Rock Hard Pitchman

The man who made a music empire out of Jimi Hendrix’s old clothes wants to make cyberspace safe for commercials and in the process give people a really worthwhile reason to go online. Music marketing’s prodigal son, Isaac Tigrett--chairman of the House of Blues and a founder of the Hard Rock Cafe (the restaurant chain where the Hendrix jackets hang from the walls)--beamed himself from London on Friday to the House of Blues club on Sunset Boulevard to announce the creation of Traffic Interactive Ltd., a Britain-based marketing and advertising firm with an eye on the Internet.

Traffic Interactive is a three-way venture by U.K.-based ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers and its subsidiary PR firm Freud Communications, and House of Blues New Media, which is the technology and new-media arm of Tigrett’s successful line of music venues. Tigrett and his colleagues promise to provide the “killer content” that will glue the masses to computers (or other Internet appliances) in return for offering themselves as marketing targets for their clients.

The content will be concerts and music festivals, among other live events and materials. “It really goes back to creative content that means something to people,” said Tigrett, speaking over the video feed from his London offices. “Events and live content are critical to success on the Net.” The House of Blues broadcast the first live Internet concert in 1995.

* Times staff writers Leslie Helm in Seattle ([email protected]), Greg Miller in Orange County ([email protected]) and correspondent Paul Karon ([email protected]) contributed to this report.