Meet Dave Sheldon of Cannabis Against COVID and Euphonic Conceptions

I live in Lakewood, and work from home. My business partner, Josh Pollack, lives in Northern California, and we both do work on all Euphonic Conceptions stuff.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Sheldon.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I got started throwing concerts in 2006. I was an avid fan of Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9) and was attending CU Boulder but spending a lot of time traveling around the country to see them. Josh Pollack is my partner with Euphonic Conceptions, and in 2006 we had the idea to put on an after party for STS9 at a friend’s warehouse in Boulder.

I ended up booking Bassnectar on MySpace for I think $900. We also had the Glitch Mob play … Derek from Pretty Lights was working the door taking cash, and we sold out. I remember counting up money in the early morning after everything was over, and asking who still needed to be paid… and being shocked when everybody had been paid, and realized we had actually made a profit. We decided it was a good idea to do more of these parties.

After pulling off maybe 3-4 more of these, with similar results, STS9 reached out to us and asked if we wanted to go on tour throw more of these sorts of parties in other cities, with their endorsement. EC got started doing “Official STS9 After Parties” all over the country. It was a really exciting and bewildering time, and some of the stuff that went on was just surreal.

We did the first Pretty Lights shows, first Big Gigantic shows and the first Emancipator shows…by “first,” I mean literally first concerts in a venue instead of a basement. We collaborated with the Disco Biscuits, Shpongle, Tipper, Bonobo, Flying Lotus, Madlib, Amon Tobin, and a ton more acts that either ended up being huge or were huge already and who decided to play our crazy parties, for whatever reason.

I have been doing a weekly party in Denver called “Re:Search” for years now, and right before the Coronavirus pandemic we switched from Wednesdays to Thursdays and booked out about five months of slammin shows every single week. I also am a part of Bicycle Day in San Francisco, and Gem & Jam in Tucson, Arizona. During the last couple years, I also got to fulfill one of my dreams, which was putting on an STS9 festival called “Wave Spell” in California … probably my favorite thing I have ever done from the perspective of being a fan.

This COVID-19 thing has hit a lot of people really hard. The whole music industry has grinded to a complete halt. I kind of feel like a lot of people are almost in denial, and are just waiting to wake up one day and be told that someone fixed it and we can all go back to work. Unfortunately, it increasingly appears that we are talking 2021, and maybe even late 2021, barring some sort of change to speed things up.

I have recently launched an initiative that I believe can help save lives during this crisis, as well as potentially helping us get back to some version of “normal,” faster. The campaign is called CANNABIS AGAINST COVID. The goal is to start small, in Colorado, but eventually move to other states – aiming to legalize recreational cannabis delivery. Obviously, this requires legalizing recreational marijuana nationwide, which is a long-term goal of the campaign. 

I believe that there has never been a better time to legalize marijuana in this country. Remember, Prohibition only ended towards the end of the Great Depression, and actually was a factor in ending the Great Depression.

There are some projections that imply that the current pandemic is going to be worse than the Great Depression. Legalizing recreational cannabis could literally create millions of jobs and tens of billions of dollars while helping to relieve the anxiety of a nation that is facing the prospect of not seeing their loved ones until next year.

Colorado does not currently have recreational cannabis delivery. This is not only causing a drop in sales, but also potentially creating an unsafe situation by asking people to go to their local dispensary if they want cannabis. Grocery stores, liquor stores, and many other essential services are allowed to deliver – why not cannabis?

I am proposing that we allow recreational home deliveries for cannabis as soon as possible, and institute a delivery fee that goes directly toward the fight against COVID-19.

Colorado did an average of 25,000 sales per day in 2019. That means that if we did that many deliveries, if this delivery fee was $20, we could raise $500,000 EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Of course, there is no guarantee we would do 25,000 deliveries daily but even 5,000 deliveries (the lowest I could possibly imagine) is still $100,000 every single day. $700,000 per week. This would also help protect the 44,000 jobs in Colorado related to cannabis and create delivery jobs. Not to mention, it will help preserve the mental health of those who are stuck inside for up to 18 months and cannot see their loved ones. Some edibles and South Park could do wonders for the mental health of a lot of people right now!

I am working to raise awareness for this issue by putting together a campaign with a legal team, publicity team, marketing arm, and hopefully more passionate individuals, as we work to build an organization that can channel a movement through cannabis and music, to create real change. We have a petition on change.org that collected over 500 signatures in less than a day.

I am going to center the launch of our awareness campaign with an all-day, live-streamed festival online. I’m talking to a lot of big name artists, and have always believed that the music scene is a community of like-minded people that could easily become a platform to create positive change in the world.

Now is the time, we are the ones we are waiting for!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The short answer is, absolutely not. But I guess it depends on your definition. In many ways I have been beyond blessed and incredibly lucky, it’s hard to wrap my brain around sometimes. I mean, the way I got into the music industry was literally like a weird fairy tale, you know? And I did made incredibly risky moves for a long time, putting up my own money for shows, booking them last minute and with over-the-top lineups and production… somehow things worked out, even when they shouldn’t have…

But I have definitely had my share of struggles. At one point, I had basically been on a multiple-years-long winning streak, and I fell down hard around 2011. Didn’t know how to get up again, or handle losing, so I kind of snapped and dropped off for a while. My business partner and friend, Josh Pollack, kept the dream alive with the shows for a couple years until I pulled myself out of a hole of depression and negativity.

After climbing out of that black hole and from that point on, I had a whole new appreciation for the wins. It was hard work mentally to build back up to what was close to some of the great heights I had reached from 2006-2011, but it was worth it, and the last few years have really been great in a lot of different ways. I have been blessed to do what I love to do for a living and make an impact while doing it.

Now that the entire industry is shut down for who knows how long, I also feel blessed to feel like I have a real purpose with this Cannabis Against COVID initiative. As much as I love weed and music, I love the idea of making a difference and helping people – and I like the idea of getting back to a version of “normal” sooner, even more.

 

Cannabis Against COVID, and also Euphonic Conceptions – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Euphonic Conceptions curates and books events, as well as helping with marketing and promotions campaigns for like-minded events. We are known for involving the art community, often going late into the early morning, and putting on events that are more than just concerts. I am most proud of the fact that we have helped so many successful artists and musicians get their starts at our shows.

I think that what sets us apart from many other people in the music industry, is that we are honest, and profit is not even close to our top priority. This is a brutal business in many ways, and I really think that it probably pays the least for the amount of work required, than almost any other industry. It usually doesn’t take long for people who are talent buyers or promoters such as myself to start booking some shows strictly because they sell tickets – even if they personally think the music sucks.

I have never done that. I probably should have by now but I’d rather do something dope – something that I need to put work into promoting – to make people show up, than to put on something whack just because it sells tickets.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success is about being happy and achieving goals. What makes me the happiest is helping influence people in a positive way. Helping a musician sell out a venue and make the whole spot jump, makes me happy. I also think that real success has to do with overcoming fear. I always say that if you are in the rock & roll business, and you are playing it safe, you might be doing it wrong. Success is about being scared shitless that you are going to fail, but doing it anyway, and succeeding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ecpresents.com, www.cannabisagainstcovid.com
• Email: dave@ecpresents.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ECpresents/

Image Credit:
Sam Silkworth

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