Editor's note: This will be a semi-regularly monthly offering, as Chris Zahn (manager of The Disco Biscuits and former Wetlands talent buyer) enters into some candid discussions with other managers in the scene. Our inaugural installment offers Chris' discussion with Jon Topper of moe. You may reach Chris at chris@discobiscuits.com.

Manager's Corner

Name: Jon Topper
Company: Top Artist Productions
Partners: Dan Getz
Clients: moe., Live from the Wetlands Compilation, Fatboy Records
Graduated: SUNY Buffalo 1991 Double Major History and American Studies
Favorite Bands/Performers: moe., Grisman, Dead. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Harry Chapin, Gibb Droll, Primus, Beatles, The Who, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen.
Number of years in the Music Buisness: 9
First Gig Promoted: Sonic Garden/Savoy Truffle at The Scrapyard in Buffalo sometime in 1990
College Band I Played in: The Phil Band(Original Music)
How I met moe.: college friends
How I became the manager: Al asked me if i wanted to help with the band and I gradually worked my way into the managers role.

How do you deal with your band members personal lives?

There's a fine line that sometimes you have to cross. An artist's family and his/her own personal health are two issues that can stand in the way of the band's development. When personal issues come up it is usually dealt with in a meeting with everyone. The artist has lots of pressure on him because so many people count on him to make a living, including the other band members. Some issues can not be helped, like a death in the family or illness, but some can be planned out, like marriage and the honeymoon. Everyone in the moe. organization, from the band to the crew to the office, looks at what is going on and has the consideration to discuss with everyone in advance when they need time off. If Chris Burrows (moe.'s Production Manager) needs a day off during a tour than Skip (moe.'s Tour Manager) will need to help out with production, and if I need to go away, then my partner Dan Getz will have to deal with office issues.

What's your stance on drugs and drinking in the band?

Every manager has to deal with this issue differently. It goes by each band member's personality. My only words of advice to any band is that people pay to see a good show, and being on stage on drugs or drunk only enhances the show for the performer. If you want to do a gig and get all messed up, have a private party.

Do you go online and chat with the fans? Do you talk to fans at the shows?

Yes! I voice my input on the moe-list. I try to go to as many shows as posible, but my job keeps me in the office. But I get to talk to fans all the time. The fans help me put together tour plans. Last year I kept reading the moe-l and kept getting e-mails about not playing enough multiple-night stands. This tour moe. is doing multiple nights in DC, Boulder, LA, San Fran, Portland OR and Bulington VT, and in the spring we're looking at possibly doing multiples in Boston, Chapel Hill and Athens.

What do you feel is wrong with the Jam band scene?

The three biggest problems I see in the scene:

1) Fans of the scene can be overly vocal in their criticism of the bands they do or do not like. If you do not like a band, then do not go see them. You also don't need to say bad thing about them - your answer should be, it's not for me. I can not tell you how many times I have seen people rip apart moe. or The Disco Biscuits or Strangefolk or SCI on-line, and it boggles my mind that the same people can do this year round, and that they spend as much time as they do dissing bands they do not like.

2) People wait to the last minute to buy tickets instead of showing their support in advance. This keeps the bands on a lower level than they could be at, and sometimes the band will not get any help from the club until halfway though the show. An example of this is when moe. played New Years Eve at Tramps three years ago, and the promoter would not even take my phone call because up until 5 PM moe. had only sold about 100 tickets. When the band and crew got to the club, there where no drinks in the back room and we couldn't even decorate the room. But by the time the show was over, the promoter was trying to get me to commit to another show. moe. has had shows where they have had close to 1000 people buy tix via walk up on a single night. This relates back to the radio question, because lots of bands that get radio play don't have this problem with their fans.

3) Jambands have severe problems selling albums. The fans generally don't support the studio efforts of the bands, because they trade tapes and get all the live music. What they are not getting is the chance to hear how creative these bands can be. The sound that the bands try to get in the studio is not always the same as a show. It costs a lot of money to make an album, even for bands that are making very little. What the fans will find is that after a couple of efforts, bands will often break up because no one is buying their music and they are not make a living doing what they love. This also comes back to radio again - when you get on the radio, people who have no idea about the tape trading scene go out and buy the music because they like what they hear. I think that if it were possible, most bands would love to stay underground and have careers like the Dead, Phish, or Ani Difranco (the latter two of whom chart on college radio stations), but that kind of career happens to a very low percentage of artists.

Does commercial radio really matter to a band like this?

Yes. Bands like moe. do not need to be number 1 on the charts, but radio helps bring in new fans and pay the bills. An example of how radio can help; when moe. did their first tour on SONY and we were having some financial problems, the label's answer was raise the ticket price. Fiona Apple was touring at the same time as moe. and was getting $20 to $30 a ticket in the same venues moe. played. Why she can get so much and moe. can't is because; 1)We would not want to charge that much, and 2)We do not have radio to get the music to people who have no clue who the band is and are not part of any tape trading community. moe. counts on its fans to bring new people. I would not pay $20 in Phoenix to see a band I never heard of playing at a club where I normally pay $10 to see a band.

What's your stand on audio and video taping and do you own the rights to your webcasts?

We have given away so much video and audio that as we put more and more money into the show we want the visual to be left to the fans' imaginations. We do own the rights to our own webcasts. And we do allow fans to audio tape and freely trade recordings of our shows.

Describe your relationships with the promoters? Many managers let their agent book the dates and never speak to the promoters. How hands on are you?

I have a great relationship with some of the promoters and speak to them frequently. And some promoters I talk to once a year. I feel lucky that I work with an agent who does not mind the relationships that I have with promoters. There are some agents who feel left out when the manager is talking to promoters. But having relationships with promoters can also backfire. If a manager needs to make a move in a market and doesn't use the same promoter he used last time, the manager gets a call from an angry promoter instead of an angry promoter calling the agent.

I remember booking moe. at Wetlands for New Year's and we wrote up the contract on a cocktail napkin? Or was it a dollar bill? I forget.

Our New Year's contract was on a cocktail napkin and our anniversary show deal was on a dollar bill. Not too many promoters work that way.

Does the band REALLY need that tour bus? Tell us about the trials and tribulations of budgeting a tour. When is enough enough?

Yes, the band does need the tour bus. The band has spent 8 years on the road living like pigs, and the crew has spent about 4 years now. When you make so little, a good nights sleep and a safe ride is not much to ask for. It's a shame that more bands can't afford one.

Why did moe. do Summer Sessions? Wasn't it rough to only play for an hour in each market? What does a die-hard moe. fan do? Many of them have no interest in the other bands? What were the positive aspects of this tour? Will you do it again?

Summer Session was great for many reasons. The bands played outside all summer, they got to hang out with people who understand what they go through on a daily basis, and they got to jam with musicians who they only get to see a few times a year at festivals. To me, the fan who was disappointed because his/her favorite band did not play more than an hour is a closed-minded fan. Summer Session wasn't about the length of time each band had, it was about catching moments like when Allen Woody played mandolin with moe., or when Warren Haynes did an acoustic song with Gibb. I would say to a die hard moe. fan who does not think these moments are not worth their time and are going to bring down the spirit of the show, do not spend your money on the band in the summer. There will be plenty of 3+ hours of music in the fall. Will moe. do Summer Session again? I do not have an answer yet.

Do you go to the studio and watch the recording sessions? What input have you made in the past to the recordings?

I spend as much time at a recording session as possible. For one thing, I enjoy the studio experience. I also have a really open relationship with moe. and I feel if something is wrong or I have an idea, then I have no problem telling them. I think that the more time moe. spends in the studio, the more comfortable they feel about having other people around.

After Sony dropped moe. you released your original demo 'Fatboy'. Tell us about this back to basics appraoch for the band. Any offers from other labels?

When we did our deal with Sony we kept the rights to all the previously recorded material, and we also did a distribution deal with RED. This has left us in a good position to get old and new material out to the record stores. We are working on a live album that is being engineered by a great engineer named Bill Emmons, and mixed by John Siket. This album will come out on the moe. label Fatboy, and it should be released by mid-spring. We are also currently discussing with several labels about our next studio release. This does not mean we will sign with anyone, we are just keeping our options open.

After being in the music business for close to ten years are you more or less into music today than when you started?

Every year I discover more music and become a fan of more bands.