(This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Lawrence Peryer: I know we're here to talk about the Patti Smith tribute show, and I definitely want to spend the majority of our time there, but I'm hoping you can indulge me in a couple of minutes of origin story.
Michael Dorf: Sure, absolutely.
Lawrence: What initially brought you to New York from Milwaukee? What were you chasing?
Michael: It actually is an interesting connection to Patti in a certain way. Although growing up, Patti Smith was not on my radar, but what she was part of—if you call it that kind of very artistic New York scene that maybe was built around Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, the Jack Kerouac Village kind of vibe—that was something that I obviously didn't know details about, but I just felt a natural magnetism. When you're in Wisconsin growing up, which is, in my particular case, like the white North Shore Jewish suburbs of Milwaukee, it's as safe and idyllic an environment as you can get.
I once snuck to New York when I was 18 to visit a girlfriend. I told my parents I was going to visit my summer camp counselor in Madison, and literally Friday, instead of driving to Madison, I drove to Billy Mitchell Field and flew to LaGuardia and took the bus to Grand Central and got out and met my girlfriend in Greenwich Village. Washington Square Park, copped a nickel bag, got high, had pizza. I wanted that. That was probably 1980, and I just felt something magic that appealed to me about New York. I always felt this connection to it, whether it was maybe the odd Jewish component of the city, the Europeanness of the city, the artistic energy, the hard-to-articulate energy that the city has, that always pulls people in.
But all the things, the lore of the Allen Ginsberg beat, On the Road, that more than anything, I was like, I want to do that. So when I opened in February of '87, Wednesdays was poetry, and Thursdays was jazz, and Friday, Saturdays was rock and everything in between. I wanted it to be this eclectic factory of arts, and jumped right in.
Lawrence: Before you opened the room, did you have exposure to avant-garde and experimental music? Hearing your tale, I very much relate to that romanticized beat, post-beat, the way it merged with the hippies and transformed into punk and the Lower East Side. I get that whole thing, but I'm curious, where were you at musically?
Michael: I've said it a million times in interviews and such, I absolutely sucked as even a wannabe musician. I had no chops. And I tried. My friends were great. They were playing Beatles and Zeppelin and the Doors and sort of the seventies rock stuff. I was listening, I got exposed at camp, Jewish socialist camp in Northern Wisconsin, to Dylan and let's call it the folkies, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and had some influence from there. And then for some reason, I actually really liked jazz, and I can't tell you the roots of that.
There's a festival in Milwaukee called Summerfest that had all these different stages. And I went there so long ago, they had like the Schlitz Polish Oompa stage, and they had the Miller Jazz stage. And they had these multi-stage divisions by what was Milwaukee beer sponsored. I mean, this is, again, 50 years ago, almost. And there was jazz at this festival, so I connected to that. So by college, pre-Knitting Factory, I definitely loved bebop and Miles Davis and was getting into Pat Metheny, Ornette Coleman. I mean, I remember Song X. That record came out in college, and King Crimson, if you will, the more experimental rock meets jazz stuff.
So I knew of the Lounge Lizards in college, you know, kind of the pop Jim Jarmusch stuff, which has a wonderful connection to this Patti Smith event. And there were just a few connective threads to the scene. I did not know who John Zorn was in college, but I had heard of Philip Glass. I was a Laurie Anderson fan, but I did not know about the M-Base scene in Brooklyn. So there were things, a little bit of connective tissue, but I wasn't coming to New York to connect to Lounge Lizards. It was much more just, I want to have some jazz and whatever's not happening at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Note, what can I connect to? And that was kind of what I was looking for, but I was wide open to almost anything.
Lawrence: When we're younger, whether it's thinking in terms of manifestos or the big ideas you mentioned earlier, what was your thesis around the Knit? Were you thinking, "This is going to be the incubator, a special place for all these freaks," or were you just like, "I want to be surrounded by art"? What were you thinking?
Michael: I was 23 years old. I had no family at that point. Being a lucky human being born where if $13,000 that I put into the physical first version of the Knit went away, which was my fake college savings that my dad didn't need to have for me—you know, from my bar mitzvah and beer can collection that were used for college—had that gone away and I just couldn't make it, I could go back to Wisconsin with my tail between my legs. And there were moments where I thought that's what was going to happen. But having the luck and the privilege, blessing, if you will, to be able to play in the arts and just see where it was going to go.
It all started because I really wanted to be a record company guy. I was really into the idea of managing my friends' records, making the records, and that immediately was a failure. I couldn't get anyone to pay for the records. You gotta have a floor. That was an immediate mistake financially. And then I found this old Avon office on Houston Street, and I thought, "You know what? I'm paying whatever I was paying, $750 a month in my apartment on East 10th Street to live. I could shift that and live in the back of this Avon office. The landlord will never know, who's going to care? I'll just put my futon under the desk and then go to Pineapple Fitness around the corner to shower in the morning."
They had free towels that were clean, so that was great. And then I'll sell coffee and tea and whatever I can—this was pre-wine and beer license, and pre-liquor license—and just, I'll do better if I have some little bit of cashflow, and I'll put on some performances. And that was it. There was no plan. It was, let's see if this is a way to survive. And the band Swamp Thing, that was the first record, and I was really invested in them. They owed me so much money from being a manager, which is really, when you're 20 years old, you're just the kid who's got the most money to waste on stuff.
They owed me, so I kind of inherited the sound system, which became the PA for the first Knitting Factory. And luckily, in a weird way, after about two months of being open, we got broken into in the middle of the night and someone stole our sound system right away. And so I was able to hold a fundraiser for our sound system and got some empathy from both the New York Times and John Zorn and John Lurie, and a few other people that, after a couple of months, embraced us. We held it at the neighboring Puck Building, and boom, we had a much better sound system, and I reinforced the wall so you couldn't knock through, and it just grew like that. It was an incredible time.
Lawrence: I've never heard anybody be thankful for having a break-in, but I totally get it in the context you're talking about. I definitely don't want to put you through a "This Is Your Life" conversation. There are so many twists and turns between those days and the start of the Music Of series. What was the genesis of Music Of? How did you decide, "This is the next chapter"?
Michael: It was really birthed out of the demise of the recording business. What I mean by that is I got invited by a guy named Larry Rosen, who ran GRP Records. This was in 1999, so I still ran The Knitting Factory. I was getting involved in dot-com stuff a bit. He was getting involved. He started N2K after he sold GRP, but he was running this organization that was a subsidiary of the UJA Federation called Music for Youth. And Music for Youth was a consortium of music industry machers, which had BMI, ASCAP, Sony, Universal, all the record labels in the late nineties, going into 2000, 2001, 2002. It was raising all kinds of money at this big annual luncheon, millions of dollars, honoring David Geffen and Ahmet Ertegun and your peers, and then half the money of this thing went to this fund called Music for Youth.
So I got invited to be part of like 30–40 music industry people. We allocated the funds to great organizations like Save The Music and Mr. Holland's Opus, and actually many of the same that I still do today. But then Napster and technology basically killed the recording business in that period.
And the funds dried up very quickly, so that by 2003, we had a meeting that literally went like this: "We have no money coming in from the labels. What are we going to do to exist as an advisory to distribute? There's no money to give away. How do we raise money?" And I, being like the youngest person around this big table in Midtown, very sheepishly and nervously raised my hand and said, "Um, well, why don't we put on a show?" And they're like, "What?" And I'm like, "Yeah."
Lawrence: Who is this guy? Who let him in here? (laughter)
Michael: "We're all in the music business. Why don't we do a show, something elegant at Carnegie Hall?" And they're like, "Are you out of your mind, young punk kids? How'd you even get in this room?" I'm like, and they go, "Well, what would you want to do?" And I go, "I've been wanting, I actually think a Joni Mitchell tribute, doing homage to her material by other artists, would be really good, and I think Carnegie Hall is a great room to do it." And they're like, "No, no, way too risky. You're really a fool, young man."
And I just said, I just got the nerve up and I was like, "I will cover any losses. I will give a hundred percent of the upside to this organization. So there's no risk here. All I ask, as all of you guys have every year bought big tables at the luncheon that no longer exists because there's no recorded music industry right at the moment, can you just support it? Just come buy some tickets, maybe an artist from your label. Just a little bit of help, that's all." And they're like, "Oh, you're crazy. Go ahead and do it." And of course, we sold out. It raised $100,000. It was year one, and it's been basically $100,000—it's hard to make a net profit at Carnegie Hall. It's an expensive room, but you can squeeze out about that.
By year three, I was like, "You know what, I don't need to work with you guys. I'm going to just do this myself and give the money directly to the organizations. Why should there be an intermediary that is taking funds to cover overhead?" And basically went independent, if you will, same organizations more or less. It's been 20 years, and if I keep my budget similar, each artist gets a small honorarium, keep my production tight, we can net about a hundred thousand dollars over costs.
Twenty years later, we've now given over $2 million to music education programs for underserved youth. And I've stayed consistent to that cause because we see every year, every couple months now, there's a real important need out there. Whether it's the fires, the hurricanes, the tsunamis—climate change doesn't help—there's diseases and medical needs, and there's just so many reasons why there needs to be a fundraiser almost every day in the world to combat the ills. And now with what's going on in politics, we got to get even more involved to make sure the world spins in a more positive way.
What I wanted to do with this series was stay consistent to music education programs because, when times get cut and when a politician comes in and cuts stuff, the first step to get cut from schools isn't math, and it isn't social studies, and it isn't even gym programs. It's the arts. That's the first curriculum to go away. So most of the programs that are our beneficiaries in this series are music education programs that are supplemental to school programs and mostly in underserved communities.
Lawrence: Looking at the list of beneficiaries, especially for this year, it's cool to see that it's quite a diverse portfolio of organizations. It's not just one or two, it's not the same names that you might see year in and year out—not that there'd be anything wrong if that were the case. But it's kind of neat to see that you're almost like seeding lots of different approaches. You're giving more people opportunities to try a modality. How do you think about who to bring into the tent?
Michael: Well, I would say of the 11 or 12 organizations right now, most of them have been five, eight-year veterans of this thing. So I will admit I'm not putting in a lot of bandwidth to seek out new organizations. I get invited by all of them to go visit their programs. In fact, I had a meeting this morning in midtown with Save the Music, who tomorrow are officially going independent from the whole Paramount Plus/VH1 connection.
They're doing extraordinary work, and all these organizations are doing great work, and I wish I could give them all more. But yeah, every couple of years, some new things hit my radar. I try and give it some attention. Some years I might give a little bit more to one organization—like when Little Kids Rock, I had a meeting, and they showed me incredible work that they were doing. I made a bigger commitment to them. I think four years in a row, I gave them $25,000 each year instead of the $10,000. And I was able to squeeze a little bit more out. So I try to play around, but I like it being a portfolio. The correlation between them all is they do focus on underserved kids and communities. It's music, but as you said, the modality or the approach, whether it's within a school or it's an afterschool program, whether it's a national program or really local, I like to have a little diversity in there. It's a mutual fund of music-related charities.
Lawrence: Yeah, you can fan the flames a little also and see what ignites. So this year, what made Patti Smith the choice? It seems like it's a little bit of a full circle for you, given how you started this conversation.
Michael: Patti, she's done five or six of our tributes as a performer. She's just one of the icons of New York that's a very generous, philanthropic person with her time. Having her on our shows every year, there's a connection because she's, if you will, prolific in a certain way. She has got the connection to Springsteen, she's got the connection to The Stones, The Who, R.E.M. She performed on all those tributes and has these relationships, the intertwining of their lives.
And so I'd been begging—I'm not begging her. I've been, it's called bothering her. It was almost like, you know, I tried to get Elvis Costello a couple of times, but he's told me to, you know, "I'm not dead yet," in a somewhat respectful way. I'll get Elvis someday.
Lawrence: I mean, you got David Byrne, you'll get Elvis. (laughter)
Michael: No, David was terrific. And all of these have been—I want permission from the honoree. I do not want to do this against their wishes. Dolly Parton turned me down. She said, "I don't want it. Nope. I don't want you to do it." Stevie Wonder's group—I've been wanting to get Stevie—they were like, "Nope, we got other plans in New York." And I haven't seen it, but they just, so I respect that. We can do cover nights, but this is way more than a cover evening. We really want the honoree to—we'd love the honoree to be there, but we want them to know how much the community of musicians also love them as people and their work, and it just brings a certain kind of chemistry to the evening that is just special rather than just a tribute show.
Patti eventually succumbed to my...
Lawrence: Your wily charms? (laughter)
Michael: Like, I would say more nagging emails, but yeah. She comes to City Winery every once in a while for certain performances or shows, and so I got her to agree. The timing worked out well. I remember the call—either I was in Europe or she was in Europe, but I was in a hotel room and got to really chat through this a bit with her, and she gave me a couple of little marching orders of some direction, which was cool. Then when I made my first mock-up of the poster, of the artwork, I just picked a photo from the internet and did this. She goes, "Nah, I got a great photographer, Lynn Goldsmith. She's got a book coming out, and I want you to connect with her. She's got some really good stuff."
Patti's been more involved, if you will. She hasn't said yay or nay to any of the artists that are on. I know there have been a couple of big smiley faces that have come my way. On some level, I'm a little nervous because I want her to be really super pleased with the show and that it's at a high level. I'm trying to figure out right now who's the best person to read some Arthur Rimbaud. I have this on my to-do list right here. Like I gotta find the right person with the right voice, actor or something, to really do the right poem. And I want it to be an artistic celebration, 'cause that's who Patti is. If I could afford projections, like we're at the Sphere in Vegas, the artwork and her love of drawing and art would be wonderful to have on there, but it's Carnegie, so we can't. But I do want to make it a little different than just a song cycle.
Lawrence: Could you pull back the curtain a little bit and talk about how you go about assembling not only the lineup but the house band? Because in most cases, both of those things are pretty stunning.
Michael: So in that initial call I had with Patti, she said, "Listen, I really want you to work with Tony on the show. I'd like him to be the musical director."
Lawrence: Tony Shanahan for people who—
Michael: Tony Shanahan. Yeah, who's been a long-time member of the band. We're friends. I got to give a lot of credit to Shlomo Lipetz, who has been my programmer at the City Winery since day one. He started as an intern—that's a great plug for people who want to do internships. He started as an intern 18 years ago and has grown. He's running the entire programming of all City Wineries nationally. And then he does this show with me, and he and Tony are pals too. And so like, that was the easiest yes one could ever give.
I'll give Tony the credit for the connection to Flea, the connection to Benmont Tench from Tom Petty's band. Steve Jordan has been a musical director for me for a bunch of different shows we've done, and he obviously got the call to fill in for the Rolling Stones. And Charlie Sexton too. The band is over the top. We could all just go listen to that band all night. It started with Patti saying, "Let's work with Tony and have Tony do it." So that's been great.
There's still going to be a couple probable surprises to join the band, is my guess, and then there were a couple kind of obvious go-tos on the lineup. Like, of course we had to call Michael Stipe. I almost couldn't do this without Michael, and that's been great, 'cause he's been just a warm, sweet connection for a while. And obviously his deep, profound relationship with Patti—we almost had to get permission from him before going to Patti, (laughter) not really, but almost.
And then Shlomo, to his credit—for every one confirmation to perform, you have to send out 30 or 40 requests. There's a thousand musicians who want to play on the show, but not everyone's in the country. Not everyone's able to make it. Some of them are in a studio finishing another project or on tour. So to get the jigsaw puzzle right and just having availability is a big part of the luck of the draw. But the good news is there are so many artists who want to do it that ultimately the bill comes together very nicely and easily.
Lawrence: The way you're talking about—so night of the show, which type of impresario are you? Are you the Bill Graham who's still running around pulling your hair out and tormenting people night of show, or do you get to be a fan sitting in the audience and it's sort of Shlomo's worry? (laughter) What's the night like?
Michael: I don't know what kind of promoter I am. I'm certainly more on the anal side than the sit-back. I've never sat in the audience for the show. Now I've done that for a couple of our shows I do at Town Hall, occasionally for Steve Earle, where all I have to do is start the show with an announcement, which is really just bringing Steve up, and it's his show. And then usually I still like to sit on, or stand on the side of the stage. But a couple of those I've actually forced myself to go into the audience and try and enjoy it.
Like anything, if you're a filmmaker, it's not the easiest thing to sit in your screening and watch. I get agitated. Even when I'm at other shows that I haven't produced at all, I have this natural need to go side of stage and tell somebody something. It's funny. I'll walk into a building anywhere, and I'm checking out the exit signs and the lights and the path of egress, like I'm kind of acting as a building department supervisor and just checking in, 'cause that's where my eyes go. That's how I'm built. And in a theater, it's the same thing. So anyway, I enjoy, I actually am more relaxed on the side of stage than I would be in a seat. There's no real need for me to be side of stage. I do believe I've got everything coordinated. I'm more of a distraction.
Even at City Winery, like, I don't need to be here. Don't make me make drinks. Don't put me in the kitchen. I like to cook, but if I'm behind the box office, I'm letting people in for free. If I'm behind the bar, I'm giving it away for free. I'm more of a negative being on site.
One of the things that has been a tradition that I love doing, and it's a job I have given myself side of stage: Year one, Joni Mitchell was going to show up. I always intended that the honoree was to come. And the day before, Joni literally couldn't come. She was out West, and her cat had gotten very ill, and she couldn't make it. She sent at 6 p.m., two hours before showtime, 50 yellow roses. Each rose just said, "Thanks, Joni." And, you know, obviously the person at the florist wrote the note, but she sent that for me to give to each of the artists.
Lawrence: Wow.
Michael: So every year, I get 50 yellow roses and I hand them out to each artist as they come off the stage. And it's kind of just become a tradition. That's my only job, but I get to stand next to Springsteen, who watched the whole show from the side of the stage, Graham Nash. For me, these are moments where I just feel connected, even though I really don't have an important role to play.
Lawrence: Isn't it wonderful having Joni Mitchell back in the world?
Michael: Oh my God.
Lawrence: I never would have guessed. I wouldn't have predicted it, but it's so amazing. It's such a gift. It's such a gift.
Michael: Thank Brandi Carlile for helping pull her out of her shell, who's just a big mitzvah.
Lawrence: Can you tell me a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, would you share a story or two from the rehearsal shows at City Winery? They've become such a sort of storied, fabled thing.
Michael: Yeah, I mean, they really are a rehearsal. I usually introduce it and go something like, "Thank you all for coming. This truly is a rehearsal. It's possible we're going to start a song and we're going to try and go in order of the set. Not every artist who's on the show tomorrow at the second-best venue in New York, tomorrow night at Carnegie, not everyone is there or here. So if that's the case, someone from the band will probably sing the song, but we're going to try and do it in order, but it's a rehearsal. So there probably are going to be some screw-ups. And if you don't mind, we'll be starting songs over, and you're here to participate in the process of what we're doing for tomorrow night."
And that really is what it is. The night of is wonderful, but at the rehearsal, they're sound-checking all day. Then they stay for dinner and maybe go into a hotel and come back. But there's all kinds of this incredible interaction backstage, talking. And you start seeing some artists talking to another artist and saying, "Hey, listen, why don't you sit in with the band for this?" And so all of a sudden, some new configurations happen at the day of the rehearsal and the rehearsal show that were not part of the plan the day before, and we'll see if it happens on the next day, that night. But you definitely see some interesting new interactions that are happening.
Part of it is also the interpretation of these songs that are now being expressed by somebody in their own voice—who you love anyway with their own material—but the way they're interpreting the honoree's work always shines some new light on what the intention was of that song. And that part to me is one of the most—I'm getting a little goosebumps thinking about it. 'Cause when you hear a song that you've been very familiar with done by a new artist, but not just trying to replicate it, but actually giving it some nuance that maybe you didn't see, but they did, it just takes it to another level.
And the rehearsal is where they're truly now either premiering it truly for the first time in front of an audience. During the day, it's just fellow musicians during the true rehearsal. But the rehearsal show, they're actually now able to gauge reaction. And the beauty of City Winery or any small venue—big plug for small venues—is when you're 15 feet away from the audience and you can give back the energy, it really feeds upon itself.
And so there's no better reaction and understanding of how well you're doing or how you should spin it, whether it's vocal or the instrumental component, so that you're actually seeing the live effect of the interpretation. And there's something chemical there too, which I—Art Garfunkel once, and I'm not trying to throw out names, I'd never heard this before. He had all that throat operation stuff. It happened for a while. And I get a call from his managers going, "Hey, Arty would like to have lunch with you tomorrow." And I'm like, "What? Art Garfunkel wants to have lunch with me? Why, what did I do?"
Lawrence: Am I in trouble? (laughter)
Michael: "I owe you money? Am I in trouble?" And they're like, "No, he just wants to talk to you about something." And I'm like, "Absolutely. Oh my God. Yes." We had done a few things before, but I wasn't friends. He's part of Simon and Garfunkel. That was one of my first records, of course.
So he shows up, he's dressed in like a trench coat and a baseball cap. And he looked like an accountant, and my staff had no idea who he was. He was like an old Jewish accountant. Anyway, he comes in, we sit down, and I'm like, "Why the hell do you want to—it's not about the free chicken salad, you know, we're having." And he's like, "No, he goes, you know, I've had these issues with my throat, and I need to sing, but I need to sing in front of a live audience because I can't hit certain notes alone. I need the adrenaline, and after 40 years of my craft, if I can have 50 people or more, I can harness the adrenaline to hit other notes."
And then he goes something like this, and I'm going to totally butcher it, but he goes, "Like in 'Scarborough Fair,' you know, are you going," and then he goes, "no, I can't hit 'parsley, sage.'" And he's like singing. And he's like, "Now I can get another bar up if I can have an audience. 'Cause I can harness the adrenaline. I need an audience. So whoever's playing tomorrow night or the next night, is it okay if I come and open?" And I'm like, "Duh, it's okay. Sure, I'll ask Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth or—I don't, it doesn't matter. Sure." And...
Lawrence: That's a great double bill. (laughter)
Michael: Yeah, that'd be great. But I forgot. I think actually he wanted to come for Shawn Colvin, and then that couldn't work. But I never had fathomed this whole thing in my life. I get it now. Having that energy and feedback from the audience that you're going in the right direction allows the artist to actually generate even a little more chemical reaction, which in turn goes into the music, which in turn goes right out, whether it's the amplifier or PA back to the audience.
And there's an incredible feedback loop that is what creates the magic in those moments. So having the rehearsal—to your question—with the live audience really does allow the artists to truly craft the song. And it's one song, right? It's three to seven minutes, depending. And really take note. And then when it gets to Carnegie the next night, it's just that much better. It's an incredible process.
Lawrence: It's really interesting that you tell that specific anecdote, because I think for anybody that questions—and you hear it a lot anytime somebody from the classic rock generation puts out an album or announces another tour—there's always the chattering that says, "Why do they still do it? What are they still doing this for?" And it's like, it doesn't take much imagination to say, "Wait. You don't think that being 70, 80 years old and being up on that stage and that energy, you don't think that's why they're still able to be alive and vibrant?" Like, don't discount the fact that that energy is actually a nurturing, powerful energy. I mean, come on.
Michael: I saw, I remember I went to the Blue Note towards the end of Dave Brubeck's life. He was 90 and change. They literally wheelchaired him up to the stage, and my first reaction was, "Oh my goodness, he's not going to be able to—I can't believe I paid a lot of money." And he sits down, and it took a little bit, about a minute and change. Next thing you know, his fingers are really moving. He's playing beautifully. He's coming to life. He just gained energy. Twenty years of youth entered his soul, and it was just beautiful. And I have seen that so many times, and my goodness, I mean, to let them do what they can do for as long as they can—that's the way to go.
Lawrence: My analog to that story is McCoy Tyner. Those last few years of McCoy's life, I would go see him, and they'd basically, similar thing, they'd walk him to the stage, get him to the bench, and every time I'd think, "Oh, this is gonna be rough," and then that left hand would fire up and that right hand would start going, and it was like, "Oh, he's in there. He needs this. This is important for him."
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lawrence: Early on in the conversation, you were talking about with the Knit early days, offering coffee, offering tea, and I've seen in other places, you talked about having simple food and stuff. And it strikes me that I was going to ask you how your notions of presenting the live music experience have changed over the years. But what it seems to me is that you've just developed the resources to do what you were always doing. Like it wasn't just "buy a ticket, come to a show." It was "have a drink, come inside, be part of this community of musicians and artists." Am I wrong there? Tell me from your perspective.
Michael: It's going to sound a lot more crass. But without selling booze and food, we can't pay the bills. The old axiom in live entertainment businesses, you know, the profits are in the popcorn. Big sports, it's parking and popcorn. Most of the box office is going to the artist, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent directly to the person on stage. And then that 20 percent little margin is going into production and marketing. So effectively, whether it's a $10 ticket or a $500 ticket, we don't see any of that.
So the only way for us to pay our bills and rent and utilities and all of these things is when a patron actually patronizes the house. And it's why most of the jazz clubs and comedy clubs have always had minimums, because they needed that. We only recently have been experimenting with the idea of a minimal minimum just because we need everyone to help contribute to that, 'cause that's the only way as a for-profit. This is our only source of being able to pay overhead.
A nonprofit, a Lincoln Center, they can get donors and these other things to help offset. Live entertainment commercially needs people to drink that crappy beer. In our case, I'm hoping we elevated it to really good wine and some great food to pair with wine.
Lawrence: Yeah, I don't mean to be argumentative, but I would think that you're doing so much more than the bare minimum. You create an experience, and whether that's because by putting a little more into the food and beverage, there's a better margin—I would never fault anybody for that—but you're not just saying, "Here's some stuff, I'm going to charge you $35 a plate because you're a captive audience." It's a materially different approach that you have.
Michael: Yes and no. I mean, again, I don't want to fall into the camp of just shoving out burgers and fries because we know we can. We absolutely—I mean, the one book, and maybe the only book I'll ever do, is called Indulge Your Senses. And the whole premise is, I feel my responsibility, or our thesis of a venue, is to indulge all the sensory components of everyone that's in the room. And that's my responsibility for the smells and the sights and the feel and the sound.
So we got to pay attention to the material choices in the room, and we got to pay attention to the food that is going out there and how good the sound system is and make sure the sightlines are amazing and all of the elements. We're really, truly just a medium, City Winery, between the artist and how their sensory component is working and the audience. So the better the food, the more authentic the wine, drinking wine out of a glass, not a plastic cup—all of these components are what gives it a more real, authentic feel.
And then, I would say—I'm not trying to plug the book—but the idea, this is also an antidote for all the technology in our life. When you're living on a screen, the more that we can indulge all of these sensory components is really our job and what makes it precious and special and what can't then be duplicated with the digital facsimile. Film, unfortunately, can perfectly be viewed, streamed, whatever at home. Live music, you can listen to it in any format you want, but to actually experience it, it just doesn't work on a screen the same way, no matter how good it gets, no matter 3D goggles—we get there.
AI is wonderful around large language models, terrific for maybe copying sound and duplicating and ripping off certain sounds. It can do nice work with art, it can do wonders with words, it has yet to figure out smell and the sense of taste and feel. And thank God, 'cause, you know, I'm—AI, I don't want to replicate our world of live music.
What we're doing is still extremely precious in terms of value creation and also really critical to the ecosystem of artists that aren't making the big dollars from publishing and need to perform live. The live experience is their main source of revenue.
Lawrence: To the extent that you're comfortable saying, do you have any dream artists on your wishlist that you'd like to see for Music Of?
Michael: In terms of the honorees?
Lawrence: Yeah. Or are you taking requests? (laughter)
Michael: Yeah! Who do you think? Who should I have?
Lawrence: One that I think would be interesting, but it's kind of weird to think how it would manifest, is Pink Floyd because they're so unique. I actually am curious about R.E.M. I feel like they're a band that needs their moment again. I don't want them to become forgotten.
Michael: I did R.E.M., and by the way, what worked out for sort of the history books is they all came and they all did a surprise encore. And it was the last live R.E.M. performance, certainly in New York, but I think it was officially the last time they played together.
I'll tell you my list right here. I just pulled it up on my phone. I've got Steely Dan, the Dead, Carole King, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Beach Boys, Jay-Z, Beastie Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Eagles, Hall & Oates, Tom Waits—big time—Creedence. The Dead...
Lawrence: The Dead writes itself. Isn't that an amazing one? Because now there are so many bands that people finally admit to liking the Dead, whereas for years nobody would admit that.
Michael: Exactly, exactly. There are so many. By the time I get through these, Radiohead are gonna be ready for theirs. This is a gift that will keep on coming. I certainly will not be able to do them all in my lifetime, and I want the honorees to be alive if possible, and it's such a fun gig. I gotta say, I feel very lucky to be thought of in any kind of philanthropic way around this. I mean, yes, of course we're giving money to charity, but I couldn't pay to have more fun. This is such a great, fun, extracurricular thing to do.
Lawrence: The Beastie Boys would be fascinating. Hip-hop in general, to have this treatment done would be really fascinating, and they're a great band because they're so versatile musically. I'll tell you, before I let you go, one thing I wanted to say was, I want to see a Sonny Sharrock show, maybe an Ask the Ages get performed with some other music around it to flesh out the show. I could think of like a Nels Cline or a Mary Halvorson. There are so many great guitarists now that straddle avant-garde and rock that I think that would be a great night.
Michael: Sonny was one of the most lovely souls I've ever had a chance to encounter. Just what a beautiful man. I did a radio show around his work of a bunch of digital datapes I found of shows with Mitch Goldman on WKCR a couple of years ago. But, oh my God, we did so many, it must have been a hundred concerts at the Knitting Factory, and he was just always smiling.
Believe me, I've got my complaints from musicians, and many of them very deservedly so. Sonny never, ever had anything negative. He just was a beautiful soul.
I did a six-artist tour around Europe, under the banner Knitting Factory. I did a bunch of those, but he was on one of them. And I had this concept: I was paying every single musician—and this is something that came from Marc Ribot, I think—just like this egalitarian pay system. So I forgot what it was. Again, none of it was what anyone deserved, but it was all that we had. I think it was like a thousand dollars cash a week per musician. If it was a trio, they got three grand. If it was a quintet, six—it was just being this cooperative concept. Everything that came in was doled out.
Four weeks goes by on tour, I'm struggling, I'm not getting some money, these things are not easy. At the end of the tour, Sonny wants to have a coffee, I forgot where we were, Barcelona or something, and he goes, "Um, so Michael, did you learn anything on this tour?" And I'm like, "Oh my God, so much. I mean, I gotta make sure that the venue gets all the backline confirmed a day before." No, he's like, "Well, how about on the pay thing? Like the other three groups, it was a four-group tour. The other three groups, when the articles came out in local press, El País for the show yesterday in Barcelona, Michael, who was the, what was the name? I know you can't speak very good Spanish, but like you can, what was the headline? What photo did they use almost every time?"
And I go, "Oh, it was you, Sonny." He goes, "You know, so you had this system of, I got a thousand, and a drummer for this one trio no one's ever really ever heard of—really good, I love them—but like, do you think in the end that this was the fairest concept for paying an artist?" And I'm like, "Well, not really. You were the draw of most of it."
Sonny's like, "Well, just I want you to just think like that." There's no artist who would ever have that conversation with me. Maybe, you know, Zorn was very egalitarian and super fair that way. Zorn actually, when Naked City first performed, there were five members of the band including him. He divided up all the door into four. He didn't take any. He was the only band leader who ever did it. His whole idea was, "These guys are doing my music. It'll eventually come to me. But these guys were working." I mean, that beautiful soul, right?
But Sonny, he could have said something before the tour. He could have—it was the last day—just like, "Michael, just, you know," and he didn't want anything, he just wanted me to think about it. I mean, what a beautiful man that guy was.
