You didn’t have to know Louis Procaccino to owe him.
If you enjoyed live shows at San Diego’s nightclubs and concert halls in the crazy late 1970s and beyond, your good times probably depended on the guy everyone knew as, “Louie.” No last name necessary.
Procaccino died on Sept. 9, after years of declining health following an on-the-job injury seven or eight years ago. He was 68. The longtime concert producer, sound-tech, electrician and stage hand leaves behind many grieving friends and family members, along with a vast collection of concert memories that wouldn’t exist without him.
“He was involved with everything, it seems,” said Jerry Raney of the Farmers, who dedicated the band’s recent concert at the Grand Ole BBQ in El Cajon to Procaccino. “Anyplace there was a concert, he was there.”
That 1982 Missing Persons concert at Golden Hall? It might not have happened if Louie hadn’t found someone to give lead singer, Dale Bozzio, a pre-show massage.
The 1990 Halloween Amnesty International benefit bash at the El Cortez Hotel? The fire marshal would have shut it down if Louie hadn’t procured a pair of bolt cutters and opened a padlocked door in the nick of time.
That mid-80s concert series at the Kona Kai Club on Shelter Island? Your view of the stage may have been improved by Louie, who allegedly took a chainsaw to some inconveniently placed ficus trees.
Whether he was providing Sports Arena headliners with their pre- and post-concert accoutrements (legal or otherwise), or letting young scenesters into the Pink Panther bar despite their questionable I.D.s (In his defense, he didn’t realize he needed glasses.), Procaccino was the “MacGyver"-esque insider who kept San Diego’s music and nightlife scenes hopping. For the stars. For his friends. For everybody.
“Louie made it possible for shows to happen,” said veteran San Diego journalist Thomas K. Arnold, who met Procaccino in the late ‘70s, when Arnold was running Kicks: San Diego’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine and Procaccino was the production manager for concert promoter Marc Berman.
“Somebody else would book them and promote them, but Louie would produce them. He was the chef. He didn’t design the restaurant. He didn’t come up with the name or design the menu, but he cooked the food and he made sure it was delivered.”
Procaccino’s fun-loving, sociable personality made him a big man on the Oceanside High School campus, where he wrestled and played football. A 1968 story from the Escondido Times-Advocate credits Procaccino with one of the touchdowns that helped Oceanside’s junior varsity team win a key Avocado League game.
The good times continued at San Diego State University, where Procaccino studied journalism and telecommunications and film from 1971 to 1978. As the chairman of SDSU’s 1974 Homecoming festivities, he also happily presided over the school’s first “Homecoming Person” contest, which gave male and female students an equal chance at the crown.
“This way, women can’t complain that we’re exploiting women,” he told the San Diego Union. “And if a male enters, it is intentional and not done as a joke.”
Procaccino got into the concert business while he was still a student, and he never left.
As Berman’s production manager, Procaccino made sure that concerts at such venues as the Sports Arena, SDSU’s Open Air Theatre and Golden Hall downtown went off as scheduled. He had a hand in starting the first Humphreys Concerts by the Bay series. He worked on the KGB Sky Show. He was the longtime sound tech for Makeda Dread’s Bob Marley Day Festival concerts.
“Louie could do anything. But he never wanted to be the master sound engineer or the master lighting engineer. He just wanted to make sure the mic was working for Henry Rollins at some club with 30 people in the audience,” said concert promoter Scott C. Pedersen of JazzConcerts.com and Scottland Concerts of La Jolla.
“He was ubiquitous. You could be in an elevator at Madison Square Garden, and a stage hand would say, ‘Where are you from?,’ and when you said, ‘San Diego,’ they would say, ‘Do you know Louie?’”
As a free agent and then as a member of the stagehands union (IATSE, Local 122), Procaccino spent his many decades in the business working shows for everyone from David Bowie and Bob Dylan to the Clash, the Ramones and Fleetwood Mac. And while he was dealing with the big names, Procaccino was also looking out for the people who made the big names look good.
“He was always good to us. He always said ‘Hi’ to the crew, and he made sure we were taken care of,” said Carlos Cota, who joined the local union in the late ‘80s and is now an international representative for IATSE. “And when he got older and he wasn’t as strong as he used to be, we took him under our wing and looked out for him. It was good to be able to pay him back.”
Despite his eccentricities — the cartoon-character giggle, the practical jokes, the catering-table goodies he would stuff into his pockets and squirrel away in his van — Procaccino was the guy you went to for any and all of your show-related needs. Whatever the job was, he got it done with a shrugging ease and a smile.
“I don’t think I ever saw him get mad in all those years. He was always in a good frame of mind and he always used humor and kindness to deal with situations,” said Casbah co-owner Tim Mays, who worked with Procaccino when Mays and Harlan Schiffman were putting on punk shows in the early ‘80s and hired him as the Pink Panther’s doorman in 1987.
On Nov. 2, the Casbah will be hosting a free concert in Louie Procaccino’s honor. The Farmers will be playing, along with The Downs Family, The Touchies, The Tighten Ups and Joey Harris and the Mentals. And because it’s a concert for Louie, a good time will be had by all.
“The last time I saw him was at the Casbah on May 28,” Mays said “He popped in around 1:30 a.m., told a few jokes and hit the road. He was larger than life and funnier than just about anyone you knew.”
"Scene" - Google News
October 02, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Column: The San Diego music scene will not be the same without Louis Procaccino - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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