The Good:
Grace and I had a wonderful few weeks in the summer traveling through Spain, Copenhagen, and Germany (my first time)
2023 marked my 10th year as a manager and record label owner
Many Hats made its first hire, expanding us to a team of three in hopes of better serving our artist’s ambitions in 2024
Many Hats Distribution paid out closer to $8,000,000 in royalties in 2023. My goal, when writing this a year ago, was to hit the $5,000,000 mark. Hard to fathom, and makes us hungrier for more. $10,000,000 paid to artists in 2024 or 2025 seems like a reasonable goal. That is well beyond anything I could have dreamed of when laying the groundwork for this company right out of college
I did not start any new businesses, which is a real win. I continue to want to focus more on making the very best out of what’s in front of me than have dreams for something new. “Continue to refine instead of trying to reinvent” was one of my hopes I wrote this time last year for 2023. I succeeded
It was a goal of mine to take in and enjoy our victories this year while they were happening instead of only focussing on what might be wrong
Bittersweet Daze, a concept I dreamed up, was an incredibly success in America after nearly 18 months of work to get there. It was one of the smoothest tours I’ve ever been a part of. We had an amazing team and I was lucky to be a part of it
Evange and I got to watch artists that we don’t personally manage take center stage at our company, and had the pleasure of doing all we could to help our managers succeed in that
I got a new office that is much closer to my home and have made it somewhere I’m excited to spend time in each day
Seeing The Roxy @ Mahall’s open and filled with people felt like an amazing realization of a risk taken in during peak-COVID
I was able to visit Copenhagen for a second time this year to eat at Noma again, a dream
blink-182 made my album of the year, 20 years after Untitled came out. There was a tremendous amount of joy experienced with blink for me this year from going to shows and hearing One More Time…
The Bad:
I took 56 flights, up from 50 in 2022. Way, way too many
For the third year in a row I am making a note correlating extreme amounts of travel to growing physical health frustrations
The burden of wanting to be a great manager to my employees, not just my artists, is one I constantly feel I’m navigating to mixed success
The music industry is getting even harder for our acts in the middle class at the management company. We are starting to see economic concerns creep into our work
I chased a big fish in the fall and it pulled me off the level footing of my boat for a while
Hello is seeing increased competition from coffee shops popping up within feet to blocks from the shop after years of being left mostly to itself
SCP’s collapse during the holiday period made for a very difficult few weeks in what should have been a more enjoyable period of time
2024:
Work to be more thoughtful about flights and shows
Actually work on better exercise routines, especially when traveling
Drink less and eat less meat
Be on vacation more when on vacations in February, May, and August
Empower employees to take the next steps they want in their careers at my companies
Go on more local dates with Grace
Eat new shapes of pasta
End of the Year:
As always, I’ve published lots of media, data, and other information from my personal life this year, which all can be found below:
Activity Log: There were a lot of great moments in 2023, despite the challenges
The Year in Music: I struggled to find a lot of music to love this year outside of the releases from blink-182, Slow Pulp, and boygenius
Shows: 79! Crept up, just like flights. I fought to go to more shows for personal enjoyment this year like blink-182, boygenius, Paramore, and Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service. I’m glad I did. Unless there’s another pandemic, I will attend my 1,000th show in 2024
Works: Pietramala saw genuine critical adoration while also continuing to find its base. After a few years of hard work, The Roxy @ Mahall’s opened
Enjoy Philadelphia: 2023 was a nightmare year for beloved neighborhood restaurants closing. In particular, it felt like the 2.0 version of Fishtown’s dining seen was mostly erased
