ALBANY — Seventeen years ago, Ted Etoll was asked to help put together a series of five battle of the bands shows at Albany’s Marriott Hotel.

From those humble beginnings sprang Step Up Presents, which today is one of the Capital Region’s most prominent independent concert production companies. Since starting in 1991, Step Up has brought some of the biggest names in modern rock music to the region, including Fall Out Boy, Slayer and, more recently, a double bill with The Roots and Gym Class Heroes at Washington Avenue Armory, and the Experience Hendrix 2008 show at the Palace Theatre.

Local scene

But for Etoll, who today is still Step Up’s chief executive, the goal was never to bring in big name acts, but to help strengthen the local music scene he saw building in the 1990s.

“We couldn’t have done it if we didn’t have the amazing bands that we had here, but at that particular time we had the greatest local bands,” Etoll said during a recent interview at his home in Albany, which also serves as Step Up’s headquarters. “In fact, at that time, the local bands outdrew the national bands by two to one, three to one.”

While the name Step Up might not be familiar to many Capital Region music fans, those who regularly attend rock concerts, in particular hard rock or metal shows, will most likely have attended one of Step Up’s events. The company regularly holds shows at a variety of larger concert halls, theaters and smaller clubs, including WAMC’s Linda Norris Auditorium, the Washington Avenue Armory, The Egg, The Palace Theatre, Valentine’s and The Times Union Center in Albany; Glens Falls Civic Center in Glens Falls; and Northern Lights in Clifton Park.

But when Step Up first began, the Capital Region music scene was a different animal. Clubs where Etoll booked shows at the time included QE2, Bogie’s and Saratoga Winners, of which only the last is still in operation.

The battle of the bands shows that started it all at the Albany Marriott each focused on a different genre, in keeping with Step Up’s future booking tendencies, which are stylistically all over the map.

However, Etoll, who grew up on hard rock and classic rock, gravitated toward the local hardcore punk and metal scenes after those first few shows, and quickly became a fixture on that scene.

“Not only was it fascinating to me, the whole culture that surrounded the bands, but the people themselves that came out and the people in the bands, they were just so industrious and they were so hard-working, and the fan base was so passionate, that it was impossible not to become infected by it,” he said.

Moving on

Etoll and Step Up hosted shows at the Marriott for another eight months before moving into the local clubs.

“We had a show that I called the Saint Valentine’s Day Metal Massacre, and it was,” Etoll said with a laugh. “The story ended in that the Albany Marriott asked me to take my business elsewhere. And it was ironic because the clubs were also asking me to start to do shows in their facilities, because it was phenomenally successful.”

Step Up’s early shows featured such local groups as Stigmata, One Came Down, Withstand, Cutthroat and The Clay People, and Etoll still cites these as some of his favorite shows that he has produced. “It was cutting edge,” he said.

“There were local scenes that you would read about: Seattle’s got a great scene, or Austin, Texas, has a great scene, or Boston, Mass., has a great scene, or New York City at that time, which had a great hardcore punk rock scene. But in reality, when it was all said and done, the Albany scene was as good, if not better than all those scenes, and we had the talent here to prove it.”

“What Ted did years ago at places like that [is] he grew up a lot of these little bands out there now, that even if they’re not bands anymore, the members are now managers, in management, or the bands themselves are out there,” said Kip Fink, president of Northern Lights. Fink has worked with Step Up since Northern Lights first opened, about 10 years ago.

As word spread around to national promoters and booking agents of Step Up’s success in the region, Etoll began receiving calls to book other bands. In 1992 Step Up began to book national acts after he received a call from an agent, Tim Borror, who at the time was booking metal bands in New York City. Other agents began calling, and things escalated from there.

“I never called an agent; I never aspired to be a national booker of bands,” Etoll said.

“Once we started booking the national bands, the kids in the scene and the kids in the bands that I was already booking, they would come to me and say, ‘Teddy, we got to get this band, we got to get that band,’ so then I started to aggressively go out and pursue the bands that the kids wanted to see.”

Etoll credits mentors such as John Peters from Mass Concerts and Artie Kwitchoff, who worked for Ron Delsener Presents, for helping to show him the ropes of national promotion. “When they took me under their wing, they kind of taught me the business on a macro level versus the micro level that I was at,” Etoll said.

Along with support from the clubs, radio and print advertising in Metroland, Etoll is also helped today by his staff, which includes interns from the music industry program at State University of New York in Oneonta.

“Virtually half of the staff are Oneonta State music industry program kids,

and they’re virtually running my business,” he said. “My job is literally to get the people in the door, and once the people are in the door, my staff completely, 100 percent takes over.”

For some venues, such as The Egg, the partnership with Step Up has brought diversity to the theater’s usual event lineup. Recently, Step Up brought the Zappa Plays Zappa tour, featuring Frank Zappa’s son Dweezil performing his father’s material, to the theater in August.

Bringing diversity

“It brings some diversity that certainly we don’t necessarily have as part of our main mission of the art series,” said Peter Lesser, executive director of The Egg. “[Etoll] has a different side of things. I hate to use the word popular, but obviously the things he does are typically pop music oriented, not that we don’t do that, but certain genres that he does . . . sort of round things out a little bit.”

Of course, not every show is a success. While Etoll has seen some fall-off in business due to the recent economic downturn, many of Step Up’s shows still sell out, due to the audience’s younger age demographic. However, Experience Hendrix at the Palace Theatre, which Etoll expected to sell out, did not.

“From the time that show went on sale up until the day of the show, every negative thing that could have ever happened to that 35-to-60 [age] demographic happened; you could see the ticket sales being affected by the economy and the stuff that was going on,” Etoll said.

“Even the losses where the shows don’t cover, they always put on a good show, musically, and that’s the main thing,” Fink said.

Etoll tries to keep his business rooted in the club scene, with the same DIY mentality that he began it with. After 17 years, it’s still all about the music.

“Is it all about Step Up Presents? No, nobody goes to see Step Up Presents,” he said. “They go because of a beautiful venue that’s easily accessible to see bands that they actually want to see.”