MBJ Enterprises LLC

March 28 and 29, 2005. Back-to-back nights. State Fair Arena. Kansas Coliseum. Slipknot. Lamb of God. Shadows Fall. DevilDriver. Massive bills. Pure heavy energy. And somehow… Max didn’t get in. “No Max allowed.” Didn’t buy a ticket. Couldn’t get through the door. While Lamb of God was leveling the building and Slipknot was in full machine mode. That era was stacked. Metal was peaking. LOG shirts...

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...

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 bott...

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. Th...

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, te...

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...

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   Like, share, and follow so these stories kee...

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...

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....

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....

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 alrea...

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?...

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. Mean...

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 n...

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 i...

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 dog...

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 f...

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 brea...

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 wa...

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 serio...

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 o...

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 ab...

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 partnersh...

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...

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...