Where did you spend your childhood? Tell us what growing up in your hometown was like; What made it unique? I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the 1980’s. I used to ride around on my skateboard and generally cause mayhem. It was pretty unique in that I grew up in all white, very conservative suburb with a pretty eccentric gay jewish father. What made you want to work in the music industry? I was finishing college with a psychology degree and didn’t know what to do with it. At the time I was collecting records, DJ'ing, and playing in bands in Milwaukee. Pretty much every artist I liked at the time was avoiding Milwaukee on tour so I got fed up and started bringing some artists that I actually cared about to play in town... One time a tour manager pulled a gun on me for not providing his artist a 2nd bottle of Patron (the show had tanked mind you), that was very interesting. In addition to booking parties and clubs, you were also an agent and even have your own band (act?) - Tell us more about these! I started the West Coast office for Bond Music Group (which has since merged with United Talent Agency) a couple of years back and it was cool. I got to work with some great artists and I realized that being an agent is less fun than being a talent buyer because as an agent you get stuck working with the same group of people all the time and they start to drive you nuts. Just kidding, sort of. I started making music as Guardian in 2011 and I put a band together to perform live in 2013. We played some shows in 2013 and 2014 opening for Com Truise and TR/ST amongst others but its always difficult wrangling 5 people to play gigs and rehearse when you have a full time job booking talent. My goal for 2016 is to get the band back together and put more time into the project. We have a remix forthcoming for HEALTH that I am really excited about. If you could have 5 more hours in the day, what would you do with it? Sleep, all 5 hours. What is something that most people don't know about you? My life is an open book. Having lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles, tell us one thing in each city that we should check out - SF is getting warmer due to Global Warming so its definitely improving in that sense. I love the Little Saigon district in the Tenderloin. Amazing Banh Mi’s at Saigon Sandwich. LA has way more swimming pools. I want to write a Taschen book on the best pools of Los Angeles. LA also has Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater. I don’t think anywhere else in the world has that consistent a level of cult classic film curation. Tell us about your field watch! What about it attracted you to it? It's modern yet timeless and classic. What kind of style advice do you have that can apply to anyone and everyone on the planet? Wear as much Yeezy gear as possible. If you could go anywhere, any time past/future/present - where would you go and why? I would go to New York City and party at the Paradise Garage and the Loft circa 77-83. I would love to have lived in that era. The fashion, film, art, and most importantly the music were all on point. -- Brian Smith Tarney is a talent buyer (that means he books clubs like The Regent in Downtown LA), music producer, co-founder of Restless Nites, and he loves to watch Seinfeld reruns. You can follow up with him at: restlessnites.com soundcloud.com/guardian
Brian Tarney
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