Start young. | | | | Seymour Stein sandwiched by David Byrne and Madonna at the Rock Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Jan 17, 1996.
(Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | rantnrave:// How to do A&R the SEYMOUR STEIN way: Look where everybody else isn't looking. (Pro tip: Everybody reads the big features in the NME. Nobody reads the tiny blurbs and news items.) Be ready to pounce immediately, even if it means getting on the CONCORDE to see a band you had never heard of until 6:30 this morning play a gig in England tonight. (Cost of a roundtrip flight to DEPECHE MODE via SST: $8,000. "Luckily, I had a credit card.") Sign acts today, worry about everything else tomorrow. (If it's, say, THE RAMONES, there will be a lot to worry about.) Love what you're doing. I assume this is how you should do pretty much any job in any business, but music is what Seymour Stein and HENRY ROLLINS were there to talk about Wednesday night in West Hollywood, so music is what this shall be about. Rollins, who knows a bit more about SST the punk label than SST the mode of travel, was interviewing Stein, who helped change the course of rock and pop with his label SIRE RECORDS, about his memoir, SIREN SONG: MY LIFE IN MUSIC. It was a master class in the art and history and visceral beauty of music disguised as a master class in the business of music. Lots of boldface names. Lots of boldface emotions. More than a few tears. He was born with a hole in his heart. Literally. A medical condition. No sports when he was a kid, but all kinds of music. He got the hole repaired eventually, but the music biz conspired to puncture it at least one more time. "I thought they'd be giants," he said of the Ramones, perhaps the signature signing in a career (except for that other signature signing). Musically, they were. Rock-star-wise, not so much. "It broke my heart." More tears. He was 13 when he got his first gig, at BILLBOARD, and 14 when he met SYD NATHAN, the KING RECORDS impresario who became his mentor. He music-bizzed through the '50s, '60s and '70s, touring with JAMES BROWN, signing bands like BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST and FOCUS that no one else was trying to sign, and making lifelong connections and friendships on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean (all three sides if you include the new mentors he found at ATLANTIC RECORDS). His ears, eyes and heart were always open. His wife, LINDA, saw the Ramones before he did because he was too sick that night. The next day, he bought them an hour of studio time and they did 17 or 18 songs in 25 minutes, “which was great ‘cause it gave us all this extra time. We made a deal. We shook hands on it." He offered TALKING HEADS a deal the day after he heard them at CBGB (he was outside; their sound, he said, sucked him into the room) only because DAVID BYRNE didn’t feel like having the conservation at the club. Byrne and band made him sweat by sitting on the deal for 11 months; it takes two to pounce, it turns out. A producer named MARK KAMINS wanted to produce one of Stein's acts, any act; Stein said no dice unless you bring me an artist. He gave Kamins a few thousand bucks to record some demos, and on his third or fourth try Kamins delivered MADONNA. She met Stein in his hospital room in LENOX HILL and accepted his offer (three 12-inch singles for $15,000 plus an option for an album) on the spot. MO OSTIN, whose WARNER BROS. RECORDS owned Sire, tried to talk him out of it because she wasn't "Sire material." Stein, a proud member of the "there are no categories except good and bad" school of music, went to his old friend NESUHI ERTEGUN from Atlantic Records, who was now at WEA International, and got the Madonna money from him. Ertegun had one condition: Stein had to listen to his nurses. Which he did. His ears were his greatest asset. How could he refuse that deal?... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from THE SUFFERS, DEAFHEAVEN, WIZ KHALIFA, BODY/HEAD, DIRTY PROJECTORS, MISS RED, LULUC, CHIEF KEEF, BURY TOMORROW, DEADMAU5, WIMPS, THE VAMPS, JADE NOVAH, JENN CHAMPION, ELVIN BISHOP, JON CLEARY, MIKAELA DAVIS, WET, REAL FRIENDS, THE DAVENPORTS, THE JAYHAWKS, COWBOY JUNKIES, RAYLAND BAXTER, THE OPHELIAS, RICK ASTLEY and the late JIMMY LAFAVE... RIP SEAN HALEY. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| "I actually said ‘You can’t make a single that long.’ I was shouted down by the boys — not for the first time in my life." (Excerpted from "Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin - The Later Years, 1966 - 2016" by Kenneth Womack.) | | |
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| | | | | | | This is my single favorite thing that Seymour Stein helped bring into this world. One of the most sublime pop singles, ever. |
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