Rockin’ the Web

With their long hair and scruffy jeans, the rock fans queued up outside the Fillmore Auditorium could almost be mistaken for the throngs that flocked to this concert palace in the 1960s.

And just like in the old days, the bands they’ve come to see -- a heavy-metal triple helping of Goatwhore, High on Fire and Venom -- might trigger a few tsk-tsks from the over-30 crowd.

Goatwhore? Whatever happened to bands with class, like Foghat?

There are differences, to be sure -- rock fans in 2006 carry cellphones -- but entrepreneur Bill Sagan sees the similarities and is capitalizing on them.

Nearly 40 years after the Woodstock era, its music is enthralling legions of high-school and college-age fans who have Jimi Hendrix on their iPods and Neil Young T-shirts on their backs.

The leftover garments, concert posters and ticket stubs from rock’s heyday are bringing top dollar, as a quick spin on EBay will attest.

Though scores of merchants and collectors are selling these remnants, Sagan has an inventory of unmatched provenance -- the posters, T-shirts, photos and paraphernalia amassed by the late Bill Graham, rock’s leading promoter from the 1960s until his death in a 1991 helicopter crash.

Three years ago, Sagan launched a San Francisco-based company called Wolfgang’s Vault to sell over the Internet the multitude of items Graham squirreled away over the years. Sagan used Graham’s given name for the company to avoid confusion with evangelist Billy Graham.

Now, Sagan has something fresh to offer: thousands of hours of unreleased audio, video and film recordings from concerts Graham staged at the Fillmore and other venues as well as an archive of King Biscuit Flower Hour concerts broadcast on the radio.

On Friday, Sagan’s company began streaming 300 of those concerts at www.wolfgangsvault.com. The roster stretches from the Allman Brothers to Led Zeppelin, and Sagan says it’s just the beginning.

Although there is no cost to listen, fans who want a copy of the shows must await the outcome of talks with the artists and their labels before they can buy the recordings as paid downloads.

Although it’s not yet clear how many concerts will ultimately be available for sale, rock cognoscenti agree that the collection is one of a kind.

“There are very few people who promoted concerts for the length of time that Bill Graham was doing it, or took the time and trouble to record everything,” said Howard Cramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Indeed, starting in 1964, Graham promoted shows by just about every major touring band except for the Beatles, including Pink Floyd, the Who and the Rolling Stones, as well as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin and Stevie Wonder. Unlike “bootlegs” surreptitiously recorded by fans, the Graham tapes were made directly from mixing boards.

Similar board tapes have been hoarded away in private collections, but nothing of this scope has ever been publicly released, said Jacob McMurray, senior curator of the Experience Music Project rock museum in Seattle.

“It’s a huge archive that people would definitely die to listen to,” McMurray said.

Sagan acquired the collection partly by being in the right place at the right time.

After three decades as a corporate executive, the longtime rock fan wanted to find a way into the entertainment business after the Minneapolis-based healthcare company he headed was acquired in 2001. Research told him that even someone with modest capital could get a toehold in the small but growing niche of rock memorabilia.

From a friend, Sagan learned that radio giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. was selling Graham’s archives, which had changed hands several times after the promoter’s death. For about $6 million, a San Francisco warehouse full of rock relics was his.

Graham, who was born Wolfgang Grajonca in Berlin in 1931 and escaped Nazi Germany as a child, staged his first concert at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1964 as a benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

In his ensuing career as rock’s top impresario, he is said to have saved every extra ticket, every unsold T-shirt. He also saved the concert posters he commissioned, which have become prized examples of ‘60s psychedelia and are the Vault’s bestselling merchandise.

The most expensive item with a price tag is a rare proof of a Hendrix poster -- depicting a “flying eyeball” and signed by artist Rick Griffin -- which sells for $11,028. The cheapest are $2 pins with pop stars’ likenesses. There are 26,000 items in all, including water bottles (trendy in the ‘80s), gym bags emblazoned with famous names and even old magazines that Graham had packed away.

“I’m pretty impressed, as a competitor,” said Darren Julien, whose West Hollywood company, Julien’s Auctions, recently joined with Sotheby’s to sell items owned by music diva Cher. “They’ve really got a treasure trove of stuff.”

Sagan said most customers fell into one of two broad categories -- well-heeled baby boomers who can pay big bucks for original posters and other collectibles, and fans in their teens or 20s who buy less expensive reproductions of posters or T-shirts.

Wolfgang’s Vault staffers make promotional visits to college campuses, where the continuing appeal of bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s is apparent, he said.

“When we go on a college campus, people aren’t wearing Christina Aguilera T-shirts,” Sagan said. “They’re wearing Janis Joplin T-shirts. They’re wearing Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix and Van Morrison.”

The company, with 18 employees, expects to book about $3.5 million in sales this year, up from $1.5 million in 2005. It is spending heavily on expansion, including buying more memorabilia and recordings.

While Wolfgang’s Vault makes its money off merchandise, its next goal is to make money off the music itself.

The company has been streaming selected songs since February and last week began offering full concerts through a new feature called Concert Vault. The free service is designed to attract fans to the website, with the hope that they’ll buy stuff while listening. Ads may soon adorn the site as well.

Sagan said Graham obtained releases to record the bands but separate deals must be cut before he can release the concerts as paid downloads.

The fact that bands gave their permission to make live recordings without giving a thought to how the recordings would be used might seem strange, considering that the business has become dominated by big corporations. But it was a different world back then, said Kenneth B. Hertz, a prominent music industry attorney in Beverly Hills.

“Until the late 1970s, the record industry was a much more informal beast,” Hertz said. “It was far less corporate.”

Evidence of that freewheeling spirit can also be found tucked away in Wolfgang’s Vault.

As he gave a tour of his office and warehouse, Sagan burrowed into a filing cabinet filled with Graham’s correspondence. He plucked out a letter dated March 14, 1975, that Graham had sent to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.

In the note, Graham begged Garcia to limit the size of his entourage for an upcoming benefit concert, saying the backstage area would be packed with reporters and friends of the other bands.

“We have to feed all those people too,” Graham wrote, “and the press is always hungry.”

Sagan said he was aware of the concert recordings when he purchased the Graham archive but had no idea of its size and quality until his staff had a chance to methodically review the holdings.

“The poster art is the heart of the collection,” he said. “But the music is much more important. That was something no one expected.”

john.corrigan@latimes.com

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From the vaultWolfgang’s Vault recently began web streaming 300

concerts staged by the late Bill Graham and others. The shows can be

heard for free by going to www.wolfgangsvault.com and clicking on

Concert Vault. A sampling:

*--* Performer Venue Date Neil Young Fillmore East 3/06/70 & Crazy Horse Derek & Fillmore East 10/23/70 the Dominoes Black Sabbath Asbury Park Convention Ctr. 8/05/75 Elton John Fillmore West 11/12/70 Eric Clapton Santa Monica Civic Aud. 2/12/78 James Taylor Berkeley Community Theatre 10/22/70 The Who Fillmore East 4/06/68 Grateful Dead Fillmore Auditorium 11/19/66 The Band Inglewood Forum 2/14/74 Bruce Springsteen Winterland 12/15/78

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Source: Wolfgang’s Vault

Los Angeles Times