HI-FI Indy & MOKB Presents with Josh Baker

yeah.

So what's after surf records

then? So, Man, this whole era is a little blurry.

I went to work at WEVJ, Rock 107, which was an independent rock station here.

I worked there for a while just doing sales.

And then I started going to South by Southwest every year.

And this was maybe for a couple of years.

And I came back, and I was like, I want to do that here.

And so started the Midwest Music Summit, which, looking back, was probably a little bit ahead of its time for Indianapolis.

But we essentially duplicated South by Southwest here at Indy on a much smaller scale.

But I think our first year, we did 150 bands and 10 venues.

But we brought in some great speakers.

So we had KRS-One, and we had the head of Def Jam, and we had Interscope Records.

I was really interested in bringing all of these industry-type folks to Indianapolis because at that time, nobody even knew it existed.

It was typically a cover band market.

Yeah, which is what I was going to ask.

Indianapolis back then was not on anybody's radar ever for anything it seemed like.

Sports, nothing.

That's not me to say.

It just wasn't.

Yeah, it's just reality.

So how did you convince a KRS-One or the president of whatever you said.

Yeah.

How did you convince them that Indianapolis is where they needed to come?

If you build it, they will come, I guess.

yeah.

So what's after surf records

then? So, Man, this whole era is a little blurry.

I went to work at WEVJ, Rock 107, which was an independent rock station here.

I worked there for a while just doing sales.

And then I started going to South by Southwest every year.

And this was maybe for a couple of years.

And I came back, and I was like, I want to do that here.

And so started the Midwest Music Summit, which, looking back, was probably a little bit ahead of its time for Indianapolis.

But we essentially duplicated South by Southwest here at Indy on a much smaller scale.

But I think our first year, we did 150 bands and 10 venues.

But we brought in some great speakers.

So we had KRS-One, and we had the head of Def Jam, and we had Interscope Records.

I was really interested in bringing all of these industry-type folks to Indianapolis because at that time, nobody even knew it existed.

It was typically a cover band market.

Yeah, which is what I was going to ask.

Indianapolis back then was not on anybody's radar ever for anything it seemed like.

Sports, nothing.

That's not me to say.

It just wasn't.

Yeah, it's just reality.

So how did you convince a KRS-One or the president of whatever you said.

Yeah.

How did you convince them that Indianapolis is where they needed to come?

If you build it, they will come, I guess.