Goldenvoice: The Hazy Punk Rock Early Days

Southern California concert promotions company Goldenvoice was known as Goldenvoice from day one. It may not surprise you that the organization was named for a type of marijuana, but it may surprise you that the company once had actual ties to the drug.

PHOTO BY JOHN GILHOOLEY

Gary Tovar

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Santa Monica Civic Auditorium

1855 Main St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Category: Community Venues

Region: Santa Monica

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More About

• Gary Tovar
• Paul Tollett
• Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
• Ska
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

"Goldenvoice ganja," founder Gary Tovar says now, with a smile in his voice. "When you smoked it, they said it was like when angels spoke to you. There was also Elephant ganja, which they say felt like an elephant stepped on you. I figured [Goldenvoice] was more musical. Otherwise we would be Elephant Productions."

Little known to some of the early bands, musicians and employees Goldenvoice dealt with on a daily basis, Tovar had a secret: He was a marijuana trafficker, beginning some 10 years before the conception of Goldenvoice. In fact, it was the money Tovar had collected throughout the years via pot — reaching into the double-digit millions — that enabled Goldenvoice to function.

"We were ahead!" he admits. "We had the resources ... enough to gamble. And be very daring and bring bands over who were ahead of their time. Some of the bands, they would come through and people would tell me six months later how I should get 'em. We were ahead of the fans in a lot of ways. And I paid for it dearly by losing money."

[Editor's note: Please click in to read the full version of this week's O.C. Weekly cover story, "His Golden Voice," from which this
piece was excerpted.]

Despite what it looked like from the outside, Goldenvoice wasn't exactly a lucrative company. Tovar's own wallet took a beating. "I lost $3 million to $4 million over 11 years — that's 1980s dollars now," Tovar says. "I had a lot of money, but it was like $300,000 to $400,000 a year.

"I had two worlds," Tovar continues. "I had my Goldenvoice legit world, and then I had my marijuana smuggling world. But in the middle of the marijuana world, people were going down and I knew it was only a matter of time before something happened to me."

He ended up pleading guilty to four charges of participating in a ring that attempted to purchase marijuana in Arizona for distribution — and served seven years in Arizona and Nevada prisons starting in 1991 as a result. Social Distortion, Porno for Pyros, Thelonious Monster, the Meat Puppets, Tender Fury and fIREHOSE threw a benefit concert at the Palladium to raise money for Tovar's legal bills.

But before Tovar served his sentence, he signed over ownership of Goldenvoice to the two men responsible for how we know the company today: Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen.

Tovar had met a then–19-year-old Tollett at a Bad Manners show at Long Beach's Fenders Ballroom. Tollett, now 46 and from Laguna Beach, has a palpable sense of admiration and respect in his voice when he speaks of Tovar. He's sitting at a picnic table just outside Newport Beach's Kéan Coffee. He wears a black Dodgers L.A. cap, black Asics and a Quiksilver flannel. By the time the afternoon's conversation arrives at the 2012 Coachella lineup (Lesson learned: Tollett is good at secrets), the hipster kid with the horn-rimmed glasses at the next table has nearly decapitated himself craning his neck, trying to listen in.

"I remember the first time I met Gary," Tollett says with a small smile, "I was walking past this alley and I look and just see these two good-looking dudes with great hair talking to each other."

Those two good-looking dudes? Tovar and Social Distortion's Mike Ness.

Tollett was a fledgling promoter, hustling for small ska shows around Pomona. He had heard of Goldenvoice and decided to chat with Tovar about his upcoming Pomona shows; Tovar offered him tips on where to properly publicize it in the city. Tollett began fliering for Tovar at shows and stores and dropping off tickets at record stores.

"When Gary first started doing ska, I go, 'OK, I gotta go talk to him.' I wanted to work for him. So we hit it off, I felt — you should verify this with Gary," he laughs. "But we had fun right out in the beginning."

Van Santen, just 20 when he began working for Tovar, was the manager of 45 Grave (guitarist Paul Cutler is still Goldenvoice's graphic designer) and began helping out with publicity, booking and advertising. Tovar says Van Santen was very bright: "When I left, I made sure I put the two of them together."

Tollett says he and Van Santen were inseparable from 1988 to the time of Van Santen's death of flu-related complications in 2003. "We couldn't have done it without each other," he says now.

Tollett is the current president of Goldenvoice, "but we don't use titles or have business cards." The lack of business formalities seems to be a habit left over from the foundations of Goldenvoice.

"[Tovar] didn't seem like a boss, he was a friend," Tollett says. "He never acted like he was my boss — we were just together. I didn't know it, but he was obviously the guy in charge. He didn't treat you like that. I hope that was passed on to me with my staff. I hope they don't think of me [as their boss]. I just want to be their friend. People doing shows together."