December 12, 2025

Music Industry (MIP) students Xander Blake and Derek Uceta interviewing Larry Magid in MIP's Studio One classroom. The full conversation is available to watch above — and it anchors this story about legacy, education, preservation, and the future of Philadelphia’s creative music culture.

Live performance is one of the most fleeting forms of art: a few hours of shared sound, sweat, and electricity that dissipates the moment the lights come up. And yet those nights—those rooms—shape how entire generations understand music.

Few people have shaped what live music feels like in Philadelphia more than Larry Magid.

For many of our Music Industry program (MIP) students—emerging artists, producers, engineers, concert professionals and entrepreneurs—Magid’s name is wrapped up in the mythology of Philadelphia music. As co-founder of the Electric Factory, the iconic underground venue that opened in 1968, Magid helped usher artists like Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Who, and countless others into the city’s cultural bloodstream.

Transcending the single venue, Electric Factory Concerts quickly became the premiere concert producer on the East Coast. EFC co-produced the global Live Aid concert in 1985, cementing Magid’s legacy as one of the most influential concert promoters in the world. This journey was widely celebrated by the Drexel Founding Collection’s 2023 exhibition: Electrified: 50 Years of Electric Factory.

Larry Magid has spent more than five decades shaping what live music looks like, feels like, and means in Philadelphia. But when he walked into Drexel’s Music Studio classroom to meet with students this year, it wasn’t as a legend. It was as a mentor.

A Conversation Across Generations

When MIP students Derek Uceta and Xander Blake sat down to interview Larry Magid, they expected stories. Maybe a few industry secrets. What surprised them most was how open, grounded, and candid he was.

“He spoke with the casual confidence of someone who has lived many lives,” Uceta reflected, “but still remembers what it means to hustle. It felt like touching the live wire of music history.”

Across the conversation, Magid traced a career shaped by curiosity and persistence: discovering R&B radio as a kid, sneaking into radio stations as a teenager, booking fraternity bands while attending Temple University, moving to New York City to work as an agent, and returning home to help build The Electric Factory just as counterculture music was exploding.

Magid talked about the early days of the Electric Factory — a building covered in Day-Glo murals; $3 tickets; two shows a night; crowds lining up 22nd Street; the Janis Joplin or Hendrix concert that felt like it could crack the walls open.

He talked about the police raids, the curfew laws, the year-and-a-half legal battle that the Electric Factory fought — and won — on First Amendment grounds. If they had lost and been forced to close the venue, Magid told students, “the music business might not look like it does today.”

This wasn’t just a historical conversation. It was a reminder that young people are the drivers behind nearly every music scene and cultural movement – then and now.

The Book That Holds a City’s Sound

Magid recently released the second edition of The Philadelphia Music Book: Sounds of a City — a visually rich, 300-plus page love letter to the music scenes that shaped Philadelphia. It chronicles jazz, gospel, soul, R&B, rock, punk, club music, hip-hop, EDM; it maps the venues, radio personalities, promoters, and cultural movements that gave each era its pulse. Contributors include Drexel’s own Brent White and James McKinney, themselves living legends in Philadelphia music.

For Drexel, the book resonates deeply with the Sigma Sound Studios Collection —a cornerstone of the Drexel Audio Archives and home to more than 7,000 tapes documenting the emergence of the “Sound of Philadelphia." Students in Drexel’s Music Industry program actively study, preserve, catalog, and contextualize this material.

If Sigma gives students access to the raw audio DNA of the city, Magid’s book provides the context — the neighborhoods, the artists, the scenes, the people behind the music (Drexel MIP has received several copies of the book for its curriculum, thanks to Magid).

Together, the Archives and the book contribute to a powerful educational ecosystem—one rooted in history but oriented toward future creators.

What Matters Most

When asked what he wants his legacy to be, Magid waved the idea away. Magid is content in knowing that he embodied his love of music through his work, exposed people to art they wouldn’t have otherwise found, and worked hard enough to support his family.

“At some point nobody’s going to know or care who I was,” he said. “And that’s fine. My legacy is being here. It’s giving people like you a chance to find your place.”

His advice to students was simple:

“Keep doing what makes you happy. If you want your dreams to come true, you have to have the courage to pursue them.”

For Xander Blake, Derek Uceta and the future industry professionals listening from behind the cameras, that message was more than encouragement—it was a blueprint.

For Magid, Why Drexel

Magid has spent years working with universities, but he reflected on the uniqueness of Drexel’s approach to experiential education.

“I love Drexel. I love the [Music Industry] program. This is where the next generation of people in the music business comes from.”

He talked about how the industry has changed — and how programs like Drexel MIP offer something he never had: structure, mentorship, and a community of makers.

“When I started, there were no teachers. You just worked,” he said. “Here, you get value. You learn how to market, produce, promote. It gives you a step up. You better be smart in any business if you want to get ahead,” he told students. “Programs like this make you more viable.”

At Drexel, that viability is built through intensive hands-on learning: a student-run record labels, concert production, audio preservation, research in our archives, and real-world work experiences across the industry.

Magid’s visit reminded students that the path from passion to profession is rarely linear—but always possible when fueled by curiosity, integrity, and a willingness to work hard.

A Story Still Being Written

The Philadelphia Music Book captures this city’s vibrant music history just as Drexel’s archives preserve the sound of that past. Even as the cultural landscape of the city shifts, and the music industry adapts to new voices, trends, and technologies, that context shapes the forward-thinking curriculum of the Music Industry program. Standing on the shoulders of giants, like Larry Magid, Drexel students can dream wildly into the future of the creative industries.