It's still relatively early on a Sunday evening in mid-November, and Sean Agnew is perfectly calm, coolly relaxed, and fully intent on having a normal, run-of-the-mill night at work. True, he's not actually familiar with the musician who's scheduled to headline this evening's show--a young rapper from Pittsburgh known as Mac Miller. But that doesn't seem to be bothering him in the slightest, regardless of the fact that Miller and his management team seem to be somewhat lacking in professional niceties. Earlier in the day, for instance, a member of Miller's entourage asked Agnew if they could possibly borrow his credit card to cover incidentals at their hotel. And yet there Agnew is, regardless, laughing jovially with the photographer who's taking his picture in the nave of Rittenhouse Square's First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, where he has been hosting independent punk and indie-rock concerts for the better part of a decade under the auspices of his live entertainment company, R5 Productions.

And yet, as just about anyone who has worked with him professionally will tell you, things tend to have a way of changing almost without warning in Sean Agnew's world. So it probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise that before the photo shoot has even ended, a quiet rumbling of street noise and shouting appears just outside the church's open window. Agnew moves toward the sound to investigate. (Is that a parade? On a Sunday night?) Instead, it's a school bus--some sort of a party bus, apparently, filled with college-aged hip-hop fans who are practically spilling out of its open windows. As soon as someone standing outside the church confirms that the Mac Miller show is, in fact, the party bus's ultimate destination, Agnew turns away from the window, shakes his head slightly, and saunters back toward the photo shoot. "I have a feeling this is gonna be one of those nights," he says, to no one in particular.

New venue hush-hush

Among Philadelphia's various independent music communities, the 33-year-old Sean Agnew is considered to be either infamous, a local celebrity, or something of an enigma, depending on who you're talking to. His nearly 15-year-old company, R5 Productions, has a simple mission: "To provide the Philadelphia area with cheap, friendly shows in an honest, intimate setting," according to its website. In fact, if you've attended a punk or indie-rock show in Philadelphia at any point in the last half-dozen years, there's a good chance that Sean Agnew was the person responsible for bringing the band to town and producing the concert itself. In fact, R5 Productions has proven so successful over the years at remaining independent, and at defeating the live concert monopoly perpetuated nationwide by the Clear Channel corporation, that it's been the subject of both a cover story in Harper's magazine and a broadcast of The Howard Stern Show.

But the development that will almost certainly prove to be R5 Productions' most important coup to date--a live music venue that will be managed exclusively by R5 Productions but financed by an outside interest--is still very much in the works, and apparently so top-secret that Agnew isn't even able to discuss the details with the media. It's probably fair to assume, however, that once Agnew's new club opens, the face of live independent music in Philadelphia will be even more vibrant and more visible than it has been in years. And as usual, Sean Agnew will be the man behind the scenes, pulling the strings like a puppet master, and ensuring that Philly's live music fans will have a drug- and alcohol-free venue at their disposal, probably for many years to come.

R5 roots run through University City

Agnew's entree to the world of live concert production began back in 1996, when he was supposed to be studying information technology as an undergrad at Drexel University, but instead found himself spending the majority of his time inside the offices of WKDU, Drexel's award-winning free-form radio station. "I started by going to the new member meetings (at WKDU)," says Agnew, "but prior to my freshman year at Drexel, I wasn't going to punk shows at all. I just didn't really know they existed."

At the time, a number of the station's deejays were producing their own live shows, and Agnew eventually found himself tagging along. "I was helping out and doing the door," he says. "I learned how to wire a PA. I was just sort of hanging around, and through osmosis I started picking it up. And I thought, 'This is so cool! I want to do this!'"

It wasn't long before Agnew decided the time was right to produce his very first concert, an all-ska showcase featuring the Philly-based act Ruder Than You, and a Connecticut band known as Spring Heeled Jack. The concert was initially scheduled to happen at the TLA on South Street, but due to size constraints, it was moved at the very last minute to the Electric Factory, which has a significantly larger capacity. Almost without warning, Agnew found himself inexplicably left out of the process. "It was just so impersonal," he says, shaking his head. "It was a show I put together, and I wasn't even on the guest list. I had issues getting inside the club. I was trying to talk to the bands, and they wouldn't let me backstage. And at that point, I thought, 'I don't ever want to do shows like this again, where I'm kind of removed from the process.'"

Agnew says that at the time, he wasn't even trying to become a show promoter. He simply wanted to see some of his favorite bands perform live, and figured that bringing them to town himself was the best way to make that happen. But following the Electric Factory fiasco, he nevertheless deiced to hatch something of an on-the-spot business plan, right then and there.

"I figured I'd keep getting in touch with bands I wanted to see, but I'd put on shows in a punk-rock, DIY way," he says. "I'd put them on in spaces, and not at clubs. I figured I'd just do it on my own, and be in control of it, and be able to pay the bands, and be able to make all the decisions myself." And just like that, R5 Productions was born. It wasn't much longer before Agnew dropped out of Drexel altogether and began focusing nearly all his time and attention on his quickly growing business.

These days of course, R5--which takes its name from the SEPTA regional rail line Agnew used to take into Philadelphia from the town of Ardmore--is seen by many local concert-goers as something of a rock-solid institution: an aspect of the city's punk and indie scenes that has always been there, and that will forevermore remain. The reality, of course, is quite a bit more complicated and convoluted, partly due to the fact that throughout the decade-and-a-half of R5's existence, Agnew has been responsible for promoting shows at nearly a dozen different local venues.

There was the infamous Stalag 13, for instance, a not-quite-legal warehouse space featuring a skateboard ramp in the backyard and a barbeque on the roof. It was eventually shut down by the city. There was also Stalag 2000, a University City venue that never got around to opening its doors because a neighborhood official was "convinced," according to Agnew, "that all concerts had drug dealers at them," and that if the club were allowed to open "it would lead to a student overdose or a death, and the university would be sued." There was also the University of Pennsylvania's legendary Rotunda venue, where Agnew managed to put on a series of successful shows before the university decided that the space could be put to more appropriate use by actual students. And then there was the 4040 club, which constantly ran into problems with its next-door neighbor, a student group that constantly filed noise complaints and even resorted to changing the venue's locks.

Growing and Keeping Things Simple

These days, Agnew puts on the majority of his shows at the First Unitarian Church, and to a slightly lesser degree, at Johnny Brenda's, the Starlight Ballroom, the Trocodero, The Barbary, and Kungfu Necktie. Over the years, his company has hosted nearly every important independent act imaginable, and incredibly, his shows are still affordable, many are open to all-ages audiences, and most maintain a strict no-drugs and no-alcohol policy. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that over the past few years, Agnew has actually begun to generate a decent income for himself. As R5 Productions' solitary full-time employee, he has been entirely self-sufficient for "probably 10 years," he says. And he's been making "a really good, comfortable living for the last two." What's more, a fan of Agnew's company recently created an award-winning R5 Productions iPhone app, which lists every upcoming show and even includes driving directions to the company's various venues.

And yet from an economic standpoint, the specific business details that have guided R5 Productions over the past 15 years couldn't possibly be any less complicated. "There are probably 20 or 30 school projects a year about R5," Agnew explains, "and a lot of them are for business classes. And so I have to answer questions like, 'How did you come up with the idea? What about the financing? What was your business plan?' And that's when I realize I'm probably the worst businessperson to be giving them this advice," he says, "because I never really had an office, and I never really had a staff. I just book shows! Basically, I just explain the slow evolution [of the business] to them, and I explain that I did this by myself. I didn't have any funding. It was a hobby."

Even today, there's no official R5 Productions office. Instead, Agnew conducts the entirety of his company's business with a cell phone, a laptop, and an intern who helps out with the occasional data entry project. He also has a small day-of-show staff--a group of about six guys who are generally paid between $10 and $15 an hour to help out during concerts, of which there will have been roughly 340 by year's end.

As for Agnew's next entrepreneurial adventure--the top-secret venue that he's not currently at liberty to discuss--there's really no telling what effect it will ultimately have on the city's live independent music scene, or Agnew's relationship to it. But as Agnew himself says, "I really like doing what I do. It obviously has its annoying nights," he adds with a laugh. "Like dealing with a school bus full of kids. But I really can't imagine doing anything else at this point."

DAN ELDRIDGE is a journalist based in Philadelphia and the author of Moon Pittsburgh, 2nd edition, forthcoming from Avalon Travel in June 2011. Visit him online here, or read his entrepreneurship blog here. Send feedback here.

PHOTOS:

The Go Team at the Starlight Ballroom

Sean Agnew in the First Unitarian Church

The R5 iPhone App allows users to view upcoming shows and buy tickets

Agnew

Show night, outside First Unitarian

Johnny Brenda's in Fishtown

Sign at First Unitarian

All photographs by MICHAEL PERSICO