{"id":2641,"date":"2017-11-17T11:16:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T16:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=2641"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:42","slug":"the-incredible-playlist-of-steve-ferguson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2017\/11\/the-incredible-playlist-of-steve-ferguson\/","title":{"rendered":"The Incredible Playlist of Steve Ferguson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former WSOU DJ spins a career connecting musicians to their fans.<\/div><\/div>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Steve Ferguson \u201985 was an undergraduate communications major and a disc jockey at WSOU, he was dismayed to learn that radio DJs don\u2019t always get to play whatever they want \u2014 which, in his case, was mostly new wave and punk rock, although he did start every shift with The Beatles.<\/p>\n

So instead of interning with a radio station as many of his classmates were doing, Ferguson sought an internship with Frontier Booking International (also known as FBI), a talent agency run by the late Ian Copeland, brother of Stewart Copeland, then the drummer for The Police, which happened to be one of Ferguson\u2019s favorite bands. Arriving for his interview in the same three-piece pinstripe suit he had worn to his high-school prom \u2014 \u201cI looked like the biggest dork,\u201d he says \u2014 Ferguson was gobsmacked to see a 10-foot-tall poster of The Police and a young employee sitting at reception who turned out to be Courteney Cox (who went on to star in \u201cFriends\u201d).<\/p>\n

He vowed to nail the internship. But first he had to get approval from a professor back on campus. \u201cI go back to my professor and start telling him I have this internship possibility at a booking agency,\u201d Ferguson recalls. \u201cHe said, \u2018What does this have to do with communications?\u2019 I say, \u201cRadio is involved, and MTV is exploding.\u201d So the professor took FBI\u2019s list of clients home to his 14-year-old daughter, who was a huge fan of The Go-Gos, the infectious girl band that was a Frontier client.<\/p>\n

With the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll fates thus aligned, Ferguson got the gig. Three decades later, he gives credit where credit is due: \u201cI owe the entry of my music business career,\u201d he says, \u201cto my professor\u2019s 14-year-old daughter.\u201d Ferguson\u2019s internship led to a full-time job, and to a crucial period of apprenticeship as a music agent under Ian Copeland, the larger-than-life figure who founded FBI in 1978. In his long career, Ferguson has booked live performances in cramped nightclubs and large arenas for the likes of Morrissey, Blur, Warren Zevon and Iron Maiden. He\u2019s even booked concerts for some of his musical idols, among them Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Bryan Ferry and Sting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get that opportunity to work with one of your heroes,\u201d Ferguson says, \u201cit\u2019s like, Wow!\u201d It\u2019s been a heady ride, and Ferguson\u2019s gusto for his work shows no sign of waning. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of money involved, and careers are at stake,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I like to have fun. We\u2019re not curing cancer here. We\u2019re booking rock \u2019n\u2019 roll concerts.\u201d These days, as a vice president with the talent agency APA, Ferguson\u2019s client list includes Squeeze, Paul Weller, Saint Etienne, Modern English and Martha Wainwright.<\/p>\n

From his office in midtown Manhattan, he is forever in search of new talent, following tips from industry insiders and frequenting nightclubs across the city. \u201cI represent live talent, so you have to see what they\u2019re like as a live band,\u201d Ferguson says. \u201cA lot of A&R people, they\u2019re searching YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify to see how many streams they have, how many friends they have. I don\u2019t do that, because I try to rely more on my instinct and my gut.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than anything, Ferguson says, he looks for \u201ca connection\u201d between musician and audience. One night 10 years ago, Ferguson found himself inside the Knitting Factory, where the singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson was performing in a basement space with maybe 125 seats. One of her songs, \u201cKeep Breathing,\u201d had been featured on the television show \u201cGrey\u2019s Anatomy\u201d just a week before, yet everyone in the room that night seemed to know every word.<\/p>\n

In the audience, Ferguson was thinking: Wow, there\u2019s a connection there. He\u2019s been booking Michaelson\u2019s live performances ever since. \u201cSteve was my first and only booking agent,\u201d Michaelson writes in an email. \u201cHe has become like my family over the years. My family who fights very hard for me!\u201d On this day, after he leaves his office, Ferguson will head uptown to the Beacon Theatre, where Blondie, an APA client, is headlining a sold-out concert. For Ferguson, it\u2019s a perk that never gets old. \u201cI don\u2019t take it for granted,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I\u2019m in a wonderful position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Written by Christopher Hann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former WSOU DJ spins a career connecting musicians to their fans<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingThe Incredible Playlist of Steve Ferguson<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4073,"featured_media":2645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,258,49,12,1],"tags":[175,36,176,178,177,179,79],"class_list":["post-2641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-articles-2015-2019","category-arts","category-features","category-uncategorized","tag-dj","tag-music","tag-playlist","tag-production","tag-radio","tag-talent","tag-wsou","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4073"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2641"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2704,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2641\/revisions\/2704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}