Spear of Destiny were a first new signing to the Agency, and Dan also began to manage John Cale who had previously also been a live client. He managed John for nine interesting and busy years, resigning as manager just after John had collaborated with Lou Reed in their tribute to Andy Warhol.
Some of the acts he represented did not have management so - exceptionally for a European agent - he represented clients like Depeche Mode and Erasure worldwide, providing a supervisory agent function in the USA, where both they enjoyed a great deal of success. He brought The Outlaws to Reading Festival, Sade to a first concert at the Royal Festival Hall and many inventive other tours, such as Gang of Four, Pere Ubu, and the Au Pairs on the same bill.
In the early 80's he began a long term association with Depeche Mode and Vince Clarke. When Vince split from Depeche, he continued to represent Depeche Mode until the late 80's until they had sold out arenas in every country worldwide including the USA concluding with 60,000 attendance at Pasadena Rose Bowl for Music for the Masses. Dan also toured Yazoo (Vince and Alison Moyet). After Yazoo split, he established and broke the act ERASURE worldwide, who played a first ever stand up tour of UK arenas and broke all box office records of the time. One tour " The Innocents" sold 300,000 tickets in the UK alone. Erasure toured worldwide with great success until 1997.
Innovation has been a consistent feature of the way Dan has influenced the industry, from initiating the unlicensed "under 16 matinee shows" in the days of punk, starting the co-ordination of local promoters with a national advert spend to improve the acts national profile in the early 80's down to the specific wording of actual performance contract clauses, he has had some influence on events. He has always turned up to meet and talk with live industry colleagues at the ILMC in London, attended briefing and industry initiative meetings, chairing and speaking at conferences and so on.
In the past ten years, Dan has represented acts such as ORBITAL, the most successful act featured on the pioneering Midi Circus tour which also featured Megadog, System 7, Drum Club, Spooky, and Eat Static. Dan's mission in the early nineties was to take "rave" out of unlicensed unsafe situations, and into licensed venues in good conditions, top production, security with paramedics available and so on - something he managed with big success using Megadog as the event. And Orbital were so formidable and popular live act, he created a big profile for them on the summer circuit.
Along the way, a series of agents who worked alongside him at VAT and were then spirited away by their own enterprise or third parties include Mike Dewdney (ITB), Clive Underhill-Smith (Coda) and Adam Saunders (Helter Skelter), Dan feels that he has already done a fair bit to pass on his knowledge and pass on the torch.
More recently he has been acting for ALBAMA 3 as well as reviving SPARKS now seemingly at the pinnacle of their creativity with a 20th album. Current clients include the innovators in dance format SILENT DISCO playing at many of the major summer events, new found techno-punk warriors from Berlin WARREN SUICIDE, and SYSTEM 7 and MIRROR SYSTEM. 2009 finds Dan with new projects - a celebration of 40 years of music making with a tour by GONG with summer Festival dates and an extensive album tour in the Autumn. And with the fantastic news of the reforming of Orbital in summer 2009, Dan's all time favourite live act, there is plenty to celebrate.
Adding Value to Talent since 1983
(Lucky it still beats a real job!)
Dan Silver
dan@vathq.co.uk
DAN SILVER has been in the live music industry for over twenty five years as an experienced professional Agent. Serving his apprenticeship during the heady years of New Wave/ Punk, establishing acts in the late 70's such as the Skids, The Tourists (later Eurythmics) as well as touring Joe Jackson, The Inmates, The Vibrators, The Rezillos, Human League, Gang of Four, Au Pairs, and Fad Gadget to name a few acts.