Making Music in the Mud Biz

 

Not Yet Through

Mud is his metier. Music is his mainstay. Ken Goldsmith, mud dawg that he is, takes Mudsmith Ltd. into melodic new waters. Welcome to the world of Ken-isms, “green initiatives,” customer service, and “floating slabs.” It’s all here… in Mudland.

Well, the song’s for you if you’re not yet through at fifty-two.

Yeah, they said I shouldn’t start a music career at fifty-two…

Well I may be going through a midlife thing,

But thanks but no thanks, I just gotta sing,

Can’t accept that I’m through at fifty-two.

The road that has brought Mudsmith Ltd. over bumps, dips, turns, u-turns, and wayfarings for these oh-so-many miles—and years—on its quest to be “the cleanest company in a dirty business” has taken the drilling mud operation to some high ground and good places as well. Life is good in Mudland. Still, the impulses that have led to the establishment of MudRock Studios smack in the middle of the Mudsmith mud-making mecca has meant that there’s more to this oilfield service outfit than meets the eye.

For someone who is as eat-up with the desire to make music as Ken Goldsmith is, there was no holding back.

He has gone on record as saying that “If it wasn’t for the oil and gas industry, if it wasn’t for drilling mud, there wouldn’t be any music for Ken.”

But there is an industry, and there is mud, and there is music for Ken. And there is room for Ken-isms, like that last remark of his. Goldsmith peppers his conversations with dry or wry or pithy observations—and sometimes those Ken-isms find their way into his lyrics, as well.

Sitting in the still-under-construction control room of Mudsmith Studios, Goldsmith reflects on recent activity in Mudland, as he and the others here have dubbed their expanded, renovated look and feel.

At fifty-two, I’m gray and I’m cool and nobody’s fool,

Got my kids all grown, got money in the bank,

Got a list of new songs inspired by ol’ Hank, I’m fifty-two.

What was once a two-acre yard-and-office site on the north side of 114 is now an 8-acre compound astraddle 114, and the new warehouses alone give them an additional 27,000 square feet of building space under roof. They’ll do some $23 million in business this year. All of this is a far cry from just 13 years ago, when the business assets were “just my dad’s old 1985 F-150 pickup. And no promise from anybody.”

For about the next five years, Goldsmith and a scant handful of employees generated about one to two million dollars in sales per year. But with the upturn in 2004, Mudsmith went into what Goldsmith describes as “an almost-vertical growth pattern—from ’04 to ’07 anyway.” That rise culminated in last year’s volume of about $23 million. “We are on track to do about the same this year, and we are looking for ways to not plateau. So we’ve had very significant growth, thanks to being in the heart of the Wolfberry.”

Mudsmith today employs somewhere between 45 and 50 individuals—from yard hands and welders and truck drivers, to mud engineers and administrators and salespeople and clerical staff. And to these occupations, he can now add “audio engineer” (Ken Morgan was hired this year) and other studio staffers to come.

The studio and ballroom, while they may be an indulgence for Goldsmith, are being marketed commercially and the owner hopes to eventually recoup some if not most or all of his outlays through revenues generated by studio rental, ballroom usage, seminar bookings, and other fresh income streams.

On the day we’re talking, Goldsmith has a single that is riding at the number 2 spot on the Midland Country Music Chart that is kept by Reverb Nation. A couple of Midland radio stations are playing his music. Another in Lubbock is doing likewise. And Country DJ Joe Molinsky at 92.1-FM in Fort Worth is giving the tunes some spins.

 

It says a lot about the kind of interest that is brewing around MudRock Studio, that while Goldsmith was being interviewed, not one but two regional recording artists dropped by to see the new digs. One of them, a Tejano artist, signs a recording deal before the afternoon is out.

 

 

 

Yeah, the song’s for you if you’re gonna be cool at fifty-two

Don’t wish, don’t wait, if you’re gonna be great, here’s what you do:

Get a hair transplant, get a personal trainer,

Get a doctor and a lawyer both on retainer,

You’re not givin’ up at fifty-two.

It’s been a fun ride for Goldsmith.

“We’ve really got some good people who have put me in a position to pursue some other business opportunities and pursue some personal interests, and that is where the recording studio deal comes in,” Goldsmith said. “Around the time of my 50^th birthday, which was nearly four years ago, my employees asked me, ‘What do you want for your birthday?’ Well, I never tell them a tangible thing they can buy me for my birthday. I just don’t. And they pressed me, and said, ‘Oh, 50 is a big year, won’t you let us do something for you?’ Well, I wouldn’t tell them anything tangible. So I said, ‘I’d like to see if I can still sing like I could when I was a kid.’ And they [thinking he must be joking] laughed at me. And so I thought, you guys might be surprised. And so, I decided to pick up karaoke singing a little bit… not so much in the honkytonks and bars but in my garage, and in my man cave at my lake house. And I got more and more interested in it, and began to go to Nashville, and make some recordings, and now I’ve just released my third CD [Legends in my Mind, Vol. 3].”

The recording bug bit Goldsmith hard. And the cost and trouble of going to Nashville soon became a drag. He wanted something closer to home. And he prefers the entrepreneurial aspects of running a publishing house, recording studio, and ballroom to the vagaries and vicissitudes of going out on the road as a touring musician. “I’m not that ambitious,” said the actually-pretty-ambitious Goldsmith. “I don’t have any aspirations to be a touring performer. But I did have enough interest in the industry that I wanted to have a dog in the hunt. So I see it more as an opportunity. In order for me to sustain my career in the music industry, I need to bring Nashville to Midland.

“To me, the ones that I see making money in the music industry are basically the work-for-hire services. And so we wanted to put a recording studio together. You know, for a couple of different reasons. One is for profit. But if it will carry its weight and break even, then I’ll be satisfied. But in another way it is kind of a contribution from me to the arts, for the community. All work and no play makes Ken a dull boy.  People are always saying, you need to golf, you need to hunt, you need to fish—you need some kind of a hobby. Some people buy airplanes. Some people buy $150,000 sports cars. Some people go on exotic hunting and fishing trips. I just happened to choose the music business. It is kind of my hobby-business. I just kind of observed an unserved market, and interest, in the region out here. And so I decided that my hobby was singing.

“And I also know that if it was out of reach for me, to be able to afford to go to Nashville and pursue my dream, until I was past 50 years old, then it is out of reach for most people, because it is just so far away and it is so expensive to do it. Most people basically just put their dreams on hold, as I did. So, I am hoping that this venture will make it a little more realistic opportunity for us to have something closer to home, for local and regional musicians. Because historically they have all had to go to Austin, or El Paso, or Dallas, or Nashville, or Hollywood, or wherever. And if you look at our unique position on the map, we are ultimately halfway between Los Angeles, or Hollywood—and Nashville. In fact, the reason why Midland is named Midland, is because it was midway between Dallas and El Paso. Well, it is also midway between Nashville and L.A. Not perfectly, but close.”

At fifty-two, I’m gray and I’m cool and nobody’s fool,

Got my kids all grown, got money in the bank,

Got a list of new songs inspired by ol’ Hank, I’m fifty-two.

So much for the new venture—music. As for Mudsmith’s main payzone—drilling mud—the president is as involved and dedicated as ever.

Asked if he had projections for Mudsmith’s activity level in years to come, Goldsmith said he “is not one to try to do a lot of forecasting.” He said that his observation is that forecasts are often inaccurate anyway. But especially, he said, in an election year.

“And election year politicians on both sides of the fence are trying to get votes,” he said. “And energy is just about the number one topic with those guys, and if it isn’t, it should be. So they are very interested in tampering with the oil and gas industry, which sometimes can result in price fluctuations, just because of sentiment and uncertainty and that sort of thing. So we are being a little bit close to the vest, we are finishing some very ambitious construction projects and we are going to take a wait-and-see attitude about whether we continue to expand and grow, because some of the operators are releasing drilling rigs. I personally believe that if oil stays above 70, 75 dollars a barrel, that Wolfberry operators will continue to drill. It if is down closer to $70 a barrel, then it will be a little more of a buyer’s market. But f it is $90 or $100 a barrel it will be a little more of a seller’s market. In the service business. So we need to remain humble, and not get too arrogant about our growth ambitions are… and just kind of follow the market.”

The major changes that the region has seen are the increase in horizontal drilling, as well as changes in fracture technology, he said. Downspacing of the operators, from 80- to 40- to 20-acre spacings, is creating more density and more drilling opportunities. “So those are the kinds of things that are keeping new life breathed into our region. The other things is that, compared to other plays, like the Eagle Ford and the Marcellus and the Bakken and these other kind of ‘exotic’ areas where there is a lot of talk about all the great discoveries, a well that costs $2 million to drill in the Permian Basin may cost $6, 8, 10 million to drill in those other regions. So our region is still very attractive and we tend to be a little more recession proof in our region, because when people get conservative, they go drill where the risk is lower. The upside might not be as good, but the downside is not as bad either. I mean, when the BP [British Petroleum] well blew out in the Gulf, and offshore drilling fell out of vogue, everybody wanted some good old dry land, low risk, low budget, not-terribly-environmentally-sensitive land like the Permian Basin. So the Permian Basin has many different features that makes it very attractive .

Get your meds for blood pressure and cholesterol,

And that little blue pill to help you answer the call—you’re fifty-two.*

Yeah, the song’s for you if you’re not yet through at fifty-two.

In the end, true to a “country” mindset, Goldsmith is philosophical about it all:

“Some people think I have went off the deep end and flipped out,” he said with a laugh, “but as long as my mud business is profitable, then I guess I am hanging onto a little bit of sanity. So if the music business ends up breaking me in the mud business, then that’ll be another story. But that’s one reason why it [the studio] is built right over there next to my office. Where I can walk right out of the studio, take my cowboy hat off, put my hard hat on… [He pauses.] I mean, I keep my coveralls hanging on my nail back here, and my hard hat is close by, and I can still go to the rig. So that is why I want to bring it [Nashville] back to Midland. It’s because I can’t really get away from the business, that is feeding my family and the 40 or 50 people who are depending on us for an income around here.

“It is nice to have a hobby,” he said in conclusion, “but ya gotta stick with what brought ya.”

* on his website, Goldsmith avows that his song “Fifty-two” is 99 percent (that is to say, not 100%) autobiographical.