If you ever went to punk show in So Cal in the 80's to now, or know about the Coachella music festival you went to a show put on by Goldenvoice. One of the founders recently passed away.



Goldenvoice Concerts:



Rick Van Santen, 41; L.A. Promoter Helped to Advance Punk Rock Bands



By Richard Cromelin, Times Staff Writer

Rick Van Santen, a co-president of Goldenvoice, a Los Angeles concert promotion company that ushered punk rock from the fringes of the music scene to a wide audience, died Sunday December 28th at his home in Ventura County of flu-related complications, his Goldenvoice partner Paul Tollett said. He was 41.



In the 1980s, a time when major promoters shunned punk because of its reputation as a violent subculture, Goldenvoice presented acts in large, established rooms with quality sound, such as the Hollywood Palladium and the Palace (now the Avalon).



'There cannot be any L.A. band since the early '80s that was playing edgy rock that doesn't owe Rick,' said Brendan Mullen, who operated the famed Masque punk rock club in the mid-'70s and helped guide Van Santen into the business.



Acts such as Jane's Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Social Distortion and Nirvana are among the many whose careers were boosted by their association with Goldenvoice. And it was Van Santen, Tollett said, who cultivated the personal contacts that would sustain those relationships.