Steve Pavlovic

Stephen Pavlovic (born 1966) is an Australian music promoter who founded and ran the successful international record label Modular Recordings.^[1]

Widely known as "Pav", Stephen Pavlovic built a successful career as a promoter for local bands in the city of Sydney before he started touring Seattle bands Mudhoney and Nirvana in the early 1990s. Nirvana were on tour in Australia when Nevermind went #1 on the US Billboard 200 chart in 1992 and helped to make a name for Pavlovic. Pavlovic was 25 at the time.

Pavlovic followed this with a string of tours for Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins and The Offspring. In 1995 Pavlovic launched his own festival, Summersault, headlined by The Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Sonic Youth and Beck.

In 1998, upon receiving a demo tape from then unsigned Melbourne band Quentin's Brittle Bones (now known as The Avalanches), Pavlovic founded the independent record label Modular Recordings.^[2]

Having signed some of Australia's successful musical exports, including Tame Impala,^[3] Wolfmother and The Avalanches,^[4] Pavlovic has a reputation as an industry taste-maker.

Across the Modular catalogue,^[5] the label has clocked up 3 multi-platinum albums, 3 platinum albums, 13 gold albums, 1 Grammy Award^[6] and 2 Grammy Nominations,^[7] 10 ARIA awards, 4 (of a possible 7) triple j Album of the Year J Awards^[8] and 3 Australian number one albums, not to mention sold out tours across Europe and the US.

In 2007 Pavlovic toured French electro duo Daft Punk^[9] as part of Modular’s Nevereverland festival.^[10]

In 2011, Stephen was appointed curator of Vivid Live,^[11] the live music portion of the prestigious Vivid Festival in Sydney, Australia, where The Cure, Bat For Lashes, Spiritualised and Odd Future headlined.^[12]

In June 2015, Modular Recordings and its partner Universal Music Australia was sued by BMG Rights Management for failing to honor an agreement made over royalties from Tame Impala recordings, including the critically acclaimed Innerspeaker and Lonerism albums and the group's self-titled EP.^[13][14] Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker himself claimed in a Reddit Ask Me Anything chat that 'Someone high up spent the money before it got to [him]', and that he 'may never get that money'.^[15]

Universal Music Australia claims that on Christmas Eve 2014 Modular Recordings owner Steve Pavlovic agreed to sign a separation deal, under which he would give it his half of Modular, together with music, trademarks, websites and other assets. It claims that since then Pavlovic has welshed on the deal, refusing to transfer the shares or hand over some assets. Pavlovic claims the deal was never binding and he is still owed $32,500 in holiday pay from Universal. Pavlovic resigned from Modular on 11 March and most of the roster of musicians appear to have been dispersed elsewhere within Universal.^[16]

References