Tommy Dorfman joins Gary Jenkins for a fascinating look inside the nightclub and concert promotion business, where organized crime, celebrity entertainment, and billion-dollar corporations often collide. He describes his conflicts and relationships with mob characters like Tommy Gambino and John Perna.
Tommy recounts how he went from throwing teenage house parties in northern New Jersey to becoming one of the East Coast’s most successful nightclub promoters, eventually producing major events featuring some of the biggest names in entertainment.
During the conversation, Tommy describes his encounters with members and associates of the Lucchese crime family and other organized crime figures who controlled or influenced many New Jersey clubs during the height of his career. He shares personal stories involving John Perna, who he says treated him respectfully after mutual acquaintances introduced them, and discusses a confrontation with Tommy Gambino, along with other incidents involving mob-connected club owners, extortion attempts, and violent disputes over nightclub profits.
The discussion then shifts to Tommy’s rise from the nightclub business into large-scale concert promotion. After building a successful career and securing an exclusive agreement to produce concerts and festivals at the Meadowlands, Tommy says his project was derailed by Live Nation. He explains why he believes the company’s control over artists, venues, and ticketing exceeds even the influence once exercised by organized crime, leading to a lengthy federal lawsuit and allegations of industry blacklisting.
Gary and Tommy also explore how concert promotion really works—from booking artists and securing venues to marketing, security, and logistics—before examining the modern music industry’s antitrust issues, Ticketmaster’s role, and the future of competition in live entertainment. This episode offers a rare insider’s perspective on both the Mafia’s historic influence in New Jersey nightlife and today’s battle over control of the concert business.
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Transcript
[0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers out there, good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and mafia historian. And we’re going to talk about the mob as we get into this. I have a guest here who is intimately involved in the concert business, and he’s involved in a lawsuit with some of these guys over that monopoly that Ticketmaster has right now, Tommy Dorfman. Welcome, Tommy. Thanks a lot for having me. Now, Tommy, I have one question to ask, first of all, because a lot of my Chicago fans are going to want to know, are you related to Alan Dorfman of Chicago?
[0:38] No. No. Okay. All right. I didn’t think so. I didn’t think so. But you never know. We have a famous mob associate, if you will, outfit associate that was murdered back in the late 70s, early 80s. If you ever seen the movie Casino, Alan Dorfman was integral to facilitating the skim money from the Teamsters Pension Fund out to Las Vegas through the mob. He was connected. His father, Red Dorfman, was connected to the Chicago outfit.
[1:04] My family didn’t take any money from the mob. You were smart. If you want to get a forget about it cup, guys, go to my website.
[1:12] I just, I forgot I was going to promote that a little bit at the start. Tommy, tell us a little bit about how you got started in this concert nightclub business. And where were you located? You’re based out of New Jersey, right? Give us a geographic identifier and then tell about your history, how you got into this.
[1:29] Yeah, absolutely. I’m from New Jersey. I got kicked out of my house at a young age, like 15, 16 years old. So i’m on the north jersey new york border west milford into greenwood lake, So I started renting up to pay for my bills. I started renting houses And I was throwing underage house parties charging people five dollars ten dollars a cup for a keg of beer To get it I had crazy parties going on and at that time, I would have several hundred people come into my houses Sometimes even 500 people you get a little trouble and a lot of the mafia figures out of greenwood lake actually were jamesy mikey blue eyes These guys would be coming to my house parties all the time. And I used to then bring people to New York city clubs after my house parties, legendary clubs, like tunnel limelight. And I would get all these guys into the front of the line because I’m bringing 200 people and I wasn’t getting paid at the time there. So they would, they were following me to these events. And that’s really, that’s how I started in the industry. I was like at these city clubs one night, somebody was like, Hey, why don’t I pay you a dollar a head to bring all these people? I was already bringing 200 people in, so that’s what got me into the industry.
[2:38] Now, as you continued on, how did you progress in this nightclub industry? You’re involved with a pretty well-known club that had a great sound system called Bliss, I think, back in New Jersey. So talk about your kind of movement into the more established clubs.
[2:53] Yeah, so when I first started in the club industry, I got my first nightclub event. I hadn’t done an event anywhere. I was solo. So I was having a hard time getting a venue. Most of the clubs were owned by the mafia throughout New Jersey and New York at this time, or at least controlled by them. So I got a club who’s called Kokomo’s in Paramus, New Jersey. I got the mob owner, Jimmy Famulara, to give me a Wednesday night party because nobody partied on Wednesday nights back then.
[3:20] So my first event, I actually did at a Wednesday night there. I did a 1,500 person. I packed it with 1,500 people on a Wednesday. And that’s how I first got involved in the business. That club was doing really well. I had no clue what I was doing at first there, let’s just say. But then I was packing it out with 1,500 people a night, several nights a week. And then the owner, Jimmy Famulara… We knew he was heavily mob-influenced. He used to just sit in the office with his gun, chilling with his gun there all the time, smoking his big cigar. He came to me and said, I took all the door money at the time. So everybody that came in, I got the door money. He told me, you’re making too much money. I want 70% of the door. So I told him no. He had his top security personnel. The guy named was Tower. He was pretty influential for handling 30 security for the mafia. And he then told me, you pay me or else. I said, I’m not going to pay you, man. I’m not paying you money. He pulled the gun out. He pointed the gun at my head. Then the gun went in my mouth.
[4:26] I told him, if you want to kill me, but you’re going to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on making you in bar money right now. So make your choice. I walked out the door. I’m still here. But that was my first interactions, actually in the first party in the club industry and The first interactions with, uh, I had interactions with the mafia at younger ages out of New Jersey, out of West Milford and Greenwood Lake. But that was my first interactions with the mob and my first club event together in the industry. Yeah, there’s a lot of them that live down there. A whole bunch of Gambinos live down there, I believe. And Lucchesis and was it John Perna you mentioned you’d had some interaction with?
[5:05] Yeah. With John Perner, actually, my friend from New York, that was one of the crazy crime family, Jamesy, he was doing the federal time with John Perner. The FBI, when I threw these house parties, thought I was the New Jersey part of the mafia for this Greenwood Lake. I was just throwing parties. So I became friends with these guys. And I got in trouble when I was throwing one of those house parties. I broke somebody’s window and I didn’t have the money paid for a lawyer. And they actually, the Greenwood Lake crew actually paid for my attorney for me with it. James, he did time with, I didn’t even know who John Perner was.
[5:42] But he had done time in federal prison with him. And I was in a nightclub. It was at Joey’s in Clifton. And I was standing there and some dude walks up to me and he’s like, hey, you Tommy D? I was like, yeah. He’s like, I’m told to watch out and make sure you’re good from Jamesy. I was like, he’s like, I’m John Perner. I was like, oh, nice to meet you, man. I did time with him. That was it. That’s how I first started to meet him and that he was respectful over all the years, never causing issues in any of my venues. It can be a help. Sometimes they get a little greedy, like that one guy you mentioned. Sometimes they get a little greedy, but otherwise they can really grease a lot of skids for you. If you’re going into the nightclub business, they’ve got all kinds of contacts with vending machines and can help you deal with any union problems. If you’re a club owner or licensing issues, local government especially, licensing issues.
[6:32] So they could be a lot of help. You probably, probably help grease the skids for you as you continue down your career a little bit, being known as a guy that’s friendly to them. So talk about the progression of your career then.
[6:44] Yeah, so my career, I then started doing larger, I started doing more events, got bigger, got better as being a promoter. I started packing out almost every major, with me and my team’s hard work, every major New York club, New Jersey club, all the way down to Miami. So I was doing every major celebrity from Chris Brown, the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, pretty much name it across the board. I would constantly deal with throwing into the mafia in New Jersey in the club business. That was something that was a regular basis. I had one event I was putting on. It was called the venue I was doing it on. I named it Liquid, but it was in central New Jersey.
[7:24] I actually, by mistake, partnered with two mafia people that actually wanted to fund the event. I didn’t even know they were from the Gambino crime family. We put on the event. We did about 10,000 people. But these guys wanted their wives to handle the registers. I knew then they were mobs. I was like, shit, their wives were actually stuffed in money, stuffed in money, emptying the registers out. We got into a big rumble, big battle, big fight. I definitely got a black eye, broken nose in that parking lot. Then I told them, look, I’m not doing business with you. And they threatened to kill me. Then they asked for a meeting at a diner. I was in the diner. I’ll remember it to this day. I was like, look, you guys made more money than you ever put in. You stole all the money. I’m not doing business with you. And then they said, look, we’re going to take you out. But I will give the mob this. When you sat down at the table with the mafia, they’d at least have a conversation with you. They didn’t just come in and pull a gun. Glenn’s blaring. We’re going to blow your head off. They tried to negotiate with you. Okay, give us this. Give us this. And they’d talk to you. They’d say their name. Aim to shake your hand. They’d be respectful. So I give them that. So they pulled the gun under the table, pointed out me, sitting pointing at my leg, and they said…
[8:42] Your part, you’re doing this event. What else are you done? I’ll tell you one thing about the mafia. They care about the Italian mafia. At least they care about their daughters. So I told them, look, their daughter’s name was Elizabeth because actually she’s the one that introduced them to me. I said, I’ll tell you this. Whatever you do to me, just remember you got your daughter Elizabeth. I said, so do what you got to do. I walked out of the diner there and they let me be. Ah, interesting. Wow. You walked a fine line there. You’re walking a tightrope being in that club business and making money. getting attention in New Jersey, upper northern part of New Jersey at that time. Crazy.
[9:19] So what was this one nightclub I was reading about called Bliss? It had such a great sound setup. Yes, I opened my own nightclub. I won the number one sound system in the world with it. I was featured in almost every major publication in the world at the time with it too.
[9:35] And it was going really successful. Another nightclub owner wanted me out of my venue and out of the North Jersey promotion because I was taking so much business from their clubs. Tommy Gambino, I don’t know if you heard of him, But Tommy Gambino, I’d ran into him in the club world years before, and he actually used to go to city clubs with him, the crowbar. He came in and said, look, conversation with me, you got to be out of this club and you got to be out of North Jersey clubs. That’s what’s been decided, and you have to do it. And you know me, and you know what happens. And I just said, nah, man, Tommy, sorry, I can’t do that for you. You know me. So when I was walking towards one of the offices, he popped up around the corner, started choking the shit out of me, Couldn’t breathe. He’s a big dude. I’m kicking him, trying to hit him. It was not working so good. I call up my brother, Daryl. He’s a pretty dude. Dude, he happened to walk in the hallway. Saw him. Punched Tommy Gambino. That started a fight right there. I was almost choked out. I fell on the floor. I couldn’t breathe. I actually ran out to my car. And I had a nice car at the time. And I grabbed a golf club. And I ran into the nightclub with a golf club. And I was going after. I was like, you know what? This dude’s taking me out now. He literally almost choked me until I died. And I went in and I didn’t run into him. After that time I was running a club, If any of your viewers might know, but it was called Club Karma, the Jersey Shore cast. I ran Club Karma down the Jersey Shore. I was told at that time there was a hit on me.
[11:01] And I was told from some people from the Campisi crime family, these guys were cool. They came to my clubs. They didn’t cause trouble in my clubs. And they hit up with me and said, off one of the burner phones and met with me and said, look, there’s a hit on you. You got to watch yourself. So I had a lot of respect in the streets from New Jersey. And I had a great security unit that couldn’t be bought. So I put 15 people, not the club security at Club Karma, with a massive show at the Jersey Shortcast, to be my personal security inside and outside the show, the club. And then somebody came right up, and it looked like they were going to come out of Maine. And one of my personal security laid them out. Everybody thought they were trying to hit Mike the situation, but supposedly it was me. But after that, they let off, and they would disappear and leave me alone. I’ll be darned. I usually don’t back off like that, but lots of times somebody goes to jail that cares a lot about it and you don’t even know what’s happened in the background. What I think really helped me was that the younger members, their kids, they all came to my parties. They love my parties. I let them, the only thing, I never paid any of them, but I let them in the front of the line. Comp them some bottles. So they’d come to my houses after. So I think that level, it helped me out. One of them told me they had orders to do something to me and didn’t follow through with it. Interesting. That was a hell of a life you lived right that time. So as you got older now, you get.
[12:31] What was your last, how did you move into the concert sales ticket business? What’s the progression here? Did we get up to this lawsuit? Yeah, great question. So I had progressed over 15 years running every major club in the East Coast, a pioneer of EDM house music. I peaked. I couldn’t get bigger. As a kid, I wanted to create a club empire. I created it.
[12:55] To get bigger, I needed to get in the festival industry. Any of the viewers don’t know, but at the time it was called Giant Stadium, MetLife Stadium. I signed a home of the Jets and Giants. I signed a 10-year exclusive deal to put on all concerts and all festivals at the State Fair of Meadowlands. Over 500,000 attendees, massive amount of rides, and a concert spate of 100,000 people. I was putting on the largest EDM festival in the East Coast. The music had just gone mainstream. It was like when rock and roll broke back in the day. And everything staging was in place. Artists are confirming everything was happening. And then the company Live Nation Entertainment found out about it and wiped it out in a click of a button. Way more powerful than the mafia could ever do.
[13:41] Really? Now, tell me, talk to me like I don’t know anything, which I don’t really about the concert business, but I was always curious. So you’re the promoter and you’re kind of the central figure and you have maybe a little crew of two or three people that does advertising. You get a contract with a venue and you start trying to get artists. How does that work? More than nuts and bolts of how that works.
[14:04] Yeah. So you have to get the venue, lock a venue down. Luckily for me, early on in my career, it was hard getting venues, like I told you my first Wednesday night. Now I’m packing out five venues a night, 5,000 to 10,000 people a night, every single night between New York and New Jersey. So now people are coming to me. So you’d have to lock a venue in. Early on, it was hard. Then people sought after me and everybody’s calling me for their venues. Then you have to book the talent so i had great relationships with the talent agencies between new york la over all the years i was a pioneer like when the internet first started with not the internet but social media myspace i did all my space exclusive events with all all their major celebrities for them for many years, so you’d have to deal with talent agencies book the talent handle all the security security is huge that’s why it was huge for me to tell the mafia you can’t bite somebody’s ear off in my club, which that did happen.
[15:02] So handle the security, handle the marketing. It’s a, people think you just chilling with Snoop Dogg, having some champagne. Nah, it’s a lot of work. Handle every logistic behind it. There’s so much that comes into it. All the staffing, all the marketing. So I had spoken with all the talent agencies. We were getting all the talent locked up. The venue came to me, signed a 10 year exclusive deal Like this is unheard of It was the biggest deal of my life And many others Could have been It would have been the biggest EDM festival In the East Coast, We had security You have to get all the staging For a festival We had all the staging in place I was lucky here They had a box office and everything Because it was a state fair already So it was like just a turnkey operation You don’t have to do that much Yeah, I see We had everything in place.
[15:52] And then Live Nation Entertainment, I didn’t, just so you know, I didn’t even know who they were because they weren’t involved in my music field called house music. I had heard of them, but they did tickets and concerts. They did concerts for rock and roll. They found, and I was battling the mob and battling off competition my years in the career, in my life. I was very cautious about this contract. that a local promoter that was a little bigger than me or had more money was going to come in with a money bag and try to pay the owner of the state for Meadowlands off because this is what happens with the mob and it happens in the industry. I thought they were going to do that to try to wipe out my contract. So I was real careful to make sure my contract was signed, sealed, and delivered super tight.
[16:35] I just never anticipated a company like Live Nation Entertainment that’s the Gorilla, 800-pound Gorilla to get involved in this scene because they weren’t involved in my music. My music just was breaking mainstream house music. So a lot of nation came in and they came in on a multi-prong attack. They attacked the owner of the state for a metal lands, told them they’re blocking, came in, had a meeting with him and told him we’re blocking all his talent. We’re blocking all the ticketing event. We’re actually going to block you from even putting your fence up for your state fair. The mafia was always a lot nicer. They would have tried to go. They went to the owner of the metal state for a metal lands, the sports authority, the metal lands told them, this is our fucking stadium. These guys are robbers, thieves, kick them out. So the State Fair Meadowlands owner told me to have a meeting with them because they’re going to block the whole festival. When I went into the meeting and I met with many mafia people over the years. And again, like I told you, at least they always just shook my hand and had a conversation. I went into Live Nation headquarters with their president of their company in New York and their VP of talent. I walk in the door. Hi, I’m Tommy D. Go fuck yourself. We’re blocking all your tickets. We’re blocking all the artists from performing your show. The Meadowlands is our stadium. It’s not yours. You’re out. You’re out.
[17:50] So that’s how it started. I didn’t even get to say my name. Shake their hand. They came in aggressively, like way worse than the mob, like pit bulls. Literally just, we’re blocking every single artist. They will block their dates worldwide. They’ve given me an ultimatum. Partner with them. Kick my two business partners out. I had two business partners. They were going to pay me off. I never took mob money. I wasn’t taking theirs. Kick my two business partners out. When we had a handshake deal with them, I could have. and they would fund the whole festival and buy me. They told me if I didn’t take that arrangement agreement, they would just click a button and that was their own word and the whole festival was canceled. And then they said they’d block my tickets from Ticketmaster. I didn’t know they bought Ticketmaster at that time. I had no idea. At first I said, you guys can’t block my tickets. I’ve done Ticketmaster business with them for 15 years. We bought them. And then they wiped out the festival really quickly within that click of a button.
[18:46] That’s amazing. That is amazing. That’s crazy. I tell you what. So you’ve sued them, right?
[18:54] I sued him and I ended up going homeless after this. They wiped out my career. I sued them. And I’ve been in federal court for 16 years now fighting them. Oh my God. I’d recently sat down with, I was at a meeting and then I was on a podcast with John Elite out of New Jersey. And he, I asked him, I was like, look, this is 16 years. I have so much evidence against Live Nation. I have 500 trial exhibits. Live Nation has zero. I have tape recordings talking about mob stuff. My recordings sound like the mafia speaking. I have them all tape recorded. They’re top executives admitting to this. It reminds me like the Gotti tapes. They’re not played yet, but I have them. Yeah. I have all that. And I asked, I said, could the five families delay a hearing for 16 years in a federal court with having no alibi?
[19:46] His answer was very quickly, absolutely not. No. So it just really shows the power they really have and influence. Yeah, they control that music business. And you’re but one, one, a little example of that, but it’s a pretty important example. Have you been able to, can you go back to booking in smaller venues or were they going to block you from anything? We have a 2,500 seat venue. I realize it’s not as much money, but you have all the contacts. You go back and book some acts and do some things in smaller venues.
[20:17] I lost all the contacts. I lost the LA connections because Live Nation bashed me through the whole entire industry. They wanted to make a lesson out of me for the one that brought to them. I was in New Jersey. Our largest paper is called a Star Ledger at that time when papers, everyone read them. I was nominated the number one promoter. There’s only four people nominated. Live Nation got my name removed from it. So I got blacklisted and the mob might be able to keep you out of one club. Live Nation kept me out of the whole entire music industry. So right now I’m battling this fight really now for fans. For the industry, because Live Nation controls the whole entire music industry now. Yeah. It’s not even just the stadiums they own. They control it all. Way more power than, I’d put it like an analogy, it’s if a mob controls a whole entire city, not just a few blocks. Yeah. They control a whole entire country. And now it’s spreading worldwide.
[21:14] Yeah. And that music business, the government will eventually have to get involved. Absolutely. And that actually did happen. The Department of Justice in 30 states filed antitrust against Live Nation suit two years ago. It just went to a joy trial.
[21:31] And during the joy trial, within the first week, after the first week, the DOJ settled the case. Without the DOJ’s attorney even knowing he settled the case. Live Nation had a, there’s people that came out now, and it’s a massive amount of influence through our legislature bodies, obviously to settle this. But the state attorney generals, they continued the case bipartisan. Wasn’t there anything bipartisan in this country? They continued it and Live Nation got found guilty of being a monopoly. And now, but it shows you the power they have to actually have a case settled without their trial attorney even knowing it was settled. And the judge didn’t even know it was settled. But your years and a lawyer experience, I don’t know if you ever ran into that. No, I haven’t. I’ve never run into that. The judge would be pretty bad. So they’re in a remedies phase now. Yeah, the judge didn’t know. And hopefully they’ll break up the company. That’s what I’ve been calling for. So now they’re probably now they’re doing a settlement negotiation, if you will, where they’re going to meet and they’ll say, okay, you need to spin off this and you need to spin off that and not having control over it. And they’ll say, no, but we’ll do this. So they’ll be going back and forth for a year, probably for a year or two on that. It’s crazy. Yeah, my nation has a lot of money on lobbyists and lawyers. I know that because it’s been 16 years. So I’m hoping with the state AGs, it’ll be a little faster than that. Let’s hope. Let’s hope. All right.
[22:57] Tommy Dorfman, this has been really interesting. Is there anything else you want to tell people?
[23:03] I would just tell people, look, these big companies and a company like Live Nation, they are more powerful than the mafia. They control a whole entire industry. With at least five families in New York, you had competition. There’s no competition when there’s one company run by the godfather of Live Nation crime family, Michael Rapinoe, their CEO. You can’t get away from it. There’s no witness protection program for artists. Like there is the world against the mob. And if you’re in New York and you.
[23:38] Own a little store and then they’re shaking you down, making you pay kickbacks like they make all the promoters and venues pay, you can at least move to Iowa or something, get away and do business. If you’re in the industry of the live music business, there is no getting away. This is a nation and global business, so you can’t escape that. So without regulators stepping up, nothing will change. So I tell fans, if they care about their ticket prices, push their regulators. Live Nation plays lawyers. They pay lobbyists. You vote. You can vote these politicians out of office. All right. Tommy Dorfman, do you have any social media or anything people can sign on to? Yeah, much support. Much appreciated. Anybody’s support on my X account. It’s my Twitter account. It’s TommyDPrimeTim, Prime T-I-M-1, TommyDPrimeTim1. Would be much any support be appreciated okay all right thank you so much tommy for coming on the show thank you good luck with your you’re like david and goliath here man what are you gonna bring his goliath head.
[24:43] Tommy be standing up there holding goliath head like this see look hey that’s what i’m fighting for right there i need the fan support though i can’t do it myself all right we’ll get the word out thanks so much tommy thanks for coming on the show Thank you again. Okay.
[24:59] All right, good. All right, perfect. Much appreciated. You have a great day. Thank you, sir. Okay, yeah. Guys, that was really interesting. I learned a lot about the music business, and it’s not always the mob that’s out shaking down businesses, is it? It was a really fascinating career that Tommy’s had.
[25:16] One other thing I want to tell you, I am doing a new podcast. So mostly, I’m going to tell you something, mostly women like the horror crime podcast, like about serial killers. And, hey, guys, that was really interesting that he was an interesting guy and, has had a fascinating career. And we’ve learned that sometimes business is worse than the mafia when it comes to stifling competition. I really appreciate him coming on the show. And I want to tell you, I need to tell you one more thing. I’ve got a new podcast that I’m putting out. I’m going to continue Gangland Wire. So don’t worry. I’m going to continue with the mob stories. but I’m going to branch out into horror crime stories like serial murderers, rapists, and those kinds of crimes. Other crimes against persons, if you will, mass murders, particularly horrendous crimes, spree murders. I just was looking at one about Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate who did a spree murder series across Nebraska back in the 50s.
[26:15] And I’m going to put that out and tell you, especially your girlfriends and your wives, because women like those kinds of podcasts. Men like organized crime, women like unorganized crime. I was told that by a podcast consultant. So have everybody look for that. And I appreciate everybody coming on the show. And don’t forget, I got stuff for sale on my website. And you can make donations and you can get my books or rent my movies. I got links to all that down in the show notes. So keep on coming back, guys. I really appreciate y’all listening to me.