I think I just grew into production. As I started in 1966, there were no
roadies then let alone production managers. There may have been in the trade
show side, as we called it then, but I started in a Thames van with a bunch
of friends in the back and a minute backline.

I got into events, when all the different parts of entertainment started to move outdoors and the only people with experience were old rock and rollers who were not yet dead - like me. By the early nineties I was bored touring, so I decided to take the risk and just commit to one-offs. I did not consciously decide to target anything but just see what came along. After a couple of good years, the Brits came along, and lasted fourteen years for me.


Mick with Pink Floyd (second left) Birmingham Hippodrome

What else is on the MJK roster?  

 MJK's core jobs have been 14 Brits, eight Classical Brits, eight Mobo awards  and quite a few one-offs, such as Peace One Day and the Spice Girls' first
gig in Istanbul. There have also been a fair few gigs for 19 Entertainment, the  company that brokered all the Spice Girls' deals. We have done various jobs for them, such as three shows for

 The Hoosiers prepare for Brits '08                                Mastercard in the Café de Paris, Alton Towers and Cadbury's promotions. All this was television work and I think I have become typecast as some kind of TV guru, no joke
intended!

What is your business ethos?

My business ethos is very simple. I have been preaching this philosophy
to my peer group - without much success I may add -  for years.  In fact, since
myself and a few others invented the PSA (Production Services Association), my attitude is simple. Have a contract for every job, be honest with your client, be transparent with the budget and deliver a full set of auditable accounts at the end of the job.

You started in this business in 1966 - care to share the changes?

Changes in this business in the last 30 years or so? Settle down - that's a book in its own right! What do you think I'm going to do in retirement? It is very
hard to quantify change when you live with it. I would say the biggest
change has been, what started as a social revolution driven by pop music has
somehow become a major industry, and in fact it seems to have hi-jacked
society and almost supplanted it. I don't know whether I agree with what we have achieved, or even if it is an achievement.

How much transition is there between your live music work and clients like L'Oreal?

With regards to L`Oreal, production is production. We treat all clients the
same. I realised many years ago that it does not matter what the job,
organisation skills apply to almost all disciplines, be it entertainment, or
even wars. You apply the same organisational skills, end of story.

There are touch and go situations and every show at some point reaches this stage. How can I put this? I feel like I have spent the last 15 years, in events, giving clients and particularly TV companies, a show in spite of
themselves.

What alternatives might you have pursued? 

What else would I have done? I am too old and cynical to even think that way any more!

Click on the gorilla for Mick's take on his friend, Phil Collins and the Cadbury  ad ;

RK _______________________________________