Records & Real Estate Podcast
Adam Thurston's Harmonic Blueprint: Music, Venues, and Real Estate is Chicago's Heartbeat
Gather 'round as we reminisce over matzah ball soup and the bonds that tie us to the thrumming heart of Chicago's music and real estate scene. We're joined by Adam Thurston, the maestro behind the iconic venues Schuba’s and Lincoln Hall, to discuss the delicate symbiosis of nurturing live music within the Windy City's bricks and mortar. With a spotlight on Audiotree, Adam shares how this innovative platform is revolutionizing music discovery and bolstering emerging talents in the digital age.
Our conversation crescendos as we traverse the challenges and triumphs of orchestrating nearly 600 live shows annually, highlighting the dedication of his teams and the unique "Far Out" series that captures bands in the most unexpected of places. Imagine the excitement of scouting diverse locations across Chicago, each with its own story, enhancing the vibrant tapestry of our music landscape. And if you think managing a bustling venue stops him from enjoying shows—think again! We discuss the balancing act of show-going post-parenthood, proving that his passion for music is as alive as ever.
As we wrap up, we explore the shifting cultural tides post-pandemic and the fertile ground they offer for innovation in music and hospitality. The future beckons with possibilities, from the bustling development in Fulton Market to the pivotal role venues like Schuba’s hold in shaping artists' careers and audience experiences alike. So plug in, tune up, and join us on this symphonic journey through the melodies and mortar of Chicago's beating heart.
Have someone you think should be a guest on this podcast? Let us know! Email your suggestions over to: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com, andrew.wendt@berealtygroup.com
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: Adam Thurston of Audiotree, Schubas, and Lincoln Hall
Link: Schubas / Tied House
Link: The Bagel Restaurant
Link: Marco Benevento
Link: Khruangbin
Link: South Port Corridor Chicago
Link: Shakey Graves
Link: Fulton Market District
Gather 'round as we reminisce over matzah ball soup and the bonds that tie us to the thrumming heart of Chicago's music and real estate scene. We're joined by Adam Thurston, the maestro behind the iconic venues Schuba’s and Lincoln Hall, to discuss the delicate symbiosis of nurturing live music within the Windy City's bricks and mortar. With a spotlight on Audiotree, Adam shares how this innovative platform is revolutionizing music discovery and bolstering emerging talents in the digital age.
Our conversation crescendos as we traverse the challenges and triumphs of orchestrating nearly 600 live shows annually, highlighting the dedication of his teams and the unique "Far Out" series that captures bands in the most unexpected of places. Imagine the excitement of scouting diverse locations across Chicago, each with its own story, enhancing the vibrant tapestry of our music landscape. And if you think managing a bustling venue stops him from enjoying shows—think again! We discuss the balancing act of show-going post-parenthood, proving that his passion for music is as alive as ever.
As we wrap up, we explore the shifting cultural tides post-pandemic and the fertile ground they offer for innovation in music and hospitality. The future beckons with possibilities, from the bustling development in Fulton Market to the pivotal role venues like Schuba’s hold in shaping artists' careers and audience experiences alike. So plug in, tune up, and join us on this symphonic journey through the melodies and mortar of Chicago's beating heart.
Have someone you think should be a guest on this podcast? Let us know! Email your suggestions over to: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com, andrew.wendt@berealtygroup.com
Connect with Karen and Andrew at Be Realty: Be Realty Group
Email the Show: karen.sandvoss@berealtygroup.com
Guest: Adam Thurston of Audiotree, Schubas, and Lincoln Hall
Link: Schubas / Tied House
Link: The Bagel Restaurant
Link: Marco Benevento
Link: Khruangbin
Link: South Port Corridor Chicago
Link: Shakey Graves
Link: Fulton Market District
Welcome to Records in Real Estate, a podcast about well records in real estate. You'll be entertained and informed as we explore the intersection of these two worlds through interviews with Chicago's most interesting and successful people from both industries.
Speaker 2:That was Andrew Wendt and I'm Karen Sanvoss. We are Chicago Real Estate Brokers, property Managers, avid Music Lovers and your hosts of Records in Real Estate. Karen Sanvoss, andrew Wendt, how are you? It's been a while.
Speaker 1:It has been a while. I'm great today. Good, that's great. You weren't so good yesterday, huh.
Speaker 2:Nope, a little bit of bad. Either bad fish or bad shrimp. Either way that's not a good thing.
Speaker 1:You could cover both by saying bad seafood. There you go, but yep feeling great now. I was, karen, was charged with this task from our colleague and I stepped in to take care of it, and I went to her place to pick up a package and brought you some matzabal soup from the bagel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was really nice of you. I love how you kind of dropped it and ran. Well, I Texted me, don't spill.
Speaker 1:It was precariously set against the door. Yeah, and I didn't want you to spill it, because it's like liquid gold, you know, that's right. And I was standing there for about five minutes and you weren't coming to the door, so I you didn't tell me that you were actually there.
Speaker 2:I thought you were down in the lobby, oh.
Speaker 1:I rang. I knocked and rang the doorbell but Did you really yeah it's okay, no problem.
Speaker 2:I gotta check my bill.
Speaker 1:I thought you were totally avoiding me and only came to the door because I was walking away and didn't want to be seen.
Speaker 2:I didn't know you were there.
Speaker 1:Actually, your neighbor on the other end of the call was like is she coming to the door? I'm like I just texted her. I think she'll be right here. I'm like is it any of your business?
Speaker 2:People are very protective of my building.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, as they should be Stranger danger. That's right. Well, we just had a lovely conversation with a gentleman named Adam Thurston. Yeah, he is one of the owners of Shubas in Lincoln Hall, prominent venues in Chicago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's been mentioned, I think, on almost every podcast thus far every episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we were fortunate enough to have him on Shout out to our colleague, dominic Fodorero, director of commercial real estate and is starting to develop a restaurant tour book of business, and he was at Illinois Restaurant Tour Association meeting or something like that and struck a conversation with Adam. And here we are today. So kudos to Dominic. We are going to get into our conversation with Adam Thurston.
Speaker 3:Audio Tree is a music discovery platform and record label. Essentially is what we refer to it as We've been started in 2010 with the idea that we were either going to start a label of some sort or a studio recording studio. And we quickly found out at that time, as we were just getting started, that bands didn't have a bunch of money, never have or, for the most part, in general, never have, never will and so we kind of created this model of a live studio performance where they'd come in and they would perform while they were in town. So it wasn't anything they had to build a schedule around. So they would be coming into town playing at any one of the Chicago venues and they would come to our studio that was originally on on Wacker and come in and record just a basically a live little in studio performance where they'd set up in sort of a practice space style setup. We'd have a host and be like let's play some songs and they just sort of jam it out and like kind of cut out a lot of the production and all the little things that take a long time. It's just a live performance, let's do it. So we started to do that. See how it goes.
Speaker 3:We started streaming things pretty early on in the streaming game. We started a YouTube channel when YouTube was mostly cat videos and other things like that, in like 2011. And since then we've recorded about 1500 plus of said audio tree live sessions, which was our first thing that we started doing, and so we started streaming them, putting them up on YouTube, putting them on our website and then, when Spotify came along, we're putting them up on Spotify, and essentially the way the business model works is then we would we wouldn't charge the artists any money Because, like I said, they didn't have much. So we said we'll do this for free. You guys signed an agreement that allows us to license the performance, the master performance, and we'll put it up on YouTube, spotify, apple Music and that has grown as there's been more DSPs digital service providers around the globe.
Speaker 3:So then we just started doing that and it kind of built this audience of fans that were both enjoying the music discovery aspect of it, where we were essentially working with younger bands that were just getting started, and then it'd be a way for us to sort of be the sift through what we thought was great music coming through town that a lot of people might not have heard of before, and then. So we had that audience that was building, and then we also had a lot of bands that were interested in coming in, because as we built an audience, they were like oh, this is a great opportunity for us to get some eyeballs, and it's blah, blah, blah. And from there it's grown and evolved and we do all sorts of different things in that, in the music platform. Awesome, yeah.
Speaker 1:That sounds incredible. Yeah, really cool. How was that today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like they nailed it. That's great. It was like a best concert or there was I forget what Countryton, maybe England. There's one that's like an alley show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't remember what that one's called. There's a bunch, I mean, you know. Originally, to be honest, it was in Rock Island, illinois. It was called Day Trotter, and Day Trotter was basically what we were doing, but without a video element whatsoever. It was just this guy, sean Moller, started Rock Island as though it's sort of in the Quad Cities area it's right out in the 80s, so a lot of bands would be traveling through. So I'm not sure when he started doing this, but it was probably 2006, 2008, somewhere around there Just started recording live sessions with bands as they were coming through town and he'd do a couple of day and they'd just come in, record a few songs and then go on their way.
Speaker 3:And so we were sort of inspired by that. We're like, what if we did it A in Chicago, because there's a lot more venues and it's not as difficult to convince them to come to Chicago because a lot of them already are to play a show. But let's, let's also add a video element to it so people can like see you ball. So that's how we kind of got all started. But there's, there's a handful of other ones too that are. You know, we kind of I don't want to after day trotter. We were kind of the first ones doing the video version of it and then it's grown from there. There's a bunch of other people that do similar type of series.
Speaker 2:It's so great to see just kind of help.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, the sausage is made.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the very low-key level and and then. So ideally they would come into town, do the recordings with you and then go play the show.
Speaker 3:So people heard the recordings, they could go, and sure if they well, yeah, at that point we were, we were doing them live and that wasn't really the. The idea wasn't really to like promote their show that day. You know, it was more just to get the word out about artists that we thought were were playing, playing good music, whatever the genre. So but yeah, and then it's sort of grown from there and and evolved for sure.
Speaker 1:How did you find these artists? I mean now, they probably come to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, re, exactly early on, it was us writing, emailing Artists, a lot of friends that were in bands, other people like that, that like, hey, we got this idea, we're doing, and they're like what are you talking about? Just like just come over here and try it. And so it took a little bit of that for a while. But then, as we did 15, 20, 30 of them, then there was a lot you know PR agents, of course, for a lot of these bands. Oh, this is be great, it's a great thing for me to get.
Speaker 3:So then it started that. So then from there, early on, it was it was, you know, us writing. These artists come in and then after that we had actually started to build a little team and had dedicated, dedicated person or people that were just reaching out and Fighting whatever they thought was the new, new thing that was coming through, and so that's how that got started. And you know, now it's we've got almost like 15 members of the team that do everything, from the program manager Well, who's the person who does the booking? To our, you know, video crew and our audio team and everything across the board. So graphics, art department and all sorts other stuff. So it's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, congratulations. Thank you because she was has been around for a while. Yeah, right, and his audio tree and yourself that you know. Newer owner, yes, okay.
Speaker 3:Yes. So this is a sort of perfect segue explaining how this worked with the bands coming into town when they were playing shows. So, because a lot of the artists we were working with were, you know, on their way up Baby bands, you know just starting to play their first or second show in Chicago. They're playing at Shubas because she was a 200 capacity venue, or Lincoln Hall, which is a 500 capacity venue. So we were spending a bunch of time going to the shows, seeing those, these bands and others playing at those venues. So we were playing a bunch to spend a bunch of time there in the metro and empty bottle and all those venues around town, and so we were just there a lot. And so as we, as we spent more and more time there, got to know the Shubas brothers, mike and Chris Shuba, who started Shubas in 1989. They started doing live music I think in 1990 or 91. Yeah, we just got to know him.
Speaker 3:And as business was picking up for us at audio tree, it was kind of right around 2000, late 2013. They approached us and said, hey, would you guys be interested in taking the venues over and maybe? And so Made the decision to make the dive into the live music venue world, yeah, which is a crazy one as well. So so, yes, the Shubas brothers ran both those vent while they open Shubas in 1989 and then opened Lincoln Hall in 2009,. Okay, just as like the next logical step, a little bigger room, so when the bands came through, they can have them play once at Shubas and then next time through come play Lincoln Hall. Sure, and so that's how we got connected with them and how the the venue connection all came together. So, and, of course, we saw that as a great way to more access to bands so we could film live shows at the venues, so we all that type of stuff. So that all happened in 2014 when we took over the ownership of the venues.
Speaker 2:So, how was that transition to go from? You know recording small bands and in a little Studio?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's crazy, I mean it's, it's just there's. You know, in any music venue there's two businesses operating. There's the music business and then there's the bar, food and beverage business, you know. So it's like there's two whole separate things going on. And so, needless to say, we learned a lot in the first couple years, as we were, you know, offers and in the volume of shows that the Shubas brothers have always had and we've continued on from there. I mean, between the two rooms, that we have almost 600 shows a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's like basically seven nights a week at Shubas there's a show going on, so it's not, whereas in the bigger, bigger venues the 1500, 2000, 3000, cap, you know those those places might have shows four or five, six times a month or it's like it's just all that, it's just constant. That should was in Lincoln Hall, but you know we've got such a great team and it makes it all all possible. But, yeah, it's, it was a lot. Just the payouts. In every single day there's so many things going on in the bands and the deposits and this and that, and you know the ticketing, online ticketing and cash, but all that so did you have anyone helping you from the old guard?
Speaker 3:Yes, so that's what's great. We were very fortunate. Mike Shuba was as part of the the the, when we purchased the venues. He was interested in staying on it's and I'd love to, you know, work with you guys still if you want, and he's still our operations manager to this day, okay, and so I mean that's.
Speaker 3:It's almost been ten years since we took over and he's great oh it's just makes things so much easier because just all the little things from I mean, she was just the Property alone that the building that she was is in is a hundred and twenty years old almost. So it's just all the nuances and things With the go, with having an old building and knowing where this is and where the crawl space is to do this, that and the other thing Right, and then, of course, all the operations of the business, has helped out a lot. So yeah, mike, she was a crucial part of the team.
Speaker 1:Still, Do you get to enjoy any of the 600 shows that happen at the venues?
Speaker 3:or, as I said, prior to Having my three children, I used to enjoy them all. You know more, a lot more often. Yes, but I usually try and make at least one show a month at each one of the venues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to to be there and check it out, see what's going on and do you hand pick the show that you want to see, or is it just kind of like a schedule permits?
Speaker 3:Yeah it's, it's 50 50. A lot of times, you know, there's shows that I want to see, that I would love to see that, I just can't because of something. But yeah, it's usually, it's usually a 50 50. It's like there's there's always fans that we have coming up that I'm all excited about. So I Try and mark the calendar and try my best to get there.
Speaker 2:Do you film them?
Speaker 3:Sometimes we have a series that we we call staged, which is basically us filming live shows at the venues. That name we started that actually during the pandemic, because the one thing that we had going for us when the pandemic hit was that we had a live streaming company. So when a lot of other venues were like scrambling to be like, well, we're completely shut down, as ours were Once we sort of got a handle on things, we were able to do quite a few. I think I can't remember exactly the number we did at least I would say 25 to 30 live streaming ticketed shows that we did from the venues, because we already had been doing that for years and had all the equipment and had the place all wired up for it. So so we did a lot more than now.
Speaker 3:You know, we do a number of other series, including the audio tree live, that we can continue to do. We have another series called far out, where we record bands and unique spaces, crazy places around the the city, like we filmed the band in a in an empty pool, at one of the parks district swimming pools. We filmed at this billiards hall. We've filmed all over the place. So we got a bunch of different series that we do. So we don't film as many bands as we used to Live on the stages, but we still try and do 10 or 12 a year, for sure.
Speaker 2:So for the far out, do you get permission or do you just go until the?
Speaker 3:cop? No, we definitely do. Yeah, that's a big part of it. That's what takes up most time. It's just location scouting and finding a place.
Speaker 3:And we're always going into we know this, I'm gonna forget the name of it now but a costume shop on the north I want to say it was in Portage Park and film this great band called mama not too long ago and it's so meet some very interesting people that own film that this place called scrims, which is like a, an online gaming Center, and so you go in and meet some very interesting people that own these places and like so we want to film a band here. And they're like mm-hmm, okay. And they're like would that be all right? Sure, and they're like how much do you want us to pay you? So sometimes we were trying to film in a mall.
Speaker 3:Recently I can't remember one of the suburb malls, suburban malls and this one was like like a lot of malls Don't didn't have much going on in it, but then they you know, you never know. Then someone's just like oh yeah, give us 10 grand. And we're like no, we're just filming, like a small band here doing a little thing. So we meet all sorts of interesting people. We filmed it some really really cool places, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a cool way to get to know you know, yeah, yeah. So what? What are you listening to currently? It can be bands that you're sure, audio tree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, yeah, lots of things. Let's see, I really. There's this band called crumbin Sure, that's they. They. We had them at Early on at Shuba's and and then at Lincoln Hall and recorded a live record with them there, nice, and then they played our music festival that we have I've got five years ago or something, so they've they've become, they're definitely one of my favorite, just because I mean that music is just. Not only is it fantastic, but you can listen to it, whether you're, you know, working or you know whatever you're doing, having a drink or hanging out friends. It's just great and great.
Speaker 1:So the amount of sound that they produce is just incredible For three artists.
Speaker 2:It's really just a three-piece yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just a three-piece drummer, bassist and lead guitar.
Speaker 2:It's so moody, it's just so yeah it's incredible that I'm not live.
Speaker 1:They're great band, fantastic yeah one of my faves anything else comes to mind, let's see. Well, I try to make this question easier, because it's we used to be. What's your favorite band? And nobody can think anything?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you'd be surprised. I can now ask what do you imagine to now?
Speaker 2:And you're in the headlights music.
Speaker 1:People listen to a lot of different things at the present, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, as you can imagine, I get this, get a question, questions like this all the time and if not, that version of it, it's like, oh, what's coming up? But she was looking all that you're excited about and you know there's always a few few shows that we have coming up that I you know having the back of my mind. But you know, when you do the volume of shows that we do, it's just like Not stop shows all the time. So then I usually have to stop, be like, let's see one month, is it?
Speaker 3:Because often the way things work In, you know, in live music is, you know, our talent buyers who are booking these shows, or booking shows that are like eight and nine weeks out, or nine months, eight or nine months out, so they're already thinking in right now. They're thinking like summer next year, right, and so I'll, you know, get an email from Dan up, a doc, our talent buyer, and he'll say, hey, I'm thinking about this, this band, whatever what your thoughts. I'm like, yeah, great. So like those are the bands that are in my mind a lot.
Speaker 2:So then when people say like what's coming up now, I'm like what is what is up in October, because I was thinking about October, in January this year.
Speaker 3:So subtract.
Speaker 2:It's a point.
Speaker 3:It's funny, but yeah, geez, one of some. My one of my favorite bands of all time is Incubus. It's been one of my favorite bands. I just love Brandon Boyd. Another artist that I really love is Andy Schoff. He's From outside Toronto, more chill, but just a great songwriter. But then I, like some other, we had a great band on from the Hudson Valley area in New York called Soul Blind and their heavier sort of Like deaf tones type. So I'm kind of all over the place when it comes to comes to my music tastes and yeah.
Speaker 2:Has there been any surprises? You know, somebody you've never heard of took a chance on.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. I mean that's the, the audio tree sessions that we've done over the. As you can imagine, we're doing 15 hundred them over Over 13 years. There's been plenty of bands that we you know when they came in. There's an artist named shaky graves is one of our biggest success stories. Shake he's from seems Alejandro. He's from outside Austin, texas. In July 2013, he came and did a session with us and he pulled up in like some sort of conversion van with a buddy of his name, a mattress in the back, and he just did this one-man Performance with like a kick drum that he was playing while he was, you know, doing the guitar, and it's one of our most viewed stream sessions of all. It is our most, you know, viewed stream sessions of all time. Wow, shake he's, you know, gone, gone on be pretty, pretty big deal, and we've had All sorts of I mean artists from Mitski, japanese breakfast glass animals. Lizzo came in into the session. Wow, we've had so many it's, but yes, there's all the time and that's the best part.
Speaker 3:I always say that's my answer often to the questions like what's coming up at Shubas? I'm like, because, if it's, depending on who the person is, that's asking me and I have a read on whether or not you know they're like a big music person or they're just, you know, a casual music fan. To be honest, at Shubas because it's 200 cap room, they're usually smaller bands that are this is their first time through Chicago or their second time. But the most impressive thing about the history of Shubas is it's looking backwards, you know, three years and being like the list of bands that I've seen even in the last 14 years since I moved to Chicago. I mean I watched Mumford and Sums play their first show there and fostered the people and Billy Eilish and you know people like that that came through that at the time they were just playing their first show, so I don't know them.
Speaker 3:But the I mean Dave Matthews band played his first show at Shubas in Chicago. John Mayer, jason Maraz, gary Clark Jr, arcade fire I mean those, all those bands play little Shubas and that's just bound to happen when you have the volume of shows that we have. It's also because we've always had great talent buyers, you know that, have that year to know what's what's next. But it's pretty crazy when you do again, almost 350 shows a year at any room over the course of 20 years. You do that many, you're gonna have some of the biggest bands that played there, which is really cool. So yeah.
Speaker 1:I have a fun Shuba story. I actually came up in my wedding vows, so so I my my. I'm a big music fan, but you know, my former of years was spent listening to fish and other jam bands, and so Marko Benavento played and I brought my wife to a show and this was like the time. She's my girlfriend and you know I was Wondering if we were going to be able to enjoy music like this together. And I saw her grew for like Maybe 30 seconds, you know, but in my mind, probably because I had a few beers or whatever I'm like, yes, she's in, we're gonna do this, you know. And so, like a wake up the next morning, like it seemed like you really enjoyed that, right? She's like, uh, I mean, I was at the bar most of the show and you know, to be honest, you don't have to invite me to those. It's actually been a fine thing that we can have our separation of different things that we enjoy.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, so in my vows, and like I promise never to drag you to any more, marco Benavento.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 1:Sort of sticking with the music theme what are some of your early memories, sort of engaging with music.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I wouldn't say like it wasn't, I don't have. The story was like, oh, my dad was, you know, in a band or anything like that. Of course my dad was always listening music. But, um, you know, I don't know if I really have too many like formative, like those moments where it was like, oh, music, I love it. But you know, I of course went to some my first handful of shows when I was younger. That I remember going to geez, I can't remember what the.
Speaker 3:I think I think actually the first like a live show I ever saw was Christina Aguilera at the Traverse City Cherry Festival. Okay, yeah, and then I, shortly after that, I think my aunt took me to see like Weird Al or something. Those were my first couple things. But then I had some friends that were big. A bunch of my friends were in bands when we were growing up in middle school and high school and so we'd go to shows and go see 311 or whatever and some things like that. But I don't know if I ever had that like aha moment, because I never. Another question I often get is like so, do you play music? And I'm like I don't. I know I was in like middle school band, it played saxophone right.
Speaker 3:I just never played music I never. And then I think, once I got into music and made especially, started Working in the industry, I went to a music school, but for recording in the business side of it. And then you just see these musicians that are just so wildly talented that I, you know, I'm very able to say to myself that person probably plays their guitar Seven hours a day. Yeah, and I don't have the time to be that great and the world has enough half crappy guitar players, so I don't need to be another one. So I've never really picked up and I don't even don't have any plans to.
Speaker 2:But, um, but you're more the business side of yeah, yeah, and that's what you studied like that's where yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my degree's in music and entertainment business, so how'd you?
Speaker 1:decide to go that route.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um you know it was, uh, I'm two favorite things I guess we're like sports and music. Those are my two things, you know, and there wasn't really an opportunity for sports. And found out about this school down in Florida called full sail, which is in Winter Park, florida, outside of Orlando, after I went to Michigan State. It was going to meet Michigan State with for communications and I'm like what are you gonna do with the communications degree? I don't know. So found out about the school and went down there and yeah, I just learned recording arts is what the first portion of the degree was in. So that's being in the studio and learning what all the, what, the each one of the five thousand knobs and faders and buttons on a SSL console, how they work, and then, and then from there decided to, you know, get a bachelor's degree in the business side because that was what I was always more interested in. So, yeah, that's how that all came about, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1:So one question I thought of earlier, and sort of talking about the Business side of music, I mean so audio trees, you said it's a record label. Yeah, and so do some of the bands that you, I don't know, would you say, discover. Do they stay on your label? And how does that? How? What does that relationship look like?
Speaker 3:with the Sure? Yeah, it's a great question. Um, so it's not. You know, it's less like a traditional label deal where a A label would sign an artist. They would, you know, front them some money to record. They're going to a studio and record an album for a month and then they put that out and put the whole marketing machine behind it and blah, blah, blah, and then they have the rights to that master recording, that that album you know produced or that that that band produced, whereas we're more sort of.
Speaker 3:It's just like these one-off performances where they come in. So we don't really have any sort of Longer relationship with them other than that specific performance, gotcha. So I Don't think I expanded on this earlier. But so then bands come in. Still this day, the, the model is bands come in, sign the agreement to For us to put the music up through our digital distributor, fuga. We put it up all over the internet and then, once we recoup the cost of doing the session and we split all the profit 50 50 with the artist. So we have that relationship ongoing with them, but other than that, you know, there's not and that's just not that one piece of correct.
Speaker 3:I'm not live that live record that we record. So it's it's very different. In the path there's been plenty bands that have come in, blown our minds, gone on to become much larger artists and you know, and I wish we would have had some sort of System in place or some sort of process to to work with them more, but that just wasn't really ever our setup and then the venues came in the folds. Then we've got the live music side and we got this, so that was never really our gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah repeat customers that come back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had a handful bands that have come in and done a number of sessions, you know, usually time it up, like with when they're releasing a new record or putting out or going out on tour, so then we'll record. You know, say they're gonna release a record on October 1st, then we'll, like their record will come out, we'll give it the space to do its thing and then you know, a month later will record some live or Release some live versions of it. So we've done that a few times with a few artists that have Come back a multiple times. But cool, definitely repeat customers at the venues. We have quite a few bands that play the venues regularly, but more in audio tree it's less, less Instances of you know multiple time, multiple sessions, just yeah.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of bands out there.
Speaker 2:Well, I was wondering if you know if they go on to be bigger and then they get signed to a label and also might be you know legal issues to you know the rights to that one recording session that you have?
Speaker 3:yeah, it definitely gets a little tricky sometimes with some of that, especially the major labels. You know the universals and the sonys and the Warner music groups and all that. They they don't like anybody. You know they're usually investing large sums of money in said artists to promote their record, to Market them and get the everything going. So they don't really love when you know us, even though we're doing it for the fact, for the you know simple concept of being a music discovery platform for other people to find out about it. So sometimes they're not a big fan of us doing that and signing. You know any of the rights away for any, any of their performances. But we also have a lot of great label partners that see the value that we bring to it because of you know exactly that we've got 800,000 subscribers on YouTube and you know all these people that come to find music and so they might not have ever been able to invest in that Band, hadn't not been for you.
Speaker 3:You know there's plenty stories like that, that we hear people all the time say I heard about this man because I was Auditory, you know, you know it all sort of part of the ecosystem, but that's okay, yeah that's a really important part.
Speaker 2:Oh you know the incubator I sure think so absolutely.
Speaker 1:So the sort of the music business like what's the next thing? I mean, obviously streaming was a huge disruptor, sure? Anything like that on the horizon, or Well, what's next in the music?
Speaker 3:I don't, you know. I I mean, obviously the AI conversation has to be something that people, even if Because of just the fact, the way that people consume music, a lot of people like, yes, a lot of people go to shows, but the majority of people Aren't. The most people are now listening to their music from Spotify or Apple music, and a lot of them are. There's a lot of conversations regarding you know how to breaking bands and marketing Marketing music now, because a lot of people use and we do it too sometimes is monthly listener counts, like on Spotify. It's like a barometer for how big a band is.
Speaker 3:But a lot of times that music is being listened to because it's part of another playlist. You click right umpferies play, you know Umpferies radio and you listen to it and it plays you a bunch of music and it counts as a stream for all those people, but it might not. So Back to the AI. Of course, people that you know can create music or have programs that are writing music that are just you know, just can be a part of another playlist that you're listening to, right, working away for eight hours. It's interesting. I'm not overly concerned about it in any way. I don't think I mean because I'm not an artist. Maybe if I was an artist, to be like.
Speaker 3:I don't know, but yeah, yeah, as far as next big trends and things, I don't know, you know, listening trends always change. It seems like you know, more of the rock music indie rock music sort of had its moment, sort of fading off in the background a little bit. But um, I don't know, you know, just everything's cyclical. It seems like it's just come back around and yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just uh looking at it, listening, no, looking at an article Um on sphere in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know. For some reason it's come up a lot.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I think it's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I kind of want to go out and Vegas is not my scene, but no, me neither.
Speaker 3:I'm actually going to be in Vegas for a business thing the end of october and I was looking up tickets and they're, like you know, $1,500 to go inside, but it looks crazy. Yeah, I mean that's incredible. I mean that type of stuff is just incredible, yeah, sort of immersive yeah experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wild, why don't we take a quick break and we can come back with adam and talk about chicago? First we want to talk about our record of the week record record. Record of the week. Do you have one?
Speaker 2:You know I have been listening to this record for a while now, but I don't think I've brought it up here. Okay, so this is going to be my record of the week and it's actually artist of the week artist of the week so I don't know how much you know about jackie gleason.
Speaker 1:Not much at all.
Speaker 2:So jackie gleason some people, most people, know him as the guy who yells a lot on the honeymooners.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Olds, old school TV show black and white yes, from back in the day.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Well, he is also a very famous musician and conductor Of like a big band orchestra. Okay and so he. There's a jackie gleason station on spotify.
Speaker 1:No kidding.
Speaker 2:I listen to it all the time. It is delightful wonderful big string Orchestra and it just puts you right back. You just want to get a I don't know, a gimlet or a High ball of some sort, and yeah, and watch madmen or something. It is just Lovely. So that is my record of the week.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I came across this band because somebody that I'm friends with on facebook mentioned them. That's called. They're called all them witches and I was in tone deaf records. Um, you know, visiting our friend tony and saw record a piece of vinyl from all them witches and just picked it up and it's tremendous, it's um did tony recommend it or did you just stumble? No, I stumbled upon it. I saw that they saw that the artist's name and just grabbed it because it's halloween ish.
Speaker 1:Well, I picked it up a couple months ago and be listening to a pretty non-stop sense, and I've been listening to all of their records through spotify and, uh, they're out of Nashville, as every artist is these days. Um, but they're not country, they're more like a Sort of blues rock, psychedelia type of band, a little bit more hard driving and Four-piece band. Love them, they're great. The record title is called what was it? It was uh all them witches it was from roman polanski's Uh 1968 book rosemary's baby. It is um.
Speaker 2:I thought that was the name, okay.
Speaker 1:No, it's. It's like lightning Something or other. I want to say lightning thief, but that's not right.
Speaker 2:Let's see lightning at the door lightning at the door 2013.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:They have another one from 2015.
Speaker 1:They have a couple albums.
Speaker 2:Um in 2020.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and they're. They're a good live band. They have like a. I saw Uh live recording of them on youtube. Um, they're great. All them witches out of Nashville.
Speaker 2:Nice Lightning at the door and then, if you want a book of the week, read rosemary's baby.
Speaker 1:That's right. Or a movie of the week that's also been turning the movie with mia ferro, mia ferro, yeah, um, cool. Well, that's our record of the week and here is our conversation with adam thurston. So we're back with, uh, adam thurston of audiotree and shubas and lincoln hall and, uh, I discovered the answer to this question when we were chatting earlier.
Speaker 3:but, uh, you are not a native chicago, no, I am not, um, you from from michigan calms in michigan originally, it's right grew up until, uh, I went to school at michigan state and then moved down to florida for a little while and then, uh, I was in boston for a little bit, for a year and a half, after my, my wife, went to grad school there. Uh, so lived in boston for a little bit and then been in chicago For 13 years nice, 14, almost. So what brought you here? Uh, jeez, always wanted to come back to the midwest. You know, came to chicago often when I was younger, just like the energy of the big city.
Speaker 3:Obviously, if you're gonna get into them, into the music business, you've got to be in one of you know four, probably, towns, either being new york, la Nashville or or chicago. So, um, being A midwestern boy like I am, decided that chicago was the place to place the land. So I met my, my wife, down in In florida and we went to boston and she liked me enough to Come with me over to chicago, and so we've been here for that long and so, yeah, yeah, it's great, I love the city.
Speaker 1:Good, what would be some of your favorite things about the city?
Speaker 3:Yeah, jeez, I mean, if you wanted to say, just do some of the the high level things, I think everybody's just in, at least my travels to other major cities, just like. Everybody's just a lot nicer around here. You know it's a clean city. Uh, food scene's great yeah, just so many. And the music scene's great too, it's. It's the independent sort of venue, especially on the venue side, a lot of great independent music venues which you don't find in a lot of other markets.
Speaker 3:A lot of them are dominated by the live nations in the agis of the world and they all have their place too. But it's really cool. There's so many great Independent, from joe shanahan at the metro and, and Bruce Finkelman who's got an empty bottle and valley hall and salt shed and promontarian space in evanston, and gomez who has subterranean and bee kitchen, and so it's pretty cool because a lot of the markets you go to and it's like, oh, that's these four in the live nation venues and these two are the ag ones. Yeah, they're owned by, you know, the corporations, yeah, uh, so that was really cool too. Um, which I guess I didn't, was super well versed in before I moved to chicago and got into the music industry and I learned all of these things. But, um, yeah, people always asked her like, do you think you'll ever move? I was like I don't know. I don't really have any plans to relieve the chicago area. Yeah, maybe if I'm, when I'm older and have, if I have some money Right, have a place in arizona or florida or something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but, yeah, always plan to have residents around here, because it's just a no good people, great food, great entertainment scene across the board.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's a great song music scene. It's great. Uh uh, karen and I uh just stopped into the beat kitchen one night and saw some like Doom gays Wow. Hadn't heard that term before little little children out there playing doom gays.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:Like it was incredible.
Speaker 2:That's great, we're definitely the old people in the 20s, not only somebody's mom or like somebody's grandparents.
Speaker 1:That that Karen likes to get right up at the front too.
Speaker 3:It's just uh you know, if you're there, you might as well experience it in full.
Speaker 1:I took a fun picture of her where it just seemed like if she was the only one in the crowd at this. You know, hard ass, doom, gaze, um, that's great. Do you got? Do you like collaborate or, you know, touch base with some of those owners? I mean?
Speaker 3:yeah, oh for sure. Uh, I mean, in some way, in some instances we're definitely competing with each other for some shows, but At the end of the day I mean being in the music promoting business, as tough as it is anyway. So it did to not collaborate with the other talent buyers and other venue owners and see what's working for them or what's not, on all sorts of things. It just wouldn't make any sense. And so we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've got some great relationships, and a handful of years ago a little group came together called civil Chicago Independent Venue League, which was actually born out of the development, the Sterling Bay development, or by that you know hide out in the Salt Shed area over there, and so that group actually came together around that, because there was that big article where Sterling Bay was going to build this massive thing and all these things and build these live venues. And then it timed up perfectly, unfortunately, but perfectly, because then the pandemic happened, and so there was already a group formed up of us that that could then be together and join forces for all sorts of stuff, for, you know, lobbying for support, for support from the government, since we were shut down and got to operate businesses, and so that was the long answer to yes.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, there's some great, great people in this, in this industry, and I mean they're all all good. I would consider a lot of them good friends. So were you guys.
Speaker 1:Was that the organization? Forgive me, yeah, if I'm being ignorant, but was that the organization that came up with the hashtag save our stages?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, that's exactly what it was and that was the big push to, you know, get the, the SVOG, the state save our stages grant, which ended up coming out of that which the government came up big on, to, yeah, provide a bunch of money for for a lot of the venues, just to be able to keep their employees and, you know, just have some money to ramp back up and get back to once shows were able to go on again.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, that was it. So that was really cool. Yeah, there's a lot of great, a lot of great people in the industry. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Are things kind of back to where they were pre pandemic?
Speaker 3:Yeah you know, I there was a I just read this report that was it was commissions, the right word but was put together, paid, paid for by D case, which is the department of cultural affairs for the city of Chicago, for this group. They basically pulled a bunch of everybody in the entertainment arts scene in Chicago and that includes theaters and nonprofit theaters and all sorts of things and music venues and all these things and the reports are, I mean, our personal experiences. It definitely feels like especially the I'd say like the back half of this year. So far, maybe even into the spring, it's been a lot of, it's been busy, and that's because a lot of those artists that weren't touring for such a long time, everybody kind of went on a tour on the same time when in normal times, you know, bands will usually have album cycles where they're, like you know, release a record and then they'll tour for three or four months and then maybe take a month off and then tour for another couple months and then you know, okay, we just spent six or seven months on the road and put out a record, let's chill for a year.
Speaker 3:So then that's what sort of would create the space in the past, but now it was like everybody wants to go on tour. So we've had a ton of shows and I'd say, as far as being back ticket buyers are, people are still buying quite a few tickets. We're seeing some changing habits in. That seems like the younger generation whether it's Gen Z, millennials not drinking as much which is interesting, you know which?
Speaker 3:I mean sort of makes sense, so you adjust and do those types of things. But yeah, I mean it's been, it's been good it's been. I mean it helps. We've got these two venues that have been around for such a long time, that have a name. You know, I say with Shubas it's like a lot of times people will meet someone anywhere out and I go, what do you do? I was like, oh, we got this company called Audio Tree and they're like I haven't heard of it.
Speaker 3:And you know, and then you say, oh, then we run Shubas. And I was like, oh, I know Shubas, I saw the best show in 96.
Speaker 3:And I was like, oh, I'm going to run this band and I have no idea who they're talking about, but if you have lived in Chicago for any more than you know a couple years, at any point in the last 30 years you've probably been to Shubas. So having that type of brand recognition like we have with those venues, that helps, helps a lot. But the general consensus of this report I was just referring to was that we're still not quite there. Especially theater, it seems, has been quite a bit more.
Speaker 2:I'm on the theater tip and a lot of them closed down and never came back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely not pre pandemic numbers, and you know some people read into that like, oh well, maybe just things are changing and people have found other. You know they've. You know, have a love Netflix now more than they ever have, or have decided they, I don't know whatever. But I do believe that you know there's something that, no matter what, you're never going to.
Speaker 3:That feeling of humans coming together to watch a live show or live performance, like and you know the whole AI thing that came up with like, oh, are they just going to be like AI bands and everything, and at one point it's just going to ruin the live music, you know, scene or, or, and my thought was well, even if it does, even if the only things that are performing on stage or you know, holograms or AI generated bands or whatever, there's still people want to get together, right, and, you know, interact with each other and have a drinking dance and do whatever. That's never going to go away, but so it's just about again, little changes like, oh, the younger generation is not drinking as much, so we have a lot more any options and a lot more companies are brewing any, you know, to an alcoholic products or whatever.
Speaker 1:So just to get your margins off of yeah, you still have it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I read a report recently that that, like I don't know those, those beverages have just skyrocketed huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely huge. I mean, even some of the just met with a couple of the guys that work for Lagunita. They've got this great product called Hopwater, which is really good. I mean it's almost it's. You know, it's kind of like gin like. In that it's very herbal because you know hops have that that same sort of herbally flavor to it. But it was really good and that's something they've been pushing a bunch and so just a lot of you know, just you got to pivot.
Speaker 2:I would assume eventually cannabis drinks would be part of that scene as well.
Speaker 3:I sure think so, yeah, in fact, Lagunitas makes one.
Speaker 2:In California they do Amazing.
Speaker 3:We spent about a half hour of the meeting yesterday talking about that. They had just come back from Petaluma, where Lagunitas's headquarters is, in their high fives. That product that they do, that they, you know it's still very much like regulated, where it's like this place bottle, they can it, but then they send it to this place to infuse it and you can still only get it at certain places and, you know, can't move over state lines. I think they're starting to do in Colorado, but I would imagine that's the the direction we're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I guess it's just a complete side note. Forgive me, but this is a clap back to. You know the person that brought us Karen and I together. I saw umphreys in Petaluma with Brian B and Kermie. Oh that was a fun show.
Speaker 2:That was awesome.
Speaker 1:I also saw umphreys at Chubas back in the day.
Speaker 2:I have to also say that I think almost every guest we've had without fail has brought up Chubas in some yeah absolutely All in a positive note.
Speaker 1:That's great, I love it. Um, what do you think Chicago needs to work on, which I know is a hot topic? And but you know from somebody that owns businesses in Chicago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, with the reopening and getting back to get, I mean, at least from my perspective on the, the arts and live music, it seems like they've been trying to make some, some investments there in general and they've been good about that. What do they need to do better? Oh gosh, you know there was a lot of the population in Chicago's, you know, slowly declining and everybody says that, oh, that's because their property taxes are too high or or it's inhospitable for, you know, businesses to open headquarters and have a bunch of people, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure quite what to attribute that to. I do think I don't know. I just think Chicago, like long term bullish on Chicago, just in that it's gonna, it'll be a place that it's just. It's just so nicely situated with the lake and you know we get the seasons, some of them worse than others, of course, but I just think it's just a great mix where it's spread out enough but it's compact enough. There's so many different neighborhoods and I don't know, as I get older and I go visit other cities, of course I'm not as intimately familiar with them as I am with Chicago, but still there's just, there's just something that this town has that that I don't know.
Speaker 1:Some of the other ones don't, for for my money, yeah, yeah, I mean, you demonstrated a bullish attitude when you open Tidehouse, right? So so talk a little bit about Tidehouse. Yeah, that came about.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, absolutely so. Once we took over Shubas there was an old Harmony Grill that was connected to it, which was basically a two flat that the Shubas brothers had sort of retrofitted into a first floor diner grill and the second floor was the music offices where the music staff and department would bookshows and, you know, run the operations out of there. With the ever growing and improving culinary scene in Chicago, 15, 20 years ago, when they, when they opened that, when the Shubas brothers opened that, there was nothing on Southport, there was like, I mean, it was basically like Justin's I think, and you know one other little bar, so they were pretty much the only place that was making hot food, that wasn't like microwaved. And but in the past, you know, 10 years ago, there's in or in the last 10 years there's been a number of investments in the not just specifically that Southport corridor, with having an alboka just opened up, the you know Gigi's chicken and I Toco, the sushi restaurant and a little go diner moved up here from the West Loop, and then of course you've got to come Blondie and Crosby's and Southport grocery and blah, blah, blah. So anyway we knew we had to step it up a little bit Right, and so we made the crazy decision to you know, knock that building down and build a whole new restaurant. It's again well, thank you.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was a. That was a heck of a project. Learned a lot on that too, as far as just those projects of that scope in general.
Speaker 1:Maybe you could revise your answer and say that the Chicago needs to tighten up its permitting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:We're going to need a break right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, adam's, that it's a PTSD Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly. But so, yeah, we wanted to create a restaurant that you know was was as good or better than a lot of other restaurants in the neighborhood. We knew we wanted to make like a nice outdoor space and all that. And the idea was to have that capture type of thing where people would come to the company dinner before a show, go to the show, yeah, maybe come over for another drink afterwards, maybe you know whatever. So it's like a full evening affair there, right, and when we opened up we're a little too high end. We sort of missed the mark on that.
Speaker 3:But I think, overpin what the one of the other only good things that came out of the pandemic for us was an ability to sort of rethink what we were doing. So since then we've made our menu a lot more approachable, really focused on cocktails, really focused on understanding that people are coming to the show and so they just want to come over and have something. You know whether it's a burger or chicken sandwich. But then there's a lot of neighborhood regulars that we have that come in to eat there. So, and I've always just been a big restaurant person- as well, and.
Speaker 3:I love good food, so having the opportunity to like come up with a restaurant concept.
Speaker 2:That's a really different business model than you know. A club, isn't it? Absolutely is yeah, which? Again?
Speaker 3:that's crazy, Go back and say these stories like what are? What were we thinking?
Speaker 2:But I mean, did you have help with that transition?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the yes, definitely. I mean from the, just the design of the restaurant, laying all that stuff out. It's some great, some really awesome people that helped us on that front. And then, yeah, we had a couple people that had been working for the company prior to us taking over that were really great.
Speaker 3:Adam Jevney is our food and beverage director and he's incredible person and really has a lot of industry experience in that realm and but in that it was a lot of consultants and some things helping us figure out where we wanted to land in the in the market and all the challenges of it, because it is similar to the Bar business on the other side. It's just the people are coming in and sitting down for longer and they expect to hire a level of service and and so what we did do is, you know, have a one singular kitchen for both places. So we kind of have a separate menu for Shuba's and a separate menu for Tidehouse, and the offerings are different on both sides, and so we've gotten a lot better at that over the years. It just, you know, paying for an education is what we had to do for a little while To figure it all out, because that small business is all about absolutely, and I mean, that's what's.
Speaker 3:You know, most restaurants have a, you know a probably a demographic that they cater to. You know that comes regularly or the certain type of people go to a certain restaurant For you know, most of the time, whereas the venues are very different in that we have all sorts of different types of shows and genres. So you know, one night it'll be a suburban, you know, jam band or something, and then the next day it'll be an all-ages hip-hop show and then the next day It'll be this.
Speaker 3:So that also provides challenges because, again, when you're saying, if you're at a restaurant, okay, I know they're gonna have hundred people in, today they're probably eat these same things and they all like to drink these same Things, whereas, like one day, people will come in and they want something else and then the next day it's a totally different thing that they're drinking.
Speaker 3:So it's, there's a lot of different Planning and and things going to that too, which is kind of fun and interesting, and I mean even for the restaurant, considering we're physically connected to the venue. We always know some crowds are gonna come there eat more. You know, if we have all ages show with the younger crowd, they're usually not gonna come over and spend 50 bucks on dinner. But if we have that suburban show or whatever, we'll get you know 50 people coming over for dinner in the night. So we've gotten better at that those type of things, to be able to see those trends and understand what people are gonna.
Speaker 2:Super interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know we've we've often really we've loved all of our guests. But a lot of the conversations that we walk away being intrigued by are usually about Chicago businesses and just different ways that they need to sort of go about. Yeah, things to to to make a go of it. Sure, that's, that's cool. So, speaking of you know Chicago business, like when do you think you know sort of commerce is headed in Chicago? And from a commercial real estate perspective, you know there's there's not a lot of transactions happening. It's harder to start a business these days, but you said you're bullish on Chicago, so I imagine that you expect some of these storefronts to sort of fill up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know they'll be. You know changing habits, changing. You know evolution of what people's interests are, what, what it is that people are buying or spending their money on. That always changes as far as the commercial real estate side of things with you know the new, a lot of people you know changing their, whether it's work from home habits or how much time they're spending at the office or all that. It's definitely created some different you know situations, but I think you know the the Fulton market area down there is just like, seems like it's it really hit the nail on the head with the idea of that like live, work, play concept, where it's like there's residential, there's business and then there's also all sorts of restaurants and it seems like you know every, every building that that gets built is getting filled up pretty quickly down there and they've got a good, that good vibe. So I think it's just, it's a little bit of just that. It's just like rethinking. Like you know, humans still want to go out and do things on the weekends and you know they want to go to shows and be involved in arts. Everybody's got to work to pay their bills and there's just, you know, different things that are gonna be you know different ways of doing those things, that that will shift.
Speaker 3:But I think Jeff Shepack is a developer who Built that 167 North Green building down there and I got to meet him a handful of geez couple months ago and it's just interesting here him explain that he's been in real estate for a long time. He's, you know, passionate about it and sort of that whole concept of the Fulton market. He was one of the first people. That was because when it was the meatpacking district essentially and he basically was one of the first people in the early 2000s and was talking to the alderman about, you know, it doesn't really make any sense. We've got a city that has bills that it needs to pay and then you've got all these companies that are paying like real low property taxes and they're wholesalers, right. So in this, you know, central business district Right here. So it's kind of interesting hearing his perspective on it.
Speaker 3:So I think, yeah, in general, I think Chicago's just made up of a lot of great people. I think it's unique to the East Coast and then I always say Everybody that's from, you know, grew up within a 300 mile radius of Chicago. That was just, you know, the people that wanted to get out and wanted to go to the big city. They all landed in Chicago. I mean, of course you have like tertiary big cities like your Milwaukee's or Indianapolis or Detroit, but on the East Coast you have, just like, a lot of major cities. It feels like people stay in those cities but like Chicago's, just like this culmination of, yeah, nice Midwestern folks from you know from three hundred mile radius.
Speaker 3:Totally have all come together and, you know, seem to get together for your get along. For the most part, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that, I mean it, you know, from your two venues. I mean you know, I've, I've. So you know I've lived in the city 25 years. My first place out of college was it like Barry and Lakewood. So I've been in this neighborhood a lot and you know the Southport corridor is sort of seen ups and downs and it certainly seems like it's it's up, like you said, with all of those new restaurants that are really really popular and some new buildings coming in. Yeah, I would expect that the same thing happened to the Lincoln Avenue stretch where Lincoln Hall is. It's Not quite as robust as it once was but yeah, you know, obviously Lincoln Hall is a huge anchor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for that. So yeah, absolutely yeah, I think that's that's definitely you're seeing a lot more of that, like I have to imagine there's there's not a ton of you know business office, at least in the Southport corridor. But but those those types of neighborhoods Lincoln, they just Lincoln Hall and Lincoln Corner, lincoln and Fullerton and Hall stood there. They just they're building, built I don't even know if it's done, but that big condo property that's right there on the corner. So yeah, just seems like maybe that's interesting. Michigan Avenue's changed a lot. I love people seem to be like moving out from like that core downtown area. Yeah, not, not everybody's necessary for everybody be at their desk Monday through Friday from 8, you know, 8 to 5. So it's just yeah, those types of changes that are interesting to see happening.
Speaker 1:I wonder if you brought in like an office building in this area.
Speaker 3:If it would be, you know, it would do all right, you know, I think yeah, I mean it could be a you know that sort of full-market concept of there's like that, you know Live-work-play stuff. I think you'll see more of that happening in more in more. You know big cities that have the ability to to do that and have those people come in and live there and work Two buildings over and then go out to dinner in the, you know, on the first floor of the building that they work in or whatever.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's interesting, we shall see we shall see what's next for Adam Thurston an audio tree, oh wow.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, in the long term, it would. I'd love to have another venue of some sort. You know, I think it's that that natural progression to have then like another room, because, you know, we spent so much with. The core of our business was founded on the idea of helping artists Get their voices heard, get their music heard, be discovered, and so we're doing that all the time with the shows at Shubas and the shows at Lincoln Hall, Doing that all the time with audio tree, and so we spend so much time and effort and we have such a great team that puts all this work in that we discovered all these amazing artists that come and play when they're you know, and then all of a sudden they, and then they get big and then we watch them go off and, you know, go play the big rooms and make a much money for all the people. So it feels like we're you know, we're the, the, the farm system that identifies them, and then they go, you know you're doing all the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah right. We're the benefits, so that would be great.
Speaker 3:How many people would that? And you, oh jeez, I think probably the next logical step would be between a thousand and fifteen hundred. Yeah, so, and what's calm?
Speaker 3:See to that and so the Metro is about eleven hundred, thalia is about nine hundred, and then you've got the Vic, which is right here. That's fourteen hundred. Okay, so those are about comparable size rooms. That would be sort of the perfect next step. But other than that, you know, just yeah, just trying to evolve. You know, obviously there's no Shortage of things to be working on as things change the venues and as things change with audio tree, and we continue to grow those brands. But and just sort of, maybe the entrepreneur in me just always wants to be continuously thinking about the next thing too while doing all that.
Speaker 2:So would you want to be taking over something or or creating something on your own?
Speaker 3:I think, the pros and cons to both, but I think perfect scenario would be like take something over that already had some of that. That's the toughest thing, I think, is it's the brand recognition and that that that is built over the years of just having great bands there, because music just connects to people so solidly that a lot of times People can tell you what the best show they ever saw was or how we say you know the. It's weird how you know new, new movies come out. Everybody wants to see a new movie. Or new restaurant opens, everybody wants to go to the new restaurant.
Speaker 3:But a lot of times it's hard to convince people to listen to new music because they're always. My theory is like the reason my dad loves like the 60s and 70s is because that's when he was 18 to 24 years old, in his formidable years in college and whatever, and that's the music to him that like just held on to him the best and that's why you know my wife's loves 90s music still is good. Thank you All that. So it's interesting how that's all Tied to it. But the same thing can be said about music venues too. I mean we we do a lot of weddings at Shubas and Lincoln Hall as well, because people go on their first date and we went on our first date.
Speaker 2:We saw this incredible show, yeah, and we want to get married there, and it's just like those types of connections that happen, and so that's sweet.
Speaker 3:To your answer, karen, about or your question regarding taking something over, it would be great to have that ability if there was an opportunity came along. But again, those, a lot of those, those, those things aren't, you know, just sitting out there all the time and that has a good recognition.
Speaker 2:Exactly you could take over, something that then you'd have to work to try and you know right which would have be fun because you could take all the experience and be like, oh, if we could do.
Speaker 3:I mean because there's things that you know Shubas or Lincoln Hall, like if we could just move this here, if there was some more storage, our life would be so much easier so you could. If you're opening something new, you could approach it. And because we have the brand recognition of Of Shubas and Lincoln Hall. You know the oh, the. The team behind Shubas and Lincoln Hall is opening this new place. That'd be a lot, a lot, um, wouldn't be as Tough as someone. That's just like I'm gonna open a music venue tomorrow and they have no history in it or no brand. So I don't know. We shall see. Yeah, yeah, nice.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, adam, for joining us today.
Speaker 2:It was awesome to talk to our neighbor, yeah and talk music in chicago and Just had a blast hitting up a Some tight house and yeah yeah, come on, come on over whenever you're uh available.
Speaker 1:Yeah love it. So, karen, we just uh had our conversation with adam and, uh, he Started a record label essentially called audiotree. They discover a lot of new artists and, you know, um, I think it is difficult to um, as an older person, kind of get into new music, but, uh, I think we're gonna, partially because of this podcast, but partially because of who we are. I think we do a pretty good job of that. So, karen, why new music?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, he brought up the idea um in the second half, I believe, of Um we. We tend to gravitate towards the music when we are of a certain age I've been actually talking to people about this when you're about 15 to 20 something.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, those are kind of the formative years, and so you, you go back like if I had Just you know, when I'm in a bad mood or whatever I put on 80s, it's just my happy place. Yeah, it's home, but Sometimes I I'm a person that doesn't like to get into ruts. I don't want to be that old lady. That's just like I don't know. Back in my day we had real music where people played their instruments you know, and it wasn't all AI.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't all AI. That is going to be very interesting, this whole AI thing.
Speaker 1:Well, think about the argument that people had with you know, respect to like digital creations, right CDs or like you know, hip hop. Yeah, or a keyboard Like an electronic synthesizer, you know Casio keyboard, anyway, yeah, anyway, that's right.
Speaker 2:Because I can look back on music in my life where you know I grew up playing like in bands and what not I mean in like band but then became like a band person and I would play shows and clubs all around. And so it is thrilling to me to just think back on those days and to remember what it's like to be a new band, you know trying to make it and play in shows and just that love where you are going to get into a. You know into a van with four of your friends and travel up the coast for a week, and you know it's so difficult to be in a band.
Speaker 2:It is so much work for so little glory, sometimes Most of the time, but that glory, those moments make it all worth it. The late nights where you're playing it, you know Tuesday at 1130, because you got bumped and you know the sound guys drunk and no one is in the audience, but you have those moments where people are digging your shit and it is just like this is why we do it. So I don't know, I just still have that excitement when I think I don't want to do that anymore.
Speaker 1:Right, right. But you're excited for those new artists.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And when people say, oh, there's no good music, you're not trying.
Speaker 3:You're being lazy and silly statements.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's that will aid you.
Speaker 1:Yes, it will Absolutely. Don't say that, don't listen. Yeah, don't ever say that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just do yourself a favor, just get on one of these services or whatever. Or just ask somebody go and do your local music store even better and say hey, that's a great idea, yeah. What do you?
Speaker 1:recommend, and we I've done that with a lot of the proprietors of the record stores that we have had on and they have, I got to be honest, they've never been wrong, you know, and you know it shouldn't be shocking that they're not wrong, because it's their business not to be wrong, but they're really spot on. I'd be like I like this and, you know, recently went into a bucket of blood and I'm like, you know, like jam, sort of psychedelia. But he, you know their stores geared towards harder stuff, and he's like here, check out this band, earthless, do you need? He's like do you need lyrics, or lyrics important or not? I mean, I was like, not always I don't need lyrics. He's like here, earthless, and I love it, and so, yeah, go check out, you know, your local record store.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. And then, if you are a vinyl person, look at the liner notes and then see who played bass on this and look them up and realize that they played. Based on this other thing you might like, that's right. Yeah, that's why new music Okay.
Speaker 1:This has been an episode of Records in Real Estate. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed it. Today's episode was brought to you by Be Realty. Be where you want to be and be realty.