LouLife

“I’m from here, so I never think that (Louisville’s) especially great or anything,” says Sarah Santos, a 22-year-old fan. “But when bands like this come here, it definitely makes me feel proud of where I’m from.”

After the sun has set and the Montreal-based group — which at one point will feature more than 10 musicians crowding the outdoor stage — starts playing, more than 2,000 upturned faces bob and change color with the elaborate light display. Those same faces reveal no awareness of the behind-the-scenes bedlam required to bring a concert like this to life. Most of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the four-person team at Production Simple, the almost three-year-old company bent on bringing hip, artful, indie talent to Louisville. 

Bands of Arcade Fire’s caliber — who can sell out back-to-back shows in Chicago and draw 22,000 in New York— rarely stop here, so music fans and the music industry notice when they do. This show is one of Production Simple’s bigger risks, and profits are never certain. Getting cutting-edge music to this city is not the easiest or most secure way to make a living. For all the effort, Production Simple could be in the business of luring to town a few megastars who already get plenty of radio airplay and are guaranteed to pack the house.

But it matters what kind of live music this community is exposed to, says Jimmy Brown, who has been a fixture on the Louisville music scene for decades and owns Guitar Emporium, a Bardstown Road shop where musicians stop to chat and check out merchandise. Brown is a musician himself and says the bands mean more to him — and to the city — than revenue. They stimulate and influence the local music scene, filling a void that, in recent decades, has been created by a focus on big-name musicians with big-time contracts. 

“Without (indie music) where would we be?” Brown asks. “Would it be just a few major concert events and the Louisville Orchestra? Is that all we’d have?”

He fully realized the state of the modern music scene while chaperoning one of his son’s high-school dances. He expected to find a live band, like during his own school days, but a disc jockey played the tunes instead. “I own a music store, so my security was threatened; I dep/files/storyimages/on live music,” Brown says. “But also, I just kept thinking these kids don’t know what they’re missing. I was visibly shaken by that.” He adds that shows like the ones Production Simple produces are important to local culture.

Onstage, Arcade Fire blasts several intense, fast-paced tunes as the Ohio River flows past on the left below bridges. This is the first time the band has played next to a highway, and it makes for an interesting juxtaposition to the formal attire (one member wears a gold-sequined dress) and the metal stage’s art-film ambiance.

A show’s glitz requires a lot of unglamorous work from the Production Simple team. Since the company formed in 2005 it has averaged about 60 shows a year. (In the past, it has brought Kings of Leon, Citizen Cope and Interpol to town. This month, Feist and Peter Bjorn and John are on the calendar.) Billy Hardison, senior talent buyer, has been booking bands since the early 1990s, first on his own and then for several years with local agency Spotlight Productions. He now serves as a senior partner in Production Simple with John Grantz, who deals with finances, corporate sponsorships and concessions at large venues. “John and I were actually kind of adversaries in the past when I was younger and more impetuous,” Hardison says with a bit of a chuckle. 

The idea for the company came from Production Simple organizers Lizi Hagan and Joe Argabrite III, who wanted to bring more under-the-radar talent to Louisville. Hagan was Hardison’s assistant at Spotlight, and she now handles ticketing and marketing. She and Argabrite sp/files/storyimages/the most time in Production Simple’s Frankfort Avenueoffice. Depending on the scheduled shows, time there can be hectic. During one 20-minute phone conversation, for example, Hagan might pause a half a dozen times to answer another line. When popular indie band Wilco was readying for its late September show at Slugger Field, Hagan fielded calls about everything from backstage passes to a complaint about a store’s rude salesperson. Other people’s employees, it turns out, aren’t outside of her realm of responsibility if they’re getting in the way of ticket sales.  

	Rolling out the talent: Montrealband Arcade Fire (top) and Production Simple’s Joe Argabrite III (above, in cart) and John Grantz (left).

The combined and varied experience is crucial for a small company in an unpredictable business. The venue, musicians, partnerships and countless other variables can give every night a slightly different feel. Bands sometimes show up late or find their equipment incompatible with what the venue uses. Then there are the little things, like Argabrite’s son Patrick interrupting his dad for another quick lesson on how to insert little foam plugs into his ears.

“Anything can go wrong,” Hagan says, “but usually we’re pretty lucky — usually.”

Problems are kept to a minimum by what Hagan calls a “pretty loyal team” of contractors who work the doors, act as stagehands, man the box office, provide security and perform other functions. Before all of that, though, Production Simple must buy the talent. Deciding whom to bring might be the easiest part of the job. An obvious factor is a band’s popularity in Louisville, and what’s played on WFPK is a good clue. Agents who approach them regularly generate the bulk of shows.

 Production Simple sems to have a knack for knowing what’s hot . . . or what will be. The company helped promote Louisville bands My Morning Jacket and VHS or Beta, both popular national acts now. Hardison does most of the buying, but he takes suggestions from the other partners and clears his plans with them before making purchases. “I used to buy it all when I worked for Spotlight, but (at Production Simple) I had to narrow my focus,” Hardison says. “We also wanted to buy stuff we actually like to listen to.”

Occasionally another venue or company wants to partner on a show, which allows Production Simple to branch out or go ahead in a situation in which they had been hesitant about an agent’s demands. Best of all, even though profits are shared, partnerships help reduce risk. The fans dancing and clapping out syncopated rhythms at this Arcade Fire show likely haven’t stopped to consider that the portable toilets, generators and even parts of the neon-drenched stage were supplied through a partnership with WLRS.

While choosing bands is one of the job’s easier aspects, balancing the desire for good shows with market realities is not. Agents want maximum coverage and money for their bands. That means that even when Hardison turns down a show — perhaps there are just too many acts drawing from the same pool of money and advertising that week — an agent will seek another way in, sometimes trying to pit promoters against each other. That seems to happen with increasing frequency, Hardison says.

It’s not clear why Louisville is suddenly a place agents feel their bands need to visit, but anecdotal evidence points to a couple of different factors. First, a slight growth in Louisville’s concert attendance seems to have triggered agents’ sensors. Coming here was a financial risk for Arcade Fire, but the past success of other indie bands proved that Louisville is a place to expand market appeal.

Another reason bands target this town is because, well, they like it here. “I specifically wanted to come to Louisville,” Arcade Fire band member Richard Reed had said while standing alone near the back of the crowd for opening act LCD Soundsystem. “It’s got that weird mix of small-town feel with a seemingly thriving cultural scene.” He also likes the bands coming out of Louisville.

The city’s sudden appearance on the indie scene contributes to a treacherous playing field for Production Simple, which must pay more for bigger names while hoping the community will choose its shows over the glut of other musical and cultural offerings.

“We’re growing, but we’re not making any more money,” Hardison says. 

Arcade Fire is known for using massive amounts of equipment, including an enormous pipe organ, and tonight’s waterfront scene involves many partners and pieces. The day of a big show can be tense, when personalities or equipment might clash and contracts bring to the fore competing interests among bands, producers and others invested in creating a cohesive show. “This business is controlled chaos, and it’s all about controlling those variables,” Hardison says.  

And there’s always that looming question: Did enough tickets sell?

A glut of last-minute sales is normal for less expensive club shows, but at a larger venue, such as Waterfront Park or the Brown Theatre, profit comes from advanced ticket sales. Because of this, the Arcade Fire show will lose Production Simple money.

“This market’s suffering from over-saturation. I don’t know why Louisville has a target on its back. Its great for the bands but bad for the buyers,” Hardison says. He points to a week in October when nine different national-level shows were scheduled, and all of them drew from the same pool of radio airplay, advertisers and audience. Three were Production Simple shows (Michael Franti and Spearhead, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Black Mountain with Wax Fang), with the rest handled by others. Somebody will lose money, according to Hardison.

But there’s good reason to press on and try to make his business profitable, he says. Louisville’s music scene is increasingly becoming a part of its identity. Local concert-goers will abound, but so will people who live two or three hours away in Kentucky or other states. They’ll talk about the show in the weeks afterward, and it’s likely to affect their opinion about Louisville.

“I tip my hat to the promoters that are willing to go out there and do that work. It’s not easy,” Brown says. “Is it necessary? No, it’s not necessary. Life will go on without it. But without it…the pie isn’t quite so flavorful.”

Freelance writer Jennifer Oladipo may be reached at editorial@loumag.com.