By Brian F. Johnson

When the Monolith Music Festival takes over Red Rocks Amphitheatre this month, there’s a man in Denver’s city government that will take special notice of the event. For it was this man, Erik Dyce, the director of the city’s Theatres and Arenas Division, who helped give the festival organizers the idea to make the event a reality.

Dyce often gets referred to as “Mr. Red Rocks,” but the truth of the matter is that moniker is really only the tip of the iceberg, because he also oversees marketing for all of the facilities under the Theatres and Arena’s umbrella, including Boetcher Concert Hall, Buell Theatre, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, The Wells Fargo Theatre, the Colorado Convention Center and the Denver Coliseum, among others.

For 22 years Dyce has held this post, or more correctly held the position that grew into this post. Dyce had visited Denver when he was still managing the 16,000 seat Cajun Dome in Louisiana. As soon as he saw Red Rocks he approached then facilities manager Fred Luetzen and told him that he had to hire him. For three years, Dyce called Lutzen every few months until one day, Luetzen called him back and in his thick German accent asked, “Air-ik, you steel vant zat job?” Continue — Read more »

By Brian F. Johnson

As the producer of Denver’s top-rated morning radio talk show, 103.5 The Fox’s “Lewis and Floorwax,” Kathy Lee is the glue that holds the team together.

The Korean-born Lee, who moved to Colorado when she was only two, plays the role of the informer when the boys are on the air — the one who is quick to grab a fact, or direct the off-the-cuff hosts into the topic du jour. But the other part of that role is being, almost daily, the butt of the joke, discussing embarrassing moments of her personal life simply because it makes good radio.

Even though her audience can only hear her, it’s obvious that the majority of her time on the air is spent with a smile, enjoying the hell out of taking “water cooler conversations” and broadcasting them throughout Denver and the Front Range. Continue — Read more »

By Brian F. Johnson

Every time I meet a true audiophile, I love to ask them this little bit of trivia that I picked up somewhere along the way. Of all the people I’ve ever asked it to, Gus Skinas is the only one to have answered it correctly, without hesitation. And, it wasn’t a lucky guess.

The question is this: Why did the CD end up being 80 minutes long? “Beethoven in the car,” Skinas shot back when I asked him. Yes! When Sony was developing the compact disc, an executive pushed for the 80 minute length because it was his goal to listen to Beethoven’s 9th in the car, without interruption.
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By Brian F. Johnson

Traditionally, musicians haven’t had to do much but write and perform their songs. But in these increasingly D.I.Y. times, artists are being forced into the business side of the industry and are spending more and more time off-stage and away from the studio, working on tasks that used to be taken care of by record labels.

Mark Bliesener, who has the hindsight of being a working musician as well as the experience earned from 30 years behind a desk in the biz, helps bands as ‘The Band Guru.’ Counseling everyone from solo musicians to bands to independent record labels, Bliesener has received 16 Gold and Platinum records from artists whose careers he has helped to manage, including Lyle Lovett, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

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By Brian F. Johnson

You almost couldn’t tell now, by looking at the success of his festivals, but there was a time, not too long ago, when Craig Ferguson spent countless sleepless nights wondering how his festivals would survive, or at the very least, if the checks for the talent would clear.

Ferguson, the president of Telluride Bluegrass, Inc. — the umbrella company which runs Rockygrass, Rocky Mountain Folks Festival and, of course, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, among other events — was supposed to be an attorney. But after graduating from law school, he headed to the desert of Arizona, sleeping out under the stars for two years and working with his cousin as the business manager of the Roberto-Venn School of Lutherie. During his time in Arizona, he traveled to Telluride to check out the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the trip ended up being life changing for him, as well as for the hundreds of thousands of festivarians who have attended his festivals since.

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By Brian F. Johnson

No one ever told Peter Shapiro how to make it in the music business — that it takes years at low-paying, thankless jobs until you get the chance to do anything substantial. But, had someone told Shapiro that, he probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

The 35-year-old industry mogul has an impressive resume, to say the least. Originally a film student at Northwestern University, Shapiro debuted his documentary on the Grateful Dead, Tie-Died, when he was only 21, at the Sundance Film Festival. He went on to purchase the famed Wetlands Preserve Night Club in New York at the age of 24. In 2000 he created, and served as executive producer and musical director of the Jammy Awards, which is now in its eighth year. This year he made his second appearance at the Sundance Film Festival as producer of his most high-profile project to date, U2-3D.

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By Brian F. Johnson

The Fox Theatre has a legendary mystique that’s made the local venue stand out during its decade-and-a-half of existence. The vast majority of that mystique is due to the number of — and magnitude of — bands that have stood on the stage.
While he vacated his position as head talent buyer at the Fox last summer to take on the role of Vice President of Live Nation’s Rocky Mountain Division, Eric Pirritt’s legacy will always be intricately interwoven with the Fox because, for five years, he was the man responsible for putting the bands on that stage.
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By Brian F. Johnson

Audience members of Jam Cruise, Langerado, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza may have seen a blur streak past them in recent years — a fiery ball of energy, just over five feet tall, that talks as fast as she moves and has a personality three times larger than her small physical stature.

That blur is Annabel Lukins, the director of marketing and artist relations for Jam Cruise. In addition to her duties on and off the boat for Cloud 9, the company that runs Jam Cruise, Lukins also handles marketing duties and artist relations for a variety of other high profile music festivals around the country.

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By Brian F. Johnson

Any self-respecting Star Wars fan knows that the Millennium Falcon is so fast that it made the Kessel Run in “less than twelve parsecs.” What many fans don’t know is that the ship began life as the humble YT-1300 light freighter and that it took some time and modifications before it became a ship that could “make point-five past lightspeed.”

Steve Schalk is no Harrison Ford, but he knows a thing or two about what it takes to change a room from a humble space into a room worthy of bragging rights, and as the captain of his newest club, The Falcon, he’s taking the role of Han Solo quite seriously.

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By Brian F. Johnson
Crescendo Artists president and national booking agent, Brandon Mann is one of those people who always knew he’d somehow be involved in music. Despite being a business and government major when he attended Franklin and Marshall College in the 1990s, Mann’s passion for music had him booking local bands on campus and working with the school’s program council to bring Little Feat and Bela Fleck (among others) to his school.
After college, Mann had several industry jobs, working in publicity with Ambrosia Healy, in artist development with RCA and as an agent for Partners in Music. Three years ago the partners of Partners in Music decided to divvy up their individual duties into different companies and Crescendo Artists was born.
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By Brian F. Johnson
There are female artists, female agents, female publicists and female venue owners in the local and national music scene, but for some odd reason there is a complete dearth in female talent buyers — particularly throughout Colorado.
But the Fox Theatre — long heralded as a breeding ground for new talent and a trendsetter in the business — may be changing all of that.
Late this past summer, head talent buyer Eric Pirritt left his long-held seat at the Fox to make a move to Live Nation, and with that move came an internal promotion that has been years in the making. Sarah Finger, who worked alongside Pirritt as the assistant talent buyer at the Fox, was chosen to fill the large shoes left by Pirritt and in doing so it made her one of the only female talent buyers in the state, and definitely the most powerful female talent buyer along the Front Range.
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By Brian F. Johnson
Concert promoters are a rough and tumble type of crowd. Some of the more legendary ones in the business have egos that overshadow the artists they promote.
But Chuck Morris, who last year left Live Nation and just recently took over the position of president and chief executive officer of AEG Live, Rocky Mountain Region, defies that stereotype.
Sure, he’s eccentric, continually juggling countless pairs of glasses with an almost obsessive compulsive drive and sure, he’s got some been-there-done-that slickness to him, but talk with Morris for more than a minute and there’s an immediate understanding and recognition that this is a humble man who loves his work.
That work has taken him from CU Boulder, where he dropped out of a Ph.D program to manage The Sink, on University Hill, which he grew to be the number one 3.2 bar in the state. He reminisces fondly about lines that wrapped around the building in The Sink’s heyday.
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