MacKay Still Networks With the Best of Them
Appearing in various weekly publications in May and June 2008.

By Steven Gallo

Independence Party of America Chairman Frank MacKay is revisiting his music business roots.

MacKay, who has made incredible inroads the past decade as an independent political leader, is also a longtime music business professional.

Having started out as a guitar teacher in his early teens (with a clientele of over 50), he later evolved to booking bands (often in clubs he was not allowed to enter due to his young age), promoting concerts, owning nightclubs and shopping record deals for bands.

Along with brother Gordon MacKay, Frank also entered the managing field. Among the many artists he has managed include CJ Ramone, formerly of punk legends The Ramones and world-renowned magician Criss Angel.

In his early twenties, MacKay specialized in producing punk, hardcore and heavy metal records, and had production on more than a dozen releases on various record labels. While managing Criss Angel, Frank produced the demos that resulted in Angel’s first development deal with Mercury Records.

In all these aspects of the music business, MacKay had mastered the art of “networking,” defined by Marion-Webster as “the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions.” In fact, in the 80’s, he and brother Gordon MacKay entered the publishing business by starting a New York City-based entertainment newspaper called Network, long before the word became a popular “buzz word.”

Network was the perfect name for their publication, as networking was the secret to its success. Containing original interviews by the biggest music stars in the world such as Bon Jovi, Metallica, and Guns and Roses, Network soon became the area’s 1 entertainment and music publication. Over 50 of the original interviews from the paper, not seen in over 20 years, have been compiled for an upcoming book titled The Network Interviews. No less than New York cult legend Joe Franklin, who has conducted almost a half million interviews spanning six decades, has written the forward.

After many years of accomplishments in the music business, MacKay eventually left that behind by turning to independent politics, and has reached the pinnacle in that field, recently being elected as both the Chairman of the Independence Party of America and Reform Party USA. However, MacKay of late has found himself comfortably back in the midst of the music business, and still strongly puts his networking skills to use.

Networking has been vital to MacKay’s successes in every field he has been in. Constantly looking to meet people vital to his goals and establishing contacts and relationships with such people such as Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, and many others prominent in business, sports, and entertainment, MacKay has utilized his networking skills into a long line of successes and is poised for many more.

MacKay especially prides himself on being a deal maker, particularly on record deals and contracts, and is considered a master networker amongst musicians and music business pros for his ability to put people together. And in keeping up with the ever-changing times, he has successfully utilized what is now one of the main networking tools in the world, myspace.

One of the most popular networking tools today, myspace has evolved from an online meeting site for mostly teenagers, into an international networking phenomenon with almost a quarter-billion member profiles. You gather “friends” on your myspace page (by your request or theirs) and interact, although one doesn’t have to be on your friends list to communicate with you. Today, if you are in any field where networking is crucial, having a myspace page is a vital necessity. There is nary a band, actor, comedian, filmmaker, writer, or any kind of artist without one.

MacKay’s myspace page, while reporting on his political activities, is a “musician” myspace profile with songs he has recently recorded that visitors can listen to, for free. The songs are jazzy and Spanish-oriented, and were improvised in the studio in just one or two takes. Reflecting the “get it done” attitude he always lived by, MacKay didn’t even want the songs polished and produced, he simply put them up on his page for all to listen to in their raw glory. “I tell bands, you’re painting a barn, not a Rembrandt,” he says. “Just get it done. Start networking. Get the ball rolling.”

In one year’s time, MacKay’s myspace page has become one of the most popular on the site. It has become a hub for all kinds of artists, professional or not, to meet and network online. His page currently boasts over 150,000 friends, an astonishing number very few outside of the most popular names in entertainment seem to approach.

Among the musicians who have networked through MacKay’s myspace page are jazz musician David Becker, who has recently signed to MacKay’s brother Gordon’s record label, Straw House Records, based in Boston. Becker is preparing to release his tenth album on the label.

But it’s the up-and-comers that are particularly attracted to the page, seeking out others in their field to reach out to. MacKay often searches for new talent himself.

MacKay has been referred to as an unsigned band’s best friend. He is constantly listening to bands on myspace, seeking out potential new artists to either work with, or recommend to someone. His biggest enemy is time itself. “Other than spending time with my family,” he says, “I am always listening to independent music, watching independent films, watching comedians. It’s an entire world of incredible talent right at your fingertips.”

While the networking on myspace is clearly a success, MacKay offers no guarantees. “I can only put people together, but I can’t make it work out,” he says. “I am proud though that my page has brought so many together. I receive appreciative emails all the time.”

Of course, he isn’t leaving his political life behind. Despite a commitment to establish a new major party, MacKay is not without his detractors. Many have accused him of being “fast and loose” with the political system. Many feel the creation of another major party could create a constitutional crisis and disrupt the status quo. None of this seems to bother Mackay at all, who merely parlayed his independent ways into his political career. “The two-party system is simply too exclusive,” he says. “There are independents out there that need to be heard. We need to build towards 2012.”

But now that he is back in the music business, there is more networking than ever to be done.

MacKay lays groundwork for Bloomberg bid by Rick Brand Fueling the presidential fever, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lately has crisscrossed the country in high-profile stops, among them pitching public works projects with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

While Bloomberg is jetting about, Suffolk and State Independence Party chairman Frank MacKay, complete with his rattail coif and earring, is also on the road, but to far less notice.

Since September, MacKay says he has driven to 35 states and dropped 35 pounds along the way. His mission is to stitch together a patchwork of ragtag reform, independent and enviro-third parties to try to clear the way to the ballot for a potential Bloomberg presidential run.

While Ross Perot's former campaign manager Clay Mulford last week in Texas warned Bloomberg of the "terrible impediments" to getting on the ballot, MacKay has no doubt about the mayor's prospects.

"I guarantee you if he runs, he will be on the ballot in all 50 states," said MacKay. "What we're doing is laying the groundwork and we'll get him three-quarters of the way there with volunteers."

"Bloomberg would be our ideal candidate," said MacKay. "We're about giving the public another major choice who can speak directly with the public."

MacKay added he "doesn't give a damn about social issues" like school prayer and abortion because they have skewed the public debate. "The right wing and left wing have interfered so heavily with the candidates, you don't know where the real person is any more."

Within New York, MacKay has made himself a force by the relentless strategizing that he freely imparts to all sides, from Gov. Eliot Spitzer to Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Statewide, his party has 344,000 registered voters, though party officials admit many have no idea they belong to an organized party.

Locally, MacKay first made a mark helping Thomas Spota win his Suffolk district attorney's job and still exerts influence that far exceeds his party's numbers.

"No one should ever underestimate Frank," said Edward Walsh, Suffolk Conservative chairman. "If you look at his rattail and earring one minute, the next thing you know he's five steps ahead of you."

MacKay has also made missteps - his largest was failing to back Suffolk's Democratic County Executive Steve Levy in 2003. His bid to float Donald Trump's name for president also sunk like a stone.

Undeterred, MacKay last September went national, forming the Independence Party of America and making himself chairman. It's a vehicle he hopes Bloomberg will use in a potential run. MacKay, however, emphasizes that he is working separately from the mayor, though he admits frequent contact with top Bloomberg operative Kevin Sheekey.

MacKay has also become executive director of the Reform Party of America, another remnant of Perot's presidential runs in 1992 and 1996, which will give MacKay's new party instant ballot access in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kansas.

Just last week, MacKay also drove cross country, holding meetings in seven states on his way to Minnesota, where the state Independence Party elected professional wrestler Jesse Ventura governor in 1999. That party voted at a state convention yesterday to join MacKay's new organization.

At first, Diane Goldman, a Minnesota party vice chairwoman, said she thought MacKay was "a Don Quixote chasing windmills." But now, she has come around: "He's a real go-getter, a salesman and very capable."

While billionaire Bloomberg may still have to finance massive petition-gathering operations in states including California, Texas and North Carolina, MacKay's efforts, backers say, will assure not only far easier ballot access, but better positions on November's ballot.

"In Florida, it's the difference between having the fourth spot on the ballot or the 26th," said Thomas Connolly, the new party's director for ballot access. "If you're that far down, you're only going to be elected mayor of Munchkinland."

The Bloomberg Primary: Unity08 Loses, Independence (Party) Wins

“I was in 26 states in the last 76 days,” Frank MacKay, chairman of the Independence Party of America, said in a phone interview at 11 p.m. last night while driving through Alabama. “Every single state that I’ve been in, we’re talking ballot access.”

MacKay’s travels highlight why he won a major victory yesterday against the star-studded Unity08 in the below-the-radar contest to see which budding political organization would be in the best position to offer their nomination to Michael Bloomberg if the mayor decides to run for president.

Yesterday, officials of Unity08 announced they were suspending their ballot access operation—which was successful only in Florida and Mississippi so far - and losing two of their founding members, Doug Bailey and Jerry Rafshoon.

In a public letter, the board of directors of Unity08 blamed their stunted growth on a Federal Elections Commission decision limiting their contributions to $5,000, instead of the $25,000 allowed for the Republican and Democratic Parties.

“We were caught in a peculiar catch-22,” the Unity08 directors Bob Bingham, Angus King, Peter Ackerman, Zach Clayton and Lindsey Ullman wrote. “’We wanted to break the dependence on big money by getting lots of small contributions from millions of members, but needed some up-front big money to help generate the millions of members to make the small contributions. And the FEC (in effect, an arm of the parties) didn’t let that happen.”

The letter went on to acknowledge that there is no room for more than one third-party candidate in the race this year. “Mayor Bloomberg seems poised to run on his own (and the fact is that two independent candidacies wouldn’t work) if the parties leave the sensible center open,” wrote the Unity08 directors in what was, in essence, their concession speech.

MacKay agrees.

“If he decides to run, I don’t care if God comes out of the sky, we’re going with Bloomberg,” he said.

Departing Unity08 founders Baily and Rafshoon agree too. The Unity08 directors said the pair were heading to a “a committee forming to draft Mayor Bloomberg should the circumstances seem right.”

While Unity08 was collapsing, MacKay was building his nationwide campaign.

The Virginia Independent Greens announced yesterday they agreed to become an affiliate of the Independence of Party of America (IPOA), making them the second statewide group in the country to do so. The Pennsylvania Reform Party affiliated with the IPOA earlier this year, and the Independence Party in Minnesota - which elected a governor there in 1998 - will vote on whether to affiliate on January 26.

MacKay said his job isn’t to find a candidate, but rather, to see how a third-party presidential candidate can get on the ballot nationwide.

“Every state has different laws,“ MacKay said. “Unity08 was trying to start from scratch. What I’m doing is I’m doing is taking people that have already done it locally, and weeding through.”

While both parties, Unity08 and the IPOA, prefer Bloomberg as their candidate, the two groups would have been trying to achieve different goals with the billionaire mayor’s candidacy.

Unity08 hoped its open nominating process - held online - would attract voters left out of the hyper-partisan primary process and lead to a fusion ticket of one Democrat and one Republican. “The past year has taught us that it’s tough to rally millions to a process, as opposed to a candidate or an issue,” Unity08 directors acknowledged.

The IPOA wanted to establish a permanent third party entity in as many states as possible, coalescing around the principles of voter reform, and led by a serious White House contender. MacKay said many states grant permanent ballot access to parties on whose line a certain number of votes are cast. So, while an IPOA candidate may not get enough support in a given state to win any electoral college votes there, that candidate could garner enough votes to establish an IPOA Party in that state.

“In Minnesota, they need a statewide candidate in every four-year span to get 5 percent of the vote. That’s what their threshold is” MacKay said. In Virginia, the threshold is 10 percent, he said.

“We’re hitting on all cylinders right now,” MacKay said. “All we need is a candidate.”

Frank MacKay, head of the New York Independence Party and Independence Party of America, has been elected executive director of the Reform Party USA and is headed to Sacremento, CA to address Reform Party members at their annual conference.

“Our goal is to unify a movement and develop another major party in the country; 2008 looks like the golden age for independent politics and we want to get ahead of the curve,” MacKay said when I caught him via cell phone at JFK.

Why is this news?

MacKay is one of the biggest champions of the Bloomberg for President movement, which (if it materializes) would be an independent campaign. Getting onto the ballot in all 50 states is a time-consuming and pricey endeavor for any independent candidate, even if he’s ready to spend upwards of $1 billion of his own money.

Having the Reform Party on his side would make life a lot easier for Bloomberg.

The Reform Party, started by another deep-pocketed independent, Ross Perot, has automatic ballot access in four states: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kansas. Together, they represent 15 percent of the signatures a presidential candidate has to collect to get onto the ballot nationwide.

They also account for 89 electoral votes (it takes 270 to win).

The Reform Party has affiliates in 27 states, all told. In states where the party doesn’t have a ballot line, members have been petitioning their candidates onto the ballot. An independent presidential candidate could tap into these grassroots organizations to get help with his (or her) petition effort.

Interestingly, the state Independence Party used to be affiliated with the Reform Party, but severed ties in 2000 with the latter picked Pat Buchanan to carry its banner in the presidential race.

Contribute: You can be a part of the new upcoming book The Network Interviews as described above. If you were a part of the 80's and early 90's metal scene, send in your stories, recollections and quotes and we just may use your submission for the book in a special section about the fans that made it all possible. Just include your name (first or first/last), where you are from, and even if you want, your myspace URL so the readers can see who you are. Send them in fast because it's almost time for this new book to hit the stores!

Excelling at guitar at an early age, when MacKay was 16 he recorded his first album, and was also giving guitar lessons to adults at the time, building up an array of more than fifty students. Still in his teens, he (along with brother Gordon) started Network, a music newspaper that evolved into a national magazine, and featured exclusive interviews with such rock and roll heavyweights as Bon Jovi, KISS, The Ramones, Guns and Roses, Whitesnake and countless others.

MacKay also started booking and promoting local acts and clubs. Mackay, along with partner Bill Bogardt, even opened up a series of nightclubs on their own named Dr. Shay's, all featuring original music talent. He has promoted countless tours for many name bands such as Testament and Forbidden, and among the major entertainment names he has acted as manager for include CJ Ramone of punk rock legends The Ramones, and world-renowned "Mind Freak" magician Criss Angel.

MacKay has also owned independent record labels and is responsible for the negotiation of almost 50 record contracts. He is currently in the studio doing extensive production work for a group of projects.

Frank MacKay has certainly been no stranger to the media. He has made more than 150 TV appearances, and he has been featured, quoted or mentioned in over 1000 press articles.

The reach of MacKay even stretches out to India's film industry, otherwise known as "Bollywood," as he has been named on the Bollywood Board of Directors. MacKay was a presenter of a Bollywood award on stage at the massive Nassau Coliseum on May 26, an event that was seen by 10,000+ at the venue, and by a television audience consisting of over a billion people around the globe.

Frank MacKay is also a dedicated family man, being happily married with four children. The New York City Mayor at the time, Rudy Giuliani, performed the marriage ceremony for Frank and his bride. One of his kids, his 14-year old son, is a monster guitarist in his own right.

MacKay has also worked hard for a vast education, with four degrees. He recently received his Masters from Stony Brook University, was appointed to the Board of Trustees at Briar Cliff College, and spent a year on the Board of trustees at Five Towns Music College.

In 2007, MacKay continues to lead the Independence Party to new heights, while rediscovering himself as a musician after many years. He has been recording tracks for a new album of acoustic free-style jazz with spanish overtones due in the very near future.