Real quick. How you know, fellow Laker fan, I'm not happy with
you. So the recording of this episode. They just announced a couple of
hours ago. JJ Reddick is the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.
I saw your story. By the way, I'm with you, but
go ahead. I feel like we're doing a sound check, by the way,
so you could talk about say it on the mic. Lebron. I
just don't think Lebron. They got to control Lebron somehow because he's done.
I mean to me like this, the league is too fast, is too
young, and he's, don't get me wrong, one of the best ever
to play, and he's still playing phenomenals just his style. No longer can
win. They can't. They can't win with Lebron being staggering it, holding
the ball up, trying to be They just can't do it. And JJ's
could be a good I was just about to I'm not saying he doesn't know
the game, but he's gonna conform to Lebron. Yeah, they're gonna Benny
Kobe. Kobe deserved everything he got the end of his career. He was
a Laker for life. Lebron, he doesn't deserve the Kobe ending. If
you ask me, with the Lakers, I feel I feel that as far
as controlling the whole organization, I feel that because it's like it's i mean,
even Rich Paul saying, if we don't draft my my son, it
doesn't matter. Lebron may not come to you. Like yesterday, the stupid
comments he was saying, and it's like, broone's gonna draft your son is
for him. They're not. They're not drafting Bronnie because they think Brownie deserves
to be the NBA. I mean, he could play, but like,
come on, Bro, do you think Bronni goes at fifty five he's gonna
get drafted. They're gonna draft him, and they're gonna try to use it
as a pond move to try to get Lebron to go there. Whoever it
is, Oh, that'd be interesting that That's all. That's the only reason
why I think Brownie's come on, bro, average four points game, yeah,
like, I mean he's I'm not saying he can't, but he's six
one sixty two shooting guard. He's not a point guard. He's not look
man, not saying he can't be a good player for the NBA game I'm
not saying, but like and then sometimes you can't. You can't believe what
you see on the internet. All the story has been developing for six seven,
eight years. But what I'm trying to say with that, you can't
believe everything you see on the internet because they're only posting all like the highlights
of like a few minutes of the he did that shooting thing. How slow
he's running the side shooting the ball like it was very slow. I think
he just needs more time in college. There was a kid at Frizle State
where they're trying to get recently made ninety nine threes in a row. Geez,
ninety nine, Like he shoots phenomenal, Like, but you made fourteen
threes and you're really like, oh my god, le Broni's a great I
mean, I'm a guy shoot the ball like really well at a high level.
The JJ Reddick thing, I'm just what it is, what it is.
I mean, we're gonna it's gonna be a minute for us Laker fans.
I'm more pissed that they didn't give early the money. Oh yes,
short at him. Oh yeah, Like if you really want the guy,
I mean, give him, you know, that would have been interesting.
Given an offer, he can't say no to sixty million for six or seven
years, which may sound amazing, but Yukon's gonna give him pretty much the
same deal. Yeah all right, man, Well we haven't even introduced who
our guest is. I'm ready to get this podcast started. Alight, let's
do it. This could give me fire podcast. What up? I'm Gizzo.
That is John Magic and we are back our guests on today's episode.
My first memories maybe this was about just a little under twenty years ago.
My first memories of our guests was him introducing us to this up and coming
artist by the name of Fast Sean. Then we built a good relationship with
him throughout the years. We got to see him be a part of some
major major events here in Fresno that put Fresno on the map, one being
the biggest festival to be held here in the five to five nine Grizzly Fest.
Yeah. Since then, he's disappeared from the face of the earth,
and we're gonna find out why. Today's guest and excuse me if ive his
government add in heck and me in Kemian. It's odd and in Armenian,
but odd in you know. Okay, Well, the reason why I've never
said that name before is because we know him as hectic. Yeah what U
bro? What's up? John? How you been man? Yeah, we're
good. We're We're happy to finally have you seen youtune? A long time?
It's been a while. It's been like COVID separated the whole world.
And yeah, now we're slowly trying to get back. Yeah, you know,
slowly is the keyword. You know, we could start from the beginning.
I think you're originally from here, right from when it raised. Okay,
born and raised in Frezo. Where'd you grow up? At? North
west part of town with the elementary school called Nelson Elementary, then went to
Kasar and then from there clod Swest born Yeah, Clobal West Classic two thousand.
I'm I'm not ashamed to say same. Same my age. You know,
I've always since I've known you, you've been music hip hop guy.
Since i've met you work. Uh what was the influence during the youth?
Six? My brother primarily I have an older brother, he's about five years
older. Were business partners for many years now. Basically growing up, I
was always little var ten. That was my name, like he played basketball,
and I played basketball, and I'd gone to the park, the you
know the neighborhood, you know, school hoops, and I'd always play like
I was really good at basketball at early age. I was little him.
Any music he liked, I liked, right, So I mean, I'm
listening to like, I don't know, let me think some like pro Jam's
first album, right, Ao Pepper's mother's malk album, like whatever was coming
out during those late eighties early nineties kind of fused because he was he was
older than I was. And then hip hop wise, obviously the pop culture
stuff that we all came across, you know, your Dre's, your Snoops
and all that stuff that was kind of like every kid knew who that was,
your mc hammers or whatever it was. But for me, it was
like whatever he liked, I really liked. And and I remember he had
a buddy of his that had like a too short tape and then so I
had gotten it like too short, and through that I got into E forty
and then through that somehow I came across NAS, and like NAS was one
of my favorites, like you go into like the because Tupac obviously was one
of our favorites. Like, but I'm saying stuff that, like really I
would listen to on my own, So I mean I listened to all kinds
of stuff, and like Mike Mike. I had a cousin who was my
aunt was getting divorced, was staying with me. She was a big Dave
Matthews fan. I got into Dave Matthews because she would listen to Dave Matthews.
I was like twelve, eleven years old or whatever, so you know,
fish grateful Dead, getting into the hippie stuff, all that jam band
stuff, you know, the led Zeppelins, the Pink Pink Floyds of the
World, the Doors. So I was just super eclectic in the music.
But hip hop like Nas E forty I would say, were like two really
big artists. I liked. That was like more my identity, Like that
wasn't like super pop culture. And I had a buddy on my basketball team,
my boy E. He was a big jay Z fan. This was
so I didn't get into Ill Maadic Ill Mad. I was like it was
written was the album that I can cross nots because I was twelve or eleven
with Ilmatic and I would have bump nods and he bumped J because reasonable doubt
had just came out, so like we're the dudes on the hoop team that
he was a J fan, and the rest of the kids had no clue.
I mean it was like, you know, they were really into the
BA area West Coast stuff for the LA West Coast stuff at that time.
So that's how I got into it, man. And then doing my buddy
on my basketball team who was started getting turntables, That's how I found turntables.
Yeah, usually that's like the story is always like who you're around,
and yeah, kind of get influenced by it. Yeah. He was an
older buddy of mine. He was a couple of years older than I was,
or a year older. He was actually DJ twelve ten. He was
the one that actually me and him did the radio show at Kfasara Frezo.
He hooped. His older brother and my brother were friends growing up, so
like we already had like a connection. And he bought some Newmark twelve hundred
Newmark tables not twelve hundreds, and one day after practice he's like, I
got these turntables, you want to come over? And I went and I
checked them out, and I was just like, this is dope. And
that was at the same time. It was ninety eight. Were you going
to say that the time was so close West? This was ninety eight,
I believe. And Mixed Master Mike has something on. What was the MTV
show that after school was like a three o'clock was it Carson Daily TRL?
Yeah, yeah, CRL And I think Beastie Boys had a new song come
out at that time, and Mixed Master Mike was on. I had never
seen he was like scratching. It was all at the same time, like
all intertwined together, and I was like, Oh, that's really dope.
And then we started, you know, going and I used to go with
him to Jason House of Records to get vinyl because there was a lot of
places to get vinyl back then. But wait, when you were when you
were getting the vinyl, you already had turned with him. Oh okay,
I'd go with him. I remember the first You're going to use his turns?
Yeah, I remember. I remember, like, no, I would
just go with him and I may buy a vinyl two for myself. But
I was trying to save up to get tables and at that time, I
was playing, you know, varsity basketball, was going to school, and
I was, you know, I loved playing playing basketball, but like I
really loved music a lot. That was like one of my main things.
And I remember I got a job at Taco Bell over on First and Shields.
It's funny First and Shields because that's where Fast I ended up picking him
up for the first time or meeting him was off of First and Shields.
He actually got jobbed off of my suito the first time I met him.
But I literally go pick him up almost every day from First and Shields and
that Taco Bell my cousin who passed away, was the manager of. And
my mom was like, Okay, if you want turntables, you got to
go work for them. You got to go get a job. So I
got a job after like before my seniors or after my junior season. I
worked there through the summer before my senior season. I worked, you know,
fifteen eighteen hours a week, twenty two or whatever I can get,
and I just saved up my money and I got some twelve hundreds and that
was it. What was the what was the goal of you, uh starting
this DJing thing? Did you want to do parties? Like I wanted to
be the illis turntablest Like to me, it was like playing the jams and
parties I did, so that was like that was natural for me, even
like on my teams, like I was the guy that made the tapes like
the little CD mixtapes for everybody back then or for pregames like I was doing
always doing all that stuff anyways, So for me, like doing parties and
stuff like that wasn't like my angle, would I why I wanted to get
into it. I wanted to be a turntables like I was into like like
this Hubert was, you know and Baboo Cubert. I mean, you want
to get down to rock Raiders of the World's Rest in Peace like that was
my that was my thing. A track. I remember when I spoke with
a track, I was like, man, I used to watch your videos
and your sets, your dm C. You know. I was about to
ask about videos. Sorry to interrupt, because you know I'm older than you.
So we had the VHS tapes. I still got the tape. I
got one being converted now to MP three because I was, yeah, like
watching the Yeah, that was it, Like used to watch them and the
scratch Pickles had the best ones. Yeah, the funny ones, the comedics,
and they teach you how to do the scratches, the chops, the
crabs, the flares, like you sit there and watch it, you practice
it. I practiced like seven eight hours a day like I was. That
was it. Anybody that wanted to battle, I was battling. I didn't
care even if I lost. But that was just the mentality, like I
had to be the illest DJ. So that's all I did. I did
the parties to make the money. Because my boy twelve ten did the parties.
He was more of like mixing party rocking, so I'd go help them
with all the parties like high school graduations and so forth. So but to
me, I want to do that. And then I got into mixing and
all that obviously because that's what you did. And that was That was that
story. So then was what was the next move after that? When did
uh? When did like the fast stuff started to happen? And was it?
That was like seven years later? That was that was way down the
road. By the way, I think I assumed you were a producer.
Did you go route right? So while I started scratching DJ and I met
a guy at my high school named Marcus precise. He went to Colvid West
and he used to make beats and he used to make it on Cool Edit
free loops way back. He had like the illegal cracked versions back when free
Loops wasn't really even around that well. And he had a demo version of
Cool Edit. And he had an album he had put together with the guy
a bunch of a bunch of guys that went to Colvid West. They were
called the Basement was the name of the group, and they did an album
and I was like, oh, this is kind of dope. Guys that
go to school with their year older than me or two did this rap album
and it was kind of cool. So they're like, hey, we need
a DJ. We come be a DJ in our group. I was like,
cool, no problem, show up. They were just, you know,
do their little sets and I would scratch some stuff on some songs or
whatever. And then I remember my senior year, April, like right before
my my eighteenth birthday. Yeah, right before it, we did a show
at u c l A and the headliner was it was KRS Blackstar Common Roots
and one of the guys in our group went to UCLA, so he got
us on that bill. Dam nice lineup. Yeah, and we were like
the second one. But I mean the guys actually had a really good stage
show the basement. We actually did a lot for Freso hip hop community.
Like people don't realize, but if you really want to get down to who
started a lot of like the shows, it was because of that group.
Like there was a guy named Reza in the group. He was old,
he was like almost thirty. He's the one that like the first show we
ever did. We went to Central Based Artists in Chinatown for a penny,
rented a venue. I had all my DJ equipment, my boy DJ pri
DJ twelfth, We took all of our DJ gear and we did shows.
We did this show. We did our second shows with this guy named Encore.
Because when I had the show at Kfasar at that time, you know,
we were playing all the underground records. We had the Friday night Freestyles,
what it was called nine to twelve every Friday, and that show started
taking off and we said, let me get this book. This guy named
Encore, he was signed the ABB Records back then from I think the Sans
area or something, and pay him like five hundred bucks and we did this
slow show and like two fifty people showed up. I actually met Sam,
Bobby, FTK guys there, like a lot of people. We met.
Asia came back to the show and I actually got a fight with Asia and
sound check. Wait, why what happened? By the way, Asia is
the man. He respect the Asia. He played a huge He played a
huge role in this this this City's you know, growth in in hip hop
and really in my business and the artists that I worked with. Asia was
a it was a huge factor in helping helping what I was doing. But
it was stupid stuff. It was like when you're djaying and the artist is
gonna come out, you don't play their record. We're doing sound check,
we're not even we're not even in Yeah, the show hasn't And I'm like,
okay. It's like he's teaching me the rules because I'm the new guy
and here's the OG. And if you know me, I don't give up
what anybody tells. I do what I want when I want, how I
want. Like, there's there's no rules to me. I just do it.
But I respect it to the fact that I'm not going to play a
guy's song before he's gonna come out. I'm not an idiot, So it
was a little stupid stuff like that. But anyways, we did that show,
and through that time period working with that group, I got into producing.
I just would go to the house watch him record artists produce. He
showed me how to use fruity loops or whatever, and I just got into
producing from that, which I liked more than the actual DJing aspect, right,
the battle aspect, because at that point, like it was like two
years in the DJing and and I loved it. But no disrespect the Filipinos,
John, you're Filipinos. They are the best when it comes to scratching
turntable list. I've met so many amazing Filipino turntableists. I don't know what
it is in the in the in the lupia or whatever whatever it's in your
meals, but you guys are just one of my best friends f plus was
Filipino. So he we we'd go to battles and he'd introduce me a lot
of people and it was just like, man, these dudes are so nice
at cutting, right. So I was like, all right, respect,
I'm getting down, but you know, I'll see you guys one day down
the road, Like you know, what I mean, like matching and that's
the turntablism and stuff wasn't was never my strength. But as a Filipino,
yeah, well you know that's who I looked up to as well when I
started DJing. Yeah, it was all these Filipino d that's all actually who
I knew. At one point when I was growing up and you know,
out of high school going into freshman in college, I thought DJ's were only
Filipino. I mean Daily City bro, Like you'd go up to the Daily
City in the late nineties where the pickles from it, like it was just
that was it, bro, Like you had and you had to know how
to get down and but yeah, I was good times man. Then I
got into producing from that, and I just liked being having a music background
that I did listen to so much music for my brother and my cousins growing
up. I was just really into like sampling and digging and doing all that
stuff. So then I put I put myself into that world of like really
understanding the science of that. So producing like the basement guys. I had
a bunch of different groups and I started producing for a lot of people in
Fresno at that time, Like there were underground rappers coming up. I was
putting on my own shows. Like back then it was as as grassroots as
you can get, you know, like we couldn't do shows in Fresno hip
hop shows. Nobody would allow us to do shows. We were just getting
out of the nineties. You know, the Fresne of the nineties was wild.
It was just the murder capital of America was what ninety two ninety three
like it was, you know Mac tann or somebody would be performing downtown got
shot up, like you know whatever. I remember going to a game.
Actually, Kid Capri was playing a show at the Eagles Hall and I was
a fan of Kay Capri at the time because I was getting into you know,
djaying world and he was in town for something and some guy got stabbed
in or with like a glass thing got stabbed that had shut that show down.
So it's like you wanted to do advance, but like PD made it
really hard, respectfully, I mean there was issues that are happening, and
so it's like what do you do? So we really went that like punk
indie underground route to do events. So I you know, at that time,
I was in college. I did Urban Combat, which was with the
Climax B Boy Crew. One of my boys DJ A Wax, and my
and my turntable crew was a B boy as well. They were like the
most respected B boys probably they're in the valley for sure, but they were
like they were they were naturally known. They had to think called urban Combat
they had done like two years prior, but they stopped. It was like
the ill was B boy battle, like hip hop kind of an event,
but it was more B boy bassed. So I called the guy. I
was like, hey, can I can I bring back urban Combat? Can
I do this? I'm gonna do at Frizzle State and and then I took
the B boy element, brought the MC element, brought the DJ element,
and I did that. And that's when then the second time I met Sam
from FTK came to that event. So they're like, oh, we were
these guys in Vicelia, we do our hip hop. So then I started
partnering with them, helping them with their events, street rocks and stuff that
they were doing. So I just really dove into like doing events right and
like because I had to do them in order for like my group to be
seen. There was no promoters. We never got a call from a promoter,
make your own events. Hey, we got to show, come play.
It's like we had to throw our own events or else nobody knows you
exist and we're getting people coming to these shows. I mean it was it
was awesome. So it was like, it's kind of like an entrepreneur kind
of mindset that I've always had in my life. It's like, you just
got to do it yourself, like I can't wait for the next man to
make my outcome happen, right, and put yourself on essentially exactly. So
that's how I got into the whole putting on events, doing radio, doing
DJ, and doing producing all that you did. Mention that you were doing
KFSR, that's the Fresno State Radio station. Did you ever? It was
that something you wanted to do, like, you know, wanted to do.
I was in high school and DJ Big Bear he was at that time,
and there was stationed. He was there at the station there and then
he ended up going down south the Center Barbara, La Area. His brother
Archie Davis Archie, he's an executive now in the industry. So he's told
my boy twelve ten. Because he was a student, I wasn't sooner.
For say, I was in high school still, and he said, hey,
just give me a mixtape if you guys want to show. So I
remember me and him going into his house and we just did a mixtape like
wherever we thought we could put together. Gave the table because I love it.
I'm gonna give you guys Friday nights nine to twelve. And we thought
that was like prime time spot, like, oh hell yeah, we got
a Friday night shot, which it is. But in the radio world,
obviously five o'clock is what you really want right or in the morning like whatever
it is, but morning and afternoon. Yeah, But for us, like
you know, nine o'clock to find out free style, I feel like college
radio that is prime time for college. Great week. It's a different vibe
that we're getting calls forty hours. Yeah, people, MC battles happening on
the show. I had DJ battles, Like I'd get DJ's calling me up
and saying, like you all want to battle you, I'd bring him on
the show and I'd battle him right there. That's I'm like, let's go
bring come, bring, bring this stuff. We're gonna have a battle on
air. I like that. I mean Asian all every artist would come through.
We'd have like freestyle sessions, you name it. Mike Ostagata first day
he came to Fresle, I brought to the show here. Had messaged me
from San Jose. He said, I got radio experience here. I'm about
to move to Fresno. I said, Yo, just come through Friday,
kick it, come out, come say all year was this around? I
was. I wondered if I was living here already. Oh one or two
he moved. I wasn't here, Yeah I was. I was three.
Yeah, So like he came and you know, we became boys. And
I mean just just the people I met during that time period that was around
was just a lot of different people from different like parts of Fresle, different
parts of the world. Uh yeah, I mean Asia Turban was really big
at that time. From the schoolyard schoolyard massive. Well was he part of
school yard or was he trendset or something like that. But anyways, it's
the same click. What was the next step or did you have some what
was the next step when you started bringing Like when we sort of met you,
you start coming to the station a lot. Yeah, and you were
like bringing artists. You were Diego, right, that's right at the Yeah,
it was really forgot about that. So how it happened was at that
time I was producing some other people and the group I started with and I
was a guy named Tone from Hairfair. He came up and I forget what
I I think I know, Tom, it was I know, let me,
let me, let me, let me distract this. I don't know
if it was Cubic who introduced me to Diego, which I think it was,
because at that time I had done a song with Aesop from Living Legends,
Me and my boy Stump, we produced a song called the Awakening.
It was the Living Legends pressing on twelve inch vinyls like their single that they
put out. And then Cubic started coming around from Asia's crew in Asia and
I started working on like doing their mixtapes and then uh Cubic. One day
I took him to He asked me like, hey, can you draw me
off of the at the barbershop, and so I took him to Hairfair and
he introduced me to Diego and then through that I met Diego. We did
this song called So Sexy for Cubic. It was it was Cubic Diego,
who's the other two on there? I gotta remember, but it was I
thought it was a dope track, and we did it at my studio and
through that, Diego was like, Yo, you got some dope beats.
Let's work. And then he was working on his project living Proof, his
first album, to just put it together. He already had the songs done,
and then we did that, and then he said, you know,
do I want to do another project called Doggy Dog, which was what Indoo
was on and so forth. So we started working and then just producing and
putting his stuff together for him. It was like I ended up started managing
him because nobody was really doing the pr the business. And then you know,
at that time, I think it was like called all hip Hop dot
Com. I don't know if you remember that one went back. So I
got a call from the person who started that. She's like, because I
had sent out his tapes to everybody, because at that time I had beat
tapes going out for like shootout, trying to get any anybody had the same
guy that was helping Kanye place beasts named Success, who's he's in A and
R right now at a long time at a it's not deaf jam. It's
one of those that's they're all disappearing. Yeah, they're all disappearing. But
he's been around for he and he's actually done really well for himself. His
name was Success, and I met him through Sam and Bobby because Sam Bobby
had a guy named Homie from Chicago. What's his name. He's the one
that really helps him with the Kanye logo stuff. And yeah, you talked
about it at podcast. Oh gosh, you know he was, Yeah,
just just listen anyway to listen to the episode with Sam talks about him.
And so anyways, he connected me with Success. He goes, oh,
this guy's placing beats for just Blaze and Kanye's and this was Whatever's and and
I had, like, you know, forty fifty beats style, I was
making a bunch of beats and I just connect with him. He liked my
stuff, so I was sending stuff out and through that I was like,
Okay, well I can just email my stuff out to like just that's when
you had your you know, black bet now was it BlackBerry? Even I
had to be black? Black side kicks were cool, but if you're doing
business, had a black BlackBerry but yeah, so I started sending stuff out
and then I got calls back like his dude, Diego's really dope, these
tracks are amazing, blah blah blah blah. We want to get an interview
with him. And then it was like West Coast, there's a West Coast
site. Next thing, you know, like all these people, I'm doing
like a bunch of pr form and we're getting a bunch of hits. And
then next thing you know, I'm getting calls from record label people like,
hey, we're interesting in this Skuy Diego Red you know, we you know,
would you come in for an interview or a meeting. So I'm like
managing him. Now we're doing shows. I'm booking him for shows like and
I'm just kind of like in directly his manager. This is all about like
accident. Essentially. I didn't say, hey, I want to be your
manager. I wanted to be the producer and make the beats and work with
artists, and but if nobody's doing that job again, like doing the shows,
you just got to figure it out, do it yourself. Got to
do it yourself as acting manager. Did you guys talk about like did you
get you know, we just we just put the money. Okay, oh
wow, it wasn't. We didn't. We didn't really like get in the
content. There was nothing like official contractual stuff with Diego. It was just
we're gonna just get it done. Is he still in the town. He's
in Vegas. Yeah, and he's got one of the funniest little live things
he does on the internet. Him and Money Bostle shout out to them.
I love it. So were you producing his music? Not all like three
four songs on the project? Did you do? In the know? And
in the note was actually for Sam with this kid j Jack that he was
working with that was an m C like a battle MC kid. He came
over and I just started messing around and we're like, oh, this you
know was Born of Mac? Was that was that the record? Or Born
Return? I'm not Born Mac? I basically flipped like sampled it was it
was not replayed it, but it was like, yeah, it was based
off the original of Back of the Year. No dang and Dan. My
mind is completely now just yelling anyways forgive me, but my mind is not
hasn't been on the music World and a long like you know sometime else.
But so then I did the record for him, and he was like,
oh, this is great, and the sam was like, oh this is
this might be a little too too good for him. Because it started coming
together, I was like, whatever, it's all good. Next day,
Diego came through and and he was like, you're working on anything. I
said, I did this thing last night, and he's like, oh,
play that, and then he did this in a note of that. But
yeah, Diego was amazing. I think Diego his songwriting and his ability was
was phenomenal. I think he really to me, he felt like a Kendrick
before Kendrick came out in a sense it's storytelling, West Coast storytelling and so
forth. He's to me, I think one of the best writers I've ever
heard, still till this day. But through him, you know, tone
at at hair fair and brought fashion onto my place, right, he was
like, Hey, you gotta work with this kid. So then that's how
that kind of slowly developed, right, and then I built did his mixtapes,
and at that time I did, Okay, I'm officially gonna manage this
kid. I'm basically in the side of my company, Like I did everything
for that kid, you know, Like as far as the beats, the
productions, the recording, the pr I mean it was I was the record
label, you know, in every aspect you could think of. I mean,
I've written hooks, I've written you name it, I'm it's just we're
just we're just on full go mode right now, like on music. So
I was blessed. You know, Fashionre's phenomenal, phenomenal person, phenomenal artist.
You know, I think he represented this city better than anyone really could
have to be honest with you, I mean he kind of was a mold
of all kinds of different parts of Fresnough And yeah, I really enjoyed that
time period. How did the nask connection happen with fash It's a good story.
My cousin had a spot in Atwater Village. Was that a water village
out there right next to I think it's that water village called or something like
that. He had a little restaurant outdoors patio spot was really cool. He
wanted to do like a day party thing going on because at that time the
big day parties were going on, the big Sunday party that was happening in
Hollywood all the time. Right No, before Red Cup, this is before
Red cup Alo Black used to host it. Freddie Gibbs used to be always
their Alchemy's used to go to. It was like I'm I'm so blanked and
everything right now. But anyway, so he wanted to do it just a
day party, not a hip hop based one that was really like your your
hip hop based, like the beat junkies would run that and and so forth.
So I was like, Okay, you should do this, this and
that. I kind of was helping him with the concept and he did it,
and next thing you know, in that area there was a bunch of
like like hip hop like coalition like groups, low clicks that are happening and
they were kind of known in the in the underground m C world, and
they contacted my cousin and he said, hey, do you know these people?
I said, I actually met him back in when we went to MC
Battle in like two thousand and two and Cincinnati with Sam. I actually went
with a battle with him and he was a really dope MC. I'm like,
yeah, I remember that guy from like twelve years ago, ten years
ago. He came through. He says, I want to throw a party,
like a day party. So he did it. While that was happening.
Tungi, who that name sounds for milk. Yeah, he's the president
of Deaf Jam. So I was now he is the last five years.
But Tungi used to be an mc me and Faster. You know, we're
out in La originally trying to like make a name for him and so forth
networking. He was a rapper himself and always used to love Fast. He
was like always wanting to collaborate with him and do work with him and so
forth. So he came to this event. At that time, we were
trying to do an album. This was after this was Champagne and Style phone
Cups made came out and then it was before whatever they called the album was.
It was like this time period and Fash was like, we're in the
studio and he was kind of in like a rut. He was like,
what am I going which direction? And you know, he was doing a
bunch of records and I don't think mentally he was in the best place in
his life, like you know, having a kid being in Fresno, He's
in LA and he was making money. But it was just like this weird
dark phase in his career. He had came back to Fresno. He's like,
I'm just gonna go back to Fresle, like I gotta recharge or whatever.
And so I see Tanji and he's asked me about Fast, and I
go, I got like twelve records, but we don't know what we're gonna
do an album or what's gonna happen. We're kind of floating in this gray
space. So he said, have you ever connected with Nas? We're Anthony
his manager, And I was like, Nolway's ever contacted us from them and
so forth. He's like, I gotta connect you. Let's set up a
meeting like Monday or Tuesday, like next week whatever, just come to the
interscope off. He was an interscope at this time. So I called Fast.
I said, I need to come back up. We got a meeting
on Tuesday. So we went and tons of meets with Fast or talking.
He's like, bro, he listened to the records. He's like, man,
you got to connect with like Nas and aunt like, I have to
connect Right there on the spot, he emails aunt Ant responds back to me
and him c Seed and he said, I love Fast. He's dope.
Let's meet out in Westwood for coffee. Like in like this Friday or something.
So that Friday comes, we go meet with him and An it's like,
yeah, we don't want to start a label. We don't want to
do this. I think you're really dope. I'll try to connect you with
NAS like it's just a bunch of whatever. There's like literally nothing being discussed
business wise at that time. And I'm like, okay, all good,
Just let me know if you guys, you know, if you guys want
to if we can get NAS on the track, or we can collaborate,
or you guys got some shows. I'm just trying to build a network.
If they can just collaborate in the studio, if he needs a writer for
something, who knows. I'm just whatever. And then I get a call
two months later from Peter Bittenbender from Massive Appeal Records. He's the him and
NAS were partners and he used to have a record label that we knew about
for many many years prior to that. Dcon Records was one of them.
And he's like, hey, what's up. How you been. I'm like,
I'm good. It's doing the thing house fast. He's good. He's
like, hey, well, I want to tell you something. I'm like,
well, what's going on, Like, Pete, I'm not signing the
DCON like because we've already had offers from him. I'm like, no,
we're not signing the DCON records. That's not it's not the move. And
he goes, well, me and I was a collap We were meeting and
we're starting massive records. We want to sign Fash, and I just really
wants to sign Fash. So that's kind of happened. So no, knock
the pee pizza, good guy. I just personally, I just think some
people maneuver better business wise than others. But he seems to kind of get
in front of some of the things at the right time. And so yeah,
that basically called fast. I was like, hey, these guys want
to sign you. I said, sent over the contract, let's look at
it, and so forth, and then went through back and forth about a
month and then got the deal done. So yeah, a good opportunity for
him. Yeah, at that time that I was out here and especially like
out here in Fresno, I know, uh, Vash was probably on what
I think to this day is probably the best freshman class cover. Yeah,
that was an amazing class, double excel. How did that happen, Like,
was that a situation where they reached out to you? Is there a
lot of politics involved in that situation. That's a good question, cause I'm
assuming you knew like months before it. Actually we knew. We did a
photo shoot. I think in January. I got the call in like October
November. We had just dropped Boy Meets World Classic, maybe a month prior
to that, Okay, And so I'm looking up real quick. I'm glad
we got her phone these days. But so we had a PR company that
the label that put out Boy Meets World had connected us with. And at
the time, she was she was a big she was a heavyweight in like
the indie world. But she had another artist that she represented named j Cole.
Right, So we had met with her and so forth about just regular
PR stuff for fashion his album and and you know, getting him on the
road and so for he was touring with ghost Face at this time. And
I get a call from is a rap genius? What's what's one of the
They started, Oh, man, you know what you guys called me at
like he's too late. Let me see what his name was? He raps
too now? Actually, and he's and he's like, he was a big
journalist. He was at Double Xcel. Obviously. He calls me and he
goes, hey, want to reach out to you regarding you know, your
artist fashion. I'm like, okay, great. I gotta say his album's
like one of my favorite albums I've ever heard. So I'm like, hey,
I appreciate it, thank you so much, like you know. He's
like, and I'm like, well, what is Double x celgan that's are
they gonna want to review it in Double So awesome, Like grew up for
that. I think at that time we already had they had the PR lady
submitted our album into them, so they already had done the review on their
on their portion of it, and and so I'm like, okay, great,
and he's like, you have a PR person though an agency working with
I'm like, yeah, her name is such and such, and he goes
really and I'm like yeah, he was like, because we've been trying to
track. The way they got a hold of me was they called Blues manager
because Blue was on the cover of the year before and he did the album
with Exile. They called him John Kim, and John Kim gave him my
info. So He's like, we've been trying to track how to get a
hold of Fash and I'm like, yeah, such and such as our PR
person's like, well, she represents j Cole. She did never say anything
about Fash. That's just how the game works. But anyways, so I'm
like, all, good man, we're here now it's whatever. And so,
yeah, they called this and that was like I called fast. I
was like, hey, they want to and we knew the cover. I
was like, hey, they want to put you on the double XL freshman
cover thing. And it was a big deal, but we had to keep
it quiet. It's almost a gift in the curse though, I tell I
told him. I was like, hey man, this is gonna put a
lot of pressure on you. Yeah, you can get a lot of eyes,
but it's a lot of pressure too, So you better be ready to
pick it up. Like you better, you better put that hard head on
and go to work because now it's gonna be even more eyes on you.
And if you thought you worked hard to get to this point, because we
had to put like seventy projects out before Boy means World, you wouldn't realize
that oh six, I started putting up projects with him, and he was
putting out two to three a year. Yeah, when you say projects,
you mean like a little single. I was doing like twenty track twenty two
track mixtapes. He was like, it was like sixty seventy minutes of music
of him rapping two three times a year. Was this was? What was
that song where you have sampled that Michael Jackson tried? That was like one
of my favorite tracks. That was all I got when I died. Right
before he died, Levan's Ray from Frezon Placks. We played football at Clovis
High and San Diego State. He was part of a production crew and I
was buddies with them to high school just through sports. And he had a
radio show, Okavs on Saturdays, so he'd always stay in touch. He's
like, I got this beef for She's got a rap on it, and
I'm like, all right, dude, just send it over whatever like and
he sent it fast, like cool, let me just do something to real
quick, and he just did something. But that was that was like in
the middle of that in that period. Okay, but yeah, I mean
that class like j Cole, Nipsey Hustle was part of that wiz uh Hill
j Rock. Yeah, it was that was today day. I still feel
like that was like the best freshman class. It was. It was a
it was a tremendous class. I mean it was interesting because it was Yeah,
Nipsey rest in peace. He was there, Kendrick was at that photo
shoot. We were out. Actually, there was a lot of people there
that hanging out backstage at that point. We had when we did that shoot,
Fashion Whiz we had the same booking agent. They were going on tour
together for Cushion Orange Juice. So but Fashion Wiz just got along because they
just both like to smoke a lot of weak so but they got along and
and yeah, so it built. I mean, just the experience of Fast
going on tour with Wiz when he was just blowing up, Like people don't
realize how fast things could change. And then overnight, like it was the
first show and De Soto was the DJ the first one. Because I was
like fast. The business like at this point, our business was really busy,
Like there was a lot of bookings going on, there's international stuff going
on, there's you know, the next album. We got to work on
this record, Like I had a lot of work on my plate, so
I was like, I can't DJ for you, tour manage do all this
stuff, Like, well, I gotta So I had seen Sodo and he's
like, I'll do it. I'll go on the road with them, and
so he did the first two or three days and then I jumped on the
road. That's another story. Nothing no knock to Soto just fast was like
I need you back on the road. But I remember they did the first
show and I'm like, how things going, Like it's chaos. I'm like,
what do you mean it's chaos? He's like, Bro, they're canceling
the venue. We're going across the street to venue that's got like five hundred
more seats because there's like fifteen hundred kids out, two thousand kids out for
this like thousand person venue. Wow, and they're gonna go to like literally
there were taking the sound equipment across the stage, like across the street.
I'm like really, I'm like okay. And I knew Whiz was getting big,
but I didn't know it was like to that level. I'm like,
all right, show was like fascist, Like this is crazy, bro.
These kids are like the Whiz is like a god to them. Go to
the next day, They're playing in La at the LRA. I think it
was the next show. They had to do two shows. They added a
second show like literally the day before because it was that much demand for for
Wiz. So fast is like, Bro, this isn't like the chemistry.
It means Soto's not there. We practice, it's just the vibe isn't there,
Like we're not really I'm not I'm not feeling like I'm rocking it.
So I said, okay, I'm like, what do you want me to
do? Is like, just come out, bro, I need you to
come out to San Diego. Fly out. So I said, Soto,
I'm gonna fly you back out and pay for I'm flying it. Yeah,
and then I saw first time in San Diego and then the rest of the
way, I was like, holy crap, let's do this out of here.
During that time, what was the Wiz hit song? Like Yellow?
No Black and Yellow happened after this was Cushion Orange. Just the mixtape Oh
okay, it was literally his mixtape. He didn't have like a hit record.
It was a hit mixtape. Like every song on is mixtape he performed.
Every kid knew every song. I feel like Wiz was kind of like
one of the first of that generation where they would pop off through the mixtape
and the fans really building them up and then crossing over to commercial. Wiz
was like one of the first to like really do that on a big scale,
you know. I mean we did like ten mixtapes prior to that.
Mixtapes is what you did in that era, Like you didn't put out albums
unless like a label paid form. So you just exactly yeah, right.
And so Wiz being on Warner Brothers, getting released, going independent, doing
that mixtape, and then automatically just getting back to a major that quick because
now he now he made the rules, like he was deciding what was happening
with his with his album Black and Yellow happened July of that summer. We
did the tour with him, I think April met March April May. We
came back. It was his birthday. Black and Eale had just dropped and
he called us to go out to Vegas with him for his birthday. And
I remember that's when Black and El was just out of here, That's right,
because then he had the was it say I was it? That song?
Say what was it? Because he came to the radio station and he
kind of really wasn't it wasn't Black and Yellow era y seven waight he was
signed to Warner Brothers. Yeah, I think that's what it was. Record
and it didn't really take off. Yeah, I think that's what it was.
Before we move on to the next subject. I'm always interested how you
know, uh DJs or just people in the music industry get their name and
obviously it has a piece of your last name on it, but who gave
you the name Hectic? You name yourself? Seventh grade, when I went
try out for football, coach couldn't say my name. He called me like
me earlier, he called me heck that's my name, right, So then
the kids started calling me hecky. That was my name, and so the
girls would call me hecky whatever else money. So and then when I got
into high school, was still Hecky. And then my boy would call me
heck, like what's up, heck, And then it became heck right.
And then when I started DJing my boys like, oh, your name's me
DJ Hectic, it just sort of like evolved through the years. I always
like it was just that's what I was. I didn't really I'm not one
to sit there and try to get all creative about the words and the names
and stuff like that. I'm like, let's keep it quick and let's keep
it moving. To me, I'm not gonna sit there and dwell on it
forever. You know. Obviously with your timeline, you could tell that you
always were a person that you're just gonna do it yourself. You know,
like if no one's gonna do this, I'm gonna step up. I'm gonna
do the manager, I'm gonna do the DJ thing, I'm gonna make the
beats. Yeah, I'm gonna create. You're a creator. So that brings
us to were you doing were you started now I'm talking about bigger stuff.
What were you producing events wise before Grizzly Fest, and then go into how
that how grizzly Fest came about. I would say that probably did close to
fifty sixty shows prior to like even doing that first Crazy fest. I mean
Fascist Baby album. I did the big show at Tower Theater for him.
I did numerous shows of him in this star lineback then, our strummers.
I did a lot of artists. I mean I book Tip Quality multiple times.
Ghosts Face would come through. I'd book him it didn't matter who was
I was doing, like the hip hop shows by Sellia, I was going
down there. That's why I met Aaron Gomes. I started doing the hip
hop shows out there. It was just like anyone from leaving Legend's grouches whoever.
Like they'd called me like, yo, heck, we want to do
a show in Fresno. You're the guy to talk to you. I'm like,
okay, let's do it. Like what do you want, Let's do
the show. And I started doing those shows, and you know, you
learn about backline, you learn about all the process and promoting and all that
stuff, and so I was that was like and the promotion aspect was natural
to me. That wasn't very difficult. I just had to learned the nuances
of how a show operates. And over time he just learned that right doing
it. And there was a period in whereland in La and I was basically
tour managing co managing Merz with fas Shaw when they did the album together,
and Mergy at that time had paid paid dues that festival. He had and
paid dues was believe it or not, doing more numbers than Rock the Bells
Wow, right, because mers he The last one he ever did had Kendrick
Black Hippie, and I believe it was Maclimore with the headliners. And that's
what mclimore was huge, and like Kendrick was starting to take off really big.
Okay, So I think they had like thirty or forty thousand people show
up to that event. Yeah, I think they did. The biggest show
Grilla Union did was that one show. So when I was with mrs and
I was doing a lot of events, we'd be like on on the East
Coast doing rock Paid dues or Rock the Bell shows. Because I was we
had like a run together and I got really close with Murs and he was
really big on like the business aspect of how he operated from an artists standpoint,
whether it throwing his own festival or shows, you know, the living
legends. That's how they kind of made it coming up. And then there
was a kind of Atmosphere. That's when I had booked I never booked him.
I always wanted to, but I actually had a single with Atmosphere in
two thousand and four or five. It was on Tony Hawk. It was
like the lead song on Tony Hawk that I produced, and I met him
at Coachell and four gave him a B tape. He got on it,
and then I threw a sop on it and that became their single as well.
It's actually like their biggest, I think, one of their most played
songs from the Living Legends, and I haven't made a dime off it,
just to let people know you don't always make money off it. Just about
that. I heard the song and a best Buy and I was like,
wait a minute, that's my song. And there's kids at the time in
bestball you could like demo games and they're playing Tony Hawk, the Project eight
or one of the whatever, the Big Project whatever it was, and I
was like, this is my song. Wow, oh wow, I did
nothing. Anyways, long story, there's a whole there's a podcast out there
going to discussing how murdering me and what's got to fight? Oh diego read
in Petaluma. But anyways, but we became really close respect to mers,
and I saw how pay dues operated, and then Rhyme sayers they throw their
big festival in Minneapolis, right and that one gets like fifty sixty thousand people.
It's huge, and we played it fashion and played it sound sets.
The name of the festival. So when I'd go to these events, like
I would just see how things were operating. I would look at it and
be like, Okay, here's the stage, here's this, here's that like.
And I was just like super just in my head, just pinpointing,
how is this? How can I make this work? Because in college I
always want to do music festival. When I was first doing the music stuff
in the station, I'd walk to the campus. I'm gonna put a stage
here, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. Right, I
saw the vision because it was like warped tour was going on. There was
things that happened when we were younger, like little festivals that we'd see,
but it wasn't like as common. Right, So through mers, I had
a conversation He's like, you should just do you s your like you should
do one at Fresne. I was like, well, okay. So I
had a meeting with Grilla Union. I was like, hey, would you
guys want to do a one shot like a one off fessional Fresnel and change
was like, nah, last thing we did in Fresne was a rave in
like nineteen ninety nine and blah blah blah blah blah. We didn't really like
Fresnel too much, and so they shot it down. Wait this company that
you're talking to, they they they're the ones that put ll Okay, they
did all the rock to bells and you know they've been promoters and stuff for
for a long time. They're still doing little shows now. But and he
shot me down with the office Panoma Pomona and okay cool. So then you
know, I'm I'm sitting with fash and when my name was like, hey,
bro, like I really won't put this festival on. You know you
want in all this, Like I'm gonna, you know, do x y
Z And he's like sure. And then my boy Evan, he had a
shop here, medicinal We'll call him Medicinal shop. And he was the one
that came up with the cruzal cited cush. He's the one that found a
strain and he collaborated and he was my best friends since I was before my
first buddy and we reconnected later in life. And he that's cuz to say
the cush came out. He's like, hey, bro, I'm down apartment
with you if you need it. I'm like I'm in LA. I can't
operate this thing like I need to. He's like, I'll take it off,
and so he went out to He's like, let's do it the at
the fairgrounds. I was like, I hate the fairgrounds. I don't want
to do whatever. We didn't have options, you know, because everything else
I tried to do shot me down. Everybody shot me down. That's the
thing with people don't realize is you're gonna get eight no's for one yesep so,
and I was like, I tried this place, that place. I'm
like, bro, and he's like, I can get the fair grounds.
I'm like, whatever, let's do the fair grounds. And no knock to
the fair grounds. It's just inside. Yes, Like this is twenty twelve,
the first one right. And so I wanted like food trucks. I
wanted stuff. Nobody was really doing this stuff back then. So my uncle
owns a commissary. So I've been in food trucks since the eighties. Like
I've seen every food truck in town that started way back when. And like
he that I was around that my whole life. And I was like and
there was a food truck, Dusty Buns that just said that I remember them.
They were the ones out of Tower I think it was Dusty Buns and
they were out in like San fran and I was like, we should get
some food trucks and make a different and do this and that. And I
didn't see that at the festivals, you know, they were just regular festival
concessionaires. And so they said, Nope, you can't do that. And
then I remember I did a deal with bud Light. It was funny story,
and you learned. This is how you learned the process. And I
went to high school with the girl who was a marketing director for bud Light.
Her family actually owns it. And she's like, yeah, cool.
She doesn't tell me that I'm gonna get screwed. At the last minute.
She was pushing. She's like, oh, you gotta you got. You're
confident in this school. I'm gonna ride with this. Literally the night before
we're setting up the stage all our bud Light stuff, like our beer ports,
they start taking them down. They're like, oh, this is a
course life venue or whatever, and so I'm fighting with them. I'm like,
bro, they're giving us money for this festival, like whatever. And
so I'm on I'm on email with her and she's like, well that's whatever,
and she's pretty upset, and then they gave us one little place to
so but like, you know, she was cool, so she took care
of me. So shout out to shout out to her. She's awesome.
But we did that first one and I think we got like maybe fifteen hundred
people. I don't even remember the first I was actually I was actually like
host that. Yeah. It was me and Rich Yeah, him and Rich
cost it. It was like maybe in and out. I think we were
close about fifteen hundred people. It wasn't like a big financial like, it
wasn't a loss, it wasn't a money maker. It was just it is
what it was. It was like the first of it, right, was
it just a majority of just it was low hip hop, all local hip
hop and was I think, yeah, we got a strong arm steady I
think to from out of town because I was managing them at the time too.
I did their Stony Jackson album, so they're like, we want to
do show. So that was the first Grizzly Yeah, that was the first
one, and it was called Grizzly Fest. Yeah. November of twenty twelve.
November seventeenth, I think to be exact, and my boy and Ned
always sends me the reminder of the day too every year, but he yeah,
we did that. And then this great period i'll tell you about fash
kind of happened thirteen. Like I We're like, what are we doing?
And then when the NAS thing happened, I said, I'm bringing it back,
but I'm gonna do it in a whole different way. And I called
my boy Aaron Gomes because Catacomb did an event at fourteen that we played I
think at Full Tama, and I loved it, but I just felt like
it was like a swap meat style of an event. I was like,
this is cool, but nah, this ain't it. We got it.
It's got to be more organized, it's got to be more thorough. But
I love the energy and the creativity that they have. I just didn't think
it was organized the right way. And so I fifteen happened. I got
a bunch of no's everywhere, and I said, hey, Aaron, I
want to do this, but let's make it like hip hop, reggae rock,
whatever, let's mix guenre this thing up. And and Aaron Gomes really
big in the rock in that kind of indie rock world. I mean,
he's booked a lot of big artists and Visellia and so I'm talking with Sam
and he's like, bro, please bring it to Grizzy Sitting and we can
do it here. We need we need, we need to get the we
need to bring the urban energy to this. Sam is trying to get marketing
people to that stadium. It's like I can convince Derek to do it here
and we can blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, all right,
cool, well, sure, let me let me do a tour of the
place. I tore it in a huge place, like what am I gonna
do with this? And I remember we did our first walk through before we
even agree to do it, and the guy goes, how many peopleould expect
to be here? And we're gonna I was like four thousand people, and
he laughed at me, was you're not gonna get two thousand. I'm like,
all right, cool, we'll see. And then I did it free
the first year, but we did it through. At that time with Fascists
album. I started doing like these little voucher type combos, like if you
support a local business, you can get in the free listening party for fashion
on or go spend money at what's the downtown the Chinatown soul food spot,
go to Chef Paul's. First ten people to go Chef Paul's, bring a
receipt, whatever boom you get, and I'm gonna give him ten tickets.
You get into the show for free, but you have to spend money with
Chef Paul, or go to this business. Spend money with them, you
can get an event. And I was doing that all throughout throughout the city.
So I mean, I remember I went to like Granville. I was
like, you have all these homes, here's two thousand tickets. Anybody that
lives in your apartments because they spent money in downtown, you can go to
the concert for free. I was doing like super forward thinking marketing, how
to build it, will you name it? And everyone was like, you're
not going to get a lot of people at this thing. And it was
HBK Bash, a band called Delta Delta Spirit, and this other rock guy,
Aaron Gums Wanted. He was really good but just kind of coming up
but whatever, and then you know the local acts that were that were doing
really well at the time, and I think we got sixty five seven thousand
through the gate right and it was free and all the money came from sponsorships
and concession sales. That's where, yeah, sponsorships. Yeah, it was
everything. All the expenses were done and I had partnered with Derek on it.
I was like, if you cover all the expenses, I'll go get
sponsors. I'll do this in concessions and we'll do it that way. And
it like was break even. It was like seven eight thousand dollars made on
the event. And then he was like, I'll just donate to Aaron Golm's
nonprofit Sound of Vision for kids to get free instruments and music equipments and lessons,
which was awesome of Derek. So then the sixteen came around and I
was like I need to up this bro, like we got to spend some
more money. And he's like, well, what do you mean. I
was like, well, I'm wanting to put money into it. Do you
want to match me now? Because now I got a partner, and they're
like, no, we don't really want to put money into it. To
Matt, they don't. Nobody wants to take the risk. So I was
like okay, and my business part is my brother. We work together,
we have healthcare facilities. And he's the one that he's always every music thing
I've done, he's been around like he knows, he loves it. He's
always like consulting me, supported me, did my photo shoots, whatever it
was. And so my brother's like, bro, if we're gonna do this,
like spend some money, like what these guys doing. Like yeah,
yeah, so we upped it made it bigger. That second I was with
Atmosphere took me like fourteen years of the book. This guy in Fresno,
he said, yes, the first time, the same venue you guys are
still doing the same thing at and we you know, just had to take
a prize with thirty five bucks. Cold War Kids that booked them, and
at that time they had first was their song that was taken off and they
had a good following. And then slightly stupid was the reggae act they played
at Present State in one. It was like the only time and so and
they were a big reggae act at that time, that California reggae. So
we did that, did very well, financially, did great. Cool packed
up all the money paid everybody, put it right back into the account.
I said, next year, we're gonna put that money plus more for the
next year. And I did seventeen and that was when E forty loope and
all that stuff happened. We added more to that pile. But every year
we were doing it, it was like literally by the threat of the hair,
we're able to production like make it work production wise, Like we can
get in the day before and we had to be out there next morning because
Cruzi has had a game that Monday, or they'd fired Like at one year,
they'd find like a little bottle of glass and then they're complaining to the
MiLB and then Derek is getting a bunch of flag. Yeah, I understand,
and the understand everything is like getting tied in my production people are like,
we can't keep doing this, bro, Like you're making it bigger and
bigger and bigger, and we have this much time to make this thing work.
Yeah. So when I go to Derek, I'm like, hey,
can I get a seven day block? Give me like three days to set
this up and then give me at least two days to get out of here,
right am I. We won't give it. They won't give you the
same weekend you want they control the stadium. Blah blah. It was all
this pom ilb. Yeah, you know, Baseball's controlling my life. I'm
like, all right, whatever and so and then they're like, we need
you to cover the field, and it's gonna cost this the field covering,
you see. Now they ended up purchasing it like back then for me to
rent it in twenty eighteen, it was like seventy five g's damn right,
and I had to bring it from the Giant Stadium or Oaklan a is one
of the two there had it. And I'm like, okay, so I'm
gonna spend this money. I can't put on the same day I want.
You know, I broke concession records. I broke everything on that twenty seventeen
festival, like before Santealon came into the Mexican shows and they just they shited
it on me, basically with the concessions cause they be drinking their beer.
Boy, I tell you make some money there. But we broke everything.
And then I was like, Derek, I'm putting more money into this.
I'm booking bigger artists. Now, We're not a small event where agents are
just letting us get an artist for like a cool rate. They're like,
how much money you guys making? Right, He's going up Now it's people
are contacting you. Yes, Oh my gosh. So it becomes now the
artist you think is we're sixty thousand once one hundred thousand, and now you
got to negotiate that even twenty k here, twenty k here, twenty k
here. That adds up, right, and so you're you're mitigated, like
Risks is literally narrowing up. So I was telling Derek, I was like,
I need I need you guys Like, I'm like, I'm making no
beer sponsorship money. Mind you, they paid the stadium for the whole year.
I get nothing. I sell the hell out of beer. I'm like,
bro, I can go to my own place and they'll cut me a
six figure check. Like I can go places and I can get I could
demand things. Because I'm if I'm spending this much money on talent, got
this brand now I've built, and this many people are coming out, I
deserve to get my fair share of the pot. So that's what led us
to explore taking away from Crchancey right, And it wasn't about like we want
to leave downtown. It was about the money wasn't right, Like, I'm
not going to keep investing in putting all this and I mean it gets into
the millions, right, Yeah, I'm not going to keep investing all this
money into this thing and everybody downtown getting all the praise. All great,
you know we're making all this, but nobody wants to cut the cut a
piece of the pie. So it wasn't Derek's fault. Derek did nothing.
Derek was actually great. He was trying to make it happen. It was
just the powers of be The ownership groups were changing at the Grizzlies, and
so the city manager that at that time I had about me and Aaron goins
into like six places in the valley from Really area to the Hanford area looking
for a new looking at venues, were just looking at field spaces. Yeah,
yeah, let's just find a spot. We looked. One of them
was did you go to Granite Park? Granite Park, Yeah, but that
wasn't. It was there, but the parking wasn't. It wasn't legit.
The phraser trying to get me to take it there every year. What's the
place out and on the west side of the big road, no pass roading
is the roating Park no way out there off of California. I can't.
My names are horrible today. No, I think we've done events of it.
Yeah, there's events all the time. There's like the Medie even when
they do there every year. That's pretty big. And yeah, I don't
know the name of it too, but I know they still asked me till
this day they do something that I'm like, nah. And then we looked
at Woodward and I looked at Woodward and I was walking. I'm like,
man, I could put the stage here and I'm just walking logistically, just
putting in my head real quick. Remind me, did has anything happened at
Woodward Park? That has no no right? There was no taco thing we
went to had like maybe a thousand people, and they had like a stage
out there. I think it was through New Rock one O four one of
those guys not or that station may have tried to do like a they're trying
to buy Talk Throat out so they had done like a mock bootleg taco I
think I remember that. So, but we had already we had already booked
our stuff there with Bruce. Prior to this, I hadn't I hadn't seen
anything, right, I just saw blank canvas and Bruce was like, yeah,
we could do it here. I love if you know, if you
can, we can make this work. I'm like, okay, so what
are the parameters. I know we probably got to get going, but whatever.
I look at the parameters. They're they're not telling me much like yeah,
you could if you rent the place and we could do this, we
could do a partnership here, blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like,
well, I need to go till midnight. Bro, like, just
give me till midnight. Yeah, they always got the good event, like
give me till midnight. And I'm not even worried about like the alcohol cells
of it. I'm just like, if I could do it till midnight,
it's it's awesome. So Bruce like, yeah, we could do that.
So I'm meeting with every council member yes, yes, yes, yes,
And then I meet with Gary. Not nothing bad about Gary, he originally
said yes to the event. He's like, well, what does the city
get out of it? He's looking at the business parameters. Cool, we
agree. So we're going like okay, great, and they're like, you
got you're pretty much you'll get the vote to happen to go to midnight whatever
it is, right, no problem. We move forward and we're telling them
who we're booking. Like I'm in a meeting saying we're gonna book Snoop already
I've been I've already been booking artists because I got a planned. I remember
this story. We're gonna do Snoop and this person, and I know and
vividly because I brought up Martha Stewart every time, like if you could,
if Mark Stewer and Snoop, Like, trust me, Woodord Park is not
gonna be a big deal because I know the political parameters. I'm not a
dummy. So everything went good. We get our art lineup going, we
announce it. Yep, Gary's inbox was flooded because Snoop was coming out.
Damn. I remember this next thing, you know, I get a call
like, hey, we got to meet about this Snoop dogg blah blah blah.
I'm like, well we got to meet about contracts have been signed,
you guys agreed whatever. So now it's like, well, you mean,
I'm like you guys could talk to my lawyers at this like We're not really
gonna get further into this conversation because I've already paid my deposit, money's been
sent, been greenlit, boom, We're gone city manager. At the time
green everybody said go forward with it. I'm like, this isn't Mickey mouse
thing I'm doing here. So long story short, we went through that process.
I think put a big black eye on the event. To be honest
with you, I think a lot of people looked at it as a negative
energy event more than the momentum we had built. I'm not a person that's
I'm not gonna litigate against people. That's not my style. But like for
me in life, I'm like, whatever you want this battle, I'm gonna
win it down the road. I'm not worried about you right now. So
I could have done some things I didn't. We made eighteen work. I
wanted a ten year deal. They kept saying, no, they do it
again. And I mean I spent month at security and neighborhoods. I cleaned
up neighborhoods. I did stuff that no event, no producers, no promoter's
ever done. They put more PD colls on me in twenty eighteen than they
do for the Fresle Fair. One day they wanted me to pay for the
ghetto bird Wow, And I had to fight, like, I'm not paying
for the helicopter to fly around this thing ten thousand dollars just because you guys
think you can get me. Like, I had to fight. And a
lot of these people in the city, they some shady stuff happened to them.
People started falling off, right, They're just they're not the most ethical
people. They're just gonna try to hustle people when they can. And I
had the fight, man. And then twenty nineteen, so wait real quick,
that Grizzly Fest happened. Yeah it was nothing happened. Yeah, nothing,
but remind me, like the top there was Snoop. It was Snoop
Nas Fossil, the people, Foster the people. Yeah, I remember that
I booked what was the artist I booked? I just remember Justico Genica was
there for Yeah, and she was amazing that you had such an amazing lineup,
and you know, we were fortunate to be a to be a part
of it. And it was just the thing. It was dope because it
really did. It felt like a legit. I mean, you had the
wristbands like everything about it felt like a legit festival still lay out of it.
I still I mean, I still go to see events and people still
aren't doing that. For me, quality is the first and foremost thing.
I don't have to make money. I want it to be the right way.
I want things to be done with class quality promoters. The problem with
promoters. If I kept doing Grizzly Fest, I could be making millions on
it. I could continue doing it. My heart's just not there for it.
Really, That's what's kind of like pushing me away. Since COVID happened,
my other business really took off, and I look at it and I'm
like, what am I really doing this for? You really break it down,
like I'm spending all this time, money and a for an energy,
but I'm getting all this pushback from people. It's like I'm not really making
things better for people. At the end of the day, I feel like,
hm hmm right. And if it's a business purpose or business decision,
I'm blessed in other places, I don't need to focus on this to make
money. Promoters that's their business. A lot of times they're in the life
of I'm a promoter, and this is how I make my money, so
every aspect of looking at how to cut costs and do things, and in
this market, I just don't feel we have enough income to sustain a level
quality that I feel that I want. That's a good point. I will
lose money almost every year because I'm gonna spend more on the right stuff and
I'm not going to get the money back. Influx how I feel like if
I'm in any other major market, I'm killing it. I'm not without a
doubt, but you know, every market is different. I'm not into country
music. We were gonna do a country thing before COVID happened. We were
gonna do We had it with the city confirmed. Now I mean Boots in
the Park. Shout out to them. They're doing a fantastic job. They're
doing great. They like country. I don't front like. I listen to
country, never have not that I don't like it. That's just never been
my thing. I was gonna do deals to do it Mexican shows, you
know, with people. That's not my thing. I'm not gonna sit here
and just do something for the fact that just making money and I'm not into
it. I got too much things in life I could be doing that this
is like a passion project. For everything I do is a passion project if
you really break it down, Like everything I've ever done has been a passion
project, whether you made money or not, you know, And I always
figure out how to make money. That's just the knack of me being who
I am. I know how to make money, and that's why people gravitate
towards me. They want me to do things for them, But I do
it because of the passion. Like the money comes if you do things the
right way. So for me, I wasn't gonna just start selling myself out
to do things just to do events. You're almost like protecting your peace at
the end of the days, I gotta go to sleep, you know,
peacefully. I've never been someone that said anybody dirty ever. And if I
did a deal with somebody, it is exactly what I tell them, that's
the deal. I've never tried to like hustle and get over on people.
That's just not my thing because in life of relationships or everything, like when
people ask me like how do you make it? It's my relationships my never
I'm never the little kid. Every relationship I've developed I still have till this
day. Because that's the most important thing we have at the end of the
day, is the people around us and the relationships we make. People don't
really really really understand that. They think money is the is everything, and
that's where they fall. Man, let's just kind of go over twenty nineteen.
That was the g easy one, right, the Grizzly Fest and then
COVID and then you know, I a real fun question when we say this
was a festival for the town. It was legit how it looked. You
had the big photo ops with the big Grizzly Where are those things at?
Like I got to wear houseouse, stolen everything. I still got it.
I mean, one day I may do something because I want to do it,
because it's something I'm passionate about and I want to do it, you
know, but it's not right now. I feel like COVID really hindered music
and chain. Did you have something bubbling up before COVID, Like were you
working on Grizzly Fast And I always having meetings with the city at that time.
Okay, so I wanted a tenure deal and they kept saying no,
I'm for eighteen. They gave me all that flak in eighteen then in nineteen
I did it and then like, uh, I remember I had an email
out to the city manager, who has since been far gone, and she
was supposed to send my proposal to the mayor because I was like, you
want to be partners with me? You want to tell me how many cops
you really want to be in the business make money with me because they're the
ones making the money. I want a tenure deal. Let's do business,
because that's how people do it. They just did a deal with Boots in
the Park long term. Why are they doing with them? And I'm over
here breaking ground and following everything that's being done if you really want to get
to that point, and they they she didn't even send it to the mayor.
When we announced we weren't doing it, mayor called me literally that on
the dot. He was like, why aren't we doing this? What happened?
I said, you should talk to your city manager? Wow? Wow,
I said, contract's been there for three months. You were in Hawaii.
They were going to send it to you. They came back and I
didn't fight, like what are you talking to I'm not like, you don't
want to do it? All good? I don't need you. You need
me. It's my mentality if I'm going to be putting in the work and
doing these things. So that's just how I am. I'm not going to
I'm not going to chase anybody anything. That's something just there. And I
always talk about like, man, I'm Mark Grizzly. Yeah, those are
some good times. So I get asked about that every single time. I'm
sure it's old. It is what it is. But I tell them,
you guys got Boots in the Park, it's doing amazing. Go to that
event. If you like country, you got Santi on downtown, you got
tequila fests are doing down. People are doing events, they're doing their stuff.
They're not my like Boots in the Park is high level country. Look
at what they're doing. They're doing phenomenal. They're booking really big acts.
Santi and on the Latin side, he's booking some pretty big acts like he's
they're not they're not b or Sea level. The hip hop stuff we do
here is still lacks a little bit. There's no like high level hip hop
stuff. But it's very hard. You have to have really good relationships to
get the artists you want in the pop in the world right and I think
the people Boots and Park have great relationships with their country artists, so they're
able to get access to them. Same thing with Santian and the guys in
the Latin world. So, but there's a lot of events happening. It's
not like there's a lack of events. It's not like because I stopped Grizzly
Fest. No, but he's doing an event. There's people that took advantage
of it. Like I told this story to Sam from FTK when he went
to open the Fresone store. I walked in with them. We're looking at
the spot the very first day, and I said, just so you know,
right when you open the spot games Exposed, everyone's gonna come copy,
manipulate, They're gonna do what you want to do, so you better bring
your a game. When I did Grizzly Fest, Games Exposed, right,
people are gonna see what you're doing and they want to do exactly what you're
doing, how you're doing it, and so forth. That's the nature of
business. It's okay. So for me, I take it as a form
of like like I feel like it's a form of respect where people are trying
to do these events and take them because they feel like there's a sense that
could happen, and I'm happy about that. I just for me what I
want to do, I just it has to be done the right way,
you know what I mean. So I mean, I love it. I
appreciate all the support everyone's given from you guys, especially B ninety five has
always been, you know, from Diego, always been a big support of
mine from day one. And it wasn't even like it was just the core
people. I was always really cool with, you know, the PD and
stuff. Was the PD. When I wanted Diego's record, I say,
no, was I pissed? Yeah, but it is what it is.
I know there's a rhyme and reason to why they're not moving in a direction
that I feel is right. But who might have say they did the right
or wrong choices? Then I just got to keep pushing forward. And right
now in life, I'm happy I'm helping friends on state basketball. Right now,
that's all. Yeah, let's real quick, just get to that.
You know, earlier in the when I started the episode, I said,
you disappeared from the face of the earth. Of course I was just joking,
but what are you doing now? So, because I grew up playing
basketball. Right I'm in I'm in healthcare. That's my main business. I
work with people with disabilities. I have a company called Amvi Corporation. Started
that in two thousand and six. Actually my brother started that. My parents,
my brother, myself, we slowly grew that and as we're growing that,
I had to go full board with that because that company just started taking
off, and my brother has done an amazing job. If you want to
see about people who work hard, my brother's the definition of that. Like
I've never met anybody that works as hard as him and my mom, to
be honest. So I was like, I love doing my stuff, it's
great, but there's so much more stuff I could do business wise. I
can make way more money to take care of the stuff I really want to
do in the future as they get older. So I had to make that
decision. I was like, I love music, but I don't like babysitting
artists. I don't like having to do all the bs behind the scenes that
are just it's not fun. So I'm very happy in what I do every
day. I feel blessed every day to be able to go work with the
population I get to work with, and my staff and my team. I
think it's the most humbling and most rewarding thing I've ever done. So I
love what I'm doing. So I'm doing that. So back in November,
December's last year, I get a call and basically, to make a long
story short, my high school coach was Van Swaalbert, and when I was
a kid, he was my coach and my brother's coach, and I lived
in that basketball and he was to me the most terrifying man, but like
the God, like the great and I don't see God, but the greatest
coach there was the hardest coach to worked for. I mean I used to
go to sleep in nightmares like hating help. Like he was that hard.
But he also he taught a lot of lessons like adversity and pushing through the
stuff that I've had to go through my life. A lot of it was
through him and my parents, but like going through those things. So I
went to a game. I took my nephew who's five and he loves basketball.
My brother's got him playing basketball and loves it, and so we went
to a game. And not that I didn't think Hutt was a good guy,
because I helped him out last year with some NIO to try to get
some of the team some money. I just didn't feel like he had what
we needed right to really make this program turn around. I thought he was
just going through the motions, which he was already on his way out.
He probably knew it. You're talking about the culture right last year. He's
a great guy. I just didn't feel like the energy was there. So
I remember my brother was taking my nephew to little hoopsters. He's talking to
I was like, let's see Van would want to take this Frial State job
if it opened up, Because it's gonna open up. The contract was up.
I was coming up and he at first he was like no, And
I'm like, what if I had the contract in front of you and you
could take the job type of the concept, and he's like, well,
that's a different story. So we basically formulated a plan try to help him
organize, like a good marketing plan to get him to be the job.
Because I feel like there's anybody that could turn this program around in this community.
It's him hardest working guy you're going to see that's a coach, the
smartest guy you're gonna see as a coach, the community loves him, he
knows people. He gets out there and makes it happen. A lot of
what Like we said, there's no job, you every job. He's like
that. My mom is like that. There's few people in this in this
life that I've come across there are like you just figured out to make it
happen. Right. He was that type of a guy. So we put
a plan together. He ends up getting the job. It was super stressful
period because we're trying to keep things like on the low, be professional about
how we're organizing a team, strategizing how we're going to fundraise, how we're
going to do this, and and he was bought in. He was like
because he knows in the Dave College basketball. Now you have to have a
business component. There's an I l you're paying different, right, This isn't
just I'm a coach. I recruit, they come and it's free. So
I'm like, vance, it's a different game. We gotta get it.
We gotta get a war chest out there. We got to meet people.
I got to introduce you to people. We gotta shake hands, kiss babies,
do the whole nine. And we got to figure this out. Because
if there's anybody that can do it, it's you. And so he's like,
whatever you need me to do, I'm doing. Like he's like,
Aaron, just make it happen. It's almost full circle. So what you're
doing with the artist now, you're doing in in a sense, yes,
But I don't work for the school. I'm just this is a passion thing.
I don't make it. I donated money to this pro to nil again
this year. I'm spending a lot of time and effort energy into it because
it's a passion thing for me. I really want to see Fresle State win.
I went to Fresno State. I dropped out to go work for Kanye
West, but that was way back when. But you know, Fresno State
is our community. Right when Fresle State football basketball do well, this community,
this community does much better. I feel like so with measure he did
it not passing. It was like, how are we going to raise money?
How are we going to get out there and compete? Like, how
are we going to get out there and really make this not be like San
Bernardino University College or Bakersfield College or Santasaus State where we're just the college with
like really low level athletics, this community will really crumble. It's essentially our
pro sports it is our pro sports team. And athletics makes universities money.
If you run it like a business, it makes you money, right,
And no one's ran it like a business. Nobody's operating this thing like a
business, like you have to make money. And what does that take.
It takes a lot of community like involvement. It takes a lot of risk
from the community, a lot of buying from the community. And whatever happened
during the tark era when he left, because there's a lot of donors that
helped make that thing happen. They were pissed that president. However they got
rid of him. I'm learning the dark stories of the university of the last
twenty years, and it's not not good stories, right, But we got
to move past that. We gotta we have to get back. And the
president, now, doctor heim Andez Santaval is great. I mean, he's
he's like, we need to get back. So he's kind of opened up
the playbook for vance and the Tedford whoever football to kind of get out there
again and like, let's bring the let's bring these people back and let's let
them feel at home again. So I've been out raising money for nil,
for the coach, helping them as much as I can. Marcus McMahon at
Bulldog Bred, he's the one that runs that, working with him and just
kind of being, if you want to call it, the GM side of
Vance's program, my brother and I and a couple other individuals. So I'm
really trying to help him have a good year one to get people to believe
again in basketball, so we can get people back to save mar Center,
get people, you know, excited again. You know, I got Sam
on board with something. I got the whole thing. I can make calls
left right here and there, and I can get the puzzle put together.
So working with athletics and working with them, I'm really trying to make basketball
legitimate again. And the only way you can do it, though is you
got to have players on the floor that can play. So we got to
raise that money. Yeah, I know, iHeart is a big you know,
we're partners with Presdent State. I've got to DJ a couple of basketball
games. You're gonna do it again, man, I'm dy here. We're
doing the midnight man, Let's do it. We're gonna do a Red White
Dunk Contest three point. We're doing all that. They got players, let's
do it. They got very good players here right now. I'm shout out
to vance Man. He's he's been recruiting and he's got John Wealthy, who
was Tark's assistant. He's back from Kentucky. He was able to pull him,
which is huge. Like the number one assistant in college is here at
Fresdent State, Ray Bearfield. I mean, he's developed like four or five
NBA players. Evan Mobley from the Indiana Pacers and Isaiah Mobley were his two
guys that he just coached up. So he's got he's got the guys man.
I mean, I just think people I hate to say this, but
whenever I put my energy into something, I hate telling people like trust me.
I've had to do it a lot over and over and over and over
again. And that's kind of the part of Fresent that obsessed me is people
here kind of want to act like they know all the time, but they've
never done it. And my thing is like how many times I got to
prove to you like I can do this and show lead you the right path
until you know, just come on, just come on board, trust me.
Like, if you guys want to want to, you know, feel
proud about being from Fresno. This is another huge step. Like you said,
it's our pro team. That's huge. You know. I'm excited for
the next season. Appreciate you doing the episode. Yeah yeah, and all
these things. We've never heard about you before. So man, I can
go on for hours a lot of stories, you know, but I want
to say shout out to all the artists that I work with back in the
day, man Fashion on Planet Uh and Diego Red and guys from the Basement,
Planet Asia, you name it. There's there's a lot of legends.
Otis Reed is doing great things. He's got the Grizzest City Boy movie that
he's putting out. Just people taking chance and risk, you know, and
like I said, just figuring it out and doing it is if anybody ever
takes anything from what I've done, is just figure out to make it happen.
Bro. Like, there's there's too much talent in our community for people
just to sit back and be afraid to take that risk. Well said,
Until next time, this could get me fire podcast