Who am I?
Manager Extraordinaire Lou B Talks to ClubPlanet Lou B knows a thing or two about running a nightclub. Having owned his first club at the age of twenty (Life in the Hamptons), Lou has spent the last tens years owning, promoting, directing and managing his nightlife empire. Between running Space, Tavern, Stereo by the Shore, Posh in the Garden City Hotel and most recently Oragin on Long Island, Lou managed to moonlight as Jonathan Peter’s manager for the last three years. The multi-tasking manager/promoter sat down with CP to discuss industry changes, 24-hour parties and the hardest part about working with America’s number one DJ. You resume runs a mile long. What is a typical day for you? It isn’t a day. It’s day and night. Its 20 hour work days, even on Sunday. I sleep for four hours basically. To be ahead, I have to think six months in advance in everything we do. So it’s a constant worry. I wake up at about 8AM and I go to sleep at 4AM. Music, studio sessions, party events, fliers. I deal with over 300 promoters for each event. I deal with promoters from all over the country to make sure every event is a good one. And I’m sure dealing with Jonathan’s schedule must keep you very busy. This is not easy because we are in full production mood. We have two artists signed with us right now. One is Monica Leigh. She was in a few movies and was just on the cover of Playboy. We also signed Kelly Glover, who was on the first season of American Idol. And we’ve been working on her album for a while. Jonathan also has a compilation deal. He’s doing a world-wide DVD with Pacha. We also did the Christina Aguilera “Hurt” mix. That was number one on the Billboard charts for a while. We did the Ciara “Like a Boy” mix and now we’re working on a new international project for Shakira. It was the first time Jonathan did a song in another language. So now you run Oragin and Jonathan’s career. Taking advantage of your connections? Oragin is my new club. Jonathan will be there October 12th. It’s a club unlike any club Long Islanders have even seen. The sound is ridiculous and the lighting is insane. I’m sure you’ve been promoting that to no end. How has that process changed since you started in the business? It has changed massively. It took time for people to catch on that the regular way of marketing is done. It has become so digital. For instance, if I send out an email right now, I will know who logged on and how many times they looked at my page. I can really cultivate those people. In two minutes, I can send out 40,000 text messages to kids in New York. The business has taken such a level of service and media. Myspace changed the industry dramatically. Myspace made the average kid a good promoter. Right. But now everyone can do it. Absolutely but the difference is delivering the quality of the party. So everyone can try but at the end of the night, it what you do when you get them there. And once you get them in, you party hard. How do you survive those infamous JP 24-hour sets? People will ask “How are you up? Are you drunk? Are you on drugs?” I don’t do anything. Advil is too much for me. For me, it’s about timing my sleep. If we have to do a 24-hr party, I will take the time out. I will make sure everything is done prior so that I can get truly rest. I am able to know everything is done and I have a good team. If I know there can be a problem with anything, I’ll schedule my team to be on hand. So it’s a very big team effort to make a 24 hour event. What makes a good event? Besides a good DJ of course. I believe in the word subliminally. This is why I am Jonathan’s manager - because I know how to run events. And the difference of the sound and light makes a difference. You know when you’re at an event and it’s a little too loud? It can be too loud and you won’t even know your brain thinks it’s too loud and it’s making you uncomfortable. Or if the light is shining in the wrong way. If things are not coordinated the right way, just subliminally you’re getting upset. It pisses me off when the club is dirty. Right. There are so many different elements to this business. If I step on an ice cube, it may not bother me but some girl will be annoyed. It just puts people in a bad mood. Everything must be done with absolute perfection. For me, I live my life like that. The one thing I will only brag about myself is that I will outwork anyone. And my peers know that. I will work non-stop. All I care about is having a great party. Rumor has it that Jonathan is a perfectionist. Just like you. I never met someone in my life that was more dedicated to finishing something he started. Whether it’s the smallest thing or the biggest things. And Jonathan is so simple in so many ways and a massively complicated person in other ways because he has these visions of doing things. And most of the time, when he first explains it to me, I don’t understand what he means. And then what goes .. we get to the point and I see what he was talking about, it’s like ‘wow – that’s what you mean.” Must be difficult to work with a person you don’t understand! If I don’t understand what he’s trying to get out of it, I sit in his corner and I’ll do whatever it is he needs to get the job done. Once it’s done, I realize it was ingenious move. He has the most advanced DJ booth in the world. Her name is Samantha and people don’t really understand what Samantha is but I didn’t understand what it was for the first 7 months of building it. And after he showed it to me, it opened my eyes to never question him again. How did you become his manager? I became his manager because of my reputation for holding down events, not because I was a manager. I wasn’t a manager. I didn’t know how to do it. But Jonathan just knew the way I can control events and he just wanted to know that when he was DJing, everything would be held down. And he knew I was the guy to hold it down. Sounds like a match made in club heaven. The weird part is before I was his manager, I was standing on the dance floor and said “One day, I’m going to manage that guy.” And the people that I thought I was with thought I was crazy. For some weird reason, I knew I’d be a part of his life. And it’s been three years now. I actually moved across the street from him and the studio. I lived in Queens my entire life. The studio is in the Chelsea area. I moved across the street because it got so serious. It’s not just a job – I dedicated my life to Jonathan Peters. He’s someone I believe in and when he’s right he’s right. When he’s wrong, he’s wrong. What is the hardest part about working with Jonathan Peters? The hardest thing for me to do is to tell him it’s time to stop playing. It’s the one thing I wish I could hire someone to handle for me. He loves to play. And every single time I have to tell him he has to stop, it’s a new challenge. It’s always a different thing because you never know where his head is. We have to talk for like 15 minutes. It’s not up to us and it’s not the nightclubs fault. We’ve all agreed that the business has changed. We can’t go on with the crazy long parties and we wish we could. Okay. You have one minute. Do your job and promote your boy. Jonathan has 24/7 streaming of free music that just plays from all his sets for 10 years on JonathanPeters.com. He is also the first official MySpace DJ in history. Jonathan had more banners across MySpace than any other DJ in history. He did the biggest internet broadcast in history with Paul Oakenfold on a Myspace broadcast in Club Space. It was ridiculous. It had over 50 million hits. Jonathan also has the number one show on XM Radio on Saturday night from 4-6AM. And him winning America’s Best DJ last year really was a happy moment.
