Located in North Carolina, Motorco distinguishes itself by having a separate restaurant and bar that caters to its own crowd on any given night. Glenn Boothe is the Talent Buyer and Marketing Director at the venue. His favorite part of working at an independent venue is putting together live events that create unique social experiences for people in his community.
Glenn started in college radio and started working for record companies in NYC after college, first doing radio promotion and shifting to A&R. Eventually, Glenn found his way back to his home roots in North Carolina, where he followed his heart and got more involved in the music community.
Glenn sees Independent Venue Week as both an opportunity to draw additional attention to what Motorco is currently working on as well as an opportunity to reflect on what they mean to the community.
Read all of Glenn’s answers below, and visit Motorco for Mystery Skulls on Fri July 12. See all shows here.
What’s your favorite thing about working at your venue?
My favorite part of working at a venue is putting together live events that create unique social experiences for people in our community. One of the great things about Motorco is it’s a fitting environment for all styles of music and different types of events that allows us to cater to a very diverse clientele of customers.
Tell us about your favorite concert experience? In your venue? Outside your venue?
The best show I’ve seen at Motorco was Gary Numan performing at Moogfest in 2016. He was performing songs from his album Replicas, an album I knew some songs from but never owned. I actually found a vinyl copy of that record at the record fair which was also part of Moogfest and I have definitely listened to that album more than any album in the three years since that performance.
My favorite concert ever was U2 in 1983. It was the first date of the War tour and my second concert ever. The show was magical and the entire time I was wishing it had been filmed so I could re-experience it later. The band did record their show at Red Rocks on that tour, about six weeks later, but that didn’t capture the feeling I experienced. However, I more recently came across their performance at the US Festival in Southern California about a week before the Red Rocks show and THAT is the closest I’ve seen to what I experienced myself and a flood of memories of how great that band was at the time immediately came back to me.
What is something unique about your venue?
One of the things that differentiate us from other venues in the market is that we have a separate restaurant and bar that caters to its own crowd on any given night. In turn, the restaurant gives a completely separate environment for patrons to visit during the downtime of any concert, so they aren’t stuck in the same room for the entire night. On top of that, the food is really good and the artists that perform here are generally happy to have our freshly made food in their green room (instead of their standard rider items.)
Why did you get into live music?
I started off in college radio and started working for record companies in NYC after college, first doing radio promotion and eventually shifting to A&R. All of that ended and I went back to school and found myself back in North Carolina where I grew up. I got the bug to be more involved in music again and live music seemed to be the one area I could most easily pursue while living in NC. I was always a big fan of seeing live music so it seemed a natural progression to get more involved, although it was eye-opening how different this side of the business is from the record company side of things.
Why did you get involved in Independent Venue Week?
I see Independent Venue Week doing on a national level what all venues are trying to do locally, which is draw more attention to the live music experience. Since most smaller venues are independently owned, we have limited resources to work with; in turn, most of our time and attention is spent promoting our upcoming events with little time to toot our own horn about the successes we’ve had in the past. I see IVW as both an opportunity to draw additional attention to what we are currently working on as well as an opportunity to reflect on what we mean to the community.
What are your expectations for Independent Venue Week in the future?
I would love to see Independent Venue Week raise to the level of Record Store Day, potentially putting venues on the radar screen of music fans who have yet to visit them. It would be great to see more support from all aspects of the industry with unique experiences being created, just like special releases are created for Record Store Day. And it would be great to see more participation by artists who’ve successfully grown through the club system.
