Ex-Artists 006-020: Danielson Famile, Genevieve Stokes, Calvin Johnson, etc.

Artists that I barely booked at all

I’ve got to post some combo meals, or this project will drag ass into 2035. I’m tipping my hat to 15 more ex-artists today. I bet you don’t know many of these; a few I hardly know myself anymore. Like the series in general, these are in random order, no chronology. I try for kindness when possible, but couldn’t resist a parting shot for Arlie at the end.

Previous Exes:

Ex-Artists 005: TV on the Radio

Ex-Artists 003-004: Black Mountain & Pink Mountaintops

Ex-Artists 002: John Vanderslice

Ex-Artists 001: Constantines

006 Genevieve Stokes

In the autumn of their career, booking agents will eventually make jokes about signing artists the same age or younger than their own children. I posted about Genevieve on Instagram after becoming her agent, and a manager friend replied to say that she dated Genevieve’s dad in college.

Here’s the tune I thought might spark something for Genevieve.

007 Calvin Johnson

I wasn’t a Beat Happening listener, although I liked that one song. I owned a random Dub Narcotic record at some point, and while I never really played it, obviously I had (and have) much love and respect for Calvin Johnson and K Records. The label released music from long-time favorites like Lync, Make*Up, Modest Mouse, pre-“Loser” Beck in lofi freak folk mode, the Built To Spill singles, and most importantly those Halo Benders LPs. Goddamn. That’s the Calvin stuff for me.

I was flattered when Chris Swanson suggested Calvin and I speak about touring. Calvin was releasing his first solo record, “What Was Me,” and while he had played countless shows with his bands over the years, they were mostly self-booked, but Chris said Calvin was showing an openness to letting an agent give it a try.

Imagine an upright bass speaking, speaking slowly: “SO YOU BOOK SOME BANDS,” Calvin bellowed through the phone on our first call. He was vague and aloof, 85% disinterested, which I took as ultra-cool and also as a challenge. We attempted to pinpoint the types of shows Calvin was interested in playing, and tried that again and again on more calls and emails as I threw ideas his way. The dude sounded put off by the idea of concerts in general, and all venues and scenarios presented problems for Calvin. Over the years, I became familiar with this situation. From time to time, unbookable artists become curious about agency representation. Actually, it’s not fair to call them unbookable; it’s that they are not bookable professionally. Calvin wanted to play the types of shows put on by people who do not want to fuck with booking agents. I called it off with him after a few weeks. We did not confirm a single gig.

I will note that I recently purchased two Sharp Pins records which were co-released with K, and this summer I stopped at a rural-ass coffee shop somewhere in Missouri and the weirdo child behind the register had a stick-and-poke K shield tattooed on their chest. Hell yes.

008 Gabe Lee

Some artists appear on this “barely booked” list because I got involved right before or during the pandemic. I changed agencies during the shutdown, and several artists stayed behind with colleagues on the booking team. That was the case with Genevieve, and also Nashville’s Gabe Lee.

009 Zulu Winter

Zero memory. No clue. Not looking it up.

010 A Gun Called Tension

Short-lived Seattle duo of Dann Gallucci from Murder City Devils and sometimes Modest Mouse with rapper Sean Reveron along with many guests including Andrea Zollo from Pretty Girls Make Graves, Roots Manuva, and Morgan Henderson from Blood Brothers and Fleet Foxes. Almost certain we booked zero shows, but I was stoked to talk music with Dann now and again on the horn.

011 Day Wave

A colleague who represented this artist thought new blood was needed, so my previous assistant and I took it on. We didn’t book a show before I left the job and as I understand it, this dude hardly gives a fuck about being on the road.

012 Jenny Lewis

Again, no shows booked. I was part of the poaching team that woo’ed Jenny away from her previous agency, but then came the pandemic, the new agency for me, and Jenny stayed with capable colleagues at the previous place. It would have been fun to get into this one. It looks like the Rilo Kiley reunion tour is making dreams come true for longtime Jenny fans.

A quick word about stealing clients from other agencies: It is so, so shitty when agents poach artists from other agents EXCEPT for those times when I did so.

013 Big Red Machine

The side-project of Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon with a sick band and several guest vocalists. I shared booking duties with the agent who represents The National, but very few shows were ever played, and I never saw them live. Briefly, Aaron used the name for his solo project and Justin was less involved, but now Aaron is… I dunno, what’s that guy been up to?

Neither Justin nor his manager Josh Sundquist can recall this happening, so I’ve either dreamt it or confused it with something else, but in my mind there was once a Big Red Machine performance with Josh Kaufmann sitting in on guitar. Possibly positioned off stage? With a spotlight pointing out to wherever he was? I would have seen this online, but since we are no longer able to search the internet, I can’t turn anything up. Anyone know anything?

Here’s the band doing “Gratitude” (clean) on Colbert.

014 Sweet Spirit

What comes to mind when I think about this eight-piece Austin band is a hometown show at the Mohawk on Red River. I had yet to see the band live, so traveled to Texas with my girlfriend at the time. We were in a transcontinental and overwhelmingly bogus and exhausting relationship, and she spent the entire night arms crossed, face cross, an unbelting ice statue in the Lone Star heat, eventually hissing in my ear while the band played that she could tell I was going to sleep with Sabrina Ellis, the singer Sweet Spirit. I did not sleep with Sabrina, and we didn’t book many shows.

015 Hotel Lux

Pandemic Signing™️. Every booking agent who kept their job during the Covid shutdown knows what a Pandemic Signing is. Hotel Lux were (are?) a post-punk band from the UK. Colleagues were into the first EP, and there was a song I really liked on it, so we signed on to represent this overseas band with no fanbase whatsoever, no label in North America, at a moment in time when touring did not exist and nobody could predict when it might start up again. There was a period of time after everyone had stopped watching the news all day and grown bored booking shows at drive-in theaters, so the move was to sign total crap shoots. Perhaps it was optimism, imagining a long, employed future once touring returned. I do not believe Hotel Lux ever made it to North America. A fun essay for a music publication (lol) would be an analysis of Covid signings and where those artists are today.

016 Kean Kavanagh

Pandemic Signing 2 Electric Boogaloo. Kean is an Irish songwriter and producer, now living in London, who released a mixtape I liked called Dog Person in 2020. He eventually came to the states for a few solo gigs, but I didn’t get to see him play. We did hang out briefly in person at a singular and transcendent Dijon show at the Bowery Ballroom when D’s drummer was knocked out with Covid.

017 Danielson Famile

The weirdest Christian Rock of the era. Danielson was uniquely accepted and praised by legit non-Christian musicians and some high-art peeps in NYC, but I found the music nearly unlistenable. I didn’t sign this one; Trey Many handed it off to me as a new and fully inexperienced agent when I started working at his company Aero Booking. He passed a few artists off to help establish my roster, including the Constantines and Songs:Ohia.

018 D.D Dumbo

This Australian artist’s strange debut EP caught my attention in 2014. He came over for SXSW and possibly a few support slots when the record was picked up and re-released by 4AD. We had an extensive tour planned, but the artist pulled back from that in order to take care of his head. Mental health cancellations weren’t a thing… er… of course they were a thing, but people didn’t call it that yet. This could have moved well in the Tune-Yards, Animal Collective, Beirut lanes, I think.

019 John Mark Nelson

I believe John’s done well writing and producing with other artists. I remember him as a sweetheart, but could not possibly hum one of his tunes.

020 Arlie

A colleague was hyped on this Nashville band’s early singles and, because he was in LA, asked me to check them out at a house party they were playing here in town. I loved the songs, so went to the show, and Arlie had the college kids going in this packed-out living room. The band members were still finishing classes at Vanderbilt themselves, just about to graduate. They clearly worshiped Vampire Weekend, and I couldn’t help but remember meeting those dudes in 2007 on the campus of Columbia as their last member was about to graduate and Vampy Weeks touring would begin.

But as Arlie wrapped up studies in 2017, people were wondering about bands with guitars. There was real concern. The question as to whether 2010s indie would ascend and become the new pop had been answered: No it would not. I was pitching Arlie as The Last Great Indie Rock Band.

I left them behind with my colleague when I moved agencies and watched from my phone as the singer in the band shape-shifted every season while the songs moved away from the stuff I liked. They signed a big dumb major label deal, and absolutely nothing happened with the band.

Later, I ran into the singer at the Ryman, leaving a show we’d both attended. He was doing an Adam-Ant-meets-Bozo kinda thing, so I almost didn’t recognize him, and apparently the dude nearly missed me, too. “Whoa,” he said, “You were this super cool guy with long hair when we met. Now you’re old and bald.” It had been maybe 3 years? But I had cut my hair once I admitted how thin it was up there, so maybe fair play.

Anyway, here’s a recent pic of Arlie guy.