by Chris Zahn

THE PLAYER-MANAGER

Remember the player-manager? No, I ain't talkin about them guys who played ball, retired and then managed. I'm talkin about those superhuman men who played the game AND managed---AT THE SAME TIME!!! Whoa nellie! It may be a dying breed in sports but in the musical kingdom its more popular than ever. I spoke with two "player-managers" in the biz--Jamie Shields from The New Deal and Dave Hoffman from Ulu. Their dedication and stamina is to be admired. They don't just sit on the bench and pinch-hit once every blue moon---These guys go all nine innings BUT they keep their egos in check and know when to go to the bullpen for help. They have great instincts for the game. You be the ump.

Why do you self-manage the band?

JAMIE(TND): Actually, the band is managed by all three members of the New Deal. As we run our own record label (Sound + Light) together, we oversee the direction of the New Deal together as well. As well, the three of us generally feel that nobody can understand or care about the band as much as we do, so we leave the direction in our hands.

DAVE(ULU): I self-manage the band because a) We have not found a qualified person outside of the band to do it yet and b) I have almost 10 years experience in the music industry. I've worked in almost every aspect of the industry. Including my present day gig at BMI.

Do you also do the booking?

JAMIE(TND): Up until about 3 months ago we handled all the bookings. I usually handled the U.S. side of things and Darren (the drummer) handled the Canadian side. Things got moving pretty quickly with the New Deal and we found ourselves getting bogged down in the day-to-day activities of being agents. Booking shows was nothing new to us (Dan was One Step Beyond's agent for a year), but we made the decision that we would rather focus on the band itself rather than on being agents so we joined forces with the Agency Group in Canada and commenced a six-month trial period with Gamelan in the U.S.

DAVE(ULU): The booking duties are split between myself and Scott (keys). We have worked with booking agents on occasion.

Have you ever been on the verge of a nervous breakdown juggling so many responsibilities? How do you keep sane doing this?

JAMIE(TND): It got to the point where I was making upwards of 40 phone calls a day with little or no time left for business other than booking. With that issue out of the way, we have found we can keep sane by splitting the work three ways, with each one handling what he does best, and the peripheral issues handled by any one of us. For example, Darren is the "short-term" man. He fixes a lot of problems that creep into daily life that are usually the bane of any manager. Hotels, rentals, etc. He also is in charge of soliciting press for the band. Dan is the "middle term" man and deals with things such as our website, graphic design, some promotion and our relationships with distributors and such. I am the "long-term" man and focus more on developing the tours (with the agents), plotting six-month touring plans, accounting and our email list. The only way we keep sane is in our complete faith that what we are doing will pay off one day and in knowing that the others care as much about what we're doing as I do.

DAVE(ULU): I'm not sane at all. As a matter of fact I'm quite insane. I've never had a full-fledged nervous breakdown, but I've been close. Luckily I have an incredible relationship with my bandmates and my other friends and family and they all keep me in check.

Does handling the business side of things interfere with your creative time? How do you stay focused?

JAMIE(TND): Yes, it does. We run a recording studio and ostensibly have unlimited recording time, but have been recently been limited in our recordings because of band business. But, it's a business and business has to be taken care of and we have chosen to relinquish the creative time in favor of creative control.

DAVE(ULU): Handling the business side DOES interfere with my creative time. It's very tough to stay focused. Especially at the big gigs. The ones that I'm sitting behind the drums counting people in the audience and seeing how many people are signing the mailing list. But again, I usually turn to Aaron (sax) who's the big brother of the band. He calms me down before the show. I have a mental routine that I go through to get myself in music mode and not business mode. Plus, if I'm a mental case on a given night, the other guys in the band will handle getting paid, CD sales etc... I'm much better at separating my brain now than I used to be

As a club booker i preferred dealing with the artists over managers and agents. Do you find this is the case with most club bookers?

JAMIE(TND): Yes, but within reason. Most club bookers that we deal with personally are usually friends of ours and we keep our relationship personal instead of passing him on to a stranger. Sadly, we have found that some bookers (not yourself) like to deal with the band because they feel they can control the band better and perhaps pay them a little less. I think they try and play the "emotion" card, as it were, by dangling the threat of not getting a gig in the future or whatever. With an agent, there is no such emotion because the agent will take the band elsewhere. If we can, we prefer to pass new bookers on to our agent, and keep the ones we know and trust on a personal level with us. DAVE(ULU): Well Chris, I felt that dealing with you in particular was always a pleasure. I don't think that there are many Chris Zahns out there. Thank the lord Jake is as cool as you are. I think that a lot clubs (especially when we started out) tried to skim money from us and take advantage of us a little bit. Not too much...but a little. The scene needs more Zahns, Szufnarowskis and Tim Walthers. I think that a lot of clubs don't like talking to artists cause they think I'm just another musician who has no clue about the business. Although now that we've established ourselves a bit more, that's changed.

Have you ever been approached by any managers offering a deal?

JAMIE(TND): Yes and no. People who do any due diligence on the band quickly find out that we are self-managed and have no immediate plans to change that.

DAVE(ULU): We have been approached by people wanting to manage us but nobody that has been qualified to take over the reigns completely. WE ARE LOOKING!!

Do you take an extra cut being the manager or is it all split even?

JAMIE(TND): As we all share the management repsonsibilities, we split that money evenly.

DAVE(ULU): I don't take an extra cut of the money. We split the money evenly. The logic behind that is I'm a fool :-). No, we all do our part. Scott and Justin do plenty of the business stuff as well. I'm the just the foreman.

Do you recommend most bands self-manage for a period before turning to outside management?

JAMIE(TND): Yes. In fact, I recommend that bands think twice about getting a manager at all. While there are those who rise above the normal crowd, most have very limited duties and are not supermen. You can do almost anything a manager does, with a few exceptions. Managers can handle the business side of things (books, etc.) and managers can help you plot the vision of the band (which you should have anyway if you're planning on becoming a successful band) and managers can help obtain record contracts (unless you start your own label and plan to release your product on that). Other than that, any artists can cover many duties routinely passed on to a manager.

DAVE(ULU): I certainly think a band should manage themselves for a period before turning to outside management. If not, than how will they know if they're being taken for a ride or not?

Could you see yourself managing this band if it got twice as popular?

JAMIE(TND): As the band becomes more and more popular, the groundwork becomes stronger and stronger and somebody with different talents may be brought in to flesh out the management core, but at no point do I foresee us relinquishing control over the direction of the New Deal.

DAVE(ULU): I can see myself managing the band if we became twice as popular but I don't want to. I would though. But I think something would have to give and that thing may just be my brain.

Being manager do you feel you have the freedom to make important artistic decisions like direction the bands sound is going in or changing parts of songs etc...

JAMIE(TND): Kinda moot, as all the band members are managers in this case!

DAVE(ULU): We all have the freedom to make decisions regarding the music. Everything we do is democratic. We are very good about that. ulu does not have a leader.

If the band broke up today would you consider managing as a career option?

JAMIE(TND): No. First I'd cry and sleep for about a week ;-)

DAVE(ULU): If the band broke up today I do think managing would be a career option.

Are you given full authority in making booking decisions or is it by committee? How does it work with recording decisions?

JAMIE(TND): If somebody can make any type of argument as to why we should play a gig, we will usually play the gig. Case in point: We played at Berkfest in Aug. '99. We had one other show (Wetlands) the next night. Neither of them paid well. Yet, we drove 10 hours from Toronto to play both these shows because the argument was made (correctly) that it would open up the band to a larger U.S. audience. As a result, that decision has paid off handsomely. We are open to any concept that might improve the band.

DAVE(ULU): The band trusts me in making most decisions. Any decisions that are "big" I would run them by everyone before making it. I would say, "listen, we've been offered such and such, I think we should do it because blah blah blah...what do you think?" Usually everyone agrees with me.

As a player-manager what advice can you give to young bands who are self-managed?

JAMIE(TND): Don't take rejection personally.

DAVE(ULU): I would say to young band player/managers...make sure you're first priority is playing. If you're constantly unhappy with your performance as a musician your managing skills will go down the drain. Also, MAILING LIST!!!! And keep a band fund from the first gig. Make sure you're happy. If you're not happy something's wrong. Being in a band is one of the greatest things. Even though I may have made it seem that I'm unhappy being both player and manager...I couldn't think of many more gratifying moments than when my phone rings and boom...a small dream becomes a reality.

THE NEW DEAL are:

Jamie Shields - keyboard
Dan Kurtz - bass
Darren Shearer - drums, beatbox

All three run Sound + Light Records.
"This is Live" (debut album) on Sound + Light/Mo'Funk

You can check out the New Deal at: http://www.sound-and-light.com

CONTACT: jamie@sound-and-light.com

ULU are:

Aaron Gardner - tenor sax/flute
Justin Wallace - bass
David Hoffman - drums
Scott Chasolen - keys
Luca Benedetti - guitar

They are set to release a new limited edition live CD on the Phoenix Presents label. Their self-titled debut CD is out now on Neva Recordings.

You can check out Ulu at: http://www.ulu.net

CONTACT: uludave@aol.com