Chris:
Things move to the back. Nothing stays in the forefront of our brains forever. Words from our guest, Ted Etoll, when I asked about how he handles hardship on today’s episode. Think about that for a minute. We live in a world where every single minute is amplified and seems like hours. The most recent example of this that comes from our experience with the pandemic.
Chris:
No matter how hard, no matter how hard it is, no matter how much grief we experience, no matter the rises, no matter the falls, things will always keep moving because nothing is forever. Today we talk about this with Ted Etoll, whose journey led him to be one of the most successful music promoters in upstate New York in a business he never thought he would be in. What do you say? Let’s Get Overit.
Chris:
All right. Our guest today, Ted Etoll, was called by one of our staffers here, this is great, at Overit as a true legend in the music scene and then some, dot, dot, dot. We’re going to find out the then some a little bit in just a few seconds here. Ted has been the go-to for all different genre, hard core, metal, punk bands for decades. He’s grown more and more over the years in reputation and impact. He’s booked thousands of national bands.
Chris:
I’m going to talk about my experience there with some of his establishment. Served countless music [inaudible 00:01:23] in every music niche and has become an icon of the music scene in Upstate New York. He’s the owner of Upstate Concert Hall, and the concert production company Step Up Presents. Ted, welcome to the Get Overit Podcast.
Ted:
Thank you, Chris. Happy to be here.
Chris:
Thank you. Listen. We were talking a little of this before we got on. I was in Albany, New York, upstate New York ’98 to 2000, and then I came back 2002 for another five years. When I was around, there was Northern Lights. Northern Lights was the place to go where they had names that you would know of. You know what I mean?
Ted:
Sure.
Chris:
Northern Lights, now that I’m doing my research, is no longer and now is where what the new brand, the name is. Ted, let’s go back a little bit in time. I want to understand your interests as a human. You went into a specific thing. Music, that was your thing. Where did that come from? Let’s talk about that, and then we can talk about how you got into what your gig is, what you’re doing.
Ted:
Okay. I grew up in a very musical family. My father was a jazz aficionado, and my mother was a dancer, and we always had arts in our home. I have a cousin Mary June Shepherd, and Mary June worked for the Premiere AM DJ Boom Boom Brannigan back in the ’60s. Legendary, legendary DJ in Troy. She was in Catholic High. She did an internship. She was working there while she was going to Catholic High. We were starting, my brother and I, my brother played guitar, I played piano, and I wasn’t a very good piano player. All I cared about was football, baseball, and basketball but my parents made me play piano. They didn’t make my brother play guitar.
Chris:
They were into music. You liked music but you weren’t driven to play an instrument?
Ted:
I wasn’t driven to play. Exactly. Exactly. It wasn’t my passion, but through the music, and through playing music I became very interested in music because music was always in my house. My brother, and I, and our whole family was in Atlantic City, and I remember it like it was yesterday. We were walking down the street, we’re on vacation, we’re walking down the street, and I hear “Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.”
Ted:
I said to my brother, “Do you hear that? Do you hear that?” I can’t get no … bah bah bah, and that was that initial energy, that vibe, I said, “Oh, man. That is unbelievable.” That fool, my cousin Mary June gets tickets for a Jimi Hendrix concert at what was called the Troy Armory which is up at Fifteenth Street at [inaudible 00:04:17] campus, a sports facility now for RPI. Mary June took my brother and I, we were probably 14 years old, she took us to see Jimi Hendrix with an opener by the name of The Soft Machine. The Soft Machine was a praugue-y legendary Prague band, and Mary June took us to this show and Chris, when we walked in the door, for me it was no turning back.
Chris:
Dude, I can’t even imagine. I’m thinking about that with Jimi, what was that like?
Ted:
Don’t forget the facility was massive to us as kids. Then, it was just so electrifying and people, the colors, the clothes, the energy, and we didn’t … We were a little too young to buy records then, but we were in the culture, we were in the scene. Then, there was a local show in the Henry Hudson Hotel. Mary June took not my brother, but took me to that show, and we walked up into the ballroom, up to into the third, maybe the fourth …
Chris:
What year are we now?
Ted:
Oh, this is like 1965, something like that, and I’m walking up the steps, and I see the strobe coming out of the upstairs ballroom blowing, coming down the stairs, and you can hear it was a local band. We walked in the door, and there was that smell, that incense, that [inaudible 00:05:50], that hippy kind of energy and that vibe, and the lights, and the whole thing, and I was like, “Oh, man. This is cool.” Right?
Chris:
This is it, man. This is it.
Ted:
This is cool. This is cool. It gets better. Then, Mary June got tickets, and took us to see The Doors.
Chris:
Let me tell you something. Mary June’s got the hookup or something.
Ted:
Mary June had the hookup at WTRY.
Chris:
Mary June’s got the hookup.
Ted:
Mary June, to this day, I mention every one of these events. Mary June takes us to see The Doors at the RPI Fieldhouse. The show was actually put on by a fraternity up there. It was mesmerizing. To see The Doors, and they were on the way up, and it was just unbelievable. Then, that summer …
Chris:
[crosstalk 00:06:39]. Go ahead. Go ahead. No you go.
Ted:
Then, that summer Mary June gets tickets for The Doors at SPAC, and my mother dresses my brother and I in tweed sport jackets. It was like at the end of the season, cool out, and we’re, “Ma, I don’t want wear sport jacket to the … That’s not cool.” We go see The Doors. It was right after the New Haven show where there was a lot of turbulence. Jim and the band came on stage, the state police completely surrounded the whole front of the stage. It was like the energy, and the vibe, and just the passion of the crowd. It was incendiary. It was amazing.
Ted:
About two years ago, I was doing a little overnight trip at the Adelphi in Saratoga, and I walk into the library, and they had a big, giant 50-year SPAC coffee table book. I start thumbing through the coffee table book, and lo and behold there’s The Doors concert in the book with the ticket, $6.50, and there was a shot in the audience, and Chris, this is no lie …
Chris:
Oh come on.
Ted:
We weren’t in it, but I have to tell you, every single person, every guy in the audience had a sport jacket on. It was like looking at an old picture of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in 1960.
Chris:
What’s with the sports coat?
Ted:
You know, that was a thing.
Chris:
[crosstalk 00:08:23].
Ted:
I guess it was a thing. It was a picture of Jim on stage with the police. It was a picture of them in the dressing room. Anyways, to make a long story short, that was the crack in the door that got me super interested in popular music.
Chris:
It was more than that. It was like that energy, I feel like. It was like the whole thing. It’s the music, which sort of lights the fire, but it’s that whole experience.
Ted:
Mesmerizing.
Chris:
You have that. You know that, what that does. How do you channel it into something? That’s the hard part right? You can identify it, but then how do you channel it?
Ted:
Yeah. Well, my brother, as I said, was an amazing guitar player, literally a prodigy. My brother had a band called The Marlins. I was more into the sports, and my brother was into the music. My brother had the band, and they would play all the circuits. The CYO Center, St. Augustine’s Hall, Lansingburgh High Gym, that scene. They were really young, and they played all the popular songs from the era, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Young Rascals, all that kind of stuff.
Ted:
They wanted to add a keyboard player, so I came into the band as the keyboard player. That was the next step, being in live music, playing it in front of kids that we grew up with and went to school with. The adulation that came with that. We were staring to like girls, meet girls, and I could see it was a good way to meet girls. I always had the sports passion. I told my brother and the band, football or something, wanted to put all the priorities into that band. I wanted to put all my priorities into football.
Ted:
I left the band, but it was also the era when all of a sudden we started buying music. We were buying 45s, and we’d buy 45s, and don’t forget, back then nobody had a lot of money.
Chris:
How much was a 45? Like a single 45?
Ted:
A 45 might have been $1.50.
Chris:
All right.
Ted:
$2.00, $1.50. We’d go down to the music store, which was the predecessor to Music Shack, and [inaudible 00:10:55] father, if I know the history properly, he owned the store, ended up changing … I can’t remember the name of it, but he changed the name to The Music Shacks which are legendary record stores here.
Chris:
Yep.
Ted:
We would take the bus from Lansingburgh to downtown Troy. My mother had a beauty salon in downtown Troy. My father owned buildings in downtown Troy, but we, at the time, lived in Lansingburgh. You get on the Fifth Avenue bus at 123rd Street, 10 minutes later you were downtown. You were by yourself. You’d wander around. The record store became like a church. Just thumbing through the records.
Chris:
Yep. That spirit. There was a like … Ted, I used to spin records, not to take from your story, I was a vinyl DJ for a while, and there’s nothing like the feel of the vinyl when you’re going through it. You know what I’m saying? We don’t have that anymore. That experience is gone. It’s just click, click, click. It’s a real feel. Go ahead, sorry.
Ted:
I started buying music. We could buy one album, maybe, a month. My first record that I ever bought was High Tide and Green Grass by The Rolling Stones. I think the second record I ever bought was the first Doors record, The Doors. I think maybe the third record might have been maybe something by The Animals, Eric Burdon, The Animals. Then, maybe something by Jethro Tull, and the next Doors record.
Ted:
We started to accumulate but we were still buying 45s, and if like Creedence Clearwater Revival came out with something like Green River, and on the flip side was another great song, I can’t remember what it was, but it might have been I Put a Spell On You. I would play that record over, and over, and over, and over, and over until my father would run upstairs and take it off the turntable and say, “If I hear that record one more time …” It was a buildup. I had the right buildup. I had the right framework. I had the right passion.
Chris:
Yeah, but you had football too. What happened there?
Ted:
I played sports every single day of my whole life up until the day I graduated high school, but it didn’t interfere with my love for music. I just stopped performing music. I play piano. I had a concert piano teacher. His name was Herman Rosenthall with the Washington Park in downtown Troy, where we had lived previous before moving to the burgh. When I was 13, no I was 9 or 10, and I was just starting to play Pop Warner football.
Ted:
I went for a lesson, and Herman never showed up. I walked out of my mother’s beauty salon, and I said, “Mom, Herman never showed up.” Lo and behold, Herman dropped dead of a heart attack. When Herman left our life, my life, as a piano teacher, my piano career went out the door. I was about to concentrate more on sports, but I always had the passion of buying and listening to music. That passion never ends.
Chris:
Then, what’s your first gig in this game? How do you get into the business side of this, and what’s that like?
Ted:
Okay. Okay.
Chris:
[crosstalk 00:14:36] music, right?
Ted:
[crosstalk 00:14:37]. I was always a huge concert goer. There was a club scene, but it wasn’t … We [inaudible 00:14:48] The Doors, Santana, the popular gigantic classic rock that was growing then. We would go to Tanglewood. We would go to SPAC. We would see college shows. I was a huge fan of Edgar and Johnny Winter, and Johnny Winter specifically. Edgar came out with a record called Edgar Winter’s White Trash, real dirty rock. Horn section’s phenomenal.
Ted:
Edgar did a college tour, and it was Union College and their little church setting they have on the campus. They played at New Paul’s in the gym. They played at [inaudible 00:15:34] in the gym, and we went on … Like when kids go on little tours following the bands that they love. Kids 10 years ago, 15 years ago were following around Fallout Boy. We were following around Edgar Winter. We’d go to Madison Square Garden and see Johnny Winter, Jethro Tull.
Ted:
We’d go to the Palace and see all the big shows. We were fans, and as a fan, music became a giant part of our life. In 1990, I was working for Metroland, the alternative news weekly. I’m a runner, and I run with the general manager of the Albany Marriott. We became like running partners, weekends and stuff like that. One day we’re running, and I also handled the account for Metroland. One day, Brett his name was, the manager, I said, “You know, we have a dark Sunday here at the Marriott.”
Ted:
They had a live music venue, very corny, it was called Mermaids. It had a mermaid theme, but they had an amazing room. Amazing room. Great sight lines, great state, great sound. The sound sounded good in there. They would do cover bands Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Chris:
Where was this? Ted, where was this?
Ted:
Albany Marriott is on Wolf Road.
Chris:
Okay. Okay, all right, so it was at the Marriott. Okay, go ahead.
Ted:
[inaudible 00:17:13], and Metroland had been talking about getting back into the live music business and supporting it with editorial, with reviews, sponsoring concerts, sponsoring shows, that whole thing. I had all the concert venues. I had all the concert promoters. I was starting to make in-roads with the concert people that were putting on shows at Saratoga Winners, the people that were putting on shows at SPAC. I handled those accounts. One of the big concert promoters at the time was Keith Beccia, and the name of his company was … I’m having a senior moment.
Ted:
Anyways, I was doing the advertising for them so we were deeply involved. Metroland was behind sponsoring shows. They’d get free tickets and we’d go to Saratoga Winners and see shows. I mean I’m in …
Chris:
You’re in it. Right.
Ted:
Now I’m really in it and I’m taking an interest in it, but I’m never taking an interest in it like I want to be a concert promoter. I’m just taking an interest in it because that’s the business that I’m in.
Chris:
Right, exactly.
Ted:
I’m in the entertainment business, working for Metroland. Metroland was a very social company, Chris. Very social. Party for this, party for that, party for this, party for that. [inaudible 00:18:36] parties, this type of party. It’s phenomenal. Amazing job, amazing company. Brett says, ” I want to do a battle of the bands, and I want Metroland to sponsor it on the Sunday nights.” I go back …
Chris:
This is at that place, that mermaid place that we’re talking about?
Ted:
At the mermaid place. At the mermaid place. I put together this event where a Metroland live music concert series, and we did a battle of the bands, and we solicited to the general public that the bands send in their cassettes when that was a thing. We got bazillion cassettes, and we would listen to all of them. I came up with the idea of doing five different nights.
Ted:
We’ll do a hard rock night. We’ll do a rock and blues night. We’ll do an alternative night. We’ll do an R&B and hip hop night, and we’ll do a jazz and a folk night. Kind of stuff that mirror each other. Then, we’ll have a grand finale, and we got all kinds of sponsors, and we got all kinds of gifts. We got recording studio time. We got guitars. We got amp, we got a lot of stuff. The amazing thing, not only did I meet all the bands, the prominent bands and the [inaudible 00:19:55], but what I did was I went out and I partnered up with all the radio stations that were playing the music that we were going to have at the Marriott.
Chris:
At the Marriott, smart.
Ted:
Correct. The key partnership that I made, two key partnerships, one was [inaudible 00:20:15], and the other was, believe it or not, Sienna, their radio, their college radio station.
Chris:
The Saint?
Ted:
The Saint. The Saint, at the time, had local kids literally running the station, and running it like it was a professional station. The programming, Chris, was hard rock, hard core, metal, hip hop, R&B. It would rotate. Like I said, the kids who had all the passion, the local kids who had the passion, they were the ones who ran the station.
Chris:
They ran it. Yep.
Ted:
They ran it. They ran it, and they ran it like a business, so when I partnered up with them, in reality, I can’t take credit for this, they introduced me to the local scene. Every show that we ended up doing was a blowout.
Chris:
You all did them there. You did them still at the same place?
Ted:
Did them all at the Marriott.
Chris:
But Ted, how are you getting paid on these? Explain to me …
Ted:
Nobody’s getting paid. Nobody’s getting paid. All the money, if there was a … Was there a fee?
Chris:
If there was or wasn’t, you …
Ted:
There was no fee.
Chris:
You weren’t getting any money whether …
Ted:
I never made a nickel for the first three years I was in the business.
Chris:
Okay. You were just forming all the connections.
Ted:
Forming all the connections. I brought in a production team. I brought in a lighting guy. I had a mentor, Joe [Meely 00:21:48], legendary Blues guitar player here. Joe was a great friend that I grew up with. Joe played, and to this day plays in some of the most amazing bands in this area. Legendary old classic rock cover band called Emerald City, blues bands. Joe’s a legend here, and Joe took me under his wing, showed me the production.
Ted:
He did the production, and it was super mellow, and he raised me up with this. We brought in a light person, and so I learned the business from the ground floor up. My expertise was always marketing. I knew how to market stuff because I had done it all my life. [inaudible 00:22:30] before for 10 years, and then went on to Metroland and …
Chris:
Before there was the digital advertising that we have now?
Ted:
No. That was …
Chris:
This is relationship-building, getting [crosstalk 00:22:41].
Ted:
That was an inkling in somebody’s eye, trust me. It might have been in some movies, but it wasn’t in reality.
Chris:
Right.
Ted:
We were doing it the old fashioned way, by the seat of your pants. That’s how I learned the business. Every show was monstrous. The finale was monstrous. Every show sold out. I met all the great artists, became close to them. When the event ended, all the kids in the bands, and all the people that I partnered up with on the marketing side, all said to me, “Teddy, you and Metroland can’t leave this business. These are the best shows we’ve had here. These shows are amazing. You’ve got to stay in the business.”
Ted:
I had no … I never in a million years, Chris, think I was going to stay in the business. I just figured, “Okay, I’ll get my Sunday nights back, and I’ve got my day job, and I’ll go live a normal life.” I said, “What the heck, I’ve got free time, I’ll continue to do it.” Brett, at the Marriott, he didn’t want it to end. We started a few shows on Sunday nights now. We’d have three great bands for $5. That’s when we started charging. I would give all the money to the bands. I would pay Joe Meeley. We’d split up all the money equally, and we’d have an alternative night.
Ted:
Then, we’d have a R&B night. Then we’d have another night. I’d started to do things that people told me, “Dude, you can’t do that. You can’t mix up the genres.” I said, “Why not?” I’d have like Ernie Williams with like the heavy female fronted hard rock band Crisis, which I believe Dan produced the record, or he may have put the record out.
Chris:
Oh really?
Ted:
Yes.
Chris:
You know what man? That’s really cool. That’s very like forward-thinking of you because I think the tradition would be don’t pick something and just go in on that thing and let people come to you, but the other side is why? Why limit it?
Ted:
Why not? Where’s the law? What would happen, what my goal was, Chris, was I wanted to have the fan base kids who would come to these shows to not only see Crisis, but let them see Ernie Williams, this legendary 85-year-old blues band. Let them see for themselves …
Chris:
Give people another perspective.
Ted:
Exactly, because they would never go otherwise. When I asked the bands, the bands were hip enough to understand that this was a good way to get new faces in front of the artists.
Chris:
Right. Yep.
Ted:
That’s how we started. I started mixing and matching. We had some beautiful shows there, and we did that seven, eight, nine months, but what was happening was because I was doing the advertising for all of the clubs, Saratoga Winners, QE2, Bogies. They all kept on saying, “How come you can’t do those shows at my club? How come you’re doing them at the Marriott?” I was saying, “This is just a hobby for me.” Anyways …
Chris:
Nobody cares until they care, Ted.
Ted:
That’s right. That’s right. I always loved having music. Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, came up in that area, edgy music, Doors. I put together a show with the Troy core kids, the Troy hardcore kids, and I called it The St. Valentine’s Day Metal Massacre. It was a Sunday night. It happened to be Valentine’s Day, and it was the three biggest bands from Troy. Heavy, I mean brutal, Harbinger, Attica. I mean brutal heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy.
Ted:
The room held maybe 300 people, and I think we stopped letting people in at like 450. It was insanity. At one point, all you could see was feet. That’s all you could see. The staff was petrified.
Chris:
They were probably freaking out.
Ted:
Freaking out. I remember Mike Stack like it was yesterday. Mike said, “Teddy …” His band was headlining Harbinger, and he said, “Teddy, the first note we play, I want to forewarn you, this place is going to explode.” I said, “Mike, we’re going to go out of here with our heads held high.” It was insanity, and it was the most fun show I ever, ever been a part of in my life.
Ted:
The room got destroyed, The kids wrecked the room. Tore bathroom dividers out. Tore sinks out of the ladies room. Staff said they got their pocketbooks stolen. I mean it was chaos, but it was worth every second. I’m not lying to you. That was the motivation. That was the stimuli for me to say, “I love this business. I love this business. I love the energy, the kids, the vibe, the interactions, the conversations, the music.”
Ted:
The time and the energy this local bands were putting into their music, and at the time, the local bands, Stigmata, Harbinger, Attica, these great bands. I mean they were at national level back in 1990, ’89, ’91. I mean monster bands. They had fan bases. They also had WVCR promoting it.
Chris:
Right.
Ted:
Which was huge. I think they had a 25,000 watt radio station.
Chris:
Then, that’s it, then you went and you started it? You went from just a Sunday night to a thing?
Ted:
Let me finish this scenario at the Marriott. The next day I go to work, it’s a Monday. I get a call first thing in the morning, not from Brett, but from the Food and Beverage manager. He says to me, “Teddy, you’ve got to come up here right now.” I go up. He takes me on a tour of the place. He was looking pretty … A gloom environment, lets put it this way. He takes me around the place, and he shows me all the damage, and he turns around to me, and he says, “I’m sorry, we can’t do these shows here anymore.”
Ted:
The first thought that comes into my mind was, “This is a blessing. Now I can start taking all these shows,” because I felt obligated to do them at the Marriott. They gave me the chance, and I …
Chris:
You didn’t really want to break [inaudible 00:29:29].
Ted:
No, no. Now I had the opportunity to start taking them into the clubs. Once we started taking the shows into the clubs, it turned it into the cool thing. The QE2 back then was super cool.
Chris:
Wait, explain to me. When you say taking them to the clubs, that means you are coming to the club with the artists, the night, the whole production? What are you coming to them with?
Ted:
They do nothing. I bring my own security guy. I bring my own door guy.
Chris:
One stop shop. You just show up.
Ted:
I’m a one stop shop. I do all the catering myself. I hire a kid to help me. Mike [Kasardi 00:30:15] who’s in Dan’s Band of Clay People, was with me right from the start. We started doing hard core shows, and I’d sit down with the kids, I’d go to lunch with some of the kids in the band, I’d go to lunch with some of the kids in the scene, and they’d say, “Teddy, we want to see Integrity. We want to see Subzero. We want to see all the legendary hardcore bands.”
Ted:
“We want to see the Casualties.” What I would do, they would give me the list, they would give me the bands, and then I’d go out and do the research, and I’d try to get the bands to come and play.
Chris:
It’s like an old school market research man.
Ted:
Old school market research.
Chris:
You get out there, asking questions.
Ted:
Old school market research. It started to build, and build, and build, and build. The local bands got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger. We did a show at Saratoga Winners with four local bands, and again, I love changing up the styles a little bit, and we had a punk band. We had a female fronted kind of gothy band. We’d have [inaudible 00:31:31], which was hardcore, and we had Clay People, which was progressive, industrial progressive. Show did like 1,000 people. Saratoga Winners completely sold out. It was event, after event, after event.
Chris:
Right, it was consistent.
Ted:
Consistent, and I never stop. Every week we would have shows, and we’d build, and build.
Chris:
Wait a minute. Are you still doing this? Are you still doing this in like spare time, or is this like your job?
Ted:
Spare time. Spare time. Spare time. The blessing was that Metroland was right next door to the QE2, and my house was on Spring Street, literally across the street, so …
Chris:
You didn’t have to go very far.
Ted:
Right, didn’t have to go far. There was no logistical from here to there. Saratoga Winners was another thing. We started to outgrow Bogey’s, or outgrow the QE2. Of course, because when we do shows at the QE2, the other clubs got mad because I was doing shows at the QE2, but the kids wanted to be at the QE2, and they wanted to do shows there, but it only held 250 people. If you have 400 people in a room like that, it’s chaos. It’s dangerous.
Ted:
We started moving around, but the reason that the scene built so big was that the bands, Chris, were so good. I could have been the Steve Jobs of marketing, but in reality …
Chris:
[inaudible 00:32:58] were the reason why you say …
Ted:
The bands were the reason that people came out.
Chris:
Right, but you were able to put it together to give them the form and the outlet to do that stuff.
Ted:
We were able to put it together where the shows were organized, they were professional, everybody got paid. It was a group effort. I’d go to the band, “What do you want for a guarantee?” I’d walk in the door. I’d take my whole paycheck from Metroland. I’d walk in the door with every single nickel, and if I lost every single nickel, I’d eat ramen for that week. It was just an amazing, amazing buildup to the next step.
Chris:
Within the time we have, tell me where Northern Lights came from because I want to make sure my own selfish reasons. I grew up around knowing Northern Lights.
Ted:
When I’m at Saratoga Winners doing shows, now all of a sudden, the owner of Northern Lights had just took over. He comes to me, because I’m doing the advertising for Northern Lights too, big advertiser, bit. He wants to start doing some of these shows, but now I’ve got Saratoga Winners, which is not as big, but almost as big. Northern Lights was a little classier, and I wanted to step it up, so I started doing shows at Northern Lights.
Chris:
Same genre? Same like metal hard or no?
Ted:
At the beginning. About five or six years into my career, I had angels come into my life. I had mentors come into my life. I started booking shows with booking agents. Booking agents stared hearing about our scene, and booking agents started calling me, and now I’m saying to myself, “Geez, is this what I really want? Do I really want to be in this business at this level where booking agents are calling me, and I’m booking bands, putting offers in?
Chris:
Booking agents, just for everyone, booking agents are calling you saying, “Can I get my guy or my group in your thing?” That’s what they’re coming to you?
Ted:
Exactly. Exactly, because no hardcore bands, no punk bands, they didn’t have agents. You just dealt with the band. Now, I’ve got people calling me, and then out of nowhere, I get a call from, who today is one of my not only lifetime best friends, but one of my two greatest mentors, Artie Kwitchoff and Marcel [Temott 00:35:26], who are from Buffalo. They wanted to come into Albany, and do shows. They had a company that they were looking to expand, and they were already in Rochester, and they were already in Syracuse, and they wanted to come to Albany.
Ted:
One of the agents that I was doing business with told them about me, and we did a show together, and from that show, we made it another show, and we did another show, and the next thing I know, out of nowhere, I’m in the real music business, learning the real music business, learning how to settle a show, not on a napkin. You know what I mean? The economics of it, the marketing of it, the settlement of it, the magnitude of it.
Ted:
I learned from two amazing people. Marcel, over the course of the last, jeepers, 20 years has booked SPAC. He books Darien Lake for Live Nation, and Artie went to work for Live Nation, but didn’t like it, and he ended up owning his own company, and Artie today has a similar business as mine. He owns the club The Town Ballroom in Buffalo, but he also does concerts other places like with another company like Step Up Presents.
Ted:
I had out of nowhere these amazing mentors came into my life. Another great mentor, John Peters from MassConcerts, one of the most successful independent concert promoters in the country at the time. John owns the Palladium. He owns three clubs. Just an amazing man. An amazing mentor, and I met John at an advertiser at Metroland.
Chris:
All roads go back to Metroland.
Ted:
Metroland was the key, believe it or not.
Chris:
It was. It was.
Ted:
Without Metroland, I have no credibility.
Chris:
That and Mary June, right?
Ted:
That and Mary June, exactly. Then, we started doing shows at Northern Lights, and I started partnering shows at Northern Lights with Artie and Marcel because they were booking bigger shows.
Chris:
Okay.
Ted:
Then, I started booking shows at Northern Lights with my current partner, Stan Levinstone, who also was booking shows at Northern Lights. Stanley’s not from here. He’s from New Jersey. He’s not here. These people came into my life all about the same time, and it took my company from DIY to more of a legit accounting. It became a real legit company.
Chris:
When did you break off from Metroland? When did that happen? This is where we say, “When did you get Overit?”
Ted:
I never, ever, ever left my job at Metroland, ever.
Chris:
You didn’t?
Ted:
I stayed at Metroland until the day the IRS came in the door, and put the chain around the place, Chris. I never left. I stayed there until the bitter end.
Chris:
That’s awesome.
Ted:
I’ve got a lot of energy. I can do a lot of jobs.
Chris:
That’s great.
Ted:
There were a million perks at Metroland.
Chris:
Right.
Ted:
Especially if you were in my business. I got the advertising for a fraction of the cost. Kids like seeing their names in the newspaper.
Chris:
Yep.
Ted:
I never left Metroland, ever. I’d probably still be there today if it was open. When it ended, when it ended, I’d say to myself, “Damn, how did you do all of this?”
Chris:
Yeah, really.
Ted:
The human spirit can take in a lot.
Chris:
Can take you through, I know.
Ted:
Yeah.
Chris:
The Northern Lights becomes yours at some point? You buy it?
Ted:
We’ll evolve into that. Now, I’m doing shows everywhere, and we’re at Bogey’s, we’re at Valentine’s where we would do our small shows. The next bigger shows, we’d go to Bogey’s. Then Bogey’s closes, so now we’re at Valentine’s for our small shows. We did spectacular shows there. Again, Howard Glassman, who was the manager of Bogey’s when I started, who was another mentor, and another supporter of mine, and to this day, I love Howard.
Ted:
He was so supportive of what I did because hardcore, and punk, and metal, it’s not easy on the venue, not easy on the staff, so you have to have an understanding manager, but we were bringing in the business. People overlook some things when they’re doing business. We were at Valentine’s. We were doing great shows there. We outgrew the QE2, but the QE2 was also having some severe financial difficulties, so we moved where the doors were open to us.
Ted:
Now, I’m at Saratoga Winners doing the bigger shows, the [Guars 00:40:25], the bigger shows. The Downs, the bigger heavy bands. Now, we’re also doing some of the cleaner stuff at Northern Lights. Now, I’m clashing between … I’ve got Saratoga Winners, every time I do a show there, the guy at Northern Lights complains, “Hey, how come you …” Every time I do a show at Northern Lights, [Salom 00:40:49] and his brother complaining.
Ted:
I’m trying to play it off. “Well, I always …” I’m trying to make everybody happy. I’m on vacation in California, and I have 20 shows on the schedule at Saratoga Winners. Salom calls me, and he says, “Teddy,” he says, “I’m closing the doors. I had a big fight with my brother,” he said, “and we’re closing. I’m going to try to sell the club.”
Ted:
I took all the shows that I had at Winners, and moved them up to Northern Lights miraculously. I was able to do all of it while I was on vacation in California visiting my brother. I moved everything up there. Saratoga Winners closed, and now Northern Lights was our big venue, but we still had Valentine’s as our small venue.
Chris:
Okay.
Ted:
Okay? Now, we’re starting to do college shows. We’re at Sienna. I’m doing it with Artie and Marcel. We’re doing Palace theater shows. Now, I’m really learning the business. We start doing shows at Northern Lights. We’re at Northern Lights maybe, I don’t know, three four …
Chris:
When was this? When was this?
Ted:
We took over the room 15 years ago, so it was 2005, 2006, like that.
Chris:
Okay. Yep. All right.
Ted:
I get a call one day from the landlord. I could see some holes in his operation, the guy that owned the club. He owed me money. He couldn’t pay the settlement, so he’d write me checks that would bounce. All the telltale signs. I get a call from the landlord, the manager of the mall up in Clifton Park, and he says to me, “Teddy,” he says, “I’m going to close Northern Lights down.” He said, “I’m going to shut them down. He hasn’t paid the rent for, I don’t know, a year.”
Ted:
He says, “Do you want the club?” I’m like, “Ugh, I want a club like I want a hole in the head.” You know what I mean, but if we didn’t have the club, we don’t have a business.
Chris:
You got nothing, right.
Ted:
Got nothing. Stanley and I, my partner, we buy the club, and we redo it, which is a blast. I looked at it like, well we can put $400,000 into a club, and turn it into something nice instead of the dump it was. Put dressing rooms, and showers, and clean it up, and so we put the money into it, and it was worth every minute of it. It was spectacular. We were able to build the business on that move. That we owned a club, now we were club owners.
Chris:
You started to diversify genres again or what?
Ted:
We always diversified, but we were really able to diversify when we were in Northern Lights because we had the room. We had a nice, clean room. We had tons of space. We had great parking. We had everything. Let me give you the story about the name.
Chris:
Yep.
Ted:
Unbeknownst to us, and we didn’t have a liquor license when we took over the club, and if we had shut the doors of the club, we were going to lose Dropkick Murphy’s, Shinedown. We had monster, after monster, after monster, after monster. We didn’t want to shut the club, and take the hit of not having an income coming in, so we made the previous owner an offer to stay on, use his liquor license, and he would be a behind the scenes. He would have no say in anything. He could have his office space, and we would continue on until we made the move to get our own liquor license.
Chris:
Right, you …
Ted:
It was a nightmare of a scenario, having a previous owner, so unbeknownst to us, not only didn’t he pay the rent, but he didn’t pay any bills. When we took over the club, we’d get a $12,000, $13,000 bill from the sound company that he was leasing that he didn’t pay. We’d get a $4,000, $5,000 bill from the electrician that he didn’t pay. There was a fire up there. I don’t know if you remember. There was a fire up there. An electrician had to come in and redo all this, that, and the other.
Ted:
It was endless, and I said to my managers, I said, “Stanley, we can’t continue like this. We’ve got to get him out of here.” We threw him out, physically threw him out, went down to the liquor authority. We were still paying him, but we threw him out, and while we were paying him, we went down and we got our own liquor license, and when we got our own liquor license, we changed the name. We had to run from the name because the name had such a bad reputation to it, and although I loved the name, the name had a bad reputation to it, and it also didn’t pay any bills.
Chris:
That was the Upstate Concert Hall? That was the switch?
Ted:
That was the switch. That’s where that name came from.
Chris:
Now though, you’re now moving correct?
Ted:
Our lease was up in December. We’re moving to a new club in downtown Albany in what was the Capital Rep building on Pearl Street. Our lease was up in December. We were supposed to have had the club built and in by August, and then the landlord on Pearl Street was going to cover our expenses at Upstate Concert Hall so we could operate from last August straight through to the time the lease ended. We would have paid the lease in Northern Lights. That would have been empty. We would have been in Albany, would have been up and running.
Ted:
The builder is a developer. They have 800 new apartments in downtown Albany that are going to be 10 minutes to our door. He wanted to make us … He approached us on making us the centerpiece of an arts district that they’re recreating down there. We were going to be the centerpiece, and he was marketing, and he’s marketing the apartments to young people. Everyone a potential customer of ours.
Ted:
This is going to be what you have if you live here. That was the attraction. They’re making tremendous progress on the building. We have a new name that I have not disclosed to anybody yet, but I think this is the prime time to do it.
Chris:
Oh man, let’s do this.
Ted:
Let’s do it. Okay, everybody’s asking us, “When does this appear? When does this go live?”
Chris:
Not for another month or so.
Ted:
That’s perfect. That’s perfect synergy. We’re going to call the club Empire Live, that’s the upstairs. The thousand cap room, Empire Live and we have a 400 cap room underneath that you have to go around into the alley to get into. It’s really super cool. Big long room like Bogey’s was.
Chris:
Yeah.
Ted:
We’re going to call that The Empire Underground.
Chris:
The Empire Underground, hell yeah. Just dropping the new names on the Get Overit Podcast, hell yeah. What are you thinking? What is the timeline?
Ted:
The timeline is the builder tells us we could be in the place by the end of March, but …
Chris:
[inaudible 00:48:38] is happening in the world today.
Ted:
I mean I don’t think we’ll be in there until the fall.
Chris:
That’s the last thing I want to ask you about before we have to go and that is in this business you’ve seen, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of things, a lot of different things. This, what has happened in this past year is unique to a business like yours. I mean it hits it harder obviously. Would you ever think something like this, and how is it … Is it going to change something about how you operate going forward? Do you think it’s just a terrible blip? What’s it been like to go through this?
Ted:
We’ve always seen changes in our business. Every business goes through changes. When somebody comes through the door and they show an ID, they’re definitely going to have to show some type of a form that they had the vaccine. That’s certainly going to be a change. Will people have to come with masks on? I certainly hope not because I think that will be unattractive because you want attractive business. People like to look at each other’s faces.
Ted:
Guys come out to meet girls at this. I mean the devastating part of this thing is the fact that live music is part of people’s [inaudible 00:49:49]. It’s part of their lives.
Chris:
Right.
Ted:
It’s ingrained in them.
Chris:
I’ve heard that from so many people, man. I can’t wait until I can go and just listen to live music. I’ve heard that.
Ted:
That’s all I hear. That’s all I hear everywhere I go. I think because of that pent up rage that people have about not being able to go out and see live music, that when we’re open, that it is just going to be a bunch of … It’s going to be like vikings coming in from Norway. You know what I mean? They’re going to come in with hatchets in their hands.
Chris:
It’s one of these things that I’ve been talking about during this sort of time, it really makes you have these new much higher appreciations for the things that you liked, but maybe not realize that you really liked. Then, it gets taken from you, and you’re like, “Whoa.” You know what I’m saying?
Ted:
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris:
I hope that’s …
Ted:
But Chris, we’re smart people. My managers are a lot smarter than I am. I can say that with a clear conscience, Jen and Dave. What I just admire about Jen and Dave, what they’ve done over the pandemic is Dave is in a Master’s Degree program in business at UAlbany and Jen went back to school, is taking 18 credit hours, and they’re learning, they’re back in school learning stuff that can apply to our business. The future is looking spectacular.
Ted:
We have a magnificent landlord who’s building us a beautiful club with two rooms in it. We’re in the heart of Albany. If we didn’t have this scenario, I would probably come here with a different tone, but we’re very, very, very enthusiastic. I haven’t allowed this pandemic to torture me. I hurt for my people. I hurt for the people that do this on a part-time basis. I hurt for the bands. I hurt for just the interaction that people have and the love for music, and the social activities that come from it.
Ted:
I’m wondering how many of the great bands that we booked, are they able to survive? Are we ever going to see them again?
Chris:
Right. Are they going to be [inaudible 00:52:08] the last time you saw them?
Ted:
Last time we saw them because a year can be like 10 years sometimes. People get older. They go on to do other things. Are they going to have the money to start it up again? I know everybody’s been hurt in this business. Agencies, labels, you name it. At the hierarchy. We’re going to go back to a whole different paradigm. All the booking agents that we had, that were at Paradigm or Higher Ground, all the different agencies, they moved around like it was a chess game. We don’t even know where they are.
Chris:
We have no idea.
Ted:
Well, we will now. We know, but it’s been impossible to follow. John Doe went from here to there. Mary Doe went from there to there. It’s like when this thing starts, there’s no agencies. Agencies have been slashed by 50%, 60%. Marketing people that I do business with every single day, are they still going to be there? It’s going to be a different energy.
Chris:
It’ll be different but you’re going to do it. That’s it.
Ted:
We’re doing it.
Chris:
You’re going to do it the way it is. Empire Live, Empire Underground. Hell yeah. Last minute or two, something I ask people on the show before I close it is I think people in life and business, they eventually hit a wall or they struggle. This is our, what we call on the show, our Get Overit Moment, so if someone’s listening to this, and they’re going to take some … Do you have advice for them or something when they’re feeling stuck or they’re feeling like they can’t Get Overit, what do you want to say to someone like that that you’ve just got to do it?
Ted:
Yeah, well number one, if you’re in a business that you have passion for, and that you love, that passion will never leave, ever, ever, ever. This year, look at it for what it was. It was a pause. A year’s not that long of time. The first show that we have, nothing stays in the forefront of your brain forever, Chris. It moves to the back, and this will move to the back, and whatever business that you’re in, when you are back in business, if you have had this kind of a pause like I have, like we have, trust me when I tell you, once we strike the first note, this will be over with, and we’ll be looking nothing but forward.
Chris:
He is Ted Etoll, Empire Live, Empire Underground. Stay tuned for more information. By the time this show drops, hopefully we’ll hear and we’ll know more about it. I am Chris Fasano. This is the Get Overit Podcast where people come together to discuss the various ways to stop just getting through it, and start getting Overit. Ted, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.
Ted:
Thank you, Chris. A great pleasure.