Mike Kappus began his career in his hometown of Eau Claire, WI. During college he promoted regional bands with friends and became a licensed booking agent in 1970 at age 19. Just over a year later he was invited to join an agency in Milwaukee. In his five years working full time as an agent there, he also bought talent for several local showcase clubs and a few festivals and universities. As a talent buyer and promoter he booked artists as diverse as Asleep At The Wheel, Jimmy Cliff, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley…Read on for more powerful names in music.
SVR: What do you do?
Mike: I am a booking agent, manager and occasionally have taken on roles in record production. I started The Rosebud Agency in 1976 with the intention of offering greater service to an intentionally limited number of artists whose musical integrity is a stronger factor to us than their current trend value. We focus mainly on roots influenced artists from all over (Central America, London, Paris, Africa, New Orleans and all over the US) and we book those artists’ tours worldwide. Some of the artists from our earlier years include Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Los Lobos, John Hiatt, Captain Beefheart, The Staple Singers, Ben Harper and Robert Cray while some current ones include JJ Cale, Allen Toussaint, The Weepies, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Mavis Staples, Loudon Wainwright III, Tommy Castro, Bill Frisell, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, Charlie Watts and Meshell Ndegeocello – see the full list here. I have worked as co-producer or executive producer on projects involving Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt and Ry Cooder among many more. I’ve also coordinated two compilation CDs for environmental organization, Earthjustice with contributions from Norah Jones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, Michael Franti, Rubén Blades and
more.
SVR: Why is it important to support music education?
Mike: Education prepares us for life in general and lays the groundwork for becoming self sustaining and productive citizens. Exposure to music education has been proven to increase attendance and scores in other studies, especially for at risk youth and is therefore not only crucial for its own values and cultural development but also for what it can do to motivate students in all other areas of academic pursuit. In many cases when school budgets tighten, music programs are among the first to be de-funded. It’s crucial to work to insure that music education is available to all students and to support other efforts to connect students, especially those at risk, with music.
SVR: Do you use technology (such as MySpace or Last.fm) to discover bands?
Mike: Our company is unique in that we try to stay small and focused. Either a good reputation and/or an overflow of musicians sees us turning down over 500 groups every year without even pursuing anyone so we don’t really seek out groups – especially given our goal to remain small and focused. We do check out everyone who approaches us, whose work could potentially align with our focus so we learn more about them via their myspace or sonicbids pages when they used to have to mail us CDs and promotional materials. We also have changed our business from being almost all phone driven to being almost all e-mail driven. We also reduce mailing costs by supplying promotional materials digitally. In the meantime, our office has been fully solar powered since 2000 so, in each of these ways, technology enables us to
leave a much smaller footprint environmentally than previously.
SVR: What do you look for when signing new artists?
Mike: First of all we want to be moved by what the artist is doing. Since we work primarily with booking live shows, the stage performance should be exciting or touch the audience emotionally in a genuine and not contrived way. While we don’t pursue the most commercial artists, we do need to stay in business so we need to have a good feeling about an artist’s potential to cover its share of our costs for the time and energy we invest in developing their careers. Finally, we want to feel good about the people we are working with.
Sometimes a great artist or their representative is not realistic about their needs and that will only lead to frustration down the road. The best situation is working with artists we admire who are surrounded by realistic associates with all of us working together as a team to develop the artist. We have had and continue to have numerous artist relationships that have lasted over 20 and 25 years - which is very unique in this business.
SVR: What are you up to now?
Mike: As always, I’m overseeing close to 2000 bookings per year worldwide and surprisingly this will be our second best year in 32 years. On the management front, I’m currently finalizing record and publishing deals for a new J J Cale CD. Among numerous other projects, I’m also working with Amnesty International on a music project supporting the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also working with the US-Cuba Cultural exchange on a project to unite Cuban and US musicians for a high-profile collaboration next summer just outside our borders since our government no longer allows cultural exchange between our countries or any touring here by Cuban artists. I also continue to do what I can to support Music In Schools Today and their tireless efforts to make sure that our youth get the exposure to music education that they need and deserve.
