Pretty Polly Productions / Howie Cusack

Howie had to learn the business very quickly and spoke to everyone he could in the Boston music scene; and was thrilled that his degree from Fordham in “mass communications” was frequently  given the acid test and passed with flying colors. More importantly, and it certainly wasn’t a hardship, he went to four clubs nightly, five days a week, for months on end and amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the popular bands and venues in New England.

 

Dave Werlin and Roe Vallely had just started Pretty Polly Productions in late ’72 or ’73 and would call to book Howie’s band. ‘They realized since my band was always busy perhaps I might be a good addition to their team and I came in as an immediate partner which, in reality, sounded cool but resulted in me doing an incredible amount of long hours and hard work. But the efforts gradually began to take hold and we gained a considerable amount of traction in a very short time,’ Cusick notes. ‘Initially, and in addition to managing The Chris Rhodes Band. we just were on the hunt for any gigs we could  land for any bands that were available. Within a couple of years I realized that the fast track to success was signing up the best bands for exclusive representation.’   

Enter Kathe Burbach. Kathe’s career began in the mid ’70’s as Fred Taylor’s assistant at HT Productions (Paul’s Mall and The Jazz Workshop) and included stops at Ted Kirkland Associates, Rounder Records and Harvard Square Productions where she acted as Promotional Director and handled a variety of business management tasks. Howie and Kathe were married in 1980 and for thirty years worked tirelessly side by side 24/7 in developing Pretty Polly into a player in the world of booking artists and producing major concerts. Cusack comments: ‘without Kathe’s expertise, commitment and belief there would be neither a Howie Cusack nor a Pretty Polly Productions.’ Kathe passed away in 2010 after a long battle with a variety of health issues. His next move was signing up as many local venues as possible which gave Pretty Polly Productions control of the market; and allowed them to expand outward as well. If you were a band from southern Ct. wanting to play Boston you had to go through Pretty Polly. This operations management style and organizational behavior resulted in forming relationships with all these new bands and allowed the organization to take over their overall booking everywhere  Pretty Polly grew amazingly fast. About this time, PPP developed a talent buying profile and their first big success was in Eschoheag, RI, in 1974: and they caught Aerosmith just as they were breaking; and had a crowd of 30,000. The headliner that day was Sha Na Na. In 1976, Pretty Polly ran a huge event at Raceway 42 in Warren, Ohio that featured Steve Miller, J. Geils, ELO and other big names. 40,000 people paid and 40,000 didn’t. ‘I will never forget leaving the venue in a helicopter just as ELO took the stage and unleashed a torrent of beams which appeared to be aimed directly at our chopper,’ Cusack laughs. In the ’70’s and ’80’s, Pretty Polly  created and produced dozens of festivals all over New England. They also enjoyed a twenty six year relationship with CBS Radio; and brought virtually every name Oldies group to City Hall Plaza. This event eventually outgrew the small outdoor venue and moved to The Hatch Shell. Pretty Polly’s band representation continued to grow until just after the jam band era of the 1990’s and 2000’s.. Over the years, Cusack handled the booking careers of Aimee Mann and til tuesday, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Guster, The Stompers, Robin Lane and The Chartbusters, all of Rick Berlin’s bands starting with Orchestra Luna, Human Sexual Response, Face to Face, New Man, Radio King and His Court of Rhythm, John Lincoln Wright and The Sourmash Boys, The Atlantics, Private Lightning, The Neighborhoods, Bim Skala Bim, The I Tones, Fat City, Pastiche, Percy Hill,  Moe, Tribe, Ellis Paul, Barrence Whitfield and The Savages, O Positive and a ton more. As the agency and the bands became bigger and better it became increasingly difficult to keep the major agencies from wooing the groups. At the same time, PPP began mining the college market and used their own  popular bands to expand into becoming a full blown college middle agency. They would solicit a school and give them a list of options for their fall or spring events, and they really became great at this; at one time exclusively  handling more than 100 college accounts. Most importantly, PPP mastered the art of concert production from load in to load out. They built a network of support companies; and this venture grew way beyond New England. Pretty Polly enjoyed an outstanding reputation for integrity and attention to every detail. Eventually, their representation of regional bands began to lose steam and the organization became gradually more  involved with national acts and larger scale nationwide college touring. It became evident  they couldn’t compete with the William Morris’s, CAA’s, (Creative Artists Agency) and ICM’s (ICM Partners) of the booking agency world so they intensified their efforts on their middle agency levels; and thanks to an ever competent and very creative staff they improved their presence and performance in the land of college concerts. Landing dates with everyone from The Pretenders to The Kinks to The Steve Miller Band to Dave Matthews that brought them great success in this area and enabled them to establish close relationships with many of the major artist agents.