Q & A
Donny Kutzbach, Funtime Presents
The music man
By Christopher Schobert

Donny Kutzbach
Photo by kc kratt.
If there’s a concert you enjoyed at Town Ballroom, Mohawk Place, or several other area venues in the last few years, there’s a good chance you have Donny Kutzbach to thank. With partner Artie Kwitchoff, Kutzbach runs Funtime Presents and the Town and, as a talent promoter, is involved with bringing known and as-yet-unknown bands to Buffalo and Rochester. He’s also a writer and acting music editor at Artvoice. Throw musician, husband, and father into the mix, and it’s clear Donny Kutzbach is always on the move.

You’re a busy guy, with the work you do at Artvoice and also Town, Mohawk, etc. How exactly do you describe your job? Concert booker, or promoter, or something else?
I dunno: music fanatic? First and foremost, I’m talent buyer and promoter. Most of my days and nights are spent booking and putting on concerts. My partner Artie Kwitchoff and I run Funtime Presents and the Town Ballroom. I’ve been writing at Artvoice for so long and I just can’t give it up; mainly, I help steer the music content. The staff is so great that they don’t need me too much, but I still try to write something every week. I also do some freelance writing. And the music doesn’t end there. I also have a band—Semi-Tough—and I spend time and money in local shops and on eBay buying and selling records, as well as vintage guitars and amps.

What exactly is involved in bringing acts here? And is it difficult to compete with larger markets?
WNY is definitely an afterthought for most acts. They have to hit the population centers where they know they can not only get the most press and play to the most people, but also get paid the most. We can’t always compete, but we have a few things going for us. One is—of course—location. For routing dates around Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toronto, New York City, New England, and such, we’re in the right spot, and sometimes we get lucky. The other is the fans here. I was with Mike Ness last summer when we had a sold out show with Social Distortion. He was telling his agent that every tour had to stop in Buffalo. It wasn’t only the enthusiasm of the crowd but also the people that he met that day. It made an impact.

There are certain groups—many of them Canadian—who are always huge draws in Western New York. Why do you think certain groups, like the Tragically Hip or Sam Roberts Band, do so well here?
There’s traditionally one thing, and it’s those clear signals that run across lakes Ontario and Erie: radio. They say radio is dying in the iPod and net-streaming generation, but I know first-hand that stations like CFNY are still impacting what people are listening to. Canadian radio has always been great, and it still is. That’s what’s driven rock in a border town like Buffalo.

You recently attended the South by Southwest Festival. Is this a key place for you to spot talent you might like to book in the future?
SXSW is basically a big, week-long party with the best bands in the world. I think it’s probably twenty percent business and eighty percent fun for me. I do get work done—see up-and-coming bands, make face time with managers and agents, network with other people who do what I do—but if it weren’t ultimately all a lot of fun, I wouldn’t spend a week away from my family and almost kill myself with too much barbecue, beer, and lack of sleep.

You’ve been involved in the Buffalo music scene for a long time now, as a musician and a booker. Is the scene healthy? And what do you think can be done to make it stronger? And how important to this scene are small-to-mid-sized venues like Town Ballroom and Mohawk Place?
The scene is always cyclical. It comes and goes, but is generally based on clutches of bands doing things and having sort of subsets within the greater scene. A club like Mohawk Place is paramount, a lynchpin to it all. If there wasn’t a place that was welcoming and fun for bands, it would all collapse. I credit Pete Perrone and everyone at Mohawk for sticking with it for years and being the home parish for the local scene. Soundlab is also great, and pushing musicians who might be working outside the usual rock constrains. Is the scene strong right now? I think it’s starting to get some of the momentum back that it’s had in the past. There are barely any bands that I can look to who can fill Mohawk Place. There’s not a single local band who can fill Town Ballroom. That can always change, though.

Sometimes it seems like there’s a real scarcity of hip-hop shows in Buffalo. Is it difficult to book hip-hop acts here?
The weird thing about hip-hop is that it is such a live form, but the acts simply do not tour like rock bands. There are a lot of factors. You don’t see many up-and-coming hip-hop acts and artists slogging it out in a van doing a forty-city tour. It’s also a local and regionalized genre. You can have artists who are huge in the Southeast that we’ve barely heard of here. There’s also the flavor-of-the-minute factor and short shelf life. A hip-hop artist can be huge one minute and no one cares the next. Every once in a while we get a great one. We did Rakim—arguably the greatest MC ever—at Town Ballroom a year and a half ago.

Donny Kutzbach
Photo by kc kratt.
And what can Buffalo bands do now to help push themselves into the national spotlight? There seem to be a lot of young groups who could make a real impact.
Tour! Tour! Tour! You have be committed to touring. A couple of acts, like Johnny Nobody and Standard of Living, have done this, and are seeing results. Go play a city, and go back and play it again in a few months. Also, playing a lot can only make you a better band. That, along with making good, quality recordings, and self-promotion on the web, is what gets bands ahead these days.

You’ve also been involved with booking Thursday at the Square and Rockin’ at the Knox. Tell me a bit about booking these. What do you look for in an act, and how important are things like fanbase, name recognition, artistic influence, etc.?
Thursday at the Square is kind of interesting, in that many people are there for a good time, not necessarily because they’re huge fans of the bands. We haven’t booked the Square since the 2006 season, but when I was involved with booking TATS there was a fine balance of trying to book acts that people will want to see while also trying to book fresh talent. Then there’s making a good-time, party vibe, so they sell a lot of beer and concessions. People tell me that they think the quality of TATS shows has gone down. Maybe, but you have to remember that there’s now more competition to book for free shows and at casinos than ever. They all end up pulling fish from the same pond. I certainly don’t miss the pressure of having all those weeks of free shows to fill.

With Rockin’ at the Knox, we have a very different approach. [Albright-Knox director] Louis Grachos doesn’t only know art; he knows great music. Since we started doing the event there’s been an understanding that while the show is a major fundraiser for the gallery, it should also be a special event with the right acts. We don’t try to book a band that will sell a lot of beer; we book acts that are going to make it a special event, and who are in line with the spirit, vision, and mission of Albright-Knox. It’s great to work with everyone at the Knox, because they are some of the coolest, smartest people in Buffalo.

I know you’re a big Wilco and Elvis Costello fan, so I assume booking each for Rockin’ at the Knox was pretty exciting for you. What bookings are you the most proud of? And are there any that you thought would be bigger around here and were not, for one reason or another?
Those Rockin’ at the Knox shows rate pretty high. Wilco and My Morning Jacket together was a dream, and putting together Feist and Elvis Costello was special. I did John Cale at Mohawk Place several years ago and that was maybe my favorite show ever. Cale is the consummate artist—from his early experimental recordings, to Velvet Underground, through his incredible solo records from the seventies to present—and booking him in a tiny room like Mohawk was just so inspiring. This past fall, we did Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello together in Rochester. I mean, where can I ever go from there? I should have retired that day. Dylan is my biggest musical hero and influence. He’s not only continually changed, often challenging and confounding people, but he’s also survived and thrived. Who else can compare?

Do you have a wish list of performers you still would like to bring here?
I would love to book Arcade Fire, Tom Waits, Paul Weller, maybe a Pete Townshend solo show. There’s a singer/songwriter based in Austin called Pink Nasty, and I hope she tours again soon, so I can convince her to play Mohawk.

And are there any you were close to booking, but fell through?
Before their record first record was even out in America, I had the Killers booked at Mohawk Place. They were already a huge buzz in England. They had to cancel the date because their tour shifted. There’s always disappointment. A couple months ago we had just announced Les Claypool for a show at Town Ballroom and the day the ad broke, he canceled the whole first leg of his tour. It was a real drag!

Lastly, your job has to be one that people hear about and say, “That sounds like fun.” Is it an enjoyable job to have, and do you feel pressure to bring in some big guns?
When people say that, I say, “Yeah, ‘sounds like’ is right!” It’s more pain than fun. Like any other job, it’s ultimately work. There are days you love and days you hate. The only real pressure is that’s there’s not enough hours in those day. It’s almost always a grind. There are days when I get up at 8 a.m. to go into my office where I work until 4 p.m., then I drive to Rochester to run a show until midnight, get home around 2 a.m. and then have to write a 1,200 word article to get it in for deadline in the morning. Still, I can’t imagine doing anything else. I think I would hate a normal nine-to-five existence. And besides, I love music too much to give it up.

Christopher Schobert adores the cinematic oeuvre of Burt Reynolds, but has yet to experience Semi-Tough. But any flick with Burt’s ’stache and Kristofferson’s beard must be pretty great.


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