Feature

As the weeks go by, the future of Mobile’s music scene grows brighter. National artists are ever so slowly making their way back into this entertainment hub where I-65 dead ends into I-10. There are many business organizations behind the scenes driving this metropolitan promotion in the music industry, but one is starting to lead the pack.

Huka Productions has made its presence known not only in Mobile, but also across the nation. Under the guiding hand of 22-year-old A.J. Nilin and Bennet Drago, Huka has moved to the head of the pack in short order by bringing national artists such as Michael Franti and Spearhead, moe., Robert Randolph and the Family Band and more to the Port City.

With so many out-of-town promoters coming into our city, it’s a pleasant thought knowing one of Mobile’s own is working hard to accentuate the positive aspects of our nascent scene.

At a young age, Nilin had the same dilemma as other Port City music lovers. “Having grown up my high school years and college years in Mobile, the lack of music kinda inspired me,” Nilin says. “I would have to spend all my money traveling to shows. Through the years, I made a lot of connections, and I just figured, ‘What the hell. Mobile has a lot of potential; nobody’s really bringing anything in here. There’s a lot of fans who want to see shows. I might as well bring them in.’”

His first experience with serious promotion came with the First Light Marathon. Marty O’Malley, who was the director at the time, was losing money on entertainment for a charitable event. O’Malley approached Nilin for a solution.

“He knew I was involved in music at that point, and he was saying, ‘Listen, we got this charity event, and the entertainment portion costs us more money than we bring in,’” Nilin explained. “I think the first year, they had Ugli Stick or something like that. They wanted to do something a little bit bigger, but the goal was over the first five years was to promote it and make it bigger.”

Nilin immediately booked Jeremy Lister and an old high school acquaintance by the name of Eliot Morris, priced tickets at $10 apiece and sold 800 tickets. With the success, Nilin and his crew realized they could promote professionally. More importantly, they saw a possibility to save Mobile’s nationally blackballed status.

The Huka staff honed its skills across the South promoting lesser-known indie bands in places like Oxford, Miss. and NOLA. In 2005, Huka Productions was officially incorporated and the chance to bring a nationally known artist presented itself when Blue Merle appeared at The Blue Gill.

However, the show had complications. Blue Merle decided to call it quits before the show took place, but former member Lucas Reynolds came in the band’s place. Nilin has positive memories even though it wasn’t a huge moneymaker.

“We thought the experience was fantastic, but financially, it was so-so,” says Nilin. “We lost a little bit of money, but it wasn’t that much. It was like $10 or $20 after everything was paid off, but that was our first imprint in Mobile. The experience was fantastic. It was on a Friday afternoon at the Blue Gill. The weather was perfect and the sun was setting.”

It was in the natural setting at The Blue Gill that Nilin’s opinions on Mobile as a concert hub were strengthened.

“We do have all this water and we do have pretty good weather,” said Nilin. “One of the things we really stress is a great band experience. It goes a little bit beyond just the artist on stage. When you can package together a great experience like it was that night, then it makes everything better.”

With this show adding its momentum, Huka began searching for other venues to use as their promotional platform. They eventually found a home at Soul Kitchen. Nilin together with Soul Kitchen owner Brad Young arranged more Mobile stops for nationally known acts and the match has been beneficial for all parties involved.

“You know, most markets have multiple venues that will hold 1,000 people that are clubs and multiple little theaters,” says Nilin. “Mobile is unique because there’s not many choices. Soul Kitchen is a great venue because people expect those shows to be there. There’s somewhat of a built-in crowd. Brad’s (Young) done a very good job with bringing in shows in the past. He has a strong passion for music as well. We have a very strong bond with those guys. The Soul Kitchen fans are very receptive, and they’ve been very good to us.”

With a home base for their shows, the Huka crewand Soul Kitchen decided that there were other ways they could benefit the Mobile music scene. Ticketmaster has remained a dominant entity not only in Mobile but across the nation though they have a history of overpricing with various “service charges.”

“I think that there’s a lot of things that could adversely affect that scene,” explains Nilin. “One is bad music, two is bad fan experiences and three is bad ticketing experiences. So, with the ticketing experience knowledge that I have and the friends and connections I’ve made in the past, I wanted a ticket solution for Mobile that was easily accessible, one that was fan friendly and one that has very little service charges.”

Enter Jeff Krienik and Front Gate Tickets. This Austin-based company (with an outlet now located in LoDa) has made it their mission to provide tickets without the extraneous service charges. This philosophy has attracted artists ranging from Ben Harper to Green Day. The partnership of Huka and Front Gate is coming to fruition, and these partners have plans of expanding outlets across Mobile.

Although many of Huka’s shows fall into the “jam band” genre, they plan on future artists from across the charts. “We want to see diversity,” Nilin says. “One of the downfalls of Mobile’s music scene is the same acts play multiple times in a short amount of time. This doesn’t do the artist justice; this doesn’t do our music scene justice including the venues and promoters. We think that if the diversity continues to grow, the music will grow, ticket buyers will grow and Mobile itself will too.”

Stephen Centanni is Lagniappe music editor. Contact him at scentanni@lagniappemobile.com.

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