Matthew Katz is a music manager and producer, most notable as the former manager of Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....

, Moby Grape

Moby Grape

Moby Grape is an American rock group from the 1960s, known for having all five members contribute to singing and songwriting and that collectively merged elements of folk music, blues, country, and jazz together with rock and psychedelic music...

 and It's A Beautiful Day

It's a Beautiful Day

It's a Beautiful Day is a band formed in San Francisco, California in 1967, the brainchild of violinist David LaFlamme.LaFlamme, a former soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, had previously been in the band Orkustra, and unusually, played a five-string violin...

. Katz was also one of the vanguard litigants in the famous Napster

Napster

Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

 litigation, where he fought to protect property rights of music publishers.

History

Matthew Katz commenced his career in music in the 1960s, as the manager of three San Francisco-based bands, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's A Beautiful Day.

Katz is also the owner of San Francisco Sound Records, which has released original or licensed material by Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, It's a Beautiful Day and Tim Hardin

Tim Hardin

James Timothy "Tim" Hardin was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by, among others, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by many, including Rod Stewart, as well...

, among others. The company is particularly notable for having released Unforgiven

Unforgiven (Tim Hardin album)

Unforgiven is the album folk artist Tim Hardin was recording in 1980 but failed to complete due to his death of a drug overdose.Portions of the album are incomplete studio tracks with vocals...

(1981), the last recordings of Tim Hardin. This is the album Tim Hardin was recording in 1980, but failed to complete, due to his death from an overdose of heroin.

Other groups that Katz worked with include Tripsichord Music Box

Tripsichord music box

The Tripsichord Music Box was an American rock and psychedelic rock group of the 1960s. They were managed by Matthew Katz, who also worked with Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and It's a Beautiful Day. Their loyalty to Katz, at a time when many San Francisco bands were signing recording deals with...

 and a group from Seattle originally named "West Coast Natural Gas", which Katz renamed "Indian, Puddin' & Pipe."

From 1965 through 1973, Katz opened two different music clubs named "San Francisco Sound." The Seattle location was in a building on Capitol Hill originally named The Encore Ballroom. It is now a Public Storage

Public Storage

Public Storage , a real estate investment trust , is one of the largest self-storage companies in the United States with headquarters in Glendale, CA.Public Storage built its first self-storage facility in 1972...

warehouse. The other location was in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York City. These were youth music theaters where less fortunate children with musical ambitions would have an opportunity to watch and perform in bands.

Katz, a Malibu, CA resident, is active in local Malibu politics. In 2010, Katz made an unsuccessful attempt at running for Malibu City Council.