Downriver Detroit's Vagabond Showman Nick Butsicaris

Rick Wiesend (Tim Tam) with Nick Butsicaris, Dan Wiesend, Earl Rennie, Don Grundman, and John Ogen.

I remember Nick Butsicaris best from sophomore gym class at Allen Park High School. I don't know who took more dodge balls in the face--him or me. But by senior year, Nick became an instant celebrity as a member of the singing group Tim Tam and the Turnons.

The Tim Tams teamed up with a local band of talented freshmen from Allen Park High named The Satellites. Together, they created a rock doo-wop sound reminescent of The Four Seasons. Their 1966 debut record "Wait a Minute" sold 30,000 copies in the first month of release charting #76 on Billboard's National Chart. In a 2019 national radio survey of "The Top 100 Songs of the 1960s," it was voted #40.

But timing is everything in the music business. Harmonic male singing groups lost favor with fans by the late 1960s who couldn't hear enough of the fresh new sound of the British Invasion that dominated the radio air waves. Alas, after several recordings, the Tim Tams became a one-hit wonder--neither the first nor the last.

When I ran into Nick fifty years later at a class reunion event, I had no idea he had been the manager of some of rock music's most iconic groups of the 1970s and the 1980s. After Tim Tam and the Turnons disbanded in 1969, Nick and his friend David Leone formed a startup company called Diversified Management Agency (DMA). The partnership launched Nick on a memorable show business career. Nick shortened his last name to Caris because it was "faster and easier to sign contracts and checks."

Nick began managing and handling bookings for many of the Motor City's high octane rock & roll acts like Mitch Rider, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, and Alice Cooper at venues like Detroit's Grande Ballroom, the Olympia, the Masonic Temple, local sports stadiums, and university fieldhouses. When those acts hit nationally, DMA went from a local boutique agency to a national business.

Nick to the left again with bare chested Ted Nugent after a Cobo Hall sellout in the 1970s.

Nick toured with his groups throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His job was to interface with promoters and tour managers, manage his bands and their road crews, and take care of the tour's business arrangements. Fans pay to see a great show, but behind the scenes, the business was often a three-ring circus. 

When I asked him about the downside of the job, Nick was quick to respond, "Being on the road so much. Touring takes its toll on everyone and their families. Many of the performers don't get to see their kids grow up, and they miss many important events in their kid's lives.

"That's just one of the many costs of fame and success. Some people didn't survive the drug craze. Without a supportive wife and family, I might have been a casualty too. But I kept my priorities straight. I had a job to do and a family to support."

Nick said the high point of his career was standing on the California Jamfest stage on April 6, 1974 at the Riverside, Ontario Speedway in California--considered by many to be the last of the classic rock festivals before the corporate takeover of the rock business.

"Looking out over several-hundred-thousand screaming fans, I kept thinking 'Not bad for a kid from Detroit.' DMA managed most of the groups that performed at the original Cal Jamfest."

Nick gets his nephews a photo opp backstage with Kiss.

In the late 1980s, Nick left the Detroit rock & roll scene for the bright lights of New York City joining the William Morris Talent Agency managing headline groups like The Eagles, Nazareth, Journey, Styx, Foreigner, Steve Miller, Aerosmith, and many others. Nick left William Morris at the end of the Eagles' Hell Freezes Over Tour in 1994. Towards the end of his career, he managed tribute shows that traveled internationally, like The Australian Pink Floyd Show and The Music of Led Zeppelin--A Rock Symphony. During his successful management career, Nick has earned dozens of gold and platinum record awards--several went multi-platinum.

When asked if he missed the rock & roll business, Nick replied, "Every time I see MTV or VH1 and see music videos of bands I've managed, it's like watching a movie of my life. It's easy to get nostalgic for the good times, but the business has evolved and so have the movers and the shakers. It's been very exciting to be a part of show business, but I'm content to sit on the sidelines. Rock & Roll touring is a young man's game." Nick has returned happily to his Downriver Detroit roots.

"Wait a Minute" by Tim Tam and the Turnons, and Bob Seger and the Last Herd singing "East Side Story."