Alex Mogilny
12-14-2005, 06:30 PM
By ETHAN SMITH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 13, 2005; Page B1
Two and a half years ago, a Minneapolis entrepreneur named Bill Sagan
spent more than $5 million to buy a treasure trove of rock 'n' roll
memorabilia: millions of T-shirts, posters, handbills, photographs,
concert tickets and other items from the archives of Bill Graham
Presents, the legendary San Francisco rock promoter that virtually
invented the modern concert business in the mid 1960s.
But what neither Mr. Sagan nor the seller, Clear Channel Communications
Inc., realized at the time was that the archives contained an even more
valuable bonus: more than 5,000 live audio and video recordings made
between 1966 and 1999, featuring artists varying from the Doors to
Nirvana. The recordings were made at rock concerts that the late Mr.
Graham ran or promoted. They were uncataloged and collecting dust when
Mr. Sagan acquired the archive.
Today, the 55-year-old Mr. Sagan controls what may be the most
important collection of rock memorabilia and recordings ever assembled
in one business. Called Wolfgang's Vault -- from Mr. Graham's given
name, Wolfgang Grajonca -- the company has a staff of 14, projected
sales this year of $3 million, and nearly 20 million separate items in
its San Francisco warehouse.
Having set up a business selling vintage rock T-shirts and concert
posters on the Web, Mr. Sagan is only now turning his attention to the
audio and video assets, where he faces a tremendous challenge. He is in
the early stages of complex negotiations with artists, their
representatives and record labels over the rights to sell the
recordings on discs and as downloads. In the meantime, Mr. Sagan plans
to begin "streaming" some of these recordings as Internet radio feeds
on his company's Web site, which involves little more than paying
royalties to organizations that represent songwriters.
The performances, many of which are professionally recorded and
extremely high quality, amount to a sweeping, unheard history of rock
during its seminal years and beyond. The archives include performances
by artists including Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, the Who, Tom
Petty, Stevie Wonder, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Emmylou Harris, Aretha
Franklin and Tracy Chapman, all of whom played shows put on by Mr.
Graham. The are videotapes of early performances by Crosby Stills Nash
& Young and from 1978, the Sex Pistols' last show for nearly 20 years,
before their reunion in 1996.
Though some of the recordings have leaked as bootlegs over the years,
they contain some revealing moments that may surprise fans. For
example, a recording taken from Led Zeppelin's first U.S. tour, in 1969
-- when the band was opening for Country Joe & the Fish -- finds lead
singer Robert Plant displaying little of the rock-god swagger that
would eventually become his trademark. Instead, he makes nervous small
talk to the audience as guitarist Jimmy Page changes a broken string.
"I don't know if [Mr. Sagan] really knew exactly how much rich material
he had," says Bill Thompson, the longtime manager of Jefferson Airplane
and Jefferson Starship, which played Bill Graham events frequently
during the heyday of the San Francisco rock scene in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. "This is a goldmine."
Mr. Graham's company mounted more than 35,000 concerts world-wide
between its inception in 1966 and its sale, earlier this decade, to
Clear Channel, which bought up a number of regional concert promoters
during that era. Mr. Sagan bought the archive from Clear Channel, which
had little interest in sifting through the thousands of items that were
jammed into the company's warehouse.
Mr. Sagan and his staff spent their first six months in business doing
nothing but organizing and cataloging the vast collection, much of
which had been thrown haphazardly in cardboard boxes, and some of
which had been damaged in a warehouse fire.
Today, on WolfgangsVault.com, shoppers can find individual tickets to
the Yardbirds' July 25, 1967, show at the Fillmore West for $51 each (a
$48 markup over the face value). Prints of photographer Joe Sia's
blurred shot of a police officer arresting Jim Morrison on stage in New
Haven, Conn., go for $550 to $750. Even the Rat Pack gets the
collectible treatment: A black faux-tuxedo T-shirt commemorating a 1988
concert starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., costs
$82.
But the music and video recordings are the most intriguing and
commercially promising. Mr. Graham's company made the recordings
partly for posterity's sake, and, in some cases, for a more base motive:
adjacent to the Fillmore West was a restaurant owned by Mr. Graham.
Rather than lose customers when concerts started next door, Mr. Graham
installed a closed-circuit video system that let diners watch the show
live -- and also captured it on videotape.
When, or even if, the general public will ever hear or see many of
these recordings is unclear, however.
The recordings were made legally; Mr. Sagan has a filing cabinet filled
with documentation to prove it. But selling them will require various
permissions and revenue-sharing deals -- not only with the artists
themselves, but often, too, with whatever record label they were signed
to at the time of the show, or its corporate successor. In the case of
dead performers, permission is required from their families or other
heirs.
Mr. Sagan's employees have already digitized more than 1,000 audio
recordings and sent them to engineers to have the sound quality cleaned
up. Now they are in the process of seeking clearances to release the
music. Mr. Sagan says he is in active discussions with two major record
labels, and believes he is close to a deal for at least some music with
one of them, although he declines to name either.
"Is it easy?" he asks. "No. But in some cases they're excited as hell
they might be able to make some money of old bands."
Even with clearances, much of the material in the archives is simply
not up to snuff for commercial release. "I don't think a large
percentage of it will end up on CD, or in any monetized form," says
Gavin Haag, who oversees the company's music-licensing efforts. For
instance, he adds, there may never be an appetite for dozens of
separate concerts by acts like Eddie Money.
Mr. Thompson, the Jefferson Airplane manager, says he is in "early
discussions" with Wolfgang's Vault and Sony BMG Music Entertainment to
sell the dozens of live recordings made of his clients at Mr. Graham's
various venues. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann
AG, controls the rights to distribute the band's recordings. Sony BMG
and Wolfgang's Vault declined to comment on the continuing licensing
negotiations.
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 13, 2005; Page B1
Two and a half years ago, a Minneapolis entrepreneur named Bill Sagan
spent more than $5 million to buy a treasure trove of rock 'n' roll
memorabilia: millions of T-shirts, posters, handbills, photographs,
concert tickets and other items from the archives of Bill Graham
Presents, the legendary San Francisco rock promoter that virtually
invented the modern concert business in the mid 1960s.
But what neither Mr. Sagan nor the seller, Clear Channel Communications
Inc., realized at the time was that the archives contained an even more
valuable bonus: more than 5,000 live audio and video recordings made
between 1966 and 1999, featuring artists varying from the Doors to
Nirvana. The recordings were made at rock concerts that the late Mr.
Graham ran or promoted. They were uncataloged and collecting dust when
Mr. Sagan acquired the archive.
Today, the 55-year-old Mr. Sagan controls what may be the most
important collection of rock memorabilia and recordings ever assembled
in one business. Called Wolfgang's Vault -- from Mr. Graham's given
name, Wolfgang Grajonca -- the company has a staff of 14, projected
sales this year of $3 million, and nearly 20 million separate items in
its San Francisco warehouse.
Having set up a business selling vintage rock T-shirts and concert
posters on the Web, Mr. Sagan is only now turning his attention to the
audio and video assets, where he faces a tremendous challenge. He is in
the early stages of complex negotiations with artists, their
representatives and record labels over the rights to sell the
recordings on discs and as downloads. In the meantime, Mr. Sagan plans
to begin "streaming" some of these recordings as Internet radio feeds
on his company's Web site, which involves little more than paying
royalties to organizations that represent songwriters.
The performances, many of which are professionally recorded and
extremely high quality, amount to a sweeping, unheard history of rock
during its seminal years and beyond. The archives include performances
by artists including Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, the Who, Tom
Petty, Stevie Wonder, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Emmylou Harris, Aretha
Franklin and Tracy Chapman, all of whom played shows put on by Mr.
Graham. The are videotapes of early performances by Crosby Stills Nash
& Young and from 1978, the Sex Pistols' last show for nearly 20 years,
before their reunion in 1996.
Though some of the recordings have leaked as bootlegs over the years,
they contain some revealing moments that may surprise fans. For
example, a recording taken from Led Zeppelin's first U.S. tour, in 1969
-- when the band was opening for Country Joe & the Fish -- finds lead
singer Robert Plant displaying little of the rock-god swagger that
would eventually become his trademark. Instead, he makes nervous small
talk to the audience as guitarist Jimmy Page changes a broken string.
"I don't know if [Mr. Sagan] really knew exactly how much rich material
he had," says Bill Thompson, the longtime manager of Jefferson Airplane
and Jefferson Starship, which played Bill Graham events frequently
during the heyday of the San Francisco rock scene in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. "This is a goldmine."
Mr. Graham's company mounted more than 35,000 concerts world-wide
between its inception in 1966 and its sale, earlier this decade, to
Clear Channel, which bought up a number of regional concert promoters
during that era. Mr. Sagan bought the archive from Clear Channel, which
had little interest in sifting through the thousands of items that were
jammed into the company's warehouse.
Mr. Sagan and his staff spent their first six months in business doing
nothing but organizing and cataloging the vast collection, much of
which had been thrown haphazardly in cardboard boxes, and some of
which had been damaged in a warehouse fire.
Today, on WolfgangsVault.com, shoppers can find individual tickets to
the Yardbirds' July 25, 1967, show at the Fillmore West for $51 each (a
$48 markup over the face value). Prints of photographer Joe Sia's
blurred shot of a police officer arresting Jim Morrison on stage in New
Haven, Conn., go for $550 to $750. Even the Rat Pack gets the
collectible treatment: A black faux-tuxedo T-shirt commemorating a 1988
concert starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., costs
$82.
But the music and video recordings are the most intriguing and
commercially promising. Mr. Graham's company made the recordings
partly for posterity's sake, and, in some cases, for a more base motive:
adjacent to the Fillmore West was a restaurant owned by Mr. Graham.
Rather than lose customers when concerts started next door, Mr. Graham
installed a closed-circuit video system that let diners watch the show
live -- and also captured it on videotape.
When, or even if, the general public will ever hear or see many of
these recordings is unclear, however.
The recordings were made legally; Mr. Sagan has a filing cabinet filled
with documentation to prove it. But selling them will require various
permissions and revenue-sharing deals -- not only with the artists
themselves, but often, too, with whatever record label they were signed
to at the time of the show, or its corporate successor. In the case of
dead performers, permission is required from their families or other
heirs.
Mr. Sagan's employees have already digitized more than 1,000 audio
recordings and sent them to engineers to have the sound quality cleaned
up. Now they are in the process of seeking clearances to release the
music. Mr. Sagan says he is in active discussions with two major record
labels, and believes he is close to a deal for at least some music with
one of them, although he declines to name either.
"Is it easy?" he asks. "No. But in some cases they're excited as hell
they might be able to make some money of old bands."
Even with clearances, much of the material in the archives is simply
not up to snuff for commercial release. "I don't think a large
percentage of it will end up on CD, or in any monetized form," says
Gavin Haag, who oversees the company's music-licensing efforts. For
instance, he adds, there may never be an appetite for dozens of
separate concerts by acts like Eddie Money.
Mr. Thompson, the Jefferson Airplane manager, says he is in "early
discussions" with Wolfgang's Vault and Sony BMG Music Entertainment to
sell the dozens of live recordings made of his clients at Mr. Graham's
various venues. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann
AG, controls the rights to distribute the band's recordings. Sony BMG
and Wolfgang's Vault declined to comment on the continuing licensing
negotiations.