started, Heyday, to start booking shows for the local branch of Clear Channel, the country’s largest concert promoter. Then there was a sigh of relief when word came out that no, the Troc was not becoming a Clear Channel venue. There may have been another gasp when news broke that Joanna Pang, who runs the Troc (her dad, Stephen, owns it), had tapped House of Blues, the country’s second-largest concert promoter, to fill Hampton’s old spot. Recently, the L.A.-based House of Blues sent an away team to Philly for a meet and greet. I sat down at the Balcony with Kevin Morrow, House of Blues’ entertainment division senior vice president.

City Paper: This is the House of Blues’ first foothold in the Northeastern U.S. What do you know about Philadelphia?

Kevin Morrow: I’ve been an agent and a manager for 25 years, so I’ve sold stuff at everything from the old Chestnut Cabaret to the Troc to the Electric Factory. I’ve been having to analyze the market for like 20 years.

Three or four years ago we started looking at coming into Philly so we have pretty adept studies on the demographics, what the scene here is, what the mix of music here is. So I’m pretty well versed in Philly. Plus I’ve been here 25 times in the last two years.

CP: So the Pangs still own and operate the building, you just handle the booking. But you were talking about fixing up the Troc’s mysterious third-floor balcony. Can you even do that?

KM: When a promoter comes into a facility and they start analyzing grosses and what their competitors are in the market, you can say, “God, if I put in a hundred thousand here I can increase my gross through advertising over a hundred shows — does it pencil out?” We think it pencils out to go in there and, whether if be up-front money from us, or a sponsor coming in and helping us pay for it, we would find a way, if it pencils out. That’s what we’re in the middle of doing now.

Listen, the Troc is one of the most legendary clubs in the country. I don’t even think people in Philly realize that people in L.A. or people in San Francisco, on the West Coast, even know about this place. But kids know it, OK? So when we got the opportunity to come here, it was like, how great is this? How can we make it a little bit better for Joanna and the team here?

Upgrades in the facility. National help in the booking. And being a little bit more eclectic in booking policies. So one of the pieces is trying to put a little bit of money in here and fix it up.

CP: Any specifics?

KM: Well, the third [floor] balcony.

CP: That seems to be further down the road. Anything else?

KM: Well, I would say throwing some coats of paint on. It’s an older facility that’s got great bones but it needs probably some cosmetic stuff on the outside.

CP: Was there any talk of purchasing the venue?

KM: Right now it’s really a booking deal. It’s a great room, great location. One of the best markets in the country. But right now it’s really a booking deal, I just wanna get this up and going for these guys. They’re kind of left without a booker, you know?

CP: Are there other situations in other cities where you book but don’t own the venue?

KM: We have a deal right now in San Antonio, where we book a place called Sunset Station. We’ve been doing that for about three months. We have a place in Vancouver called the Commodore Ballroom. There are probably three other venues that we’re looking at now that we’re in the middle of negotiating.

We do a lot of national tours so it’s in our best interest to have facilities that we control the booking policies in. Plus, competitively speaking, you know Clear Channel, EEG, all of the guys that are out there we’re competing with — they’re all out offering multiple markets, the more we got the better it is.

CP: Ever work with Clear Channel?

KM: Here’s the deal, we work with Clear Channel in many markets. We have co-booking agreements with them in Texas. We work together with them in Atlanta. I worked together with them in Detroit, New York, many places.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen in Philadelphia. We would love to. We put our hand out to the guys here, it’s just a little bit different mentality with the Clear Channel Philly guys. Truly I don’t know. We’re open to it, I don’t know if they are. You’d have to ask them. [Clear Channel refused to comment.]

CP: Wasn’t there a potential deal between House of Blues and Clear Channel a year or two ago?

KM: They tried to purchase us. But we didn’t sell.

CP: Was it a price thing?

KM: Totally. Listen, let’s not all kid ourselves, the music business is now a Wall Street play by a lot of people. House of Blues is basically a bunch of music people that are passionate about music, but we’re owned by a group of investors. And at the end of the day, they want to make money. So how do you do it? You sell and make money that way or you go public. Or you stay independent and you turn enough of a profit that you stay indie. One of those is gonna happen with us the same way it’s gonna happen with every other major company. If we were purchased by Clear Channel — ah, you know, it could be worse.

CP: Hypothetically speaking, if House of Blues were purchased by Clear Channel, then the Troc would be booked by Clear Channel?

KM: That is so hypothetical because you know what, you don’t just transfer all your agreements. Before a sale you’re gonna sit down with everybody and say OK, here’s what’s going on, are you in or are you out? I mean, some places are totally locked in but a place like the Troc … Let me tell you this, we’re not gonna be purchased. We just got refinanced for $150 million dollars, we’re opening six clubs in the next two years, we’re not going anywhere with anybody right now. We got our own ship.

CP: Of course, just like the Troc, you’ll have a deal with Ticketmaster, right?

KM: We have a national deal with Ticketmaster and I know that Joanna had a deal here with them and it has since run out. But in today’s times, with the amount of tickets being sold, if we sell 55 percent of our tickets online these days, you really need to be aligned with somebody like a Ticketmaster or basically you gotta go invest a couple million dollars to start your own individual ticketing system for a place like this, and that’s not gonna happen.

CP: Clear Channel’s been criticized for its pro-America/pro-war rallies. What are your politics?

KM: Our music politics? Or our politics as far as did one of our investors own a baseball club in Texas with the president?

CP: Well, would you ever do what they did, sponsoring pro-America rallies?

KM: We’re really about diversity. In Los Angeles we’ve had rallies in our club there when political guys come to town, Republican and Democrat. We’re not picking a side. That translates into our music policy, too.

Listen, a lot of people didn’t want to do rap. We were the only guys doing rap 10 years ago. Everyone was afraid of it in L.A. and Chicago. Nobody would touch it. “Oh, you know, who comes to rap shows? Don’t be doing that. It’s gangbangers.”

Well, you know what, we felt that that was really the voice of the African-American crowd back then and we found a way to secure that and make it safe and we presented it. We got a lot of people mad at us, but now, it has become part of the American culture.

The same thing with Rock En Espanol music. There’s a lot of people [saying], “Ooh God you have these Mexican, crazy Mexican young kids.” You know what? We do 300, 400 Rock En Espanol shows a year now. We’re all about diversity. Ethnic, musical, political, it’s not about picking sides or saying that’s right or wrong. And that’s our politics.

CP: Does having Jon over there at CC help at all?

KM: Well you would like to think that a friendly voice in a competitor would help. The Clear Channel situation in Philly is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Whether or not they listen to his logic or take lead from him … He’s new in their company, I don’t know.

We’re not looking to dominate anything, you know. We’re looking to give consumers choices and some bands some choices. We have a certain way we do business that’s a little bit different than everybody else’s. We try to remain loose but yet very, very [much] pinpoint … how we’re gonna do our internal stuff.
At the same time we don’t want everybody to feel like we’re trying to crush them. Or the fan to feel like they can’t relax when they come into a show. We want our security guys to handle fans in a certain way, we want our bookers to talk to people in a certain way. We don’t really condone dysfunctional behavior. Life is hard enough.

CP: No “Troc Crew Fuck U” T-shirts for the bouncers?

KM: [laughs] We wouldn’t have that at a House of Blues, we don’t try to intimidate anybody.
We’re a big corporation but I still kinda feel like we’re not. We’re the second biggest one in the country … but it doesn’t feel like it to us.
You talk to a guy at Clear Channel they definitely know that they work at Clear Channel. There’s a real independent vibe within our own company.