MBJ Enterprises LLC

Outdoor show. Big build. Turf field.

Everything has to be covered in plywood. Every inch protected. Because once you’re on grass, you’re on borrowed time.

Somewhere in the middle of it, a security guard drags a chair out to center field. Plants it. Sits there. Leaves indentations in the grass.

Enter the grounds police.

Not security. Not the guard.

The Baker Boys.

That’s who got blamed.

When you’re building stages that size, the days bleed together. Day rolls into night. Night into the...

Dinner before the show.

Big table. Big spending.

Max leans over and says, “You know you’re paying for all this, right?”

The band laughs it off.

“No, man. It’s the record company.”

Meanwhile the label reps are ordering everything. Expensive wine. Full menu. No hesitation. Just stacking receipts like it’s free money.

Max and Brad are in the corner splitting a sandwich, watching it unfold.

Every bottle. Every entrée. Every round.

Recoupable.

The band had no idea. They thought th...

Most artists ease you into a show.

Hank III gives you a warning.

First set? Pure country. You’re in heaven. Steel guitar. Honky-tonk energy. The kind of set you don’t want to end.

Then he grabs the mic.

“For those of you that came for the country… it’s over.”

He tells the crowd straight up. Take a break. Leave if you need to. When he comes back, it’s his music.

And that second set?

Loud. Heavy. Thrash. Speed metal. By the time he shifts...

First show at the ballpark.

No traffic control. No blocked streets. Gear being pushed up a ramp into open traffic in Bricktown. Cars flying by while you’re loading out.

That was the setup.

Then after the show, the forklift starts backing out of the hole.

Crunch.

Straight into the sheriff’s daughter’s car.

Wrong car. Wrong night. Wrong timing.

For a debut show at that venue, it came with stress, tension, and a very uncomfortable conversation.

But the bill?

Bob Dy...

Getting a record deal is one thing.
Getting your rights back? That’s almost unheard of.
In this case, the label agreed to return the band’s rights upon recoup. That doesn’t happen 
often. Other people in the industry even asked who negotiated that contract.
It wasn’t luck. It was intentional.
Too many artists before them had already lived the cautionary tale. Stories about legends 
like Bo Diddley being taken advantage of. Contracts signed. Rights gone. Catalogs owned 
by someone else.
And the line you hear over and over:
“I don’...

Some shows, you know exactly why you’re there.
 You know why it matters.
 You know what it’s shaping inside you.

In this business, there are problems, there are issues, and then there are showstoppers.
Problems can be handled.
Issues can be fixed.
Showstoppers change everything.

 #HeresTheDealPodcast #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #oklahoma #oklahomacity

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 Jeff Brownen Fac...

Bricktown Amphitheater.

Chainsaw Kittens take the stage. Norman band. Cult following. Built their name the hard way.

Tyson Meade was never typical frontman energy. He had his own lane. Art-driven. Different. The band carved out a reputation far beyond just local buzz.

Years later, word was Tyson had been overseas in Asia teaching English as a second language. Then he made his way back to Oklahoma City around the time cannabis became legal.

That’s the thing about scenes.

Bands evolve. Artists disappear for a while. Then they resurface in...

Sponsored by The Edge. Packed with national acts and a wave of local bands filling out the lineup. It wasn’t just a concert. It was a scene.

Jeff, Max, and Sean McGillicuddy weren’t just attending. They were running merch. Tables set up in a full circle around the field. Shirts, CDs, boxes stacked high.

And then it got weird.

The band drops off all these merch boxes… and never picks them back up.

Now you’ve got stacks of inventory that don’t belong to you. Running around the festival t...

May 30, 2003. Social Burn, Memento, Presence, and Headroom at The Samurai.

David was working with Headroom, trying to break the band. Social Burn had major label heat. It felt like another club show on paper.

It wasn’t.

Ichiro ran The Samurai differently. If you told him a national act was in town, he made space. Weeknight, weekend, didn’t matter. He understood traffic before social media existed.

Bands would come in. He’d cook for them. They’d hang out. A local band would be playing. Someone makes a phone call.

“He...

Before it became legendary, it was a lifeline.

The promise behind Mad Dogs & Englishmen wasn’t just music. It was survival. The project, the record, the tour — it helped Joe Cocker stay in the United States. Financially. Professionally. It reset the board for him.

At that moment, you could argue Leon Russell was bigger. Leon had played with The Stones. He was jamming with JJ Cale. He was already respected as one of the greatest sidemen in rock history. He had his own records moving. His name carried weight.

The Mad Dogs & Englishmen reco...

Backstage, small things turn into big explosions.

A can of Campbell’s soup gets dumped into a crockpot instead of making it from scratch. She sees it. She snaps. Full meltdown over respect, effort, and doing things the right way. That was lesson one.

Later that night, another scene unfolds.

A girl is crying in the back of the house. The bus is gone.

Max doesn’t sugarcoat it. “You were on the bus? You never go on the bus.”

No rescue mission. No dramatic reunion. Just taillights fading into the...

March 3, 2003. The Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers Tour hits the Ford Center with ZZ Top and Ted Nugent. Huge stage. Huge room. At that time, that pairing still felt massive.

That same season, Stone Sour rolled through with Powerman 5000, Raw, Systematic, and Outspoken. Back-to-back nights. Diamond Ballroom one night. The Other Side the next. No breaks. Just load in, execute, load out, repeat.

Meanwhile in Tulsa at Cain's Ballroom, Bob Weir and RatDog were doing their thing. That was the night the mayor handed Bob Weir a key to the city. Deadheads lined the sidewalks...

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony at the Diamond Ballroom

May 16, 2003.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony at the Diamond. And back then, it wasn’t a partial lineup. It was pretty much all of them.

644 people in the room. Packed energy. That era when “First of the Month” still hit different live.

Fast forward to 2023 and Bone Thugs is booked at Choctaw in Grant, Oklahoma around 4/20. Different venue. Different stage. Same name.

Some acts cycle through trends.

Bone Thugs keeps showing up.

 #HeresTheDealPodcast #BoneThugsNHarmony #DiamondBallroom  #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #oklahomacity

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Max shows up at his parents’ house and asks to borrow the van. With him are Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee, right in the middle of their wild ’80s era. Long hair. Tight clothes. Zero subtlety.

Deana answers the door and has no idea who they are. Dad just sees “Max and some friends.”

Van keys handed over. Chaos era Crüe standing in a conservative Oklahoma driveway.

That’s how normal and insane collided in one afternoon.

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There was a stretch when the calendar stopped making sense.

Malevolent Creation was pulling in Oklahoma City crowds. The joke was that people might see the name on the flyer and think it was a church group. It wasn’t. It was heavy. And it worked.

This was the period when everything started accelerating. The groundwork in the venues was paying off. Systems were forming. Max and Jeff became road dogs.

The same night, at the Bricktown Event Center, Henry Rollins was likely doing one of his first spoken word tours. A different ki...

Lisa has done shows with us before. And when it comes to running? She’s locked in. Calm. Efficient. Protective.

Until the Taco Bell incident.

Post-show food run after a Diamond night. The drive-through scam was in motion. “Printer’s broken.” Cash only. No receipt.

Wrong answer.

She went off. Hard.

Employees in tears. Manager apologizing. “We’ll give you the food for free.”

“I don’t want the food for free. I want my receipt.”

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Spring 2003 was a blur.

One night you’re at the Diamond with The Cramps. The same night you’re across town at The Other Side going full Texas with Pissing Razors, 40 Grit, and Society 1. Back-to-back shows. Highway miles stacking up. The road felt like home.

Three days later, April 29, Evanescence hits the Bricktown Event Center with Revis, Die Trying, and more. Momentum building. Alternative breaking wide open.

Then April 30, back at The Other Side: Slaves on Dope, Hotwire, Skindred, and Lock n’ Load. Different crowd. Same intensity.

Those weeks weren’t organize...

It’s the Beatles birthday.
 Happy 64th.

The fans are rolling in. Balloons. Confetti. Hip hop air horn on standby. Maybe even a circus clown before it’s over.

And then the special guest to the right.

Deana Baker.

Max’s sister. The one who lived through the Baker household years. Growing up with him?

“It was crazy. He kind of did his own thing. He was the one who always got in trouble… so we just watched him to know what not to do.”

Sixty-four years later a...

April 2003 was stacked.

April 8 brought Chevelle, Disturbed, Taproot, and Un Loco to what had just transitioned from the Myriad to the Cox Convention Center. Heavy lineup. National names. That era when nu-metal and hard rock were packing rooms.

Three days later, April 11, another one.

Atreyu. 18 Visions. Fail Safe. Ground Zero. Special Edgar.

Atreyu was on fire at that time. 18 Visions had a serious following. And Fail Safe was pulling crowds, getting played on The Edge, and building momentum before later becoming Violence to Vegas.

Tulsa had a strong pipeline...

The Buffalo Bike Run wasn’t a small-town gathering.

It was Cross Canadian Ragweed. It was Foghat. It was over-the-top production.

And it was Evel Knievel.

Dennis Rodman.

Brian Bosworth.

For anyone outside Oklahoma, that lineup sounds unreal. Rodman made sense in the biker world. Bosworth showing up before being fully embraced again by the Sooner crowd? That raised eyebrows. But he was still part of that culture.

Even Lorenzo Lamas made an appearance.

This was happening in Miami, Oklahoma — and if you’re local, you kn...

It wasn’t a small event.

It was the Buffalo Bike Run. Marketed as the largest payout in Oklahoma bike run history. Over $100,000 paid out. Vendors. Music. A full production. Even a circus element.

Max and his partner at CEU, Brad White, built it big.

And then it got bigger.

The response was overwhelming. Riders. Participants. Moving parts everywhere. At some point, it wasn’t about pride. It was about survival.

So Max did something unexpected.

He called his mom.

She didn’t hesitate. She called...

March 26, 2003.

Mudvayne. In Flames. Grade 8. A heavy lineup at the Bricktown Event Center during a time when alternative and metal were surging in Oklahoma.

This was one of those days where everything clicked. When Jeff and the crew worked those Event Center shows, they were dialed in. Sean McGillikelly was in the mix. Choice Music had skin in the game. It wasn’t just attendance. It was partnership.

Being a partner means you’re not just there for the backstage pass. You’re there if it loses money too. You’re there to fix it.<...

Max and Brad are yelling. Bumping bellies. About ready to throw down.

And Deana walks into the middle of it.

“They look at me and say, ‘Who are you?’
 I said, ‘I’m Deana Baker. I’m Max’s sister. I’m here to help.’”

They ask what she’s going to do.

“Uh… whatever. I don’t know.”

Then comes the assignment.

A box. Full of pre-registration paperwork. Hundreds of packets that people are supposed to pick up the next day at noon.

Not alphabetized.
 Not orga...

You want to be a tour manager? A promoter rep?

Here’s the test.

It’s almost 1:00 AM. Bus call is set. The band wants six pizzas. You’re in a town where everything shuts down by 11. You forgot to place the order.

Money won’t fix it. They want pizza.

What do you do?

There’s always a solution.

You go to 7-Eleven. You buy frozen cheese pizzas. You heat them up. You slide them into pizza boxes.

That’s the trick of the trade.

June 3, 1994. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ted Nugent, and Ian Moore at the Zoo Amphitheatre.

Big summer show. Big production. Tight camps.

And then the mistake.

Before the show, stagehands went into Nugent’s dressing room and smoked weed. The tour manager walked in, caught the smell, and lost it. Ted is famously anti-weed. It wasn’t just a bad look. It was disrespectful.

They almost got fired.

Different dressing rooms, different rules. The Skynyrd camp had their own traditions. The urn placed on Billy Powell’s white piano. That piano was treate...

July 2nd at the Bricktown Brewery brought The Romantics and The Dirt Poets together for a $3 ticket night. The show did around 300 people. At three bucks a head, that’s not bad for a club show in the mid-90s.

Everyone knows The Romantics. Solid catalog. Radio songs. Name recognition.

But the band worth spotlighting that night was The Dirt Poets.

If you were around the Oklahoma scene in the 90s, you know that name. Alongside bands like Wakeland, they were pa...

Three days. Three cities. One crash course in show business.

 February 28 at the Diamond Ballroom.
 March 1 at Cain's Ballroom.
 March 3 at The Cotillion.

That run wasn’t just about ticket sales. It was about learning how Psychopathic Records operated.

ICP’s show was precision chaos. Around 100 liters of Faygo per night. When the soda ran out, the show was done. That’s how rehearsed it was.

931 at the Diamond. Packed. Capacity.

Three days on the road builds relationships fast. By the end of that run, friendships were forming...

While the world was watching Woodstock ’94 on a massive stage, Oklahoma did it our way.
August 14, 1994. Eight local bands. Eight dollars at the door. Six bucks in advance. That 
was the deal.
This was for everyone who couldn’t afford to fly out to the real Woodstock chaos. No Netflix 
documentary. No mud-covered headlines. Just a stacked local lineup and a crowd ready to 
show up.
Bands like Slick Lily, Jim the Elephant, Celibut, Nothing Sacred, Buck Bush with 36 Inches, 
Ugly Stick, Barnyard Sluts, and 8 Minutes to Earth. Different styles. Different scenes. One 

When Carcass and Life of Agony hit The Roxy, it changed the temperature in the room.

Life of Agony already had a strong following here. That show packed the place out and brought real energy back into the building. For the first time, there were cars filling the parking lot, a circle pit on the floor, and stage diving off the front. It was chaos in the best way.

Security had to work that night. Keith Graham was running it, and it wasn’t a quiet shift. That was the River Runs Red era, and th...

March 8 and 9, 2003.

Two nights. Two cities. Both sold out.

First at the Bricktown Event Center in Oklahoma City. Then at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa.

In OKC, he was Jeff’s assistant. In Tulsa, he was the runner.

One of those Tulsa runs meant driving the band to Jamil's Steakhouse for dinner.

If you’re a runner, you know the rules. You don’t invite yourself in. You don’t insert yourself into the moment. You drive. You wait.

But when the band turns around and says, “Come join us,”...

June 12th marked our first and possibly only show at Cowboys before it transformed into The Roxy. The lineup featured Forte and Pitch Black, and it turned into a turning point for that building.

Long before it was Cowboys, the place was called The Beaver Pond. In the 70s, it was a strip club where dancers floated on lily pads in a real swimming pool.

That pool never left.

The stage at Cowboys was built directly over it. Dead center stood a pole...

“Rollin’ in my sweet baby’s arms.”

When Leon stepped into his Hank Wilson persona, he wasn’t just covering country standards. He was honoring them. Recording under the name Hank Wilson, cutting classic covers, bringing that Oklahoma edge to traditional songs.

And when you really dig into the catalog, it’s not even close.

Leon was prolific. Across genres. Across decades. Studio work. Producing. Writing. Building bands.

He knew how to pick talent too. He signed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers early on.

That show? Both bands were firing on al...

It wasn’t a no-security tour.

This was the Bigger Bang era with The Rolling Stones — and the backstage setup was on another level.

Snooker tables. Game areas. Full liquor bar. Food everywhere. The most elaborate backstage environment he’d ever seen.

And then the seat assignment.

At Keith Richards’ table.

Keith comes out with his buddy, same scarf, same energy. Quiet moment. Timing something. Synchronizing medicine. Intense. That’s all that needs to be said.

Earlier at the The Waterford Marriott, there was a meeting. Comped front-row...

Some moments don’t feel big when they’re happening, but time turns them into milestones. July 14, 1994 was one of those nights when Collective Soul played Bricktown Brewery and quietly checked a major box in their career. 

It was their first sell-out show, and tickets were just $8. Same artwork. Same early-era vibe. No hype machine yet. Just a band catching fire at exactly the right moment.

 #CollectiveSoul #BricktownBrewery #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #HeresTheDealPodcast #oklahoma #oklahomacity

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When the Bridges to Babylon tour rolled into Owen Field, it wasn’t just a concert. It was a 
construction project.

Promoter TNA International invited media to preview the massive stage at the south end of 
the stadium. Production holds were released once sightlines were confirmed, turning 
previously held seats into some of the best in the house. $65.25 tickets went on sale at the 
Lloyd Noble Center. Cash only.

After the OU vs Kansas State football game, the Stones’ crew took control of the field and 
worked around th...

The feud was real.
If you met Joe Cocker first and got his autograph, then walked over to Leon with the same 
item, Leon wouldn’t sign it. “No way.” Not that day. Not under those circumstances.
And this wasn’t normal behavior. Leon would usually sign anything for anyone. But that day, 
he wasn’t doing it.
Joe Cocker went on to become a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer. Globally recognized. Massive 
career.
But in Oklahoma?
Leon Russell is different. He’s ours.
Ask the question straight up: Do you like Joe be...

At the Diamond Ballroom, Lisa built a reputation that was equal parts fear and respect. They even kept a running joke scorecard of how many people she made cry, and most of them were grown men.

 If something went off the rails, one phone call and she’d show up in ten minutes ready to handle it. She didn’t tolerate excuses, and she didn’t back down. 

Years later, when it truly mattered, she was still the one you could call.

 #HeresTheDealPodcast #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #oklahoma #oklahomacity

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There are rules when you’re a runner.

You don’t turn the radio on.
 You don’t start conversations.
 You don’t insert yourself into the moment.

You wait. You answer questions. You drive.

Now imagine your all-time idol getting into the van.

The job was simple: take the band from the top of the Bricktown Ballpark down to the stage. Engine running. Band waiting. Thirty minutes later, he appears.

He chooses the seat right behind you.

You check the rearview mirror to back up… and th...

It started at 15 years old at the Cotton Bowl.

The Rolling Stones with Eagles and Trapeze opening the show.

Then came 1978.
 Then 1981 — six shows in one year. Houston. Dallas. Kansas City. New Orleans. That “first farewell tour.”

Through the years it kept going. The Myriad in ’99. The Ford Center in 2002. Watching the stages get bigger. Watching the production get wilder.

Different cities. Same band.

Some people see a band once.
 Some follow them for decades.

 #HeresTheDealPodcast #TheRollingStones #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #oklahomacity

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“Despite earlier reports that The Rolling Stones wouldn’t stay in Oklahoma City… they arrived late Sunday night.”

They kept a low profile before taking the stage at Owen Field, with Sheryl Crow opening the show.

There was even talk about skipping sound check.

“They don’t do one every day.”
 “If it doesn’t need fixing, why fix it?”

They had tried to book Norman before during the 1994 Voodoo Lounge tour but couldn’t get the date. This time, it lined up.

 #HeresTheDealPodcast #TheRollingStones #SherylCrow #OUFootball #MaxBakerJr #JeffBrownen #oklahomacit...