By Carol Anne Szel

When did VIP go from Very Important Person to Very Important Purchase?

I guess Tommy and Gina had to settle for a tailgating BBQ in the Giant Stadium parking lot at this year’s Bon Jovi shows.  Either that or settle for a glimpse at their “Livin’ on a Prayer” buddies from last row, high above the opposite end zone of the football field. Because that’s all a working-class couple will be able to shell out today.

Oh yeah. I should have started my blog today by saying a big “allegedly” to all that follows. Okay, let’s move on.

Who hasn’t been disheartened at the triple digit concert ticket prices in recent years? And the ever-rising cost of merch at the venues has been mind-boggling. VIP Packages seem to be the latest thing in helping musicians make a profit in this day-and-age where songs are purchased on an as-needed basis from laptop computers one at a time instead of albums on a whole at in-the-flesh record stores. Concert ticket sales are slow to say the least, and the old gimmics of making cash in the music industry have run dry.

Enter the VIP mentality. I mean, these new VIP Packages are meant to — according to their business-pushing associates — keep ‘true’ fans in the first few rows so they won’t have to pay outrageous scalper fees. Well, hate to break it to you. The VIP packages are already re-selling at marked-up prices and scalper fees on the internet.  One “sold out” available bevy of VIP Packages to an upcoming band’s show (with a retail price of $1,850) was bidding at $8k and rising a few days ago on the internet.

Rewind to bring us all up-to-speed. I wasn’t fully aware of this new money-making angle until last week. I read a Facebook post promoting the choice of two VIP Packages for their artist.  Cute pictures of the singer looking like a cardboard cut-out with the same pout on his face in the same spot, on the same tour bus, with interchangeable fans tucked by his side. He’s an okay fella, posed like this for the 25 years I’ve known him. I clicked on the link to see what this VIP was all about. Saw that this “pose” cost each fan $600 bucks a pop. Picking my jaw up from the floor, I  called a friend whose response to me was that this was cheap.  Six hundred dollars for a ticket to the show, a souvenir bandanna and a pose in the tour bus?

Digging into a Google search, I  scrolled onto a never-ending list of VIP Packages ranging from the Jonas Brothers to Lady Gaga to Megadeth to Bon Jovi to The Eagles to … well most of the summer acts out on tour this summer. VIP Packages reaping a heck of a lot of money which is straight profit for these musical acts. Tons of musical acts, in fact. The only non-surprise, however, was the Bieber-fever kids —which we’ll give a hall pass to on this one.

One HUGE exception to this display of  gouging the fans for monetary gain with these costly, VIP Packages or tours today, are the  long-time charitable, cause-boosting musicians Carole King and James Taylor on their Troubador Reunion summer tour.  They are donating their reasonable $275.dollar VIP Package profits to charity.  Several charities.  And to date they have raised more than $1.5 million dollars for good causes like helping save the environment.  And for that price fans actually get to sit surrounding the round stage at cafe tables and attend the concert sound-check the afternoon of the show, before enjoying a meal of good food and wine. Carole King and James Taylor must watch the news and, obviously, actually care about the world outside. Definitely setting themselves apart from the circle of greed-possessed antics of other musical acts.

The top story on my search was Bon Jovi, with a VIP package price of $1,850.  With that you get a seat within the first few rows, a canvas bag, a laminated pass (which gets you nowhere near anything of any value) and the metal chair you sat on during the show. Makes one salivate at the mouth with the prospect of having a fifteen dollar folding chair complete with a Bon Jovi decal on it and  beer-stained legs sitting perched in the living room.  And of course, you do not get to actually meet, or be in the proximity of, any members of Bon Jovi.

That being said, who are the people who buy these VIP packages? Surely not the Tommy and Gina in “Livin’ on a Prayer,” the working-class heroes in a song from Jovi’s days gone by.  At today’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour here in New York,  a full-time employee will earn $290 a week.  Just over $15,000 a year. Before taxes. Minus a low-ball figure of 20% in taxes and you’ve brought home a monthly paycheck of just under $900 dollars a month.  So, in a couple of months a regular kind of guy who works, perhaps, in the Jon Bon Jovi hometown of suburban New Jersey (which was the genesis of most of their early catalog of money-making hit songs) could expect to pay off a VIP Package to a show in a couple of months. Wait, that is barring being able to pay rent, buy food, or afford any form of transportation in their real lives. Oops.

The VIP packages seem to have a sort of commonality in what they offer.  Some merch. Like a backpack on the higher end of the deals, a band button, sticker, seat at the show, and usually a meal of some sort.  One deal actually boasted a walk down a special entrance to your seat to get you settled in with a bit more convenience.  And another offered a private merchandise table so a VIP package buyer can browse at a less frenzied pace when buying stuff.  Hey, if a regular ticket holder wanted this kind of VIP treatment all they have to do is get to the gig early to find a good parking spot, get to the merch table before the venue fills up too much, and grab a hotdog and beer on the way to their seat.

By the way, while checking out one of the sites that coordinates these VIP Packages,  I found a tab on the ‘Fan Feedback’ section.  What do the people actually say about their expensive adventures?  My Norton blocked the site with the warning: “Do Not Trust.”  Enough said.

Bottom line, who else besides me misses the days when for seven dollars you joined a fan club and got a monthly newsletter mailed to you (yes, on actual paper, walked up to your house by a human being) with your fan club button and sticker and pencil?

Money wasn’t needed to gain access in the 70s

Expected of the teens in the 2010′s decade and beyond.

Disappointing with the desperation of the bands who were popular in the ’80s

By  Peter Lindblad

Charlie Carp (standing) and Danny Kortchmar (crouching) make up Slo-Leak. Photo courtesy of Mad Ink PR/Mick Rock

When JD Souther decided in 1985 to put his solo career on the back burner, he had a few reasons running through his mind.

“Probably the foremost one was simply that I thought that the well was running a little dry as far as material was concerned,” Souther says. “Not that there weren’t plenty of songs in there — I was starting to bore myself to death.”

Nor did Souther want to fall into a rut of “playing to an existing fanbase, stylistically.”

“I didn’t feel and don’t [feel] that that is necessarily a healthy mindset for art,” he explains. “I don’t think you make the best art when you’re concerned with how people will buy it.”

So in the ensuing years, Souther mostly stayed close to his California home, working behind the scenes for and with other artists but not issuing any new albums under his own name.

In October, Souther finally ended his drought between studio albums with the release of If the World Was You.

“I may have waited a bit too long, some people would say,” Souther admits with a laugh. “Doing it every 20 years whether you need it or not might be a bit cavalier. But the fact is, I did need it, and when I went in to make this record, I never needed to do anything more in my whole life.”

It’s a life that’s been connected to and influenced by music from the start. John David Souther was born Nov. 2, 1945, in Detroit, where his father had hoped to resume his singing career after serving in the Army. The Souther family moved a few times before settling in Amarillo, Texas.

“The story goes that my father wanted to move to New York,” Souther recalls, “but my mother said, ‘No, that’s it. We’re not going any farther north or any colder.’ My mom didn’t like the north; she’s from a big, friendly Texas family. That’s where she wanted to be, so that’s where they went.”

When he was in the fourth grade, Souther took up the violin. That didn’t last very long.

“I believe at that school I had football practice before violin lessons, and I just got tired of having to defend my poor little violin and my poor little self,” he says.

As a small kid, Souther says he didn’t have the size for football, so he committed himself to music, moving on to the clarinet a year later.
“I knew if you could play clarinet, you could play tenor sax — same keys, same fingering,” he says. “And I was already listening to a lot of jazz and lot of rock ‘n’ roll, and a lot of the early rock ‘n’ roll records have tenor sax solos, so I was sort of aiming for that.”

Souther expanded his instrumental repertoire yet again when he began playing timpani, followed by a full drum kit, as a high school freshman.

It was while attending Amarillo College that Souther’s musical interests really intensified. He took piano as part of his studies and earned a few bucks playing drums with jazz groups at clubs and bars.

In 1968, Souther moved to California, and in short order, he was introduced to what would become two mainstays in his life: the guitar and Glenn Frey.

“Glenn wasn’t any better of a guitar player than me, but he brought a real love and knowledge of rhythm and blues music,” Souther says. “When we got together, it gave me a reason to fuse the poetry I had been writing with music.”

For several months, Souther and Frey listened to music, practiced, wrote songs and played “pass the hat” gigs.

Doug Weston, owner of the Troubadour in West Hollywood, saw them and offered them

J.D. Souther, the legendary singer-songwriter whose career has been highlighted by numerous hit songs recorded by a broad range of artists, has set a national tour to support If The World Was You, his first studio album in 25 years.

The album was released on Oct. 14 via Slow Curve.

Tour dates, cities and venues include:

Nov. 16 — Toronto, Hugh’s Room,

Nov. 18 — Ferndale, Mich., The Magic Bag

Nov. 19 — Cleveland, Night Town

Nov. 20 — Chicago, The Abbey

Nov. 23 — Minneapolis, Cedar Cultural Center

Nov. 25 — Denver, Soiled Drive

Dec. 3 — Houston, McGonigel’s Mucky Duck

Dec. 5 — Austin, Texas, Cactus Club

Dec. 6 — Dallas, AllGood Cafe

Dec. 8 — Santa Fe, N.M., Santa Fe Brewing Company

Dec. 9 — Phoenix, Ariz., Rhythm Room

Dec. 12 — Santa Monica, Calif., McCabe’s

Dec. 13 — San Francisco, Noe Valley Ministry

Commonly credited as one of the principal architects of the California country-rock sound, Souther released his last studio album, Home by Dawn, was released in 1984. He followed that with a performance tour the next year. With the exception of a few one-off appearances in the intervening 24 years, the 1985 dates were the last live performances from Souther, who would go on to pursue an acting career.

Souther’s career has been highlighted by numerous hit songs recorded by artists including The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and others.