Mike Beck - musician - entrepeneur

We are standing in the 5^th floor hallway of The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, famous for the bed in of John and Yoko Ono.  We see him walking towards us down the long hall, uncertain that our interview has finally arrived until his form fills out in silhouette, a tall, slightly overweight figure we are both quite familiar with.  As he gets close in the dim light his features come into focus and we greet Mike Beck who approaches, shakes our hand and apologizes for being late.  We are in front of his hotel room door, which has a sign that designates the room as “Chicago Mike’s Music Joint #513”.

He is “Chicago” Mike Beck to be clearer about his identity.  He explains that there are many Mike Becks in the USA, and there is even another “Chicago” Mike Beck.  I have come to think of him as the one and only Chicago Mike.  We first met in Oakland, CA in 2015 at the Far-west Folk Alliance International Conference.  This is the first conference we have attended that has not included a Chicago Mike PGS (private guerilla showcase).  We are curious about just what it is that keeps him going.

There are several regional FAI conferences every year as well as the big international conference that we are attending in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We are members of Far-West, but there is also: Folk Alliance Region Midwest (FARM). Folk Alliance Region West (FAR- West), North East Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA), Southeast Regional Folk Alliance (SERFA), Southwest Regional Folk Alliance (SWRFA), and Chicago Mike Beck has booked pgs rooms at nearly all of them at one time or another.

As we settle into his hotel room Beck explains that it is the smallest hotel room in the hotel, and is certainly a fraction of the size of the hotel room that we have booked in a hotel down the street. He finds us chairs and we settle into the room where he does not turn on the lights as night is falling on a snowy and icy Montreal. I’m reminded that when we were working fulltime as musicians our life was considerably at night, and how I was used to the darkness, and in fact referred to myself as being part vampire, preferring not to open rooms to the light of day so I understand the lights out.

We talk informally for awhile and just happen on the fact that Beck started out publishing a magazine at Southern Illinois University, The Carbondale Nightlife with some college friends. We start the conversation around me noting his email address, “bigugly” and his explanation that it came from his partner in the magazine that he started, noting that his partner became little ugly, which is more diminutive than “big” ugly. Beck has a big voice, and a large presence in the room.

We begin to get a much larger picture of Chicago Mike as he explains that he also managed bands during and after college. He published an independent music guide as well as the arts and entertainment magazine. He explains that he called his management company “Big Ugly” and that people never forget that name. He majored in music business in college, is trained as a sound engineer, as well as the other aspects of music business. All along Beck has done music journalism, management, studio work and he explains that in the 90s he moved to Utah where he began to play music seriously.

We are there to interview Chicago Mike about his involvement with Folk Alliance International, and finally I ask him “when did you start doing Folk Alliance?” He says, “I think the year was 2004. It was in San Diego, the year that the building caught fire and everybody talks about the story, emerging with a guitar case completely charred, and black from fire. They opened the guitar case and the guitar was perfect condition.” With the image of a guitar emerging from a fire at an FAI conference we are totally engaged. Beck says, “It was that year that FAI started regulating private showcases. Back before that the private guerilla showcases were just that. There was the Folk Alliance event and then there was this pandemonium that would take over the hotel. You didn’t need arm bands. Anybody could have showed up and just gone room to room.”

I ask if Beck leaves the dates of the regional FAI conferences open so he can attend. He tells me he has staff that substitute for him if he can’t make the trip to the regional showcases. He says he has ten people helping him this year in Montreal. I ask him,” Are you able to pay all of your expenses?” He answers, “We cover most of the expenses. We don’t come away with anything, but we do help defray the costs of the people who help us host the rooms and the rental of the rooms. We’re not going into debt to host the rooms.”

Beck says, “I like having a purpose here. I love the community that comes out of it. My music career is on a different trajectory from the performers that I meet here but the people that I’ve met here have opened up the world to me. I spend a lot of time touring overseas and to be able to share those contacts, and there’s a woman by the name of Cassie Butcher who I met at Far-West last fall and she just got back from Japan and we have a mutual interest in touring Japan and so we’re trying to help each other.”

I ask Chicago Mike about his own music. He says his shows can include Gladys Knight and the Pips to Otis Redding to Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa, to The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack. He says his own music is kind of “southern rock, country rock, Leonard Skynyrd, Eaglesy, John Hiatt that vein”. He says, “I play whatever I feel the audience is likely to enjoy at that moment. Sometimes that’s Chicago Mike Beck, sometimes it’s Stevie Wonder, or whatever”.

His organization is called “Film Access” so I ask him, “What do you do with video?” His face lights up and he grins as he explains, “. . . I shoot every one of my shows because you never know when you’re going to be brilliant, or when you have one of those moments when you capture on film that you can share with people on YouTube, Instagram or Facebook, or Instagram, whatever. Cameras are so inexpensive . . . I think every artist should be taping every show every time. I’ve got 30 terabytes of hard drives that I travel with that has all the video from the showcases. The video from Folk Alliance is just because there’s such amazing musical experiences here and I come to so many of these events that I want an opportunity to remember., the mission of Access Film Music is to help the artist get their music placed in movies or TV.”

Now that he is talking about Access Film Music, he is on a roll. He is talking with his hands and his voice is rising in volume. “We’ve been a partner with a film festival in Paris that happens in April or May for twelve years now. We are the official music for the film festival. We do a closing party on a riverboat on the Seine. It is introducing music makers to film makers.”

Beck continues, “Sixteen years ago a songwriter, Burt Hurner (still my partner in this enterprise), approached me and suggested we do a showcase during the Sundance Film Festival. I said, ‘That sounds like a great idea. We’ll get some music, try to get some film people out and see if we can help artists get music used in film.”

Chicago Mike offers up a gem, “There are more people making money off of musicians than musicians making money.” We gradually transition from Access Film Music to his music making career. He says, “Musically things have been rewarding. The shows have been great. I feel like I’m making decent dough at each of my gigs now, it’s been a building process. My year is half full already just by going back to the places I go every year. It’s been stressful. I’ve lost an eighteen-year relationship due to my being a touring musician.”

As Chicago Mike tells his story I’m reminded of the old joke; what do you call a musician who breaks up with his significant other? Homeless. One of Beck’s partners, Dennis, has been listening in on the interview. Beck asks him if he may use his guitar, picks it up and starts to sing:



“What do you call a guitar player ain’t got no girlfriend

Homeless is the answer well, here I am again

Don’t know if I’m goin’ big

Don’t know where I’ll go

Just a lonely guitar picker lookin’ for a home.”



Chicago Mike Beck sent me this followup from the road:



Hi Steve:

Great to be with you and Kristi in Montréal! Glad to hear you made it home safely! Apologies for the delay in my reply -- Gave a talk last night at Berklee College of Music in Boston and now finally have a chance to get caught up on emails.

Nashville is a totally friendly town in my experience, with a great co-writing scene. I recommend a visit highly! Nothing to be scared of at all. Perhaps consider coming to AmericanaFest in September -- Not as much love as FAI, but tons of amazing music (one night, I saw John Prine, Graham Nash with the Milk Carton Kids and Van Morrison!) and it's a great music community.

My studio CD was originally released in 2002, with a slightly improved version released in 2003. I've been in the studio since then, but since then, the only studio recording I've released was a single last Spring (link provided below). I'm still trying to finish the rest of the recordings for my followup release! I need to focus on that this Spring! I also have some studio time booked with producer Nico Outhuyse in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands in early May of this year. He's awesome and produced our recordings "(If) The Soup Is Good" and the new single "How The Hell Did I End Up Here?!".

I also released a live CD a few years ago. Here are links to studio and live recordings and some live video from the Sundance Film Festival a couple years ago:



Chicago Mike - Video - Live @ Sundance Film Festival

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A0K-wK0N8VwkjPHxq1ptJtGEmn1XfSEM/view?usp=sharing

"Chicago Mike Beck" studio album https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LQgXeWyEz8fNukawqJvMLP056fDD0YMO/view?usp=sharing

"Chicago Mike Live Bootleg"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BiCM_-ykaVmr1-XQln-XHoUqD2b8E1Re/view?usp=sharing

New single, released May 2018: How The Hell Did I End Up Here?!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MIqcxqiGX55kb6X0I3n5E1PYklki-Bke/view?usp=sharing

. . . Chicago Mike Beck plays a Line6 Acoustic Variax guitar. There are 132 people in Beck’s band, although they’ve never had a performance where they were altogether, and they live all over Europe and the USA. He says, “A recent gig in Salt Lake City featured sitar and an amazing didgeridoo player! Totally unexpected and unplanned.:

When you see that Chicago Mike Beck is in your town, go and see him. You’re guaranteed to have a lot of fun, and if you’re not depend on Mike having it for you.



Steve Nebel 3/4/019