October 17, 2002

The following is an excerpt from the October edition of "Rock Show Magazine:  The Journal of the Rock Touring Industry"

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FROZEN STONES

    It is eleven thirty PM at the Chef Boyardee Center in downtown Oklahoma City, and a sell out crowd is on its feet cheering and clapping as the last fireworks and smoke cannons explode and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards stagger off the massive high tech stage.  The last notes of "Jumping Jack Flash" are still ringing in their ears as the affluent, middle-aged crowd heads home satisfied at the conclusion of another stop in the 263 concert  Rolling Stones 2002 "Licks" tour.  The tour is their largest yet, and industry analysts speculate that they will easily top their own record gross of 280 million dollars set  by the perennial box office champs "Bridges to Babylon" tour of 1999.  The longevity, swagger, and fiscal dominance of the Stones continues to thrill both fans and profit-motivated promoters.  In an exclusive interview for "Rock Show Magazine," the tour's manager, Jay "Wildebeest" Coogan invited us backstage for a tour and a candid interview about the "Licks" tour and his long career in the rock touring industry.  His story is a classic success tale  which is already legendary.  He got his start in Australia as a young man as a roadie for AC/DC and cut his teeth on the road with the hard-rocking band.  Soon, as the band's road manager, he won a reputation for resourcefulness and dedication, whether it involved getting a new liver for Bon Scott on a moment's notice or negotiating  paroles and speedy marriages and annulments for lusty, youth obsessed lead guitarist Angus Young.  In person, Coogan is a big affable bear of a man, quick with a smile and never at a loss for a charming anecdote, and he generously gave us full access to the tour.

    Sharp-eyed fans reading the elaborate "Licks" tour program may notice in between the full page ads for tour sponsors Anheiser-Busch Breweries, WorldCom Industries, and Hormel Meat Products a single small credit for Oslo Poytechnik Corporation.  Even fewer fans realize that OPC makes the whole tour possible.  As the exhausted yuppie crowd makes its way to their sport utility vehicles or stops in the lobby to buy ninety-five dollar t-shirts, Project Comptroller Dr. Tarrs Frijjidpersson and his team of white lab coat-clad technicians have already begun packing away Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts in ice an initiating the complex process of sealing their individual cryotubes for transport.   Having done pioneering work in the field of cryopreservation in his native Norway, "Dr. T" as he is known to the roadies personally supervises the pressurization process as the liquid nitrogen is pumped into the chambers, flash-freezing the septuagenarian rock personalities.

    "You see, it is all quite simple and efficient," Dr. Frijjidpersson explains as he connects the neural implants into Mr. Jagger's craniotomy.  "All respiratory, cardiac, and neural function is suspended completely as the catheters drain the subject's bodily fluid for filtration and nutritional enhancement.  In a mere eighteen hours we will rehydrate, decompress, and revivify the subjects.  They can be fully functional in forty-seven minutes."

    Coogan concurs, "The system Dr. T has developed is foolproof.  The team at OPC sets the industry standard, and as you know, Rolling Stones, Inc. only uses the best.  I can assure you it is a big step up from the last tour when we used a young startup company, Cryotech.  I still have nightmares about the tour stop in Salt Lake City.  One of the Cryotech roadies got careless and dropped Ron Wood's cryochamber off the ramp during the load out.  It cracked open, and he melted into a smoking pile of dust in a matter of seconds.  All that was left of him was a rubber little nub of tissue the size of a handball that used to be Woody's liver.  Well, as you know, Rule Number One in this business is 'The show must go on.'  That night the tech who dropped him was onstage in leather pants and a black fright wig covering for Woody and no one was the wiser.

    "This tour Ronnie is much easier to work with," Coogan said as he lead us to the huge electronic cabinet where an incredibly life-like Ron Wood cybertronic robot was being recharged.  "The Wood Estate, of course, gave us signed consent and copyright clearance, and we have been very pleased.  The same Disney animators who do all the Presidents of the United States took three years and two million dollars to make this baby, but he is worth every penny.  Onstage he wobbles around, blinks, smiles, and even chain smokes cigarettes.  I don't think even Keith Richards has caught on yet.

    "Honestly, it is a pleasure working with the Stones.  Everything is always first class, unlike some tours I have worked.  I always pride myself on having good relations with the artists, but as the crowds and rock stars get older and older, things get tougher.  With lapses in health and a loss of patience with the rigors of touring, my job of fielding a Classic Rock band requires a bit of creativity.  For example, two years ago on the last seven legs of the KISS Farewell Tour 2000 Gene Simmons threw out a disc in his back having sex with his LPN and Paul Stanley was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Now KISS always runs a tight ship business-wise. The tour had been booked and sold out years in advance, and they didn't want to disappoint their fans.  The answer?  Puppets!  Huge life-sized puppets hand made by master craftsmen from Taiwan.  With only minimal changes in the overhead lighting rigs to accommodate the wires, pulleys, and puppeteers, we were back onstage and back on schedule Rocking and Rolling all nite."

    When questioned about the worst experience he has had on tour, Coogan was surprisingly frank.

    "Motley Crue - no question.  They were the worst.  Between the overdoses, the arrests, and the rehab the whole West Coast and Midwest legs of the 'Goodbye Crued World Tour' were in jeopardy.  After four consecutive cancellations, the promoters contacted me and demanded we either put a band on their stages or pay back the advances.  We came up with the only viable solution.  While Vince, Neil, Mick, and Tommy were in jail, hospital, or detoxing, we went to the Center for Advanced Primate Research in Soweto, South Africa and bought the four biggest orangutans they had.  We shaved them, put them in the costumes, glued on the wigs, strapped on the guitars and sent them out onstage.  Frankly, they were a big improvement.  The shows sold out, the crowds were fantastic, and the t-shirt and merchandise sales went through the roof.  No one even realized that Motley Crue had been replaced by four wild apes.  We were ready to book them for a spring Asian tour, but then Marilyn Manson met them backstage, got them hooked on crack, and signed them to be his backup band on his 'Satan On a Stick Tour.'

    Coogan staunchly defends the still controversial practice he calls "artist substitution" both on aesthetic and economic grounds:  "Let's face it, all these bands play to CD tracks and fake most if not all of their live act.  I say give me the Motley Crue apes or the KISS muppets.  With a good CD you are guaranteed consistent, high quality music.  Financially, you can't have a show if you don't have the bodies on stage.  As long as we have clearly contracted legal ownership of the group and copyright clearance, I don't care who is up on that stage as long as they look like old rock stars.  My friend and mentor Bill 'Crusher' Conaway once told me, 'Beest, give me the contract, the copyright, and the clearance and I can go down to any bus station in America and give you the Temptations live onstage rocking the house two hours later.'  I respect Crusher's approach.  Your basic Baby Boomer crowd are all old, drunk, and look like hell.  They certainly don't expect that much more from the act onstage.  As long as the PA keeps pumping out the hits and they don't run out of Bud tallboys, the Boomers will be happy."

    As our interview and tour concluded, we questioned Coogan about who his all-time favorite act he has ever toured with was.

    "Steve Miller Band, hands down.  The guy has sold over ninety million records worldwide, and I doubt even his own mother knows what he looks like or could pick him out of a police lineup.  The first time we toured with Steve, he was staggering around dead drunk and got hit by the band bus and broke his shoulder.  That night Gino, my personal assistant, went onstage as Steve Miller Live.  The crowd loved him:  he's thinner than Steve and still has his hair.  For the rest of the tour, all the roadies took turns being Steve Miller Live until his shoulder healed up.  Hell, one night I was drunk and even I was Steve Miller Live.  It was a blast.  When I went into 'Big Old Jet Airliner,' the crowd went nuts.  Just for fun during the encore, I brought Steve out in his cast and introduced him to the audience as Boz Scaggs.  They loved it!"