Inside the club -shaped sound tent on the field of the Festival of Music and Coachella Arts in Indio, Gary Tovar is getting closer to the scene. As always, he takes photos on his phone and shoots video pieces, to share online later.
On stage on this festival's opening weekend is the Los Angeles Indie Rock Act Ensemble Pangea, but for some lovely music lovers in the crowd, Tovar is as recognizable as anyone who will be on this scene. He is the founder of Goldenvoice Productions, who launched Coachella in 1999, and was a crucial supporter of the original punk rock concert scene in the 1980s.
Dressed in his usual ordinary white t-shirt, black khaki shorts, with a blue bandana attached near his throat, Tovar can barely take a few steps on the air-conditioned room before being welcomed by another admirer. While Tovar no longer has the company he founded in 1981, he remains his fan n ° 1, attending several concerts and club shows every week, sometimes two or three per night.
At Coachella, he is a particularly active music consumer, starting his day with breakfast in catering and spending a full day spending from one scene to another. He often travels to his own golf cart, but says he still gets 25,000 steps a day. The heat, reaching over 100 degrees on the opening weekend, does not slow it down.
“Many people stay in their time,” says Tovar about his current musical consumption. “There are a lot of people who complain – they came here in 2009 – they always want MGMT, they want yeah yeah yeah, and they want time to stop. You have to be eternal. I don't mean you will live forever. I mean, when music moves, you move with it. You can't prick yourself for yesterday.”
Gary Tovar behind the scenes of the coachella artist composed with Joe Escalante des Vandals, Center and Greg Hetson of The Circle Jerks.
(All J. Schaben / Los Angeles)
That said, he maintains a lot of affection for the punk era which launched Goldenvoice in the early 1980s. While other local punk rock promoters came and came, Goldenvoice has become an essential champion of punk, metal, Goth, industry and other revolutionary sounds of the time. Tovar also stolen in Acts from abroad for their first shows in the Los Angeles region.
Tovar considered himself an art patron, putting people like Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys, Siouxsie and Les Banshees and Jane's Addiction on stage at the Olympic auditorium, Santa Monica Civic, John Anson Ford Amphitheater and Fender's Ball Room.
He survived where many others failed because he had the resources to follow his musical passions, even if the programs were not always profitable. The reason: Tovar was a smuggler in Marijuana, bringing the smuggling of Colombia and then in Thailand. He made millions, until a prison sentence won for seven years, and he gave the company to his successors: Paul Tollett and the late Rick Van Santen.
While Coachella emerged during his stay in prison for the trade in marijuana, the world renowned festival is a lasting heritage of its emerging shows from the 1980s.
“It would not be there if it was not for Gary,” said Keith Morris, singer of Circle Jerks, sitting in the group's coachela locker room just after the group set. “It was more a question of being a fan than of the company. He is a total music monster.”
He was also a fan of the rock who returned in the 1960s, as an adolescent, seeing Jimi Hendrix occurring in Maui. Tovar had his first taste for punk rock in the last performance of sex pistols in the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco in January 1978. Although intrigued, Tovar did not imagine a place in this world until his sister, a first fan of punk, mentions that the groups of the then controversial genre had trouble finding concerts to play.
Beginning with a tsol show in Santa Barbara on December 4, 1981, Tovar plunged, finally focusing on Los Angeles.
He appointed the company after a favorite strain of Thai marijuana. “They said that when you smoked her, it was as if the angels sang you in a golden voice,” recalls Tovar with a smile.
For a logo, he turned to the bass player of the black flag and the co-founder of SST Records, Chuck Dukowski, who explained the name of Goldenvoice style in the “Chinese” style lettering left for the EP “Paranoid Time”. (This same font is now used in the Coachella logo.)
In 1983, things quickly took off for Goldenvoice, but quickly left the rails with a riot during a tsol and social distortion concert in the original Sir studios on Sunset Boulevard. There was another riot during a show operated at Huntington Park. Tovar had another concert for Wilmington aligned at the head of the Kennedys, aggressively radical whom he called “to assault the quays”, if he could bring the police to sign. Tovar met the San Pedro police, and he was asked: “What type of band is the dead of Kennedys?” Tovar says he looked up and saw President Reagan's official portrait on the wall. “My mind went.
This show also ended as a riot. “Oh, they have gone so crazy,” said Tovar now. “I had to go with a little trick, guy.”
After his third consecutive riot, Tovar turned to the Olympic auditorium, the concrete bunker impenetrable in downtown Los Angeles where he had welcomed the black flag a year before. The place, with a capacity of 5,000 people just on the ground floor, was large enough to absorb a number of punks and others who wanted to attend, without leaving anyone outside or being in trouble.
Tovar fully expected that the initial wave of euphoria Punk Rock fades in a few years, and it was done. “Punk rock is like a shooting star. I knew it was not going to last, ”he says. “At the end of 1985, he showed cracks. Too much violence. The girls did not want to come. ”
After two years in the Olympics, and as the punk crowds were starting to decrease, he moved many of his shows to the smallest Fender in Beach, developing in other sites in southern California if necessary.
The Jerks Circle occurred at the Sonora's tent during the first weekend of Coachella 2025. Tovar was one of the first Los Angeles promoters to defend Punk legends. “(Coachella) would not be there if it was not for Gary,” explains the singer of Circle Jerks, Keith Morris. “It was more a question of being a fan than of the company. He is a total music monster.”
(All J. Schaben / Los Angeles)
As a primary proselytism of punk and other alternative sounds, Tovar has often joined up promoters in other cities. It rarely meant a windfall for him. During a concert in Sacramento with the Ramones, he barely broke out. “I found an invoice of $ 20 in the parking lot,” he recalls. “It was my profit.”
His money was largely made elsewhere. “One of my hands was in punk rock, defending the underground music that was on the sidelines,” he said. “And my other hand was the smuggling of quality marijuana. We have opted for quality. “
If anything, the pot company accelerated. His role was to sail in the marijuana of Colombia and Thailand in the United States when the drug trade in Colombia has moved away from marijuana to cocaine, Tovar turned to Thailand.
“I did not believe in cocaine because marijuana ended up with a handshake, and cocaine ended up with a firearm. I am not a violent person, ”recalls Tovar. “All the smuggling I made was finished with diversion tactics. I have always never shot a weapon. I try to go to the end. “
When one of his partners was arrested, Tovar knew that it was only a matter of time before the federal drug agents arrived at him. It turned out to be years, which gives Tovar time to form its protégés Tollett and Van Santen. On March 8, 1991, the federals arrived at his home and arrested him, and he remained in detention until his trial and the end of his sentence.
Ironically, at the end of 1991, music had changed in its direction. “Eight months after my entry, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Chile Peppers broke,” he said. “I remember being in prison and said,” Wow, I almost succeeded. It took a long time for enough people to come. »»
He does not show any bitterness about spending years in prison for having sold something that is now largely and openly available through the state. In prison in Nevada, he heard of the new Goldenvoice festival was going to welcome in the desert. Once back, he did not miss a single edition of Coachella.
Tovar is now a Goldenvoice Consultant. (The company was finally sold at the AEG in 2001.) It was particularly active at the No Values festival last year, which celebrated the generations of Punk Rock, with the misfits, social distortion, Iggy Pop and dozens of others. As an extremely active spectator, he has a more enlightened opinion than most.
Behind the scenes before the Circle Jerks takes place on the opening weekend of Coachella, many old friends and admirers warmly greet Tovar. Among them, the reservation agent Andy Somers, who often had groups playing Goldenvoice shows in the 80s, with a list that included Jerks Circle, GBH, Megadeth, The Exploited and Testament.
Somers still has good memories of Goldenvoice during this early chaotic period. “It was so DIY and so disorganized, with the heart in the right place,” explains Somers. “This is what made it work.”
Gary Tovar at 2025 Coachella in Indio on April 13, 2025.
(All J. Schaben / Los Angeles)
While entering a conversation with Tovar, the Goldenvoice founder reminds him that the simple fact of securing a place could be difficult at a time when punk was considered by many as the last threat to society.
“We had to try to look for places to put these groups,” said Tovar in Somers. “The Jerks Circle had a turning crowd. I mean, nothing abnormal. But punk rock at the time, he had his exuberance.”
Somers smiles in agreement, and adds: “It was shocking. It scared the general public a little. You see a Mosh pit and you look at it and go:” Is it supposed to be fun? “”
Rent Contreras is also behind the scenes, which reserves the Sonora scene (which was appointed by Tovar) and entered the Goldenvoice Gold as a new generation promoter who grew up in fanatic of Socal music. He was at the beginning of the twenty when he met Tovar for the first time about 15 years ago, and knew him mainly like another fan he saw during shows everywhere.
“When I did not have a car, he made me walks for shows,” explains Contreras. “It took me a while to unravel his story and his heritage he had in music. He came out every night. He will call me at least three times a week and we are talking about shows that occur, or sometimes he even fills me:” Have you heard of this group? “”
