Flaming Lips’ manager shares secrets of success

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Flaming Lips manager Scott Booker holds up the band's gummy skull, which costs about $150. Booker said getting consumers to buy the product has been easier than getting them to spend $1 to download music from the Internet. MARK SCHLACHTENHAUFEN | THE EDMOND SUN

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February 28, 2013

Flaming Lips’ manager shares secrets of success

MARK SCHLACHTENHAUFEN The Edmond Sun The Edmond Sun Thu Feb 28, 2013, 06:47 PM CST

EDMOND — Flaming Lips’ manager Scott Booker shared the secrets of his success and talked about his hopes for the Oklahoma music industry Thursday in Edmond.

In addition to managing the three-time Grammy-winning Oklahoma City-based band, Booker’s résumé includes CEO of the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM&UCO), music industry veteran and entrepreneur, owner and creator of the artist management company Hellfire Enterprises Ltd. and co-founder of the World’s Fair Label Group.

Booker, who has been an Edmond resident for more than a decade now, was the featured speaker during Thursday’s Edmond Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Oak Tree National.

Booker told a story about the office for Hellfire Enterprises Ltd., which is located in a no-frills former 7-Eleven in north Edmond near the Danforth-Chowning intersection.

“It’s significant because I think a place actually has a lot to do with my success,” he said.

Booker said often he has been in the right place at the right time. Doing so has created a scenario that has allowed him to follow through on an opportunity.

At age 15, Booker said, a job as a clerk at Sound Warehouse in Midwest City taught him how to talk to someone and how to sell entertainment. He moved on to manage the Rainbow Records chain in Oklahoma City while attending UCO.

While working at Rainbow Records, Booker began promoting small concerts in the Oklahoma City and Norman area. He brought acts like Superchunk, fiREHOSE and Nirvana to venues like the Pyramid club in Bricktown, Rome 90 in Norman and the Blue Note in Oklahoma City.

Shortly after graduating with a degree in education from UCO, Booker met The Flaming Lips. He became their manager in 1990, when he created Hellfire Enterprises Ltd.

Hellfire Marketing helped introduce underground and unknown acts to independent retailers across the country like Sigur Ros. It helped The Flaming Lips’ “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” album reach Gold status.

“You have to really find that niche, that person out there who’s gonna connect with what you’re selling,” Booker said.

Sticking to decisions regardless of what others thought also has been a part of his recipe for success, Booker said. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the upcoming musical from Grammy-winning rock group The Flaming Lips, sounds like an outlandish idea, but it worked, and has been a financial success, Booker said.

Several decades later, Booker continues to work with The Flaming Lips. He also has worked with Academy Award nominee Elliott Smith and other acts like Wheat and Mercury Prize nominees British Sea Power.

In 2003, Booker co-founded World’s Fair Label Group, a service company that runs record labels for artists so they can self release their own music. The company worked with labels such as Rough Trade, Jeepster and artist-owned labels like the Dandy Warhols.

In 2008, Booker sold his shares in World’s Fair Label Group to focus on the Flaming Lips and launching the ACM@UCO. Today, he is selling the ACM@UCO, hoping the school will help Oklahoma become even more of a music industry hub.

ACM@UCO offers a music education that really is all about the music, Booker said. Students are taught by accomplished musicians, production experts and music business professionals, people who have been there, he said.

The school’s series of Master classes have featured guests including Roger Daltrey, Jackson Browne, songwriter/pianist Ben Folds, Warner Bros. president Livia Tortella, in-demand producer Greg Kurstin (Kelly Clarkson, Lily Allen, Foster the People), multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips, bassist and composer Stanley Clarke, Danny Goldberg owner of GoldVE and bands like The Mountain Goats, Local Natives and Dr. Dog.

A Master class is usually set up as an interview session with Booker with questions from students allowed. Usually these events are open to the public and have drawn hundreds of visitors to the school.

FOR MORE information about the ACM@UCO, visit acm.uco.edu.

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